Heliotropism

In case of sunflower, a common misconception is that sunflower heads track the Sun across the sky. The uniform alignment of the flowers does result from heliotropism in an earlier development stage, the bud stage, before the appearance of flower heads. The buds are heliotropic until the end of the bud stage, and finally face East. That is why blooming (and faded) flowers of the sunflower growing at the open space, are living compasses (but not too exact): west is behind, north to the left, and south to the right.

The cosmos are finally blooming.



The tomatoes are ripening faster than we can eat them.




Continued steps toward peace and friendship.

Numbers

Granny had a knitted afghan, multi-colored fans, complicated and lacy, fine gauge wool. The only thing she ever knitted. She bullied her eldest daughter into teaching her, not to mention getting her through this intricate project, as a beginning knitter. Which according to Aunt Evelyn, could only be described as a trial.

Aunt Evelyn and Granny had a complex relationship, often antagonistic, but neither could disengage.

I learned basic knitting as a kid, but had no real interest. I crocheted an afghan for my oldest niece when she was born, simple squares stitched together. I even made a patchwork quilt in high school, again, I went for simple squares, and knew my limitations. Keeping in mind, always, that story of Granny, and Aunt Evelyn. All a bit hard on my neck anyway. Although I could manage it as a utilitarian craft, it never struck me as a creative outlet, not for me. Never thought I'd ever get past the basics. Too much arithmetic.

My mother told of knitting socks as a young girl, but never being able to turn the heel properly.

This is all a little strange, since I am deeply drawn to textures, soft fabrics, wools and silks and linens. Maybe it's like sausages, better to enjoy them than to make them.

Yarn bombing fascinates me. A talent I admire, without the ability to participate. Appreciate the geometry, knowing I would mess up the numbers.

Tried to use my debit card, and the PIN had evaporated completely. I knew the composite numerals, but the order completely scrambled. Sending for it, so I can change it.

Cloudy

The local holiday has rolled around again. We walked to the end of the parade just as the head got there. Wandered the park admiring the dogs and browsing the tatty stands of cheap color. Then the food stands, including a serious Hawaiian BBQ stand. Saw a couple of floats and heard the bagpipes, so we were contented.



A heavy, humid morning, cooler, cloudy, much more tolerable than the beating sun, but wearing.

And more of Eleanor. She makes me smile, she exudes a sparkling energy that has us charmed. Easier to get a decent photo of a lighter colored cat. Moby is never easy. He's always worth it.

Shifting

One of those weird days, as the schedule shifted beneath our feet. Surgeries coming in under time, what looked like a gap closed without warning. Turnovers that needed an extra set of hands. I was to give scrubs lunches, in four rooms with two surgeons, so - gaps. Except that nothing went as planned, two cancellations, suddenly a 30 minute minimum, probable hour, became 20 minutes. I kept scrambling, and helping with opening other cases.

Confusing day.

Moby and Eleanor chasing around, Moby so into the idea of this as play that I think he takes it too far. Like guys with too little social skills. No harm in them, but in need of correction. Better than him being put off and afraid of her. An overcorrection, but not a bad one. Something between play and an argument, not to the level of a fight. Moby a little TOO interested, stalking and pushing. But she keeps coming back and hanging near. We don't really understand, since it's all in Cat.

I honestly think at this point, we just have to let them work it out themselves.


More tomatoes. Watered, because this is the hottest summer since 1948. Plants distressed, but so much stronger than last year, better now. Hoping for moisture.

Tomorrow, the Pioneer Day parade. Not going, too hot, to much of a muchness. Another day off. Rest of the week uneven.

Continuing to enjoy the Craig Johnson books. Smart, funny, sparkling writing, a joy.

Paint

There is a point, in a burgeoning friendship, when it all seems like a bad idea. One wonders if this was a good idea, if this is a deal breaker, if you can stand this revelation. When you find out they actually like J.D. Salinger, or Ender's Game. And you haven't found out yet that they were only 13 when they read them, or considered them the best of a bad mandatory school assignment lot.

When you misread, or fear you are reading accurately, hints. When the flags look red, but that might just be the angle of the sun.

When you've had bad relationships, trusted too much when the doubts were whispering, and your fear is coloring the clues - but you can't tell if you are reading too much into little things, or seeing the same damn things.

Or that point in a new job when you think you'd like to quit, but you know that is a mistake - or maybe it's not. Apply to any big change, any major decision, a move, a new house, whatever.

I think Moby and Eleanor are there. And they didn't choose themselves. Not a certainty, just a flavor of regret, doubt, a sliding back to reassess. Exasperation.

You have no way of knowing that around the corner is compassion, understanding, explanation, affection. Instead, there is only the terror of making the same damn mistake.

When we chose Eleanor, sitting there in the room with a dozen cats and a half dozen people. She has her paws on my bare knee, and a four year old SCREAMS! at the top of her lungs. Eleanor does not startle, does not sink claws into flesh, she flicks her ears. I have to trust that moment.

Just as I had to trust the moment when I first held Moby, and he wriggled to get out of my arms, but put out no claws, no teeth, and once on the floor looked up at us as if to say, "Look, I'm not going to suck up to you, but can you get me outta here?"


Brain came and painted the upper two sections of the triangle of the front roof edge. The paint in poor shape, didn't want to leave it another winter as it was. The bottom edge I can get myself. He was up on the roof, reaching over. Upper 90's most the time, and him baking up on the shingles. Very nice, bright color. Can't wait for the cooler temps, and I will get the last bit.


Addendum: They played, chased and played. Moby finally "got" the chasing play. He is a smart cat, after all. There will be further setbacks, but we do progress.

Tails

Amazing how, with openness and patience, life can be generous. Surgery is closed Monday, after no cases were scheduled. Chatting at the front desk, I asked if we were overstaffed on Friday. We were, but she hesitated to call anyone off - not wanting to short them hours. I raised my hand, "Actually... "

Four days off in a lump. An impromptu holiday. A welcome respite. Time to spend home in these early days of our new Two Cat Life.

Don't know why I've been feeling so brittle lately, easily depleted. Simple lack of days to myself, heat, bad air, bothersome back flaring up a little. Nothing really much, too moody in response. Not getting hot flashes, inasmuch as one can tell in this heat. Likely hormonal, in part.

We toured the new Public Safety Building this morning. Police, Fire and Emergency Management in one rather well thought out, and not ugly, new building. The old building was grossly obsolete, that was never really a question, although not well publicized. A bond for a $192 million project went down in roaring flames. One day, our glorious mayor, announces, after zero public meetings, that the new PSB would be $125 million, and would be put on that useless green space on Library Square. That space was only wasted on the Arts Festival and was only a (huge) part of the (much loved) plans for the new Library - that had widespread support - the bond for The City Library building approved by a large margin.

After an offended city objected, the more modest, plan was put forward, to go on the next block from Library Square. Oh, he backpedaled fast, and said it was just a step in the planning process, but that was not the way it was announced. Big jerk. By then, more information had been forthcoming concerning the decrepit state of the former home of these agencies, and the bond passed readily.

We feared it would be a hideous box. Instead, it's not a bad accompaniment to the sweeping architecture of the Library. We went on a tour though this morning, in the weeks before the staff move in. It all seems very well organized, energy efficient, bright, good flow. And the officers giving the tours, almost pathetically grateful not to be in the pokey, leaky old pile. Kind of like us comparing the house to some of our dreary apartments. "Oh, look! Lights! Working restrooms! Actual break rooms! With enough microwaves! We can keep the victims/witnesses away from the suspects!"

Unfortunately, all the solvent and adhesives, and no doubt my mild latex allergy meeting all the rubber carpet matting - especially the fitness center mats, left me with a nasty headache. We had to leave before we went through the lower level. Which included the bomb squad, carpool, K9 and armory sections. No bombs, dogs nor weaponry yet, but more fumes certainly. I've smelled armories before, not terribly fond of the odor of gun oil. By the time they actually move in, August, much of that will have settled down and aired out.


As for the feline family, all going astonishingly well. They both napped on the bed while we were gone. When Eleanor nosed the end of Moby's tail, he hissed a "Leave my fucking tail alone, you." Emphatic negotiation, not hostility. As she batted the air in front of him when he did the same with her tail. Two cats of good will, and we think compatible temperaments, they are growing comfortable with each other. We step back, and let them iron out the details.

Tails can be sensitive issues, apparently.

Responses

Pete has a photo with specks of birds, and ponders the use, and misuse of words around visual art. This is one of Brookline cherry blossoms - with bee, in a kind of response.




And for Rou, I remembered this as a spoon, but it was a fork on the Shaw Memorial in Boston Common, and an NPR story about it. The names of the 54th inscribed there include D's family name, which makes him wince a bit. They would not have been his ancestors or kin, but their owners no doubt were.

Further warming on the feline front. Moby even played near her a bit last night. They are learning each other. Hopeful signs.

She's an excellent jumper, and has found the mantle.

Sere

Partly Cloudy
101°F
38°C
Humidity9%
Wind SpeedWNW 14 G 18 MPH
Barometer29.98 in (1008.5 mb)
Dewpoint31°F (-1°C)


The rains are done.

Détente

Calmest day so far. Moby watched Eleanor chasing a toy mouse, interested but not glaring, even approaching her with curiosity. No hissing at all, no moaning. Took him outside last evening, and Sebastian sat among the flax. Moby approached him, got hissed at, retreated. Perhaps a moment of insight. Very reluctant to come inside, so probably not exactly that. This morning, less of the hesitation to cross the threshold.

Let her have run of the house for the first time overnight. She mostly slept on me. Until Moby stomped up at 0400 to get D up for food. She exited, he returned and slept on me the rest of the night. Which he hasn't done for months - but then he often doesn't sleep on us in the summer. After I got up, at some point she hopped back up on the bed, with D and Moby.

She is a much smaller cat. Perhaps seven to his ten pounds. But when the blender frightened her, and she hid, then kneaded the sheepskin, I gave her a bit of catnip. Moby fascinated, so he approached her. She batted at him, to his consternation. No harm, but we have to remember she spent as much time in the shelter as he did, and has her own damage.

We can all understand this.

More time, all the time needed.

Timing

This morning, as we left for work, Eleanor sat at the window sill, and Moby not two feet away on the lower level of his tree. The intense tension had ebbed to minimal. He's not eating well, but then, he often doesn't. Eleanor is an eager eater, already not as painfully boney as when we brought her home. This may become an issue, but we'll deal with it after she's more settled.




Moby still not happy, wary, complaining. But he's becoming resigned to the new reality. There are still issues to be worked out, further negotiations to be conducted. It's like the garden, I knew the time necessary, but it seems to be taking SOOOOOOoooooo long. It isn't, really. Not even a week yet. Just as I knew it would take five years before the garden was what I hoped for. Took less than a year to be half way there. Looking back, very short. In the middle, endless. Watching an hour hand move.

Patience is largely a matter of practice. Knowing that impatience causes misery, and has no function. Waiting for busses, or trains, or plants to grow. Or friendships.

Had the chance for a four day weekend, and accepted gratefully. It works out, because of the state holiday on my scheduled day off next week. I can use an impromptu holiday. Nothing specific, but a sense of wear and seediness. A preference for time away, lived at my own pace. Or that of two cats who have not found a balance yet.


Dig a hole. Tomorrow, I will dig a hole. That always helps. Now, and next year.

These things take time.

Snails

Early, day off, awake. I could sleep in, but apparently, I can't.


Both cats have run of the house. Moby watches her, still and waiting. She wanders, all bright and curious. Did this yesterday afternoon, letting them orbit each other, meeting in their own time, in their own way. Moby still baffled and wary, Eleanor blithe alternating with skittish. Kept her in the back room overnight, let out after breakfast.

The tension decreases every time. We figure Moby has worked out that she isn't a threat, merely a difficult puzzle he'd rather not deal with. Spraying Feliway to keep the tension down. Keeping them from getting too riled in the first place. Seems to help. Better living through chemistry!

Eleanor is chasing the ping pong ball, and Moby distracted watching the scrub jay.

Rained heavily through the night. Garden is happy, if snail infested. The north side of the front garden probably is suffering because they've been munching clover, as I found a plethora of them on that side in the damp morning. Picked them up, sloshed in some vinegar, they shall become compost, as we all will in our own times. Sprinkled down more diatomaceous earth, because it doesn't harm the soil.

One cosmos flower is open, the rest on the verge. They've sprung up and budded just in the last few days. Rain does wonders.

Update: Not friendship, but moving toward that possibility. She certainly likes Him.

Futzing

Futzing around in the front garden, and a guy comments that I have a green thumb. Inordinately pleased by this, I thank him. And I hear my mother say that my grandma - my father's mother, could put a dead stick in the ground, and it would grow. But my mother claimed she could kill any plant, and had a black thumb. She struggled to keep roses from grandma's cuttings alive, but my father was careless with the lawnmower - repeatedly.

Grandma is a vague presence in my life. She predominately spoke French, with only a certain amount of broken English. This didn't bother me, so much as her always calling me June. She was not well, although she was the slowest dying person I've ever known. Every year, the family anticipated her imminent death, that she wouldn't last the winter, then the summer, then the next winter... . She was 96 when she did finally cash in.

I have an image of her, tall, large, loud, with her second husband who kept an aquarium full of marbles I deeply coveted. I was perhaps two or three years old. At some point, husband died, and she had a gall bladder operation, and her daughter moved in with her and took over. I only know this from whispered, disgusted, overheard stories. That she was too old for surgery, and never the same again. Maybe a hip broke as well. But Aunt Madeline horsed her around, got her up to the chair, then back to bed, fed her on medications mostly. "Cancer drugs" often. Strange, since there was no story of what kind of cancer she may, or more likely, didn't have. Aunt Madeline and her husband, Herbie*, lived in that old family farmhouse for many years.

They moved to a trailer at some point, Herbie died. Grandma stayed in bed more, in the back room of a trailer, the bed against the wall, so that she refused to turn over and not see out, so she developed a deformed ear on the right side. A new doctor discarded almost all the drugs, which is when the "never was any cancer" hints emerged.

I never knew grandma's cooking, or her growing magic. Never knew her as anything much more than a sick and bullied old body. But, maybe, some small part of her seeded in one of her two granddaughters. And is starting to bloom.





*A matched set of unlikable people. At least by me.

Spoonerisms

Spoon!






A late reply to a recent thing.




Today's meeting did not go as well. Moby in a bad mood, a hissy mood. They touched noses, he hissed, she walked (not slunk, or skittered) away, though. Another brief try tomorrow. The plan is a week, perhaps a second week, but really, whatever it takes. Going to bring out the throw rug she sits on and eats from to put under Moby's breakfast tomorrow. See how that goes.

Baby steps.

Weirdest conversation ever. Nurse at work, pregnant, overdue as expected, sitting at the front desk waiting for the last two rooms to end, being urged by several other nurses who have had children, to get checked because she is in early labor. She is the opposite of a worrier, and is reassuring everyone one "I'm fine, I'll be fine!" So Prn tells her to have Hrn check her, since Hrn used to be an OBGYNrn. H says "Well, it's been a long time, but I could... ." Pregnantrn demurred, but only because she is the opposite of a worrier. Only nurses would consider it acceptable to suggest one woman check another woman's cervix, and at work. Pregnantrn had me rub her poor, contracting abdomen. And I was fine with that. We really are a weird bunch.

Speaking of which, Eleanor has pooped and peed in the litter box, eaten better, and is seeming more relaxed. The catnip last night may have helped. She is definitely a reactor.

Meetings

The sunflowers keep blooming.



They do like to face the house, presumably because they bloom in the morning, and then stay facing that way.


Eleanor got out this morning. This was not the plan.

Instead of making a fuss, we just watched. She is bold and curious, fearless. Moby watched, approached. They touched noses, but he backed off and slunk away. He took to the top of his tree. We separated them, but decided that was a decent meeting, and just kept watching. She kept wandering around, when she got too close, he moaned his unhappy moan of mild complaint. We moved her away. They sat near, with Moby up, and her in the window. When she moved to get on the tree, he moaned again, and we put her in the back room and firmly shut the door. Try again tomorrow, let poor old Moby regain his equilibrium. All in all, if not how we planned, not a bad first meeting. Moby is sniffing and pondering and assessing. We took him out for quite a long time to sit among the flowers and the neighbor's long grasses. He's shaken, but not too badly.

She's pretty nerveless about the whole thing.

Eleanor

She came with Ellie*, but we thought Eleanor more fitting. Quiet, gentle, we think she and Moby will get along. This week, they will just have to sniff each other under the door.

More later.



*Apparently changed in the shelter/foster home from Misty, according to her file. But as Moby changed from Midnight, we figure new home, new name, new start.

Stalk

One of the sunflower plants slumped, broken, bent, noticed as I drove out this morning. Yes, it did turn out to be one of those days. When I got home at 1830, I watered the back garden, and cut down most of the mangled stalk, salvaging the flowers I could.

Several days ago, D watched a guy shaking one of the sunflowers. He carried a jar of mayonnaise and an open ice cream carton, and was shouting. D urged him on "Dude! Leave it alone." After some more shouting, he did. Walked a few steps away, and put the ice cream on his head. The next day, we heard more shouting, and our next door neighbors were out front, minding their own business. But they said the apartment owner had been antagonizing the same guy. When he stopped at our sunflowers, he grabbed one and shook it. I called out to him "Please leave it alone, they aren't hurting you." He shouted at me a bit, then stomped off, still shouting.

So, when I saw the damage this morning, all I could think was the same guy fought the sunflower, and won. Maybe. When I cut it down, and pulled the stalk away, I was left roughened and slightly rashed. Serious defenses on 'em. So, they may have gotten in their own on crazy guy. Tidy, 50ish, Eastern European accent, small and clean, but apparently seeing a hostile world beyond normal apprehension. Psychotic break, presumably.

Part of me is amazed it was only one damaged. Although this neighborhood is fairly safe, we do have quite a mix of humanity. From the moderately well off, to the managing fine, the steady poor, to the unstable poor, to the homeless, the crazy, the addicted, the pushers. All walking by on the way to the supermarket. Much like where I grew up, so it's very familiar. No false sense of security, we lock our doors, but stuff left on the porch stays there, with a few rare exceptions.

Balm

The lemonbalm in flower attracts many bees.



And the wasps I noticed on the grass last year. No harm in them, as long as their nest isn't disturbed.


My vocabulary expands, geranium, cosmos, spurge, scarlet flax, ravenna grass.


Statice. And the runt of the tomatoes has grown and spread. I knew many of these words before, but in the most impersonal sense.


And me in the brightness. With all the marks of life upon me, and I wouldn't have it otherwise.


For how else could I have found my way here? That I seem to have my grandmother's reputed green thumb, that I can find peace?

Lost

On Sunday, we were running errands, in and out through the day. At one point, we realized we could not find Moby. And could not clearly remember the last time we'd seen him. Checked all the usual places. Then all the unusual places. Then systematically went over every inch. Then went outside, then around the neighborhood, several times. After about an hour, we sat in the spare room and contemplated a life without Moby. Putting up signs, hoping whoever had him would have him checked for a microchip.

D decided to sit on the front porch, hoping Moby would be able to find his way back after a nap under a bush. I decided to look one more place that I thought I'd checked.

The back "porch" certainly used to be a porch. Then it got enclosed at some point, probably in the 30s or 50s, shoddily. It's unheated, the sun and elm seeds pour through the gaps. One day, we'd like to do a major renovation on it, when we have a small pile 'o cash. For now, the left behind paint, guitar cases, cables and suchlike sit on the left behind ikkea, ankle biting, coffee table. Covered in a recycled blue surgical instrument wrapper.



I got down, and looked under one more time.



I called out, with my head still on the floor, upside down. "Guess who I found."

Cat said. What? I like it here, it's private. I wasn't lost, I knew where I was.

He's been there most of today as well. In fairness, it is because of his preference for under that suggested his name. And this is a very good under.

Cheery

When I drive out in the morning, it's good to have a cheery good morning.



Amazing to grow something taller than myself. In so short a time. (gods, I do look like all the women in my family.)


Good to be humble, though.

Town

Ok, a little clarification about the last post. My parents weren't really racist. Not by the standards of the time. They didn't hate anyone because of their ethnic background. It was pure ignorance and lack of deep thought or exposure, very common at that time, in that place. If anything, they were fairly mild in their prejudices. They would never have said anything hostile to anyone in person. It was all jokey assumptions, of the same kind they made about their own groups. It was, at most, mildly disparaging. Their language if overheard from forty years on would sound awful, but at the time, it really didn't mean that much.

My father worked in a copper tubing factory, alongside every flavor of immigrant imaginable in Detroit in the 50s & 60s, which is considerable. He was Frenchy, Hungarians were Hunkies, Italians were wops, and I don't think the black men he worked with, and liked, would have been called the N-word to their face - at least not by my father*.

Both my parents were polite to anyone black that they met out shopping, for instance. There was simply an immense sense of them being "other." My father talked like Archie Bunker at home, but had enough sense of social norms not to throw it in the face of anyone concerned. As the neighborhood became predominantly Mexican†, they may have grumbled a bit in private, but treated them all as good neighbors. And even that faded over the years, as they became more familiar.

It seems like a fine line, but I think it's an important one. I never felt I was reacting against my parents' bigotry, only going a step further toward compassionate understanding.

Those attitudes, though, are part of why one can't go home again. Because home is not just a place, it's a time, a very particular set of events. Hard to explain. That's why nostalgia is going home, not going back to the house you grew up in. Home is a state of mind, a phase of our lives, even more than where it happened.

Perhaps I so reject nostalgia because I am home, here, now. Or maybe because so often, I think nostalgia is about trying to go back and get the love that was needed as a child, and not given. So, the desire to return and try again is strong. Or some other loss ungrieved, or joy taken away too soon. A distaste for seeing the black and white and all the greys, preferring to imagine only the good, to fill in the gap.

Or I've seen Our Town a few too many times. After a while, one begins to see the satire.


*I have fairly little good to say about my father. And I'm sure he made any dark skinned person uncomfortable with his own odd mannerisms. But I can't imagine him shouting angry slurs at another man in public.

†Many of whose families had been in the states longer than my parents, who immigrated from Canada.


Oh, and this interview with Shelby Foote, come across lately, is a balm.

Shanty

Got the Fortean Times with this cover.



Bringing me out in a Tourette-ish fit. Oh, when faggot just meant scrap wood, and gay meant light and happy! Oh, when you could make a joke about wops and kikes and no one cared! When you could kill a chink or a nigger with impunity! When women knew their place and kids were happy, happy I tell you, to get smacked in the face!

To me, this is nostalgia. Rosy glasses put on by the privileged to make a Golden Age of their childhoods. When they were innocent, and assumed the world was as well.

There was a locally produced show a decade back, where old Salt Lakers could reminisce about how it used to be. The most vile episode was about a restaurant called, no joke, the Coon Chicken Inn.

And these old white folks admitting, with a sigh, that this would not be politically correct anymore. The whole show filled with idealized memories of being a small, homogeneous place, without a worry in the world. Anyone different probably moved away, and had a different story to tell.



It was that hint of wistfulness for the black waiters that rankled.

I remember my father's casual bigotry, and my mother's thoughtless affront that people got offended at 'ethnic' humor. I remember the Detroit Riots, at least driving through the boarded up aftermath. That didn't look like a minority thought mocking stereotypes were ever funny. I remember the bussing issues, and neighborhoods excluding non-white home buyers and tenants.

I remember when it became legal for a woman to have her own credit card. I remember a time when I had to wear a skirt at school, and much later when we were grudgingly allowed to wear uniform pants as well. And my mother's dismay, remembering wearing pretty dresses - forgetting that she was not allowed anything else. She got nostalgic over a dire childhood poverty and an alcoholic father, high top sneakers from the dole that she hated, but tended to only remember when I wanted sneakers. Back when a woman with a job who got married would have to give up the job. Or drop out of school if pregnant. Automatic.

People assuring me as a child that "these are the best years of your life" dismayed me. If this was as good as it was getting, best jump off a tower right now. I never could fantasize like that. The truth stood out, and my childhood is not anything to return to.

It's not like everything is better now, although it is better in some important ways. Some experiences are lost, gone, of course. Today has it's own problems and nightmares, of course it does. Bigotry is still with us. Us vs Them is built into us.

Everything has a lifetime, everything dies. So, cherish the moment now. The past wasn't better. We were just younger, and didn't understand.

Seal

I keep going back to this video. Seems pretty obvious, he's dancing. As would I.

Scrape

Storms all around, only a little rain here, a few gusty winds, darkly promising skies. Shredded and torn away, leaving a sunset and twilight of dramatic clouds in variegated unnamable colors. I keep thinking about my aversion to pink, despite loving the pinks of sunsets, swirling with complex greys, bright flecks of orange, empurpled sky behind.

If it rained in the night, it didn't wake me this time. We drove up the canyon, amid the bicyclists, to Ruth's Diner for early breakfast. On the way back, stopped to find D a replacement for the small swiss army knife he can't find, too early. Wound up a couple blocks from home at a bicycle/sports shop that has been there forever. Found a small, curved knife, with better features*, different brand. Well, that worked out. He wanted to use a gift card from work, for a recent tagging project.


The north section of the lawn is looking poor. Still a lot of plastic netting in there, lots of bugges, only a couple of deep dug holes, the leaves blew off that side last fall, weeds all over. The clover is alive, but beleaguered. Next spring, that side gets my best attention. Green onions, statice, poppies. Better mulch. Next year, we won't be scraping bottom as badly.


*Locking blade, phillips screwdriver head, carabiner clip, two flatheads, with file.




RR,
The link.

Moisture

The AC is off. The windows are open. The rain has been coming down for five hours now. The garden doesn't know what to do with itself. Just a light drizzle at the moment, thunder and lightening and pouring rain in the wee hours. With more on the way. We sat outside a while in the moisture of early morning, reveling.

We want to become weather observers.


Lt Rain
70°F
21°C
Humidity73%
Wind SpeedSE 13 MPH
Barometer30.00 in
Dewpoint61°F (16°C)
Visibility10.00 mi
Last Update on 04 Jul 6:35 am MDT


Whew.

Ripening

I had no idea they'd be pink. Still, blooming.



Hello!



Loads of tomatoes. All very green.

Save this first one. I've brought it in to ripen on the window sill.



I've thought about flowers, and why humans are so attracted to them. No hard reason we should be, but so we are. Could be random, could be an evolutionary advantage. Flowers turn into fruits. Flowers around other crops confuse predatory insects. Liking flowers might have happened to have helped our horticulture. Hunter gatherer nomads may have used this as a way to find food, watch the flowers. Lots of flowers are pink. Could be other reasons, could be they overlap. I'm sure this is symbolic of something.

Hot today, but with clouds, not so searingly. Chance of a thunderstorm tonight, as well as for the next few days. The worst of the heat seems to be abating, at least for a short while. Got some cleaning done, after a stretch of neglect.

Blocks

Today was a very weird day. In ways that I mostly can't explain without a lot of education. Odd patients, odd cases, and basic positioning that was not accurately reflected by the schedule. But I will explain two, as emblematic of the skew.

Ok, there are a lot of different forms of anesthesia. As the Bone Palace, our former cardiac anesthesiologist, anesthesia director, and researcher EtAl, has advanced the science of nerve blocks to a high level, occasionally by trying it out on himself*. EtAl's rather a cocky jerk, and a rather boorish conservative, but he knows how to take care of his patients, and he really cares a great deal. He will routinely have a patient who has gone home, but who is still in a lot of pain, come in, and he will give them another nerve block. He uses fewer opioids, patients do a lot better.

A nerve block involves using ultrasound, and a hella experience, to inject local anesthetic around the nerve plexus, so that the affected limb that has been broken and repaired, will go back to numb until the worst of the pain has crested. Up to 24 hours. Less opioids to cause nausea, better breathing, sooner physical therapy, better outcomes. He teaches resident anesthesiologists. EtAl has strong opinions. He has given himself blocks. He tells terrible puns - I can keep up with him there. If I were being rolled in on a gurney, seeing him at my head would be a huge relief.

Today, we had a patient who has a very difficult airway, and last week the surgery was cancelled because they were unable to secure the airway after several tries. Today, we did the case as an awake intubation, and it took our anesthesia director two tries. Patient is sedated, but able to follow directions and breathe. Still, not an easy process. I've seen some awful flailing and misery. Strangely, the easiest involved a nasal intubation, which I'm told, (and I can't see how not) is miserable, but quick and very effective. This one involved a (glide)scope with a light and camera and pristine visual of the vocal chords, and still took a second try. Not easy at all. Still, done safely, and surgery went well. Patient needs to be very patient for this to work.


Later, a young adult with the mentation of a six year old. This patient was induced as a six year old, but with six of us available to hold down. Cheerful and chipper, until something unwanted, like putting on the hat. Imagine how well the idea of an IV stick went. So, as with children, a gas to put the patient down, followed by the IV, then the usual cocktail of drugs with different uses and side effects, mixed for best effect and least sequele. Other side of the spectrum, easy physical intubation, no head for it.

Everyone today had some kind of issue. Not standard issues, either. Down one mini-c-arm, because of a broken pedal. And me? I was the runner and lunch lady. Core monkey.

With the holiday on Thursday, at least I get an extra day off, but Friday looks to be full and furious. Job security.

Hoping for a break in the worst of the heat sometime Wednesday overnight.



*Seriously, he occasionally limps around, and reports that he has given himself a block "And it's really working!" He has his residents practice on him, once in a while. He cannot be faulted for lack of commitment. He knows what he's asking of others.