One and Only

  

          It’s Monday. Today is Monday. I posted the one and only story I wrote this weekend although I do have more — and tons more photos, too, including twenty-two I ran out of room for last week. Friday flew by with a morning of shopping and in the afternoon I did get a start on downloading my cameras and resizing the photos. Then I got a headache and went to the recliner for some movie time with my handsome mountain man. Saturday I realized I hadn’t finished the photos, so I did that. Then I wrote Mike’s owie story.

“I’m glad it wasn’t more serious,” one of my peeps said.

That’s for sure! It could’ve ended up with broken fingers or, heaven forbid, even lost fingertips. As it is, he thinks he’ll lose the nails on both those fingers.

“Poor Mike,” someone else said.

And that’s for sure, too! First his eye and now his fingers.

“How is his eye?” you ask.

Getting better every day. The red is starting to go away.

Sunday came and the day started as most Sunday’s do for us. I showered, fed the cats (yes, before my coffee even. They’re not a bit spoiled.), made coffee, tapped out a love note, had breakfast, and got ready for Sunday School and church. After our regular service, with a very hopeful and comforting message by Pastor Jay, we had a business meeting.

“I could use a little hope and comfort in my life. What was it about?” you say.

 In a nutshell, Pastor Jay shared a Memorial Day message that not only is it a time of national remembrance, but also a moment to reflect on God’s final victory and the comfort He offers His people. God will ultimately wipe away every tear.

None of us know how God will do that.

Knowing what happens after we die, knowing where our loved ones who reject our Lord and Savior go after the final judgment, how can we not cry?

And not only just that, but sometimes we cry over the guilt, and shame, and deep remorse we feel over the things we’ve done in our life before we invited Jesus into our hearts and began to live for Him.

I was visiting that world this week. And I prayed. “Please Lord, fill my heart with so much of You that there’s no room left for anything else.”

 Pastor Jay’s message seemed like he wrote it just for me. He gave me hope and reminded me to trust God’s promises.

After church we had a business meeting, so that kept us there a little longer. We get home, I change clothes, make lunch, made a couple of phone calls, and talked way too long.

But the icing on the cake...

Just as I’m settling in to write, Tiger tries to jump up on my desk, sinks his claws into the rags under my jar of watercolor rinse water, it can’t support his weight and starts to slip, he makes a mad grab for something else, finds my mouse pad, and everything goes over on top of him.

Aye-yi-yi!

Water everywhere!

I dried Tiger off and cleaned up the mess.

Sigh!

No! Wait. It was more like sighhhhhhhh...

So much for one day — more than I could process — and it was all swirling around in my head and pounding at the walls of my mind. I was getting a headache. Time had completely slipped away and suddenly I had only an hour and a half until I needed to leave for Sunday night movie night at the church. I decided the recliner was the best place to decompress and watch whatever movie Mike was watching.

And that my loves is why you got just one story instead of all my jibber-jabber.

 

Tiger.

He does like to lay on my desk.

A few days ago, when I got out of bed and fed the cats, Tiger, sleeping in his bed on the chair by the table, didn’t come to breakfast. I figured he’d be up to pester me when I sat down at my computer.

He didn’t.

He stayed in the same spot all day.

That was weird.

The next day was when I realized that he has a hurt leg. He’s limping.

“Should we take him to the vet?” I asked Mike.

“No. He’ll get better.”

Animals do tend to get better on their own, as long as they’re eating and drinking and eliminating. And Tiger was — is.

A hurt leg is why he missed the jump up onto my desk and pulled the water over. I would normally dump the water when I was done painting for the day, but Tiger started treating it as his own personal watering station. He’s got his own food dish on my desk so why not water, too? It’s a tall jar so I keep it full, fresh, and clean for him.

The experience of getting soaked must’ve stayed with him because today he got my attention and I lifted him to the desktop where I took this picture.

Speaking of watercolors...

I did this cute mouse in my practice book. I was just putting the finishing touches on it when it was time to make my morning love call to Miss Rosie.

“Ernie was so kind to give us some of her homemade potato salad. Is there something I could make for her in return?” I asked.

“She has so many dietary restrictions, it would be better if you painted her a little thank you card or something like that instead,” Miss Rosie suggested.

I thought about that as I was finishing up my practice. “I bee thankful,” came to mind as I was outlining the bee. I took the page from my practice book and made it into a card. I hope she doesn’t mind that. I simply didn’t want to paint it again. Well, it might be more accurate to say that I didn’t want to draw it out again.

“I didn’t know I was making it for Ernie when I started it,” I told Miss Rosie.

The next day I painted this.

“I drew out some flowers and pots and painted it. Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of practicing,” I shared in my morning love note.

“Peg, you should think of it as something fun to do and not practice,” my handsome older brother replied.

I don’t find drawing fun, just something that has to be done before I can get to the joy of painting. Do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do.

The next morning, as I was browsing through my file of drawing ideas, this one comes up. It looked easy and I could satisfy my need to paint fairly quickly. I flipped the page of my practice book and it’s the start of a new chapter.

The Bereavement.

I don’t normally even notice the words on the pages I’m painting on. Do you think there’s any significance between what I chose to paint and the chapter title?

I learned a new bird this week! My beautiful Jody told me she was watching the Baltimore Orioles and the Orchard Orioles at her feeder.

Orchard Orioles? What’s an Orchard Oriole? I Googled it and discovered they are very much like the Baltimore Orioles only a slightly different color. Maybe I’ve always had these birds coming to my feeder and just assumed they were Baltimores. I have noticed that some of Orioles were much brighter than others. This one is a female Orchard whereas the males are a deeper rusty orange, similar to the Baltimores.

Thank you for the education, my friend.

Let’s end with some road pictures.

Someone lost their barn.

Dame’s Rocket. Four petals. Wild phlox has five.

We were pulling in the driveway and Mike says, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That R.”

He said R and I thought he misspoke. “I don’t see it.” I was looking for a bar.

“Right there!”

I unbuckled my seat belt, got up on a knee and was looking in the ditch for a bar. “I still can’t see it.”

Mike put the car in reverse, backed up a little, opened his door, and pointed. “Right there on the bank.”

My gaze left the ditch and looked up the bank. There it was. An R just like he said.

The rain brought an R up out of the dirt where Mike was working on the bank.

“Where’d that come from?” he wondered.

“There used to be a trucking company in here,” I reminded him. “That’s probably the R from FORD.”

Let’s call this one done!

Ow! Ow! Ow!

 

The highlight of the week, the thing that stands out most this week, is my handsome mountain man getting hurt.

          “What happened?!” I know you wanna know.

          Mike’s new front end-mower. When it was delivered, it was delivered with the snowblower attached. Mike went down to the barn to take off the blower and put the mower on.

          My phone rang. “Can you come down and help me?” Mike asked. “I can’t get the mower on by myself.”

          I went down to the barn.

“It has a quick disconnect,” Mike said. “You get on that side and I’ll get on this side and let’s see if we can line it up.”

We tried to line things up, and there are two openings on the backside of the mower deck, but no matter what we did there was no way things would line up to hook up. After about ten minutes, I stopped to look things over. The snowblower and broom have a bracket for the disconnect to slide into.

I got down and looked under the mower. Even if we lined it up so the disconnect slide into one of the openings, the blades would hit it. “There’s no way you can use the quick disconnect with the mower. There’s no place for it to go. It has to come off.”

Without knowing how the quick disconnect is attached, it looked like it couldn’t be removed.

          “Maybe we have the wrong mower deck?” I questioned.

          A quick call to the dealer assured us it was the correct mower.

          Like Poppy used to say, “If all else fails, read the directions.”

          “Where’s the book?” I asked.

          That required a trip back up to the house, but back up to the house we went. We found the booklet on the quick disconnect and once we saw how it was installed, it was easy enough to get off.

          But—

          We still had a problem. We couldn’t get the arms to come up high enough to line up with the pins.

          “Do you think they had to lower the mower deck?” I asked. That’s just me trying to figure out a solution to the problem. Mike should’ve said, “Peg, that doesn’t make any sense. If we can’t raise the arms the mower will always be too low.” Yeah. That’s what he should’ve said. Hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it. With hindsight you get to skip all the rigamarole it took to reach the final answer — and sometimes that would’ve been a whole lot less painful!

          The wheels on the back of the mower had pins holding them. Mike got down on his hands and knees and pulled the pin on one side. The mower dropped down. The added pressure or twist made the other side more stubborn. Mike used something to knock the pin out and as soon as it cleared, the wheel flipped out, the mower deck dropped down with a thud and I hear a quiet, “OwOwOwOwOwOw,” from Mike. He didn’t yell, he didn’t cuss. Somehow that was more frightening.

          It only took me a second to grasp the situation. His fingers were pinched between the sharp steel edge of the mower deck and the hard, cold, concrete floor.

          “Then Peg said, ‘Wait a minute while I run up to the house and get my camera.’” That’s Mike’s version of the story. He likes to put his own spin on things, don’cha know. In some worlds that does happen. People are more intent on taking a video then in helping.

          I looked around and grabbed the first thing my eyes landed on, wedged it under the mower, and lifted it up enough that Mike could get his fingers out. I don’t know now what it was that I used. A hammer? A wrench? I was only focused on getting it off him.

          “It’s gonna bleed,” Mike says getting up off the floor.

          (Mixing tenses always makes my editor’s left eye twitch.)

          Mike’s long legs took him halfway to the house before I could say, “Let me see.” He was right, it not only was going to bleed, it was bleeding.

I hurried ahead of him to open doors and I was halfway to the bathroom when I realized Mike wasn’t behind me anymore.

“Where did he go?” you ask.

          The kitchen sink.

          “I think I dripped blood on the carpet,” he said putting his hand over the sink.

          Now I did think about taking a picture. “Can I take a picture?” I asked.

          Mike has long since resigned himself to living with a writer who documents the events in her life with photographs. Even hurting as much as he must’ve been hurting, he allowed me to be me. “Hurry up,” he said.

          It would take too long to track down my camera. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and took a picture.

         Then I cleaned the dishrag and breakfast dishes from the bottom of the sink and turned the water on. The stream was too hard and it hurt his tender fingers. I quickly adjusted the flow.

          “Get some Band-Aids,” Mike said even as I was on my way.

          Because I didn’t take any picture to remind me of the timeline, I’m not sure when we went back down to work on the mower problem some more. But this I do know. At some point I was looking and saw blocks that were keeping the arms from raising high enough to attach the mower.

          Aye-yi-yi.

          I took the blocks out and the arms went up. From there it wasn’t all that hard to get the mower hooked up. But now we have a different problem.

          “What now?” you ask.

          Now the hydraulics don’t work. They worked before. Mike had to raise the snowblower to take it off the trailer and put it in the barn.

          Anxious to try the new mower, Mike mowed with it anyway. It cut the grass too short so he didn’t mow very long.

          We made a trip to the Kubota dealer and Mike was able to talk to a mechanic. They couldn’t figure out what the problem may be so we have a mechanic coming on Tuesday morning to look at it.

          I took another picture of Mike’s fingers a couple of days later when we were changing his Band-Aids.

          I’ve mentioned this before, but I want to tell you again. When I see — or even think about — someone getting hurt, I get a zap in my knees. It feels like a quick jolt of electricity.

There’s a name for this kind of thing: somatic empathy, or a vicarious pain response. My body reacts physically, suddenly, and sharply when I see, imagine, or even anticipate someone else getting hurt.

          I don’t know when it first started happening to me, but I do know why it happens. I’m empathetic. I care. Deeply care. I’m not alone in this. Other people experience it, too, but they might feel it in different places — hands, stomach, chest — but for me, my knees are where my body keeps that wiring.

          The whole way from the barn to the house — washing Mike’s wound, getting it bandaged — my knees were having a meltdown. I’ve never before had such a long session of knee zapping and it was getting pretty uncomfortable for me, although I’m sure it pales in comparison to what Mike was feeling.

          And that’s the big news of the week.

I'm Late

         

          I’m late.

          I’m very, very late.

          “Late for what?” you ask.

          Late for starting my letter blog—my weekly jibber-jabber. Normally, by this time (Sunday afternoon) I’m putting the finishing touches on it or doing a final edit. It was one of those weeks where it couldn’t be helped.

          I don’t want to start with an update on my handsome mountain man.

          “Why not?” I know you’re wondering.

          Because whatever picture I use first is the one that comes up on the posting on Facebook. I don’t want that to be the first thing anyone sees.

          “It hurts me to look at his eye,” I’ve been told.

          I know, right! It hurts me, too.

          Let’s talk a little about my art.

          Almond, the last dog portrait I painted, went off to his new home and the owner is pleased with it.

          “You painted this?!” Trish asked.

          That comment confused me for a moment. What?Of course I painted it... I thought.

Then she went on. “It looks like a picture!”

I’m not necessarily striving for realism but I do try to make it look like the photo. Maybe it’s the shine? I wondered.

“I waxed it,” I said. Waxing does give it a little shine, brings the colors out, and most importantly, keeps the watercolor paint in place if it happens to get wet. Some professional watercolor artists use something to protect it but many don’t. It’s up to you to get it framed and if it’s framed, it doesn’t necessarily need the added protection.

I’m just really glad she’s happy with it.

I’ve got my next commission, Bentley, drawn out on the paper. It’s at this point where I get a little touch of page fright, brush-tip jitters, palette panic, the watercolor wobbles! Much like an actor has a moment of fear before stepping on stage, I have the same moment of fear before I actually put paint to paper.

“What do you do?” you wanna know.

I remind myself it’s just a sheet of watercolor paper, take a big, deep breath, and jump in with both feet!

I’ve been warming up to jumping in all week by painting some fun stuff in my old book.

Like kissing fish.

A bird in a silly hat.

Sometimes I take a picture of my practice art and share it with Trish. “I like the worm the best,” she said.

There is one page I’ve drawn out and skipped over painting. It took me days to draw this guy out. I’d do a little and get frustrated. I had to go back to it several days in a row before I finished it. And now I’m afraid to paint it! Isn’t that weird?!

Go past this picture really fast if you don’t wanna see Mike’s eye.

It really hurt for the first few days but it gets less every day.

At his checkup, Dr. McClintic was impressed with how much sight Mike has in his eye. “It’s almost back to where you were before this second detachment,” he said.

Mike has oil in his eye this time instead of gas. The gas bubble dissipates on its own but the oil has to be drawn out. That’ll be three months or so down the line.

Our one-week checkup was for Thursday. We were almost half-way there when we get a call.

“I’m about two hours away,” Juan, the delivery driver said.

We’d already put off having Mike’s new (to us) front mower delivered once already and we didn’t want to do that again. We called and rescheduled his checkup for the next day.

Juan arrived when he said he would.

We used chains and the Kubota to unload the two pieces of equipment that came with it. We got a snow blower, brush, and the front mower.

Mike doesn’t have any weight restrictions but he has to wait one more week before he can mow.

Guess what Mike wants to do?

“I can mow with the Gravely,” Mike said. “It doesn’t ride that rough.”

“If you want my permission, you don’t have it. But it’s your eye. If you wanna chance it and go blind in that eye, it’s up to you.” I’m not his mother and he’s too big to spank.

It’s really been bugging him that the grass looks the way it looks. I know how he feels, thought. The dog run was getting tall enough to bale. Between doctor’s appointments, mower deliveries (delivery, there was only the one), a trip to the grocery store, and the rain, I haven’t been able to get out and mow either. It was getting so tall that Bondi was getting lost in the yard!

We were coming back across the bridge on our road, and I said, “Any eagles?” I didn’t really expect to be lucky enough to catch the eagle fishing twice, but that doesn’t stop me from looking.

“He is!” I exclaimed. No one was more surprised than me.

I got out and took some photos. My standing at the side of the bridge didn’t seem to bother the eagle much and he kept on feeding.

Mike had stopped in the middle of the bridge and a truck was coming. Mike pulled over in front of the Kipps’ house and when the guys in the truck drew near, I pointed and said, “There’s an eagle!”

He looked, said, “Yeah,” and moved on.

I guess not everyone gets as excited about seeing an eagle as I do. After I shot off a bunch of pictures, I called the Kipps. “There’s an eagle sitting in the creek eating his catch,” I told Miss Rosie. Mike’s eye was hurting so I didn’t hang around any longer than it took me to make my pictures.

Lamar called a little later. “It was pretty far down the creek. By the time I saw it, all I see are white tail feathers flying off. Then another eagle swooped off behind it.”

I didn’t know there were two eagles. One must’ve been in the trees but I had my big lens on so I didn’t get any pictures of the second one. And it wasn’t until I looked at the photos on my computer that I saw it was a deer carcass it was feeding on.

“They’ll be back for more,” Miss Rosie said.

 

Speaking of birds, this Rose-breasted Grosbeak landed on my door. I’ve got another, better photo of him but then you’d see my dirty windowpanes.

Sally, my across-the-road neighbor, told me that the store-bought grape jelly isn’t good for the birds.

“I make my own,” she told me.

Since then I’ve been experimenting with things other than store-bought grape jelly and they seem to like it. There are four Baltimore Orioles in this photo.

Three in this one.

“What are you feeding them?” you ask.

You know I make homemade yogurt, right? To help us get our daily serving of fruit, I’ve been mixing in fruit canned in juice or light syrup, if I can’t get just juice. I’ve been dumping off the liquid and putting it out in the cat room for my night-time visitors.

Since Sally told me about the jelly not being good for them, I’ve been putting the juice in ice cube trays and freezing it. They seem to like pecking at the frozen chunks and even if it melts, they drink it. My dish is always empty when I check it.

 

The Dogwood is blooming.

Under this tree, the prettiest little purple flowers grow, the Fringed Polygala. Usually there’s a lot of them but this year I only found three.

Facts from the internet:

Fringed milkwort (also known as "Gaywings" for its brightly colored, winged flowers) is a small native perennial with attractive flowers having fringed petals. The leaves were used externally by the Iroquois as a wash or poultice to treat abscesses, boils and sores. The common name, "milkwort" derives from the genus name ("polys" means "much" and "gala" means "milk" in Greek); it was once thought that cattle eating this plant in their fodder would produce a lot of milk.

This little flower depends on bees for pollination and ants for seed dispersal, and both relationships are essential to its life cycle. Maybe that has something to do with why there aren’t as many flowers this year.

 

I’m going to fill the rest of this week’s letter blog with a few of the road pictures I took and the rest I’ll save for seed.

 Let’s call this one done.

 Done!

Harper

 

          This cutie-patootie is Harper. She’s just shy of three years old. She’s the grandniece and goddaughter of Kevin, our youngest son.

          Harper was born with a large port wine stain birthmark on her bottom and private area. She also has a heart-shaped birthmark on her arm. The port wine stain birthmark on her bottom was getting larger and larger so her parents took her to St. Louis to see a doctor about treatment for it. The doctors in St. Louis told her she had a rare condition called Capillary Malformation–Arteriovenous Malformation syndrome or CM-AVM for short.

          “What’s that?” I know you wanna know.

          CM-AVM is a rare, genetic vascular condition that causes abnormal connections between arteries and veins in the body. For Harper, this doesn’t just mean a diagnosis—it means daily pain, swelling, and the constant risk of complications that can impact her muscles, nerves, and overall quality of life.

          The doctors said nothing could be done about it but they needed to monitor her because it could spread to her spine or her brain so they do yearly CAT scans. Harpers mom, Michaela, started doing research about this syndrome and connected with others who are dealing with the same condition and that led her to a doctor in Italy that has a treatment for CM-AVM. Unfortunately, they have to go to Italy for the treatment, after first meeting with them in NYC.

          Some of the families that have been there told Michaela that just the procedure and the first night stay would run around $38,000. Harper will likely need to stay ten days. And guess what?

          It’ll all be out of pocket.

          If you feel led to pray, give, or share Harper’s story, the family is deeply grateful. Your support brings them one step closer to securing the care she needs.

          The family has set up a Go Fund Me page as well as a Venmo account for her.

Please continue to lift up Harper and her family before the Lord.

Exhausted

 

          It’s been an exhausting few days here in the Luby household.

          “What’s going on?” I know you wanna know.

          Saturday, a week ago now, Mike noticed the vision in his right eye was blurry and he couldn’t see very well. He noticed a shadow and thought his retina was detaching again. He paid attention to it all day but didn’t think it was getting worse. The next day and by late afternoon, Mike was pretty sure it was getting worse. He called up to the hospital and they connected him with the eye doctor on call.

          “If you want to come to Corning (New York) I can look at it,” a female with a heavy accent said.

          We didn’t want to go to Corning. It would be dark coming home and we live in deer country. You can’t go anywhere without seeing dead deer littering the sides of the roads.

          Mike called the hospital Monday and they got us in that day.

          Long story short, Mike’s eye formed scar tissue which pushed the retina away.

          “I’ll operate tomorrow,” Dr. McClintic said.

          I guess it wasn’t an emergency after all. That made us feel better about not going to Corning.

          I took a few pictures on our way to the hospital the next day.

          Pigs in the field next to where I’ve seen goats.

          We got stopped at the Veterans Bridge so this big boy could come across.

          He had a guy helping to steer on the back of the trailer and there was also a truck hooked up as a pusher. He’ll help push the oversized load up and over the mountains.

“Stay off the road!” I told the chickens. I don’t think they heard me.

Mike was able to slow a little as we went past the eagles nest. The eagle was feeding the babies. That’s a full-time job when they’re growing so fast.

          Speaking of eagles...

          I was going to Sunday night movie night at the church and crossing the bridge by the Kipps’ house, I spot an eagle fishing in our creek. I stopped right in the middle of the bridge and got out. The eagle didn’t mind until I started to walk to the side of the bridge, then he took off.

          It’s a shot, a moment in time I would’ve missed — if Mike had gone to movie night with me. His philosophy is if you’re not half an hour early, you’re late. When I go by myself I don’t leave as early. Who knows if the eagle would’ve been there then.

          “How did you see it,” my handsome neighbor asked.

          “Lamar, I always look at the creek when we go over the bridge. At first glance I thought I was seeing a duck. When I looked again I saw it was an eagle.”

          And checking out the creek on the way home from movie night allowed me to spot my first Kingfisher of the year.

          Turning onto the street between the hospital and the school I see geese with their goslings.

“STOP!”

Mike is a good husband and stopped, after first checking to see there was no one behind us.

 The pond is on the grounds of the hospital but these guys had crossed the street to look for bugs in the grass at the school.

We checked in around two thirty for our three o’clock appointment. They took Mike back to pre-op about fifteen minutes later. I sat and read on my phone.

          Around four a nurse came to get me. “He’s going to be so late getting out of surgery that we’re going to move you to the night surgical waiting room. We’ll take him down there for recovery when he’s out,” she told me.

          I gathered my things and followed her.

          In the new waiting room I found a seat and read for a while. Then I got up to check the board to see where Mike was in the system. His number wasn’t on the board and the ladies at the desk had gone home a while ago.

          “If anyone needs anything, there’s a phone on the desk with instructions beside it,” Last Girl Out announced.

          I decided to wait.

          People came, and people went.

          My coffee was gone. Had been gone for quite a while. I ran out of the snacks I’d taken with me. And I ran out of purse mints. I finally got up and went into the refreshment room and made myself a cup of tea.

          When I came back I saw a guy who had been there at least as long as I had. He had no drink in front of him. “You know you can get a cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate if you want,” I told him.

          He perked right up. “No! I didn’t know!”

          “Come on, I’ll show you.”

          He got coffee and we started talking. He’d been there since noon and his wife was there for a breast lump biopsy. He told me where he lived and how far they traveled (not as far as Mike and I did, though) and about twenty minutes into our conversation, they came to get him.

          Then I was alone.

          Everyone else had left. 

       

          At some point I began to wonder. Why didn’t I bring watercolors and my practice book? I could’ve, you know. And that would’ve been something to help pass the time. I read more but ended up doom scrolling through Facebook.

Miss Rosie, doom scrolling is when you keep scrolling from one story or video to the next on your phone and you don’t even realize how long you’ve been doing it. You don’t mean to keep going — it just pulls you in.

Then I got a data warning on my phone. I stopped watching video reels and exited out of all the apps and put my phone away. I got up and walked around. I was tired of sitting. They had three TVs in the waiting room, all playing a different channel. House flipping on one, the news on another, and crime drama on the third. I could see one from where I was sitting so I took a turn and stood in front of each of the other two for a while. I did some heel-toe raises—and almost fell over.

Aye-yi-yi. Getting old is a challenge.

I finally went to the phone and called the number posted next to it.

No answer.

If no answer, call this number, the sign read.

So’kay. I called the second number.

“How can I help you?” the nice man said when he answered.

“I was wondering if you could tell me where my husband is at in the system. His number isn’t on the board.”

“Certainly. What’s his name?”

I told him and he looked him up. “Oh. He’s an eye patient. He’s in surgery. They use a different number system over there and that’s why his number’s not on the board.”

          Several times I’d kicked myself for not having thought of bringing along my paints and practice book, and so I did it one more time.

          “Well Peg!” Me says to Myself. “You can’t do anything about it now! You might just as well get over it!”

          Me is very practical.

          Mike’s first surgery back in February was only an hour. This one took a little over three hours. It was almost eight o’clock when they finally came and got me. Sara, the night nurse, went over all his instructions with us as Dr. McClintic had been called away.

          And I drove home. In the dark.

          “Lord, please keep all the deer and little critters off the road for me,” I prayed.

          We saw deer beside the road and even had some cross in front of me, but I could see them far enough in advance that I was able to slow down and let them pass.

Shiny little eyes came from the left side of the road and when we passed, Ol’ Mr. Possum turned and went back into the weeds.

          I drove slower than Mike would’ve but I got us home without hitting anything. God is good.

          “Why didn’t you stay in a hotel like you did last time?” you wonder.

          I did NOT want to. It was a miserable night the last time and I’d rather drive home in the dark than have a repeat of that night! We’d be more comfortable in our own home and I’d drive back up the next day. “Just make the appointment for later,” I told Mike.

          It’s a little over an hour to the hospital. We always leave ourselves at least an hour and a half because of Mike’s rule. We left at eight thirty for a ten twenty appointment.

          Plenty of time, right?

          Wrong!

          We were late.

          “How could you be late?” you ask.

          The little town of Wysox was doing some work on the street. They had one drive lane and the center lane blocked off so it was down to one lane of travel.

          We were stopped before the railroad tracks on 187 and waited about ten minutes before we got on The Golden Mile, as they call it. Then we were almost an hour getting through that mile. Fifty minutes, actually.

          “Who can we call to complain?” I asked.

          “What good is that going to do?” Mike asked.

          “I don’t know but they’re not doing a very good job of directing traffic.” We had spits and sputters and even some long lines of opposing traffic but we didn’t seem to be moving at all.

          “Let’s go back to Tractor Supply and take the road over the mountain,” Mike said.

          I made a U-ey.

          We get back to the other road and there’s a ROAD CLOSED BRIDGE OUT TWO MILES AHEAD sign.

          “Will we turn before that?” I asked.

          “No. We’ll be on that road for a long way.”

          “Should we follow the detour?” I wondered.

          “I don’t know where it goes,” Mike said. “Let’s get back in line.”

          Mike called the hospital and told them we were going to be late.

          “That’s okay. I’ll let them know. Just get here when you can get here and be safe,” the receptionist said.

          We were only about fifteen minutes late for our appointment.

          Dustin, Dr. McClintic’s nurse, did all the things he’s supposed to do before Dr. McClintic comes in. He checked Mike’s eye pressure and administered an eye test. While chatting with Dustin we found out that Mike had a scleral buckle placed on his eye and that they used oil instead of gas to press the retina back in place.

          We got an education, that’s for sure.

          I took a photo of Mike’s eye when Dustin took the guard off.

           And this is the next day.

          “It’ll be tomato red,” Dr. McClintic warned and he was right! It makes my knees hurt just to look at it. Like a little electrical zap. That’s my empathy chiming in. It happens when I see or think about anyone getting hurt.

          Mike has more vision in his eye than Dr. McClintic expected.

          “It’s because all of our church peeps are praying for me.” Mike gave the glory to God.

          “Hey, I’ll take all the help that I can get,” he responded.

          Mike has two prescription eye drops we have to put in four times a day and an ointment before bed. He’ll wear his eye guard at night, too. He’s to stay face down as much as he can over the weekend then at least fifty percent of the time for the next few days until we go back for his one-week check.

       With Mike’s eye, the traffic in Wysox, and me having to drive all put together, it’s been physically and emotionally exhausting.

          On our first trip up to the hospital, we left early enough that I could stop at the thrift store. I found this set of three framed photographs and it was signed.

          When I got it home I opened the back thinking there might be more information there. There’s not. They’re printed on one long 17x8 sheet of Epson photo paper.

I couldn’t find out anything about the photographer. I asked Copilot to search for a photographer who signs his work Tom Tom but he didn’t find anything. When I showed Copilot the signature, he thinks it’s Tom Yan. Regardless, he couldn’t find anything under that name either.

I took a picture of it and asked Copilot to check for these exact images on the web. He didn’t find these exact images but says a single red umbrella against a winter scene is very popular among photographers.

Famous or not, worth a million bucks or not, I just love the photos.

“You didn’t buy junk — you bought a real person’s creative work,” Copilot said.

           

          Speaking of creative work, I finished Almond, a dog portrait I was commissioned to paint by my best old friend in West Virginia.

          I went into the wayback and found a box to hold Almond as well as a few other things I wanted to send Trish. I left the box on the table and went to gather those things. When I came back, guess who had claimed the box?

          Yep.

Tiger.

I wasn’t in a hurry to pack the box so I let him stay in it as long as he liked. Once he vacated, I packed the box and printed the shipping label. Almond is on his way to his new home. I really hope she likes it. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t have to buy it. I have a sister that will take any and all artwork I want to send her. Phyllis loves me, even though I wasn’t always the best sister to her.

“We were kids. We were stupid.” She forgave me a long time ago.

          I was showing Almond off to one of the gals at the hospital. Lori and Mike bonded rather quickly and once I met her, I knew why. She’s a sweet lady and very personable.

          “Will you paint Ruger for my daughter?” she asked.

          “I’ll try,” is my standard reply. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy it.”

          “He died about a year ago and this is our favorite photo of him.”

          “Are you sure your daughter would like a painting of him?” I asked.

          I’ve learned that not everyone wants a visual reminder of the heartache they endured when they lost something they dearly loved.

          “Oh yeah!” Lori said. “We even had his picture put on a mug and we have his paw prints on a plaque.”

          And my next question is also a standard. “Are you in a hurry for it?”

          “No. Take your time,” Lori said.

          “Good, because I don’t work very fast and I’ve got three commissions ahead of yours.” But I think this little guy will be fun to paint.

 

          I’m pretty sure that all mothers teach their children to wash their hands after they use the bathroom. Maybe not all mothers but at least the good ones do.

          When you’re in a public restroom, do you notice when someone walks out without washing?

          I do.

          Even walking past a restroom door or sitting in a place like, say, McDonald’s. The door opens and out walks a person (can be either male or female) and you can hear the toilet still flushing behind them. Do you think they took the time to wash their hands?

          It grosses me out.

          Walmart, McDonald’s, your church, or a hospital, I’ve seen it all. This is just the latest. Tan shoes in the stall next to mine, a blue coat passes my door and then the outside door opens and closes. Okay lady, I’m calling you out. If you don’t wash your hands after using the restroom in public, I bet you don’t wash them at home either.

          These people are the reason viruses and sick bugs get spread, the reason there’s poop germs on all our money.

          Wherever we go, Mike and I sanitize our hands when we get back to our car. A habit we picked up during COVID.

         

          Mike is a good husband and doesn’t deny me anything. I think you may have heard that before. Recently I asked for a five-tier artist cart from Phoenix Art Supply. It came up on my Facebook page and once I looked at the video reel, it came up on every page I’ve looked at since then.

        I really did want this the first time I saw it, but it’s expensive. It’s on rollers so I could push it out of the way when I wasn’t painting and it would be handy to have my supplies all in one place rather than having to get up and get something off the shelf—

But did I really need it?

          No.

          They wore me down.

          Tracking said my box would come when we were at the hospital.

          “Put a note on the door and ask him to put it on the patio and lock the door,” Mike said.

          “Will he do that?” I asked. “I once asked a delivery driver to set something inside and he said he couldn’t.”

          “They’ve done it before when I left a note,” Mike said.

          I left a note.

          We came home from the hospital to a giant box on the patio. I got a hold of a strap and drug it inside.

          “Look at the box,” I told Mike. “It’s really damaged.”

          “Take pictures,” Mike said, so I did.

          It’s packed really well but one of the rips in the box extended through the Styrofoam on the inside. One of the brackets had been torn loose and later I found the missing screw.

         There was a ding on one of the pieces but it wasn’t where there was damage to the box. That tells me they did it before or during the packing process. For what we paid for this, I want to ding it up myself!

          There were no instructions or parts list but I looked online. That’s when I discovered they sent me two tops and no bottom. I laid them out and took pictures.

          The next morning I contacted the seller. They’ve determined that the screw being torn out wouldn’t affect anything and they would give me twenty dollars for the ding, if I agree. As for the two tops and no bottom, they agree, it’s wrong. They’ve already arranged to send me the right bottom, but it’ll take more than a week because it’s being shipped directly from their overseas factory.

          “Are you happy with that?” Mike asked.

          “I guess. It sounds reasonable.” I know if I had not agreed they might’ve given me more money back or a new cart, but I’m not out to get something I don’t deserve, I just wanted it made right. Although, if they would’ve offered to send me a new cart, I wouldn’t’ve refused.

          I know, right! I’m too easy.

 

          One last thing before we call this one done.

          Mike has to be face down again, just like his first retina surgery. Last time we rented a massage chair and it was expensive. This time we didn’t.

          “You could sit over the workout bench,” I suggested.

          Then we found two big mirrors and lined ‘em up so the TV wouldn’t be upside down for him. One of them is propped against my art cart box.

          “I want you to be really dedicated this time,” Dr. McClintic told Mike. “Face down at least over the weekend except to eat or go to the bathroom. Sleep on your side or at a forty-five-degree angle. After that, I want you face down at least fifty percent of the time until I see you again.”

I asked around for someone to rent or loan us a message table, but no luck. We’ll just have to get through this the best we can.

          Mike isn’t very comfortable here and spends some of his time in the recliner at the forty-five-degree angle or laying on his side. If it’s good enough at night, he reasons, it’ll be good enough through the day for napping or watching TV.

          Say a prayer for his comfort and healing, if you would. Please and thank you.

 

          Until next time...

          Let’s call this one done.

          Done!