Back....Again

It's been 3 YEARS since I've written a blog. I don't know exactly what happened. Extreme procrastination. An increased interest in Pinterest, Words with Friends, and re-runs of Law&Order. Whatever. I just haven't been inspired to write. Life sort of interfered. Mama died. IRS. Two cows and two calves dying. Mid-life crisis. A tattoo. Husband retired. New puppy. First grandchild on the way. Drought. Disease. Pestilence. Maybe not of biblical proportions, but distracting just the same.

So. It's time to get busy and put some thoughts on paper. Well, on a computer screen... there's really no paper involved.

I have some ideas floating around in my head, and maybe I can put them together in a coherent manner and provide some enjoyment for myself and any that choose to read my stuff.

Until next time.

rp

Wednesday

Well, Wednesday is nearly over, and alas, still no flooring in the room by the bathroom. No worries. Still need to paint, so it'll be good to have another day or two to work on that. I think wall paint goes up tomorrow.  Ceiling is done, so it looks like we're good to go. I'm a little nervous about the choice of paint. For one thing, I know Auntie doesn't like it. And for another thing, it is different than anything I've ever seen in this house. But, there's more paint colors to look at, if this one looks putrid once its up. Talked to the floor guy and he'll be here either Friday or Saturday. I'm betting on Saturday.

Yesterday, I witnessed a funny thing. I had always heard that Javelina are very fast. Well, I spied a few of the dogs chasing a Javelina across the narrow little field that runs the length of the caliche road. (We call it the lane...) I had no idea how fast those little suckers could run, but it outran the dogs and they are no slouches in the running department.

Nothing really exciting today. Maybe tomorrow will bring something more interesting to write about.

picking paint

I am picking out paint for the small room next to the bathroom. This is a room that is off the dining room and acts as a passage way to the only closet in the house and the only bathroom in the house. And, that's what we've always called it - "The Room By The Bathroom." This room was carpeted. Unfortunately, the three untrained small little PIA (pain in the a**) dogs love using this room as their personal potty parlor. Needless to say, the carpet is just nasty. I'd had enough. Previously, I had purchased some flooring that is a really neat product. It's these vinyl planks that look like hardwood. But they are basically indestructible, and impervious to water/liquid. I had intended to use this for the La Casita. La Casita was Aunt Mary's little house that I was in the process, off and on, of trying to remodel so I could live in it. This process was never completed, and now I find myself living in Mama's house with Aunt Mary. Since I already had the flooring, all I'd have to pay for was the installation. I had arranged for the guy to come to Falfurrias, from Corpus, this past Saturday. He was two hours late. He stopped to get this under-flooring wood stuff and staples for his staple gun thing. (Notice my higly technical construction lingo...) Well. He was fixin' to start stapling when, lo and behold, WRONG SIZE STAPLES!!! Did I mention that Falfurrias' hardware stores did not have staples to fit his stapler thing-y??  And, that the closest place that MIGHT have the right size staples was about 35 minutes away and that it was already 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon and the guy and his helpe still had to drive back to Corpus to go home??? And, he can't come back till MAYBE Wednesday. Crap. So, the furniture that was in this room is still parked in the living room. There's 4 boxes of flooring, 2 huge pieces of the plywood floor stuff, a big bucket of glue covered with plastic in the middle of the room. So... what did I do??? Decide to paint the room.  So, after about 5 trips to Ace Hardware to find paint, and after trying no fewer that 9 paint colors, I picked the color, which was actually the first one I t ried... It's called "Hey There." Who comes up with these names? Anyway, it's a soft, green that is sort of on the yellow-ish side of green. It's a departure from the off-white that's there now, to be sure. But, I've been feeling a little on the down side, having lost Mama and all, and thought it would be fun to have something kind of cheerfull and spring-ish.... So, just when I'd made up my mind, and was heading to Ace Hardware, Aunt Mary informs me that yellow and green are her least favorite two colors.

Jeez.

I have not blogged in 5 months. Perhaps I should call myself "The Unblogger". Or the "Anti-blogger." What happened, I think, was I kind of lost my sense of humor. I found that uprooting myself from my home and husband, and totally changing my life while taking care of ailing relatives, sort of got a little un-funny for a while.... I must have had a case of the "feel-sorries" and just didn't feel like sharing anything. I was afraid anything I would put in a blog would come across as unkind. So I just didn't blog.

Well, quite a bit more has happened since the last blog in October. The big thing was that my mother died. She had COPD and congestive heart failure. And last spring, from March to May, she was in the hospital. She nearly died. It was sort of the impetus for my deciding to retire and move south to help out. That, and the fact that my aunt has stage IV Liver cancer. And, since they live(d) together and have a small cattle ranch, obviously they can't really run the place anymore on their own. Mama went to the hospital on her own on a Sunday afternoon. She just hadn't felt well. And hadn't felt good for about a month. She'd seen her doctor a couple of weeks before, but she was so afraid of needing to go to the hospital by ambulance, or worse, by LifeFlight. So, my daughter drove her over and I met them in Corpus on my way back from Houston.

At first, it seemed she was ok. They decided to go ahead and admit her and keep her for observation. On the first Monday she was there, they started talking about sending her home with some additional home health services. Everything seemed ok for another day, but late that day, there was a little 'blip' with her heart. The docs decided to keep her a little longer. They seemed to get the heart issue regulated, but a few days later, they started noticing a significant decrease in her kidney function. By now, she had regressed to the point where she could no longer get out of bed to even use the potty unassisted. On Saturday, a catheter went in. She was in pain. She was fighting nausea big time. Nothing was going well. The docs started talking about looking for a skilled nursing facility. I talked to the social worker. Mom signed a DNR order. She told me and the docs she did not want to be on a ventilator again. On Sunday, they did scans on her gut. Nothing came up on the scan to explain the severe nausea. Monday, she vomited bile and could not hold food down. They did another scan on her lungs and tests for kidney function. I heard the docs and the nurses use words like "end stage lung disease" and "end of life issue." For the life of me, I could not wrap my  head around it. I must have known she was dying, but for some reason I thought this could go on a good while. On Tuesday morning, the cute young doctor met me in mother's room and told her that her kidneys had failed and that she was not a candidate for dialysis due to her poor condition. Her heart was bad. And, the final blow, the chest scan found a fairly large mass on her lung that had characteristics of cancer.This mass was not evident when she was hospitalized 8 months earlier. So, I'm thinking that this can't be good.   By now, mother was too far gone for any further medical intervention. She signed a compassionate care order. Treatment basically stopped. The doctor told me that he was going to let her stay put because he didn't want to move her. I don't know why, but I really thought she'd last like this for days. I was so wrong. About 3 in the afternoon, she got her first shot of morphine. She only needed a second one. She was pronounced at 10:37 pm.

Thankfully, for me at least, my two children and daughter-in-law were with me. I had told my siblings that she might last like this for a while, so we agreed they'd come the next day. I feel so bad about that. Perhpas I should have had them come sooner. But mama had told me several times over several days she did not want company and she did not want anyone else to see her in the condition she was in. I think she was just exhausted and didn't want to deal with anything else. So. we let her have her way.

Ya know, I should have known that Mama's last day, a Tuesday was going to just be a bad day. I had a long-standing doctor appointment in Corpus, first thing in the morning. Since I was staying at the farm in Falfurrias since Auntie can't be alone, I had to get up really early, well before daylight, to get dressed and ready for the drive to Corpus and for another day at the hospital. Trying to be quiet, and not disturb Auntie, I don't turn on the lights. I have on a brand new pair of pink bedroom slippers. As I walk to the closet in the room next to the bathroom, and then into the bathroom, I realize I have stepped in dog shit. There are three small dogs living with us and none of them are particularly well-trained. So, I got that smeared mess cleaned off the carpet and bathroom floor. Put the bath mat and my slippers in the dirty clothes hamper and continue with my shower. I get dressed and put on a pair of athletic wind pants, t-shirt, hoodie, and my brand new pair of New Balance running shoes. Not that I run, or even do anything remotely related to exercise, but they said to "dress comfortable" so I wanted to be prepared in case they made me get on a treadmill, God forbid. I'm taking some things for Mama, like raspberry jello and some 7-ups. I'm taking her a fresh quilt and some pillow cases for her pillows. So, several trips to the car are made. Finally, I get in the car and head out, before the sun comes up. I stop and get coffee at the McDonald's drive through and start driving to Corpus. I am about 5 miles from Riveria. This is now the point of no return. If I were to turn around, I'd never make it to the doctor's office on time. I've been smelling something off. I smell my armpits, my coffee. I look in the seat next to me to make sure some errant sandwich hasn't been fermenting in the car for several days. I continue driving. You may remember the mention in a previous blog of the 16 dogs living outside at the farm. I finally realize what it is that I am smelling. I pull over because I want to see how bad it is. It's bad. The entire front half of my left shoe is caked in dog shit. Nearly 300 acres of farmland, and I have managed to find a 6-inch pile of fresh dog shit to step in. So, not only do I have a nasty dog shit encrusted shoe, I have no time to return to the farm and get another pair of shoes, I don't have another pair in the car and I am going to see a doctor for the first time. So, I kept driving. When I get to the doctor's office, I have about 5 minutes to spare. I find a handi-wipe and an orange stick... you know, the stick you use to push cuticles back and dig gunga out of your fingernails... Well... it makes a pretty darn good dog-shit-picker-tool...especially when you combine it with the wet handi-wipe... I managed to get my shoe relatively clean, enough so that I wasn't embarrased to go to the doctor's office. I go through all that, get into the exam room, when I get the call about Mama's lung scan. Her doctor wants to meet with me at the hospital and I leave the appointment to start the rest of the very bad dad. I just thought the dog shit on the shoes, twice in the same day, was bad... just goes to show that it can always be worse...

And, now my friends, I hope to blog more often, and yes, I am well aware how often I've said that and how often I've had to come back days/weeks/months later and say "oops... my bad. " But, I also think I should perhaps rename the blog. "Rhonda's Retirement Adventure" really doesn't quite cover it. It's not so much an adventure anymore, as it is slogging through, just trying to survive life. All of us have to navigate the complications of family, friends, work, sickness, health, wealth, loss... But, since I can't think of another name for the blog, I'll just keep it as is for now. Until next time... :)

The Ick Factor

Sometimes, one comes across really icky things on the farm. For example, we have a very neurotic cat that is quite adept at catching, and dismembering, mice. She often is seen outside my mother's bedroom window, with a headless mouse in its mouth. Ick. We lost count at 11 mice in a two week period. The other morning, Callie the Calico Cat, really outdid herself. Instead of Callie outside the window with a headless mouse, we find the entrails of a mouse laid out on the kitty platform outside madre's window... There was no body, just the tail, and what looked like the intestines, liver, and I'm not sure what else. It really sort of looked like a mouse autopsy, or a scene from Rat CSI...

Other icky things one might see at the farm are things like the dogs dragging up a jaw bone of a javelina, or the hoof of a cow, a deer leg bone... Not really all that icky, but certainly not something a city girl like me sees everyday.

Another big ick factor thing are ticks. On the dogs. We fight the ticks with sprays and pills and potions and collars, but... the ticks are prolific. And, they love to attach themselves to our outside dogs and fill up those little blood ballons... Very icky, especially since you have to detach them by hand.... ewww...

The other morning, I was leaving the farm to head to work. It was daylight, but early. As I drove past the small pen to the north of the house, I noticed all the cows were facing west and standing totally still. They reminded me of the movie with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan, City of Angels. Remember the scene, if you even remember/saw the movie, where all the angels would gather at the beach and face the ocean? Suppposedly, being angels, they could hear music in the sunrise. Anyway, I wonder what on earth the cows were doing. It was just funny/odd to see... all the mama cows and their calves facing the same direction, standing perfectly still. Just one of the little things on the farm that make you go, hmmmm...

Boots

I got me some boots. Cowboy boots. Black python. They are kind of sexy cool. I got them from Dan the Boot Man up at the Warrenton antique show. Dan is the husband of a good friend of mine, Sheryl. Sheryl and my sister in law, Susan, rent this building in Warrenton and do these antique shows. Susan had an antique shop in Bellaire until recently. They’ve been doing these shows for a good while now. Sheryl does vintage linens and a variety of other things. Susan does estate jewelry and a bunch of nice things. Dan does boots. He’s a collector of western style boots. In his hunt for the truly collectible boots, he finds old boots and sells them at the antique shows.

I think Dan took pity on me, after hearing of my snake killing episode wearing my rhinestone studded flip flops and found me not one, but two pair of cowboy boots. I had emailed Sheryl before the show and asked if Dan could help me find a pair of boots. I have no idea what size boot I wear. I  have wretchedly wide feet and a high instep. So, Dan brought a bunch of boots for me to try on. He patiently watched as I tried them on, listening to how I described what was right or wrong with the fit of the boot. He went back to his house and returned the next day with another collection of boots for me to try. I am now the proud owner of the previously mentioned sexy cool black pythons and a pair of functional gray ropers. The ropers will be perfect for any future snake killing or tromping through the cow patties in search of a lame calf or what-not that sometimes happens on a cattle ranch/farm place.

I wore my sexy cool boots today to work. I do contract work, testing kiddos to see if they need special ed services at a school district about an hour's drive northeast of the farm. I wore a pair of jeans and a button down shirt. I felt very capable and sort of butch, but not too much... I decided that I will start calling the black pythons my "WYA" boots because when I wear them, I am pretty sure I can Whoop Your Ass. Justa kidding. I couldn't whoop your ass, unless I was heavily armed with a 2 by 4 or a loaded shot gun. What I was wearing - or not wearing - would have very little to do with it. But it sure was fun wearing those boots today. It might become a habit....

Regardless, I am able to check off “find a pair of cowboy boots that fit” from the proverbial (and actually non-existent) to-do list. Thanks Dan! You are boot-scootin’ boogie of a guy, and next to my husband, are just the sweetest thing on the planet!