The Last Pesto of 2023

 

On its way to completion. Note: the photographer—not the kitchen—was tilted.

This morning I made the very last batch of pesto for the year. 

The. Very. Last. Batch.

As I noted when I resumed writing again, my lengthy time away and the many demands on Warren (the Symphony, the house, me!) meant the garden was ignored and neglected in its final weeks. Tomatoes fell to the ground, peppers went unpicked (not that we had a particularly great crop this year), and everything in both gardens went to rack and ruin (well, everything except a few last handfuls of the Trail of Tears black beans, because those babies were survivors). 

So how did I make this last batch? No, I did not buy basil, although I am sure I could have found some little packages of overly aged and outrageous priced basil in local supermarkets. (Yes, I just looked. 1.5 ounces for $3.99 at one store.)

No, the basil was out of this year's garden. The same one that was in shreds when I finally returned home.

And the magician who made that happen? You have to ask? Warren, of course.

While I was, ahem, indisposed, Warren did some looking online about freezing basil and then making pesto from the frozen basil. He read enough to know what he didn't want to do, then proceeded with his own simplified version: pick it, wash it, chop it, freeze it. While I remember him telling me he had done that while I was still away, when I returned home and saw two half-gallon freezer bags full of dark green stuff, my first question was "What is that?" 

This morning, on a mission to clear out our refrigerator freezer (the basement freezer is another story), I saw the basil first thing and realized it was now or never. 

I chose to make it now. 

As it turns out, making pesto from frozen basil is the same as making it fresh, without the tedious and lengthy washing and cutting. (Thank you, again, dear Warren. You really are amazing.) 

Looking just right.

And that is how the very last pesto batch of 2023 came to be. Some went to neighbors on our right and neighbors on our left, and the rest went down into the aforementioned basement freezer for another time, another meal, another day.

A very nice and savory and satisfying note on which to bring this year to an end.

End product! 

Little Bits

Little bits. 

Little bits of memories, little bits of music, little bits of holiday treats, little bits of sunshine, little bits of rain; these have been some of the underpinnings of these last days of 2023.

Just little bits.

I continue to recover, in little bits, from the acute medical crisis of the fall. A long-distance friend who lives with chronic and debilitating illnesses reminded me, after I noted my slow pace of improvement, that given what I went through, I was doing great.

A little bit of chastisement, albeit nicely said.

A longtime friend walked by this morning with his dog while Warren was leaving, and after he called from the sidewalk, "So how are you?," both Warren and I realized that Bill had no idea what had happened this fall. Warren waved as he drove away, and I gave a short version of what we had gone through. I then told him (and Maisy, his dog) to "wait right there," and dashed into the house to bag some biscotti. 

Just a little bit, because Bill didn't need to carry a lot of weight while he finished walking Maisy. Bill took the biscotti and said, with great relish, that when he got home, he was going to "dunk the hell" out of the biscotti in a cup of coffee. I emailed him a little later this morning and told him that if I had a coffee/bake shop, I would name the biscotti the "Dunk the Hell Out of Them" biscotti. 

A little bit of humor, a lot of friendship. 

I have been walking almost daily (yeah, I dropped the ball during the Christmas weekend due to other demands on my time and energy) and today when I left the house to walk, I noticed I had a large chorus of voices competing in my head. (No, I do not hear voices; these were calling up situations, past and present, where I wanted to respond to (i.e., argue with) someone.) To shake my mood, I made myself focus on the trees and yards and sky. One pine bough near the sidewalk held a drop of water from earlier rains. I started looking as I walked for other drops caught on branches or bushes.

Just little bits, but my search refocused my mind and attention.

2024 holds some challenges and changes, some of them large and at least one of them HUGE. No little bits there, at least not from where I stand. So I tell myself to savor these little bits now, as we spend down the remaining days of this year.

I recently came across, artfully woven into an essay I was reading, two lines from "How Do I Love Thee?" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: I love thee to the level of every day's/Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I had not read that sonnet for decades and seeing those lines, standing alone, made my heart reach out to Warren, who has been by my side through all of this. (Note that Warren has always been by my side; recent events just elevated my needs and deepened our relationship.) I shared those lines with my poetry-damaged husband (some teacher or teachers really did a number on him back in the day) and then explained why they moved me. "That is you, dear Warren. You are with me for the most quiet needs, from morning to night. And I don't need to count the ways of how I love you to know that."

And that is NOT a little bit. 

Grandma

Grandma Skatzes would be 130 years old today.

130.

As a child, I marveled at the notion that she was 10—10!—when the Wright brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk. As a teenager, I remember her chuckling over the fact that she lived to see men land on the moon.

130.

Grandma saw numerous wars in her lifetime, most of which family, ranging from cousins and in-laws to sons and grandsons, served in. World War I was the one that made the deepest impression on her. She kept a framed copy of "In Flanders Field" on a wall in the living room. Grandma had optic nerve damage from an early age on and could not read the small print of the poem, but it made no difference as she could recite it from heart and always did on November 11.

130.

Grandma was born when Grover Cleveland was president. Jimmy Carter was in the White House when she died in 1978. All in all, she lived through 16 different presidents. She did not talk much about politics, although she had admiration for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's actions during the Great Depression and World War II. Grandma did not vote until she was almost 80. I suspect her husband did not allow her to in earlier years, and her disabilities, both visual and auditory, posed barriers that no one thought to work around until much later. It was my aunt Ginger who finally arranged for special aides to come help Grandma work her way through a ballot and vote from home in the 1970s. Grandma was delighted that she had finally cast a ballot.

130.

My family rented an apartment in my grandparents' house and we lived in the same house until I was 14. For all the bad in my childhood, I had an unshakable refuge in my beloved grandmother. When I was little, Grandma would tell me nursery rhymes and quote poetry. As I got older, she would share stories of how the family and the community made it through the Great Depression. She encouraged me in reading and writing and capturing the world as fully as I can. Although she never said it, I suspect Grandma wanted me to have a larger view of life and its opportunities, and pushed me in those ways to move into the world.

130.

Grandma died in March, 1978 while I was living out in Portland, Oregon. I was walking home from college on what was then a typical early spring day: a mixture of showers and sun. On the way, I saw not one but three (three!) different rainbows in the sky. When I got home and my then-husband broke the news of my grandmother's death, I immediately thought of those rainbows. They were Grandma's goodbye to me.

130.

As Grandma aged, her hearing and vision became so limited that the best way to communicate with her became spelling into the palm of her hand. She would puzzle out the words, then respond in her soft voice. During my hospitalization, when I was intubated (and sedated) for several days, I apparently tried to communicate by spelling out words in Warren's palm. I do not remember any of this, but Warren said I did that several times. "Just like Grandma," I marveled. I couldn't talk because of the ventilator tube, but my innermost self pulled up an old, old memory of spelling with Grandma. 

130. 

It is Jewish tradition when speaking of someone who has died to say, "May her/his memory be blessed." Grandma, your memory is always blessed. 

Some Assembly Required

Photo by Tekton on Unsplash

Many of us out there spent more than one night before a child's birthday or Christmas putting together complicated toys for the next day. The box and the instructions always said "Some Assembly Required," which really meant "Anticipate far more steps, tiny pieces, and inscrutable instructions than you have ever seen."

That's how I feel about myself as I move forward as "the woman who lives afterwards." 

Some items/issues/whatever are resolved. I just completed in-home physical therapy today, way ahead of schedule. I speak with the surgeon Monday about the next step (removing the gallbladder, which has never been an issue but needs to come out per every single doctor who has ever seen the image or read the reports on it). The living room is no longer my bedroom (yes, that was the reality of the initial homecoming, as I could not climb the stairs—all 13 of them—to the second floor). In short, life moves on.

And yet...I am still picking up tiny bolts and saying, "But where does this go?" or "Wasn't there a special tool included in this package?" 

I am still assembling myself.

My friend Tani and I exchanged lengthy letters over the summer about accepting the reality of being disabled; we are are now discussing being OLD. Myeloma and 19 years of treatment had already aged me. This recent medical catastrophe just added to that. As I told my physical therapist as we concluded my last session, I know I have to be more patient with myself as I continue to regain muscle mass and physical strength, but I also have to be realistic about how far I can push myself. Some of that is recovery, which will go on for many weeks; some of that is age.

But I am walking again, as in "outside," and that is an absolute gift. 

Picking up some threads from my past, I may (possibly, likely, maybe) pick up tracking our food expenses again. That all came to a halt in August. I "could" have resumed tracking for November, when I was home again, but I lacked energy, capacity, and bandwidth to even try. December...maybe. I look back at my post on July 1 where I ask whether July can be lean and am pleased to report that July was lean: either $115.61 or $157.57.  The discrepancy is that in July, per both my oncologists' offices, I started drinking one or more protein drinks a day, and those run around $20.00 a box. It is food; it is not medication. BUT Warren doesn't drink them and it is so specialized that...you can see where I am going. 

I am both stepping away and back into some of my volunteer activities with our community legal clinics. Yes, I will stay with the Justice Bus project as an attorney wrangler; no, I have turned over a court/clinic joint project to other volunteers. 

I am reading a lot. A lot. (Best fiction read recently? The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. Just stunning.) I may (may, mind you) take up some long set-aside personal projects, although I think my initial focus around here is on getting rid of more of my/our clutter. (We have three types of clutter in this house: His, Hers, Ours.) I am not writing yet except for letters, some inserts into my long-gestational novel, and this, my second blog post post-catastrophe. 

It will come. I say that with hope.

In the meantime, some assembly required. Where did that little must-have-to-complete-assembly tool go? 

My One Wild and Precious Life

 

I did catch the last of the butterfly weed (this photo was taken in 2022)

My last post was three months ago today. Rereading it today, I see I was blithely taking stock of my garden and nattering on about how many medical appointments I had in August. 

What I could not foresee (who could?) was that three days later, two "routine" and "low-risk" endoscopic exams would set off nine weeks of hospitalization and skilled nursing facility stays (the first stay cut short to send me back to the hospital) for acute pancreatitis. Finally, on October 27, I came home and have been home ever since. Still a long road ahead as I rebuild core strength and muscle mass, but at least I am home. 

Home, home, home. 

Given that the earlier predictions had been that I would likely not return home until the end of November because of the severity of the extensive internal infection and damage, I was beside myself with joy as Warren picked me up to bring me home (the skilled nursing facility is about six blocks from our house). "Oh, look, the leaves are falling! I didn't miss fall after all!" I repeated some variation of that in every block until we pulled into our driveway. 

I still say it whenever we run errands. I still say it whenever I look out the window and see the last leaves of the season drop to the ground. 

This unexpected medical event was not only a shock to both me and Warren, but also a huge eye-opener as to the fragility of life and the unpredictability of time. We had always imagined I would die after a long, slow, fade-out from the myeloma and that there would be "time" to enjoy life together before that happened. Ha. I coded during my first hospital stay from sudden and acute hemorrhaging; Warren was present when this happened, so he got the full shocking impact of watching the medical team rushing to save my life.

A life-changing event? Absolutely. How could it not be? For him, for me, for us as a couple. Our lives moving forward will be forever shaped by this. It has been a crash course in what commitment means. For me, there is even a stronger sense of what Wilma Mankiller meant when she wrote about surviving a near-fatal accident: "there was the woman who lived before and the woman who lives afterwards." I am not the woman who lived before August 23, but I am very much the woman who lives afterwards. I don't know what that means yet, but here I am.

Contrary to my usual approach of being open about my medical status, we have both kept quiet about this one. Warren did not have the bandwidth to field questions about me, especially while he was launching the Symphony season and driving 25 miles one-way to see me in the hospital. He has spent hours and hours and hours with me, both while I was away and after I got home: caring for me, watching out for me, helping me recover. (As has my dear friend and former PCP, Pat.) But time to talk about me or answer questions? Heck, no. As for me, I had zero capacity for visitors while being treated and even after returning home. I had no capacity to even talk on the phone, let alone anything more. Even writing an email was a stretch for a long time. I am slowly regaining strength but I am still guarding my time and carefully watching my energy levels as I move forward into my new life. 

Besides the simple and stunning gift of life, there has been another upside to this catastrophe: a reset of my attitude. Talk about the scales falling from my eyes. I look around and think what an amazing thing life is. What an amazing thing the world is. I sit at the kitchen table as the sun comes up and watch its rays spangle the frosted grass into a thousand diamonds and tiny rainbows. I step outside to see the impossibly blue sky (we are having a prolonged fall of brilliant sunny days) and take in a deep breath while I stand there, lost in gratitude at seeing that vivid sky over me.

The late, great poet Mary Oliver said it so well (in so many ways and in so many poems); she was a huge advocate for the importance of nature to our well-being, seeing it as a life-giving, healing force in our sometimes narrow lives. Oliver's challenge from "The Summer Day" seems most apropos as I move forward: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"

As I take stock from where I sit, writing this, I wonder. There will likely be a garden next year (as you can imagine, this year's garden ended up in tatters with my hospitalization). I am starting to bake again. I have been writing. But the question remains: what do I plan to do with my one wild and precious life?

Time will tell.

This Year's Gardens: Part 11

 This year's gardens continue. I just this morning started clearing out the Hej garden to replant zucchini in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, we get a crop. I have had a month of more medical appointments than I want (August has contained eight—count 'em! Eight!—counting the two this coming week) and they take a toll on my durability, so I suspect it will next weekend before the Hej is cleared, tilled again, and planted. That task aside, I continue to eat tomatoes (Oh, joy! Rapture!) and think about doing yet another batch of pesto with the late August basil. 

This weekend, however, I was reminded again (always) of how gardens never fail to delight and amuse. This year's gardens are no exception.

Delight #1: Any other summer, the lettuce is usually burnt out by mid-July due to heat and sun. Oh, there are a few straggly bits here and there, and sometimes a volunteer or two will pop up in the fall once things cool down, but lettuce is NOT a summer crop around here.

Until this year. The lettuce beds are going strong and we are in the third week of August. We have been picking and eating the Black Seeded Simpson since early July (maybe late June) and now are adding the Butter Crunch to the salad bowl as well. Fresh-picked lettuce is so delicious that I told Warren I am not sure I can return to eating store-bought lettuce when the season is over. I have not bought tomatoes from a grocery store for years because of the qualitative difference; I wonder if lettuce will be the same. 

I remind myself that back in my youth, lettuce out of season was something you did not see in our local grocery stores. Can we go without lettuce-based salads for several months? Hmmn.

Delight #2: Still in the lettuce bed, but this is a totally unexpected joy. Because the lettuce burns out so early, I have never seen it go to seed. Ever. I could not even visualize a lettuce plant going to seed. 

Until this year. The Black Seeded Simpson has been so hearty and so prolific that it has started to flower. I nipped off a number of the flowering heads to prolong the lettuce, but some I am letting go to full flower. 

A flowering lettuce plant is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. 

Look how delicate those flowers are.

I did not note in my gardening book anything more than the names and locations of the lettuce beds in my garden, but from what I can find online from checking a number of seed companies, Black Seeded Simpson is a heritage lettuce, which means they will grow from saved seed. I am tempted to harvest some of the seeds and hold them for next year.

Amusement of the summer (as in "the joke is on me"): the Cherokee Trail of Tears black pole beans. Not the product; these beans are prolific! No, it is my ignorance in realizing how these beans (and maybe all pole beans) take care of themselves when it comes to drying. I went out to pick more of them today and realized about three bean pods into the harvest that they have been drying themselves. All I need to do was pick them and pop the pods open. Out roll those beautiful beans. 

"Why have you been working so hard, April? We know what we are doing."

My beans picked last week were fine; I dried them for soup when the weather changes. Today's beans will join those, but right now today's beans are laughing at me, saying "Duh, April. You don't know beans about beans." 

As this realization hit me (the work being done by the sun and the beans themselves), I thought back to my past experiences with beans. There were always beans in my grandparents' garden; Grandma Nelson canned green beans by the quart. My parents also grew beans and Mom canned as well. Heck, even I grew and canned beans. But they were bush beans, always something in what I will call the "green bean" family, and you ate them fresh or canned them, period. I have no memories, even stories passed down, of anyone growing pole beans (which can also be eaten fresh). I do not remember seeing poles or structures for them in any of the gardens. I certainly do not have any memories of anyone (and this would have been on my dad's side of the family, as they were the ones whose gardens I knew growing up) drying beans. 

But now I know. 

A phrase several of my medical providers have been using lately is "knowledge is power, " referring to some of the testing I have been going through. I am going to steal that phrase and apply it to my beans: Knowledge IS power, and the power here is not working so darn hard for the same outcome! 

Today's haul 

This Year's Gardens: Part 10

Cherokee Trail of Tears Heritage Pole Beans

The gardens continue to baffle and amaze. There are no other words.

I have made it official: the zucchini garden is a total loss. TOTAL. However, there may be a ray of possibility. I went to our local Farmers Market this Saturday in search of zucchini to prepare and freeze for the winter. Only two vendors had it at all. The first vendor said they had had trouble with it this year, a first for them. The second vendor, who had more zucchini at his stand, listened to my description of what I had seen in the garden, furrowed his brow, and made some suggestions as to what it might have been. (And given the state of the cabbage and cauliflower in that same garden, I think he was on point.) He then said he was getting ready to do a third planting, just for household use. "You have any seeds left?" Yes, I still do. He suggested I clear out the debris, till, plant (no starting inside, just straight up planting), and see what I get, saying there should be enough warmer weather left to get one more crop in. 

I'm game. I know I will have some limitations on my physical capacity, but heck, why not try it? Worst thing that can happen is the zucchini comes up and gets destroyed again. To give the plants half a chance, I will try to be better at (mostly) keeping the weeds down. 

Related somewhat to the whole Hej garden issues (the zucchini, the cabbage, the cauliflower losses), I am (as always) thinking about how to make it work better next year. There is a gardening account I follow sporadically on Instagram, and a few days ago someone (they have many people who post) put up a 3-tips video. Tip #1? Grow red cabbage, which bugs abhor; they go after the green cabbage. 

Bingo: my red cabbage has been virtually untouched. The green I will be pulling up and throwing out when I clear the Hej garden for a second attempt at a zucchini crop. Next year: red only. I can plant them in the Hej garden and clear up space in the kitchen garden. 

In the kitchen garden, the tomatoes are finally ripening and I am in tomato heaven. I will get a few more peppers, but those plants were too shaded by the tomatoes and pole beans to do well. (Not to mention the enormous leaves the red cabbage put out early that totally shaded everything around each one of them.) 

Warren, knowing my frustrations this year and looking ahead to next year, suggested I plant the tomatoes on the north side, or in the middle, and give the peppers a chance by putting them on the south side. Yep, he is right. We also talked about the burgeoning flower section, cosmos and sunflowers, and how they too take up space. The sunflowers I want to keep in the back against the garage wall, but the cosmos would possibly (maybe?) enjoy the garden bed (also neglected this summer) that runs along the back of our house. I have been collecting cosmos seeds already this month and can see a cosmos project next spring.

The cosmos and the sunflowers

I have been picking the Cherokee Trail of Tears black pole beans. I think I have been late in picking (waiting for them to go totally purple), so I cut up and froze some (to have some night with dinner) and opened up all the other pods to collect the beans inside and dry them for further use from cooking to replanting. 

The beans are beautiful. 

I have more of them coming along in the Hej garden, a few weeks behind these in the kitchen garden. As I said to several friends, no surprise that the beans were the only thing that survived out in that garden. Anything that could survive a forced death march of thousands of miles had to be hearty. And they are. 

Laurie over at The Clean Green Homestead, reminded us in her blog today that while many of us are talking about the end of summer, the midway point of summer on the calendar is August 7. "I'm not wanting to wish these days away," she noted. I smiled; our local schools start this week and for many of us, even without children in school, that signals the end of summer. But I endorse her gentle reminder to savor our days. This household has been running on overload on too many fronts, many of them not within our control, and it has taken a toll. It is good to take a break and to remind myself to relish the day in front of me. 

Grateful and Lucky

My friend Tani recently shared the story that her two sons, when they were young, had a wonderful ritual. When they came across two cherries connected with a single stem, they would hold them up and shout, "I am grateful and lucky!" 

Tani recently bought herself a necklace with a two-cherry pendant on it to remind herself that she is truly grateful and lucky.

I wrote her that her sons' shouts reminded me of Sam, my youngest, when he would have an unexpected surprise, such as finding a penny in a parking lot. He would burst out with a joyful "Is this my lucky day or what?" as he danced up and down in glee.

Grateful and lucky. Both Tani and I have had a heaping serving of health concerns lately, so her words resonated with me. 

In picking tomatoes (yes, they are finally ripening), I found this when I turned them out to wash:

I am grateful and lucky! Is this my lucky day or what? 

This Year's Gardens: Part 9

Finally.

Finally there are tomatoes. Not many, mind you, but for the first time all season, I picked more than two or three:

These are the outliers, but I am grateful they are here.

The large green-red tomato is a Cherokee Carbon Heritage tomato. It turns reddish-purple, supposedly, but it seems to be ripe enough to eat at this stage:

From the bottom, it is red, but not a bright red:

Interesting about the purple, given the name "Cherokee." I have not read to see if the tomato is a heritage from the tribe. But I know the Trail of Tears beans are. The pods of those turn purple when they are ready to pick and eat. I picked this handful the other day to see how "purple" they had to be to eat:

The answer? Pretty purple. The kinda sorta purple ones in the picture are not ready to eat. When totally purple, the bean inside is indeed black. And delicious. And beautiful:

I am about to call the zucchini patch a total loss. I would like to say it is my fault. I have been pretty lackadaisical about tending it and the weeds are rampant. My lack of care has no doubt contributed to the situation. But I find plant after plant dying, shriveling and decaying to nothing. A few have grown into large, healthy plants. But even the healthiest ones seem incapable of having their blooms set. When I take a closer look, I see very tiny insects swarming the plants. They are not ants, they are not winged, but they are everywhere. 

I wonder if they are also the reason that the cabbages and cauliflower in the same garden are chewed with little tiny holes and producing nothing. Nothing. In fact, the only planting in the Hej garden that not only seems healthy but is likely to come to harvest is my second patch of Trail of Tears beans. Thinking of how that bean made it from the 1830s to now, I am not terribly surprised that it is thriving. Its survival capacity is huge.

The flowers are thriving, so there are spots of color and bees everywhere. 

In the coneflowers:

And on the Agastache, which loves its new bed:

Bees are also in the cosmos, which are blooming in colorful bursts, but I have not been hunting them for their closeup shot there. I have been watching instead for a hummingbird, new to our combined backyards this year. I have seen it darting in and out of the cosmos, clearly drawn by the colors, and lingering around the lilies in the back, some of which are deep red.

A hummingbird! A wonder on wings! 

Cosmos without bees or bird

I am pretty much resigned to the reality that we will have to buy zucchini this year to stock our freezer. I might be surprised, but I don't think so. I still have seeds and could always try seeding a new patch, but...we'll see. As I adapt to my own lowering levels of capacity and what I could and could not do this year in the gardens, I know there will be changes next year. 

But there will be tomatoes. And basil. And bees. This year and next. 

Yeah, That Too.

 My good friend with whom I am sharing both a high-flung discussion about and real-time experiences with being disabled, posed an interesting question in her most recent letter. 

I wonder why we've both been so very resistant to being labeled disabled. I guess it just doesn't fit our self-definitions.

I responded with two points of view. She's right: I have not thought of myself as disabled despite my family physician recently reminding me that I was disabled the moment I was diagnosed.

My second point of view, personal to me, is that while my overall physical well-being has been deteriorating for years, the rate of deterioration has been so infinitesimally slow that I lose conscious track of it.

Except when it hits me in the face, as happened just this week. 

I keep two sets of notebooks about my health. The first set consists of spiral-bound notebooks in which I record doctor visits, exams, results, questions to ask at the appointments. I started this set in 2014. These are the 1 Subject Notebooks that are now flooding our local stores as families prepare for school to open shortly:

The second set is random in size, color, and make; they are my myeloma journals. They date back to 2012, when I resumed treatment after gaining health insurance through my work and waiting out the one year of pre-existing condition limitation on coverage. Walking into our local hospital, which used to house the oncology clinic, I ran into an acquaintance, who was also a nurse. When I told her where I was headed and why, she said, "Keep a journal of how you are feeling, how your body reacts to different treatment. You'll find it useful."

My myeloma journals

It is this set that trips me up in the "oh yeah" moment. The same day this week that my friend's letter arrived with her pertinent question, I had been scanning these journals backwards chronologically, looking for a particular medical event. I did not find what I was looking for, but I found 2021 notes that sounded remarkably like what I am feeling now. Only better because I was in better shape then. In assembling the notebooks for this photo, I found similar entries years before those entries. In short, I have over a decade of entries showing a slow, imperceptible-to-me decline. 

As I posted back in June, 2022, it's the effing truck.

I am currently reading The Country of the Blind/A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland, who writes about his increasing blindness from an incurable, chronic, progressive eye disease (retinitis pigmentosa, or RP). Leland has the same experience with his gradually diminishing sight that I feel with the myeloma; at times the changes are so small and slow that it takes him time to realize that he has lost more ground. "Once I adapt to a change, and it's felt stable for a while, I nurture the illusion that, actually, my RP isn't as bad as it seems." He then goes along until his vision "erodes a bit more, and the drama of a fresh diagnosis is reactivated."

Yeah, that too.

So now I circle back not only to the burnt barn haiku, taking comfort in my seeing the moon, but also in the blunt reality of Atul Gawande reminding those of us with incurable cancers that the night brigade is always out there bringing down the perimeter defenses.

Yeah, that too.

Last evening, I ran into a series of more-that-usual stressors and finally flung myself down on the couch to watch the Shabbat service from Temple Sholom in Cincinnati, my synagogue of choice. I really needed that quiet sanctuary. (I was a bit late, and stressed about that, too.) I opened the site, I click on the service, and...

Crickets. They were having tech issues and could not get audio working for the live stream. 

But Shabbat came all the same. Later that night, closing the house up for the evening, I went out on the back deck. In the southern sky, the just past half moon was glowing. I called for  Warren to join me and we both looked for a few moments, sealing the moment with a kiss. Life goes on.

Yeah, that too. And that is the best of all.

This Year's Gardens: Part 8

 Late July. By now I am typically rolling in tomatoes. But not this year. The tomatoes continue to lag behind in ripening.

But they are gorgeous: 

Brad's Atomic Grape

Cherokee Carbon Heritage 

The peppers, on the other hand, have been growing quietly and steadily, with no fanfare. I picked several last week for this beautiful array:

First pepper harvest: Purple Beauty and Cubanelle 

Some went to meals (roasted peppers with cheese) and the rest got chopped and bagged for the freezer.

The Trail of Years pole beans are started to mature as well. The pods turn a greenish purple when they are ripe and I am just now seeing them turn:

The earliest ones turning

I am really looking forward to these for cooking and maybe for drying.

The disappointment this year has been the broccoli. I planted three healthy plants and they took hold and grew. Last week I noticed that the heads suddenly looking unusually shaggy; florets were growing up above the crown. I cut one for supper and found myself cutting away a lot of it: something not quite right. Not bugs, not rabbits, not sure what. I didn't think too much about it until I cut the second one yesterday to prep it and ended up with over half of the broccoli inedible. The core of the broccoli was rotting, literally. Those florets that had shot above the crown? I think they were trying to escape the spread. I cut the third and last one this morning and found more of the same.  I salvaged what I could for eating and the rest will go to compost. 

All I can think of is the title Heart of Darkness:

This is what all three heads looked like inside: not pretty 

Insofar as I am working through personal issues of capacity, the loss of the broccoli makes it easy for me to say "no broccoli" next year.  Yes, I am already planning next year's gardens. Not intensely, mind you, but keeping notes in my harden notebook about results, issues, and such.

And keeping my focus on this year's gardens, surely there will be tomatoes coming my way. Soon, I hope. 

One Final Reflection

 

Photo by Jaunathan Gagnon on Unsplash

Last week I wrote two posts about my increasing awareness of being chronically disabled from the physical toll of 19 years of cancer and 18+ years of treatment. This week I had appointments with two different medical providers, and they added their own perspectives to my thoughts.

And maybe now I am ready to come to terms with where I am.

The first appointment was with my personal physician, with whom I have a great relationship. I shared with her some of the thoughts I have been mucking around in as I come to accept that I am disabled. She looked at me, then said, "You do know that you became chronically disabled the day you were diagnosed, yes?" Oh, yeah, I do know that, but it was never really on my mind until these newer changes and and their emotional and physical impacts on me.

The very next day I was at oncology and had an appointment with Katie, one of the Certified Nurse Practitioners there (Tim was rounding). I shared with her the same  thoughts and she said, "I hear you. It is a bitter pill to swallow." She then suggested that I focus on my abilities and capabilities, which are numerous. Katie did not present this in a chipper "Count your blessings!" tone or suggest I was being self-indulgent given my longevity with the myeloma, but was very matter-of-fact. Yes, it is bitter and yes, you are still here.

My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon. 

That is a 17th century haiku by Mizuta Masahide, a Japanese poet and, yes, a samurai. I used to keep it taped above my desk at Juvenile Court. And I think that sums up where I am: the barn is burned to the ground, but what a view of the moon I now have.

This Year's Gardens: Part 7

 

The first two tomatoes. Yes! Or, as I still use this great phrase from my years with the Cubans: al fin! 

These are from one of the two Husky Red cherries I planted. An Early Girl nearby is trying to get her act together, but these two just sailed across the finish line. I found them about 30 minutes ago when I was deadheading some marigolds and looked past the border into the heart of the tomato plant. 

Now it feels like summer. 

***And on an absolutely irrelevant (to gardening, that is) note,  "Deadheading" has a whole different meaning for those of us who are Grateful Dead/Dead fans (when Jerry Garcia died in 1995, the remaining original members agreed to not use the "Grateful" again in the band's name). Just saying. The Dead just finished off one final tour—the Final Tour—of the US to end a stunning decades-long history. Their last concerts were in San Francisco, the city where it all started, last weekend. My dear son Ben caught the Final Tour concert in Philadelphia this June; he still has the ticket in his wallet from 2003 (when he was still in high school) from the very first time he saw them. Now that's a Dead fan. 

A Handful of Frugal Moments

Last week, Melissa Clark of the New York Times wrote an article on "How to Make No-Churn Salted Caramel Ice Cream" (also titled "The Easiest Salted Caramel Ice Cream Doesn’t Require a Machine"). I like Clark's writings and she did her usual excellent job of describing the process, the ingredients, and the results. 

However, this being the New York Times, the recipe was available only if you are subscribed to its special Cooking subscription, which is not included in a regular subscription. I believe the Cooking subscription is $1.25 a week.

A week. That is $65.00 a year. While I am quite willing to pay $20 every four weeks for a subscription to the Times (and yes, at $260 a year, I admit that this is both a privilege and a luxury), I am not willing to subscribe to an additional feature that I know I would use only sporadically. I know, I could subscribe for a week, spend a chunk of my time sifting through the recipes for gold, then cancel, but life is short. (This reminds me of when a friend, hearing me rave about Reservation Dogs when it premiered, said "Well, you could subscribe to Hulu for the new subscriber rate, binge watch, then cancel." Yeah, I could.)

So without access to the special Cooking subscription, I did what many of us do: I Googled "no-churn salted caramel ice cream." Within a few minutes, I found one that followed the spirit, ingredients, and process of the one Melissa Clark wrote about, and decided to follow it.

That was Frugal Moment #1: Coming up with an alternative recipe without paying for it.

The recipes called for three ingredients: heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, and caramel sauce. The first two went on the list for a very brief shopping trip Sunday morning.

The caramel sauce? 

Well, that was Frugal Moment #2. A number of years ago, at one of our monthly legal clinics, a dear friend who was also one of our regular volunteers came to me with a smile and something hidden behind her back. "I thought of you when I saw this," she said. 

It was a jar of caramel sauce. It has sat on a kitchen shelf ever since, just waiting for its moment in the spotlight. 

How long has it waited? Well, the lid has a best used date of...March, 2015. Knowing how items are dated, that jar and gift may date back to 2014. 

No problem. It was fresh and it poured as needed. 

The very patient caramel sauce
(Sounds like a children's book title, doesn't it?)

The recipe took less than 20 minutes to make, with cleanup taking another 10. And the result? 

Superb.

Taste testing! I think our two scoops per serving equal one scoop from a shop. 

I did a little math about this dessert. Since we had the caramel sauce already, that left the heavy cream ($2.89) and the sweetened condensed milk ($2.19) as the outlay for what filled a two-quart loaf pan. To put that quantity into perspective, a container of ice cream at the store is generally 1.5 quart, not 2 quarts (which would be a half gallon, the standard of my childhood). So for $5.08, we have a half gallon of heaven.

And to put that $5.08 into further perspective, I measured it against the places we go when we treat ourselves to ice cream. Downtown at Whit's, which is within easy walking distance, for two one-scoop servings? $8.00. Handmade incredible ice cream at Sticky Fingers in Kilbourne? Two single scoops at $3.95 each, or $7.90. Kilbourne is 6.5 miles, more or less, from Delaware, so add gas too for a 13-mile round trip. Midway Market in Ostrander, which carries delicious Hershey ice cream flavors? Two single scoops for $3.00 each, or $6.00 total, and that is a 16 miles round trip. (I am not comparing prices to soft-serve ice cream, because that really is a whole different food group, but I will just note that our favorite soft-serve stand, for very sentimental reasons, is in a little village called Prospect, which is 14 miles away. We usually spend somewhere from $5.00 to $6.00 for our combined orders.) 

It all adds up. And that was Frugal Moment #3: we beat the spread. By a long shot. Because we will be getting more than 2 scoops of deliciousness from this recipe. In fact, the next day I divided the ice cream into containers for later. (Of course, I saved some for now!)

Plenty left after our initial tasting! 

There are many other reasons for going out for ice cream. Spending time away with no interruptions of office or shop is one. This allows us, especially Warren, to set aside some of the daily stress and stressors. Giving ourselves a different space in which to talk is another. (This is sometimes related to setting aside stress, sometimes related to feeling we need to connect differently after a hard day.) Meeting up with friends coming in from another direction for an ice cream rendezvous is another great reason (yes, David, I mean you and Vinny). So I am not beating myself (or ourselves) up for taking those ice cream trips and I know they will continue. 

But this week, at least, we are enjoying our homemade, handmade, fancy-schmancy NYT knockoff salted caramel ice cream and savoring every single bite. And the frugality, goofy though it may sound at times, makes it all the sweeter. 

This Year's Gardens: Part 6

 While the tomatoes take their sweet time about ripening and the zucchinis vines lounge around like long-ago debutantes in their big yellow blooms, the basil has been coming on like gangbusters. Enough so that I could cut quite a bit and make pesto this weekend. 

How do I make pesto? The very best "recipe" I ever read came out of the New York Times several years back. The reporters were on a hunt for the best in-house pesto on the menu of restaurants in the Hudson Valley. When they decided they had found the best (using such criteria as taste (of course), texture, and consistency), they asked the restauranteur if she would share her recipe. Absolutely, she said. She put basil leaves, olive oil, garlic, parmesan (or other) cheese, and pecans into a food processor and started it up. She would add more of any of those ingredients if she felt the batch needed it, and would throw in some salt and sometimes pepper. 

That was it. She made pesto totally by feel and taste and sight. Did it look right? What did it taste like? Was something missing? What was the consistency? Was it pesto to her? If not, then she would add this or that of the basic ingredients to make what she wanted and expected her pesto to be.

I read that article and adopted her approach wholeheartedly. It has never failed me. As an extra bonus, my beloved Grandma Skatzes comes to mind when I make pesto. She was almost entirely deaf and had very little vision in her later years, so Grandma cooked by feel and by taste. Although she never tasted, let alone made, pesto in her life, Grandma would have understood the approach immediately. 

I gladly share my "recipe" when asked. The recipe always baffles the person asking for it.  "So how much basil do I need?" As much as you want. "Well, how much olive oil?" Whatever it takes. Just trust the process and trust your senses. I think it is that last comment—just trust your senses—that throws the person off. Just trust my senses? What does that even mean?

Here is my weekend adventure in three abbreviated steps. 

Cut and wash the basil:

Throw everything in the food processor and hit the start button:

Check to make sure the results pass your personal pesto test (look at it, stir it, smell it, taste it):

If the end product tastes like pesto to you, you are golden! Pack it away in small containers (pesto freezes wonderfully) and clean up the bowls and food processor. Life is good. 

There will be more pesto making in the weeks ahead. In the late summer, I will let the basil go to flower (I have already been nipping buds off with my fingers) so the bees can enjoy them. 

And one of those days, one of those tomatoes will ripen! 

Upon Further Reflection

Earlier this week, I wrote about the ever-changing landscape of my physical self and about my coming to terms with my increasing limitations. After I posted it, I thought, "Oh my gosh, I left out Jesse Stuart."

Jesse Stuart was a writer, now not often recalled or even mentioned in most places, although at one time he was one of the most anthologized writers in America. He is now largely remembered as a regional writer, as a writer of Appalachia, as a minor writer. His works included poetry, novels, children's books, and memoirs. 

My own connection to Stuart is far more direct than just reading his books. Stuart was born in the hills outside of Greenup, Kentucky, in the same area where my father's paternal and maternal families were also rooted. W-Hollow Road was a turnoff right by where my Grandma Gullet, my great-grandmother, lived in her later years. Stuart grew up in that area, taught in that area, and eventually established a home and farm on W-Hollow. (The farm is now a State Nature Preserve, created by Stuart before his death.) My grandfather, Grandpa Nelson, very close in age to Stuart, gave him a ride (on horseback) at least once when Stuart was walking back and forth between the hills where he taught and the town of Greenup, where he bought supplies for his classrooms. When I read Stuart, I hear familiar language and recognize the landscapes he describes. 

So what does that have to do with my thoughts about my own changing capacity?

When Stuart was 49 years old, he had a massive heart attack that all but killed him. He had a long, slow convalescence, all of which took place at W-Hollow once he was stable enough to be moved. (He was on a speaking tour when it happened; it was over a month before he could be moved safely back home, some 400 miles away.) Stuart was weak, he was depressed, and he was an invalid. No visitors, no excitement, very limited walking and movement until he built up his resistance and his heart healed. Although Stuart was a writer, his typewriter (this is 1954) had been put away because the doctors were concerned that he would damage his heart further using it. 

 Stuart's hands were stiff and he had no intention of squeezing a rubber ball to bring them back to life. So his doctors agreed he could write, with pen and paper, for a limited amount of time each day (two pages worth, initially).

The result of Stuart being given back a means to write was a yearlong journal, started on January 1, 1955, and ending on December 31. Stuart did not write every day, but he wrote often. He captured his moods, his physical well-being, and his slow and often painful journey to better health. He was acutely aware that he was now a "cardiac," and that this was a permanent disability that he had to live with for the rest of his life; his entries are threaded through with reflections on what that means. He wrote about his parents, he captured the sweep and scope of the seasons in his beloved W-Hollow. In his very last entry, Stuart wrote "[T]his is the year of my rebirth, from my death to my morning."

I had read excerpts from the journal, aptly titled The Year of My Rebirth, over the years. Coming into this summer, aware of my changing capacity, I remembered Stuart's book. No copies exist within the library systems I can tap into (most of the state) so I bought a copy. (I know, April doesn't buy things. But sometimes there are exceptions.) I have read it in pieces, setting it aside as library books with due dates come available. Presently, I am in October.

Reading Stuart has been a gift. His words from almost 70 years ago have given me reassurance and, perhaps, some needed support. My capacity has changed (and will continue to change) but I am still here. 

This Year's Gardens: Part 5

While watering the kitchen garden this morning, I stopped and yelled for Warren.

"A bean! A BEAN!" 

Cherokee Trail of Tears heritage pole beans

Warren came out of his shop and following my finger, then smiled. 

Indeed, a bean!

The garden is growing by leaps and bounds in some areas, by fits and starts in other. We are eating salads from the garden; the weather overall has stayed cloudy and cooler, so the lettuce has not burnt out. That's Black Seeded Simpson there that is filling our bowls:

Tomatoes are thickening on the vines, but nothing is ready. Last year, I picked the first ripe tomato on July 8. I am not even sure I will have a ripe one by July 18 this year. There will be a bountiful harvest at some point, but not yet.

The flowers and flowering plants are putting forth shows of color and variety, The cone flowers are in full swing:

The hostas are blooming too: 

And this is a Cup Plant, courtesy of our backyard neighbors. Dave brought me a planting last summer, warning me that it grows tall and likes to colonize, but right now it is behaving itself in its first year.

Bees love it; I will be trying to capture a few with my camera (no luck yet): 

The agastache, which we moved from the front bed to the back, is starting to bloom. It, too, is another bee-magnet throughout the summer:

And even the globe thistle is ready to join the show:

In the Hej garden, the zucchini are in blossom, but I am concerned about whether they are getting pollinated. Time will tell. And between the two gardens, the cruciferous plants in the kitchen garden (red cabbage, broccoli) are doing far better than the ones in the back (cauliflower and another type of cabbage). Something—insect, not animal—is having a field day on those in the Hej garden. I have no seen any insect movement on or around the plants, but something is clearly feasting. It happens.

Flowers, bees, almost ripe tomatoes, beans, and more. Life is good.