While we were at the Church History Museum, these are the two pieces that had me fighting sudden completely unexpected tears. Click to embiggen.

A crown of thorns made by olive leaves dipped in metal, and hanging from it, a thousand paper cranes, each one created with a person in mind, each paper printed with that person’s digital skin tone, the cranes separated by gold and suspended in the air and held in place only by the tension between the support from above and gravity from below.

I wondered if its creator had cared for Covid patients these past two years.

And this one. He Who Is Without Sin. It took a heartbeat to see the four (edit: five–making its point) bruises, none of them fully revealed to the viewer, where the stones had struck. The intensity of color and life above the ground in contrast to the stones returned to the dirt of the desert from which they’d come.

I came out of there wanting to be a better, kinder person: ‘First, do no harm.’

The medical news part of the trip didn’t really hit me till I wrote it down for yesterday’s post, and then the whole of it was all at once.

While we were actually there with Mom, with our son John, while we were at the Sunday dinner at my brother’s house with his two younger kids and our two older sisters and Mom, the overriding feeling was simply joy: after two long years, we finally got to see each other. We got to be there.

My niece showed me where the peach tree I’d given them for Christmas a few years earlier was growing. My sister told me hers was starting to bloom. (Pictures, and they do embiggen: my Stella sweet cherry today.)

We got to see Richard’s younger sister.

We got to take Mom out on the town. Including where, in October 2019, all six of us kids had approached a local restaurant as we were out walking and said, We know you’re booked solid but we just buried our father and our Mom was hoping for Italian and could you possibly squeeze us in tonight?

And they did. They didn’t have to, but they did.

For the memories of that day and their kindness, Richard and I took her back there Saturday night. It was the best food of the trip. Brio in Salt Lake City–if you go there, go there.

After I spent all that time trying not to grouse at my husband because I wanted to go see my 91-year-old mom and he wanted to wait till the Omicron counts were down to where it was safe for us to walk through the airport for her sake, it turns out he was very very right but not just for the reasons we thought.

They test the sewage here and extrapolate from that the percentage of the population that has the disease in that moment. He wanted that count to go below where it would be inevitable that you’d be exposed to at least one person at the airport and then bring it to Mom, even if she is boostered. I couldn’t rightly disagree.

Finally those tests were encouraging enough that I talked to him and to Mom and went to go book the tickets.

As I looked at that screen I felt strongly that I should book it for two weeks out. I looked at the ticket prices and noped out, even if the thought remained persistent, and booked for three weeks out with the idea in the back of my head that you do have 24 hours to cancel without penalty.

But I couldn’t get a hotel room. At all. Not one single room in the entire city, not fleabag nor Marriott. So I looked at the fares for a week earlier again, talked to Mom and Richard again, canceled the original and booked the new and felt an odd sense of relief about it. Hotel, piece of cake, car, got it. Sooner is always nicer anyway, right? (Later, Mom said to me, But of course–three weeks out was going to be General Conference. I was stunned–DUH. People fly in to Salt Lake City from all over the world for that. How had I missed that that was the weekend! You can tell I didn’t grow up in Utah.)

What we had no way to know. No. Way. Was that in between those two weeks, our 34-year-old son, who lives about a half hour from Mom, was going to be diagnosed with lung cancer. They caught it very early while scanning him for something else and the doctor was as surprised as we were, given his age and that he’d never smoked.

But he lucked out and he should be fine. Even so–there are times when you just want your parents with you, and there we were.

About a week before I booked those tickets, the sister-in-law of one of my nieces, having had epilepsy most of her life, died after being hospitalized for months after a particularly severe seizure. There was a GoFundMe to help her in-laws with their immense expenses, and I contributed to it because, family. And because you do what you can when there’s nothing you can do.

Yesterday her young son went to her and said that M, his five-year-old sister, had thrown up in her bed. The parents found their daughter seizing. It was her first. And it was a grand mal. Just weeks after burying their sister for that.

My mom, husband, son, and I were together when my sister texted about her granddaughter. I texted my niece, who is close to her cousin who was right there next to me, and said I didn’t know if it was appropriate or wanted but we were all ready to come immediately to Children’s Hospital to be with them, or anything else we could do.

The answer of course was that visitors are limited, (because of course they still are) but the offer was very appreciated and the support and love meant so much.

That trip. It had to be on that timing. And it was.

Of all the things in the world, this is so low on the totem pole. And yet–I hate that I so often come out of CVS with my stomach gnarled in knots.

The local store thanked me a few years ago for getting our prescriptions there, saying that corporate wants to shut them down along with a lot of others because it’s cheaper for them to do it by mail. (Corporate is actually doing that now to a bunch of stores but I don’t think ours–it’s too close to the clinics at Stanford.)

Meantime, they’re terribly understaffed and they always have been.

California law requires that a pharmacist be available to answer questions about any new med, with a list of questions they’re to offer the patient to make sure they know what the med is for and how to take it. So it appears that if they want to do business in this state they have to at least have some real live people around somewhere.

They’re supposed to call you when it’s time to refill. They don’t anymore. They didn’t announce they weren’t doing that anymore. I was going to say they don’t even print the fill date, having searched for it, but turns out it’s actually there in super-fine print that didn’t have to be. Way to tell me I’m getting old, guys. Okay, but, so that’s on me, I should have seen it.

All of which adds up to: I take an asthma med and I thought I had another box, reinforced by the fact that they told me two weeks ago that they were going to refill all my meds April 7. But I don’t. I have one single dose left–and I am flying tomorrow to my mom’s.

I raced over there to say I have a problem. They said they would call me. They did not. I finally went back there tonight just before they closed, determined to sit there and wait till they filled the darn thing.

They said, But he never answered.

He? He who? My doctor’s a woman. Whom did you send that refill request to? He hasn’t been my doctor for years, I’ve corrected that in your records before. I’ve been on this for years, can’t you just give me a week’s worth? I’d be happy to pay out of pocket. I need to breathe–and I am flying to a high altitude tomorrow.

The night pharmacist, someone new to me and stuck in the middle of all this, sympathized greatly but could not offer more than hope that the doctor would respond in time before my flight–but if not, she told me, I could have it filled at any CVS in any state, all I have to do is offer the relevant information for them to look it up.

I thanked her very much for that, and because I could see how badly she wanted to do more.

I am not flying to sit in a stupid pharmacy waiting for an hour and a half for an understaffed pharmacist to fill a prescription–I’m going to be with my mom. Family here could get it here and overnight it to me, if they were willing to take a few abrupt unexpected hours off work that that would entail, but, let’s not. So hopefully first thing in the morning, or, Hey, Mom! Want to go to CVS just for fun?

I can just hear her offering the classic expletive from my childhood: “Joy and rapture!” Except that she wouldn’t be saying it, I would.

I can just hear her laughing reading that line. Hi, Mom!

Earlier, the daytime pharmacist looked at the screen and made the same mistake I did and told me that it was not time to refill it yet–and then went, Oh wait, January February March, yes that IS three months.

Right. The April 7 thing? That was only for the heart meds, I guess not the other because it was officially expired but that didn’t make them act on it at the time. Nor say anything to me.

Headsmack.

Oh yeah. By the way. I’m flying out of town tomorrow. In case you don’t hear from me for a few days? No worries.

I’m going to save that dose for the morning.

(Ed. to add Friday morning: got it!)

(English Morello tart cherry flowers.)

With a heartfelt thank you to Ellen for this: a brief explanation and exercise from an ENT that you can do to get those wandering inner ear particles back over to where they belong and away from where they make you dizzy. Hold this position, this, this, this, this, and done. Vertigo gone, or it might take a few tries. My neck muscles agree with her that one should wait fifteen minutes between.

She figured out the mechanics of the thing and how to address it. Easiest cure ever.

By way of introduction: Dave, who’s lived here most of his adult life, was a teenager whom we knew when we lived in New Hampshire 35 years ago. His oldest is in college now. His grandfather was a rabbi who fled the pograms in Russia.

He’s a lawyer.

So he prefaced his remark in Sunday School by saying that when you think of pardons, we generally think of a Presidential pardon. The difference between a pardon and forgiveness?

You don’t deserve a pardon.

You deserve forgiveness.

The person forgiving you deserves that they do so.

To which I would add, and of course forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning, it means I recognize the humanity in you in spite of what you did. If nothing else, to keep from pulling me down to your level.

Dang. I wrote all that out because his words sounded so brilliant at the time and, Sunday School lesson or no, I still can’t find it in me to forgive the murdering little warmonger over there. I am willing to turn that job over to Christ because it’s frankly well beyond me. I just want him stopped.

I am so glad Dave got to be born here.

Why on earth did I still have these? They were pre-pandemic, so, three years old? At least.

So I posted on Freecycle.org:

‘This is a long shot, but before I recycle them, if anyone’s interested in four 50-count (one with a few missing, the rest unopened) bags of paper lunch bags, it turns out that the brilliant idea online of hiding the fruits in your trees from the squirrels that way just means to them that you’re wrapping their gift and they get to have fun opening it. Happy Birthday to them.

The remaining bags are all guaranteed squirrel-free as presently presented.’

I figured if nothing else, someone would chuckle and we could all use that right now and then I’d throw the silly things in the bin minus the plastic wrappings.

Turns out I had two people who not only asked for them but who told me why, and how do you choose between school children taking a baby plant home and a soup kitchen? I asked Richard his thoughts and he said, You can’t know–go with the person who asked first.

I said, And it’s not like they’re hard to get or expensive, so, okay, sounds good.

One of the side effects of these past two years is how easy it can be to suddenly find yourself just really talking to someone and glad for the connection. Today, she’s the one who opened up first.

Turns out that first person (the school kids one) had a husband about to have a surgery that a cousin of mine had had and whose recovery was perfect and he was completely back to his normal life. She herself had a medical condition that I could heartily relate to, so that when I wished her all the best she knew I meant it.

Sometimes all you really need to know is that it can be okay.

And I came away feeling like, and now I know why I had to hang onto those silly paper bags for three years. They were waiting for the right person and moment.

Michelle was going to be dropping by and I thought about asking her to pick something up at the store on the way; we’re trying not to drive the Prius any more than we have to before it gets worked on, and given the amount of time the car was going to need, they told us the job would have to wait till Tuesday.

And yet.

Somehow I just felt pushed, is the only way to describe it, to go do a quick dash to Trader Joe’s; they’re within a mile, and we’d gotten reassurances on the car, just go.

Which is how I came to be not only outside but driving past the neighbor’s house when their dog got out while nobody was home.

I was surprised. They’re really careful about that.

I pulled into my driveway. Keeping an eye on him, I texted the mom.

When he saw me watching him he trotted from the far gate to the front door as if patiently waiting for it to be opened for him. I wasn’t his people but he knew my face and maybe I would do?

That nonstop limply hanging tongue on a cool day said I’m thirsty; I asked her, Would it be okay if I got him some water?

Turns out she was mid-flight. The person who’d come by to take care of the dog must have goofed. She was so glad I’d seen him.

I looked for what bowl would work well from a dog’s point of view and got out my late mother-in-law’s oversized white Corelle one, you know, the one that won’t even fit in the microwave. Holds lots. Splash all you want.

Just then a large brindled coat trotted quickly past my kitchen window along my side of the fence.

Oh so that’s how you did it!

I went out there and where there’s a sheet of plywood barring his way where that one section had fallen down and still not been repaired yet, he’d dug and gotten it pulled down somehow and had gone past my kitchen and out my open gate. He was just quickly retracing his steps, now that I wasn’t outside watching him nor letting him in his house.

Busted.

I set the water down on their side of the plywood, figuring that even though that’s not where his water bowl goes, a dog of all animals is going to be able to smell that it’s there if he wants it. Then I set the plywood back up. It would come down again if he wanted it to enough, but for now he was back in his own fenced yard, he didn’t have to be panting anymore, he was safe.

I just hope no skunk vies for that water in the night. My neighbor will be tired enough.

Tony and I couldn’t talk politics at all, but we could definitely talk fruit trees with enthusiasm.

I’m pretty sure he would have loved watching one of my apricot seedlings grow up, knowing he was nourishing something both rare and the best to be found. He loved to cook, and he would have done really great things with those in a few years.

But it was not to be. Last night our Italian friend peacefully passed on at a ripe old age as his beloved garden was starting its new season of blossoms and green and fruit and growth for his wife and daughter to hold him close by.

The check engine light came back.

I made an early appointment so they could get right to it. The guy had an idea what else it would be if that battery cable he’d tightened wasn’t the whole problem. They’re not open Fridays so I didn’t want it to become longer than a one-day job.

I got a call a little later: the code coming up was to part of the drive chain and that should be covered under warranty–I’d want to take that to the dealer. No point in having him charge me if they would do it for free.

So in the one small bit of time that the others could spare I got driven back over there to pick up my car to take it to Toyota.

Where they ran the code and got the diagnosis but also looked up the date we’d bought the Prius from them. Fifteen years or 150,000 miles’ warranty on the hybrid drivetrain by law in California, and we were at 100,000 miles.

And 186 months, not 180. No warranty. But they could give me the estimate on the spot: $4261.

I…wow. Thanked them, took it home (having previously been assured it was okay to drive for now), and called my mechanic again and told their admin woman that number.

She was as staggered as I was.

When the guy had said that to me, I was standing there holding her company’s estimate in my hands and he knew that. $660 for the same job. Which suddenly didn’t sound so bad, not bad at all.

And this. It’s not the only reason, but, this is why I try to keep the little guys in business.

Went in to the ENT today, got my ears roto-rootered–it’s like they’re constantly trying to push those foreign objects out that I put in every morning and they don’t need to be any deafer than they have to be–and then the doctor asked if I had anything else I wanted to ask him about.

Yes.

He sat up straight to hear it.

I told him how I’d had Meniere’s as a teen with episodes of the room spinning around fast, and how this was nothing like that. But: since about late January, if I tilted my head backward, I’d get a sudden attack of dizziness. Relatively mild compared, but still, and I got it when putting eye drops in my left eye but not so much my right. If I did back exercises, knees up, roll slowly to the side, right side, no problem, left side, bam! But only the first time. Lie down at night, wait to the count of, oh, about five, and bam! Dizzy, and definitely not from standing up too fast, not a blood pressure problem.

Yes, he explained: it’s particles in your inner ear. You lie down, and they slowly settle down. I have it, my wife has it, my parents have it. You’re being a snow globe.

Is it permanent?

Often not.

Okay, then! In the grand scheme of things that sounds like about the most benign malady one could possibly hope for. Cool. I reminded him that I’d been in a year previous for testing for an acoustic neuroma on the left so I’d just wanted to make sure nothing had snuck in past us.

Oh no, no, nothing like that, no worries.

We chuckled at the whole Santa-in-a-glass-bubble image and we were done.

But I thought I’d pass the word along in case anyone else is going through that.

My sister-in-law from Texas.

Our niece, daughter of Richard’s late oldest sibling.

Our daughter.

Take out.

The fortune cookie that said, A gathering of friends brings you lots of luck this evening. And it did, for sure. But not quite enough to finish that James Christensen puzzle together before they called it a night for the aunt who’s on Eastern time.

I wasn’t as much of a help as I might have been on that; I tried, but finally told them (having been to the doctor this afternoon with everybody at the clinic wearing face masks so, no lipreading possible) I solve puzzles aurally all day long, do you mind if I knit?

Not at all.

And then, since the niece was wearing her cashmere cowl I’d given her as her experiment to see if that was the one animal fiber she could tolerate, and turns out she loved it, I confessed that the 50/50 cashmere/cotton afghan I was working on was–for her. I didn’t quite say, and now that I know it’ll be comfortable for you I can really dive in and stop hesitating.

Thirteen inches and it is on its way. Man, that feels good.

My sister’s got an Anya seedling! On its first true leaves! Go little apricot go! (I forgot to ask if I could show off her picture.) Ed. to add: Thanks, Marian, here it is!

Meantime, a large glossy postcard arrived at our house for Larry: it offered a chance to do good for future patients, it offered a large bonus for signing on, and they really really wanted someone with his expertise to come be a psychologist working for them. And they’re right, there are a lot of people who could use a good therapist right now like no other time I’ve ever seen.

But there’s one problem with that.

Larry sold this house to us 35 years ago when he retired and moved to Hawaii.

I don’t think he’s going to be taking them up on that offer.

In case you don’t hear back from me right away tomorrow.

Last week we were 15-20 degrees warmer than normal and it was quite pleasant.

This week, not so much: the mango tree has just started a major flush of growth, which means the buds are about to burst forth and some may have, and now it’s under layers of frost covers against possible freezing tonight (she typed, thinking of all those peach blossoms, too.) It’s cold out there. It was cold all day despite two layers of sweaters and a working furnace.

And so of course tomorrow is the day they’re turning our power off from 8-5 to upgrade the electrical system in our neighborhood. The fridge and freezer must not be opened, no food will be heatable. Oh you were going to be working from home? Not Wednesday you’re not.

I haven’t worn thermals since Alaska, but I’m going to. The hot cocoa’s going straight into a thermos first thing in the morning, and I’m going to need it after uncovering that tree out there.

But we did get a hundredth of an inch of rain last night with this cold front and that’s at least something.

I just read the fine print on the notice: shutdown may be canceled without notice due to weather or unforeseen circumstances.

Meaning, if the power is on you still don’t dare open the fridge because that might be right when it cuts off. Or totally not. Come on, guys, how hard is it to shoot an email to a few dozen households?

So we’ll see how it goes.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I called Edgepark, the company that handles my ileostomy supplies. There had been a problem.

They said basically, not our problem, you need to talk to the manufacturer. The rep offered to go get me their phone number. I said, I can go look it up myself. She insisted, and I thought, well okay, let her do her job so she looks to her boss like she’s taking good care of the customer, so I waited.

She came back and gave me the number for dealing with that.

I called, not sure if they would answer after 5 pm Eastern time, but they did and I explained that I had had three (name of the) bags come unglued in two weeks and that had never happened in the thirteen years since my surgery and what should we do next.

The young man on the line listened patiently but then asked a question with some confusion.

I explained, I had to stop everything and shower and replace all three components and it was a good thing I was home and I haven’t been doing anything different. (I didn’t say, And that stuff retails at about $100 per change. Yes, if you don’t have a colon nor insurance, it costs ~$33 a day to use the bathroom. For the rest of your life.)

The light bulb went off for him.

We’re Hollister the *clothing* company. (He didn’t say, As in, a top brand among teenagers. Linking to thank them for hiring such a sweetheart.)

My own light bulb went sudden full-blast spotlight. Ohmygosh. Edgepark Medical gave me your number as being Hollister medical supplies!!

He very helpfully offered to go look up that number for me but this time I said (between snort-giggles at this point because he was being so nice about it and you KNOW he’d just gotten a great story to tell his buddies) that thanks, I’d go look it up myself.

(Not taking any more chances.)