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.

When you weave, the weft thread finds its pattern between the raised and lowered warp threads and then half-circles back for its next row, adding continuity and the strength and smoothness of a selvedge at the sides of the piece being created.

I signed into the big blue website to read Sean of the South’s essay of the day and to wish anybody a happy birthday that might need it before trying to escape the clutches of its algorithms…

And saw the friend suggestion with mutual friends listed.

I stared at the screen, speechless. How. On. Earth.

So I went up to this good woman today who’d moved in about a year and a half ago and asked, How do you know Jordan and Jennifer in Texas?

Stopped her right there mid-motion. Her jaw. Dropped.

JEF?! How do *you* know Jef?!

(Okay, now I really knew she knew her!)

Said in the most faux-nonchalant trying-not-to-laugh tone, I answered, I’ve been married to her brother for 45 years.

It was fun to watch her being as staggered as I’d been last night.

And then I realized I’d seen her on one of our visits to the in-laws.

Turns out my brother-in-law had helped her husband land his first post-medical-training job. She was the one who, after my father-in-law was widowed, gave my sister-in-law a break by visiting him every week with her little boy, bringing a loaf of homemade bread and getting to know this character of an old guy who loved to make you laugh.

They’d moved since then, and then again to here.

All these months we had all had not a single clue.

She asked after DadH and I said, Six years I think? Richard called him to wish him a Merry Christmas and all the sudden mid-conversation was exclaiming, Dad?? …DAD!?!!!! He called his brother, who was there and rushed him to the hospital, and then he was quietly gone.

I forgot to mention DadH’s then-98-year-old friend in their ward who’d played in a band with some of his buddies at assisted living places to help keep the old folks company. I know she knew him. How could you miss him. Next week.

I finally finished the 90-stitch hat that has been demanding to stop being possibilities hidden within a ball of yarn this past month.

I watered all the fruit trees–a day early, but so I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll have time to get to it.

I made almond muffins with a spoonful of Nutella in each and really made my sweetie happy.

I took a pound of apricots, split them, melted some butter in a stoneware pan, swirled it around to coat it, poured the rest of the two tablespoons’ worth out into some brown sugar, and then put the apricot halves in the stoneware and a dot of the mixture in the center of each. Forgot the cinnamon. Forgot the bit of almond extract that really adds to that. Because I was running in and out between that and setting the timer for three minutes to move the hose 18 times. Oh well. 350F for 40 minutes to make one of my favorite comfort foods and they are definitely good enough.

They originally told me the surgeon was booked up FAR out, so sorry. Then they called back saying they’d had a cancellation and would next Thursday be alright.

(Did I ask for a cancellation. No, no I did not.)

Thursday it is.

Today was coping mechanisms day.

Scene: CVS. I could tell you any number of ways I would have preferred to spend my morning but there it was and there I was.

There was a mom picking up her prescription. Her son, about 13 and trying not to be bored waiting for her, picked up a pair from the spinning display of sunglasses at the end of the nearby aisle and tried them on for the mirror that was probably lower to his view than it would have been just a few months ago. You know that awkward stage where the feet grow first and then the rest starts to catch up?

I was done just then so as I walked past him I told him appreciatively, Cool shades.

His face absolutely lit up. And so so did mine as I continued on towards the door.

Kids need their villages so much.

Actually, come to think of it, we still all do, every day.

I goofed: last night I reminded Richard of my appointment today.

He reminded me that I had okayed his having been asked to meet up with someone today.

We only have the one car. He couldn’t miss his. I couldn’t miss mine, I mean, I could reschedule, but…!

And so it was that the woman who knew all of my cousins back in Boston, being a peach, drove me to the clinic. She offered to come again to take me home afterwards and I assured her I was fine with my knitting till he could come across town when he was done.

Which meant we had a little more time to get to know each other one on one on the way there and I had a rah rah go team go! cheering me on at the moment I most needed it. I felt much readier for this. She’s the best.

I told the doctor about my grandmother having had–they said it was ovarian cysts–and being treated with what was then the very latest thing: massive doses of x-rays.

Her jaw was hanging and her eyes went huge.

Which turned into a laugh when I added, And then she lived to be 96.

Well all right then but we don’t do radiation like that anymore!

Well no!

I didn’t realize till after I came out just how much I had talked myself into believing we would just continue doing what we’d been doing, ultrasounds, attempts at biopsies, keeping tabs on it.

Not so much.

Not that having a period every day till I’m the one who passes at 96 was so much the problem, it’s that it had been slowly steadily increasing. That’s not sustainable.

(I told Richard afterwards, I didn’t want our two granddaughters to think I was willing to risk major pain and surgery and possibly losing my hearing just to not have to bleed anymore when they’re going to start on all of that soon. I didn’t want them to think that that itself was the bad thing I wanted to get away from. He said, I would never have thought of that! and I said, Because you’re not a woman. I wouldn’t expect you to.)

So. The only way to get a firm diagnosis and to rule out cancer once and for all is a hysterectomy, and there was no point in leaving in the possibility of ovarian cancer–out they go, too.

She gave me two surgeons’ names, assured me they were both top-notch, and said the Da Vinci robot would do the actual surgery. It would be laparoscopic and minimally invasive and given the age and stage of those parts, it would be a lot less of a recovery than if I were younger.

Oh, said I brightly, so they can do it without needing painkillers?

She said decisively, Oh. you. will. need. painkillers.

With Tylenol being the only one that doesn’t deafen me?

And that is why “But I don’t want to!” kept ear worming in on my thoughts for the rest of the day. We have to do it. I don’t want to do it. She’s right. We have to do it.

—

Edited to add, I suddenly just remembered our friend Lance’s story long ago of being in the middle of doing surgery when the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake struck, with his unconscious patient suddenly projectile-missiling as he and the nurses grabbed him and held him and themselves to the table for dear life.

Tell you what. Let’s skip that part.

One more day one more day one more day.

It was no big deal for two weeks while it was just too far away, but the post-op is finally tomorrow when I finally get to find out what comes next.

I found a UFO cowl because my brain needed the distraction and the creativity. I finished it and it felt great.

And then I splurged on a hand-embroidered blouse from Nataliya’s shop, NeedleworkUkraine, in the face of the latest Russian attacks because it was something I could do to say they matter to the rest of us. I look forward to wearing it for many years to come.