Memorial Day Itself

 Feels really strange to be sitting here with coffee & little dogs & not going to work on this rainy Monday morning… Thunderstorms started rolling through about 3 AM; my sleep quality was marginal.

AT&T continues to provide me with exceptional customer service (snark): a voicemail that my friend Charles left me Saturday night didn’t come through till almost noon yesterday. He was dyspneic - sounded purely awful as I prepared emergency plans in my head - he is completely isolated now (quick recap: Charles recognized something was dreadfully wrong around Thanksgiving when he kept vomiting & lost 35 pounds before the end of the year. He was declining hospitalization for testing, yet couldn’t get in with a gastroenterologist until March? He wound up staying with his sister near Houston for a while; ultimately being diagnosed w/esophageal carcinoma (metastatic disease by that time of course) by the Texas Medical Center. Charles opted for palliative care only; they put in a stent so he has been able to eat soft foods & soups but insisted on coming back home. He had made that difficult decision to euthanize his elderly little poodle before he went to Houston)

Nothing wrong with Charles’s mentation; he knew full well what he was doing - going home to die. What I didn’t want was unnecessary suffering, and of course on this holiday weekend the visiting nurse wouldn’t be by to see him until Tuesday!?! No doubt in my mind that Charles was suffering from aspiration pneumonia - I called in prescriptions to Walgreen’s; a neighbor picked them up for him & he called me last night already sounding much better. No doubt most of that is the temporary boost of albuterol - there’s no way the oral antibiotics could work that quickly.

I was planning to go down Father’s Day weekend to visit him, hoping against hope that Zach can come with me but obviously we’ll have to see. (I broke my own self-imposed silence yesterday to call Z & discuss this with him so he can make an informed decision) While I had hoped that we would have more time with my old friend/Z’s long-distance father figure, the time we did have was precious…

In Memorium

 Staring down the final day of this physically & emotionally challenging week… I have stayed completely hands (& phone)-off with my son as he completes his last week of employment with the City of Dallas.

Only time will tell if he’s making the right move, going to work for private industry: the Swiss-owned firm Metrohm (I can’t help kidding around, calling it “Metroid” which was one of his favorite video games as a kid. I think I had a mental block remembering the name - for the most part, Zach has been really happy during his time with the City)

But Mom has worked really really hard to keep her sticky fingers off the controls - I’ve only reminded him a couple of times that working for a boss that you like, with coworkers that you love & a favorable schedule can be worth more than a substantial amount of money… what I fear is that Z is folding to pressure from fiancée & in-laws to make mo’ money, just so they can turn around & sink it in a big dog & pony show of a wedding. “Adult choices have adult consequences” is what I keep repeating to myself.

Yesterday we attended my cousin’s eldest son’s HS graduation**, then I took P to see the new Mission Impossible movie. Not exactly “my thing”, but I knew P would enjoy it. Tom Cruise obviously wants us to see that he’s kept himself in shape (he’s 63, 2 yrs older than Yours Truly) since there were 2 stripped-down-to-his-underwear action & fight scenes - eye candy for those of us who remember his debut when he lip-synched to Bob Seeger as a teenager!!!

** it was a little awkward, since she has been separated from her husband of almost 25 years “for a while”… she has not shared any details with me, not that she owes me a damn thing! The father of her 4 children came, fortunately all by himself - he did not sit with his family, nor come to lunch with us afterwards. No doubt in my mind there must be someone else - middle-aged men don’t leave “just because” - but at least Robbie had the decency not to try to force the issue (not like my Ex-idiot, who truly acted for a while that my family should just wholeheartedly embrace the homewrecker) She knows most of the gory details of my messy divorce/custody battles since her parents & my parents were very close - I call her dad my surrogate brother. My dad was very fond of him, Clifford was undoubtedly the favorite of all his nieces & nephews

(Photos to be added later since Blogger still does not want to interface well w/my iPad)

Val vs The Universe

 …or the Multi-verse, the Mirror Universe (insert lame pop-culture reference here) or a Galaxy Far Far Away!?! I am feeling very small & insignificant as I struggle on, but I realize I never finished last weekend’s minor drama -

Tony was discouraged with our failure to secure a completion at our 5/10 ride, which really wasn’t a failure at all - remember our motto “To Finish is to Win”! I am all too familiar with the disillusionment of being pulled at the finish, but he requested we come home, so we did after allowing the ponies to rest up for a couple of hours. (The ponies looked great so that’s always a win in my book) I called Peran to tell him we were coming on back but he sounded terrible -

“Honey, what’s wrong??” - “The tortoise is missing!” At first, I thought that meant he just couldn’t find her in the upstairs bedroom where I’ve been letting her wander (most of the winter I had her pinned up like a veal calf in an aquarium tank which was too small), but no, P had taken her outside to the small wooden tortoise corral which she has also outgrown. She had busted out the side like the Kool-Aid man & he could not find her…

So when I got home, got Twoie safely put away in the pasture & the trailer parked, I dusted off my hands & settled in to “think like a tortoise”… Thankfully Peran had mowed the front yard so it was easy to scan those premises - I figured she would head for the shade/shelter of the flowerbeds.

I started by the garage to work my way around the house - thankfully I found her tucked under the rosebush by the front steps. Whoops, there’s some poison ivy! but it was a small price to pay to recover Athena. So whenever I start to be too down on myself, sinking into a morass of dog hair, dust & clutter, I remind myself that I do have a few skills.

Stumbling Onwards

 Another week has rushed on past me in fits & starts - while I was feeling bad juju about my sleep study last Wednesday night, I went ahead & got on with it… I was hoping for more of an academic exercise than the sleep center’s concerted effort to get me fitted for a CPAP. I term this “When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!” Or pulling up another gem from Cool Hand Luke: “What we have here is a failure to communicate”

The equipment I picked up for the home sleep study in April was not too bad - a nasal cannula, a chest strap, and an O2 sensor on my finger. They recommended an overnight stay in the sleep lab, where I presumed I would be wired up like a crash-test dummy (which I was), but the technician immediately started fitting me with a CPAP device. Seriously, you expect me to sleep with something like this?!? Not without heavy pharmaceuticals…

While the technician was very pleasant, she had her marching orders so I said I would try. I laid there for two hours with the first model; we switched out the subsequent two models for about an hour apiece. By 2 AM I told her this was pointless, so she disconnected me had me sign several forms saying I was “refusing treatment”/AMA & released me to go home to nap a few hours in my own bed… Silly me, I thought I was being so efficient by scheduling my follow-up with my GP at 8:30 AM!

Needless to say, Thursday was a Very Long Day since I had follow-up with dermatologist at 3 PM (neck has healed fine, what's another scar??) However, I managed to muddle through - crashing at 9:30 PM & getting what felt like my first decent night's sleep in I-don't-know-when...

Endurovet Rides Again, After All

 No Great Thoughts this morning as I work through the DOMS after my first 25-mi event in 3 yrs… The good news is, we did it - Twoie performed admirably after some minor Early Morning shenanigans* - & the bad news is, we were overtime! (6 hr time limit to complete 25 mi; we plodded in about 40 min over)

I’m still bursting with pride while second-guessing myself as to what I could’ve done differently - but the trails are challenging, there’s a lot of rock & our ponies were barefoot - picking up the pace risks a lame horse. (What would’ve been the “best” choice would’ve been to have shoes or boots put on, but on Thursday I was tied up all day getting the basal cell carcinoma carved off my neck - that turned out to be a whole-day ordeal since it took her 3 excisions to get it all) The deck was further stacked against us since I had a miscommunication with my girls - they did not clear my schedule so I could get out a little early Friday afternoon - I had to work straight up until 6:00. Thankfully horse camp is only a couple of hours away, so Tony & I pulled in with enough daylight to vet our ponies in Friday night, sparing us the stress of an early morning exam…

* I had gotten Twoie’s new purple headstall which I proudly put on him Saturday morning - however something was bothering him: he was throwing his head around & trying to crow hop,  so I finally went back to the trailer and put his old blue bitless rig on him. He still gave me a little bit of guff getting out the gate but we were finally on trail. It was great to be riding with the Real Krewe again.

Tony always has problems rating Cowboy early in the ride - I held Twoie back & let him go on ahead… I caught up with him about 3/4 of the way through that first 16-mi loop, we stayed together for the rest of the ride. He was saddle-sore enough to ask about cutting things short as it became apparent we were not gonna make the cut-off time, but I jollied him along, spinning that it would be great to have the training miles even if we didn’t get credit for it. (We actually did opt out of the last pasture loop which was probably about a mile - my friend Debbie said she had measured it at 28 miles so I don’t feel bad)

Both ponies demonstrated excellent recoveries, so after about an hour & a half’s rest, we loaded up to come home for Saturday night - we celebrated with dinner at the Rocket Café where I had not been since Zach was an infant. The Rest of The Story later!

Belated Birthdays etc

 aka “Giving It All Away” - Val is indulging in another episode of self-pity as I look out at gray dreary skies this morning. We had glorious weather at last weekend’s NATRC ride near Waco but returned to more thunderstorms - “May showers”, apparently!

My Decatur ride (April 27) was canceled with our torrential rains/muddy conditions: the Forest Service feared we would damage the trails, folks were getting stuck on Thursday just trying to get parked in camp. This Saturday’s AERC ride near Cleburne will be slightly more challenging, but I already pledged to Tony that we would enter the 25-miler…

And speaking of pledges, I’m also falling far behind on any obligations I had as a halfway decent daughter - I haven’t visited my mother in three weeks! I diagnose myself with a severe case of caregiver fatigue; I just had to step back a bit & trust the facility to care for her as her decline into dementia steepens. She still recognizes me, she’s just getting increasingly disoriented as to time & place & exactly what we’re doing round here! She roams the halls searching for my dad or Aunt Mary Sue, wondering when they’re going to board the train or when we shall arrive, wherever it is that we’re going??

I feel as if I’m just plodding wearily through my days myself, but I was able to take Victoria & Zach out last night for her belated birthday dinner. It appears they’ve settled on a wedding date of 8/08/26 - I don’t know if V’s grandfather will survive that long (I haven’t visited V’s grandparents recently either - I need to make my own evaluation, but Andy is down to 140-some-odd pounds, still relying on a feeding tube) Z also announced he’s not inviting his father, which of course is his decision to make but I was trying to gently nudge him into being the bigger person. He’s finally fed up with doing 200% of the work to keep their relationship alive. (Maybe more later, gotta get on into work)