In case this is of use to someone else out there: decades ago I had a doctor tell me to take 500 mg of vitamin C a day to help ward off bladder infections.

I call it my placebo of choice, and awhile ago Richard got in the habit of taking one when I did. Anti-colds, right?

The first thing the doctor at the clinic asked him was, Do you take vitamin C?

Yes…?

Stop immediately. It almost certainly is the cause of your kidney stone.

Turns out the last time he’d had one it was the type directly tied to it. The guy also told him supplements for calcium and vitamin D are the other culprits for their particular types of kidney stones.

So it could be that easy to never have to go through this again.

You’re going to like this part.

His kidney stone moved to where it somehow doesn’t hurt, and the clinic’s urologist saw him and is keeping tabs on him. Cardiology set him up on a heart monitor for two weeks to get a more complete diagnosis.

And while that was getting started, I was in the next town over seeing my surgeon #2.

Who told me that surgeon #1 had called him and warned him she was sending a doozy of a case over. I got a bit of, Oh, *you’re* the one!

She had told me of potential nerve damage.

He told me it was way more than that. With no colon nor rectum in there holding things in place, things just slosh around, and–he was pleased that I knew what adhesions were–that ovary they couldn’t find on the ultrasound: it could be fused with my tailbone. Anything could be anywhere.

Finding it all and fishing it out and freeing it amongst all the adhesions risked my small intestine.

I was stunned. I’d had no idea.

I asked him how many hysterectomies he’d done on patients with colorectomies.

It was rare. He’s been practicing a long time. He held up five fingers and said–But they all had cancer. There’s a risk/life balance decision that has to be made. He went through all the testing I’d been through, and he too had tested, giving me a pap smear just to make sure and do due diligence.

And my reaction to that smear was to start bleeding on the spot, and it’s still noticeably going. But that’s not necessarily cancer.

A side note here: his nurse had come in first and while she asked questions, I said that the bleeding had started small and gradually crescendoed over the two years till it was (this much). I wrote about it while waiting for this appointment, I told her, and was quite surprised that the next day it was far less.

And then friends told me they’d put me on their prayer lists. I didn’t know–and it changed, and make of that what you will, I told her. (A thank you to all you who prayed or Thought Good Thoughts my way, which to the loving G_d I believe in fully counts. Love, as they say, is love.)

Come back in three weeks, the surgeon said, and we’ll have the results of that pap smear.

But as he said it, we both were sure we knew what it would say and what we would say and that it would wrap it all up nicely. He didn’t quite say, And tell your friends to pray again, y’know, just to make it a little easier on you.

Having told him about my husband’s hospitalization, I told him of the ones who had asked what they could do to help. And then they’d joyfully made a day trip out of it with their teenagers to make sure I didn’t miss out on my favorite peaches.

And with that I left him with the most perfect single Kit Donnell ever, with the divine scent of tree-ripened perfection. He was blown away by just the smell and sight of it and the kindness of people he didn’t even know and he wanted to know where this had come from so he could find more for his own family.

Such a good man. His patients are lucky to have him. And lucky, in my case, soon not to have to!

One friend asked a few days ago what she could do to help and I somehow let myself say out loud in spite of myself that it was the week the Kit Donnell peaches at Andy’s were ripe, that I consider them his best, that I wait all year for them and I was just going to have to miss them this year. Otherwise I’d be buying a bunch and freezing them.

We can do that!

What?! He’s in Morgan Hill, it’s a 45 minute drive each way when the traffic is good, I can’t ask you to do that!

She and her family decided to make a day trip to Santa Cruz, let the kids have fun at the beach before they all finish growing up and going away, stop at Andy’s on the way and get some of those fabulous peaches for themselves, too and learn about what he had to offer. So much of California was still new to them. Exploring is fun!

The whole thing turned into so much joy. They were absolutely jubilant at the day, the trip, the getting to do something that they knew meant so much to me and we had a good hug this morning.

Her daughter helped me load my boxes into my car after the main meeting at church, I got them home and then made a beeline for the hospital.

Where I surprised Richard with a new Nautilus puzzle that I had ordered Tuesday, right before all this hit. A clown fish.

Having no idea that the most pieces in the smallest size would be the best for doing on a bedside hospital tray.

Two of the friends who stopped by to visit him couldn’t help but match up a couple of pieces themselves, to our great delight.

He looked so much better today. So much better. Normal heart. Swelling way down. Sitting in a chair, alert and with it, taking phone calls from family. He snorted a little laugh when I pulled out a 65-piece Nautilus puzzle and asked him if he were interested–and then we dove in on it together.

But the latest buzz is that kidney stone ultrasound treatments for some people can damage surrounding tissue so they’re having him wait it out for now.

An MRI this morning says the foot infection did go to the bones. The Infectious Diseases guy came in, knelt on the floor before him, and unbandaged and rebandaged him with a gentle tenderness that made me think of the story of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet to teach humility and service towards one’s fellow man. Then he told us that the antibiotics will continue orally for a goodly while after he goes home, but that these days, that should be all that should happen on that.

Who knew that catching the bathroom door on your foot could get your heart diagnosed in time.

He is a stone’s throw away from getting to go home.

Scene: Wednesday, Urgent Care. IV antibiotics round one.

Thursday: Urgent Care, same, round two.

Thursday afternoon, hours into this: Oh look he’s got a kidney stone too and it’s big. Take this CD with your info with you to the ER.

CVS sends reminders that a prescription refill is due, then that it’s ready, and then, hey you, come get this thing already willya.

Except for those times when it sends nothing at all and you suddenly realize the dose meter on the inhaler is close to zero and you should always have been paying more attention to it than that–but you didn’t.

I showed up 22 minutes before closing without even the prescription number but the pharmacist saw me standing uncertainly at the drop off counter, called over to me, and then immediately got to work on it.

I’ve seen some who used to work there steadfastly ignoring people trying to get their attention when they knew they were going to turn their computers off at 6:00 pm sharp and walk away. Not this lady.

The pick up line was going the fastest I’d ever seen it. I got behind half a dozen people and five minutes later I had the med she had held up to catch my eye with to say it was done and waiting.

I said to the clerk as she rang it up, Could you do me a favor? Could you thank the pharmacist for me? I was going to come in hours earlier when it wouldn’t have been a problem for you all and then had a day…(I described it very briefly.) Please tell her I am so grateful.

She glanced over towards her colleague, suddenly almost radiant in anticipation at being able to tell her what a difference she’d made and promising me she would.

More later.

I was unloading the car from Andy’s Orchard as the mail truck pulled up nearby.

After weeks in the 70s, 88F was hot, with a slight fire shadow to the air even though we’re hours away from the worst of those.

Going and putting down the heavy lug of peaches and wrestling the top open was not something I could do quickly enough as he was passing by and those could use a day to reach perfection anyway so I offered him a Green Gage. It had rolled out of the bag onto the seat of the car and had gone from there to my pocket. Easy to get to.

He held the little yellow/green two-bite snack in his hands wondering out loud, What is it?

It’s a plum. I just got back from the farmer’s in Morgan Hill.

Did you pick it?

No, I bought it, but it was picked today or yesterday.

Sounded good to him!

Just then my next-door neighbor came running up holding out a bottle of cold water. She had seen him walking past with his shirt unbuttoned in the heat, which I’ve never seen him do in all the years he’s been on this route, and she had to make sure he was okay.

So he got something to wash his miniature plum down with and if he threw the seed in my front yard I say good for him. Maybe it’ll sprout. Green Gage plums are rarely grown on a commercial scale because the trees are difficult and production is iffy–but when they do, they are so good.

But what was really really good was seeing my neighbor seeing that need (I was sorry I had not) and immediately doing something about it. She’s a peach.

It suddenly hit me this morning that what I didn’t want to call fear–but still, it was a nagging, ongoing sense of dread–all the angst around meeting a new surgeon in two weeks, about having a more major surgery than expected, not at Stanford but in a hospital where I knew no one nor my way around and there would be no old friends who were nurses suddenly popping up, about what the results might be, about the pain meds, the recovery, the being made to get up and walk after they’ve cut into you–

–last time, they got me upright and I insisted, Take my blood pressure before you try to make me do more.

It was 73 over something like 30 and they decided okay, let’s get that up to 80/40 first.

The stress that had triggered last year’s eye infection to resurface.

All of that.

It didn’t matter anymore. There was no problem anymore. There was just something to go through and then go live happily ever after and that would be that.

Finding and rescuing that beautiful little finch had in some way I cannot describe somehow rescued me, too.

Most mornings, I wouldn’t have been looking out that window for another half an hour–but today, I did.

Two Bewick’s wrens caught my eye, and I realized with a start that I hadn’t seen one in several months. And as they danced around and I delighted in watching them they drew me to see…

…Oh goodness. How long had that poor thing been there.

A finch was tangled in netting around my blueberries that I’d thought was too fine a mesh for a bird to dart through. It was caught up to its shoulder and around. Oh, man…

I stooped down next to it. It struggled to get away. I put my hand under its feet so it wouldn’t be hanging by its shoulder and wing like that and that gave it something to push against to try harder to get away. Flutterflutterflutter, with the strands cutting in. No blood at least. I had never seen the underside of a finch wing from that close up before.

But then it held still for a moment.

I looked at it and it looked at me–and the little bird closed its eye slowly for a moment. (I could only see the one from there.) I hoped not in pain but to rest ever so briefly.

I felt somehow trusted. By a wild thing. I felt its feet on my hand. I fervently hoped I could do right by it.

Then it struggled again against the strands because it had to. It is the nature of it.

I assessed: what I needed was scissors to cut that plastic so as not to jerk the little thing around when breaking it free, but I couldn’t risk the harm of walking away and coming back out and its panicking or hanging.

So as carefully as I could, I balanced that sweet little finch on my knee and worked on breaking those strands with both hands, wanting so much not to hurt it, glad that at least the netting was that fine.

It knew before I did and suddenly it burst out of there: not to the camphor tree above but over to the step outside the bedroom door, facing me. It caught my eye, and only then was it off and away.

I walked inside marveling that I had even been there at that time. That my favorite Bewick’s wrens had not only come but had kept it company till help arrived. And they’d made it so it did.

Even the sparrow in its fall is known to Him: that scripture became vividly real to me today.

The New York Times did a piece on a home, if that’s the word, in New York. The dentist who left Ukraine during a prior administration wanted a piece of, say, St. Peter’s Basilica, he said, y’know, that kind of presentation.

How much had he spent building on the lot of the razed Victorian, they wanted to know.

Oh, I gave up counting after $10M, he waved that away.

So. For $25,000,000 you too can rival Felon47’s gold-leafed-everything. Although I do have to say I like that stained-glass star up there, forgive me, I do.

And! A bucket shower! (Somehow the Times did not include a photo. I mean, like, everybody know what they meant, right?)

What. Is a bucket shower.

I got suckered in. I googled. I found photo #17. I…I…

Do you have to donate to the ALS Foundation every time you use it? That’s all I can figure out.

The person at the pulpit was talking about Jesus at the Mount of Olives. No loaves and fishes, no mention of any other miracles but the one of His ability–and willingness–to feel all our pain of every kind in order that we might always have a friend to turn to who knows exactly what it feels like, because He was willing to go through it with us at a time when He was entirely alone.

I was reading the Zoom captions on my phone.

My eyes did a silent Ohmygosh!

No. No he did NOT say the Salmon on the Mount. Wrong part of the story anyway. NO.

Clearly, that AI has been to church before and it thinks it knows everything it’s supposed to learn there.

Well, teaching us in parables always was His style…

But also, it brings back to me the time my mom told young-kid me that clearly, G_d has a sense of humor. Which intrigued me and puzzled me no end and made me pay attention to that possibility all of my life.

Clearly, He does, because a shared good laugh can bring out the best in us.

Salmon. On the Mount. I’d tell him a good joke but He told it to me first.

My hands were a little cold after reaching into the freezer. Just enough to…

I saw it fly off my left hand and shoot under the trash compactor.

Never, ever get a trash compactor. The tray-shaped part that pushes down only pushes down, for obvious safety’s sake, when the door is closed and the machine is off–but ours collects any stray bits that spill over the top of that tray and then the sides that are supposed to thwart trash from getting on top of the pusher now make it so you can’t get them out of there: the space is too narrow and enclosed for a hand to get into or an eye to see well in there.

Imagine a trash can you cannot ever completely clean.

The problem is a blank space in the cabinetry with no way to match the oak.

I wanted my ring back.

No sign of it whatsoever.

After several minutes of trying, he came over and pulled the thing off its runners and into the center of the kitchen. I looked, I scrubbed. No ring.

I took the bag off the compactor, sat on the floor, and went through every single bit in there. No ring.

I looked all around–but I’d seen that thing shoot straight across, where on earth could it be? I pulled out the long thin lines of styrofoam that the compactor had been running back and forth on for 31 years. And they looked like it. I scrubbed them off (I don’t think they were supposed to come out but they were now, whatever was supposed to cover them was long gone), looked under where they’d been, then put them back nice and flat in there. No ring.

Never has a cherry pit nor used sauce packet been so thoroughly inspected.

Finally, I got the trash back in the bag, he got the compactor back on its track, and we tried to get it back in its place.

Past the halfway mark it won’t anymore. So far at least. We both tried. So now it juts halfway into the space where you’re coming into the kitchen and you’d better be paying attention or you’re going to walk right into it. Charming. We have not won that one yet.

I scrubbed my hands a good one again, turned to move around the compactor–

–and stepped on my ring.

Apparently he’d knocked it forward when he’d pulled that thing out and then I’d put the bag on top of it. I got my ring back. I got my ring back. I got my ring back. I considered where it had been and washed my hands again.

While the trash compactor declares that we’ve wanted it gone for so long and now it’s just trying to help us get there. Isn’t that nice of it?

Sometimes you just need to change the focus, so I drove to Andy’s today, bought two big lugs of peaches, got home, and texted a friend with whom I had a multi-year agreement but hadn’t done anything this summer because the peach supply per customer had been limited. Till this week.

Did she want a half lug of each of the two types I’d bought or should I freeze half my haul? The great Loring of my youth and Silver Logan. I was fine either way.

YES she wanted peaches from Andy’s!

(I threw in some of his early-variety Gage plums just because I could.)

Her husband is a beekeeper, and she sent me home with not one not two but three jars of his honey from different hives. Some friends you can never get ahead of, you know?

And then I had put it off long enough. I tried to look up how to contact the new surgeon online, but you can’t–you have to call (just like I’d been warned by the other surgeon.)

They had been expecting me.

Summer vacation time means it’ll be three weeks. About four miles away. There was one earlier slot: first thing in the morning four cities away where rush hour traffic would add a minimum extra 90 minutes, two hours to be sure. Honey, I don’t even get up for cheap flights that early.

So. Let’s see how much knitting I can get done before I get sliced and diced.

The book club with the author Zooming in! Wow, what an experience! And for her to get to see that the people she met in Ukraine and wrote about who meant so much to her meant so much to us, too. She wove historical background in with their stories and I highly, highly recommend “By the Second Spring.”

The other thing is I saw the surgeon today. Got a nope! out of her: too many surgeries and complications, laparoscopic is not the safe way to go here, go see the oncological surgeon and expect the hospital to keep you till you feel up to walking again.

Oh that sounds like so much fun. (Been there done that, told the nurses who were trying to get me on my feet to take my blood pressure. Something over 40, okay, let’s get that number up first.)

So we’re back to waiting to find out when I can get a pre-op appointment to find out when everything will be.

But she had good answers for the painkiller question and that is the thing I most needed to know.

And it isn’t even the first of April.

A special effects artist got an Etsy order.

A police department got a phone call .

A cop got a story to tell for life.

No that wasn’t “human remains” discovered in the a.m.p.m. convenience store–it was a teddy bear (if you can call it that) from an artist across the country who does the haunted house gig.

It was intended to be ugly, but sheesh, not call-the-cops ugly. (SJ Mercury link. Here’s the FB link, which seems to work fine if you just X where it says to sign in rather than signing in. Also, it says bus station rather than the a.m.p.m.)

“The coroner’s office gathered the evidence, and the investigation is ongoing, Rodriguez said.”

It’s. A. Doll. Put it in an oak and you can call it an eye, doll, a tree.