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Preparation day We clean, cook, and rest our souls Then the Sabbath comes
Friday is my favorite day of the week. It is like getting my house ready for visitors that I really am anxious to see. Before my wife (Snookums) became disabled, it was really her day. She baked challah for the Shabbat table that is set every Friday evening, and cleaned the kitchen and dining room as part of the ritual for this day. Then she set the Shabbat table early and turned on the lights in the dining room to remind us what day this is.
Now that age and disability have come, my niece, great-nephew, and brother do most of the Shabbat preparations, and Snookums lights the candles and recites the ancient blessing. Some days she is still up for setting the table.
It is odd how some Shabbats Snook rips through the blessings without error, usually when she doesn’t think about it too hard. But once she starts struggling with it, the blessing gets a bit incoherent. We know what she is trying to say and patiently wait for her to finish.
My niece now reads the woman’s prayer that is on a typewritten sheet, then it is my show to do the benediction, recitation of Proverbs 10’s blessings for the wife, the introduction to the Shabbat, the blessings for food and wine, and the washing of the hands.
This morning was an entertaining one. Snooks’ second order of the day is that after starting the coffee, she feeds the feral cats. We don’t feed them as much as we would a domestic cat because we want them to be good mousers. And they are.
Occasionally, though, one of the kittens forgets that we have dogs in the house that don’t think cats should live. And this morning it happened when Snooks opened the door. One kitten darted in, and my brother Bruce saw that and grabbed Jenna.
Jenna is an efficient killer and rats don’t stand a chance when she is around. She doesn’t get excited, but works the prey like a master carpenter, not wasting moves or spending time in excitement. Once the rat is dispatched, she loses interest in it.
Unfortunately, she is just as efficient with cats and so the kitten probably doesn’t know how close it came this morning. Amber put Jenna into my studio and closed the door, and they all went cat hunting.
Snookums was the one that got the kitten by the scruff of the neck, and the kitten sensed that was a mommy kind of grab and just went limp as Linda carried it outside to safety.
I just sat and watched the scurrying around of excited women and the other dogs from my royal perch at the kitchen table. The kitchen table has become my dispensary. All my medical stuff is there in reach, and I have a morning ritual, a before dinner ritual, and a get up around midnight ritual. It is a royal PITA, but that is my lot in life these days, so I quit complaining (usually) and just do what is necessary.
So that is it. Another exciting day with the family. I hope this finds you as peaceful and happy as I am.
Good morning!
I’m Taking Life by the Horns
Since I started living much of my life outside the home in a wheelchair, I have looked at ways of handling normal events. The biggest trial was shopping. Grocery stores are good about helping carry out groceries, but other retail stores aren’t.
My solution was a folding basket from Amazon. It is a little large for the chair, but I can manage. It lets me put items into the basket, then hand the basket to the cashier or put it on the conveyer, and then the cashier can ‘bag’ the basket and I only have one thing to carry out.
I must time my purchases, there is no getting everything in one whack.
Today I decided to take life by the horns. I was tired of sitting around waiting to die. So this morning I told my new invisible friend, Bard, the AI with google, that I was procrastinating. Bard told me to take it all in small bites, then reward myself. It sort of works with my mutts, and so I thought it might work with me.
It too about ten minutes to load my compression socks into the adaptive device and step into it, but viola! The socks went on like magic, only needing a tug here and there to get the wrinkles out.
Then a glass of Kool-Aid and some more internet time wasting. That was my reward for getting the socks on. But I quickly used up my reward time and it was on to clean shirt and trousers. That went quickly so I skipped the reward. On with my vest that hold all my worldly belongings. Rescue inhaler, eyeglasses and sunshades, glucose tablets, wallet. Check
Then I loaded the recharged wheelchair battery into that basket and went out to the car. There sat the chair, waiting for me, and it chirped happily as I pushed the battery into its slot. I don’t know where it came from, but a strong smell of urine hit me.
I closed the hatch back, hobbled to the front door and checked the urinary bag. Yeah, I wear one of those, but I don’t want to talk much about ‘em. The bag and hoses were dry. So I fired up Blue Bucephalus, put the phone on GPS, adjusted the seats, made the short prayer (Lord, don’t let me drive like hell was on my tail) and sat out to be a normal human being.
Ever so often I caught the whiff of urine, but it was fleeting. Maybe I had had an ‘accident’ in the car, I though. But I went on.
Arriving at Texas’ beloved H.E.B. Grocery, way off in the corner of the lot was a shady spot under a huge oak. People didn’t park there because it was a long long way to the entrance of the store. But I have a powered chair, and I sneered at them sissies that needed to leave their cars out in the broiling lot while they shopped.
It is a super light weight chair, about 38lbs with the battery in. It folds, but since I have a mommy van, it sits unfolded in the back. I have unloading it down to a science, set the new shopping basket on my knees and tootled off to the entrance at a pleasant 5.6 mph.
The only thing that broke my serenity was once again the strong stench of urine. But I wasn’t going to let that mar my attempt at being a normal person. Or close to one, anyway. Zipping inside and making a hard left, I went down the aisle of nostrums to pick a few nostrums for the medicine cabinet. Then to the paper section to pick up some paper products for another item near the medicine cabinet, then zipped along the lunchmeat section for some sliced chicken, got some chewy bread and peanut butter, and rolled on to the cashier.
I threw the bag on the conveyer just like a normie, albeit one that stank of stale urine, pretended I couldn’t smell it. The cashier was delighted with my shopping solution. It was like I brought my own cart and bags.
I could barely reach the credit card machine, but finally after some prompting by the cashier figured out the mysteries of it. Push the wrong button, and you lose. The card machines can smell fear, but I bluffed my way through the process and out the door I went.
Then it hit me. A certain male dog in my household had been using my bag as his peeing post!
OK … I am going to have to work with that one.
Picked up my narcotics at the drive-through, showed them my ID and drove off like an outlaw, and then to the carwash. Bucephalus was bird poop stained and really needed a good scrubbing. And home.
It was a triumph. I got the groceries into the house unaided. I was set free!
Mixed salutations for the 4th
I’m feeling a bit sad today. The Fourth of July is a day for celebration and joy, but for my dog, it’s a day of fear and anxiety. The loud noises of fireworks are very overwhelming for him, and he gets so scared that he starts barking, whining, and shaking.
I know that I’m not alone in this. Many dogs are afraid of fireworks, and it can be heartbreaking to see them so scared. I wish there was something I could do to make it easier for my dog, but I don’t know what.
I’m taking him to a quiet place where he can’t hear the fireworks, and I’m playing calming music for him. I’m also staying with him and offering him comfort and reassurance.
I hope that he’ll eventually get used to the fireworks, but for now, I’m just going to focus on making him as comfortable as possible.
If you have a dog that is afraid of fireworks, I encourage you to do the same. It’s important to remember that they are not alone, and there are things you can do to help them cope with their fear.
And if you see a pet running in fright, take them home and try to calm them, then try to find the owner. Many pets are lost this day.
Happy Fourth of July to all, and to all a good night.
The sun peeks through the curtains, casting a soft glow on the room. Snookums and I stir in our bed, slowly waking up to the new day. We get up and make our way to the kitchen, where we brew a pot of coffee and slice a piece of cake. We sit down at the table and savor the moment, enjoying the peace and quiet of the morning. The air is still and cool, and the only sound is the birds chirping outside. We take our time, sipping our coffee and nibbling on our cake. We talk about our plans for the day, and we laugh and joke together. This is our time, our special time, and we cherish it.
The soft sleepiness of morning is all around us. The sun is not yet high in the sky, and the light is still gentle. The air is still and warm, and there is a sense of peace and tranquility. We are relaxed and content, and we are grateful for this moment together.
I have written this, rewritten, edited, reedited it, and yet what I want to say just doesn’t appear.
Usually I post this on Memorial Day, but this year Mothers Day posts triggered this once again. My Dad was born on Mothers Day, and he told mom a little fib that it was the day after because he didn’t want to take away from a celebration of her. Most of my sisters were in on the ruse, but I wasn’t a party to it until much later.
Grief is just not something I can share, even among my best of friends and family I can share sickness, anger, hope and despair, but grief, no. I will not. I cannot. While busy with my parent’s death, I remained stoic and businesslike. There was not a tear, not a crack in my voice throughout the funeral and afterwards. I have little patience for histrionics and occasionally snapped at relatives for resorting to them.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t endear you to people, and I have seriously offended some with my curt replies. Grief can come years later, and it did with my parents.
They were both cremated and put into urns until I could arrange for a military burial. It took quite a while to get my Dad interred in a military cemetery because his military records from WWII were destroyed in a fire at the National Records Center. The Army created a special team to look for other sources of proof such as mess-hall passes, leave records, and such to verify service.
Also, my father was first enlisted and went over to Burma to serve in operations over the Burma-Ledo road that supplied China with arms and munitions. The transportation companies were all black enlistees, and apparently the Army was uncomfortable with them, so when the Army discovered my Dad was a southern boy, they felt that he would know how to deal with them. They sent him to Officer Candidate school at March Field at Riverside, California, and it was at that time I moved from a twinkle in Dad’s eye to an embryo.
The records did not reflect his promotion to Captain, but at least we got his Officer Candidate School papers and buried him as a Lieutenant. Mom’s name went on the reverse side as “wife”, and we buried their ashes together in the same grave. It was a bleak experience for me, and we are talking about a span of a few years between Dad’s death, Mom’s death, and final interment at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado. The site was a newly plated site, and sod had not been laid. The grave was a round hole dug by the burial crew with a powered auger.
The family went its separate ways, and I returned home to garden and write. Still my emotions were flat. Later that same year I went to check on their gravestone on Memorial Day. The sod had been installed, and many, many more gravestones had been set up on that new plat.
I stood there meditating when off in the distance I spied a group of about six Viet Nam vets going unerringly from gravestone to gravestone of their buried comrades. They were more familiar with that vast cemetery than most of us are with our own backyard, stopping for a time at each on to bow their heads and leave coins on the stones.
I remember the hate vets received from some of the people toward returning vets. Most of them went on with their lives, and never spoke of the war around civilians. But here they were, quietly and anonymously leaving their greeting in coins to their fallen comrades. I broke into painful tears of grief and staggered back to the car and sat there for a couple of hours until my emotions subsided.
Finally, I returned home, ate Dinner with Snookums before she left for work. I was back to my old stoic self, but something changed. I am not sure I like the change …
Unamused Muse
I sat down at the keyboard and put my fingers on the keys, hoping she would show up, so I was pleased when she appeared, sitting on the edge of the monitor with her legs hanging over the edge. I thought she was gone forever.
She was still wearing her pink rayon™ blouse and brown plaid skirt. I saw the puffy white flesh squeezing out of the tops of her garter band before quickly looking away. I really didn’t want to explore any further.
“It’s been a while” I said, noticing her rumpled looks. She had been drinking again.
She saw me looking at the ratty skirt and runs in her hosiery and said defensively “I didn’t have anything else to do. Maybe you could have sent an invitation and given me time to freshen up.”
“I haven’t wanted to do much of anything lately. It isn’t just you”. I replied magnanimously, trying to give some of her dignity back.
She wasn’t buying it though and snarked “How condescending of you”.
God, how I have missed her.
“Frankly, I was afraid that you would appear, and I wouldn’t have any excuses to not write”. I bleated.
She frowned a little, the softened. “Have I ever let you down”?
“No. No, you haven’t.” I said in this moment of clarity.
She cocked her head and asked, “So, what are you working on”?
“I was thinking it was time to reintroduce myself to my audience. My neglect of them is showing, and the list of followers has grown short.”
“I am sure they appreciated your absence”. She said dryly.
But I went on, ignoring the barb. “ … and I am feeling so useless and non-productive. It shows in everything that I touch. My studio is a mess. Not the old mess of a busy writer, but rather one of a slob.”
She shrugged and said, “You’ve always been a slob. Why should it bother you now?”
“I really don’t want to die this way.”
“How do you want to die”?
“I would prefer to die in cleanliness and order.”
“Then go live in a nursing home!” she said unsympathetically.
“That wasn’t called for!” I yelled.
“Look. If you want my help writing, I’m your huckleberry. But maid I ain’t.”
“Well, here we are, 336 words into the essay, and I am still uselessly bantering with you. I need some motivation and ideas! And get some decent threads while you are at it!”
“Have you looked at yourself lately, Beau Brummel? Just because your underwear is colored doesn’t fool people. Put some clothes on for cryin’ out loud!”
“Oh. Now you are my fashion adviser?” I snarled
“I can do a better job than you!” she shot back.
This was going nowhere. I needed a new track. “Do you think that just doing some writing exercises will help?”
“You would have to write to write exercises. Why not just dive in. Yeah, your prose will be awkward. Consider that the penalty for sloth.”
“I have had a couple of ideas, one being that surreal experience being bathed in the hospital by the ER team, but somehow I just can’t get the feel and the humor as well as the humiliation of needing bathing into the story without sounding like a clinician.”
She smirked and replied, “I sure wish I was there to see that! Why not give it another go?”
“It might be a start. If I knew where to start.”
“It was a dark and stormy night, when suddenly, a shot rang out”
That is code between us for shut up and write something.
I have “zombie finger” 😢
I have been having trouble with touch pads on gasoline pumps and customer number machines. A few weeks ago, I needed to renew my license plates, and I was one of those random people who needed to do it in person rather than mail this year.
When I walked into the office, there was a “take a number” machine that asked a few questions why you were there, and then gave you a printed number. It was a touch screen. I poked the answers, I stabbed them with my fingertips, I pounded them with the side of my fist, and nothing happened. Finally a woman behind me lightly touched the information in for me and the machine spat out a ticket like it was my fault that I was held up. I passed the event off as another one of those miracles of modern science and technology and went on about my business.
But today, I went to my usual gas station, and they had recently installed brand new pumps with that same type of touch screen. I put my credit card in the slot, and tried to punch in my zip code when it asked. I poked. I hammered with my fist. I pushed my thumb in it. I rapped it hard with my fingernails. Finally the machine said that my card was declined. I know better. I was waiting for my zip code and didn’t get it in a timely manner.
I figured that I couldn’t be the only person with that problem, and when I got home, I googled it and came up with “zombie finger” … most of the time it attacks people with touch screen cellphones and pads. It shouldn’t be confused with zombie hands which is a serious symptom.
Apparently my fingers are too dry, according to the people who have written about it, and I should either get special gloves with finger tips sewed on to them, or a stylus, or some type of ointment. I was also suggested that I blow warm air across my fingers before using the touch screen.
Why is it always my fault that machines don’t work the way the designers want them to? Why must I adapt to it instead of it adapting to me?
The Bittersweet Pain of Nostalgia
Many years ago my family in post-war California sent me to live with my grandparents in New Mexico. My father was having trouble finding a job in the recession that followed the Great War, and my living with my grandparents took a huge load off of the family finances.
Grandpa bought a remote section of land running up into the Sangre de Christo range and was building a house on it, and I and two of my uncles were helping. My grandmother’s brother lived in the village about twelve miles away and he had spent most of his life there with his wife. I sometimes was left with them while the men went off to log. Logging was far too dangerous for a boy to wander around unsupervised.
One day while staying with Uncle A, as we called him, and Aunt Hattie, we went to visit a friend of their about another 15 miles away down a dusty track that led to Taos. The village is named Arroyo Hondo, and this woman had settled there with her husband at the turn of the century. She was old and wizened, and watered her garden with a long handled double action pump. She had a very old truck that wasn’t equipped with a starter, so she would hand crank that old truck and drive into Arroyo Hondo to get the mail and a few staples.
She was extremely independent, and had even made her own casket and dug her own grave so that she wouldn’t be beholden to anyone even after death. She even had a casket for her dog to be buried in the same grave.
I remember her house. It was simple, but well ordered. It only had one room, with a kitchen in the middle, her bed to one side and a sitting area to the other.
She wore a checked dress that was stiff with starch, and a matching bonnet that protected her face from the harsh sunlight of the high Rocky Mountains. Her dog, of some unknown breed, was scruffy with wiry hair, and it followed her everywhere. It slept with her at night on a special pad to protect the immaculate bedspread from his muddy paws.
To my shame, I have forgotten her name and the name of her dog. But that fall, word went out that she had passed, and the little Baptist congregation nearby held a memorial for her. They found her in bed with her hands neatly folded over her breast, and they put her in the casket she had made and buried her in the grave she had dug, and put the tombstone that she had chiseled in place. A local family took the dog in, but he died that same winter, and was put into his casket and buried next to its human. She even had a stone chiseled with his name.
I don’t know why, but I long to go to that place in Arroyo Hondo and find those grave stones. I am not even sure I could find it even if I was able to make that trip.
Ennui
So I sit in front of the glowing cyclops today trying to come up with something other than my continual carping about my lot in life and my maladies.
Nothing comes to mind. My mind is a bale of cotton. My eyes want to close in blissful sleep, but something pops them open again. I have surveyed my ceiling from my bed. The cobwebs are familiar friends. Central air hums. Air freshener whooshes. Oscillating fan creaks and groans. Portable AC buzzes.
My nose itches. Then my arm itches. Then my forehead itches. Then my cheek itches. Then my leg itches. Then my ears itch. My shoulder hurts from the way I sleep on it. I think soon I will tire of breathing and just stop.
Up in the middle of the night. Another Tylenol. More opiates. Refill the water bottle. Eat a few chunks of fresh pineapple and trudge back to bed and wait for everything to kick in. I feel the easing of the pain in my shoulder. Good. The Tylenol is going to work. Then a sharp pain in the stomach and a burst of gas tells me the opiates are starting to work. Check my sugars to be sure that I don’t crash. Then the jaw clenching of the opiates followed by the relaxed breathing lets me know I am good for another four hours.
Watch the ceiling, day dream, float in the cotton, take a sip of water until daylight brightens the blinds. Get up, start the coffee, eat a couple of pieces of toast, and take a huge number of pills. Two morning shots of fast acting and slow acting insulin. Sip coffee.
I want to take my car to the battery place, but I need to call AAA to jump it. But that won’t get done today. I need to make an appointment with the dentist for both Snooks and I, but not today. I just want to go back to bed.
Read the emails, make a few comments, read the news, make a few comments, read the social media, make a few comments.
Then sit in front of the PC waiting for inspiration that isn’t coming.
Bat Kol Redux*
She whispers to me at night, In a voice so soft and light, Her words, like a gentle breeze, Carry me away with ease.
She speaks of dreams and hopes, Of endless possibilities and scopes, And in her words, I find solace, A sanctuary where my heart can find its balance.
Her whispers calm my restless mind, And in her embrace, I find, A love so pure and true, That I know she’ll see me through.
Through the ups and downs of life, Through joy and pain, and all strife, She’s the constant presence that stays, Guiding me through each and every phase.
So, as I close my eyes and drift away, I know she’ll be there, night or day, Whispering her love and light, And holding me close, so tight.
* Bat Kol is a Hebrew term that literally means “daughter of a voice.” It refers to a divine voice or a prophetic voice that is believed to have spoken to the Jewish people after the era of prophecy ended.
In Jewish tradition, the Bat Kol was considered a lower form of divine communication than prophecy, and was often used to communicate simple messages of encouragement or guidance. The Bat Kol was believed to be a voice that came from heaven and was heard by human ears, but only by those who were spiritually attuned to its message.
The concept of Bat Kol appears in various Jewish texts, including the Talmud and Midrash. It is often associated with the idea of a small, still voice that speaks to us in moments of contemplation or prayer. The Bat Kol is also sometimes used as a metaphor for the collective voice of the Jewish people or the voice of wisdom that emerges from Jewish texts and teachings.
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