So I have experimented and discovered waking up indigo blue- brained may well be from the trazodone. Sigh. Skipped it last night, still slept, even dreamed. Woke up with better energy despite rain, late-calling birds, the later sunrise. I'll keep it around though, since I have never found anything that can knock you out as reliably if you absolutely have to sleep (and want to avoid ambien et al).

Celexa for the moment is off the hook. It's perplexing to still have hormonal symptoms but I guess it's not unusual. Geech, as my friend Penny would say.

When I first came home from the hospital four years ago I loved to show off my scar (I had abdominal surgery). It was a little crooked (I guess my doctor not unlike me can't draw a straight line) but it's nearly faded away. A friend had the robotic surgery so no scars but because the 'questionable mass' I had was 13 cm they couldn't do it that way. I don't mind the scar! It reminds me of how amazingly well we can heal.

A very tough weekend with husband nearly out of a job. So I did a couple of cool things. You can pick up public park litter here and the dpw will pick up the bags and be grateful and it gave me something to do.

I've now had to reassess the celexa. Was it the cause of weight gain? Not sure. I miss the luscious feeling of well being it first gave me in June. Do I blame it for the blues or do I blame the fading light, the darker mornings?

So I'm taking the 20 mg again before consulting the doc. I take trazodone for sleep but after tonight (I have to sleep tonight for work reasons) I'm going to actually try B6 instead. I miss the vivid dreams I once had and I believe attributing everything to chemicals I know very little about is like believing in the tooth fairy.

My cat however claims I'm all right (she cuddles); my nightmares have subsided. But I sure could do without the jumping out of your skin feeling I've been getting lately. Hormones? Change of season? I'd rather than fret.

So .... we'll see.



Margali

How odd to think it's already 4 years since surgery, 4 years since my best friend came up from NYC to take care of me when I got home from the hospital several days later so my husband could go to work, 4 years from when I discovered my doctor was right. I couldn't even open a window let alone lift heavy objects for weeks. Gee.

It makes me laugh to remember how naive I was. I hadn't had a stitch in my finger in my whole life let alone surgery of any kind so I go home, finally, with a fever and an infection after major surgery and tell the doctor I'll take tylenol!

I'd had abdominal surgery (though only an SAH) had an infection and fever that lasted for ten days. Guess how well the tylenol worked.

My poor husband had to drive to the doc's office twenty miles from here to get a prescription for Percoset since that can't be called in. God bless him. God bless Percoset.

And let me tell you, I had the best dreams on that durned drug I've ever had in my life. Very vivid. Or maybe it was just I was not in pain so my subconscious could create movies. Who knows!

But it was thanks to this site, to my dear friend Sarah, to my husband and the great hospital I went to and to the luck of the draw: the very serious outcome the doctor had worried about had not come true. I'd be fine. And I know how lucky I am that that was true.

So, to celebrate I'm here briefly at the site that saved my sanity through the week before and the four weeks after when I was pretty laid up.

Best wishes to all looking ahead to surgery, to everyone who has only come home recently, to all of us!

Margali

Well, in late June my primary care doctor prescribed anti-depressants to help with hormonal stuff. At first it felt like a miracle cure. I was calm! I was happy! I was even even-tempered (whoa). Sad to say it took a little over a month for the side effects to set in. This may not be true for everyone but I felt I should mention this in case it feels familiar.

The main thing was celexa (20 mg) which put on 8 pounds in 5 weeks. The other thing, for insomnia, was trazodone. It was a 50 mg dose ('take as needed' before bed). It took a few weeks and then bang! Terrible muscle cramps and leg pains. Grrrrrrrrr. I'd had the best sleep I've had in years. Very hard to say goodbye to this little helper. But I love to
not to mention walk so there went that.

Hmmmmm.

Anyway, this may not be true for everyone who takes these particular drugs (my gyn doc who did my surgery had recommended Prozac which he said might help with hormonal stuff so I don't know if I'll give that a try).

Well, I'm off to NYC to visit for the first time in awhile. My mom is very elderly so I can be helpful. But I'm also tired and having the old hormonal jumps and jabs. I play guitar and now ukelele and the translation for the word ukelele is 'jumping flea.' I feel like my system is a jumping flea of all sorts of strange unexpected emotions. Tee hee.

Maybe I'll write a uke song for jumping hormones!

And of course it's beautiful here today and the trip to NY tomorrow is just one of those things that goes by the proverb 'the only way around is through.'

It just struck me that one way to feel connected and happy was to stop by here!

It is now nearly four years since surgery and four years since I somehow stumbed on this site. What a lifesaver.

Things are different now in a lot of ways. I discovered weird intense hormonal stuff going on this year and went on an antidepressant that helped enormously.

I still love the people I cybernetically met here, whom I never met in person, but who gave me amazing information so that when I went into surgery I was more prepared than I ever would have been. I was spared a terrible experience (I liked my doctor but he really hadn't understood my biggest concerns post op). Nevertheless I was PREPARED and FOREWARNED by HS buddies and everything went great.

So here are a coupla smileys, a tribute to one of my favorite people who kept a journal on here to sign off on this summer evening:



Margali

So here we are getting ready for clock setting weekend. I find it incredible that I'm not visiting here everyday but everyone moves on.

Things on this front are challenging and I guess I just wanna say to everyone new here that treating yourself well during recovery is A) essential and B) something you may one day look back on with a sense of odd peace. You deserve to take care of yourself. There are people here (and in your offline life, of course) who will give support and ultimately you'll move on.

By the way for all you book lovers out there, it took me months after surgery to be able to read. Don't forget it's major surgery and it can have a major impact on things you wouldn't expect including reading. I had my surgery in September 2008. Couldn't read a thing till late January and then I was okay again. At least for that! Hormones...well, let's let that go for now.

Best wishes to all





Margali

I hadn't remembered writing here during 'Irene.' But here we are in October and that storm passed and a week later I went down to New York for a late birthday celebration with my mom and before I got off the bus had a message that she was in the ER with an attack of congestive heart failure. She's all right now, has nurses checking on her still even though she's home, and I've been going close to every week to see her (about 8 hours of travel each way).

And suddenly I'll be sitting somewhere trying to remember what it was like before my mother's age and illnesses became a constant worry some years ago and I'll think I felt more like myself trying to heal from the surgery Sept 2008 than I do now. I know hormonal stuff comes into play; the downturn in the economy has been crippling, too.

I miss the island of time when my own healing was not optional; I couldn't even open a window after surgery and couldn't sleep lying down. So my cat spent the night behind me on her chair as I cuddled under a blanket in the armchair and watched 'Tremors' over and over for the first few days I was home. (My husband was at work. Kevin Bacon kept me happy!)

I have to say maybe for many of us it's easier to live with our own health problems than our loved ones. Sigh. This morning insomnia struck at 2 and that too brought back 2008. I used to get up at 2 or 3 in the morning and come to hystersisters and spend hours reading and posting. What a life saver.

I'm expecting Ms. Irene later today on the Mass. coast but my family and many of my closest friends are in Manhattan including lower Manhattan. My computer blew out sometime back and a friend sent me this incredibly wonderful and good looking! bright blue laptop. And this morning I realized I could get online and find my favorite radio station for my old stomping grounds 1010 WINS New York. It plays as I type. Really great since I won't be able to check on friends till later.

In the middle of the night I listened to WBZ a live, local radio from Boston, 2nd oldest in the country. I love that they are actually real, real people live, and they took calls from VA and other places.

Hope anyone reading this living in the track of the storm stays safe, dry, and if you're just healing keep taking good care.

Might have had to have what could have potentially been a really expensive surgical thing done (unrelated to the surgery here) and it was avoided so

I've been missing everyone I knew through the journals here and just want to send a note to say, no matter what happens or how long someone stays connected to this community, it's a life saver.

Best wishes to all from a good place
Margali

Can't believe it's been three years since I stumbled on this site, learned so much that surgery on September 8. 2008 and post surgery were immeasurably easier than they would have been because I had competent, great information from here that saved me from what would have been a much harder experience.

To hystersisters I say, Thank you forever for what you did for me.

Three years later and I'm different; but I have a long memory. and never want to not remember that I owe a long list of people here an immeasurable amount of gratitude.

With much affection,





Margali

Some of the things I love best about my summer job telling stories and singing songs in Boston are the adventures along the way. Two weeks ago I was trying to cool off in a Dunkin Donuts and a man who spoke almost no English gestured about my guitar. When he gestured about his own work it took me awhile to understand he was pantomiming writing. In fact, he writes poetry.

And I said, 'My husband's a poet.' And he asked in an obviously Arabic accent, 'He writes in Arabic?'

'No,' I said, 'but he's a poet! and we need lots of poetry and music,' and to that he nodded with true agreement.

Friday I sweltered through 106 degree F heat to walk around Charlestown with guitar and puppet. Three years ago, just before surgery, it was milder: just as much fun, but a heck of a lot easier! Regards to all. Take care.

Well, it's summer and I have lotsa work again for now. Have been losing weight from wandering around with guitar and puppet (I blame him!) 97 lbs today...how weird. But this is how summer is....no food, just walking and hoping my stomach stops reacting to this terrible heat and humidity. I miss though the high times of years ago when the economy made artists' lives possible without stressing to the max.

I also miss stopping by here so here I am! In lean times we eat just chips and whatever comes to hand. In better times we eat chips and drink wine! Tee hee.

Anyway, here's a cool story for a hot day (and I know anyone living in the mid or southwest would find this really irritating since it's nowhere near as hot here as there, though last summer we hit over 100 day after day after day).

Last week I performed at a Y in Boston and as I was putting my stuff away I noticed two little kids whispering into my Koala hand puppet's ears (he was sitting in his small delightful chair). I said when I saw them, 'Your secrets are safe with him!' It was wonderful.

Love to all here,

Margali

friendship. One of my dh's friends (who lives far away) passed away suddenly last night. And I emailed someone here about it, thinking for sure he was too busy to email till tomorrow. Within 10 minutes the phone was ringing.

I cried and yet felt so much better knowing what endures in this crazy sometimes great, sometimes very sad world, is love and friendship.

I checked in and read your comment, Robin. I also think of you often. I am so happy for you. I imagine the magnificent garden you will create as will some folks up here now that we seem to be getting warmer (though we had snow on April 1).

I head to NYC tomorrow to visit family and a friend. Today was beautiful and when I went to the State Park saw an old Park friend after nearly a year and that was wonderful. The trees, still bare, were home to many chirping birds who said, 'YOU may think spring is late but for us it's April and we are singing our hearts out with joy.' I know when I visit Central Park this weekend I'll be 250 miles further south and will find if not blooming flowers at least lots of daffodils, the flower of hope, (though I'd have loved to have seen the Cherry Blossoms in DC).

outlet not only for me but because there are so many wonderful people writing here.

I feel as though I've landed on a scifi planet where winter never ends. Last year by now we'd had 70 degree F days. It's cold. It's supposed to snow goll darn it.

Maybe we've (I've) fallen through the wall in the Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode and this really is another dimension!

Meanwhile (I hate to admit this) the only great thing about an endless winter is that Baby Cat cuddles, nestles close by as I dream my preposterous dreams and then when I awaken shaken at 2 am I listen to the BBC radio and hear about Libya and Japan.

Sigh.

Well, I was going to add something pithy but I'm out of pith!



With fondness to all who post here, new and old,

I had a lovely thing happen: the local library is posting some of my bird photos on their wide screen above the circulation desk.



I looked up and there was one of them I couldn't believe it. So cool. So now I have maybe three of them that rotate with other shots but my photos of my sweet visitors including the Downy Woodpecker and the White-Breasted Nuthatch are at the library. (I spend most afternoons there when I have no work which is sad to say....I'm there really often. *sigh*)

I use an old-fashioned SLR camera, a Yashika FX3 with a telephoto lens to photograph my birds on the deck. It requires a lot of patience from a very impatient person. There's something very Zen about that.

Thank you, MoonMab, for your kind comments about my Mom. I actually saw a therapist because I hear the phone ringing every night in the middle of the night and it's not ringing but a friend said yesterday, It will happen sometime and I thought you know what? Maybe I want a therapist to be an alchemist and rejuvenate my mom and turn back the clock and therefore it's, in truth, a useless exercise.

Instead, I think I just have to visit 250 miles south as often as possible especially when it's not an emergency.

Exhausted and broke but now a famous photographer (tee hee) I think I'll think on this and just pull out the Puccini throw Mom gave me and read through the cold, cold spring night.

sang to me yesterday as I walked home from the printers, and since this is a Spring Migrant I had to stop and think, yes, this terrible long winter is on its way out.

Then I looked down and there before me in a plot of land were blooming crocuses.

Later I couldn't sleep and listened to the BBC in the middle of the night and heard a wonderful report from Patrick White, a blind traveler who was relating tales of travels to San Francisco and Istanbul (San Francisco came across as a much friendlier city).

I head to NYC, mom's not feeling too well, so everything continues but I say to myself what did you expect?

But I dreamed I was battling invaders with a very long shiny sword! Is this good news? Hmmmmm.



And I had a day's work on Friday after a long drought and that was good.

Overnight this past Saturday I had a very unnerving physical symptom (not to be described) and it made me feel so scared that I landed into myself instead of my various other worries (mostly Mom and money related).

So Sunday morning even though as usual I was alone with my sweet kitty since dh is away working Saturday through Monday morning I just opened the back door, let in the suddenly wonderful 40 degree breeze and listened to the birds. NO RADIO. NO NEWS. (We don't have TV.)

It was a day of rest.

I had found a good paperback at the library. It was a light read as though summer had arrived
and I was having a warm day (despite in reality looking out on feet upon feet of snow).

And here was another treat. Anyone who remembers freezers you had to defrost may remember the joy when big chunks came off all at once and you could hurl them into the sink.

Well picture my back deck as one long sheet of a frozen freezer. I hacked away hurling chunks of ice off the deck and it was more fun than I've had in months.



And I thought (not without a certain amount of sadness) that sometimes I need to be reminded that my own life could be fragile in order to allow myself to be happy.

David has been away since Friday working, came home today, exhausted. He took a well deserved nap and I had my first lunch out with someone since Sharon passed away and the mundaneness of this reminded me so clearly again that grief is so private a thing that one feels compelled to smile and say yeah I'm fine and that's right, I think, for comfort is impossible anyway. But it felt strange.

I have always been afraid to tread unfamiliar emotional ground but the one thing today that happened that really was wonderful? I discovered that when in May, during a brief respite from illness, Sharon and her husband went on a wonderful trip and maintained a blog I had not ignored it as I had vaguely feared: there are notes from me there! I hadn't remembered this! I had actually read it and written comments!

This is the true comfort; that you were present to someone even when you forgot you had been there at certain moments. Now it brings me much comfort.

Yesterday my friend, Sharon's husband, Alex, called to say she had passed away in the morning. She had rallied a few weeks ago and so I was thrown for a loop despite the length of her illness and her prognosis. She was not in the hospital; she and I had had a very positive conversation less than two weeks ago.

I wrote to a friend that one reason I was able to be helpful to her early on (she started this terrible journey in March 2009) because of what I'd learned having the same initial surgery in 2008 (a hysterectomy) and because of information I'd gotten here.

I will never ever be sorry I went through my own surgery because I know without question it made me -- once Amazon woman -- more open to sympathy to physical illness after I went through it. When Sharon called before surgery in the fall of 2009 I had information; sympathy; and a kind of openness only available to those who have had to admit they're human and mortal.

She and I were the same age; she put many odd and wonderful dreams into reality: always wanted to be a pilot; learned to fly and got her license and more.

But, truthfully, I just loved her and will miss her forever.

Hi, MoonMab!
Your comment to my last entry was so lovely to read today.

I've been having just one of those tough days. It's like this river we're trying to navigate has these hidden rocks and currents. And sometimes I think I'm paddling really well whatever canoe I'm in but I'm facing backwards.

I have to evaluate how to make a better living. I think I have a handle on living with my eyes open to all the wonderful things this world offers just on a walk down the street.

But the arts are a hard row to hoe and I have to admit it's really hard when you're exhausted. (I'm blaming exhaustion on lotsa stuff: worrying about mom; money; age; money (hmmmm) ) but the truth is things can take a tough turn and even if you ARE looking, if you continue to keep faith (while admirable in a wow-am-I-stubborn sense), it doesn't make it any easier when the bills come in.

Sigh.

I'm also hormonally challenged. And I have to stop listening to the BBC in the middle of the night. So much in the world is astoundingly awful but I turn it on at 2 or 3 when I can't sleep and perhaps that's not the wisest maneuver!

So on September 8 it's 2 years since the surgery. Hard to believe! I spent the night September 7, 2010 with Sarah in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and she's the friend who traveled north on September 11, 2008 to take care of me because David had to be at work the whole weekend. What's funny of course is that I thought I wouldn't need her for anything except having fun conversations but man, I couldn't even open the window. Geech. I had never had so much as a stitch in a finger. I couldn't get over what major surgery does to you!

I had told the doc I was coming home the same day as surgery or at worst the next morning. He didn't even laugh! What a sweetie.

Here we are two years later and one thing that I still remember clear as day (besides the great percoset dreams I managed to conjure) was how much Hystersisters meant to me, the neophyte patient. Much of the info I got here was so invaluable it's really inexpressible. I was prepared for the stuff no one told me about because I'd somehow stumbled on this site in very late August of that year. Whoa.

Hi,
Today is my birthday and I'm going to pretend I'm Robin who always makes me smile and throw in a coupla smilies:



Yesterday would have been my father's 105th birthday. Is that wild or what. He was a lot older than my mom, passed away when I was 11. I dreamed about him for the first time in maybe 20 years two nights ago and I hate to say it, but he was very aloof. Well, why not, David said. He hasn't seen you in more than 40 years. Tee hee. But sad in a way.

Nevertheless David bought me a huge ice cream cake to share with friends when he gets home from his weekend work (maybe Monday night).

And I'm so glad to be home from NYC and be able to be with Baby Cat who was so glad to see me.

I'm planning on buying myself a fairly cool present if it is actually a working instrument: there's an electric guitar on consignment at Gloucester Music. Hmmmmm. Ooooooh.

My big dream is to own it and play the opening of 'Stairway to Heaven' on it. (My buddy, Carter in the Post Office once said, 'EVERYBODY can play that.')

If however it's not in good shape I am going to buy a ukelele. I don't know why I want it but for 30 bucks I think I could come up with a tropical tune for it that the kids will like. Speaking of which, I now am the proud owner of two kid friendly watches: one has hippos on it and one has giraffes and an elephant. The second hand is a horse.

AND it's BRIGHT PINK. So who could have the blues wearing a bright pink watch with giraffes on it, I ask you?

Thank you for your comment MoonMab. I love that poem so much.

At last I'm at the end of the summer season which included about 40 programs in a hot as heck summer (with many performances outside).

Last week was Sharon's first three-day hospital stay for chemo and she was in terrible pain. I knew this had to be the case because after our first text message on Monday I didn't hear from her. Finally I emailed her wonderful husband and he reported back what I had suspected: the treatment was very painful.

Because he told her I was so worried she called when she got home, couldn't even hold the phone, had to put me on speaker phone.

I just...

Well, everyone here understands.

Meanwhile I tell myself, no one knows the future. I have songs to write, I have to make sure I remember to pay attention to everything. And not waste time, Antonio, as Michelangelo supposedly told his apprentice.

But I feel bad for my friend, dreamed I was crying with her because I live so far away. Her parents are both gone; her sister lives in PA (she's in CA) and I'm here in my beautiful MA, heading to my city, NYC, Tuesday for my birthday week visit to my Mom and Sister.

Because I made a little money this summer I can relax a teeny bit for a few weeks. But I want to end this journal entry on an odd, positive note.

My last performing day in Boston was August 13. I was annoyed with myself about the second program, shoulda done a different story blah blah and as I walked along trying to rehydrate drinking water carrying my puppet and guitar a guy pulled up at the corner, waiting for the light, and he called, 'Hi!' and drove off. It's probably the guitar that elicits such kindness but I so loved that.

I thought, it's the universe saying, We're okay. Just keep going.

I so appreciated your comments Robin and MoonMab. It's been a hard couple of weeks. When Sharon saw the oncologist it was very disheartening. She said they cleared her to go to visit family in PA (thank god) but now this coming week when she returns she goes into chemo again. What really upset her is that this round as opposed to last time involves a three day hospital stay to monitor the effects of the particular drug they're using.

And she said to them this means this is not good news, right. And they said, Right.

So awful. So much the throw of the dice these lives of ours. She actually has no cancer at all in her family. 'We all die of heart attacks,' she told her doctor a year ago when all this started.

But I'm writing with a different motivation. When I was performing in Boston this week on one of the over 90 degree days I stopped into a dunkin donuts to get cool. I overheard this really nice looking 30ish man at a table chatting with the manager (they obviously knew each other) about how hard it is for him right now. He told the manager, 'I have two dollars in my pocket.'

I happened to be putting sugar in my iced tea standing nearby so I turned to him and said, 'There's a wonderful Langston Hughes poem:

'I wish the rent
Were heaven sent.'

And he smiled. 'Tell me another poem!' he said.

I thought about it and said, 'The only thing that comes to mind is a kiddie poem.' He said, 'Tell me a kiddie poem.'

So I told him one of my all time favorites, by Oliver Herford:

'I heard a bird sing in the dark of December
a magical thing and sweet to remember:
We are closer to spring than we were in September,
I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.'

And he smiled so broadly. It was only later I realized how perfect a choice it was.

His smile stayed with me all week, of course of course.

Thank you for your comments news, MoonMab, and Robin. I've missed you all.

I've had a tough week, for several reasons.

Since early May to take my mind off my worries about Mom and Sharon and all the sad news from the gulf, I'd become entranced with a webcam set up in an eagle nest in Vancouver, actually Hornby Island. The eaglet, Phoenix, poked her way into the world on April 29.

The webcam allowed viewers to be right next to the eagle family and it was amazing to see the tenderness Mom Hornby (they named the parents Mom and Dad Hornby) and Dad showed towards their little offspring. Eagles grow very big very quickly. And she was getting ready to fledge.

Later the same day I last wrote here, July 14, she went into respiratory arrest and there was no way to save her.

This hit me so hard I can't even express it adequately.

The one good thing to come out of it was that the Avian Rescue people in that area of B.C. were about to close because of funding cuts. They were flooded with phone calls with donations in memory of Phoenix. What an aptly named bird!

I'm going to post a pic I took of her when she was little.

It had been such a joyful place to escape to every day, I still miss it terribly.

And then yesterday I spoke with Sharon and her news was bad again. She has to go back into chemo. She and I are the same age, have been friends for 25 years. She lives so far away, though, it's very hard not to be able to just get out to San Francisco as fast as possible.

*sigh*

Then, though, there are my shows with these little kids in Boston and for those moments with them my heart sings.

Love to all.

Hi everyone,
It's funny, Robin. I was so glad to read you are enjoying your vacation but what encouraged me to come back after lo these many months is that I'm finally enjoying work again i.e. HAVING work again. My summer programs are such a joy despite the heat and humidity.

My friend Sharon and her husband flew me to San Francisco in January. She's recovering from chemo but still faces a very tough prognosis. I love her. I've been sending little gifts. I found two fun wind up toys at our new toy store and I told the cash register folks, please please these can't arrive broken in CA. And they wrapped those two inexpensive purchases like they were Waterford crystal.

My sweet dh is still smoking but he's agreed to make my August birthday present a trip for a complete physical. And it's scheduled! Phew.

Love to everyone here. And for you, Robin, I'm signing off with a few of these because you always make me smile!

two great trips -- one to NYC to see Mom for her birthday and one to Portland, Maine where I had a wonderful time doing shows in an elementary school. This was such an exhilarating experience I still haven't really 'landed.'

Still, it's hard to believe I haven't visited here since September especially since, given the changed clocks and the chilled-looking trees, September seems so long ago.

Technology! The time saver that eats time, this was what the journey has been about these last few weeks. It took me forever to translate old work and new work from original formats to computer-usable digit-estibles.

I got very lucky, though, in that an old friend is a computer whiz and (after I understood what he needed) he was able to help out and things moved along after that.

The other preoccupier though was my friend Sharon's health. She's had the WORST doctors for communication skills I've ever heard of. These people are Martians. Yes, she had a good surgeon but it's one of those things where you've got a good scientist but a lousy healer. She's looking at tough weeks ahead with chemo and they never return her phone calls, let alone call her with news tough and otherwise. She finally had to call them at one point and when she insisted on speaking to the doctor the receptionist said, 'Now, no need to be rude.' RUDE???

With my surgery experience I never once had to deal with this kind of thing. My doctor (who was also the surgeon) was a great guy and I realize again again again how lucky I was. He actually called me! Returned my phone calls! Made sure I understood my pathology reports!

Sharon has switched doctors, though, so I'm crossing my fingers things improve for her. I'd like to fly out there and break some heads! Sigh.

And here at home David's getting over bout 2 or 3 of bronchitis thanks to Prednizone the Wonder Drug and I'm working on a very minor cold and Baby Cat no longer has a reason to meow miserably through the phone because I'm home at last and just so grateful for so many things.

My friend Betsy is, among other things, an amazing cook. Last year when I was recovering (and still very laid up) she made soups for me that were out of this world. She is also a person who knows everybody in town and has generated enormous reservoirs of good will some of which came my way yesterday.

I had mentioned to her that I wanted to get a tape of some of my puppet stuff and did she know anyone? Well, she did, and he came over to her house yesterday afternoon and taped me with one of my puppets. One, two, three done. It's short but it was lots of fun to do.

I felt almost deliriously happy for the first time in a heck of a long time. (I also got a much delayed refund check out of the blue so I can pay the rent. This added to the bliss, of course.)

So my little (frozen at the moment) corner of the universe feels much warmer this pre dawn Sunday morning.

the cold morning air. I'm trying to entertain Baby Cat who is perched on the edge of the counter looking towards the screen. She had a great time yesterday when a stray calico cat came up to the deck heading for our seed socks (and the house sparrows). She charged across the kitchen meowing in hysteria. Chased that intruder right outta there (from inside, of course).

When I looked to the side of the deck where the bird seed hangs there were four or five sparrows sitting on the railing. I guess they figured if their predatory protector fell down on the job they could always just fly. Why worry? A great way to be. I can't seem to manage it.

I saw an article in the NY Times yesterday or Friday about hang gliding. Now this would be a wonderful hobby. They say that sometimes you can be gliding along and a hawk will fly with you so that would be incredibly magical. (Though it would not be as much fun if it was carrying some kind of prey with it!) It would take me away from all the earthly worries I feel at the moment and yet, especially as a beginner, I would be focused on not crashing, something to really worry about.

Then again maybe that's the key for the inveterate, relentless worrier that I am. If I want the moments of exhilarated flying I have in my life as an itinerant performer I gotta live with the currently clear and present danger of financial free fall.

Oh, but there's so much to be grateful for even just putting one foot in front of the other on the earth!

I got a call a few weeks ago from the head of our local library. I had really put myself out for them at one point over a threatened loss of funding (taking petitions around etc.) So she calls to say there's a 10 hour a week opening for someone to shelve books, minimum wage but steady. So I tell myself well, a little cash wouldn't hurt. Go for the interview with two of her staff. They tell me 'we're interviewing 4 other people.' AND....I didn't get the job!!!!! AND they never called to make nice!!!! or even to tell me that I hadn't gotten it!!!! David said, 'You should have gotten that Ph.d.'

It woke me up though to the fact that I've got to be more creative about getting real paying work for what I really do. There is no reason on the planet that I shouldn't be working, though our state budget is so terrible it may be essential to focus even more than I already do on neighboring states.

It's hard to keep the energy up. :

SIGH.

of my surgery. Too strange. I reread stuff from a year ago and of course it occurs to me this early morning how good it is this ongoing water thing is happening THIS year and not then. I had surgery in a hospital some distance from here but coming home and being laid up would have been really tough. My friend Sarah came up from Brooklyn the day after I came home and it certainly would have been much harder on her.

Meanwhile David's sick with another bad cold. I went to bed early with a bit of an upset stomach. I think I'm okay but I heard him coughing on and off through the night.

I felt upset with myself, falling over so early. When I woke up every few hours and realized how early it still was I had a my-life-is-passing-me-by-attack and decided to get up as close to 3:30 as possible to make up for it.

Now it's dead quiet and very dark though I did hear a lone gull around 4. I'm wrapped in a Puccini throw my mom gave me because it's freezing in here.

On the living room floor there are two treasures I bought for 50 cents apiece at a yard sale Saturday: Playskool xylophones. One looks like a crocodile. They have a lovely tone! I bought the crocodile first then went back for the other one (which has more keys). 'Now I can play two hands' I told the yard saler.

Today maybe I'll bicycle to the dunes early. I'd love to make it to the State Park but there's no bus over there on a holiday. Are my favorite birds gone? Perhaps they are. I did see two Great Blue Herons there this summer, Robin. They are magnificent, terydactyl like creatures. The Kingbirds are much smaller and members of the flycatcher family but they are infinitely fierce, chasing much larger birds away from the nest, getting ready (if they haven't left already) to fly to Bolivia or Peru for the winter.

Last summer whenever I felt afraid of the upcoming surgery I thought of the Kingbirds, she sitting peacefully on her nest, he ready for anything, on guard atop nearby trees. And I thought if anything happened to me I'd like to come back as a Kingbird. First of all I love to travel and they're migrators (I already speak a little Spanish) and would I ever love to be that confident and plucky!

Actually it's 45.8 degrees this bright a.m. So we enjoy the cooler temperatures even as we're living through Week 2 of NO POTABLE WATER. It's amazing how many incompetent people work here. Truly for a small town the percentage is impressive. Could be a 'point of interest' in the guidebooks. And that's speaking well of them. There's a chance there was actual deception practiced in how early they knew the water was bad, as opposed to when they publicized it.

So David's boiling water and I'm escaping with friends to the State Park in small-but-competent Rockport.

Monday, as if in a mirroring of my experience on the dunes, I had the overwhelming joy of seeing Tree Swallows swoop overhead as I sat on a rock overlooking the quarry. There were hundreds of them! They sailed over me, dancing in the sky, then dancing on the water as they flitted down to pick up insects.

That day the Eastern Kingbird family flew across the water just as I was about to leave. I was so glad to see them. Their first two nests had been destroyed early in the season and I never could locate their new one. But here they were, the parents and the two or three juveniles all calling as they flew across the sky.

We've been mourning the loss of our great senator this week (when I first heard he was ill last May my heart sank).

But we had celebrated my birthday last week in NYC with my mom. She's looking pretty good, though frail. She and David and I went to the Met Museum together for lunch one day and it was just the most wonderful thing. We sat in the Petrie court looking out over beautiful Central Park, the weather was bearable, the water was drinkable, and life felt for the moment very good.

the water! Not the glorious ocean but the city water which has led us into a Code Red. Apparently the treatment plants are either closed for renovation or wheezing along having breakdowns (I'm heading in this direction myself). So we have a boil water alert that's been on since Friday retroactive (I'm not kidding) to August 15. I had called the Mayor's office a week ago to check on this and they said, the water's fine! No problem! (This is like the Mayor in Jaws.)

Ha ha.

Thank god I'd been giving Baby cat spring water. I on the other hand had been cavalierly drinking the tap water. Geech.

However, before this happened I had biked to the ocean at 5:30 one morning. It was low tide. I was in a lousy mood (for non-water related reasons) but I walked onto the flats, much further into the dunes than is ever possible, and was surrounded within a few minutes by Semipalmated Sandpipers, 'peeps' which is how they sound. They ran all around the sand and seemed to consider me a natural enough phenomenon to just ignore. I of course was thrilled. I thought Wow I can be as gloomy as can be and still be given this gift of well, I don't know what to call it. I counted 25 little birds all scurrying and calling around me. It was amazing.

There were a couple of other human early birds way out on the other side of the beach (the sandy side) but I was by myself for a long time just marveling.

currently doing without a/c because it has been such a cool summer we hadn't put it in. David says I'll put it in and I say this will break, it's gotta break! I want to wait it out if only because the electric bill is so nice and small.

Meanwhile Baby cat is prostrate half the day, stretched out on the bed upstairs (why UP stairs I ask her, isn't it warmer up there? no answer).

So yesterday I got the inspiration to train down to Beverly and renew my driver's license. The Iron Horse is air conditioned so is the RMV. (I remember so clearly as a kid accompanying adults to sweltering places and imagined how that woulda felt yesterday! like a scene out of 'Body Heat.')

Speaking of the cat, on Saturday despite the heat I took a bus with my bike to Essex to find her favorite food then bicycled the 5 miles or so home with it. As a person new to bicycling (strange as that may seem) it was quite the challenge. Was she grateful? No, although there was a certain amount of somewhat grateful meowing around our sharing a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna.

Here come the seagulls, 5:07 a.m. There is one insomniac sea gull I hear around 3 every morning. I had planned to get up around 3 to enjoy the cool part of the day (as David has been doing) but slept 'in' till 4:30.

(David informs me, We broke the record for heat on Monday and Tuesday and I've read that today will be only moderately better. It's the dog days, Baby cat!)

I ran into someone on the train who teaches math in South Africa and is setting up a program in Guatemala next year. They use all kinds of techniques including the arts in her programs. Last year they had kids making instruments out of found objects and using them to make music.

That sounds so cool. Reminded me of the drummer years ago in NYC who played upside down plastic paint buckets. He was a great drummer and drew big crowds. Somewhere there's a documentary by one of the Talking Heads guys about 'playing the street' i.e. the sidewalks, the mailboxes.

Ahh, but this is just too captivating a thought to indulge in the middle of a heat wave. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll spend the day collecting potential instruments...coffee cans I've already started on but she said you can use crushed soda cans (you play these like the old washboards)...or maybe I'll just IMAGINE doing all this and instead lay on the rug upstairs like Baby cat and watch the air shimmer in the heat! Or maybe it'll suddenly occur to me that I LIVE BY THE OCEAN! Maybe I'll go to the water!

I loved your comments, Robin, MoonMab, and news.

The guitar is such a magical instrument. Last year, doing that same program in Boston, I met someone in front of the Orange Line T stop on State Street who launched into a very interesting tale about her own playing. (She's currently guitarless.) She said one of the reasons the guitar is such a 'personal' instrument is because we hold it so close to our bodies. I'd never thought of that before but of course it's true.

I remember a million years ago standing in FAO Schwarz in NYC with my father, who was a pianist, looking up at a very inexpensive nylon string guitar hanging on the wall and saying I want that! And my father saying No you don't!

I can't remember whether it was because he knew it was too inexpensive to be worth playing or because he was absolutely determined that I not take up music. He knew first hand what a tough thing it was. (I fooled him! I went into the theatre! ha ha)

Anyway, the heat and humidity have returned so Robin, we're going to just have to wait on Autumn a bit longer. Sigh.

But this is a time to be gathering the forces in a sense professionally but suddenly out of the blue also personally: my friend, Sharon, who I wrote about a few months ago, has been told she has uterine carcinosarcoma. The journey for her has been so intense. From an April scan that found endocrinal tumors in the abdomen to this week when a test found malignant cells in the uterus. Her doctors never call. They had a nurse call to give her this tough news. I was astounded by that.

Meanwhile she's taking a long-planned vacation. She and her husband are both PILOTS and are flying across country in a little Cessna. Amazing.

I'm going to ignore the heat and go for a healing walk with my young friend Joan. If we could get to a farm stand that would be great but instead I imagine we'll walk to the pretty coast and have ice cream. There's a lot to be said for that.

It's a little after 5 in the morning. I'm two days passed summer work. Hard to believe. Once upon a time I had a very crammed summer, so much so that at the halfway point, with 3 weeks to go, I felt it would never end. My friend, Steve, and I walked together that halfway day and he reminded me, '3 weeks is not a very long time.' But it sure felt like it was. Yesterday, August 12, is that 3-weeks-after-my-walk-with-Steve milestone only it's 3 weeks plus 4 years, my walk with him being July 23, 2005. Time is a funny customer.

This year was nowhere near as busy and although it makes for less income it made for a better summer. I loved my walks around Boston and a trip I took to Cape Cod (by bus!) to perform at a couple of wonderful libraries.

One of the librarians there is a master at papier mache. She designs masks and showed me a few of them. Really spectacular.

Yesterday was the ideal day off. The terrible 95 degrees with nearly 100% humidity day (Monday) was gone. I was done for the summer and it was in the 70's. I could putter in my office upstairs without passing out from the heat. So I decided (after spending a few minutes sorting magazines into NEW piles ha ha) to repair broken things. I replaced batteries in a little bird and sewed stomachs on two little penguins I made 30 years ago. Their stuffing's been coming out for probably 20 of those years. I call them the Hair Brothers. 'One's name is Sam, he's stuffed with Spam...' I think I made them the summer after a friend and I hitchhiked around Maine. Stephen King's novel 'The Stand' was being advertised on the radio a lot and the signature line was 'He came out of the West like a boiling Armaggedon!' So Thornton, my buddy, and I used to say the littlest of the Hair Brothers 'came out of the West like a boiling Armaggedon.' It's actually Thornton's guitar I carry around with me. I bought it from him in 1988 before he moved out of New York (six months or so before David and I did the same thing, T. to Seattle, D. and I here to Massachusetts). He'd been given the guitar at 16 and is now a master, playing 12 string guitars etc. I strum along joyfully on his starter instrument which is actually a pretty darn good one.

In the here and now David's writing, got up probably at 4 am. Baby cat ran down beside me at a little before 5, had her water and went back upstairs.

We've indulged and bought the most wonderful bread (can't afford it during poorer times). So with the breeze blowing, the rain falling, and the gulls calling I'm ready for toast and tea.

Hi all,
I had been typing along on a new entry, hit a funny button, and it's gone! Into the ether! Reminds me of one of your entries, Robin.

It was great to read your comments, and yours, MoonMab, and news. So great to be back and somewhat odd to realize the summer is flying away, too. (Really, though, I wonder where my lovely prose disappeared to?! So odd. But poetic in a 'life is change' kind of way.)

As I was writing before I got completely and irrevocably interrupted I'm employed by a program funded by the Mayor to bring books and stories to neighborhoods all around Boston. I bring the guitar and play songs as well, which is very helpful.

It was funny you mentioned Spanish guitar, MoonMab. I perform my own children's songs but briefly studied the technique many many years ago. Right now, though, and for the past few years, I've focussed on the songwriting and try to improve my playing as I go along knowing it's not my primary emphasis.

Still the kids love to talk about the guitar and strum it after the program. ('One finger!' I tell the 4 and 5 year olds. 'One finger, gentle gentle!')

The other day I was confronted in a library show with an unexpected turnout of very teeny kids and lots and lots of them. It was CHAOS. So I picked up the guitar and strummed some chords and it was instant quiet. Afterwards the Librarian says to me, I'M GETTING A GUITAR!!!

What I really really want right now is an electric guitar, just to fool around with at home.

For now though I look forward to Tuesday and then to Wednesday when I'll write my notes about the wonderful season passed and plan for the next adventure.

It's hard to believe so much time has passed so quickly. Not only the two months since I visited here but the near year since my surgery. The other night David, my dh, asked when was it? He couldn't remember!!! September 8. Last year at this time I was all involved with should I/shouldn't I's.

I managed to get some work for the summer that took me through the streets of Boston carrying sometimes a puppet, but always my guitar. This led to some wonderful experiences. For some reason I tend most often to meet musicians in Dorchester. Just yesterday as I was walking up Geneva Avenue a man starting his car asked me about the guitar and it turned out his son is on full scholarship to Berklee Music and he himself is a songwriter.

Three weeks ago I'm getting off the bus on Seaver Street and the Bus Driver says, 'Is that an acoustic guitar?' He plays sax and has a website. That same day I was taking a short cut on a somewhat quiet street and a man pulls up in his SUV and calls out (without even pulling in closer to the sidewalk) 'Is that a bass?' 'No, acoustic guitar.' Turns out he's always wanted to play bass but won't buy one because he's worried he won't play it. I said, 'if you're not going to concertize why worry about how much you play??? Just do it.'

We put such demands on ourselves and then deny ourselves these wonderful things. I told the guy we need more music in the world you gotta get a bass.

It's been so much fun to be doing stuff again. Now, though, it's all winding down. Next Tuesday I have one last Boston gig for the summer. SIGH. But it's glorious here today after this bizarre rainy summer.

A day off!!!! And it's the best kind! After having work the week before!!!!

Margali

For the last week perhaps due to ongoing financial stress I've been feeling like I'm jumping out of my skin. This is such a weird feeling. I guess it could be hormonal, too. Or a combination of EVERYTHING.

One piece of good news, David's back off cigs. He took a balanced view of his 'bad day' and went on from there.

I however have yet to learn balanced anything. I went to bed at 7:30 last night because I was so stressed (I had gotten up at 3 that morning). Baby cat joined me (cats always know the value of sleeping). I thought I'd read but couldn't concentrate.

My last thought as I pulled the covers over, 'my life is over.' Can you imagine? Reminds me all of a sudden of the character in a Chekhov play, a young woman who at the beginning of the play (she's dressed all in black) announces to the assembled gathering, 'I am in mourning for my life!'

Then I dreamed of a woman who ran a bed and breakfast in Maine I visited in 1978. She wasn't in the dream but her problems were. In real life I had run into her one morning all those years ago and she smelled of alcohol which horrified me. Now in the dream I've ordered a chardonnay at a coffeeshop in NYC and the name of the place was HER name.

Does this mean I'm worried about chardonnay? Well, kind of. I'd been entirely off alcohol for ten months and then about a month after surgery a cousin visited and insisted on wine. That was okay. But this long long winter of visiting mom in rehab and my long long history of wanting to 'check out' as Anne Lamott calls it prompted me to say heck what's a glass of wine a night going to do? (Which translates to 2 glasses in reality).

What I think is really contributing to physical stuff may be hypoglycemia. Still, I see my doc next week (first time since October). I'm definitely going to ask for HRT. I have a lot of writing to do (not to mention a lotta livin') and it's not possible with this craziness.

(Ohhhh the birdies are singing! So wonderful!)

I hadn't been able to get a good picture to post of the worry beads I'm making but I think I'll try again. For now, though, I'm going to post a photo of the puppet I bought for myself a week before the surgery. Her name is Hannah and she has a blankie. (Maybe that's what I need, a blankie and a pacifier.)

MoonMab, I have 'told on' BabyCat for running away to several of our friends and she's still smug and unapologetic.
I ran into a woman from our vet's office and she was sympathetic especially since, as she told me, indoor kitties don't always find their way home. If anything scares them they run and then get too confused to find their way back. I just can't even think about it, my cat is such a good friend to me.

Diverchick I have used automatic writing and it's a great idea.

Robin, I so enjoyed reading about the garden. It reminded me of the artists Susan Shie and James Acord. Every year they make a rainbow garden at their house in Wooster, OH. On their website, turtlemoon.com, Susan has archived her 'turtletrax' diary and in a few of the entries she talks about creating that wonderful garden.

Meanwhile, the day I wrote the entry about worrying I discovered David has been smoking. He's going to try again, though, to quit. I guess I suspected something the night before. He said he would go to the store for water and he never does that. We don't have a car so usually when we're in we're in. Especially since we're both very early risers (it's 3:14 a.m. now).

The next day I saw him sitting on a bench in front of the library. I was a distance away and then I saw the old throwing the cig in the street arm gesture. Big sigh.

That day, Monday, I had wandered around town and one of our local offbeat (as in well, nuts) musicians, a man in his early 70's, called out, 'I have found the meaning of life! It's JOY. And if you really push it, it's ECSTASY!'

He stopped a tourist couple on the street to announce this to them. I wrote it down in my little notepad as I walked along but then I saw him awhile later and he called to me,
'I have found the meaning of life!' He also happened into the coffeeshop where David was hanging out and announced it to everybody there.

Later when I ran into David in front of the library where he was just as unapologetic about smoking as BabyCat was about running away, he showed me a prize purchase, a CD he bought for 10 dollars of one of our local poets. (We've got several, one very famous, the late Charles Olson.)

He'd been to our bookstore (where he bought a book of poetry) and the used record store, Mystery Train (where he found the CD). So there we were across the street from our City Hall (a place where Rudyard Kipling had once spoken among many others) and David makes his own announcement standing near me, arms spread wide, 'Isn't this the greatest little town!'

I imagine the ingestion of nicotine may have had something to do with this particular moment of joy. But maybe not, it was indescribably beautiful out, and there we were together, looking pretty good, a day past our 26th anniversary. Whoa.

I guess I'm in a strange place right now. I'm trying to learn mindfulness despite being a person easily triggered into melt down. (For example, Friday night my indoor kitty got out and it took me half an hour in the dark to find her. We have a huge field behind the house. So there I was calling 'Baby! Baby!' in the pitch dark. She finally streaked past me and I grabbed her not even knowing if it was she. Up the back stairs we went. She looked very smug. I was a wreck.)

But I read in the Globe of the passing of a woman I knew briefly some years ago and it brought me up short. She's almost exactly my age, a very vibrant person.

So I've decided not to worry about my mom's health and my own issues around life and death till I've seen everything on this lovely planet I want to see.

I've lived in a box called WORRY for so long and what good does it do, really? My mom is fine for the moment, my DH has been off cigs (after a few missteps) for a few weeks and that's amazing, and Baby Cat was found sans skunk, sans cat or raccoon bite. My sister and I got closer because of my surgery and I've been having wonderfully vivid penniless dreams.

It's Sunday, it's a cool evening, there's a bird chirping, and I'm still here. WAY COOL.



For the moment.

And it's raining. I've been up since 3:30 (woke up at 2 telling myself try to sleep one more hour and I did.) Just now I heard a street fight which in this town is odd for the early morning hours on this street. Little did they know they had an insomniac and her cat listening in.

Anyway, I've missed visiting here, just got swept up into money panic which in my case means I disappeared into avoidance activities like hiding out in the library. I also discovered I can use an old toaster oven to make polymer clay (worry) beads. So I've been enjoying obsessively making things even tho I still have no paying work.

(I'm going to try to upload a picture of one of my polymer clay things, either beads or one of the puppets I've made.)

Meanwhile my friend Sharon was told she nearly certainly had lymphoma which they told her was very treatable. Then they came back after tests and told her she doesn't have lymphoma but may have pancreatic cancer which really threw her for a loop. So for three days she hangs out with this scary prospect and then they come back and say she DOESN'T HAVE THAT EITHER.

At this point it's a watch and wait situation to see what this endocrinal (sp?) tumor does.

I can't imagine how she got through it. But I'm very relieved it's looking so much less frightening for her.

As if in recognition of this weekend I dreamed last night about my late step dad, Ben, who landed on Omaha Beach on D Day. And two days ago I unearthed my father's keepsake from another war: in 1938 he accompanied my great grandfather to the 75th Civil War reunion in Gettysburg. My great grandfather had fought with the Union troops from NY. They gave him and my dad each commemorative medals with their names engraved on it.

My father had talked about this when I was little (he died when I was 11) but I hadn't understood the significance till I visited Gettysburg a few years ago. The 1938 event is memorialized there.

All I remember my father saying was that he couldn't get over Gettysburg was a DRY TOWN. My mother tells me she remembers him telling her how funny it was to see these very old guys, union and reb, some in uniforms (like my great grandfather was) yelling at each other, 'I should have killed you when I had the chance!'

And another piece of ancient military history, for which I only have a write-up in a newspaper, my father's grandfather from Italy had been a drummer boy with Garibaldi's forces.

Because my dad was so much older than my mom I never met even his father, though I have his picture on my wall. He was a concert violinist. My father was a pianist but he got an arm injury in World War II that effectively ended his career.

The birds are singing with the sunrise and I'll let them bring me back from the long ago to the here and now.

In honor of Earth Day I've uploaded a photo of one of our unexpected guests. I took this with my old Yashica FX3 ($87 in 1989!!) It's almost all manual which means you need a steady hand and you have to snap quick. I must say, though, this critter was pretty unflappable.

We had a beautiful day yesterday made even better because my downstairs neighbor gave me the bicycle that's been sitting in the basement unused for years. She had gotten it from our next door neighbor who moved and left it sitting in front of the house.

It's in terrific shape unlike my back and shoulders who barked until I realized I had to move the seat lower. Crescent wrench to the rescue (I had asked David not realizing the crescent wrench would take the place of arm strength and since his 'yes' means 'someday ok maybe' I found the right tool and tah dah.)

I've had many reasons this week to try to live the minutes and not worry every second (don't know if that metaphor works). This practice has brought joy even though I still have very little work and mom is ill.

Then this weekend I found out my good friend who lives in San Francisco (and who is my age) may have lymphoma. I couldn't believe it. She goes for a biopsy tomorrow.

She mentioned the serenity prayer so I emailed it to her. I had researched it some time ago and discovered it's an adaptation of an old Mother Goose rhyme.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.

But I added after that First, though, God grant me the strength (or testosterone) to smash everything in the house and then get serene.

She's already feeling of course terribly worried plus angry though she sounded better on Sunday. She said if I'd known this was going to happen I'd have led a wilder life.
I said, but Sharon you're a pilot!

She had told me a long time ago this was something she really wanted to do. During one of her lessons she was standing next to the small plane waiting for the instructor and she said, 'I felt like Amelia Earhart.' She's been flying now for years.

It certainly takes a wild woman to make dramatic dreams come true.

And here are the howling winds of the Nor'easter as the crows and seagulls call.

if not right with the world getting better. I'm trying hard to feel better in my little world because I have a lot to be grateful for despite all the worries. This comes to mind partly due to rereading your post, Robin, about gratitude. I really have to try to land back on the planet one step at a time to see everything through -- mom's stuff, money stuff, lack of work which for me is not only about money but about missing the joy of working.

MoonMab, I'm concerned about your mom. Is she doing any better? Thank you for your kind note about my mother's illness. This is so difficult. Right now my mom's weight seems to have settled (this is one of the warning signs of congestive heart failure, weight gain overnight of more than a pound). When my sister calls (as she has done in the past) to say mom is out of breath my heart just stops.

But this week -- as my friend Lucille pointed out --- mom had a better day when she began to feel better than I did because I was so wracked with anxiety I could barely sit down except later in the evening when L. and I went to dinner and I downed two glasses of chardonnay. Sigh.

Anyway this morning I thought it was already 5:30 and got up but discovered it was 4:30. Can't read in the dark. Baby cat ran downstairs (and this is for animal people's eyes only!) and jumped in the kitchen sink. She never used to do this I don't know what the thing in her brain that clicked off and said, sitting BY the sink is just not enough.

Actually she wants to sip water from the tap. Ok, I'm a cat maniac, I don't chase her off the counter. (I clean the house really well before visitors.)

David got up before me as usual. He's not doing well with the smoking thing. What is awful about this is to hear him use his inhaler and then watch him go out onto the deck right after that to have another cigarette.

But enough with woes and worries. There's an old Yiddish folktale about how 'things can always get worse.' Being myself Italian we always seem to be able to see the worst in everything even when it's good. I heard someone say of Richard Nixon 'he couldn't take yes for an answer.'

Well, it's time for me to say yes, I have lots to be happy about. For one thing yesterday my school ring (which I haven't removed for decades) had to be sawed off and the jeweler didn't charge for it. Sweet guy.

And I just caught sight of some of my favorite smilies off to the right so maybe I'll indulge and throw some in here as I sign off.

I mean the Census people. As one of the farm team I guess I just have to cool my heels. Of course wouldn't I just love it if a whole bunch of money fell on us (this is my husband's lottery playing mantra) and I could stay home.

Or not. Actually I felt last week like I was part of this alternate universe and when I came home from training I'd left myself somewhere. It wasn't really till the weekend that I could go into my little office and look around and think oh, yeah, real life! As a symbol of this I've uploaded a photo (which you should be able to see soon) of one of my puppets, Manny. He's a little different today because since the photo was taken I've attached a long stick to his right wrist (the end is hidden under his shirt) so I can operate the mouth and also one hand.

This makes it possible for him to do things like whisper in my ear with one hand on my cheek; also shake hands; hold his head when he forgets things and yawn with one hand politely in front of his mouth.

I haven't been able to really focus on creative stuff for awhile especially with mom's illnesses. This week she's had a symptom she had in the summer right before an episode of congestive heart failure. So that's what today's out of body experience is about. Total anxiety. Will they (now meaning mom or my sister) call to say she's in the hospital? Will I have to race down to NY and do I have enough money to do it? sigh.

I got up at 4:30 mostly to escape a bad dream about the phone ringing.

Still, it's sunny, going to be mid-50's. Maybe I'll take a long walk carrying my notebook and colorful flair pens and the cell phone.

Here at the site, here on the planet, here as in waking up on Saturday after a long week.

I am becoming a Jackie of all trades in this nail biting economy. My latest attempt is what I did this week which is to be trained for phase I of the 2010 Census. I love the idea of this job A) because it's temporary and that fits my restless nature and B) because the pay is a little better than I expected and C) it'll be outside (see restless above); and D) it feels kind of like working for the WPA.

I have no guarantee of work, though, since as our trainer belatedly announced 'you're the farm team.' 'Triple A?' a guy asked.

So if they need us they'll call us. I do get to keep my i.d. badge and a nifty tote bag that has U.S. Census blazoned on it. And there's always a chance if they don't use us for this they'll call us for the later phases (including the one that involves interviewing people at length if they haven't filled out their form).

I went with a friend to CostCo after Thursday's training and discovered again another talent I have. I'd never been to one of these stores before and though I didn't buy anything much there were lots of samples to try. (We hadn't had lunch so this was cool.)

There was one lady just setting up with her blueberry juice samples. We waited but we realized she couldn't get the juice bottle open. I said, 'would you like me to try?' So one quick twist and off came the cap. I said, 'my father was a pianist and I have very strong hands.' (My husband rather uncharitably calls them 'ape hands.') I offered to do her other bottle and she said sure. One flick and off that one came.

So if they need bottle opening people and are willing to pay a lot for it I'm ready.

The other job I see myself doing (ha ha) is to play Wall-E the robot in parades. I've seen the movie three times and I just love it. I do some puppetry and it charmed me from that perspective as well as because I just loved it.

If you've seen the movie you'll have to imagine me saying in a perfect imitation, 'Eve-a? Eve-a? Eve-ahh!' I'm short, too, so I can do the whole thing, climb in the suit, operate the controls, roll the roll and talk the talk.

I can also imitate R2-D2.

I'm so happy spring is showing itself at last I don't want to waste a second of it.

Maybe that's partly responsible for my insomnia. I almost got up at 3:30 but persuaded myself to wait till after 4. I slipped back off to sleep, got up close to 5, and then came downstairs, Baby cat running beside me in the dark.

David's away at work as he always is on the weekend but he'll be home around noon.

MoonMab, I was inspired to upload my cat's photo after seeing Robin's new one of Jenny and also the great one you uploaded of the snow. Has it all melted?

I remember one year after a late winter storm the melting snow formed a pond on the field behind the house. Within a short time several mallards showed up and were paddling around on it. They must have thought we'd put in a pool.

Today it will go over 50 degrees and be sunny. (It's 39.5 now, 5:19 a.m.) I know it's spring I know it's spring!!!

Everyone's ready for it. Yesterday I had a fun breakfast with Betsy, a very good friend, who insisted despite the chill on wearing sandals, capris, no jacket, sunglasses.

When I was laid up Betsy (who is a gourmet cook) made me wonderful soups. This was so comforting not only because I couldn't face eating anything too substantial but also because there was a friend who took good care of David when I was in the hospital (showing up out of the blue for breakfast and such) and I could share the soup with him and his wife. They're still talking about how great the fish soup was.

When I came home from NY last week I noticed that Burnham Field was much greener than it had been the week before. And the crocuses who were just peeking up are now standing tall. I have to admit I didn't know what a crocus was till I moved here. Seasons in New York used to mean summer (because it was awful) and the theatre season.

I'm still not a plant expert. In fact when mom was in the hospital and then in rehab all those weeks I stayed in her apartment and when I walked in the first day all her many house plants took one look at me and shivered in fear. (They were okay when she got home, phew.)

The other tip off about spring is that unless it's my imagination everyone seems to be smiling more. Even yesterday when the wind kicked up and dropped the temperatures a neighbor (already in shorts) walked by and called out cheerfully, 'Hey, it's freezing.'

I have yet in all the years to see this guy walk down the street without his cellphone pressed to his ear. It's amazing. I thought of this yesterday as he paused just long enough in whatever conversation he was having to call to me.

Oh, and Shaw's has put pansies in little green boxes on the street in front of the store. Where once was stacked firewood and suet packages there are flowers! Whoa.

I'm thinking this year when it's really warm I will turn radical and wear sundresses. I found a terrific one last year in the consignment store on Main Street. I couldn't get over how much I liked it. It was a few weeks before surgery and I was being really nice to myself. It only cost ten bucks but it wasn't a money issue. It's just that I've always thought sturdy rather than pretty. I liked to feel like I could walk ten miles at the drop of a hat and that means of course no high heels and very comfortable woods woman type outfits.

Which just reminds me in an early morning stream of consciousness way about the kind of walks I took when I lived in Manhattan before David and I got together.

One spring afternoon I walked from where I was living on 93rd and Lexington to Chambers Street, which is who knows how many miles, wearing 4 inch high heeled boots.

I was in my Otto Preminger phase: black boots over jeans, silk shirts, and killer shades. Oh, and sweater coats! and...

Hmm. Time for toast and

Yesterday it poured and that led to a sweet strange experience. I was walking on the sidewalk near the house heading to the library and this car comes around the corner and speeds through the mini lake forming at the curb. My whole right side was splashed, coat, jeans, but for some reason not my mood. Nevertheless I said out loud, 'I'll have to wash these jeans.' I looked up and a woman was standing on her steps and said, 'Yeah.' We shook our heads over it and smiled and I went on.

More than an hour later I was leaving the library and I hear my name called. A man I don't know came up to me. 'I saw you you know when when' he had a mild stutter but eventually he explained he'd seen me get splashed. I said, 'Wasn't that something!' He smiled and said, 'Well, here!' and he handed me a lifesaver in its own little cellophane wrapper.

Earlier I'd run into a local author/activist. He said in passing, 'haven't seen you in awhile.' All my trips to NY plus burrowing away for the winter, I guess.

Seeing him brought to mind a person I was very lucky to have known, Steve Heims, physicist, author, who with his schoolmates escaped Nazi Germany when he was 10. A very vigorous man he and I walked around Niles Pond for hours talking about everything under the sun. Even after his surgery for stomach cancer he would call and want to go walking. He passed away a few years ago and I miss him.

He was very fond of our cat, Baby. (I've uploaded her photo.) She has a way of looking right at you. Steve said as she sat on the same chair she's on in the photo, 'She's a journalist!'

and I've been awake for an hour. The fog horn has been blowing all night and it became the sound effects to my dreams. This is better than what had been happening some weeks ago. I had been listening to the BBC in the middle of the night on my walkman so all my dreams were political. The cast of characters were friends and family but they were always talking about Pakistan and financial troubles.

So I've abandoned the news as an insomnia aid and now listen to the tape I have of the wonderful actor Saul Rubinek narrating (and acting the voices for) Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, my favorite being 'The Red Box.' I doze off and the walkman shuts itself off and then I have my own, real dreams.

I'm not sure what brings on the insomnia (besides worrying about my mom; money; work; money; David's health stuff; mom; money; work....)

Maybe it's hypoglycemia. Not everything is psychological although thinking it's food related comes directly from my family's psycho obsessions with food. My mom's latest thing is celery. 'Did you know it has sodium in it?' Her 'expert' friend, Anthony the some time orchestra conductor gives her all kinds of cockamamie advice. 'He knows a lot about food!' she told me after I unwittingly had responded 'your cardiologist told you not to eat celery??' No, of course, it was Anthony.

I meanwhile keep a food diary so I can attribute everything from the blues to puffy eyes to puffy anything to cream cheese or maybe frozen vegetables (a word my sister still pronounces 'vengetables.')

My cat is munching on her dry food. She's obsessed with tuna. And David is reading the newspaper. He came downstairs at 4. 'How long have you been up?' he asked. So here we are two draculas with a pet cat, all of us unable to sleep, as the fog horn blows.

For many years a young friend of ours named Joan has cut out images to paste on the windows. She came by yesterday and our windows now say Spring with cheerful cut outs from origami and construction paper.

When she was in high school she could walk up the street to our apartment on the first floor and every season she would add quirky folk art to those big windows we had. This was especially fun at Halloween.

The amazing thing is that we became close despite a rocky beginning.

I come from a family where everybody was in each other's space, i.e. a very intrusive family, and it was made more intense by our being an emotional (all right let's admit it, NUTS) bunch of people and by being confined to tiny apartments.

This is partly what encouraged David and me to move here years ago, breathing room.

Joan comes from a tough situation and when I met her she was 12 and very needy. So needy in fact that two years later when she went to the high school down the street she wanted to stop by every day. Every button I have was pushed. I freaked out.

This sounds heartless perhaps to those who come from more independence-respecting families but if there are those reading this who have come from something similar to me you will know better what I mean. I felt like I was suffocating.

Fortunately I was able to balance things out. I allowed myself the luxury of telling her to call first. And as the years went by I began to look forward to her knock on the door, her rushing in, throwing her book bag on the floor, and slumping onto the couch. And eventually I noticed she had a gift for art, primitive folk art style, but art nevertheless.

In the years since she's made fabric pictures and collages for me, and of course she's decorated the windows. Even for our current second floor apartment, she tries to keep up with the seasons. It's gotten harder though because she's now a teacher, in her late 20's, and the art moments we have together are few and far between.

She values them as a respite from her job teaching science and I value them as a reminder that there can be genuine closeness despite the barriers.

and I've been up since 4 a.m. enjoying being home. Visiting New York to be with my mom has become fairly challenging. She's been ill on and off since 2006 with the most recent thing being a broken pelvis that kept her in rehab from December 3 to February 12. I went back and forth for the first two months then took a break (odd choice of words) when she began to really improve. Now she's home and I went down to stay with her for a few days in her one-room apartment.

Looking out the Greyhound's front window (my favorite seat) I knew I was home the minute we rolled into the top of Manhattan. Parked in front of a gas station was a van which announced in big letters SHLEPPER'S MOVING COMPANY.

I actually should have written 5 bus rides later since to entertain myself one morning I took the #1 bus at 59th and Fifth and rode down to City Hall. This route leaves Fifth Avenue and then travels along Park and switches at some point to Broadway. What an eye opener. I haven't been south of 8th street on Broadway in years. There's a Victoria's Secret on Houston Street! There are Italian clothing boutiques!

When we lived in the East Village our Vet was on Houston Street. When you approached the building it was like coming up on a prison. The entire front was gated with rusting bars; it was a very old building, too, so you could imagine that it had been the hang out for one of the Gangs of New York before the dog and cat doctors rented it. Now they probably couldn't afford the rent.

This means there's more room for people like the woman I overheard at the Central Park boathouse snack bar one morning. I was sitting at a table overlooking the lake and I heard her say to her friend, 'You know it's awful. It just ruins the whole day.'

She got more heated about whatever it was and had the cashier guy call the manager. She says, 'My husband and I have been coming here for years. The last fifteen times we haven't been able to get a corn muffin. It's only 8 in the morning. They can't all be gone already...' And she went on from there, her whole day ruined!

There's something awe inspiring about that kind of self absorption. It combines a kind of neanderthal food lust with nouveau riche entitlement. This was very much in evidence when I worked in a French restaurant years ago. People would come in wearing expensive suits but if you didn't pay attention to them right away they metaphorically banged their utensils on the table. I turned to one guy once and said, 'Oh, hold your horses.'

I say that but I've now succeeded in making myself hungry and since it's self service here...

In "A Child's Christmas in Wales" Dylan Thomas' narrator looks for the little world's news and there's a bit of news in our little world this morning.

First of all it's 23.9 degrees. Unreal. This meant that though David and I were up by 5 the birds stayed away till after 7, quite a few minutes past sunrise. But it's another visitor I was waiting for.

For the past two years a squirrel named Harry would answer to my call. She built a nest in the tree across the way and two years ago came over to our deck with three tiny squirrels so I could meet her offspring. Now whether this was an ancient Roman family or Oedipus thing I don't know but a few days ago I discovered that the squirrel building the nest was not in fact Harry but an imposter. When I called to her she would hide behind a flower pot.

Saturday I came up the back stairs carrying laundry in a plastic Duane Reade bag and I happened to look down as I opened the back door. A squirrel had followed me up the stairs. I said, "Harry? Is that you?" I went in to get a walnut, came out and called "Harry?" And she ran up to me.

She sat with the walnut stuffed into her mouth for a moment then ran down the stairs. I watched her make her way behind three houses to another field. It had been a coup! Or, as David suggested, she found a nicer apartment.

I ran out of walnuts having given most of the bag to the faux Harry (Lavinia) so I bought peanuts hoping Harry would visit today. No sign of her. Too cold! I filled the water dish and looked up and there she was. "Here, Harry." I tossed her a peanut and she stuffed it in her mouth but didn't go anywhere. When I went inside she ran back and forth checking the flower pots with the peanut sticking out of her mouth. Hmm.

David said, "Give her another one." Out I went and she came right over. She stuffed a second peanut in her mouth and then ran down the stairs. I guess she figured it wasn't worth the trip for one.

I loved your comments afrenchfry and MoonMab! Brought a smile to a chilly morning.

I keep hoping for a warm spring morning. I opened the back door onto the deck at 6 a.m. It was dark and cold and silent. By 6:30, though, the crows and the seagulls were calling.

Our layabeds, the house sparrows, can't be bothered to get up till quite a bit later. One time some years ago I had the great fortune to catch sight of a house sparrow in the bare tree just before he woke up. As I watched I saw him shake his head, fluff out his wings a bit, and then make a single chirp. All around him there were other birds and one after the other (at first) they made individual noises. Then it was as if the whole family woke up at once and the chirping became a cacophony of happy sound.

There's not yet that kind of enthusiasm here. I did, however, have the joy of hearing the mournful sound of the mourning dove. She landed on the deck railing and ooohed her greeting. I stepped very carefully and slowly so that I could look out the back door without scaring her and there she was. My sweet cat (indoor carnivore) sat on the counter watching, too.

I'm forever grateful that during the early part of my healing from surgery it was warm and beautiful here. No March winds to contend with! No snow to climb over!

Actually, most of the snow is gone. And I realized reading your journal entry, afrenchfry, that it is time for daffodils. They have not yet managed to appear here, though there are three valiant purple crocuses behind Cape Ann Savings Bank. I am going to treat myself to daffodils at Shaws. "Morning's at 6:30 and all's right with the world!"

When I lived in New York City (where I grew up) I didn't like spring. Can you imagine? All I could think about was that March meant May meant August meant sweltering. The fact that I could worry about August in March is related to one of my hobbies known by the initials A.D., i.e., Anticipatory Dread.

Now that we're in New England and looking out on a bleak landscape I'm overjoyed to have become part of a vast shared human tide of feeling about springtime. Right at this moment the sun is coming up and my cat, whose birthday this is, is sitting on the computer table looking out the window on a world coming back to life.

David is at the table writing poetry on found material, a postcard out of a magazine. (He's been up since 4.) Fortunately he has good handwriting so that we can transcribe it if it turns out to be worth keeping.

And I'm here, of course, typing and relieved to let everyone know that I have no need for the dread thing anymore because our straits are so tightened at this point we're beyond dread. In fact I know that if I'd done less dreading and more planning perhaps this crick wouldn't have riz. (How's that for mixing dialects? David's is Kentucky and mine, New Yawk.)

My laid up time didn't help and there again! I couldn't imagine how I really could need all that time the doctor said I'd need. Not me! Amazon woman? No Way. Geech. My first day home I couldn't open the window. All right they were those new windows not the falling-apart ones we had when we lived in the East Village. Those were half their original weight because the paint had chipped off and the sides had rotted.

Still. Still, this is the first day of spring and though I awoke with a heart in the dead of winter my spirit is whispering a more hopeful tune. "For lo the winter is past..."

It was so much fun to read your comments News and a frenchfry (Robin). Actually, Robin, I had meant to drop you a note. Do you remember months ago I had emailed to ask you about how you were able to upload those wonderful photos of your pets and you with chocolate? When you wrote back that you used your cell phone a light bulb went off for me and I've been a photo texting fool ever since.

It's amazing here this morning. A chill in the air but We've had such a long winter. I hear the birds singing their spring songs but when I put water out for them on the deck (a small people bowl for our house sparrows though Harry the squirrel nearly fell into it yesterday) it frosts over. Today it should manage to be in the 40's and tomorrow close to 60 degrees. Whoa. Short sleeves!

In the opening chapter of the "Wind in the Willows" Mole is doing his spring cleaning but then spring calls to him and he runs out of his burrow into the air. Can I relate to that! First of all the house is a total dusty mess. Secondly, I've been hibernating. This is stress mode for me. But now the world is calling. Suddenly I picture myself walking to our magnificent back shore (an hour and a half round trip walk from here).

The only hold up is they took the Dunkin Donuts out of the Stop and Shop that you come to once you've rounded past Good Harbor Beach. What? No reward? No respite in an old fashioned donut and black coffee? Humph.

Well, the truth is you can't turn around and not find somewhere to get coffee (except on the long stretch of the back shore itself where there are only houses and views of arctic ducks vacationing and the twin lighthouses on Thatcher Island.)

I have succeeded in making myself hungry. Almond butter sandwich anyone?

Well, I'd never seen a smilie much before discovering this site but during my most intense recovery period (1st 4 weeks) I lived and breathed Hystersisters; had a much less pain-filled hospital experience because of information I got here, and have missed visiting, so here's a smilie:
Meaning, I'm new to this, the journal.

It's been like an island in time to look back on 2:30 a.m. sleepless awakes in September, kicking on this 1998 computer, and hanging out here.

I keep thinking I'll journal here at 2:30 a.m. but somehow I've discovered sleeping again. During the height of post op I had been prescribed percoset and had percoset dreams. They were so vivid I actually remember them as though they were a vacation I took. "I'd love to go back there, that place in that dream where...." And then I look it up, reread it, try to imagine it as vividly as possible and maybe journey there again. I had heard there's such a thing as Lucid Dreaming but I dunno. I'm actually trying to not be the CONTROL FREAK I've often been and will let my dreams be what they will. And of course there's no more percoset.

One of the strangest hangovers from the surgery (9/8/08) was I couldn't read. I mean I've been a reader my whole life. When I literally couldn't read, when I was 3, I'd pretend I could read. I pulled down my mother's Modern Library copy of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and imagined I knew what the letters meant. I remember this as if it were yesterday, laying in front of our Black and White Magnavox TV with that book and imagining it was telling stories about zoos. (Could this have been some bizarre psychic reference to the Circus Maximus???)

Anyway, David (my DH) had major surgery many years ago and he had the same thing happen. It was reassuring to hear that it would pass soon. Actually it didn't pass for me till January. Then all of a sudden I emerged from my scattered brain and there was a book waiting for me.

I read "The White Tiger" and that was the beginning. I've since then read two mysteries and three more novels my favorite being "The Bone People" by Keri Hulme.

Ohhhh, a tiger! Did they have tigers in the Circus Maximus?