Day Trips, a Medical Update, and a Bathroom Reveal

At the Marine Memorial Museum with early San Franciscans

It's months since I've posted!  Sorry about that.

Here are a few updates before I pretty much switch to Instagram, if you'd like to follow me there. Instagram is short and sweet, easy to use, and more personal.  I'm turning into a lazy old lady.

Some recent adventures:

1. You may have seen this photo on Instagram a couple of days ago.  I was at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center undergoing a cardiac catheterization to check my coronary arteries for blockages.  Good news: all is normal.   This stemmed from my diagnosis of atrial fibrillation last winter and a couple of earlier tests that were inconclusive.

 Worrying about this test and the two that preceded it has taken a lot of energy since January. Thanks to all the pals who listened, soothed, and encouraged.  You know who you are!

2.  A few weeks ago Jerry and I went on a bay cruise from Fisherman's Wharf.  We might have been the only English-speaking people onboard, except for the couple who sat across from us, who spoke Scottish.   Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge was a bucket list item of mine, and I dangled a post-cruise visit to Fort Mason (read: insect habitat) to get Jerry to go.

The vistas were splendid, and I highly recommend checking it out (Red and White Fleet, $32 each for seniors). We took BART and the F Muni streetcar to Fisherman's Wharf and left the car at home.

On board

Sliding past Aquatic Park and Ghirardelli Square

The Marina and the Palace of Fine Arts

Crissy Field and the Presidio

Approaching the bridge

And...

...under!  Looking toward the Marin Headlands

Afterward, the Scottish couple was off to Chinatown (she wore a sleeveless shift on this journey; Jerry and I were in fleece), and we were off to:

Jerry's pay-off and a relaxing oasis in the city.

Butterfly hunting

3.  We've also been out to Angel Island to hike and to see what's up since the last time we were there, c. 1976.  The brief boat ride (10 minutes) departed from Tiburon.  We hiked, and then took an hour-long tram ride around the perimeter of the island and then hiked some more.  Good views from everywhere.

Leaving Tiburon

Ayala Cove, where the boat comes in

Searching roadside weeds for butterflies

Historic US Immigration Station, now open to the public

The tram that circles the island 

View from the west side of the island

 

The butterfly hunt continues

4.  Our bathroom remodel is finished!  Many thanks to my sister, who designed it, and to Geoff Semans, the contractor who put it all together.  For four months, Jerry and I  slept in my studio  to be out of the way of the construction, which got way old!  So did sharing a bathroom (spoiled!). 

 

Before

This space was converted from a master bedroom closet by the previous owners, and we'd done little to it since we bought the house in 1984.  Petite but handy and all mine.

 After

New tile floor,; more compact toilet;  new vanity, quartz countertop, mosaic splash, shower door, recessed lighting, and medicine cabinet

 

  

The small magnifying mirror has been a godsend for this blind old bat doing her eye make-up (from Amazon, of course )

And that's it!

I've also been to two quilt shows, and maybe I'll get to posting photos from those.  So much for ending the blog...

What the Doctor Ordered

These days, I get up in the morning, make a big cup of black tea, and start reading Google News on my phone to find out what fresh hell Trump has stirred up.

Then I switch to the Washington Post, The New York Times, and sometimes The Guardian.  By breakfast, I am wired and outraged.    

I know I should stop.  But as my friend Debbie says, "I keep thinking I will take a day off, but then I don't because I'm scared to not know."

Me, too.  I'm scared not to know.   Take your eye off Trump for half a day and God knows what he'll do next.

Well! This morning I had an appointment with one of my doctors, a woman in her sixties who lives in Berkeley, so you can imagine the conversation.   She's incensed by Trump and just about ordered me (is it in my chart?) to join  Indivisible , an organization founded by Congressional ex-staffers who suggest ways to make your voice heard most effectively.  Apparently, you're assigned a pro-democracy, anti-Trump task  to do every single day. 

Among other things, the doctor wrote to Dianne Feinstein and told DiFi that she'd never vote for her again if  she didn't oppose the Cabinet nominees.  And what happened?  DiFi started opposing the nominees!  The doctor's very bucked up.

Then she wrote to Uber and told them she was quitting because their top executive met with Trump.  Haven't heard back on that one.

And the demise of the Affordable Care Act?  She waved that off.  Patients are being overcharged and insurance companies and hospitals are making millions.  She assured me that doctors were not.  We need single payer health insurance, and that's it.  She was very firm about that.

I came straight home and wrote to Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. 

It's a start.

 Does he know this is for real?

* * * * *

I'm in one of those phases where I feel like I've physically aged several years overnight.  I squint at myself in the mirror and wonder what the hell's happened.  Crepey skin, more chin hairs, and a shocking web of wrinkles under my eyes.

 My ineffectual arsenal

More cream, more plucking, more exfoliating more, more, and more, and not much difference.    Maybe I should start an organization called "Invisible," because that's what women in their sixties are,  unless they yell loudly,  which is not a bad idea (see above).

My mental state has also taken a hit, and not just by Trump.  Last week I learned that a friend has a serious illness, another friend has died, and someone else has had a skirmish with a cancer caught at an early stage.  You reach an age where death no longer surprises, but it's still shocking.  

The other night, Jerry and I watched an eccentric movie called "Still Life," about a nerdy, fortyish Englishman who's in charge of tracking down relatives of people who are found dead.  He's not very successful, and sometimes he's the only person at the funeral, for which he writes a eulogy that a minister reads.  In the end, you realize that the message is kindness, and we are in so much need of it.  It's classified as "drama/comedy," but I'd call it black humor (Amazon Prime).

* * * * *

We're taking on another bathroom remodel, due to leaks, mold, inconvenience, and, yes, a "dated" look.

For this, we're going to have to move out of our bedroom and into my studio,  which means I'll have to find another place to quilt.  Afterward, I'll have a sleek new bathroom in a former closet (converted by the last owners).

 Where will it all go?  Haven't dealt with that yet.

* * * * *

This rose bush will not give out!  I keep thinking I've cut the last bloom, and it produces another.  A rose in the winter of our discontent, etc.

Hang On and Help Out

At least they're color-coordinated

Not to rain on anyone's New Year's parade, but honestly, hasn't it been a wretched year?  Or is it just the year?  If we're honest, isn't aging, which occurs every year,  a bitch?

I say this as a person who was diagnosed last week with something called atrial fibrillation, which I never paid much attention to as an illness when I was young and well, although I did notice that there were lots of ads on the evening news for blood thinners that had something to do with AFib.

Now I know.  Palpitations that I thought were an occasional bother, turned out to be caused by an electrical storm in my heart.  And the storm can cause blood to pool, which can cause clots, which can cause strokes. Oh, boy. 

All this I found out when a cardiologist called me on Christmas Eve (I knew it wasn't going to be good news).  He'd analyzed output from a monitor I wore for two weeks, and on the very last day I wore the monitor I had an episode of AFib.

Not to whine, but this was the same week I found out I'm allergic to a glaucoma med, plus I had  to have yet another bone scan to monitor my osteoporosis.

I told the cardiologist this when I met with him on Tuesday.

"All these things going wrong!" I said.

"Well, it's better than the alternative," he said, cheerfully.   He looked about 40 and very fit.

"What causes atrial fibrillation?"

"In your case, aging," he said.  "Now let's talk about blood thinners."  He got very involved in the merits of various meds they advertise on the evening news, which must have a geriatric audience.

Wait until you're 66, I thought.  Just wait.  You get chipped away at.

Yesterday, sitting around a table with my quilt mini-group for our annual Christmas party, I surveyed my friends and catalogued what these 60+ year-olds have gone through:  breast cancer (2), knee replacements (3), lung cancer (2), and now AFib (1).  And these are active, healthy, middle-class people who take care of themselves.   I see clients at the Berkeley Food Pantry who are my age, according to their driver's licenses, who use canes or who have come straight from the hospital after heart attacks.   Poverty seems to accelerate physical decline, which is entirely unacceptable.

We older peeps have gotten wiser with age, and many of us have more money than we did at 25, but there's illness and even tragedy around every bend, if you have your headlights on.   The AARP shows us slender, happy couples in sweats jogging around their retirement community, and God knows happy times are still possible, but let's get real.  At least one of those people is taking blood thinners to avoid stroke.  These decades are booby-trapped.

Anne Lamott says we're here to see each other through,  and I agree.  All we do is hang on and help out.

Anyway, happy New Year.  There are still rewards to be had.  I think.

Please, No More Deaths of Rock Stars and Quilting on a Deadline

This is what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks:  Rushing to finish two quilt tops so that I can meet the Friday deadline for submitting entries to the Voices in Cloth quilt show in March.

Today I picked up photos of the quilts and sat out in front of CVS at Rose and Shattuck, sorting through the pictures, stapling them to entry forms, making sure I had all the papers in order, and then wandering down to the post office to slide the envelope through the slot.  That triumph called for a stop at the Cheeseboard to buy a Spicy Carrot Muffin, thick with raisins, to eat with a wedge of cheese and a cup of  hot tea.  Bliss.

I still have to make backs for each quilt, cut bindings, and hand it all off to Angie Woolman to be quilted.  But the paperwork is DONE!  (Yes, I could have entered online, but I tried to, lost everything I wrote, and assumed my usual techo-peasant stance: paper is more reliable.)

* * * * *

Way too many people in their sixties--notably rock stars, but also others--have been dying. Awful!  My God, what are we supposed to do with this information?  Seize the moment? (How?)  Drink ourselves silly?  Say what we need to say to certain people?  Make another trip to Europe to see every last bucket-list locale?  In my own case,  get the hokey calico wallpaper off the walls of my studio (came with the house in 1984)?

Recently, I came across a  "List of Possible Things to Do in Retirement, Before Death, With Rest of Life" (taken from an AARP book).  I must have done this about 1994:

1. Books to read: "Middlemarch"--have not done.  Shameful for an English major.

Highly recommend

2. Letter I want to write: to Sandra Albertson (author of  the best book on death and dying that I've ever found: "Endings and Beginnings: A Young Family's Experience with Death and Renewal")--yes, and she sent a gracious response.  I've given away several copies of this book.

3. Foods to try: Go to Green's restaurant in San Francisco--done!  Also, try caviar--yes.  (Found both to be overrated.)

4. Things to learn to do: 

      To weave--no, and I've lost the urge.

      To overcome my fear of driving over bridges--yes, but it was damned scary.

5. Activities to try: 

      Boating--no, ditto re lost urge

      Having a facial--yes and liked it.   

      Rafting the Colorado River--no and don't plan to since I heard you have to poop in a box.

This day trip on the Colorado River in 1993 whetted my appetite for a longer one--until I found out about the poop box.

 6. Trips to take:  London, Paris, and New York--yes to all; several times to New York and London. 

2008

7. Three gifts for myself:  a CD player, a new sewing machine, and more classical CD's--yes to all, and they've enriched my life.

8. The one physical change I want to make in my appearance:  Learn to stand up straight--yes! I'm in the process of learning with the help of a physical therapist.  A long road.

This list made me feel so much better, some 20 years after I wrote it, that I think I might to update it.  Anyone know of a large-print edition of "Middlemarch"?

* * * * *

Voices in Cloth quilt show will be held March 19-20 at the Craneway Pavillion in Pt. Richmond.  For more information,  try this link

Didn't We Just Do This?

Red and green!  The holidays are here!  Is  anybody looking forward to it?   Or let me put it this way:  Is there anyone without grandchildren who's looking forward to it?

Sigh.

Gump's has been flogging its Christmas-ornaments-for-tourists since October, little Golden Gates Bridges and Coit Towers.   Starbuck's is doing both pumpkin-spice and peppermint-chocolate drinks--which holiday are they exploiting, anyway?  The catalogs are arriving, even the Shaker Workshops.

Oxymoron, somehow: what happened to simple-and-free?

I'm doing Thanksgiving dinner for my family this year.  There's no way out, because my sister's birthday is on T-giving Day and asking her to wrestle with a clammy-cold turkey that morning is too much to ask.   I think.

My friend Mabry says a woman has only so many dinners in her.   My quota of holiday dinners was filled about 25 years ago.  Also, my quota of Christmas shopping, although the internet makes it a lot easier. 

Onward.  Can't leap forward to January 1, so might as well make the best of it.

* * * * *

Retail:   I just bought a pair of clogs!  Yes, I did, despite wearing size 41 (11 US size).  They are surprisingly comfortable.  I clomp, but there you are.  I feel taller and more confident when I'm wearing them.  Only with pants, though.  With skirts, they make me look like a cartoon character, all feet.

On Tuesday, for the first time, I deliberately bought a pair of fat-jeans.  My closet is full of semi-skinny jeans I've been talked into by salespeople.  I can't breathe in them!  Can't sit down!  To hell with it.  So I bought a pair a size up, not skinny (see photo, above).  They're baggy, but so what?  AND they were on sale.

I also bought a couple of pairs of my usual size because Not Your Daughter's Jeans has slyly figured out how to incorporate an invisible maternity panel at the tummy.  Oh, yes!   They must have, because these jeans  are quite comfortable, extremely forgiving, even a bit skinny.

Style M10K43B4337, if you're interested.

It's getting to be the time of year when I can wear a scarf without triggering a hot flash.   I took a look in my scarf drawer:  total disaster.  I can never find what I'm looking for;  I rummage around frantically, and then give up because if I find one I want to wear, it's always a wrinkled mess that needs ironing.

So, I took a handful of 20%-off coupons to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought two of these:

$4.99 each

They are splendid! I ironed my scarves and looped them through. 

 There's so little left in the scarf drawer that I can actually find things:

Did you know that BB&B coupons are good indefinitely, even if there's an end date printed on them?  Also, you can use one for a group of things, instead of one per item.  Learned that yesterday.

* * * * *

For months,  ever since Jerry found out he'd have to vacate his campus office in Wellman Hall, we've worked a few hours each weekend packing up books and reprints to bring home.  Or, better yet, to leave in a big sloppy stack outside his office door to be recycled.  We owe the Recycle Gremlin a great big bottle of bourbon.

Here we were last weekend:

My role is to badger and direct.  I read the Sunday New York Times until I see that he's bogged down and putting way too much stuff aside to be saved.  Then I'm ruthless.  No, no, and no.  He pretty much goes along, mostly because his home study is already full.

He's a big fan of old oak office furniture

Acres of books and reprints removed...

...almost removed, anyway.  To go WHERE, is the question.

My favorite sign

Half the room is empty.  But the other half:

Worse than my scarf drawer

Left for the Recycle Gremlin at the end of the day.  Week after week, it disappears like magic.

 We're aiming to be finished with this by the end of the year.  Stay tuned.