Saturday

The birds are out by my fountain in force this morning. It's lovely to see them hopping in and out of the pond or walking on the large leaves beside the pond. It's not sunny yet, but it's going to be a warm day.

This was an uneventful week workwise, except I had lunch with someone I hadn't seen since 1971. Actually he was someone I dated a few times before Bob and I got serious about getting married. We only spent an hour together yet it was enough time to get down and dirty about some of the events in our lives. And, it was enough time to know that I probably don't want to go there again.

He picked me up outside my office and we drove to Beaches downtown Manhattan Beach. During the drive he told me he has had both hips replaced so he has trouble with balance and walking – especially upstairs. Beaches is an upstairs restaurant that he picked! And, besides his hips, he is hard of hearing, has arthritis in his fingers, has lupus that affects his skin – he showed me some of his skin lesions that won’t heal, and he recently had open chest surgery to remove an aneurism. I actually jokingly asked what else was wrong with him. Well, he really is an old man, I thought.

After we ordered we talked some more. He is married – he got married at age 48 – 10 years after Bob and I. He has two sons, both in their late 20s, and his wife is a social worker at a private school.

So, during lunch we kept it light though I told him about Paul – and he barely reacted. We talked about work and Hungary where he grew up and escaped from during the 1956 revolution, and a few people we both know. It really wasn’t interesting – until the way back. I said we shouldn’t wait to get together for another 30 to 40 years and he said next time he would tell me about all the shit in his life, and without missing a beat, he told me about his older son who has been a drug addict since age 13 who might be going into jail for 6 months, his young son who barely contacts his parents, and his wife who is an enabler. Yet, he did admit that he's never been a mother, so he can understand how a mother would not want to cut her drug addit son from her apron strings -- something I can definitely relate to. So, it appears that we have more in common than what first appeared. I told him more about Paul and about how Bob and I didn't see eye to eye about how to treat and care for him most of the time, yet my lunch date really didn’t want to listen to that. He wanted to tell me about his own stuff. He also said what he most wants to do is go away to Hungary – and I suspect without his wife. WOW – a lot more stuff than I bargained for. It just goes to show that everybody has a story if you dig in deep enough.

I wrote this little poem in response to my weekly Friday prompt. The subject was something I forgot:

Not Quite The Same

I forgot what he looked like.
After all, we hadn’t seen each other
in almost 40 years.
And when I saw him again
he was just as before.
Well, not quite. He’s aged
as we all have aged.

Yet there they were:
the same smooth round cheeks,
the same playful grin,
and the accent,
ah, the accent.
that’s what I fell for
so many years ago.

But we’ve both come a long way.
There’s no bridging those years,
those events,
those life stories.
I’ll have to remember what
he looks like today
if I ever see him again.

We need more healing thoughts

Here are the "Nextdoors," our next door neighboors. They always give their names and say nextdoor afterward, so we've taken to calling them the Nextdoors.

That's the fun part. The not so fun part is that she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last November and though she says her tumor marker has gone down from to 420 all the way from a starting point of 2600, she is having a hard time. She recently wrote: "I am on chemo again and I know it's working but it's a challenge. I have been a hermit in hiding, because that is my way of processing all of this....I have a hard time concentrating on my beautiful life, the positive things, like my beautiful children, a loving husband, a happy and healthy father...but the numbness in my hands and feet, the deep deep pain in my hip, and nausea tend to rear their heads and distract me. Then I get teary and all that I can do is take some stupid med that makes my life fuzzy. I am told to be peaceful, rest, and take in this chemo the best way that I can."

They've ageed to come over for dinner tomorrow night. She says she feels more comfortable eating in than going out, so hopefully, I'll be able to cook something for her that she'll enjoy.

So, please hold good healing thoughts that the tumor marker will continue to go down and she'll finally be able to have surgery to remove it completely.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is always a bittersweet day for me. I love celebrating with Ben - he'll be here in about an hour and he's going to hit some tennis balls with me - and I miss Paul so much more on this day. I don't miss Mother's Day with my mom -- it was always difficult and not enough with her. I wrote ths poem the first Mother's Day after she died.

Mother’s Day

This Mother’s Day I don’t have to give
my mother the perfect not too flowery or gushy card.
For no matter what it would say
she doubted my love
unless I wrote, “Dearest Mom”
across the top. This Mother’s Day
I don’t have to comb the stores for
the perfect gift – hand lotion, a gold charm,
a silk scarf, a sweater. For whatever I bought,
she always said she didn’t need it
and could I change it for something else.
When she died so many of those gifts
came back to me. And I cherish them
because they were hers.

Remembering my dad

My dad was born on May 7, 1903. Here he is with baby Paul, the love of his life, in 1973 -- two years before he died (at the young age of 72). I'd like to believe they are up there somewhere together -- though I really don't.

We need healing thoughts

Two weeks ago my brother-in-law, R, got the results of a final test that showed he indeed had Stage 2 lung cancer, and he was told to come back to see a surgeon this week. Waiting two weeks seemed a little cavalier to me. After all cancer is nothing to take one’s time about. But he seemed okay with it until yesterday, when the surgeon told him that another tiny spot was found on his other lung. If this new spot is malignant, it means that his cancer is spreading even before he has surgery to remove it from the first location – his left lung and three lymph nodes associated with that lung.

Anyway, this all started several months ago. During a routine physical exam prior to knee replacement surgery his doctors discovered that he had a heart blockage that needed fixing before he could undergo the knee surgery. That surgery happened and once he was fully recovered, he went back to his doctor in preparation for knee surgery once more. And, that is when more tests revealed he had suspicious spots on his left lung. Again more tests – two showed nothing, the final one – a PET scan - showed the hot spots.

Right now we’re thinking good, healing thoughts that the spot on his right lung is benign and he can proceed to surgery to remove the cancer on his left. Otherwise all bets are off, and his cancer will be Stage 3 or greater.

Please think good healing thoughts with us.

Beard or not?

I've never been an admirer of facial hair -- or hairy chests and backs for that matter. Maybe it's because my first husband was a very hairy guy and I wanted to get as far away from anything like him as possible when I made up my mind to leave that marriage.

My current husband, who when shaved has wonderfully soft and smooth skin, has grown a beard a couple of times during our 42 years together. The first time -- back in the late 70s -- it looked sparce and straggly, and in my biased estimation pretty ugly. This last time was two weeks ago. And, he's received a lot of kudos about how good it looks -- not from me of course. I don't like how it feels and I personally think it makes him look a lot older. And, I can't see anything attractive about a lot of white hair stubble growing on someone's face.

So you be the judge -- prebreard and two weeks growth:

Family photos

Ben's girlfriend took these photos while we were recently having dinner at PF Chang's.