Must have been

I am bed blogging...that is to say I am sleepless and blogging from bed with the three Viking cats, reflecting on a comment that a friend made regarding my renewed joy for/of life since the de-booting.  And I guess I had been down for the past eight weeks, first from the pain then from being cast, so to speak, an invalid.  Consider that word...in-valid., not valid. That's how I felt.  And while friends were supportive and I was able, after a while, to joke about clunking around in a boot, I was depressed. And weary of having to HAVE so many taking care of me.  That was the hardest part. Some of the  depression was due to the need to find a new therapist, which did resolve itself nicely with the finding of Hyphen 2.0 but the devolution of The Bird, the dread of going to therapy with her and the lack of empathy from her office as I was desperately seeking solace and the leg issue conflating, as it were, made for a miserable ending of my first summer in Sans Souci.  Now, de-booted, I find I have loads to do in the yard to get ready for winter.  And Friday I have forty tulip bulbs coming, a housewarming gift from my aunt in California, that will require planting this weekend,  as it is supposed to be a delightful weekend and a good time to work in the yard.  I also have twenty daffodils bulbs to plant.  JB has offered to help plant and I think Sunday would be the best day.  Friday we have the symphony and Saturday we have football and Bill Maher, the latter at the Wharton.  Yes, Sunday while the cats pillage we shall plant.  And I promise, Sophie, not to overdo it as regards the leg.

October promises to be a busy month socially.  Shows at the Wharton, a Jammin' Jews rehearsal and of course Halloween with the zombie flamingos, legless in flower pots (not the mums however).  I am actually looking forward to Halloween and have sufficient candy for a number of tykes.  Pumpkins, along with the killer mums, populate the front yard.  I tick off things I must do: take in the hoses, the solar powered bird baths, the setting up of bird and squirrel feeding stations, et cetera.  Not to mention the planting of bulbs of the flowering type.  Yes,  this will be a busy weekend.  Sophie is taking me to Kroger's as I actually can shop for myself this week and actually start cooking real meals, not the heat and serve I was doing or the constant ordering in of food stuff.  And I have loads of produce on my shopping list.  I have two dinners for friends planned this month.  As I enumerate the things I have to do I realize that one, I am happy, and two, I am a tad overwhelmed.  All due to the de-booting.

Leif just attacked Lars as he slept...awkward sentence.  The Viking Leif attacked the sleeping Lars as Sven watched with trepidation.  Would he be next?  Not so.  They are sacked out and Lars is camped on the floor a victim of full frontal attack by the smallest cat in the house,  the ten pound Leif, aka Gonif, attacked the twenty five pound Lars, formerly Yankel, while Sven alright Simcha, watched with bemused delight,  I don't know at what point in my convalescing they turned into Vikings I just know they did.  They were Western European for a while, starting with a football Saturday renaming ritual by Eduardo.  Alright, the truth is I was bored and booted and feeling sorry for myself.  So why not have Vikings for cats.  Sophie's cat, Morty, suggested the pillaging option, offering a broad sword for their first pillage.

So it has been an hour and I am not closer to being tired, marveling at the auto-fill suggestions.   Someday I will just let the gibberish stand as is.  Nonsense on the order of Lewis Carroll. Might as well get up.  Sleep did fail me now.  Might as well be productive and read.  Damn Viking cats.

Day One

Day One of the new no boot era.  Time to bell the cat.  People can no longer hear my clunking approach.  I walked more today than I had in a long time.  Topped off by a session of reflexology with the best reflexologist in town.  What a great way to relax.  I also was able to do good today by donating coats and blankets to EVE.  Bird feeders are full and I am wondering if finches migrate in the winter or if I will have them and nuthatches all winter and the need for their special seeds.  All of this felt good and having had a good and busy day at work I am now ready to make a meal and watch the Cubs (who I am rooting for) play the Pirates (who I am rooting for) in a wild card baseball game. How can I lose...or more to the point, how can I win?  So I may end up watching old Law and Order episodes and catch the score in the morning. Four games tomorrow I believe...baseball nirvana.  So all is right with the world.  The Viking Cats (Sven, Lars and Leif) have decided to go out and pillage tonight so it should be a quiet evening.  Hopefully they limited the pillaging to the house, as they are afraid of the outside and I did lie to them.  I told the if we bought this house they could lay on the porch while I read the paper.  Well, the screens need to be replaced and there are two outdoor cats that roam the neighborhood and you know how cats can get. So they will pillage the house. Get treats and go to bed.  Lovely.

Time to make a meal.

Attack of the killer Mums

Yep, I gots 'em.  The biggest mums on the block.  So big, in fact, that a couple stopped their SUV and marveled at the sight, inquiring as to where I purchased them.  Actually, they magically appeared on day, much to my surprise.  Too big?  I think not.  Here is one of the two giant mums.

Bootless in East Lansing

Not quite Sleepless in Seattle but something even better.  For the first time since July 20th I am without leg pain and finally bootless.  Happy, happy, joy, joy.  I am walking a little gingerly, favoring the right leg.  But it is a bootless leg and I am happy.  Now if only my new glasses would come in I could quit doing my best pirate imitation so I can focus.  As it is my right eye is closed as I see double with both eyes open.  It's hell getting older but it beats the option.

Oh, what a day.  From having a slip and fall at work and worrying for four hours if I had injured my leg and nursing a hurt elbow (nice and purple thank you) but spilling only a little water from the cup I was carrying.  Sweating out the X-Ray. Being told I could wean off crutches, which I told him I already had done, and weaning off the boot, which. I had been doing at home, I took the boot off and put on the shoe I wanted for so long.  Over eight weeks of pain and crutches.  Almost passing out at work a few times and missing a Hyphen 2.0 appointment and feeling guilty when she called me the next day to see how I was doing.  Oh, what a time I had.  And all the great friends I have who helped out, from doing laundry and making a bed, to collapsing boxes and carting them away.  And a special thanks to Sophie Handelman and Ethel Nussbaum who did my grocery shopping for those eight weeks and more.  And cleaning litter boxes and feeding the boys.  Great friends.

So, after the debooting JB and I got me some lunch and then we went pumpkin shopping.  Home again and she, good friend that she is, helped me get clothes around to donate to EVE along with some blankets.  Them we had a field day watching MSNBC and doing our own commentary.  Off again To see Hyphen 2.0. I had what I thought was a good session.  I still  need to process the loss of the original Hypen but that will be for next week, along with a diatribe about my rat bastard cousin.  And need to get around to a lot of stuff at the house, but for right now I will be gentle with myself.  I think I will visit Jerry tomorrow and see if Sophie will go with me.  More closure.

But for now, save for needing glasses that are forthcoming, things are good.  Life is good.  I need to do a great deal of work outside the house.  Get ready for the dread of winter which may be bearable in the new house as it will be a new type of winter.  Giant mums populate the front yard along with pumpkins.  And the zombie flamingos.  I am set for Halloween.

I feel like I need to close with something on a deeper level.  I have two sacked out cats in bed and one on the couch.  Trigger finger is still triggering so no guitar playing tomorrow morning.  No jamming Jew.  Alright deep thought.  No matter where you go, there you are.

Today is THE day

Or it better be.  The boot must go.  As will the crutches.  And, no, I am not going to run or even walk a marathon the first day out.  Maybe not even the second day.  Right now I can't even manage the crutches with the trigger finger on my left hand.  I had a steroid injection at the base of the finger yesterday and it is, to say the very least, a little sore.  I am wearing a full Hyphen 2.0 outfit today as it is also therapy day.  So I am looking, to say the very least, sharp.  But the boot must go, to be placed in the basement along with other memories.  Yes, today is the day.  Two shoes, no limping.

I think I am due for a better streak in the coming months.  It has been since July 20th when the leg first headed south without me and I was walking on it for another two weeks before it was cloaked in said boot.  Ah, the pain, the sixty-four Oh, Gods I uttered at lunch one day when the pain was at its worse as counted by Sophie Handelman.  The day I nearly passed out at work and couldn't make it to therapy.  A few days after the first orthopedist opined that I didn't need to wear a boot.  Jackass.  

And just now to add insult to injury I wiped out on the way back from getting water.  My right leg went out from under me in a smooth motion.  I went down on my right elbow and hip, without, I say with injured pride, spilling the water I was carrying.  What a way to start out a day.  Fux and double fux.

So that said, the day has to get better.  Here's to bootless, tootless Tuesday.

Sorry for the downer

Well, as I was processing the events of the past week I may have waxed maudlin.  In order that I might lighten your day and mood I repeat the words of the late Chuckles the Clown "a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants".  Or more to the point, as Sophie Handelman oft reminds me, Unicorns have rainbow farts.  Just remember that the next time you see a rainbow, a unicorn or pass gas.  Rainbow farts.  Not Skittles, but Unicorns.

And now we resume our regularly scheduled day.

Closure of a sort

Last night as I was pondering the universe, like you do, I finally felt a sense of closure regarding Jerry.  The whole situation of mixing his ashes with the composting materiel and the placing of the mixture in the hole where the tree was planted somehow seemed surreal at the time.  Last night I bid adieu to my old buddy Jerry and his Jerryisms of misspeak.  My favorite Jerryism was when he spoke about his mother who was in the hospital at the time and he said "she's stabled but she still is a little horsed".  Or his reference to his antihistamine at the time, Trinalin, as Trinidad.   His love of a few "questionable sites" on the internet.  The ones I had to shout over as I entered his apartment to check in on him.  And, finally, that fateful day I came home, full of good news, and checked in on him only to find his lifeless body on the floor.  That was horrific for me.  And I supposed for him as well.  He had been fading, his health failing, which prompted me to check in on him daily to make sure he ate and had enough beer and cigarettes to last him for a few days, but I never expected the final view of him, laying there on the floor, looking rather peaceful, I must say, in repose, in death.  Now I have his memory and a visible sign of his life in a beautiful sugar maple tree near Beaumont Tower across the street from the library.  A tree I think I will visit in a few minutes just to see it and tell him a goodbye that felt incomplete a few days ago.  Reverend Percy did an outstanding service and I keep reflecting on some of his words of solace.  A living testament to Jerry's commitment to MSU.  I feel like I need a few moments alone with the tree and Jerry to really say goodbye.  It seemed easier with my parents.  The closure I sought with my dad came the day of the funeral.  Somehow seeing his body wrapped in a shroud laying there was numbing but also final.  That service was quick and to the point and we said our goodbyes.  I did have a nice number of family there with me and paid for a luncheon post service.  That was awkward but no one wanted to come to the old house in Detroit so we moved from Ferndale for the funeral to Southfield for a luncheon, where I sat with his brother and my cousins and we broke bread.  I was numb but cognizant of the fact of his passing.  With Jerry, until this week, the process seemed incomplete with me moving him around the condo, giving him to Toni when I moved, moving him to Sans Souci for a visit, moving him to the Percys' and finally opening the box containing his ashes and mixing them with the compost.  That, too, was numbing.  But last night it seemed finally done.  He is at rest with the earth and part of the living earth and, as such, his memory lingers on.  I rarely get to Ferndale now to see my parents, really only when there are funerals in the family.  But I do stop at their graves and leave a pebble or two as a token of my visit.  I may place a pebble near Jerry's tree today and really say my final goodbyes.  But I think after daybreak I will go out to the tree and just commune with nature and Jerry and misspeak myself in remembrance.  As Jerry might opine "this too shall past".  Past it has, as well as passed.  Goodbye old friend.