Suzy Says

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!

Taking a break from troublemaking

Q: It’s 5 am. Do you know where your cats are?
A: Not really.

Clyde woke me up early this morning by clawing at the bedspread. It wasn’t so much the clawing that was the problem, as it was his trying (unsuccessfully) to cover up his pee, which was merrily sinking into (and stinking up) the quilt.

I opened the balcony door, put him outside, and put on the balcony light. The rest of the outdoor lights were already on, since Audrey had demanded to go outside about an hour before.

I dragged the quilt* and its cover off the bed and headed to the laundry room. On the way, I opened the sliding glass doors, since Clyde hasn’t figured out how to get back on the balcony once he gets to the ground. This is a trick only Audrey seems to know. At least so far.

I poured detergent, stain remover, and Nature’s Miracle into the washer and hoped for the best. Then I stumbled into the kitchen and made coffee, though it was hardly necessary at this point, after the pee horror and the worry about the boys being out in the pre-dawn darkness.

And then there’s the tragic loss of beauty sleep.

About a week ago, I decided to try again to wean Clyde off the litter box. Roscoe figured out months ago that the world is his bathroom, if not his oyster, but Clyde couldn’t seem to get the concept. I put the box out on the porch, then moved it closer to the woods each day. I even put dirt and pine needles in it, hint, hint.

Finally I emptied it out, bleached it, and leaned it against the shed so Clyde would know it was no longer available. Yesterday, I saw Roscoe dig a little hole to pee in. Clyde watched him, then helped his brother to cover it up. Then they ran off together to play in the woods. I figured Clyde finally got it, but apparently not.

Should I reinstate the indoor bathroom? Or hope that this is just a fluke? Maybe there’s some kind of remedial summer camp I can send Clyde to.

*Since it’s summer, I have switched out the feather duvet for a thinner quilt. Thankfully. I have learned the hard way that it’s hard to get cat pee out of feathers.

Well, the oil change was $50. When I told Jonathan and Rob about it, they were horrified, mixed with surprise. My thought was that they had enough to do working on the brakes and not much time – my brother works 52 hours a week – and Rob is still recovering from people rummaging around in his spine. Jonathan suggested that next time, he’ll do the oil change and I can put $40 towards the property’s mortgage.

It turned out that the brakes are A-OK and not the cause of the roughness/wiggle (which my brother describes as a “front end shimmy” – sounds to me like a dance from the 1920s). It will require professional diagnostics, which are free at the tire store*. Hopefully once we know what the problem is, my brother can fix it.

Also, when he was test driving the car after putting it back together – he always does this when he works on his sisters’ cars – it dropped out of gear. It went back in after he revved it a bit, but now I have to take it to the one transmission place in town and get it looked at on Monday morning. And they will have to fix whatever is wrong with it. Here’s hoping it’s not too expensive.

I guess it’s not all that surprising, considering the car is 14 years old and gets routinely driven on rough, potholed roads, but I can’t help but feel that cars are just holes you pour money into. I hate spending money on things that aren’t fun. Or at least sparkly.

*Amazingly, two of the car’s tires are 8 years old! I’ll probably have to replace them before the winter rains set in.

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.

Gardening is really not a suitable occupation for Self. It’s boring, it’s dirty, and it causes sweat, all extremely un-Suzy things. Also, the gratification is far from instant, and even instant gratification isn’t fast enough for me. I don’t want to watch things grow. I want them to look nice now. Preferably without any effort on my part.

Come to think of it, that’s pretty much how I feel about everything, especially housework.

I should have thought of that before I made fixing up the outdoor space (can you call it a garden when it’s basically huckleberry bushes, pine trees, gravel, and rhododendrons?) one of my resolutions for this now middle-aged year. I wish whoever my windowbox fairy was back when I lived in the T* made housecalls to Hooterville. Overnight gardening: that’s Suzy style!

With no fairy to be had, I’ve had to put on my lavender gardening gloves and get grimy and annoyed. But things do look better, and when I look back at pictures from last year, I can see, for example, that the honeysuckle has definitely grown:

Then

Now

Here you see an attempt to disguise the hideousness of the propane tank. I had originally thought of having a sort of hedge around it, but was dissuaded by the reality of having to bring in truckloads of dirt and having to wait years for it grow enough to provide the desired camouflage. Reality bites.

From the house:

From the driveway:

I think it looks better. Also I’m pretty sure the propane delivery guy (who waved at me from his truck in town last week) can still access it, though I’m hoping not to see him in his professional capacity until sometime this fall. I might ask Mark if I could paint it, too. Every little bit helps.

*Now, I realize, the Good Old Days. I never did find out who the fairy was, either.

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.”

The stage is set

A huge white tent is a familiar sight on the headlands of the Village in the summer. It’s the home of the annual Music Festival, now in its 25th year. It has a stunning setting by the ocean:

As you can see above, it’s surprisingly nice inside. I guess they have it down pat after a quarter century. And it makes for an intimate venue.

I was there to see the Great Lady of Soul, Bettye Lavette, one of the best-kept secrets from the golden age of Motown. Although she’s been singing for almost 50 years, and had her first hit record at the age of 16, somehow fame managed to elude her. But recently, it’s begun to catch up.

Miss Lavette performed at the We Are One inaugural concert for President Obama, at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, and has been nominated for two Grammy Awards. She joked “I ain’t won nothing yet. But they had to say my name before the said the winner’s name.”

She appeared on stage in skin tight black pants, a sleeveless black top showcasing her enviable arms and cleavage, and set it all off with her sky-high sparkly stilettos. Hard to believe she’s 65 years old. Especially when you hear her sing.

She held us all spellbound with the passion and fire of her voice, which reminded me of Janis Joplin’s – that same intensity and fervor and strength. I think my favorite moment of the show was when she sat cross-legged on the stage (“I’m having a senior moment”) and sang Dolly Parton’s “Little Sparrow”. You can see her perform it here.

Wow.

I was kind of stunned with glory as I made my way back to the car. The following morning, I was stunned by the untimely death of Amy Winehouse. Surely there could be no greater contrast than these two women: one who never gave up despite the lack of fame and fortune, and is one of music’s great survivors, and the other, who achieved great success very young, yet was destroyed by it.

Camera Face*

I was lucky enough to spend a little time with Jessica this week – while I was at the jobette.

That’s one of the many nice things about working there. Everyone is pretty relaxed, and they often bring their kids to work as part of the after school/activities chauffeuring so familiar to every parent. So it was no problem for Jessica to hang out with me while Erica had a date with her dentist.

Jessica looked like a little princess and was carrying her current book, “A Little Princess”. We talked about that for a while, and I told her how I’d just read “The Wilder Life”, about a woman who went in search of the locations in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books. Jessica said “You’re just too fabulous to be a prairie girl”, which made me laugh. I had to agree that I wouldn’t be very good at the hog slaughtering, wagon training aspects of Laura’s life.

And then there’s the complaining.

Jessica was very excited about her upcoming move. Sadly for the fabulous factor of Hooterville and environs, Erica and Jessica are decamping to Portland, Oregon, where Jessica will attend one of the best schools in town, a mere three blocks from their house. Also there’s a Trader Joe’s about a mile away, a Lush store, and Jessica recommends the walnut prawns at Powell’s Seafood restaurant.

They are planning to leave next week, but Jessica says they still have a lot of packing and throwing out to do. “It’s stressful,” she said. Then she whispered behind her hand, “And my mama is not the best stress handler!” I’m not, either.

The time flew by, and suddenly Erica was there to pick Jessica up. We’ll see them tomorrow at their ~sob~ farewell dinner at my brother’s place. I wish Portland wasn’t a twelve hour drive away!

*Jessica said her mother doesn’t like her to do the “camera face” too much. When I asked her what it was, she demonstrated and then collapsed into giggles.

Something about July seems to inspire me to paint.

Last year’s paint-a-palooza included the side of the house, as well as the bathroom doors, the front door and window, and my desk area. Not to mention the hall floor, which Rob changed from electric lime green to bearable grey.

This year, Mark replaced the rotten board on the side of the house, so it was time to paint. I’d been meaning to paint over the weird red and green parts ever since I moved in, anyway.

The kitties thoroughly enjoyed the painting – at least, the drop cloth part:

Roscoe in particular liked to nap up there. I think he was sorry when the cloth went away. Audrey was happy in the plastic one on the back porch:

It looks pretty good now that it’s all done:

The house has come a long way from when I first moved in almost two years ago:

Well, Miss Audrey doesn’t seem to have put on much, if any, weight. I’ve been feeding her fancy wet food on the sly, and also setting aside chicken to give her. Maybe she just gets thinner in the summer, like my brother’s Wonderdog Jed used to. Maybe she’s just one of those enviable creatures who can eat whatever she wants and yet stay slim and fabulous, like the Gilmore Girls.

I recently learned that in addition to the extra food at home, Audrey wanders over to Mark’s place, strolls in through the cat flap, and helps herself to his cats’ food. He described her as “the little stripy one”. Here you see her taking a break from all that eating:

You can see her slimosity a little better in this picture.

While Audrey’s been busy eating, Roscoe has turned into The Intrepid Explorer. Whenever I go to Megan’s, he accompanies me there and back, like a body guard. Megan says that her cats like the boys, which makes me feel all proud of their adorableness.

Jungle Roscoe

Last night looked like a nearly full moon, and Roscoe didn’t come in until 4:30 in the morning. I think it’s going to get harder and harder to get him in at night. I just leave the outside lights on and hope for the best.

All three of them spend a lot more time outside now that the rain has finally stopped. When the boys come home, their shiny black coats are covered with dust and pollen. When you pet them, they look like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon, with puffs of dirt flying up.

Clyde is still his cuddly, treat-lovin’, mama’s boy self. He’s generally the only one who comes when I try to call them in at night, galloping in from the woods and meowing pathetically for treats. Roscoe and Audrey magnificently ignore the bribery of treats.

Garden Clyde

Clyde still meows for food when there is still food in the dishes. He’s like those guys who channel-surf. They don’t care what’s on, they want to know what else is on. Clyde doesn’t care about the food in his dish, only the food that isn’t (yet).

He also still specializes in the smother snuggle, which is a little harder to take now that he’s a full-grown cat instead of a fuzzy little kitten. He gets kind of heavy draped across my head. But I still manage to fall asleep, listening to him purr with his fur up my nose.

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.

From the country roads of Hooterville to the streets of San Francisco…

When we were in San Francisco for Rob’s surgery, we stayed in an area I didn’t know very well. When I lived there, I lived in Pacific Heights and worked in the Financial District. I walked to work through Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and a dash of Chinatown. In my free time, I didn’t venture much further.

It was interesting to be in a different part of the City, though also a little odd not to know where things were (or where I was). This area ranged from the Lower Haight to the Castro via Duboce Park. Conveniently, the N Judah light rail was just a couple of blocks from our friend’s place:

and it went right to the hospital with very few stops.

The Haight part of the neighborhood was characterized by tattooed hipsters, second-hand record stores, and beautifully maintained Victorians. Duboce Park was full of kids with their nannies, and the tree-lined streets leading to Market Street featured strollers chained to doorsteps in the way one usually sees bikes:

The tree-lined streets also had some mini parks, with benches and plants, where a girl could rest her hospital-worn feet. At one such parkette, I shared a bench with an abandoned briefcase:

Such was my weariness that I didn’t even think about opening it, remarkable in a girl who avidly sight-sees in lighted apartment windows and eavesdrops on public transit.

While walking down the briefcase street, I came across a piece of notebook paper with a sort of prose poem written on it. It looked to me like a teenager’s writing, and if so, there may be a poet to be on the streets of San Francisco:

“Waking up at this house is being blinded in the eyes by a stern sun’s gaze. Illuminating your resentment, a hangover and the twisted smile to these ways. Being smashed with the gross beauty of commerce like waking up to a slice of heavily frosted cake, at breakfast, wrenching your stomach in tandem with hangover, but oh so delicious in a sort of manufactured splendor. It’s seeing beauty you love, dampened.”

I volunteered to deliver some jobette-related materials around Hooterville a couple of weeks ago. I meant to do it on the way home, but the desire to get the hell out of the car won out over convenience, so I went home instead. So a day or two (OK, about a week) later, I finally ventured out in the fog on a non-work day.

One of the first stops was a charming inn, which used to be a stage coach stop:

In the living room, which has a lovely view of the ocean, as well as a charming garden with hummingbirds buzzing around, you can still see the bullet holes in the wooden ceiling from the Wild West Days. Is that cool, or what?

The owner’s mother passed away in February (my brother responded to that final 911 call), so I spoke with her son, who now owns the inn. He told me that he and his wife had welcomed their first child, a son, just two day before – and two days before their 22nd anniversary. His mother lived long enough to know that the baby was coming, and because of her illness, she forgot, so every day, she heard the joyful news as if for the first time.

As I left through this rustic gate:

I thought what a wonderful place it will be for the new baby to grow up in. Maybe he will be yet another generation of innkeepers in the same historic place.

My next stop was a restaurant, which turned out be closed, but that didn’t stop me from admiring its setting:

Or its lily pond:

All in all, not a bad extra-curricular (or extra-jobette) morning.

Birthday Girl

No less an authority than the Duchess of Windsor said that a woman can’t be too rich or too thin (or, apparently, have too much jewelry – her remarkable collection was auctioned off for a record-setting $54 million in 1987), but perhaps a cat can be.

Though Audrey has always been as slim as her namesake, the lovely Miss Hepburn, lately she’s been looking, despite what the Duchess said, a little too thin. I wondered if it was just having more exercise since the weather’s nicer, or perhaps if she had worms from eating mice and other outdoor delicacies. I bought some très expensive de-worming pills and served one crushed up with some chicken.

But Audrey’s bird-like eating habits (besides actual birds) meant that she only ate some of it. That, or she was on to me. She ate a bit more later, but I ended up tossing the remainder. Megan said next time she’d administer the pill herself. So I wasn’t sure if Audrey had actually eaten the whole dose.

I also started giving her canned food a couple of times a day, but of course she would only eat a spoonful at a time, and sometimes not even that. Oddly, the boys didn’t try to horn in on it while she was eating, though they’d eat the leftovers, if any. Come to think of it, they never sleep on her throne and she doesn’t sleep on their bed, either.

Eventually, I decided it was time for Dr. Karen to give her a once-over. She wasn’t horrified by Audrey’s thinness, though she did say that she is a tiny thing. She administered a rabies shot and FVRCP, and decided to keep her for a few hours to see if she’d poop. Needless to say, this was the first time that she didn’t express her opinion on driving in the usual way.

At first, everyone at the vet’s said how cute she was and what a little doll, but that was before they trapped her in a cage. Audrey growled and swiped at anyone, human, canine, or feline, who passed by. She also stubbornly refused to poop, so I reluctantly left her overnight. By the next afternoon, nothing had happened, so Dr. Karen administered a worming pill and I picked up an indignant, howling Miss Audrey.

She howled all the way home, and just as we reached Hooterville, she finally pooped in her carrier. A call to Dr. Karen revealed that samples are only good for 12 hours after they’re produced, not much help when the vet’s office closed in fifteen minutes.

I released Audrey in the garden, thinking she’d take off into the woods and not be seen again for hours. Instead, she went straight into the house, where the boys sniffed her thoroughly, ate a little, and then went upstairs to bed. She was pretty sleepy for a couple of days, but then she was back to her usual self. She still seems a little on the svelte side to me, though.

Today Miss Audrey is four years old. We’ll all celebrate with canned food (kitties) and cocktails (the help) later on today. I’m already wearing “For Audrey” polish on my toes for the occasion.

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.