I can see you from here
So I did a thing, I turned 42 this year. We were in Louisiana visiting David’s family and friends. For my birthday David took me out to Ship Island, a place that means so much to me. We walked up the beach until we found a quiet spot away from the crowd. We swam and ate and played. This time I put on my goggles and snorkel and went to float on my belly. The world became silent and close. David grabbed my feet and floated me around as I relaxed in my oceanic cocoon.
When we got back to David’s parents house we found that his mom had set up a little birthday dinner complete with brownies and 2 kinds of ice cream.
Birthdays after about 36 or 37 don’t really seem to matter as much unless it’s a ‘milestone’, like 40. I turned 42 and it wasn’t a big deal but also it was perfect.
As a bit of a side note… there was almost no life in the waters where we were swimming. No crabs, maybe 2 comb jellies, no periwinkles on the beach. A sheepshead fish followed us a bit but there was nothing to stir up for him to eat. Weird? Sad?
Barbbrelopropes
An Order of Protection pt2
From Maddie’s perspective she has 2 jobs. One is to get as many be-bys (as in be by me. be-bys) as possible with me and to keep me safe. She guards me, she puts herself between me and the world and she does an excellent job. She has earned many peanut butter biscuits for her efforts. And this is what I see…
I see her little piggo tail, it’s how I know I am safe.
This is what I see when I build a blanket fort in the living room
This is what I see when I am cleaning the kitchen
This is what I see when I am cooking dinner
This is what I see when Maddie isn’t quite sure about what’s going on
This is what I see when I am peeing
This is what I see a year later when Maddie suddenly got old and her skin super rumpled
This is what I see when I take too long in the bathroom
This is what I see when I go camping
This is what I see when I am spinning yarn on Kristen’s back porch
This is what I see when we go on a picnic
This is what I see when we move into a brand new apartment
This is what David sees when I take a shower
This is what David sees when I take a shower while on vacation
A year ago we found out Maddie has cancer in her bladder. I expected it would happen sooner or later, she’s an old dog. We took her off the prednisone put her on piroxicam because it’s good at reducing inflammation. The tumor in her bladder was causing constant bladder infections and piroxicam can sometimes reduce the size of the tumor. I read up on it, it seemed like a 50/50 thing for shrinking the tumor and it would be good with her arthritis. Much to everyone’s surprise the piroxicam didn’t reduce the tumor, it got rid of it. She still has the cancer in the walls of her bladder but the tumor is gone.
I AM NOT in any way touting piroxicam as a miracle drug. It had a 50/50 chance and it worked out for us. I did a lot of research and I tried to be very realistic about what might happen on the piroxicam. I was not keen on switching her off the prednisone, which had kept her healthy for many years, and putting her on a new drug. I did a lot of research and worrying. But it worked and I am grateful.
Maddie is 14 years old. She’s headed to 15 years. She is 14 years old and she has cancer in her bladder, she is losing some control over her back legs, she a little noodly in the head sometimes. She is Maddie
Handshakes
As I have mentioned before, I like projects where I have a hand in as many steps as possible. This one is special.
First, my mom sent me a couple bumps of black shetland wool roving. This roving came from sheep owned by my mom’s friend. I don’t have a great picture of it but it is on the right side over there.
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I have a backlog of fiber to spin. I know!
My friend Kristen lets me use her drum carder. A drum carder is a terrifying machine with a million horrifying teeth that want to scrape the flesh from your bones. Also, you can use it to blend different fibers so that you can spin them up together. I took the wool, ran it through the carder with some very sparkly bits. Not too much, just enough to accent it.
There i have it, wool from my mom that she got from her friend and now I have it and it is ready to be spun.
Pre-drafted:
Singles:
Plied:
Washed, thwacked and ready to go:
I asked my mom to help me line a purse and in exchange I gave this yarn to her. It was the best thing, sharing this gift with her. And then for Christmas I got a most excellent present from my mom.
She gave me the wool, I gave her the yarn, she gave me a beautiful scarf. This is one of those projects that really mean a lot to me. I get many compliments on it and I love to tell the story. There is a photo of me in the scarf but also I am covered in dirty ice and crappy grit because I fall down all the time and a picture of me coveren in crap really isn’t something you want to see.