Here, let me distract you from the rest of this post with a picture of the August Pride peach that is still somehow blooming despite two days of rain since it started to.

My old audiologist told me a year and a half ago that he was going to be retiring and selling his practice, by way of explaining the new guys working with him; they would be taking over then.

The younger guy is a total sweetheart. I wondered if he was out of grad school yet, he looked so young.

The one maybe ten years older sexually harassed the receptionist with me sitting there in the waiting area perfectly capable of seeing what he was doing. The expression on her face was, Get away from me with that.

It wasn’t long after that that she quit.

And then we had this year of pandemic.

I got a call yesterday from a voice I didn’t recognize. It was not the young guy.

I was coming in for a hearing test appointment, he told me, and he was making sure this was a good time.

(???!) I have no appointment… (I did not say, I had a hearing test last week at the medical clinic while they were ruling out a brain tumor. But I knew I had had absolutely no contact with this office since before I got sick with presumed Covid last February.)

Right, we’re making you one and this day this time and does that work for you.

I answered, There is this pandemic going on and we are so close to the vaccines. I’m not coming in before then.

His voice escalated from officious to angry. He blustered. We fully protect our patients…we wear masks…

(Well yes because you’d get fined $500 in this county if you didn’t and I know that as well as you. I didn’t say that.)

It had to have been that guy. I bet he remembered that day just as well as I did and what he’d printed out on the office’s printer and waved close in the receptionist’s face while invading her personal space and that whole little scene and likely the look on my face, the only patient in the waiting room, as he made her flinch. He knew who I was.

I knew who he was.

They have years of my records so I didn’t burn any bridges.

But he had already, and just did again.

My old audiologist used to have an office near here, which is when I met him, but he moved it years ago to have a shorter commute and for me it’s been a real hike across bad traffic to get there. I’ve been wanting to make an appointment with a much closer one for some time so I can get started: they can ask for those records and I can get some new aids. Or at the very least replace the chipped ear mold that has been causing me grief for lo these too many months.

Three weeks till that first shot–if all goes as announced.

While all I can do is to shake my head that man, what a way to kill your business and you can’t blame the virus for it, either. But it was his choice.

There’s the picture from my old slow iPhone. They like this being in the sun stuff–the one that’s only halfway out of the sides of the kernel is already green down in there. They’ll grow faster later in the warmth of the spring, but meantime, they’ve got a two month head start over last year’s attempts.

Signs of summer Alphonsos to come.

I seem to have interrupted a bird that thought that tree a great place to set up a nest–which has never happened before, and I had wondered if they didn’t like the smell of the latex in the sap or something? Or more likely that of the Sunbubble. The squirrels didn’t, so far anyway, which makes it all the better a place for a baby bird to be hidden away in. A cat or a hawk would have a hard time harassing them and our songbirds need all such spaces they can get.

The third apricot cotyledon uncurved its head today and stretched out its new leaves as if to proclaim, Tadaah! Tomorrow the fourth will finish emerging from its seed.

I put them out under the awning during the day for a little extra sunlight. Not too much yet. Just enough.

The desert cottontail put in the first appearance all winter. Rats. I’d hoped it was gone. My baby trees are going to have to be kept up high for awhile.

FaceTime with cheerful grandkids this evening.

Mathias: “What color am I turning your hair today, Mommy?”

Chocolate cupcakes by Michelle and my first-ever bingewatching: the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. I know, right? Where have I been. It was great.

And chocolate hearts from the Heart Attack at the door yesterday.

There has been snow up north. Our little Alaskan was ecstatic, his little sister, who was too young when they left there to remember it…not entirely sure about this mobile cold as he tossed some up in the air. But he was having so much fun so it must be cool, right?

I asked the kids how many inches of the stuff they got and the answer was, oh, about half a Lillian.

The grandma next door brought the kids cake pops.

Lillian went straight for the chocolate side.

Also: our doorbell rang this afternoon. I opened it just in time to see what I was pretty sure was a girl I know from church running as fast as she could to where a car was parked out of the line of sight of the door, so having seen what she’d just done I ran out too and blew a kiss their way (I don’t think they saw it as she was getting in) and waved and yelled, Thank you!

They definitely saw that: hands waved back, front seat and back.

I brought the bag of goodies inside but I’m leaving the door like that through tomorrow.

I bet it totally put a smile on the face of the Amazon driver who stopped by shortly thereafter.

I planted the first three apricots I think three weeks ago? The others this week.

I checked tonight and the roots of those three had outgrown the plugs during the course of the day and one big root was starting back up along the other side of the plastic tray. It needed somewhere to head to that matched gravity.

So I just replanted those three inside a large Jiffy pot to hold them for a few days. I want to definitely be past any frost before they go out.

I still can’t get over how much healthier and more vigorous they already look than last year’s.

Edited to add, I just found a tap root on one of the newly-planted ones. I guess they didn’t need time but rather just a few warmer days–and they did all start out in the damp paper towel thing at the same time.

Being able to putter around, checking on my seedlings, doing laundry, making a lemon almond cake just because the daughter wished out loud for one, making a spinach souffle with vegan parmesan (for her dairy allergy) and bacon bits that turned out surprisingly good: vegan cheeses aren’t great on their own but it turns out they do pretty well in recipes.

After yesterday, it was a day of just being really happy about all the little things. It’s raining and cold? Have a second mug of cocoa. Why not. He loved it.

I have Anya apricots starting to sprout again and a bunch more kernels still in the fridge.

Last year I followed instructions online that said that after the required cold months, soak them overnight–and had a 70% rotting rate. This year I followed instructions that said for the next stage put them in a wet paper towel in a ziplock in the fridge, did that for a few weeks and I have eleven that are looking good so far and one that rotted. I put them in Root Riot plugs that have rooting hormone added, and the roots that are just starting look much bigger and healthier than anything I ever saw last year.

Probably you should just stick them straight in the Root Riots out of the fridge without the whole paper towel nonsense.

So I have a question for you all: does anyone want some of those saved dry kernels? You cannot buy the trees anywhere, they’re not on the market, period, and the developer’s orchard of them has been ripped out and replaced with almonds. If you want to taste these you’ll probably have to grow your own.

I bought Anya apricots at Andy’s Orchard last summer: so at least one parent is an Anya. Andy only grows what tastes good. The other parent might be one of John Driver’s other two varieties that Andy grows, it could be a Blenheim or something, there’s no way to know.

It should take three to five years before you have fruit.

But then oh what fruit. Anyas are what apricots were always meant to taste like and never could be.

Yours for the asking and the willingness to take care of them.

Three weeks ago I was suddenly hearing a loud low buzz, and acutely aware that our modem had done that in warning before we happened to luck out in finding it smoking just before it became something much worse I went looking for what the source of that sound could be.

Except not only did everything seem fine, the sound didn’t stop when I left the room. The furnace maybe?

Why didn’t that plane flying overhead stop flying overhead?

Wait…

It was sudden onset, it turned out to be in one ear only, I’ve never had low-frequency tinnitus in my life (high, yes, forever) and I have a friend who went through an acoustic neuroma.

Which is why I linked to that article on tinnitus the other day–after sending my doctor a note.

Plus I fell three times last week, which was getting a little ridiculous but probably didn’t have anything to do with it.

Her nurse almost immediately wrote back to tell me to make an appointment. Half an hour later, she checked, I hadn’t done it yet so she got right on the phone to make sure that happened.

Oh okay.

Tuesday my doctor would be in.

So yesterday I went in and she ruled out a bunch of ordinary stuff and referred me to ENT and audiology. I was quite sure she would, but we are still new to each other and I wanted her to be there from the beginning of this with me should it come to anything. When I mentioned my friend, she nodded a definite affirmative of yes: we needed to rule that out.

I went home and called. The ENT receptionist told me she could schedule the one in eight days and the other the week after that. Yes she was seeing the referral, it had just come up on the screen.

Usually when a doctor is the one saying the patient needs to be seen you get in a lot faster, but no.

I hesitated, and when it was clear we weren’t going to do better than that and having just waited four days that had felt so very long that it reminded me of when I was five days overdue with my first baby (I cannot begin to tell you how many years long those five days were), I told her why I was trying to get in.

She exclaimed, “Ohmygoodness!” Suddenly, with apologies for making me wait on hold (take your time! And thank you!), she got me in on both for this morning, with their permission.

It has been a long time since I’ve had that thorough an exam in audiology. Tympanometry–I remember that from a class in college even if I’m not sure I remember how to spell it right. I also remember being taught that if you push a tone and the person hears it and then stops hearing it while it’s still going, they have a brain tumor.

That stuck with me: the idea of being able to help uncover a problem on that level, to be able to help a patient that much as a non-medical person–wow.

So I wondered if she was going to test that.

She didn’t as far as I know but there have definitely been equipment updates since my time and part of me wanted to ask her to explain this and this and remind me the details on that.

A few minutes in the waiting room with my knitting, and then a new-to-me ENT: my old one had retired at the pandemic.

The doctor was late. I knew he’d squeezed me in. He complimented the purple Mecha hat in progress and started to ask questions about it but realized he needed to get a move-on; I thanked him and we went on from there.

He was quite pleased with the hearing test results: bilateral and still the same as the last time they’d tested. My hearing aids, however, particularly the right one, need to be replaced. He knew his stuff: when I told him they were the latest and greatest Oticons when I got them, and when that was, he knew about them but also what’s out there now, and in my experience, the ENTs leave that up to the audiologists but he was up on what the patients would want to know about.

Had there been an acoustic neuroma one ear would have been markedly different now from the other. They were not. He offered a brain MRI if I wanted one, it was up to me; but to him it all looked okay, and he was clearly relieved to be able to tell me that.

And that’s as close to a brain tumor experience as I hope I ever have.

It was a day. More tomorrow.

Quick, more peach flowers! 

Eleven years ago Scrabblequeen Ruth very generously gave me her treadmill so that I could get my exercise while doing the no-sun lupus thing. For which I have been very grateful and I have put it to use day after day year after year–if nothing else, I had to make it worth what to me was her sacrifice.

Starting a few months ago, the belt gradually got a little off-center, but it didn’t seem to hurt anything.

Two weeks ago it was suddenly slowing down intermittently just enough to risk throwing me off it and then it would get going again. A few days later it jammed. It started up again, jammed again, and with that I turned it off afraid of burning out the motor and went and googled treadmill problems.

I think we can fix it, or at least, he can.

We haven’t, though. I am intensely grateful for how much good that exercise has done for me for all this time.

But let me try this a bit longer first.

It wasn’t till I stopped using it–while still having the habit and the need to–that I let myself fully consider the thing.

The floor holds still.

My compensation for my destroyed sense of balance is purely tactile and visual and the treadmill is a distinct challenge on the tactile feedback part. I got good at it–but it required constant paying attention to where and how my body was so as not to fall, and you don’t want to on one of those. There’s more than one way to get tired.

Race-walking in circles entryway/living room/family room/kitchen/dining, I find I’m free to walk faster and take longer strides than I dared before and am comfortable doing so for a lot longer–it’s so much easier for the three-dimensionally-challenged. In these two weeks I’ve doubled my exercise time without having planned to.

But none of that would have happened had that machine and even more, the generosity of the gift behind it not gotten me to establish that good habit in the first place.

A new thing learned: according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, apparently some–not all–types of tinnitus can be heard by a physician putting their stethoscope against the patient’s head. (I’m assuming that’s assuming the doctor has decent hearing.)

Huh.

I’ve had ringing in the ears apparently since I was a toddler who overdosed on the baby aspirin I got into while Mom wasn’t looking. I studied audiology in college and learned a lot I wanted to know but walked away from it after being told I could never find a job in the field because my hearing wasn’t great. It would be years before an astute ENT doctor linked that overdose and the progressive loss since to an allergy to NSAIDs I didn’t know I had.

That’s okay, the English major thing turned out better anyway.

But they can actually, objectively listen to my inner-ear hair cells screaming that they’re not responding to sound anymore but only doing what they want to do like a kid in a temper tantrum?

I had never been told that one in my life.

Huh.

The August Pride peach gave us the first blossoms of the year.

Yesterday morning I reached over and picked up my phone, looked at the time and thought at it, it’s too early to be awake, put it back down and went back to sleep.

Usually I bring it out by the computer after I get up. And maybe I did. But I also went in the kitchen, stepped sideways looking down at the mug in my hand I was mixing the cocoa into, looked up–and creamed my head on the overhead cabinet door.

Which I always always shut so that I don’t do that. Um.

Shortly thereafter I realized I didn’t know where my phone was.

Which apparently was in silence mode.

The sheets have been changed, the blankets shaken out, there are no iPhone bits in the bottom of the washer, nothing under the bed, it’s not in the Instant Pot, it’s not in the chocolate machine, it’s not under the microwave, it hasn’t fallen behind the computer desk (although that’s nicely dusted now), it didn’t fall behind the piano, it’s not inside the printer, it didn’t land in his shoes, it didn’t end up in the ziplock bag with the hat project, it’s not outside where I was pruning the cherry, nada.

So that’s what I mostly did today, too. At this point I’m beginning to eye the fridge and wonder if we should pull that out to look behind there, too, having a tall husband who occasionally puts things up there briefly because he can see up there whereas I cannot.

Because I really wanted to take a picture of the first peach flower of the year that opened this morning. I love how short winter is here.

Just watch your head on those branches is all.

Saturday morning update: I woke up and felt the impulse to roll over and grab my phone.

As if. I ignored it.

A few minutes later, the feeling persistent and pushing at me, I did roll over and look to prove to myself I was being silly.

And there, black against black, was the edge of my phone just barely discernible, lodged between the bed frame and the box springs. Even looking at it, I had to reach down and touch it to be sure.

And the little stinker was even still half charged.

Mathias: “Coronavirus is little?”

His mom: “Yes, it’s very small.”

Mathias (thoughtful pause…) “Is Lillian the virus?”