almost as good for the soul

Like a buzzing bee, I can’t pass by a flower without deeply inhaling its scent, my nose an accidental bearer of pollen as it moves to the next petalled beauty. Do bees reel in delight at the feast for the senses as I do? Or are they merely mindless workers, intent on their task. I close my eyes and imagine hot buttered toast dripping with honey and pause in amazement at the bee’s sweet feat.

We’ve started Bella on the preznadone and the improvement has been marked. Her breathing is calmer and she has her old cheerful demeanour back. Her back legs are still weak from the terrible two days she spent. It’s been like a miracle. Our fingers are crossed that she’ll be with us for another few months, but the grim reality has been exposed… she’s an old dog and the future does not stretch out long for her. Sadly for Kabira, who is likely to follow her quickly as I’m sure her grief will be deep.

Perhaps I feel saddest for the dogs that will be left behind. They’ve been a close family, and even Spike, the little devil, is always with her when they are outside. The vet day, when Bella was doing so poorly, he lay beside her with his head resting on her - this is not a normal pose for him.

Yesterday I gave her a dose of the anti-anxiety drug and loaded the three dogs into the backseat of the truck for a ride. She was calm, more so than usual, with no panting, so we decided that she can come to the Titanium gathering.

I’ve been loading the camper, washing cupboards and closets as I go. On their trips outside today it has been difficult to pry them away from side of the truck. They suspect the upcoming camp!

“Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.”
~Dean Koontz

dancing shoes

Sunday was a beautiful day for a drive in the country. Destination? A heritage stone house property just outside a village 50 minutes from here. Kirsten is thinking about moving back to Canada so we are helping out by being her eyes and ears on this side of the world.

We left our house early, with plenty of time to stop for breakfast and to drive around the village nearest the farm before our appointment time. Breakfast was good; the village was plain with a lumber store and an LCBO - the important things! There must be a grocery store in the village in the other direction. It was fun seeing the property and the ancient outbuildings. A huge barn towered, a low grainery stretched out. The cute ice house was being turned into an adorable guest house. There were a few other buildings to see. I guess that over 160 years a person would tend to need more and more outbuildings… perhaps to store all the stuff that accumulates when you have a farm ;-)

Now I’ll backtrack to Wednesday when we had Pat over for supper, and then Thursday’s visit with Trudie & Leo. Friday I rushed to get ready for a trip to Montreal to see Freya’s dance recital. I met up with Mom & Dad at the highway and then we raced to meet Olaf & Tammy at a restaurant for supper. The recital wasn’t far away - it was an entertaining ballet version of Alice in Wonderland - so cute to see the little kids (seriously cute), and lovely to see the older, more accomplished dancers. Freya, of course, was as cute as can be and did a good job with her part. I was glad that I went.

Saturday we drove home and Carm picked me up around 2pm. Whew… I was exhausted and collapsed on the sofa to recover.

Monday night Trudie & Leo joined us for supper. It had been a beautiful day which almost tempted me to set the table outside, but alas, the mosquitos were out in full force.

Bella had a visit to the vet today… a month or so ago she was diagnosed with laryngeal paralysis, followed by bloodwork showing elevated liver enzymes. Bella has had periods of heavy, laboured breathing which pass, but last night she was really bad, scarily bad. Hence the vet visit. Dr. Cardi was thorough and very informative… we’ve decided to forego surgery and just continue with palliative care. She’s suddenly turned into an old dog… cue the tissue…

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”
~Milan Kundera

spit and polish

Even though my legs are aching (all those deep knee squats!), I can’t help but get up to check out the spare room. We did the trim today and by 12:30 I was starting to put the world back together.

I love how everything looks! It just needs the bed headboard/footboard to complete the look, which unfortunately isn’t scheduled to be delivered until the beginning of July, after Kirsten is here.  And we need another oriental style runner from Ikea.

The old ratty dog beds have been moved to the basement - hopefully we’ll have a few new ones by the time Pat is here pet sitting again.

The yellow isn’t the greatest colour for pine furniture, but I think it’s okay. My dad made the desk, shelf, and bedside tables so they are precious to me.

Space was made in the closet for a set of plastic drawers for Pat.

Once the bed is here I’ll figure out if I can get some underbed storage for the spare blankets. For now they are stuffed into the closet.

I wish I had taken a before photo… but before all our suitcases were obscuring the top of the bed, and was a general mess. Better that you just see the after :-)

The painting over the chair is a paint by number done by my step-grandmother when I was a little girl. The painting on the middle shelf was done by Marilyn, my Uncle Ken’s partner. The dumb yellow pot was painted by me when I was in my ‘paint anything that will stand still’ phase. The round wreath on the top shelf was made by my lovely sister Kirsten.

One problem with the room though is that there is no good place to open a suitcase, except on the bed, which isn’t very convenient if one was staying for a few days. It’s a small room so we have to make due.

I wish we were having sleepover company! Maybe Bjorn would like to come to visit!

splatters and drips

Almost a week ago today the paint splattered in the expert hands of Bob… today Carm and I are the ones dripping paint everywhere. The livingroom is filled with the furniture and other detruis from the spare bedroom as we paint over the last of the original pink (not counting pantry & laundry room). Not a moment too soon either as I was mighty sick of it.

We are not skilled painters and had to do a second coat of the one coat paint. Looks good now though! Tomorrow the trim.

We’ve had a busy week again, although for the life of me I can’t recall what we did.

Saturday was a marathon, starting at 10:20 when we got into the car for the drive into town. We made a quick stop at some guy’s house who is selling the type of chair we are looking for (we didn’t buy it), then stopped at a bagel shop for a quick breakfast. We made another stop at some parts store for a lawnmower part on the way to see Carm’s mom. A few more blocks of driving then a few minutes to see Carm’s mom. From there we raced to the Brick to look at bed frames (we found one - hurrah!), and then into Costco for a few odds and ends. Home depot for paint was what we hoped was our last stop… not to be though, when we got home we could see that they had given us the wrong paint so we had to go back into the city to replace it. We quickly unloaded the groceries, let the dogs out, then were on our way into the city again. They fixed up the paint at Home Depot and then since it was supper time, and to make the trip seem more worthwhile, we stopped for Pho at our favorite hole in the wall spot. Whew!

I think we were at Trudie’s one night, but I can’t be sure that it wasn’t the week before.

Sunday we de-winterized the trailer and tested all the systems. Everything worked well, although we futzed around with the AC for a while before remembering that we had disconnected the trailer from 120… so of course it wouldn’t work… dooh!

There are still some steps for getting the trailer ready for our first trip, but painting is our first priority. And then I guess we’ll have to get some plants for our deck pots.

It was warm today with clouds racing across the sun - yes, the wind was blowing a gale. We had some moments of bright sun as we were painting.

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!  ~William Butler Yeats

transformation

A crescent moon low in the west. Stars bright in the rest of the sky, not all the stars, only the ones bright enough to overcome the city lights, shone high in the sky grabbing my attention as I tripped down the dark laneway, safe at home from a visit with Trudie & Leo. The kind of night that draws you outside to linger.

That was days ago… which day last week I can’t even remember as they have become a blur. I know we were at Trudie’s one night - Wednesday I think. Thursday we celebrated Leo’s 75th birthday with a party at Acapulco. Friday Pat came for supper (did Carm play golf? Or did he visit his mother during the day). Saturday we went to the village to see Pat play in her band, which turned out to be an expensive day for us as we bought some new doorknobs.

Sunday I rushed around getting lunch ready for my family Mother’s day. I overestimated how long the cooking would take so overdid the chicken leaving it dry. I shouldn’t have put any lemon juice in when I marinated it - the chicken was too lemony. And I didn’t set the rice on right either, so we waited for ages for it to be cooked when it wasn’t even turned on. Too much excitement for my feeble brain. It’s obvious that my mother has things in hand much better!

Yesterday we vacuumed and scrubbed the front hall in preparation for today’s transformation. Bob the painter is here today rolling on some whipped butter yellow paint to cover the ancient pink that I am thoroughly sick of. Carm had to run into the city to get another gallon as this one-coat paint went on pretty thick which quickly depleted what was in the can.

Just one room left to go - the spare bedroom will also get a coat of the yellow, once I get around to it…

Ta da!

Just a bit of touch up to do and also the trim… all in good time ;-)

Avengers

The sky was a brilliant, almost fluorescent, blue this morning and the sun shone yellow and bright. Birds sang, hidden in the tree branches - on a nest perhaps? A flash of red caught my eye… Carlito, one of our resident Cardinals dashed from one spruce tree to the next. A robin hopped on the grass. The grass was green, and along the south side of the house I could see the sunny orbs of dandelions. It’s not green day yet, but gosh it’s close… maybe tomorrow.

I was outside opening the gate for Carm to go golfing, a pleasure for him, and a bit of one for me too. I had the house to myself - quiet for a while - music for the rest. Right now I’m playing ‘Best of Chet Atkins’, a wonderful album of guitar music, with special appearances by Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits. It is so mellow that I might fall asleep.

Before Chet, I was playing some Reggae which got me up washing windows and sinks and other bits and bobs. The sun and music were all the motivation I needed to tear myself away from some reading.

Yes, I did remove Anne Frank from my reading list, but it was too late. A night spent tossing and turning, imagining what life (and death), must have been like for her and millions of others. I think the power of her story is that she is a normal 13 year old girl that writes about her dreams for the future as well as everyday trials (although how could it be everday when you are living in hiding fearing for your life). Aside from her worry about getting shot and fears for her friends that were taken away on trains to who knows what end, it could have been me or you writing… but we know the ending for her and it is too brutal to even imagine. How could such an awful thing happen? Where is our humanity? What sort of people would perform such atrocities? Even writing about it makes me want to cry for the lost souls.

It’s possible that part of my distress overnight was because I forgot to take my pills at bedtime. One of their side effects is making me want to sleep, which when I took them the next morning, was a bad thing - I had to go back to bed for a few hours till some of the effect wore off.

But I was up in time to make the movie! ‘The Avengers End Game’ was great and that’s all I’ll say about it as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. I did like that it wasn’t 100% fighting but had some other aspects which were enjoyable.

I write of hunger

Two beautiful days in a row! Maybe even three if I could remember that far back. Yesterday the sun blazed and so we got busy getting the patio furniture out - yeah! The swing is enabled. We puttered around outside until we had everything arranged.

I pulled out my book, a charming one about the early winter gatherings in 1970s in the South of France of some of the great chefs: M.F.K. Fisher, James Beard, Julia Child, and a few others that I hadn’t heard of. They talked about food and French cooking and wine and how they related (or didn’t relate) to American cooking. Some were snobs, while others (Julia & MFK) were moving towards a more attainable food.

Anyway, I stretched out with the book and gorged myself on excerpts of food talk until my plate was clean. So much good food! I was inspired to unearth some chicken legs from the freezer for a chicken with lemon and olive supper.

I finished the book and wondered what I’d read next.

Today I ended up settling on ‘the Diary of Anne Frank’ which at first glance seems like a good book to read. I’d read it years and years ago and remember enjoying it so I downloaded an excerpt. I haven’t even finished the download and have decided that it’s not for me. From the first page I’ve felt almost on the verge of tears - after all, I know how it ends, and it doesn’t bear thinking about. I think that at this stage of my life, especially since I’ve been borderline lately, I should forego such emotional reads. I’ll be deleting it from my tablet.

Carm was gone at the crack of dawn with irons and woods safely stored in the car. The second golf day was a day for celebration!

Still no green day.

I keep forgetting to mention the lovely evening I spent on Friday with some of the ladies of our neighborhood. Sue and Barb hosts a champage night - girls only! It was great fun.

“Like most humans, I am hungry...our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it...”
~M.F.K. Fisher

potted plants

I was in a foul mood… a mixture of depressed and anxiety sent me to my emergency med which then left me listless and still cranky. Despite my feeling of affection for the sofa, I dragged myself outside for some garden cleanup. A hawthorne spike imbedded itself in my finger. I decided that the leaf litter was a good mulch and shouldn’t be cleaned up too much.

Little green spikes were pushing their way through the mess - hostas are hardy. The peonies are a few inches high, and the lillies are pushing their green heads out of the soil as well. We are at least a week behind other springs.

I didn’t totally give up though - we had purchased 2 small cedars for the big pots on the back deck and they needed to be planted. My little trowel was no match for the giant rocks we had buried in the pots - why? I gave myself a bit of a pep talk and unearthed the boulders. After the removal there wasn’t enough soil so I got a big bucket and headed to the manure pile, shovel in hand. How could a bucket of earth weigh so much? More pep talk and I got it up to the deck. I was winning over the lethargy of the meds. A herculean task. Not the planting, but overcoming the fatigue.

Finally it was done.

I brought Grace outside and settled down in the chair beside her. Gradually I could feel the strength of Nature around me easing my mood. A robin sang in the nearby tree, waiting for us to clear the deck so it could get to its nest - it will have to get used to our presence, and it will, and has in previous years. A red-wing blackbird trilled in another tree. I might have seen a swallow deek into the barn. I could almost hear the grass grow as it turned greener and greener before my eyes.

Carm finished setting up the pool and settled down in the chair beside me. A fitting end to a spring day.

Tonight we watched the Kentucky Derby for some fast paced, muddy moments.