The Monica Chronicles

Today is exactly the kind of day we thought of when we had our screen porch built this summer.  Beyond the protection of the roof and screen it is what we Farner kids affectionately refer to as “camping weather”; gray, drizzly and somewhere between warm and muggy and cool and damp, depending on how much you move around. The advantage of experiencing this kind of weather on my porch verses under a tarp is that we’re never in danger of springing a leak and having water run down our backs and if we get too uncomfortable, we can simply go inside.

With our hunger sated by French toast, the four of us; Dave, Izzie, Purrl and I have migrated from the kitchen onto the porch.  From our protected vantage point, we can enjoy the peaceful dreariness of our back yard along with the songs of scores of songbirds.  Our feeders are bustling with the usual morning crew; chickadees, titmice, house finches, cardinals and every so often a couple of hummingbirds go zipping by chirping at each other. I’ve heard people say they are only playing, but to me their play more closely resembles territorial disputes as they manuever around each other, one in hot pursuit of the other. I’ve often wondered why they make hummingbird feeders with so many portals, I’ve never seen them share a feeder. Instead, it seems as though whenever a second bird appears, “play” begins.

Considering their size, our hummers are fearless.  When I first put my feeders out and began to feed them, I assumed they were timid and would be fearful of the larger birds. Not so. It’s almost as if they consider us so clumsy and slow in our mass, that we larger creatures are incapable of threatening them at all. Bees on the other hand, are another story.

There is fierce competition this time of year between the birds and the bees at my hummingbird feeders. I find it ironic that the bees are collecting cane sugar-water to produce their natural sweetener but bee keepers have explained that even they will put out the sugar-water for their bees this time of year as the flowers begin to diminish. And so the battle rages for nectar dominance with the hummingbirds often falling victim to bee stings.

I usually prepare my nectar in a four to one ratio; one cup of sugar to four cups of water but lately I’ve heard I should increase the amount of sugar this time of year to provide extra calories to my little friends as they prepare to migrate south. Now that I no longer have children to prepare to head off to college, it seems only natural that I help something else prepare for migration.  In another four weeks or so we’ll have new visitors from the north and then soon they’ll all be gone for the winter, joining the millions of birds and retired folk heading to warmer weather.

As for me, I’ll still be enjoying my Saturday mornings on my porch, wrapped in the stillness of the yard as the day begins and focusing on just how good it all is.

Dorothy Gail said it best when she closed her eyes and tapped the heels of her ruby slippers and repeated; “There’s no place like home.”   To Dorothy, home was Auntie Em and Uncle Henry’s farm. Even though Oz was warm and familiar, it just couldn’t compare with her life in Kansas.

Throughout my life, I have had a much different perspective. As a child, my family moved several times. Each time we landed in a new place, we were able to build a new home and our extended family grew to include new friends in each dot on the map. My adult life has continued along that same path, first as a Navy family and most recently with our move to Central Virginia.  Always open to new members, our family is constantly expanding to include more and more friends.  This ability to nest almost anywhere leaves me with the mantra “There are no places like homes.”

This past weekend we made a quick trip to Virginia Beach, one of our longest homes, to join many of our St. Mark’s family in bidding farewell to a very special guy. Known as “The Guitar Dude”, Mike was a quiet gentle force in the St. Mark’s choir family. He was a gifted musician and composer but will best be remembered for his warm heart and his dedication to his family and friends. There was no way we could choose other than to forget about our own to-do list and make the trip to say goodbye.

Over the course of the weekend, we visited several of our other homes; the McMican household where we’ve spent countless holiday meals with Bill, Patricia and our extended St. Mark’s family, The Peking Duck Inn, where Simon and Julie always welcome us and gift us with a special dish and the Conner home, where Dave and I have had such great times with Dave and Vanya and occasionally I have laughed so hard that tears ran down my leg. But of all our homes in Virginia Beach, the most special is The Catholic Church of St. Mark.

I joined St. Mark’s way back at the end of the last century. We had just bought our first house and the kids were reaching an age where I wanted them to start attended Mass regularly. Dave wasn’t Catholic yet but it wasn’t long after I dragged him to St. Mark’s that our pastor, Fr. Joe Clark, discovered that Dave was interested in singing and introduced him to the choir director. He was hooked and joined the church a year later.

Over the course of our first years at St. Mark’s, we became so entwined in the community that after the Navy took us away for six years, when we received orders to go back, our main prerequisite on where we would live centered around our proximity to St. Mark’s. Returning to our church family made moving back so much easier, especially since both kids were in high school at the time, not the best time to uproot and move.  Having our community welcome us back into the fold made the adjustment much easier.

As I stepped into the Great Hall yesterday morning, I felt like Rip Van Winkle, the place hadn’t changed significantly, it looked pretty much like it did when we left.  But the children I knew three years ago were remarkably taller and in some cases had transitioned to young adults, there were new babies; babies of people I’ve known since they were babies.  Sadly, there was also the noticable absence of the faces that were missing. For the most part, the feeling was much the same as entering my mother’s kitchen; warm and welcoming me with the feeling that I really belonged.

It was also exhausting. There were so many people to catch up with; it was almost like speed dating as we attempted to exchange as much information as possible before the next new face caught my eye. I worry that I may have cut some folks off mid sentence as I drifted on to the next, a by-product of my ADD. For a few hours my mind felt like my office floor looks, with fragments of conversations lying about in total disarray. I spent most of the four hours back home in the car quietly sorting and filing them in my head. And like my office floor, I’m certain there will be a bit of information I’ve tucked somewhere that will pop up sometime later.

I wonder why it takes something as significant as friend’s passing to break us out of our routine to spend time with those we feel such kinship with. It certainly isn’t for lack of caring. If we weren’t separated by 100 miles or so on I64 and the dreaded HRBT, I know we’d be there more often.  But more importantly, because of the distance, I think probably the reality is that as lifelong home builders, we are busy building our new home, tending to our newer family members as well as remaining open to adding new members.  It’s just what we do.

Best of all, the way I see it; the super-rich maybe able to boast that they own many houses, but I consider myself much richer to be able to boast that I have many homes.  Take that Dorothy!

Aretha Franklin sang about it, Rodney Dangerfield lamented it and even Jesus experienced it; I just don’t get any respect!

This past Saturday morning, while rushing up the stairs, Dave caught his “long toe” under the lip of the top step and tripped onto the upstairs landing. Howling in pain, he cursed the said elongated digit. Having made the same ungraceful landing on the landing, I didn’t think too much more about it.

Later he mentioned that he thought his toe might be broken. “Could be,” I replied, “You should go put some ice on it and keep it elevated for a while. There’s nothing can be done for it but tape it to its neighbor toe if it is broken.”

He had too much to do; needing to run to Lowe’s to get a splash-block for the downspout on the new porch roof. This mission trumped any need of first aid on an ailing toe which told me that his toe couldn’t possible hurt that much if he was willing to walk around a huge big box hardware store.

After returning from Lowe’s and placing the new splash-block, Dave and I both began to ready ourselves for an afternoon barbecue with friends. Still concerned about his toe, which was now beginning to display a tidy bruise at the point of impact, Dave carefully wrapped it in gauze and then taped it together with its neighbor and slipped his foot into his Keenes to keep it protected. “I think I’ll go to the emergency room tomorrow for an x-ray.” he said, “I can feel the bone moving around.” “Does it hurt a lot? Is it throbbing?” Nope. So off we went to our barbecue.

The next morning we went to Mass at 8:30 as usual and then following a brief meeting, we sat and had coffee with friends. We chatted about our plans for our day when Dave announced he was going to the emergency room. Conversation stopped and all eyes turned to him, remembering his cardiac event last year and waiting to hear why he need to go to the emergency room. He said, “I think I broke my toe.” The room gave a collective sigh of relief.

So, after lunch, Dave headed off to the local ER, an acute care center attached to our family clinic. He told me I didn’t need to go with him so I stayed behind taking care of my stuff.

About two and a half hours later he came home. His toe was not broken, just bruised. The doctor instructed him to put some ice on it and keep it elevated and let him know that if it had been broken, they would have only taped it to the neighboring toe.

The feeling of validation that I had recommended the correct course of treatment from the beginning, was short lived. A big part of me felt a bit disrespected. For more than thirty years my children have trusted me for triage advice for all things medical while my husband’ not so much.

It is a curious thing, the mutual trust and respect between spouses. Even after almost forty years there are still some areas of growth required in that area. I’m as certain that Dave was totally unaware that he was “dissing” me as much as I am when I do unto him. The important difference between these types of situations now and then it that now I try to focus on the humor and humanity rather than the emotion. Life stays much more peaceful that way!

I suppose I could always become Dr. Mom, DVM. Izzie and Purrl will still listen to my medical advice. Sometimes.

My calico cat Izzie has the right attitude about time.  She begins her day when the sun comes up, naps in the afternoon when she’s tired and curls up on the couch in the family room when we sit down after supper to watch a little TV.  In between her naps, she spends most of her day out in the yard protecting the birdfeeders from the squirrels and hunting moles.  When her work becomes too much, she finds a shady spot in the yard and naps some more.  I envy her.

Most of our mornings begin with the buzzing of an alarm except for these few weeks in late spring and summer when the sun rises well before 6:30 and Izzie takes it upon herself to let us know that the sun is up and she’s ready for her day to begin.  She parades through our room, with the finesse of a drill sergeant, first calling to us from the door way and then leaps onto our bed and gives us a second call closer to our faces, insuring we hear her.

Although at times we can rightly be accused of indulging our feline family members, sleep is still a precious commodity to us so we aren’t about to jump out of bed to service Izzie at her say-so before the alarm goes off.  Many mornings we get second and third parades before we rise.  Even then we leave our beds begrudgedly.

Looking back through adulthood, the only time I can remember living on a schedule even close to Izzie’s was when I was home with my babies and Dave was deployed.  Except for the occasional doctor appointment, there was no reason for us to use an alarm clock.  Usually I woke to the morning sounds of a young child.  I don’t remember them crying as much as cooing or calling to me.  I’d get them up and our day began.  When we were hungry, we ate, when sleepy, we slept and the next day we did the same.  That doesn’t mean there weren’t challenges in between, life is about pushing the envelope in one way or another.  The difference then was that there were few external influences on planning our days.  Life pretty much revolved around us.

Lately my days have been so over full of blocked off pieces of time and long lists of tasks to be accomplished that I long for those days when life had a more natural rhythm.  I think I need a vacation!  Either that or in my next life I should be a house cat!

 

I have to admit that I haven’t had as much time to observe life these past few months as I would like.  Consequently, from my perspective, it seems as though we’ve transitioned from snow and cold into the full-blown spring and days hot enough to require air-conditioning.  Where has all the time gone?

Speaking of air conditioning, Dave and I had the misfortune to have the condenser konk out in our upstairs unit of the first hot afternoon of the year just before Easter.  Arriving home before me and finding the upstairs temperature reaching 80, Dave shut all the windows, turned on the A/C and then headed off to choir practice.  An hour later when I arrived, the temperature upstairs had not budged.  I could hear the fan working and feel air from the vents, so I let it go and when Dave came home, we went our for pizza.

 Later, when we arrived home, the thermostat had still not gone down a degree.  I was tired but jumped into trouble-shooting mode anyway.  First I opened the back door to listed to the heat pump.  It wasn’t running.  Next I checked the electrical panel; the breaker had popped.  I re-seated the switch, heard a loud angry buzz and then the switch popped.  Unconvinced, I repeated my test with the same result; “BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ -BOOOM!  Okay, clearly this was a problem I was not equipped to handle.  There was only one thing to do; open the windows, turn on the ceiling fans and call a professional.

The rest of the story is pretty boring, we called the HVAC folks, they assessed the problem, gave us alternatives, blah, blah, blah, we decided to replace rather than repair, wrote a check, blah, blah, blah.

What I find sharable about this episode is that it ran its course from start to finish without drama.  I didn’t hurl myself into self-pity; convinced that no matter how many steps we move forward financially, there is always something to pull us back.  Nor did I wonder what we did wrong, to have a relatively y0ung heat pump crap out on us, after all, we’d had a service contract and dutifully had it checked twice a year.  I accepted it for what it was, just one of those unpleasant spaces we land on in the game of Life. (Remember the game where you drove a car over the board facing the good and the bad on your way to Millionaire Acres?)

Thankfully age has mellowed me and taught me to handle life’s challenges in stride and for the most part, handle them head on without drama.  That being said, like everyone else, I do have my off days where I can become as whiny as the next person, especially when fatigue is involved.

But in this case, I am proud of my letting go of the why’s and what-if’s and just getting on with it.  It’s too bad we don’t badges for these kind of life achievements like in a computer game like “Bejeweled.”  I so like those merit awards that pop up after a game for so many subsequent somethings.  They urge me to keep playing.

I guess this time, for me, it’s enough to recognize my personal triumph, pat myself on the back and keep the memory handy for the next challenge that comes my way – which seeme to be the new programmable thermostat that came with my new system!