Taking Inventory

"Do you hurt anywhere right now?' they ask Don first thing when he is seen at the VA Hospital. And he always says, "No.." How can that be? I wonder this because Don has osteoporosis. And I don't, but if they were asking me and I sat quietly, I could tell them that my thumb hurts at the base on my right hand and right above my hand on my left arm hurts, and there is a band on my back just below my neck that aches a bit, and the right side of the headache area is activated as it would be in a migraine if I had migraines any more. Now that isn't much I know. But I don't understand about Don. He has some spinal column work done with the same thing you use to seal up windows; he has the osteoporosis; his hip hurts too much for him to ever walk more than a block; his left leg is totally swollen from poor circulation. And I begin to understand that pain is to the beholder as is beauty, relative. So I let him know when I hurt and he does not let me or anyone know about his hurts.

Sometimes when we are at odds a bit or just unsettled, I will ask for a "Getting Current" a management I learned once in a twelve step group. First one person tells about a period of time using "I words", without blame, the good experiences and the bad. And then another does the same. And that way everyone knows what is going on with each one. "Who will go first," I will say. "You first," Don will answer. Don will listen to my "I words" and try not to interrupt, and then when it's his turn, he will say, "I have nothing to report." And we are done. Is that a man-woman thing?

So I know that I probably spill too much and he spills not a drop.

Seems like a good time for a "Getting Current" right now. About me and my family, partially including Don.

The Christmas tree still stands. The ornament of the Marcel Marceau on the unicycle is well spotlighted by thefurnace's blowing of the tinsel to feature it. I've loved each Christmas card and any written note included. I gained a bit of weight surely from the chocolate I continued to eat all day, so much chocolate thatl Don disgustedly decided to hold the prime rib for the next day. I met the family by phone, hearing about a motor bike, cameras, video games, a remodeled bathroom project, family entertainments, good times.

I'm remarkably healthy, 75 going on 76. I'll probably live til 96. I have new lines down from my mouth like a ventriloquist doll. I note them, regret so many sour looks, rub Vicks on them at bedtime. I still have my own teeth, my hair is no longer bottle blond but natural grey. There is a balding spot above my forehead. I wonder "who in the hell" is that old lady in the mirror? And don't worry about it.

It is good living here in the mountains. It's nostalgia time living in someplace so like the canyon cabins of my childhood. I eat with the "ladies who lunch" three times a week and work on a group puzzle. I read, knit dish cloths, watch Charlie Rose and films on the telly. I sleep from 12 to 8:45 with BBC and do my 3 pages until 9:00, drink my half cup of coffee and with laxity plan out my day. (To be continued)

We forgot yesterday, to go to the Spring Creek Community breakfast where widow woman Wilma Woody was going to be Mrs. Santa Claus. Shoot. And I did so want to go there for Christmas reasons. The community has such meals as fund raisers to finish the restoration of the beautiful old rock Spring Creek School where Wilma Woody and the other "ladies who lunch" went to school.

I hear that Kevin Spacey has written, directed, acted and sung in a movie abut Bobby Darren and that Kevin Spacey was a singer before he was an actor. Because it is being released now suggests that it may be a fine film. I never liked Bobby Darren, but Don says that he did. The idea is not appealing to me at all.

We finally saw Mystic River, which was much too large for even the HBO screen. The sound was unbalanced. It seemed disjointed. I have noticed this before about a film, Piano for instance, which is too big for television. So, I will see Mystic River again even on the tele just to hear it and see it better. But I think the big screen is for me. I did have to stop knitting dish cloths while I watched it. I love film. I hate the whole idea of TV which can rot a brain. I'd like to live without it, but here in the mountains, its my contact with the rest of the world.

Today is Sunday and I need to get birthday cards ready for the rest of the December birthday people, Tori, Ahnawake, Haley, Daniel and Zachary .

I've sent all the packages but the kilim for Jenny and her dish cloths. And the covered cherry chocolates for Cope.

Don made his second sale on EBay in a month. He sold his video camera for $51.00. He coughs and hacks away in the living room from either his cold or his smoking. And I claim to have stopped smoking but I do smoke some and when I was watching the disturbing film last night, I smoked a whole cigarette.

I am undisciplined, always have been, and I need to work on that character defect. I can't seem to have just one piece of Don's strawberry rhubarb pie or one of the See's chocolates. I can work on discipline after I finish up on argumentativeness which is my present character defect for God and me to work on

The sun shines. Don keeps closing the Venetian blinds. So I open them because I know it's cold outside, but if the sun shines in on me, I shine better. Don raises the thermostadt to 74 and I turn it down to 72. So blinds and temperature go up and down all day.

The water is up in stream (I can see water spilling over into the winter-dead plants) and river. Its a sound I love, that rush of water over rock. Blaze and I don't walk over at our sweet-dead-neighbor, Eauls anymore. There is a "no trespassing" chain to stop us at the bridge, and we are willing to climb over that, but it seems so gloomy over there without a person about, only a truck and an Explorer and a BMW and a bunch of old riding lawn mowers and their lawn mower parts.