ismo

I did not cough last night, and woke up feeling ever so much better. The air quality is better today, so maybe that had an effect. And it could be that two medications that I suspect of having a bad effect on me have finally worn off. I don't know, but I'll take it and hope that it continues.

We had a Zoom with Deb and the Prussian a little earlier than usual, because Deb had a diagnostic doctor visit scheduled. We laughed a bit in the dark way of older people over the fact that our mutual friend whose funeral is tomorrow will have to have a replacement pallbearer, because one of those selected is unexpectedly in the hospital having his gall bladder removed. The Prussian was supposed to be one of the pallbearers as well. Tonight I was out visiting with my women's group when I got an emergency call from Deb to say that while she was having tests, the Prussian started feeling ill, and she was about to take him to the ER. We are hoping for the best and that it will turn out to be nothing significant and he'll be released tomorrow. But I don't think he'll be up for carrying any coffins. Getting older is tough.

I haven't posted for the last couple of days because I just get so tired by the end of the day. Since my last bout of virus, I can't seem to regain my previous energy level, which wasn't that great to begin with. I've avoided outdoor exercise because the air quality continues to be suboptimal. It does make me cough. At least, something does, and I devoutly hope it's the air quality, because if it isn't then I don't know what it is! I quit taking my losartan because I blamed it for my incessant, intolerable coughing, especially at night. It's been three days. I'm giving it a week before I give up and say that wasn't the problem.

But enough about woeful things. Tonight we finally hosted the Dante book club dinner that we've been trying rather unsuccessfully to prep for all week. I made a huge bowl of potato salad and another bowl full of ears of sweet corn, and set out tomatoes, pickles, sauerkraut, ketchup and mustard and etc. Friends brought chips and salsa, caprese salad, and ice cream for dessert. The Sparrowhawk grilled burgers, hot dogs, and bratwurst. The Sparrowhawk and I hauled the card table and lots of extra folding chairs out into the yard and set up a couple of umbrellas, and I set up another table on the screen porch to hold all the food. We had a cooler full of beer, fizzy water, and sparkling grape juice. We ate outside, and the weather was really quite perfect. It clouded over just in time to not fry everyone with too much sun, and yet the rain held off until we had cleared the tables and moved inside.

We continued with the first ten cantos of Paradise. Our youngest members are 7 months pregnant and moving back to the east side of the state soon to live closer to family there. We will miss them terribly, and hope they may come back for one more meeting before the baby comes. After that, we'll have to find some way to keep up. Tonight there were only three children, the girls belonging to Runner and Dancer, our gen Y couple. Gracie, the youngest who is 6, chose Paula, the oldest of the dolls, to play with. She also let the Sparrowhawk show her how the grandfather clock worked. I am honestly not sure how we managed all of this. I am so beat now . . . I can barely move. I would be prone at this moment except that the Sparrowhawk wants to start one more round of dishes in the dishwasher, and also watch a round of Jeopardy, so I delay my collapse to sent this report.

The punchline is that after boiling and skinning and dressing 9 potatoes plus pickles and celery, I FORGOT TO PUT THE POTATO SALAD ON THE TABLE. I don't think anyone missed it. They appeared well stuffed on all the other dishes. But if anyone feels a need for potato salad, just stop by. I'll fix you a plate.

It was quite a trippy day with Madame. I was dubious about taking her out today, both because it was raining persistently, and because I was a little worried about getting her back IN. I decided to pick up coffee and pastries for her and hope to have a visit at her residence. My decision was confirmed when the group text to which I am privy received a semi-panicked text from the daughter in Florida to say she'd been on the phone with Madame, who was agitated about being "lost." The daughter wondered if anyone was able to go there and calm her down. Mademoiselle was on jury duty this morning, and not only couldn't visit, but couldn't take calls. Everyone was relieved when I said I was on my way over.

When I arrived, she was still quite agitated. One of the aides was walking with her, trying to reassure her. She was overjoyed to see me walk in, and stammered out that she had been lost since yesterday and that no one knew where she was. We sat down with our coffee and began to talk, and soon she forgot all about that problem and we talked of more ordinary things. I think the problem is that SHE doesn't know where she is--so how could anyone else? I've been suspecting for some time that she has forgotten my name, and now I'm convinced of it. She still knows who I am, but she's forgotten what I'm called. She has been speaking for a couple of weeks now about some mysterious man that she met--someone who knows her family. She kept looking around for this guy, as if he might walk in any minute. I have no idea who he is. Possibly an imaginary friend. But she was quite concerned that he doesn't know where to find her.

I was hoping I could leave when the residents were gathered for lunch, but just at that point, Mademoiselle texted to say she was free and would pick up some lunch and come over to see her mother. So I thought I might as well wait until she arrived. But time went on, and Mademoiselle did not appear. I was mystified and would have liked to take off, but by that time, Madame was getting agitated again, and kept wanting to "go upstairs," by which she means out of memory care and into the larger social space in the front of the building. She believes herself to be "in the basement." In fact, there are no stairs. It's just one level! I put her off as long as I could, because I knew it was just a ploy to get closer to the exit so she could try to get out. But she was very insistent, so eventually we went out there where she could keep watch to see if her daughter (or the mystery man) was coming.

This ultimately resulted in a clusterfork at the front door, when Mademoiselle arrived with her giant baby stroller, about the same time as a couple of other people who wanted to enter. Madame motivated her walker over to the door and stood there hollering at the people waiting, urging them with vigorous gestures to "just PUSH something! Push it and open the door!" It doesn't matter how many times you tell her that the staff have to open the door with a key card. She still firmly believes that the correct way is to thump the emergency bar until the sirens go off. This makes for some excitement . . . . Somehow we managed to get Mademoiselle INSIDE without letting Madame get OUTSIDE, and then she was distracted, and I was able to make my own exit.

The punchline is that Mademoiselle texted me when I was on my way home to apologize profusely and say she had actually fallen asleep in the car at the deli while she was waiting for her order to be reader. I guess she had a long day! We agreed that it is necessary to laugh about all this rather than the alternative.

We got home from our anniversary trip yesterday in the early afternoon. We had to be home then so the Sparrowhawk could later give a financial report to a small group he's been helping out in that area on a volunteer basis. We then went to bed early, leaving the house in a wrack of trip flotsam. I had put away all the food items and such. This morning it was 44 when we got up, but supposed to be 77 by the end of the day. I pondered how much energy and time I had, and decided to expend the bigger share of it going for a walk while it was still cool. The Sparrowhawk stayed home and cleaned up the kitchen marvelously. I was astonished and displeased by how deconditioned I am, even after doing a certain amount of walking during the trip. I had a Zoom with Moonmoth and the Nonesuch. I thawed some chicken to cook for dinner, then realized this was not a plausible narrative, and asked the Sparrowhawk to buy a cooked chicken when he went to the store to get his medication. This evening while he went to the gym, I did our laundry.

I'd still love to tell of the sights we saw and the things we did, but it will have to wait yet another day, because I'm planning to go to bed early again. I can't seem to get quite all the way back to normal. I keep floundering around and getting hot and cranky. Soon, I hope, I'll have time to compose soothing memories that aren't studded with complaints.

Perhaps it was not the very best use of my first day of covid liberation to go and see Madame. However, I felt I owed her a visit, having been absent for nearly a month. There had been some chat among her helpers about how she'd had a cold and poor mobility, so they'd been using a wheelchair to take her out. But today when I arrived, she seemed in pretty good shape, walking like a champ with just the walker, so I went ahead and took her to the bookstore for lunch. As usual, she had trouble ordering and wanted to pay via her phone, but couldn't. We had a nice time, until it was time to go. Then she started agitating to go somewhere else, not back to her current residence. (Which she absolutely refuses to call "home," so it requires some elaborate verbal gymnastics.) She wanted to speak to her daughter about all this, but Mademoiselle was working today and said she would call later. Madame came up with some increasingly alternate-reality ideas about other places she could go. I felt really bad that I couldn't take her to any of them. I thought I had convinced her that the best idea was to go back to where she was living now and talk to her daughter about all this later.

She had not given up her secret scheme, however. I walked her into the building, although it seemed to me that she was not really pleased to have my company. As we walked toward the memory care unit, I realized she was looking for an exit. Once we arrived, she refused to go in. When I declined her urgings to go out one of the emergency exit doors, and insisted that I had to exit via the front door, she decided to walk me back there. Lucky for me, a nice young staff member guessed what was going on, and said she'd walk with us. Madame was mad! She tried so hard to get rid of the young woman. She scolded her and said she didn't need to have her watching. The staff person said she needed to come along so she could let me out. When we arrived at the door, Madame tried to exit along with me. I think she believes her car is parked in the parking lot. Every blue car that she sees, she exclaims "That's my car!" She obviously doesn't believe me when I tell her it can't be, because her car is a Prius. That is a distinction that is beyond her now. This was her last ditch effort to make a break for it. I'm sad to say that I just slipped through the door and absconded, leaving the staff member to deal with her. I know she was highly agitated. I felt that standing in the door trying to reason with her would only exacerbate the situation. But I feel quite perfidious. I texted a summary of events to Mademoiselle, in case she hears about it later.

We're getting into anniversary territory here in more ways than one. These days at the end of May were my mother's final week. It's not the best time to be reminded of fragility and dementia. We have a plan to go out to the lake tomorrow. It's raining now, but it's supposed to stop tomorrow.

I don't know if "excited" is quite the right word for how I feel about testing myself again tomorrow, but I'm doggedly determined to do it, anyway. Today I was inspired to look through my archives and see how other Memorial Days have been in the recent past. Apparently, I also had covid for Memorial Day in 2022, courtesy of a trip to visit my siblings, and in 2023, probably via a visit from our friend PropellorBeanie. Good grief. Last year was a better time, but apparently not a trend-setter, because here we are again. It was a lovely day. Sadly, I woke up at 4 am and couldn't go back to sleep. It gets light so early these days, and the birds express their hope and optimism so enthusiastically. As a result, I had to waste part of the morning taking a nap.

I did some texting with my sisters and my kids, in lieu of actually seeing people. I had one conversation with our neighbor Irish, at a good distance across the fence. He wondered if my paw paws had survived, because the ones I gave him still looked like sticks. I pointed out where mine were growing, and said they had looked like sticks too, until about a week ago, when they started to leaf out, and now they are thriving. I urged him not to give up hope, which is the primary virtue needed by gardeners. The Sparrowhawk and I sat out in our yard for awhile in the afternoon. It was very pleasant. Then we started cooking dinner. He gave the grill a good cleaning, and then grilled some steak. It was perfectly done and delicious. I made another batch of potato salad, some corn on the cob, and deviled eggs, and cut up the mushrooms, which he cooked. There could have been more sides, but I was out of energy. We ate out on the screen porch.

We had a delightful Zoom with the Diva. Then we had another Zoom with our book club, which just happened to be meeting today. I just managed to pop the frozen cherry pie into the oven before the discussion started. The Sparrowhawk went to the store earlier this week, because I'm still wearing the scarlet C. I carefully noted down all the things that were on sale for him. And then, he discovered quite on his own that PIE was also on sale! We were able to reward ourselves for our diligent reading by having pie when the meeting was over. The Sparrowhawk says his body is saying plaintively, "Haven't we done enough today? Could we just stop now?" So that's what we're going to do . . .

I'm about ready to post no more until I can post about something actually happening, or me actually doing something. Such ennui. In The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin refers to "the French diseases of the soul," which she lists as pique, umbrage, and ennui. IIRC. I thought this was so clever when I first read it at a young age. Now I'm not sure. Anyway, I am more inclined to have the German soul woes, which are more like large dense pancakes than crepes. Angst, Sehnsucht, and Weltschmerz, perhaps. A stack! Mit Schlag! I can't include Schadenfreude as a form of distress, because I rather enjoy it, thought I know it is wrong of me.

I did go for a walk today. I was desperate to make some gesture in the direction of recovery. I enjoyed it, until I encountered jovial workmen and had to shorten my path to retreat from a jovial encounter. It wasn't raining, so I hoped I might sit in the back yard, but by the time I got home, it had clouded over and was too windy. It's taking a lot of self-restraint not to test myself until tomorrow. That is really the earliest that it would make any sense.

The Sparrowhawk made some more sausage and sauerkraut. Having encountered Bavarian style sauerkraut, he is now trying to find the best kind. Scientifically! I tried to make potato salad, but it remains incomplete, containing only potatoes, mayonnaise, and pickles, because the celery was shockingly nasty. We'll have to make the store give us our money back. I actually don't mind just boiled potatoes with mayo and pickles. It's the German in me, I suppose. It gives me Weltschmerz and Bauchweh, but also love of taters. Our friend who, while undergoing chemo for lymphoma, was discovered to have partial blockage of an artery and had to have two stents installed, and then got a kidney infection, is responding to antibiotics and will be allowed to go home tomorrow, so that's good news. I think Madame tried to call me, but when I answered, there were just some irate mutterings and what I think was the sound of a phone falling to the floor. I left her a message, but she has not replied. The Sparrowhawk and I worked together to find some nice wooden kitchen utensils and send them to Angelbaby for his birthday, and this gives me some satisfaction.

Another cloudy and cool day. I felt I had a little bit more energy and was less morose than I have been the last couple of days. We watched church on tv, but we chose the livestream of Deb and the Prussian's church, which is much more lively than the cathedral Mass here. We had some leftover bacon for breakfast. Bacon goes well with clementines. Actually, I have not yet found something that bacon does not go well with, although I'm sure such things exist. Probably it doesn't go with gefilte fish, which I don't like anyway. I'm sorry to say that it does go with bagels. I made a double batch of BBQ sauce, cut up two packages of chicken breasts, browned them, poured the sauce over them, and put them in the oven for the potluck. I wanted to use chicken thighs, which are more flavorful, and which were supposed to be on sale, but the store didn't have any. The breast meat was a tiny bit dry, but apparently not enough to stop people from eating it with relish. We sat outside in the fresh cool air while the chicken was cooking. Then I loaded the pan up in the thermal container and put it in the car for the Sparrowhawk to take to the potluck. I stayed home to prevent infection. SIGH. People are going to stop believing I exist. I'm just a mythical creature. People may report sightings, but no one has video to prove it.

While the Sparrowhawk was gone, I did this and that. I went through some clothes in my closet to see if they fit me any better than the last time. Nope. I dithered gloomily about new clothes for our trip, coming to no conclusions. I went back downstairs and made some chocolate chip cookies for the Sparrowhawk. It's what he wanted for Easter, and I never got around to it, because of being sick. So that's one item off my recovery list. A few days ago, when it was unseasonably warm, I thought it might be safe to take the down comforter off the bad. but now it's chilly again, so I put it back on. I confess I don't mind having a few more nights of coziness.

Last night ended well for us. Eventually the sirens quit, the storm moved off eastward, and we went upstairs to bed. We awoke to a sparkling morning, and no downed trees or damage in our neighborhood. Not everyone was so lucky. Today I learned that the Duchess had been visiting Dr. Nurse and drove home through the worst of the thunderstorm. Shaking my head . . . They made it home safely, but when they got there, encountered a power outage and a water leak. So they didn't go to Pittsburgh today either. Of course, being the Duke and Duchess, they have a generator they can hook up, and no doubt the Duke will be able to find and fix the roof leak himself.

I had another tedious day of not feeling really recovered. I did a couple of loads of laundry. I was boiling myself a couple of eggs and noticed some green beans that needed to be cooked before they got old, so I fixed those. And then I noticed there were two zucchini that I had mistaken for cucumbers . . . as one does . . . so I cooked them too, with mushrooms, onions, and walnuts. Now we're out of mushrooms, so that may have been rash of me. Anyway, it ensures that we'll have plenty of vegetables. If I were inclined to eat them, which I'm not really, because my stomach is still wreaking havoc.

We watched the first two episodes of Murderbot, and quite liked it, although honestly, with all the twitching and the eyeballs, any human would be blind as a bat not to realize that something was up with the SecUnit! I'm entertaining myself with the thought of a story called Pride and Prejudice and Murderbot. The only problem is that there would have to be a threat to be neutralized, and the threats in Pride and Prejudice are not the kind that can be solved by blowing them up. One is occasionally tempted, but no, it wouldn't do. The Sparrowhawk is enthralled with the team, who embody the trope of the Misfit Toys, and says he so identifies with Mensah. I identify with Murderbot, because of course I do, darling.

I got a brief glimpse of Queenie this morning as she arrived in town to have lunch with the Duchess. She left a gift bag on the porch, and I came out and waved when she was at a safe distance. The bag held some Buc-ee mints, a thermal mug decorated with pictures of horses and flowers, and an Iittala candle holder from Marquette. The last item was special. When we were growing up, our university town had several fancy gift shops that imported things like that--Iittala, Marimekko, Arabia--all these fancy things we could not afford to buy. But we were always window shopping and imagining what our houses would look like when we grew up and somehow magically became both wealthy and hip. Now I'm still neither, but I do have an artistic candle holder that will sparkle like icicles in the sun when illuminated.

Then she went off to have lunch and do her trip errands while I retired somewhat disconsolately to the back yard. The Sparrowhawk made me a consolation breakfast with bacon and eggs and toast. The day started off damp and cloudy, but the sun came out, and it was a beautiful afternoon. I fear I may have had a bit of a relapse today. I don't feel as good as I did yesterday. However, I was determined to move about a little more and do at least a few small things around the house. I cut up the remains of the chicken, and some strawberries, scrubbed the cutting board, put away some residual laundry and made the bed, and cleaned the dust, pollen, and maple seeds off the outdoor table so we could have breakfast there.

As one does when sick, I recently watched "Pride and Prejudice"--in this case, the Keira Knightley movie. When I first saw it, I considered it inferior (of course) to the BBC mini-series, but I recently read a review in which the author stubbornly claimed it had virtues the other version didn't have. So I re-watched it, and found some of his statements partially true. Since then I've ben dipping into the book. Diagnosing characters in retrospect is quite a popular pastime, so I'm sure that others have said this before me, but I'm inclining to the view that Mr. Collins is autistic. He's socially awkward and often practices his speeches to make sure he gets them right. He's rather rigid in his thinking, and when something unexpected intrudes on his plan, he finds it hard to cope. He obsesses over objects and numbers. He has favorite topics and doesn't realize that other people are not as interested in them and wish he would stop talking. Anyway, it's a thought, and perhaps makes the poor fellow a bit more sympathetic.