Jaci Dawn

Spring! Sprung! Sproing?

March 11, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

We have turned the corner on winter here in the Pacific Northwest. So much so, that I downloaded a satellite photo of our house and started the long process of photo-shopping it so I can start to plan out my garden beds for 2014.

I figured this was the most accurate way to plan my garden & design expanded flower beds – it will truly be to scale.

That was on the weekend. Monday came and I had to drag my sorry self out of bed an hour early to start my work week.

We have a small house, and when we first moved in, I found it was easier to do my make-up and hair in the laundry room where I could reserve a shelf just for my things. We still had kids living with us and the competition for the bathroom could get fierce. Now the kids have moved on and my husband sleeps in (he’s retired), but I still do my makeup in the laundry room.

I do everything else in the bathroom: shower, brush my teeth, anything that requires water.

In the laundry room, the wire to my curling iron rests in the bottom of the mud sink while I put on make-up and wait for it to heat.

This morning, I noticed something odd in the drain.

I wondered what had been dropped down in there? An old toothbrush used for cleaning now? A paintbrush? Something with a long, green, plastic handle?

I tentatively poked at it with the long handle of my comb. it moved, ever so little.

I took a longer, unbelieving look. Yup. A sunflower. There’s a freaking sunflower growing in the mudroom sink drain!

Makes me wonder when the last time was that we ran water down that drain. And when did this sunflower germinate? How did it get into the sink drain? Oh, well, that part I can probably figure out – I probably cleaned a bird feeder in there sometime in the past couple of months.

I showed it to my husband tonight. the conversation went, “Hey, Don, come see my sunflower.”

“Your sunflower?”

“Yes, my sunflower.”

“What sunflower?”

“Just come here.”

“Here? In the laundry room?”

“Here. See.”

“What the -? Did you take a photo of it?”

Why, yes, Honey, I did. And I blogged about it, too. But there’s a bigger question:

How long should I leave it in there?

SPROING!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged drain plant, garden planning, sun flower sprout | 3 Comments »

Test Results, Today’s Finds, Tomorrow’s Hope

March 8, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

This is a three-part blog post. The first part if the hardest part: test results. The middle part is shopping at Goodwill today. The last part is things I pulled out of the attic. None of it ties together, but that’s all right because I warned you first. That doesn’t make me a great writer, just good at forewarning the reader.

I saw the doctor on Wednesday of last week. The results of the test were pretty much what I knew they would be, because it is the answer I’ve been getting for over two years. Why should it change now?

It is actually very good news which, I suppose, stretched, could tie this blog post to the third point: hope. I’m not going to die of the gross hematuria. What causes it will remain a mystery, but I have – in the words of this doctor – explored every possible avenue to locate the source of the problem. She theorizes (as did my last specialist) that there is a capillary or small blood vessel that is between my kidneys & my bladder and which is broken and unable to heal itself. It pumps blood into my bladder, but not so much as to cause me to be anemic or ill. It just looks ugly and scares everyone. The alternative to that theory is that this is the very beginning stages of something else, but we’ll just monitor my blood counts every six months and see if anything changes.

Chances are, it will just go away. I’m banking on that.

In other words: I am healthy, I am not a hypochondriac, and we can put to rest any fears of bladder cancer or bizarre autoimmune disease. It has been over two years and cost us thousands of dollars, but I have a clean bill of health (so to speak).

Part Two.

Partly in celebration of this diagnosis (or lack thereof), I decided to spend some money at Goodwill. I love thrift stores.

I was looking for a particular item which I did not find, but I found these two items:

A charming 4″ tall duck with a rake. It had to come home to my house to be a part of my Easter decorations.

I walked by this several times. It isn’t functional, just decorative. I wondered if I could paint it & hang it on the fence or the shed?

After I brought it home, I wondered if I could take the shelves off.

It was brand new and the screws were easy to remove. One house is missing the finial. I want to hang them in tandem, in much the way I photographed them. I don’t think I will repaint them, even.

Unrelated, but somehow here in the middle: I also went to World Market/Cost Plus.

I found this there. It reminded me of Redwall Abbey and Brian Jacques, the author of Martin the Warrior. I had to purchase it. It was really yummy and I felt like a mole stealing a sip in the cellar with the Hedgehog.

Burr Hurr.

Part Three: because I bought the duck, I was reminded that I needed to pull out the Easter decorations. I won’t bore you with how that entails moving boxes back out of my 12×6’attic in order to find the three boxes that belong to Easter, and then putting everything back into the attic in a different order. I have to put on knee pads and climb in and out of the attic, because it is really just a crawlspace in the loft. It does have a light.

It also has a lot of loose insulation. But no spiders. Spiders don’t like the crawl space for some reason. Maybe it’s the loose insulation?

P.S. – I added the lavender raincoat to hide the telephone mess behind the baker’s rack.

Easter is about hope, new life, resurrection. As we (Christians) have attempted to incorporate Beltane and other spring equinox celebrations, Pagan symbols have slipped into it: eggs and bunnies, for the most part. Lambs have to do with the Christian celebration, but they are also a symbol of renewed life.

I have no problem mixing metaphors, and since most Christian holidays are mixed metaphors, that’s probably a good thing. I could never be a purist, throwing the eggs, chicks, bunnies, chocolate, and May Pole out with the Christmas tree, Yule log, and that fat jolly elf from the North Pole.

My collection of bunnies has become a family. I decided the grey one is really a lop-eared bunny, not a hare. The feet are wrong for a hare.

So: hope. Easter.

Daffodils and Lenten Roses. I’m beyond excited that my Lenten Rose (the only one that has survived out of three) is large enough that I can cut some blooms and not harm the integrity of the plant – and that it has bloomed in time for Lent.

So there I am: test results: healthy. Today’s finds: fun. Tomorrow’s hope: another season of birth, and a season of rebirth.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

What I Do During Office Meetings

March 7, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I am a doodler. I first came to this realization in Second Grade when I drew little trails behind the sentences on the back of my spelling notebook. They made sense to me: the trails followed the contours of the words. The words were obstacles that the hiker had to go around. The trails were exciting new areas of exploration.

I got in trouble. Apparently, you aren’t supposed to draw trails on the back of your spelling notebook.

The problem is: you have to sit still in class, in a lecture, at church, during a training session at work, and in college lecture halls. You are supposed to take notes. I take copious notes and my notes make a lot of sense. But in between those words are gaps: pauses in the speaker’s thoughts, reiterations of a point already made (how many times can you underline it to emphasize it?), and unimportant digressions in the dialogue.

I have a pen in my hand. Snow cap mountains flow out of the ink. Prancing chargers, wild mustangs, howling coyotes. One line to depict the mountains is never enough: you have to shade them in to show the timberline or the snow line.

A simple tree takes care of a note you need to erase. But a tree needs a shadow and there needs to be grass around the tree.

The sun rises over the waves and reflects in choppy sentences.

I really am paying attention. I probably am gaining more out of the lecture than the person sitting next to me who is taking no notes at all, or the person who is so intent on the speaker that they’re not hearing the words.

An emphasized statement can only be underlined and highlighted and marked with exclamation points so many time. Eventually, flowers have to grow. A dahlia takes over the O.

Just “google” this: THE ART OF DOODLING. It will blow your mind. I am not alone in this nervous habit of having ink in my hand and needing to spread it out onto the paper in pictures.

My father once espoused that he thought ancient pictographs and cave paintings were simply doodles. He said it to get a reaction from his favorite role model, his Uncle Frank (and he did get the desired response. Great Uncle Frank was an archeologist at heart and he nearly had apoplexy at my dad’s suggestion). But I don’t think Dad was entirely kidding: I think sometimes the art was there just for art’s sake. The ancient people painted and scribbled for the same reasons we do: nervous habit, a desire to create, and to tell a story here and there.

This story is one inch by one and a quarter inches. My coffee was cold and it was bearing down on lunch time. I hung it on a plaque on my notepad.

And then there are the webinars that go on forever. The entire top portion of my 8×11.5″ yellow tablet becomes a story in between the note taking. Mountains rise, storms come, rainbows become visible as the sun comes out, flowers grow, frogs hide in the cattails, and a pot of gold is found in the bed of four-leaf clovers at the end of the rainbow.

Those were doodles over two days’ of heavy note taking on a new accounting system. The doodles keep my head from hurting with all that information.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art of doodling, doodles | 1 Comment »

Rest In Peace Mary Denise

March 3, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I thought a lot about Deni today. There were so many kind replies to yesterday’s post!

She was a little sister, a brat, a nemesis, a clone, a best friend, and a sister.

I hated her in high school when she copied whatever I wore to school. “MOM! She’s wearing the SAME thing I am!” I would wail.

There were so many funny moments.

Driving down Highway 50 from Lages Station to Ely. Four of us in the cab of the GMC pick-up (no seatbelts). Dad lit a cigarette for my mom and handed it to me to pass to Deni to pass to mom. He lit another one and handed it to me to pass on down (I didn’t smoke).

Deni: “Um, Dad, why did you light another cigarette? You just lit Mom’s.”

Dad. “You smoke, don’t you?”

Deni: caught red handed, no way out. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks.”

—-

Deni comes back from the bathroom, shaking a bottle of Pepto-Bismal. “The lid is loose.”

The rest of us, “You just have to jiggle the toilet handle, not move the lid.”

Deni (as Mom takes the bottle from her and proceeds to shake it harder and pink stuff goes everywhere): “I meant the Pepto-Bismal…”

—-

Cousin Reisa: “Let’s pretend we’re vampires and now that the sun is setting we’re going to attack Deni.”

Me: “Cool!”

Jaci and Reisa proceed to turn into vampires.

Deni faints dead away. Reisa: “OHMYGOD! What did we do?”

—-

Deni: “He’s hanging by half a limb.”

“A quart short of a three quart tank.”

“Did you get your driver’s license off a Kellogg’s box?!”

“One brick short of a wall.”

—-

Family reunion, Deni calls Dad. She’s stranded on the side of the road between Ruth and Ely (five miles). No one will stop to help her. She’s 38 years old and crying.

Terry and me: “Why won’t anyone stop to help her?!”

Dad, “If you didn’t know your sister and you saw her hitch-hiking on the side of the road, would you stop?”

Uhhhhhhh.

(Terry went to the rescue)

—-

My parents call and ask what to do about the dog Deni wants to bring home from the private school in Wasatch, Zeke. He’s half-coyote. I told them they should allow Deni to bring Zeke home. He’d follow her, anyway. I met Zeke. He was a one-person dog.

She had a lot of dogs, but Zeke and Lincoln were the most loyal.

—-

Me, upon receiving a strange letter from my sister on official stationery. “Uh, Don. I think she’s in Idaho State Prison…”

(She was. She was extradited to Nevada, was the State’s witness, and put her boyfriend in prison for a long time. this was after SWAT busted them in Idaho Falls. Terry later told me that he should have picked up on it, too, but the ticker tape said “Mary Cracraft” and we didn’t know her by that name. She was Deni Wilcox to us.)

That was a hard time period for her: the transition from addict to citizen. But she did it.

I saw her just prior to this and her eyes were the reflection of death. To see her a few years later and see life in those eyes was the greatest gift I have ever received (next to her children).

—-

You didn’t want to play “Slug Bug” with her. She hit. Hard. And she played to win.

—-

Portland Coliseum, after the Lippizaner show. We hailed a taxi, but a large woman cut in front of us and moved to take her seat in the back. She sat on Deni who protested loudly. We got the cab. No idea how Deni slipped into that cab so quickly!!

—-

She was a fish. Her second nature was water. Looked up one day and she was out in the breakers off the Oregon Coast in Seaside. Out where the rip tide runs. Happy as a razor clam in the Oregon sand.

—-

I spent a weekend with her at the private school they sent her to. Met all her friends and Zeke, the dog. Laughed. She “borrowed” a hymnal and gave it to me. I still have the hymnal.

—-

We cried together when she gave her firstborn up for adoption.

—-

She was in jail when I got married.

—-

I know a lot of people have a dysfunctional family member, maybe even one as lost as my little sister was. She was Good People. She loved fiercely. She defended her young. She was – in the words of mutual friends – “kind and gentle.” She loved kittens, puppies, strays, horses, and people. She abhorred cruelty.

What pain caused her to turn to self medicate? I have some theories. None of them have to do with a weak person and all of them have to do with victimization. If I could only find the perpetrators… But I would have to forgive them. She forgave.

—-

My last memory of her was braiding her hair. Dad’s 70th birthday. We surprised him with a visit. I stood behind her and braided her hair into two pigtails as I explained to her that I got headaches from the single braid and maybe she would do better with pigtails. She had that lovely whiskey tenor voice, her voice box ravaged by drugs and alcohol. That’s why they call it a “whiskey tenor”. Her lovely, long fingers.

She had beautiful children. They’re all nearly grown up now. Smart kids.

—-

Proof that you do not have to be “successful” to “touch” a lot of people. She was not successful, but she touched a lot of lives. Her inner beauty was more important that corporate success. Take that “motivational” speakers: Deni touched a lot of lives and she was “just” a parolee with problems. She was well-loved and admired.

I am her big sister. And I still look up to her. Love you so much, Sam-bo!

—-

P.S. I am still really, really, really sorry about that damn duck!!

(We went to the fair together when she was 15. One of our last “good” sister nights together. We had a blast. And I spent $1.80 in dimes to win the damn duck. Live duckling. We took him home in an empty soda cup. He impressed on my sister and she named him Sam before we got home.

And Dad made her give the damn duck up. Couldn’t let her just keep it, clip its wings and whatever. NO. It had to go to a rancher he knew, someone who would take care of it and let it be a duck, not a pet.

I never quite forgave my dad for that and I know she never got over the damn duck. All.My.Fault.

Sam did live a happy life (the duck).)

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Looking Back 14 Years

March 2, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

Tonight marks the 14th anniversary of the last night that I had a living little sister. It doesn’t seem like 14 years, and her last night on earth was spent in a coma, and far, far, far away from me. She touched a lot of lives and is remembered fondly by so many.

One year, we held a huge wedding in the backyard of our house in Winnemucca. Teddy Bear and Pinky Cat got married. Teddy still lives with me, safe in a box with his Best Man, Lucky Dog. Pinky Cat went on to live with Deni, and was lost somewhere along the line. Perhaps she died when my sister’s rental burned down. Teddy and Pinky never got divorced, they merely lived separated.

We baked a heart-shaped two-layer cake and frosted it with home-made icing that didn’t mix quite properly, so it was a pink frosting it white powdered sugar polka-dots. The stuffed animals spent their honeymoon in their tree house (pictured).

When asked by the Mayor of Winnemucca what she would do if she was Chief Winnemucca ( a real historical figure) and all of her people were starving, but someone brought her two chicken eggs, Deni replied, “I’d scramble them and share them with everyone.”

Her family nick-name was “Sam”. When she was very little, there was a back yard baseball game. The neighborhood boys protested that girls could not play. The father in charge looked around and said, “I don’t see any girls. Oh: here’s Tommy, George, and Sam.” Sam was the name that stuck.

Deni, Terry, Jaci

We never wore shoes, my sister and I. We walked from our house to the public swimming pool across sidewalk, asphalt, dirt, gravel, and railroad ties (the worst!) in 100 degree weather, but we never wore shoes.

My father believed that my sister got a cut on her bare foot and that was where the infection began. Certainly, the era of going barefoot was over after March 3, 2000.

Terry, Jaci, Sam

It happened quickly. She cut her foot and washed it, then forgot. But it hurt more than usual. And her leg began to throb. and then she was sick to her stomach. She called my dad, a widower by then, and cried that she was “afraid…” She was newly married to her second husband, struggling to raise her three small children, and living in a single wide trailer my dad bought her.

Dad called me on the 2nd of March to tell me that Sam was being rushed to Reno via LifeFlight. She was in a coma already.

She was not quite 41 years old and trying to get her life straight. She’d been a drug addict, an alcoholic, and she’d done her time in jail. She had four children by different fathers.

When Mom died in 1995, Sam was probably 17 years old emotionally. That’s what chronic alcohol and drug abuse does: arrests your emotional development. She was an alcoholic by the time she was 17.

When Sam died, she was probably 23 emotionally. She was close to Dad, and he mentored her (sometimes begrudgingly) in home repair and keeping a steady job. She wrote me long letters on how she was turning her life around.

We fought like sisters. We giggled like sisters. She was the brave one who knew no fear; I was the shy one who needed to consider all the risks. She was a talented artist, a loving mother, and a loyal friend. She had a temper to go with those dark brown eyes.

The diagnosis was “necrotizing fasciitis” (Flesh-eating bacteria). It is a deadly form of the Streptococcal bacteria that gains entry through a wound. It can be a pin-prick size of a wound, but if the bacteria is present and there is no immunity, it begins to attack the muscles. It rapidly moves to the organs, and most people who die of it, die of Toxic Shock Syndrome when their organs simply shut down. The lucky ones may end up losing a limb, and a few emerge apparently unscathed (but deeply scarred internally).

My great-grandmother on my father’s side died of a streptococcal infection that attacked her organs. My dad believed it was the same disease, but Grandmother died in 1930 in Salt Lake City and her records were lost. We have only my grandfather’s diary entry to go by, and his description is terribly like what took my little sister down.

Both women died too young to leave small children behind.

I flew down for the funeral. It was a much harder funeral to attend than my mother’s. Mom’s death was slow and agonizing and predictable: emphysema robbed her of her ability to breathe on her own. My sister died pretty much overnight. There was no warning for me, no way to prepare myself emotionally – and then I had to face her orphans!

Chrystal cuddled up with me during the funeral. She was the oldest of the little ones. Her big brother sat on the other side of her, a young man already.

It wasn’t all sad. My brother did the eulogy and he told all the funny stories he could think of. The crowd was tense: nearly everyone who came wore their “colors” – members of an outlaw biker band that had the local city police circling the church in hopes of serving a warrant or two. My brother was still a county deputy. The pastor had never had so many obvious sinners in his church before (it was standing room only). There were childhood friends who came hundreds of miles to say “good-bye”. All the strays my sister had taken in over her short life.

Terry played the song that he said best exemplified Deni’s short life on earth, a life she embraced fully.

It brought the house down.

I get sad when I think about the good times we had together, the bad times we shared through letters, and when I watch Deni’s kids struggle to grow up. Sam wasn’t successful by business standards, but she remains an icon of fierce loyalty and love for the hundreds whose lives were touched by hers.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥Lovin’ Denise♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Fourteen years.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Chief Winnemucca, death, Deni Cracraft, Deni Wilcox, flesh-eating bacteria, little sister, nectrotizing fasciitis, winnemucca | 1 Comment »

Buddie Jacopo – A Story of a Sister’s Love

February 23, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

This came to me today. I haven’t thought about it in a long, long, time. I am posting it especially for my nephew, Mike, who wants to hear stories about his mom. This is a classic Deni story.

Of course, it starts out and ends with me: our memories are like that – centered around us. But if Deni had not done what she did naturally – and on that November day, in particular – then Buddie Jacopo would never have been.

The day was November 2nd, 1972. My fifteenth birthday. I rode to school with my brother in his old pink Willys Jeep. (Yes, pink!) He ditched me as soon as the Jeep was parked, but my best friend, Janet, met me outside of school. We found a tiny black kitten with amber eyes. He was so beautiful and so friendly: I almost put him inside my brother’s Jeep so I could sneak him home and beg to keep him.

But I didn’t. I went to school, instead, and hoped the kitty would be out in the same area when I had to walk home after school. He wasn’t.

Five blocks away, the middle school was busy. In those days, my mother worked as a secretary for an engineering firm that had an office adjacent to the middle school play ground. We were taught from an early age that when Mom was at work, we were *not* to bother her. No phone calls, no drop ins, nothing: we were to behave as though we did not know where she worked.

Ely middle school toughs hauled a kitten to the playground: a black kitty with amber eyes that was friendly and wanted only to be picked up and loved. They began to torment the cat with intent to torture it.

One thing you never did in front of my sister was be mean to a living creature. She couldn’t stand someone who picked the wings off of flies. Don’t begin to ask about tormenting kittens.

The kitty was carried to my mom’s office, where my sister begged my mom to take it home: “I want to give it to Jaci for her birthday. PLEEEASE…”

Can you imagine my surprise and joy when my mom brought the kitten home? THE KITTEN. The same one I almost put into the Jeep!

Can you imagine the sorrow and loss I felt when my dad put his foot down and said, “NO MORE CATS.” We already had one: a black cat named Speck-o’s that my brother hid in the garage for a week before our father discovered we had adopted a kitten.

My own beloved Jasper Cat died the summer before, cut in half by an ore train. I was in Reno when it happened and my sister helped my brother bury Jassy.

I cried alligator tears and stood outside in the bitter November chill, refusing to come back inside unless the lucky little black kitten was welcomed to come in, too. I threatened to spend the night outside, crying bitter tears.

I was truly Sarah Bernhardt. It was an act worthy of an Oscar.

The cat was allowed. I named him Buddie. My other best friend, Lisa, suggested I name him Jacopo (whether after the Italian poet, composer, or artist I no longer recall).

In a postscript: when I left for college and left BJ behind, he adopted my dad. Dad, the Grouch who did not want the cat in the first place, taught BJ how to beg for treats and to sit up like a dog. It amused my father greatly. I think BJ was his last favorite pet.

I was so grateful to my little sister for her act of bravery in the face of middle school hazing (she was the new kid on campus) and for her sacrifice (“I want to give the kitty to Jaci for her birthday” when she really wanted him for herself). It was something Deni would do. She had a big heart.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged black kitten, Buddie Jacopo, Deni, middle school | Leave a Comment »

Biopsy

February 17, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I have no idea why I feel compelled to share this with the Internet. It just was different than what I expected (and probably cost a billion dollars – there goes my high-deductible for 2014).

According to the websites and the doctor who referred me, I would be given a local anesthetic to my back. I would feel “pressure” when the biopsy needle went into my back and nothing more.

That was all the preparation I had, despite researching in on the Interwebs. I would be fine to work on the following day.

Reality was slightly different. I argued for my favorite hospital and won: somehow, the powers-that-be ignore the little hospital right here in Oregon City in favor of the larger, more metropolitan ones. This, despite that our local hospital is part of the Providence network, well-staffed, and clean. I won, and that part makes me smile. I was (at least) in familiar territory.

I was wheeled to the CT room. I was told I would be given “happy drugs” (narcotics) and I probably would not remember the procedure at all. IV in, electrocardio set up, blood prtessure cuff on, emergency oxygen in the wings. I lay on my stomach, head twisted cruelly to the left. (MY choice: left or right: I chose left. They did make me as comfortable as possible.)

They wheeled me in and out of the CT Scanner with the admonition to “hold the same breath” every time. I did not bother to point out the grammatical incorrectness of such a statement, but concentrated on memorizing how I was going to inhale and hold my breath. I was introduced to everyone: Darcy, my day nurse; Holly, the attending RN who would record everything; Darla, the CT Scan tech; Dr. Vega, the professional who would extract cells from my kidneys.

They placed little grids on my back and explained that I needed to hold the same breath because the kidneys move when you breathe. Technically, I understood the request: they wanted the kidneys in the same position every single time so they wouldn’t miss the target. I only failed once.

Lidocaine was injected into my back (small fire). 25 milligrams of pheno-something (not barbitrol?) was injected into the IV. I was fully aware the entire time and even felt the large needle go into my back (a pain that registered as a .5, nothing to even flinch over, but certainly not a strong pressure on my back).

Someone from Oregon Health Sciences University showed up with a microscope. I overheard this in the background as staff rushed around. Apparently, this was unexpected and was a sudden act of Providence: they would instantly know if they collected enough cells for the biopsy and I would not have to repeat today’s visit in the event they didn’t collect enough of my kidney. I say “kidney” now because they only took samples from the right kidney.

Four, to be exact. “Hold your breath.” Click. “Breathe. Four times. Wait five minutes while the people with the microscopes ascertain that enough cell matter has been collected. The cell matter will be transported to OHSU for complete pathology.

I was told I was a model patient: calm, patient, exact in my breathing. I had to wait two hours before being allowed to leave (they want to be sure no signs of allergy, infection, or excessive bleeding appear).

The part I was not prepared for: complete bed rest for the rest of the day. 24 hours of bed rest, to be exact (although I am violating this right now). I am not supposed to drive for 24 hours, but I invoked what I was told before I even went in for the biopsy: I was told I could go to work in the morning on the day after.

I am a compliant sort. I try to obey the doctors: bed rest, all that. It’s to prevent infection and worse, and I get that. It’s part of my personality to obey when I believe it is right for my body and even if I don’t want to: there’s a time for rebellion and my health isn’t the time. But I will be driving long before the 24 hours is up, as long as I feel this fine in the morning (and I see no reason not to).

Thankfully, my Kindle was fully charged. I’ve checked my email, checked my Facebook, and started reading (or continued to read) three books: I’m struggling with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (preachy, and I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept of ‘owning’ another human being – my sensitivities are offended despite my affection for the heroes & heroines of the book), “Quiet” by Susan Cain (it only makes me angry as only an introvert in an extrovert world can feel – an anger that has simmered since the 9th grade when I ‘changed’ my personality in order to ‘fit in’ and that has been fueled in recent days by my company’s decision to put us all in cubicles in the ‘pod’ system – don’t ask this introvert what she thinks of that failed business model!), and “Exit Unicorns” by Cindy Brandner (not at all what I expected, but a very engaging history of Ireland).

My Kindle finally died and I am here, blogging. I will soon retire. In a week, I hope to have the pathology report. I am hoping that I did not mishear a nurse state, “They have pathology”. She was referencing the people with the microscopes and her words gave me heart: they already found something, but what?

My silent prayer is: “Please, God. Something. I just want to know what name the Enemy hides behind. I want to be validated in the ‘Invisible Illness’ realm. I *know* I have something: don’t tell me ‘nothing can be found’ one more time.”

Amen.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged kidney biopsy | 2 Comments »

Fritos, the Beatles, and Sam

February 14, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

I had one of those wonderful moments when you remember something about a loved one, and that memory transports you back in time, to the very moment.

I purchased a large bag of Fritos to take to work for my mid-morning snack. Yes, mid-morning. I had barely pulled them out of my bag of stuff to bring to work (Secret Valentine, among other items), than a co-worker said,

“OH! I LOVE Fritos.”

Of course, I shared.

But it was while I was sitting at my desk, alone, sucking the salt out of the chips, when I was transported.

The year was 1964. The month was February. We kids had been brain-washed by a series of black-and-white commercials touting the corn chip and we’d begged our mother to buy some. Rare treat when she actually got us something we wanted, like Lucky Charms Cereal (my favorite, but one she would not buy for us). The corn chips were in the pantry.

Saturday night, February 9, we all watched the little RCA television. The Ed Sullivan Show was on (my favorite part was Topo-Gigio). But this night would be remembered fifty years later, not for the little Italian mouse puppet, but for the band that Ed Sullivan (a far-thinking man) introduced.

My little sister and I were in love. I think her favorite was Ringo Starr, but John Lennon was my absolute favorite. Oh, John Lennon!

Sunday, we spent the day pretending we were The Beatles. We had the same haircut as the British Invasion, and my sister could cut it up like Paul. We opened the bag of Fritos and chowed down, our first taste of that singular masa deep-fried and heavily salted, singing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand!” and playing air guitar. It was one of the Best.Days.Ever.

Of course, the memory faded as quickly. My sister was nicknamed for a baseball player she was in a single backyard game where the boys declared “girls can’t play” and Mr. Coffey immediately gave us all boy names so we could, indeed, play. Sam. She never outgrew being Sam. The rest of us left our nicknames behind (mine was George), but Denny remained “Sam” until the day she died.

I have few great memories of Sam, ones where we were best of buds, giggling and loving life together. The Fritos and Beatles moment was one.I left work early, but I left the bag of Fritos on the top of my desk. Several co-workers were helping themselves by this time. Somehow, I didn’t feel violated, but I felt like a part of Sam was being shared, she of the wise words.

(1964: Nevada Centennial. Mayor of Winnemucca asks my sister and I a question: “If you were Chief Winnemucca and all of your people were starving, but you had two chicken eggs, what would you do?” I said I’d fry them and eat them. Sam – who answered second – said, “I’d scramble them and share them with everyone.” Score one for Little Sister Denise.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ed Sullivan, Fritos, John Lennon, Ringo Starr | Leave a Comment »

2014 February Snow

February 8, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

There’s something about the first snowfall of the year (that sticks to the ground) that makes it magical, even when that first snowfall is in February when the rest of the Northern Hemisphere is sick and tired of snow. I recall how much I hated February snow and slush before I moved to the Willamette Valley. We get some of our best snowfall in February, here in the lower end of the valley, and I now look forward to February snow.

That is, as long as I am not at work, don’t have to drive on any of the Interstates, and it falls on a weekend.

They closed the office on Friday: instant three-day weekend. I didn’t have to worry about calling in and saying I wasn’t making the 23-mile drive after all. Score that for this snow: I didn’t get caught up in the normal gridlock for more than the normal amount of time, I didn’t have to call in, it came as close to a weekend as one could hope for, and I could just enjoy the snow.

Harvey, of course, was delighted, and declared so loudly.

I had to trim the hair between his toes and up the backs of his legs because of the ice balls, but otherwise he is a snow dog.

Any time it is below the freezing mark, we switch out the hummer feeders: two in the house to thaw and two outside for the birds.

This is well appreciated by our native Anna’s hummingbirds which overwinter in the valley.

It is also appreciated by a couple black-capped chickadees and this Townsends Warbler.

Where is that buzzy bird? This is *my* feeder and it better not try to move me!

This snow brought us a bird that I haven’t had in my feeders for a long time: Audubon’s Warbler (the western version of the Yellow-rumped Warbler). So pretty!

I had to keep brushing the snow away from this feeder, which is frequented by the ground birds: Spotted Towhee and the Dark-eyed Juncos, among others. The Towhee was out there, but refused to cooperate with a photo.

We had four Varied Thrush come in. I felt sad for them because they won’t go into the backyard where the other ground feeders were, but it hopped around on top of the snow out front, looking for spillage from the front yard feeders.

So when I put our peanuts for the jays, I tossed out mealworms, too. The thrush ate the peanuts first. Who knew?

“Baby! It’s c-c-cold out here!” Dark-eyed Junco takes five.

The Northern Flicker (formerly Red-shafted for the red feathers in it’s tail) paid a visit. This is a female (no red “moustache”).

There’s always the requisite “our house in the snow” photo that has to be taken. Snowfall like this is rare (last time was four years ago). A photo taken from the right angle gives the impression that we live out in the woods and the tall Douglas firs that stand in neighbor’s yard and line the busy side street give the appearance of forest. We don’t: there was a lot of traffic on the side road: sledders, skiers, snow-boarders, and cars. And people walking dogs.

Harvey had to go for walks. We walked in the middle of the street on the side roads so he wouldn’t have to wade in the deeper snow.

The Retired Man crossing the street to take a photo with me.

8-9 inches of snow fell over two and a half days, which isn’t much – not even for here – but it is plenty.

Snow makes ordinary things interesting.

Lawn chair frames – used as plant supports in the summer – become works of art in snow.

Or frames for icicles to form on.

Speaking of icicles… This fallen one looks like a murder weapon!

The bird house on stilts becomes a cozy cabin.

The freezing rain began falling around 4 this afternoon. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings in terms of freeze or thaw.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Anna's Hummingbird, audubons warbler, bird feeding in cold weather, birdwatching, Northern Flicker, snow in portland, Townsend's Warbler | Leave a Comment »

Winter Driving

February 6, 2014 by Jaci Dawn

We have about four inches of snow in the yard, maybe a little less. It’s still falling. I am used to this and it doesn’t faze me – in a world outside the one I live in currently.

I grew up in snow country. I learned to drive in the winter and in a community that is 6500′ in elevation and c-c-cold in the winter. The only time we got a “snow day” was when 18″ of the stuff fell overnight and the rural buses couldn’t make it out to the ranches to pick up the ranch kids. We got one day off.

I once drove over a hundred miles from the Nevada border to Jordan Valley with chains on my car. I had to stop twice to pry off the loose links that started hitting the undercarriage of my vehicle. I delivered mail on a rural route in Baker City, Oregon, during the terrible winter of 1978-79, when water mains burst under the city after sustained days of -14 degrees at night.

I “get” snow.

I don’t “get” Portland snow. My first winter in Portland, Oregon, left me baffled at how a northern city could not cope with less than three inches of snow. I followed some car up a steep hill in less than two inches and swore at him as he SLOWED DOWN half way up the hill, forcing me to downshift. I barely made it to the top, myself.

In thirty years of driving in the snow here, I finally “get” it. I think I got it in the winter of 2008-09. Portland gets a different sort of snow than I grew up in, and it has a micro-climate of ice and micro-culture of drivers who have never lived in snow country. In the “big storm” of that winter (which dumped less than four inches on the metro area in less than two hours), it took me over six hours to drive 13 miles. I had, fortunately, taken my husband’s four by four to work that day or I would not have made it home. I would otherwise have been driving my car: a compact pick-up truck with a fiberglass body, rear wheel drive, and not enough weight in the bed.

In the days following that storm, I made one drive in to work. It was a mere 13 mile drive that took me over an hour and a half to make. A coyote outran the traffic. I swore, on that day, that if I ever had to do it again – I would not.

I now work 23 miles from home, and the last ten miles include a couple hills. We have not had a significant snow event in four years. Until today.

My employer sent us home at noon, just an hour before the real gridlock set in. I made it home in a little over an hour. I spent the day photographing birds in the feeder and Harvey playing in the snow. The afternoon and evening wore on and the snow didn’t stop.

It’s not much snow, by snow country rules. If I lived in snow country, I’d be on the road at 7AM tomorrow. But I don’t.

And after 30 years of living here, this is the first time I have looked out the window and said, “No. I am *not* driving in to work tomorrow.” I have a 4×4 of my own now. I can drive in the stuff. But you know what?

It isn’t worth it. I was in two wrecks last year (neither one my fault) and while *I* can drive in it, a lot of people who will venture out tomorrow will not have the same skills I have. They will drive too fast, trusting in the fact that they are driving a 4×4. They will drive too fast in a full-size pick-up truck with no weight in the bed. They will drive 15 miles an hour on the freeway because they are terrified to be out on the snowy roads but lack the backbone to tell their employer that they cannot do it.

After 30 years of living in the north, in Portland, Oregon, I am declaring that I will *not* drive in the snow to go to work in the morning. It’s not worth it. The risk to my rig, to my blood pressure, and to my body is too much.

I am throwing in the towel. I will drive around town if need be, but I will *not* get out on the freeway system and attempt to go to work.

P.S. – there’s no public transit from my home to work that runs in a direct line. I won’t be taking mass transit, either. Not worth my time – or my dollar.

I can’t believe I am officially throwing in the towel, but there you have it. We get a different kind of snow here, and I am not willing to do it again. I understand the whole Atlanta shut down in a whole different way.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged snow, snow in portland | 3 Comments »

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