Summer Celebrations

Homecoming Out of the Rain
With joy and appreciation...

Since 2001, the summer after we moved back to southeast Michigan, I have enjoyed (hosting responsibilities for) our class table at Dearborn's Homecoming. Lovely day in the park.

This year, a kind out-of-town classmate -Karen D.S.Trask- invited us to her hotel, in case of rain. So, after waiting in the unrelenting rain all morning and being convinced it may only get more stormy, several us did meet there, enjoying a series of conversations, topics changing as people came and went.







There were also the traditional cake, also lunch, photos, and even a spontaneous book signing by classmate/author Frank Julian for his God's Top Ten List.








Eating with Berrys
With joy and appreciation...

For years... For YEARS, I have been hearing about Doug Berry's pasta. Being enticed by descriptions of heavenly flavors and textures and aroma and beauty! Finally, this week, John and I ate with Doug and Cindy and Patrick.
Homemade pasta!Al dente homemade pasta!
With salmon and vegetables and a delicate dill sauce with cheese.
The pasta was fun to anticipate, and even better to taste.


This food and family hospitality made me float on Happiness clouds!




Shopping With Cousins
With joy and appreciation...

My cousin Tim Ryan comes to Michigan from Texas most years (if not every year). I do not always see him. But this year, he and his parents, Uncle Buel and Aunt Betty, along with cousins Judi and Donna and their mom, Aunt Veora, and I all gathered for a visit with cousin Ralph at the Tanger Outlet Mall. Part of that was a cousin shopping-side-trip, taking in a few sales. After waiting my turn for a fitting room for a simple white top, Judi asked if I wanted her to wait by the fitting room to see how I look. Ha! Wow, I do not spend much time with cousins, and shopping is not normally so much fun. We all did buy something, and enjoyed getting good "deals"! (Thanks to Judi for this photo! Don't we kind of look like sisters?)

Gift of Tears

I planned to spend Saturday at my hometown Homecoming. We planned to host a "table" (mini-reunion), but of course, the rains poured down. Several people did meet, first in the rain, waiting under a borrowed canopy (along with other visitors and workers), then at a visiting classmate's hotel. It was good to see them, and I was thankful that they even considered meeting.


Most people had at least heard from me in the last year though my classmate email newsletters. However, one person that I had not seen was one who visited our area last year as a friend of a classmate, and he also volunteers there. He seemed friendly and out-going in a rather tough-sounding way.

Shortly before our classmate group left the canopy for Plan C (classmate's hotel), he walked up to me, close to my face, and quietly asked how I was. He said that his friend had told him a little about me last year, and if I ever felt like someone was thinking of me, that he was. There were tears in his eyes.

What a dear person. He had only met me once before, a year ago, and he showed such caring. What a tender-hearted compassionate gift!

Time: a gift of perspecive

I just realized that I did not label "2008" in my schedule of dates on the top of the right-hand column of my blog. There are all the months. But no year.

When I first started this blog, I had no concept of "this year" in the context of any other future years. But now, almost a year and a half past surgery, I am writing "2008" next to that first January date. I am still here. I have been both enjoying and contributing to life.

In time, my perspective has lengthened.

Better

I was actually done with my 2:00 pm oncologist appointment by 8:15 p.m. tonight.
I had prepared a lot more things to do while waiting.

However, I did get to walk outside for an hour.
Lovely day!
And I checked in with a cousin and two aunts by phone.
After I came back to the office, I read my A Mystic Garden, Working with Soil, Attending to Soul book for a while.

In the meantime, Nicole, the art therapist arrived in the waiting room and invited patients to come with her and participate in projects. I tried out the stamp pads, but mostly I talked. (I was the only one with her.) She had some very insightful questions.

By the time we were done, it was time for my appointment!

Dr. Malviya said my test results look good.
- In response to the high MCV score (refers to size of red blood cells, a deficiency of maturation), take folate (folic acid) and vitamin B-12. So we bought some on the way home.
- Don't worry about the high eosinophils score.
- Regarding the hernia, it will get worse in time, but for now, just keep wearing compression/elastic over it.
- As for the swollen legs, the longer (thigh-high) compression stockings are better than the shorter (knee-high) ones.
(If you ever see me trying to adjust all the stuff under my clothes, please pardon me. Something is falling down, or turned in and jabbing me.)
- Keep exercising, and exercise more.
- Come back in four months. (The routine: with a CT scan a week prior, and a blood draw a week before that.)

So I am doing well.
A good day.
Thank you.

"What a slow process it is to learn that an essential part of working, in a garden or in life,
is to let what is happening happen!
Of course, we must do our part,
but equally we must allow ourselves and our circumstances to simply be,
to evolve without force."
from A Mystic Garden (from "Autumn", p. 82)

CT Scan Results, etc.

My CT scan results came in the mail today. (I was not expecting them by mail. I had already left a message on [nurse] Gail's phone at the office.)

After more than a page of description (not all of which are clear to me), the concluding "Impression" reads:

"1. No evidence of recurrence or metastatic disease.
2.) Small paraumbilical hernia as described above."

So, good news about no evidence of disease! Thank you!
And no surprise about the hernia. (sigh)

I will see Dr. Malviya on Wednesday, where he will explain more (2:00 p.m. appointment, so I do not plan to be home before midnight).

I had taken a break from watering the garden and flowers, thinking I would wind the hose back later because it was heavy (hear a little whine). After opening my mail, I went back outside and wound the hose, carefully getting out the kinks, quietly thankful for strength and breath.

Inside... I opened up the windows so I can hear the wind in the trees while I write.


Weekend with Carrie and the 'Rents

Carrie passed through town again this weekend and is now back home in PA. We met up at the Mennonite Relief Sale by my folks' place. The weekend event is held in the woods on the Oscoda County Fairgrounds. The point is to raise money for world relief, but is a fun community social event as well. I just talked to my mom, who said the quilts brought in about $32,000, one of them alone bringing over $3,000. The total for the event was about $142,000 (at least preliminary figures?). I am always amazed at what they do in the middle of the woods.


We all arrived from different directions in time for the Friday night bean supper (simplicity is a theme of Mennonites). Saturday morning, John took off to do a wedding. Carrie and I stayed into the afternoon, while Carrie tried to examine a few lifetimes' worth of Grandma's photos. Then Carrie and I drove back to our house, and on Sunday, Carrie drove on to PA. We were so glad to see her!



Wind In My Face

Saturday Morning on the back of my dad's motorcycle...

Another summer that we didn't go fishing.
It is easy to attach meaning to events...
...Events to people.
Sit in a little boat and go fishing with my dad, because that is what my dad does.
He would always want to go fishing.
But what if he does not feel like it sometime?
Then I sit on the back of his motorcycle, riding to the fair to bring home lunch.
I am not really a motorcycle rider either.
I am terrifyingly thrilled, or thrillingly terrified.
But we go someplace, and we come back.
We are alive and the air in my face feels good.
So good.

A man once told me at the funeral home visitation for his father that he always hunted with his dad, but he did not really want to kill animals any more. He kept going, because that is what they did. Did he please his father? Did his father approve of him? Did his father love him? I saw those questions in his loss.

Perhaps he took those questions to his own grave.

Of course, people often find it easier to love what seems like them.
And yet...
I am not my parents.
My children are not me.
And yet...
I know my parents love me.
And our children know we love them (not that we always behave perfectly).

So obvious.
Yet real questions.
People sometimes wonder:
"Do people love me if I am not like them?"
"Do I love them if they are not like me?"

God made such an amazing variety of people.
And I love the wind in my face while I think these things.


First Fruit


We have had some parsley and cilantro, but other than that, our first harvest (ambitious-sounding word) came Saturday, when we picked our first cucumber! Wow! So John and Carrie and I had fresh-garden-picked crunchy cucumber with our salad!

New word: "bolt": what a cilantro plant does all too soon, starting to produce flowers and seeds, instead of concenrating on those fragrant leaves.



Tomatoes Ripen at Night

Both George, my English Gardens (agronomist) mentor, and Jill M., my Master Gardener friend, recently told me that tomatoes ripen overnight. But they need enough warmth during the night.

We have a lot of green tomatoes that seem to be waiting for those warmer nights. When those warm nights do come, and those tomatoes go on to perfection, we will celebrate greatly with gazpacho!

What about people?
Sometimes it seems they mature in their nights.
But what if their nights are too cold and desolate?
Not the best climate for them either.

Lord, I pray for warmth in the night... in so many places.