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.