Healing and Thawing

Today, Chris brought my keys back and drove the car over to the mechanics.  Tisha was laughing about my self-diagnosis of Alzheimer disease when I thought he took my keys on purpose a week ago. I envisioned being thrown into a nursing home. No such thoughts today because that was February and today we are in March.

Today, after two long walks in the sunlight, I was healing.

Once a week, I put my vitamins for the week in a pill holder. In December, I was taking a St. John's wort capsule a day. In January it was two and a Vitamin D3 capsule. In February, it was three St. John's wort, a Vitamin D3 and dark chocolate and I still wasn't making it.

Today I rejoiced in a sunny day that was eleven hours and fourteen minutes long. This evening, I dropped only one St. John's wort per day in the pill holder.  That and some dark chocolate should be enough. By the end of March the remedies go into the cabinet until December.

The big snowdrifts are still out there but today was a thawing day, a good thing.  Thirteen tulips and two daffodils are in bloom on my windowsills, but by tomorrow, the petals will begin to wither and finally die. That is OK, because some time in the next one or two weeks, snowdrops will push through the snow. They won't make a big show, they are too tiny, but they will be the whisper of spring.  A week later, the crocuses will start and then there is no going back.

When the car is repaired I will drive over to the Freedom area. I hope to be in time to say good-bye to the snowy owls before they fly back to the arctic. They will leave and by the end of the month the tundra swans will be back.

Oh March, you blessed month!

Short Stories

I grew up in the heyday of the short story. Every magazine my parents took contained at least one story. I pored over them from the time I learned to read.

Over the year, those stories disappeared and in time, so did most of the magazines. Only a handful of national magazines like the New Yorker and The Atlantic print short stories. Literary magazines continue that genre and now those have their own Internet sites.  Most of them pay their writers absolutely nothing except for a handful of issues. To me it is insulting to have to submit a story to a magazine that would not pay me anything and then have it rejected anyhow.

Wade Peterson, Bettyann Moore, and I have our own blog, Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com to send our work out to readers around the world.  We make a little money on our ads and our book sales. We are never rejected.  Today when Wade's short story went onto our blog it was immediately being read by sixteen people who must have been waiting for it. 

This past few weeks I've been reading short stories by other authors like Sherman, Alexie, Junot Diaz, and Eudora Welty.  Then I got a copy of The Best American Short Stories for 2012.  These stories came from literary journals. What I found out that the editor considered the best were not exactly short stories.  They were depressing little sketches of miserable people. I am not against a depressing story, I write them all the time, but these were not my idea of what the genre should be. There was no beginning, no middle, no ending, no real tale. Metaphors and some clever writing yes, but no stories. I struggle to get through them.

The short stories I've admired over my life were written by people like Dorothy Parker, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and Ray Bradbury.  Those are the writers I try to emulate.  I may be out of style but I think I am readable.

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Tomorrow I join Susan Manzke and Colette Bezio at Sissy's in Seymour to set up a display of local writers' works.  Our books will be there in March and April.

I continue to look for places where we can sell our fiction.  

February is Over!

I've managed to survive another depressing February. It amazes me that that is even possible to get to March and all its possibilities. Tomorrow there will be eleven hours and nine minutes of daylight and on a sunny day at that.  Oh the bliss.  It will be cold of course, but not cold enough to keep me holed up in the house.  By the end of March, there will be over twelve hours of daylight. I will go from depression to an elation that lasts for months.

It looks to be a chillier March than last year's when Gary and I canoed the Wolf River on the 11th. Still the swans should be returning to the Shiocton marshes along with many other migratory birds and I will be there to watch their arrival, checking them off on my Great Wisconsin Birding and Nature Trail list.

By April 1st we may be guarding Sturgeon along the Wolf River.  Soon after that is the annual Midwest Crane Count.

One event I will miss in March is Bill Staines' concert at Mosquito Hill on March 2.  Gary will still be in Illinois and my car will be in the shop.  Bill has a new CD out, too, but I guess I will have to wait until 2014 to get that one. Meanwhile, I will listen to his songs on Spotify.

Gary says he will be going to Canoecopia a week from tomorrow, since the drive from Dixon to Madison is the same length as the drive from Seymour to Madison. He says he might find a kayak there he likes.  I don't mind not going, I hate crowds, but I am asking him to pick up some good Ontario maps I can use in July. I will be leaving on the trip directly after attending a summer solstice party.

February is gone.  Spring and summer beckon me.

Malady of the Season

No matter what anyone says, February is the longest month in the year. The gray skies, the snow, the cold, what's to like?

Gary laughs when I come up with the imaginary illness that comes with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Last year, I thought I had a brain tumor.  One year I convinced myself I had ovarian cancer even when I knew that after the hysterectomy, I had no ovaries.

I know it's all in my mind, but my mind doesn't function in February. This year, I came up with Alzheimers so I've gone to the all time best brain malfunction.

On Sunday, after diagnosing what's wrong with my car, Chris went home with my car keys, leaving the Mercury Sable sitting on the driveway.  He'll be back next weekend to take the car to the mechanic.

So here I am thinking he took the keys on purpose because he no longer trusts his aging Mum on the road.  Paranoia is part of SAD.  I know that, but it doesn't help.  But by the time Chris comes here on Saturday, we'll be in March, which makes all the difference in the world. There will be warmer days,  my birthday, the equinox and Easter.  

Now that's a month I can celebrate.

The Final Trip

I got a notice from the veterinarian that Rascal is due for his shots but we won't be taking him for a while. 

As I type this, Rascal is sleeping in the cat bed next to this computer. He hasn't moved in an hour.

This is how he spends his days. Sometimes he gets up, stretches, goes into another room and finds another sleeping spot. He particularly likes sleeping at the foot of my bed but that means climbing stairs so it doesn't happen as much as it used to. When he shows up in the middle of the night I know he needs to be there, so I am careful to not bump into him.

Rascal is now in his last days. I can feel his bones through his fur, which when it isn't thinning, mats up. He isn't eating all that much. He isn't cleaning himself the way he should. I've had old cats before. I see the signs.

He was born in July of 1993, which means he will be twenty years old if he makes it that far.  He'll continue sleeping and eating, but the time is coming soon when he can't make the litter box, when his bones hurt so much he can't climb steps anymore. Then he'll finally take that trip to the veterinarian.  

Tulip and Banana Bread Therapy

Seasonal Affective Disorder is an on again, off again syndrome.  Last night I was near tears.  This morning I woke up to a warm sunny day.  I was able to walk three miles around town, get into the back yard to fill a couple of bird feeders and clean up some of the miscellanous stuff in the garage.  For today I was happy. Tomorrow it might snow and I start all over.

Even in my worst state I need only look at my indoor spring garden..  As of this morning eleven tulips were in bloom in my living room window. Tisha told me yesterday that when she first saw them through the window she thought they were fake flowers. When I took this photo I saw what she meant.

They will wither of course, but by then there will be snowdrop and crocus shoots outside and the gardening season will be on.

In the meantime I am turning to cooking to keep my spirits up.  Tonight it was banana bread, made from my favorite recipe. I sliced up some strawberries because strawberries in their own juice on a slice of banana bread topped with whipped cream is one of the best treats on earth.

I'll let tomorrow take care of itself. 

Photography, Video Games and Brake Lining

Chris, Tisha and Evan were here this afternoon.

The first thing I had to do was admire Evan's hand held tablet computer. He could play video games but better than that, he could draw pictures and take photos, even videos. I think I was fourteen when I first got a camera, a little box job, and here is my seven year old grandson taking photos digitally.  He had taken a photo of himself and superimposed a Mario Brother on top, which was amusing.  Then he did the same with Rascal Cat who looked very interesting with a big black mustache. Evan called the picture Meow-io.  He has inherited his father's love of puns.

Then he wanted to show me how to play Skylander but honestly, one video game looks like another, with a lot of shooting and banging. Apparently he is very good at it. I wouldn't be so I just watched. This summer, perhaps we can go on a photo shoot together.

While this was going on, Chris took a look at my car, found there was no longer any brake fluid. He went out and got some, poured it in the car and watched it leak out.  Sure enough, the problem was the brake line. Only a twenty dollar replacement part, he said, but he didn't know about labor.  He suggested I call tomorrow and make inquiries of the mechanics about labor costs.

Then we had supper at Kary's Restaurant. Evan gobbled down his meal and went back to his photography. Yes, that is something we can enjoy together.

Then they were gone.

I called Gary who said I should get the car to the mechanics right away tomorrow but that is not to be. Chris inadvertently took my car keys home with him.  It will be a day or two before I get them back.  For the time being it doesn't make much difference.  I have no plans to leave town for the next week or two. Nothing in Seymour is more than a mile from here so I can walk where I need to go. If it snows, I stay here.

See, isn't life simple?

Melting

For the first time in weeks, the daytime temperature here in Seymour reached 40 degrees.  By the end of the day, yesterday's snow had melted off the sidewalks and the driveway was almost clear. I pulled the car out on the drive to defrost with the hope that the brakes would warm up and become workable again. No luck so far, but Sunday and Monday's sun might do the trick.

The streets and sidewalks were still slippery so once again I didn't go out walking and stayed home. Breaking a leg before spring doesn't appeal. These days between snow storms are the most dangerous. It's either walk on sidewalks and risk a fall or walk in the streets dodging traffic. With the brakes out, I am stuck here.

With a lack of exercise Seasonal Affective Disorder has gotten worse.  I sleep eight or nine hours a night and take two hour naps most afternoons.  The full doses of Vitamin D-3 and St. John's wort, a light board and lots of dark chocolate aren't working any more. I can't concentrate enough to get any work done. I am not answering e-mails or letters because my missives sound too, too depressing. I don't even talk to Gary or Chris in his family all that much.

Yet, I know that I am coming to the end of this. March is a few days away, the spring equinox only 25 days. A year ago, there were snowdrops blooming on March 11. We were even out in a canoe on the Wolf River in mid-March last year.

So I watch DVDs, read books, let my wander, and sleep a lot.  It all will be over in a week or so.

Chain Mail

Before there was e-mail, there was chain mail.  Those were letters you sent to ten people you knew, telling them that they had to send it to ten people they knew.  Sometimes the people were supposed pray.  Sometimes they were supposed to tell ten people they loved them.

Sometimes it was a recipe exchange.  Write down ten recipes and send them to ten people.  Or ask everyone to send children's books and on and on and on.

Other than time and postage, those weren't especially harmful except that they said if you didn't comply you would have bad luck. I never participated, and nothing bad happened.

There were those that asked the recipient to ask ten people to send $10 two senders before the letter they got.  It was a scheme. Chain letters were made a federal offense with penalties through the post office.

Now we have social media and we get the same thing.  We get e-mails telling us to pass on such stuff or something bad will happen to us within a month. We are ordered to post on Facebook to say we love our sisters, mothers, fathers, or whatever.  Some days half  the posts I get are like that.  Mornings seem to consist of delete, delete, delete, because, sorry, I delete all the e-mails and hide the messages from Facebook. I haven't the time. If I want to tell someone I love them, I tell them. I do not send messages out to cyberspace.

It's ridiculous waste of time.  I wish people would cut it out.







  

Frozen Brakes

This morning I got on my hands and knees and took a look under the Mercury Sable.  It was as I thought, the slush had frozen and coated the bottom of the car.  During the winter, ice chunks form behind the front wheels. Usually, it only takes a kick to knock these chunks off, but they are frozen solid to the car tonight. 

Sandy at Sissy's reported that the same thing happened to her yesterday.  

So instead of taking the car to the mechanics to look at the brakes, I am letting the old girl rest in the garage. Over the next week there will be days of higher temperatures and soon there will be the thumps of falling ice. 

How do I know this?  Because at my age, everything that could go wrong, has. This may be the fourth or fifth time I've had iced brakes.  I recognize catastrophes and I know I can deal with them.  No expensive mechanics for me.

I can't take the car out anyhow.  Another winter storm is headed our way, the same one that has been pummeling the Midwest for two days. Because I'll be holed up, I've taken up my mixing bowls. Tonight I started with double Dutch chocolate cake.  Tomorrow it will be banana bread and a pound cake.  I'll freeze the baked goods up in small packages and throw them in the big freezer.  

After that, I'll go out and shovel to wear off all those calories.