Come Softly, Darling

The gastro guy was not the ogre I'd feared. In fact, he was quite intelligent, quirky and efficient. And I say that because he was nice, and came to the same conclusion I did. It's diverticulitis. 10 days of antibiotics and antifungals and this infection should be done. It's a bit miserable that it comes at the holidays, but such is life. I'm just happy to know there's an end to the pain in sight.

I began the Cipro and Flagyl today. They are vile and pure chemical nastiness. I've heard stories of what they'll do to me. But the last day of them is New Year's Eve and 2016 will, with luck, be chemical-free. 

Diverticulitis usually leaves diverticulosis in its wake. Not an infection, but a finger-wagging nun of an issue. Diverticula stay riled, once riled. Dietary changes should become permanent, with rare excursions into regular food. No more nuts, seeds, berries, beans, peas, corn or anything small or hard that can become stuck and start irritation that leads to infection again. Goodbye to many things I've enjoyed cooking, or eating raw. No high fiber stuff, no bits of dry herbs floating in things, just what's smooth to the system so the little easily-offended buggers don't wage war.

But there is still much that's okay. Ice cream, yogurt, any soft dairy, really. Meat, fish and poultry that's whole and cooked to softness. Veggies and fruits cooked to softness, or pureed. White bread, macaroni, white crackers, noodles, mashed potatoes. Even cheesecake (sans crust) and smooth puddings. I certainly won't starve. In fact, this may be a good way to lose the dozens of pounds I've gained over the last 15 years of gimpdom.

There is a chance it's not diverticulitis, but the only way to know that is to do the course of drugs and see what happens. If it's not gone when I see him on January 6th, further tests will be done. I'm trying to not think about that.

The good thing is that I'm a cook. This is going to stretch my skills and imagination. I can't lazily throw a handful of dry herbs into a pot anymore. Fresh herbs will have to go into a bouquet garni. No more quick stir fries, no more refried rice. No more beans on toast. I'll miss crunchiness in general. Food will have to be cooked slowly and thoroughly. But that shouldn't be a problem once I don't feel like the Wreck of the Hesperus. As a bonus, I got to give 4 shopping bags of food to my Gal Friday, who can certainly use it now that Christmas has wrung her purse dry. And there'll be more when I get into the sideboard where the dry stuff is stored.

I'm also pretty delighted that the last two encounters I've had with medico types have been good and productive. My gastro guy is a little weird and his office looks like a college dorm room, but he's bright and engaged. We even bantered a bit of Python. I can work with him. That's a rarity in my life experience.

So for now I'll just go with the flow. It's not so bad. Lasagna is still on the Christmas menu; so long as the tomato sauce has no seeds it's fine. If I couldn't have cheese I'd be much pissier about it all. :)
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Guts and Glory and Lessons Learned

At the beginning of November, my guts became hinky. Hinkier than usual. I stopped taking the Aleve and turmeric that were making my joints bearable, stopped drinking coffee and tea, and thought that giving my GI system a break would resolve whatever was making them angry. They weren't having it. 

So on Pearl Harbor Day I finally went to the ER. A pair of very nice young men took samples of all my bodily fluids and solids and asked a hundred questions. It was determined that I had an acute UTI affecting my kidneys, but that didn't explain why my guts were rejecting all but broth, soft white bread and yogurt (which had been my main diet for over a month, excepting Thanksgiving dinner, which left me crying in pain). An ultrasound and blood tests told us that my other organs were functioning as they should, so not the usual suspects of liver, gallbladder, etc. This is intestinal. They gave me scripts for Keflex and omeprazole and told me to see the gastroenterologist for further investigation, since their job was to hospitalize peep in crisis and they couldn't go further. To watch for a fever over 101 and return immediately if that happened. To rest, avoid stress, stay on the mostly-liquid diet, and not take NSAIDs or turmeric. It's known that using turmeric and NSAIDs together causes ulcers. Okay. I'd already been doing that and learning to live with the pain. So just wait for the gastro guy to determine what the hell's going on. I see him on Monday.

The Keflex course presumably did its thing. I don't know. As I told them, I can't tell kidney pain from the rest of the pain. It's all pain, all the time, everywhere. The omeprazole has calmed down the burning in my stomach and that's very good. But the intestinal pain/swelling/dammitwhatthehellwiththisshit goes on. And so does the broth-white bread-yogurt diet.

Which brings me to the super whining part of this missive. It's the holidays! I can't eat the good stuff! Waaah! I hosted friends last weekend for the tree trimming and laid out a smorgasbord of things I love- herring, meatballs, gravlax, cheeses- and couldn't have any of it. And everywhere, it's about holiday food. In media, in song, in people rushing around the Shire with bags of groceries, in my email inbox, in conversations, in my mind. Food food food. I'm not a wealthy person, so keeping the tradition of special and dear foods I love is the biggest part of holiday celebrating now. And that won't be happening this year. It's white bread, broth, and yogurt, holidays or no holidays. Oy vey iz mir.

And then I think of all those who don't know where their next meal is coming from, and am ashamed.

And those who only wish they had a home and tree this year...

And I even have a new understanding of diabetics who post sugary recipes nonstop on Fecebook. We always want what we can't or shouldn't have.

And I give myself a head lecture on being grateful, staying in the moment, and what really matters. I have family and friends, a warm home, a crazy cat, a pretty tree decorated with vigor by people who care about me.

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. And all by itself, that's glorious enough.
Happy Holidays. Peace, love, joy.
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Christmas Present

Thanksgiving is done and the calendar has turned to the last page for 2015. I've done much of my holiday shopping ahead of time (a habit I mocked my Mom for having), and now turn attentions to decorating. Billy took the Chair home so there is space again for the Tree. Billy also brought me one of the many wreaths Mac had bought when she was loopy. A huge riot of greenery with a sled, ice skates, and various other Wintery symbols. It's the one they used to hang on their front door. He doesn't decorate anymore. The over-the-door wreath hanger plays music when its motion sensor is turned on. Silly, but sweet.

Over the next 2 weeks the boxes will emerge from storage. The fake pine bough to hang over the arch between the kitchen and front room, the garland for wherever sparkle is needed, the little Santas, snowmen, choir children and St. Lucia will take their places. I'll hunt out the holiday books- Dickens' Christmas Stories, the carol book, the Goldenbooks and my Dad's trade magazine with nostalgic illustrations from the '50s- that I read every year. I'm having friends over for St. Lucia Day to help me trim the tree, a job that's come to take me a week to do alone. We'll have cocoa and Swedish foods, and play the Christmas television specials from childhood, now on dvds. Lights will shine. Songs will be sung.

But I'm not feeling it.

In years past I've gotten merry way too early and by the time Yule was here I was over the whole thing. I don't think that'll be the case this time.

This year there are friends who are making what will likely be their last Christmases. So there's the Ghost of Christmas Future lurking in the dark corner, waiting with his sickle. Who knew this time last year that Chiefy wouldn't be here for this year's edition, or that any others we've said a final goodbye to in 2015 wouldn't be around to lift a glass? People die, it's part of life. It just gets tougher as the years go by and there are fewer to share the memories, fewer to smile with us. People move far away, too. We can call, we can message, we can mail them. But it's not the same. Presents are called such things for being presented, for presence. Absence doesn't get a bright ribbon, it's just a void.

So we carry on, make new traditions, new memories, fill the voids, tell the stories. We keep what old traditions we hold dear that won't hurt too much. We let go of what we can't do anymore and focus on what and who we still have. Chase away the dark with bright lights. Realize that all we have is right now, this minute, and make the most of it. It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness, they say, and it's true. Once again, we strike the match and hope for the best.
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Brown and Gray

I was talking to a friend tonight who said, "Every year I feel I have less and less to be thankful for." Maybe because we remember better times, I suggested. And we've lost a lot along the way, including the little things like patience and our minds.

These are the days when things are getting very real. I've stepped back from Fecebook. It can take over your life, especially when you volunteer to admin or monitor a page. Or 5. The constant barrage of opinion, right or wrong, agree or disagree, judging judging judging, is darkening to the soul. Too much news is as bad for you as ignorance. I remind myself this crapola is why I gave up cable, and that the intrusive Comcast homepage plastic news is bad enough to have to see. "News" media has turned up the volume, and I'm just going to try not listening for once. People pieces, the ones on BBC, are enough to tell me stories. The Guardian is not purposely traumatizing. Though don't get me started on the BBC.

Tonight it's finally cold. Fall is here. It's Thanksgiving week, I have no idea what's going to happen with Billy beyond he'll be here Thursday and probably Friday. This is because of medication timing and confusion, along with whatever else. I try not to speculate. Kick and Scott will be by on Friday, I haven't seen her in years. Billy gave Patrick his old leather jacket and she sent a photo. I can't believe he's a 6' tall 17 year-old wearing Billy's leather. Strider had a kitchen fire and was burned pretty badly on her hands and arms trying to put it out. But she's okay and the house will be fixed, hopefully by the new year. What's verynot okay is that there was a baby's death in the family. That's never going to be okay.

And all of that and so much more is why I haven't done much besides read historical background for the Beest book in weeks. Maybe for once I'm actually doing this bookwriting thing the correct way. It's good dissociation from the holy shit-look-what-happened-my-opinion-is-better-than-yours circus of the day world we live in. We didn't used to have to know people this well. We didn't used to have to know everything that everyone on the planet said. What the hell? I'm better off learning about the battle for the Somme or the Red Baron.

Yes, times are hard and even scary. People are nuttier in greater numbers than I've ever noticed. Well, we were all nutty in the 70s but that was in a friendly way. This isn't. I'm already treating gut problems (and miss my percolated coffee!!) and I don't need more tsuris. So to hell with it, let me map out Beest's travels around France as an Allied spy in WW1. She's roughly following my Uncle Bert, who bicycled around France carrying maps and intelligence from unit to unit. It's not a happy place, but a hundred years later it's pretty straightforward and not as terrifying as say, any of the current Republican Party Presidential candidates.

This Thanksgiving I do have a lot to be thankful for, and I'm trying to be mindful of it. Good friends, family, enough. I could do with less of some things and more of others, but enough is what I have. Which makes me a very lucky woman.
Happy Thanksgiving
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The Undeniable

Today is the day that Autumn is undeniable. Though the Leaf Peepers have been here and driving through for the last couple of weeks, it's just hitting peak here. The oaks are already stripteasing, and the thinning of the canopy reveals more light, more sky. Those 40 ft tall elms along the Brandywine are still green. The last holdouts, always. This may be the last Fall in the Shire. It's expected that next year the new building next to the shopping center will be open and we'll be packed up and moved out. The fate of the Shire is unknown.

About the Shire. It was built 50 years ago as housing for the elderly. Over the years and HUD regulation changes it also opened to the disabled, and then to general low-income people. We have a mix of ages and abilities here, workers and retirees side by side, but everyone is somewhere around the poverty line or they wouldn't qualify to live here. When the Shire was built, there were no Flood Zone Maps or regulations and so it had been grandfathered in as okay for anyone to live in. All was well until Irene flooded the Shire 4 years ago. We fought to come back, and won. However, HUD regulations state that the elderly and disabled can't permanently reside in Flood Zones. So the Brattleboro Housing Authority made plans to get us resituated.

Somewhere in the middle of this several things happened. Byron Stookey, founder of the Housing Authority, finally retired. He is one of the best humans I've ever known and is sorely missed around here. Soon after his departure, the BHA became the Brattleboro Housing Partnerships and left the HUD property lists. There is little info to reference about this. HUD is divesting itself of property management and these "projects" (so long publicly owned) are being made private concerns, partially funded by HUD under Section 8 Vouchers for the residents and new construction partially funded by the Feds. The BHP is a whole new entity, a combo of the old BHA people and other housing investment types. For the new building we're slated to inhabit, the partner is Vermont Housing, a non-profit syndicate and developer. Here's more about them: http://www.hvt.org/about-us/history.php

With this new hybrid of private and public involvement, the new apartment building, called Red Clover Commons, will be mainly senior housing. Here is the info we have of what it looks like: http://www.brattleborohousing.org/properties/red-clover-commons/

3 floors in a T shape, across the street from a major shopping center, next door to a 24-hour chain pharmacy, close to the high school, the hospital and the local EMT service, and right off the highway. This is practical to the general view. It's easier and cheaper to have the elderly and sick near so much. The board of directors and everyone involved have put a great amount of work into this and they're satisfied. I understand and appreciate all this. It's necessary and there's nothing to be done about it anyway. But that doesn't mean we who've lived in and loved the Shire don't have feelings about it.

I could take this all as part of the suckage of life if the Shire was to be no more after we depart it. Were it to be knocked down, raised above flood level and turned into something new I could live with it, as that's what we all thought would happen. But recently I learned that these are historic buildings, and the VT Historic Preservation Society has something to say about it. This development is the only one of its kind in New England, of a model done in several places around the states, but one that's stood the test of time, and Nature's wrath as well. These brick buildings were built to last. And so they won't be knocked down.

Like a lost love, it would be easier to never see it again, but knowing it's still here will always tug my heart.
I'm soaking up every detail of my plants dying in my little front garden, it's their last cycle I'll see. The vine I trained around the front porch pillar will go on climbing without me, I hope, and the roses bloom each June and September.

But I will not go gently into that new building.
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