Hurricane Eyes

Hello, there. It’s hard to figure out how to jump back into this blogging thing, after so much time away. I mean . . . I’m still here, but I’m been busy with other things. It’s the same story as the last several “where have I been?” posts. Skip this post, and hope I post a new, better one soon, unless you’re really curious.

It’s been like moving from one hurricane eye to another: Just give up on the idea of more than a few weeks of relative normalcy. Chaos is the new normal.

But first, the requisite pretty picture, because the Internet loves pictures. It's a dickcissel that was dickcisseling at us at Friendly Prairie on May 31.

Okay. So. Basically, Mom and Dad have required a lot more attention and help than I had expected. They’re basically helpless. It’s been exhausting, physically, mentally, emotionally. It turns out that being in charge of two people’s lives and affairs (in addition to your own), and being in charge of a second house (in addition to your own), and having it all fall on your shoulders abruptly, is basically overwhelming. This doesn’t even count the parade of maladies that require medical attention, a litany of follow-ups. Teeth breaking off; outpatient Moh’s surgeries; and then Mom fell and broke her hip in early March. And it wouldn’t be so bad if both of my parents followed the doctors’ and physical therapists’ instructions (and not just Dad).

With all the time they require, and me feeling wiped out all the time, it’s been hard to find the blocks of hours I need to focus on my job, which is editing. Turns out you need to use your mind in order to edit things . . . or, for that matter, to write blog posts. Obviously, my job, and income, has to be Priority One. . . . Our yard has kind of gone to hell this spring; Sue has stepped up to do some of the yard things I used to do, in the Before Times.

Meanwhile . . . I have found time to write things in my actual physical journal. With it, I take a lot of notes, and I do a lot of “processing,” at odd times here and there. As always, I carry it and a pen with me everywhere. So if I stop at a restaurant for a bite, or get dinner to-go for Sue and me, I’ll sit there while I wait, and set down the frustration or vexation du jour. My theory is that if I write it down, it removes it from my immediate mentality. It sets it in the past, and it lightens the load.

I also write about the funny stuff, and the sweet stuff, to balance it out. I write about the “here is where I am right now,” for the historical record. One day, I may look back on this and think, Wow, wasn’t that a time.

One of the bright things about the journaling this year has been thanks to some lovely new inks Sue gave me for Christmas. There’s an outfit in Pittsburgh, the Birmingham Pen Company, that makes handmade ink colors. They’re really nice, and Sue got me a five-pack: Heron (blue), Tiger’s Eye (yellow-brown), Burlywood (a different yellow-brown), Pitted Nickel (gray-green), and Byzantium (gray). I had previously tried out the company’s Waterfront Dusk (maroon), and decided I loved it.

Over the years, my inveterate journaling has included various writing implements, but I usually circle back to traditional fountain pens. I’ve used the same one since about 1995, I think. Before I got it, with its refillable cartridge, I used ones that had prefilled disposable plastic cartridges, and I was always trying to squeeze a drop or two of black into the bright blue, bright green, or bright red cartridges. “Tube” colors never did much for me.

Which is why I like the Birmingham Pen Company’s inks; they’re complicated, natural, intriguing colors. If you like using a fountain pen, do check them out.

On the subject of journaling . . . a few years ago, I prepared a series of blog posts about journaling. They’re literally all done; I even had the photos cropped, sized, and ready to go. I just never pulled the trigger on posting them all.

I don’t see what I’m waiting for, except that every time I sit in front of a computer, I feel like I need to be working, and not farting around with my blog.

Maybe I should try to fit in a little blogging, though. Maybe it’d make me feel like I’m doing something kind of fun.

Jar of Goodness 3.9.25: Op Op Anniversary

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for this, the Opulent Opossum!

There have been sixteen years of the Op Op! If you want to start reading from the beginning, visit my humble first post.

Sixteen years. Looking back on that first year, goodness, I blogged a lot. Twenty-six posts in the first month alone! And in the first year, 206 posts!

The annual tally came down quite a bit starting in 2012, with annual posts equaling what I was posting weekly that first year.

From the start, my goal was to post something at least weekly. I had plenty of ideas. I was so enthusiastic. But these days, it’s hard to feel enthusiastic about anything. Okay: Coffee in the morning. The first truly warm days. Crocuses starting to bloom. Ibuprofen. . . . Things like that.

So, the Jar of Goodness concept keeps me plugging away, keeps the focus short and sweet. I guess I’ve gotten too lengthy in most of my recent posts. Too much to say on any subject. Too many tangents. But JOG keeps me on my toes.

But as always, I do have a list of things to write about and share here on the Op Op. I wonder if anybody really reads this. I don’t have a sense of my “audience,” because I don’t believe I actually have one anymore. Do I need to update my design, my masthead, my look? Do I need to animate the thing? Who cares about any of that? I don’t think my posts ever come up as results in Google searches; page titles and key word labels appear not to have any impact on that at all. Maybe it’s because I don’t “monetize” my blog? Do I really need to change the way I label my posts, to try to game the search engines? Look, I ain’t got time for that.

As I write this, it’s clear I’m experiencing another one of my “down” morning moods, so I’m going to stop while I’m ahead. Hooray for the Opulent Opossum! Sixteen years! Op Op Hooray!

Changes

The first snow of the winter of 2024–2025 came today.

I awakened at five and sensed something was wrong. As I grew more conscious, I realized I was smelling smoke. That’s never a good thing, unless you’re sitting near a campfire, or burning incense. And it was ugly-smelling smoke—not the pretty scent of someone’s fireplace or woodstove, wafting in the chilly air. No. It smelled like plastic, vinyl—acrid—nothing anyone should be burning, although we’ve had our share of neighbors who burn their trash in their backyards, in the early hours of the morning, trusting that no one will care about the smoldering dioxins and other toxins they inhale while asleep. Most of our neighbors smoke, anyway, so how would they even notice it?

But I was concerned. I tiptoed around our chilly house in my bare feet, making sure that all rooms on all floors were free of an obvious problem. I mean, we do have smoke detectors, but . . . Then I stepped onto the sunporch, which was colder still, and the attached “screen” porch (now with storm windows, of course, but still fairly open to the outdoor air, since we haven’t yet chinked the windows with insulation). And the smoke odor out there was much stronger. I moved back indoors and down the stairs to the front door, and stuck my face outside: again, smoky. Ugh. Whew.

This information led to another round of the second and third floors, this time with my glasses on, squinting more carefully out the windows. Is one of our neighbors’ houses on fire, or billowing smoke? Or is someone actually burning trash covertly? If the latter, I knew the fire might already be done with, even though the heavy, still air can let the stench linger for hours after the deed. But all I saw was a diffuse haziness in the direction of the motel on the expressway. (Hmm. And we need to clean our windows. Kind of late in the season for that, now.) Somehow, I managed not to awaken Sue with all this traipsing around at 5 a.m. (I also managed not to stub my toes on anything. Huzzah!)

Well, it turned out that around 2:45 a house had blown up on the east side of town. They haven’t yet announced a cause, but my money’s on a natural gas appliance or exhaust malfunction, possibly combined with electric space heaters or some such. It’s the first time this season that people’s heaters are running full-bore, and heating systems in poor repair are getting their dangerous shakedown this weekend. Yeah, while everyone’s observing Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and all that. Happy holidays.

And yes, if you know me, you know I’m too appalled about the results of the presidential election to feel very “thankful” this year. I live in a red state that was a purple state not long ago, before a Republican supermajority and gerrymandering, and toxic fundamentalist misinformation bubbles. I’m literally surrounded and ruled over by crazy, het, right-wing Trump-Jesus-gun worshippers. . . . And Thanksgiving? Are you kidding me?

Also, my parents are a grim situation all by themselves: it’s the inevitable collision between my mom’s unbending and increasingly unrealistic notion that she and Dad can continue forever to live in their home, with its staircases, and Dad’s flat-out exhaustion and increasing disability. He is her caregiver: he staggers and stumbles around their house; he fixes all her meals and carries them to her on a platter, brings her beverages and begs her to drink them, launders her clothes and bed sheets, supplies her with Depends and Poise pads, dispenses and tracks her (and his) medications, deals with all the house upkeep, pays the bills, everything. He exercises, does PT, walks, to stay in shape (“to keep myself physically fit . . .”). As she has for years, she sits in her puffy recliner and does nothing, not even the tiny amount of walking the doctors have been telling her for years that she must do if she wants to stay at home . . . and he’s simply exhausted. And so am I.

In retrospect, my brother and I should have talked them into moving a decade ago, and if they’d done nothing, at that time, we should have done it for them then. Too late for that now.

Mom, psychologically increasingly like a toddler, expects me to quit my job and move in with them until they both are gone, which, given my mom’s genetics and lack of serious chronic illness, could be another decade, in her case. Well, actually, I don’t think she knows I have a job, because I’ve been so generous with my time with them. As a freelancer, I’ve been able to skip some hours of work in the past five years to drive them to their haircuts and doctors’ appointments, to pick up groceries, computer supplies, and what-not, but those demands have exploded in the past few years, with Mom being taken to the hospital, often with rehab, six times in the past two years, and Dad twice.

Dad had a stroke, and he needed outpatient PT after it, and he needed me to drive him there a few times a week. And there’s always the questions about the computer. Or, Why isn’t the phone working? Or, I think we might need a new water heater. Your Mom needs more Depends: this size, overnight, super absorbency. . . .

Wash, rinse, repeat. I know Dad remembers I have a job, but I’m pretty sure Mom doesn’t realize it—or if she does, she doesn’t respect it.

Talk about pushing my buttons. I try to just see it, acknowledge it, know that it’s old, old material, breathe, and move on without, like, yelling. Of course I’m not respected. And I don’t need her validation anymore.

When I tell her she can’t expect me to come take care of them at their house 24/7 for the next decade or so, she tells me that she and Dad will simply have an elevator added to their house, or they will just hire 24-hour in-home assistance. I recently sketched out the math for her: $30 an hour, times 24 hours in a day, is $720 a day; multiply that by 365 days in a year, and you’re paying $262,800 annually just for someone (some person or persons—who?) to be there to help you, in a home that’s not going to accommodate a wheelchair, which she will soon need to be in—it does not count food or food preparation, transportation, incontinence supplies, heating and cooling bills, water, house maintenance and property taxes, medical copays and drug costs, and the ever-loving cable TV and landline/internet bills. It’s just fantasyland.

In our family, the dynamic has always been to go along with Mom’s ideas, because she’s always been “the practical one.” The one good with finances. The one who takes care of the house, the bills, the do list. Balances the checkbooks. (Kind of like the myth about Republicans being good about the economy.) She was always the one to deal with the plumbers, electricians, and handymen. She used to be sharp as a tack, “on top of” everything. But those days are long gone, as she becomes more confused and lives increasingly in the past. Actually, they both are.

So it’s past time for independent living; it may already be too late for assisted living, for Mom. She’s hurtling toward skilled nursing; she doesn’t want to drink, so she gets dehydrated and gets UTIs, she doesn’t move around, she’s weak, her blood pressure tanks when she merely stands up. The idea of getting her up the staircases is a horror for me. She’s been hospitalized three times in the past six months. But she still expects us to treat her as if she knows best, and we all still tend to twirl around trying to make her happy. Of course, that is impossible. People like her will never be happy; this is how ninety years of untreated depression and anxiety disorder, with a little side order of NPD, ends up. And so we are moving ahead with plans for senior living for them both. Dad is ready. We simply leave her out of our conversations, which is easy to do since she only ever sits in her living room chair and has grown pretty hard of hearing.

So we’re in a race to get them moved into a good place where they can be safe, clean, fed, comfortable and hopefully find things to be happy about, to be entertained with; to have people to talk with; to maybe even find ways to still contribute to the world (Dad would like that, I think).

You know, I started this blog in a state of deep stress and depression. Hopelessness. Things that used to cheer me only made me feel like I’d been slapped. I was repeatedly contemplating suicide. I thought that starting a blog about the things—the few little things—that I can unequivocally claim as good would help me regain a sense that there is something still to enjoy, even when my life seems in shambles, when my career—hell, my whole life—seems a big fat joke, when I see myself as the center of all my problems. Even when I’m almost convinced that I don’t belong here, that I have no place or purpose.

I truly don’t have any goddamn time to be fucking around with a blog, or anything, anything, that is not related to my job, or with the needs of my parents. I’m not going to fuck around with Christmas cookies this year. (Well . . . maybe I’ll make a few kinds. To give to the elders who remain.) Christmas tree? Bah, humbug. I’m down on Christianity, too—all the white Christian nationalists have turned me off of religion entirely—in America and globally, the trouble, the evil, that religion causes far outweigh its so-called blessings. Overall, religion is still, always, eternally a way that greedy, mean, power-hungry people convince other people into doing horrible, selfish, mean-spirited things. I’m sick of it. Grow the fuck up and learn how to be a good person without having the imaginary threat of eternal damnation hanging over your head, okay?

But yeah, I think I’m gonna attempt another year of “Jar of Goodness.” Because I kind of need it. At least, let’s give it try before I call my doctor and ask to “up my dosage.” I’ve been doing a lot of journaling the past few years, and I have a lot I’d like to say about that. And there are several other half-baked posts I can complete and upload. Let’s keep a-goin’.

Jar of Goodness Recap

Usually, when you do “Jar of Goodness,” you write down something you’re grateful for each week, and then you stick that slip of paper into a jar. Then, as part of your New Year’s Eve ceremony, you pour out the slips of paper and read them. If an entire family has participated, then the discussion revolves around who wrote what, and why, and general reminiscing.

But in this case, it’s just me, and it’s a virtual Jar of Goodness. So all I can really do is offer a list of my various Jar of Goodnesses. (See below.) Make of it what you will. To read all the J.O.G. posts, click this link here.

And what will I do this year? Should I continue the J.O.G.?

Actually, as I continued this weekly J.O.G. series, I’ve learned that my blog has pretty much always been a “Jar of Goodness.” In my blog, I usually focus on things that I like and love. Things I appreciate. The thing that’s different about the J.O.G. is the must-do weekly format (also known as a “deadline”), and the “permission” to have quite short, straightforward posts.

So for 2023, I think I’ll drop the J.O.G. concept, and just make a point of posting something weekly, or thereabouts. (In truth, many of my Sunday J.O.G. posts were written and uploaded on Wednesdays. Who knew that midweek was a better time for blogging?) Maybe I’ll still tag an occasional post as a “Jar of Goodness,” but I don’t see a need to make a weekly string of posts with that particular label. What do you think?

Also, I have a new idea for a regular series that could easily have twelve (monthly) parts, though it would probably be a stretch to make it weekly, with 52 installments. Maybe biweekly? We’ll just see how it goes. I’m still thinking about it. Stay tuned!

I can definitely recommend the Jar of Goodness for anyone. It will remind you to see the joy and beauty around you; it will exercise your “gratitude” muscles. You will feel more blessed, in mundane and in sublime ways. If you’re a blogger or journaler, it’s a good way to get back into a rhythm. It would be a great, and meaningful activity for a family, or a couple, to do together. I hope you’ll try it!

The 2022 Jar of Goodness Project

Jar of Goodness 12.25.22: The Holiday Season
Jar of Goodness 12.18.22: Heirloom Christmas Cookies
Jar of Goodness 12.11.22: New Car!
Jar of Goodness 12.4.22: New Gutters, and Done!
Jar of Goodness 11.27.22: Dormer Siding
Jar of Goodness 11.20.22: Artemis I
Jar of Goodness 11.13.22: Sunporch Storm Windows Done
Jar of Goodness 11.6.22: Little House Books
Jar of Goodness 10.30.22: Gans Creek
Jar of Goodness 10.23.22: October Day at Painted Rock
Jar of Goodness 10.16.22: Houseplant Dance
Jar of Goodness 10.9.22: Fall Color
Jar of Goodness 10.2.22: Deborah Cooper Park
Jar of Goodness 9.25.22: Old Munichburg Oktoberfest
Jar of Goodness 9.18.22: My Brother
Jar of Goodness 9.11.22: New Roof!
Jar of Goodness 9.4.22: Shakespeare’s Pizza South
Jar of Goodness 8.28.22: Native Prairies
Jar of Goodness 8.21.22: August 1993
Jar of Goodness 8.14.22: New HVAC System
Jar of Goodness 8.7.22: Dad’s Homemade Cookies
Jar of Goodness 7.31.22: Wait. Jar of Goodness?
Jar of Goodness 7.24.22: Menus for the Seasons
Jar of Goodness 7.17.22: Picnics
Jar of Goodness 7.10.22: First Aid Kits
Jar of Goodness 7.3.22: My 2003 Honda Civic
Jar of Goodness 6.26.22: This Couple
Jar of Goodness 6.19.22: Dad
Jar of Goodness 6.12.22: Air Conditioning
Jar of Goodness 6.5.22: Butterflies of June
Jar of Goodness 5.29.22: Missouri Wines
Jar of Goodness 5.15.22: The Black Walnut Tree
Jar of Goodness 5.8.22: Mom
Jar of Goodness 5.1.22: Clovers Natural Market
Jar of Goodness 4.24.22: Natural Foods Stores
Jar of Goodness 4.17.22: Oasis United Church of Christ
Jar of Goodness 4.10.22: Prairie Dogtooth Violets
Jar of Goodness 4.3.22: The Violets of April
Jar of Goodness 3.27.22: Lois
Jar of Goodness 3.20.22: Three-Chord Songs
Jar of Goodness 3.13.22: Sue
Jar of Goodness 3.6.22: Are the Neighbors Actually Moving?
Jar of Goodness 2.27.22: New Fridge
Jar of Goodness 2.20.22: The Katy Trail
Jar of Goodness 2.13.22: Adrian’s Island Jefferson City
Jar of Goodness 2.6.22: Hope Springs Eternal
Jar of Goodness 1.30.22: The Mosses at Painted Rock CA
Jar of Goodness 1.23.22: KOPN
Jar of Goodness 1.16.22: The Eggplant Leafrollers
Jar of Goodness 1.9.22 (Introduction)

The Op Op Turns Thirteen

Ohmygosh, there’s a teenager in the room!

Happy anniversary to the Op Op! My first post was on March 3, 2009, which seems like just yesterday. Everything since 2000 always seems fairly recent. It’s kind of scary to think that kiddos born in 2006 will be getting driver’s licenses this year. (Little babies, driving? So frightful!)

And yet . . . the year 2009 also seems like it was in a different century. At this point, we have what’s become a historic era in most people’s minds called “The Before Times”: the lifestyle we enjoyed before the Covid-19 pandemic altered so many of the ways we do things, and even whether we do things at all. Like, I used to write a lot of posts about restaurants, because we used to eat out at restaurants a lot. Now, um, not so much. Will that ever change back to the way it used to be? I don’t know.

Meanwhile (and I might have mentioned this before), I took myself off antidepressants last year. I weaned myself off of ’em. Why? First, I had already halved my dosage in Nov. 2019 (with the concurrence of my GP doctor, who just told me to let her know if I was having any problem and wanted to return to my longtime, full dosage). And halving it didn’t cause any problem. I hardly noticed any changes in my mood, or my ability to rebound from emotional blows. And second, I was getting annoyed at the every-six-month checkup with the doctor to satisfy the needs of the insurance company and/or drug regulators and/or healthcare system before getting prescriptions refilled. (After years of accomplishing that with an annual checkup, switching to six-month checkups seemed like I was having to visit the doctor every time I turned around.) (And yeah, it seems that dumb and tragic people have found a way to abuse what I was on, no matter that it easily kills you if you try.) So as I was nearing the end of another prescription, I just said “aw, to heck with it” and gradually decreased my dosage, going from daily to every other day, to every three days, to none. (Can’t split ’em when they’re time-release.)

And I was really starting to think that maybe I didn’t need to be on that medication forever. I’ve always been skeptical of the healthfulness of taking any medication forever. Or even just for, you know, decades. You see enough news about class-action lawsuits against some drug company or other, and you can’t help but be skeptical.

All kinds of medications that we used to think were okay to use have been pulled off the market for some reason or other. You know? . . . Like, remember this?

I picked a great few years (the start of the Covid era) to remove antidepressants from my life, but so far, so good. I think being on them so long changed me. It gave me a break from what had been a lifelong emotional Möbius strip. It disrupted the cycle of depression. Or maybe I’ve just survived long enough, with that safety net in place, for my life circumstances (and hormonal influences) to change so that I feel more secure and have a sense that life is worthwhile again. And that ups and downs don’t “mean” anything. Anyway, I’m feeling much, much better now, thanks.

I guess the reason why I’m associating this topic with my Op Op anniversary is because I started this blog during a really dark and hopeless period of my life. Indeed, that’s a main reason I started blogging; it seemed like one tiny thing I could do that didn’t remind me of the things I seemed to be losing, or failing at; that focused on the things that seemed good and authentic; that gave me a creative outlet where it didn’t MATTER if I was good at it or not. (Since who’s gonna read this, anyway?)

It looks like my number of posts is going to be way up this year (lord willin’ an’ the creek don’t rise), since I’ve embarked on the Jar of Goodness idea. It obligates me, yet frees me up for (indeed, demands) shorter, quicker posts. So already, I’ve done a dozen posts for 2022, which is more than I did all year in 2020, 2018, and 2017. And at this pace, I’ll easily have posted more than I did in the years 2019, 2013, 2014, and 2016.

And I have several ideas for new posts. Also, more old-new posts. I guess I'm always behind.

Not like I’m really counting. Blogger does that tally for me, because, you know, computers and data; “analytics”! I learned a long time ago that a journal that must be written in regularly is one that will be put aside and forgotten. At least for me, the better agreement is to cut myself a break when I don’t feel like writing, or it’s inconvenient. It’s like meditation, or anything else worth doing: If you get off schedule, or you get distracted, don’t give energy to the lapse. Just keep turning your attention to the thing you want to do. Just keep a-goin’.

I’ve often thought that my initial three years of heavy blogging was caused by a need to assuage my depression, but as I look back, I think I need to give myself more credit for reveling in the fun of exploring a new medium, relishing the good feedback I was receiving, and learning how to take pictures. Plus, I had a lot of territory to cover. Also, I was content to do rather short posts. (I’ve gotten much wordier in recent years. Does anyone really read this stuff? “Helloooo?”)

By now in the Op Op, I’ve written about most of my favorite hiking spots, my favorite restaurants, our Christmas traditions, and so on. There’s not much left to say about the storm windows, and I still make red cabbage the same way. See what I mean? And anyway, there are lots of better food blogs out there.

Still. There is a lot to share and celebrate. Plenty of stuff to share. Fun things I haven’t told you about yet!

And now that I’ve set up a YouTube channel and uploading videos is easier, I can explore posting more videos. Maybe some that will even be worth watching! And you never know what new fun things we’ll get into—such as last summer’s boat ramp excursions; who could’ve predicted that would become a “thing”? At this point in late winter, I’m yearning to go back to some of those places; we really had fun.

Looking at the amount of posts, my productivity was up last year, too. And looks are deceiving; although there are 31 posts for 2021, my actual output was more like 38, since I was shamefully/not-so-shamefully posting entries retroactively, even into previous years. I had several semi-finished posts that just needed finalizing and whose pictures just needed cropping, sizing, and uploading. (Yeah, the good ol’ “follow through.”)

So do you think that me taking myself off of the medication has anything to do with the uptick in blogging? Or do you think it’s the lifestyle changes wrought by the pandemic? I’m certainly not hanging out at restaurants like before, so I have more productive time for other things. Also, I’m not spending hours each week attending meetings for the various organizations I used to be active in, so more free time is gleaned from that. Well, anyway, it’s all seeming okay to me, more or less. I don’t think anyone’s really missing me from those organizations, anyway. Life moves on.

Oh, also, if you’ve read this far, you might take note that I’ve not been announcing every single new post on the Op Op Facebook page. Some of these blog posts have been a bit more personal, so I don’t want all the world’s hackers, spammers, and nutjobs to be attracted to my little corner of the ’net. You might have to just make a point of visiting the Op Op website on your own, or else, when you do see an Op Op Facebook notification, take a moment to see if there are other recent Op Op posts you’ve missed.

So, here’s to another year of Opulent Opossumness! Here’s to another year of celebrating the ordinary and the sublime. If you were here, I’d offer you a cocktail or other fun beverage to celebrate. But until we’re together again, a picture will have to do. Cheers!

The Op Op Turns Twelve

Hi, folks, and happy anniversary to this blog! Twelve years of Opulent Opossumness! Through the magic of advance post scheduling, I’m able to write and publish this post, and have it go live automatically at 1 in the morning on March 3, 2021.

I’m actually composing this on January 2. I just edited the year in the line above, because (of course) I had typed in 2020. By the time this is live, hopefully that won’t be a problem anymore.

And hopefully, by the time this post goes live, a LOT of stuff won’t be such problems anymore . . . though realistically, I know that things won’t actually look more like “normal” until fall. Alas.

Why am I posting this so far ahead? Why not just type something on March 3? Because I always mean to write an anniversary post, and then something comes up and I forget it. In 2020, that “something” was the Coronavirus. No wonder I felt sidetracked.

Here’s what we were doing on March 3, 2020: Burning some random fallen branches in our firepit in our backyard. About a week before the Coronavirus started changing our lives.

And the year before that, on the tenth anniversary of the Op Op, I went around the yard and took pictures of my arugulas sprouting, my daffodils fixin’ to bloom, and my crocus blooming: in the snow.

As I write this, at 4:20 p.m. on January 2, it’s getting dark, and it’s snowing, big, fat flakes coming straight down, looking very pretty. I’m glad I don’t have to go outside for anything. Our life pattern has changed.

. . . Look, it’s not like anyone else is gonna take note of the Op Op’s anniversary. But I’m a little dismayed to realize that I missed the ten-year anniversary in 2019. Yeah! My first post was on March 3, 2009. Good grief! So it was an opportunity to say “cheers!” to myself, and I missed it! But then, forgetting it is no reason for me to chastise myself, either.

I could also chide myself for posting so infrequently of late that I pretty much missed an entire year of blogging, so the idea of counting years is problematic. However, here’s a little secret about blogging, or journaling, or keeping a diary, or whatever: just keep at it. If you falter and get sidetracked, who cares? It’s always there, waiting for you to pick it up and start recording again.

So, whatever: Twelve years!

Op-Op, Hooray!

Shameful, What I'm Doing

You can take the word shameful two ways, as in “I should be ashamed of myself,” but also as “I am shameful—full of shame—and I’m trying to make amends somehow.”

It’s not as if I haven’t meant to post blogs these past few years; I have, in fact, prepared all over the place for them. I’ve taken pictures and made videos. I’ve even written entire posts . . . then simply failed the last, critical step: the posting.

Blogger has gotten stupider to use in the last ten years. You have two ways of posting, as plain text, where you can edit codes yourself (“HTML view”), or in the semi-convenient “Compose view.” Neither has ever been completely convenient, but now the Compose view is bananas with the extraneous codes that it adds (after using it, peek at the HTML codes, and you can hardly find your actual text anymore!). Meanwhile, the HTML view no longer provides simple niceties like automatically transforming hard returns into paragraph breaks. Not that I can see, anyway.

So now that I’ve been coding it mostly myself, posting takes more time and it feels more like work. Fortunately, there are still buttons for uploading links, images, and videos, but anyway . . . This last step—putting the content online—has been irksome enough that I’ve gotten way behind in posting.

So, while I have some time without yardwork, and no big work crunches, by golly, I’m posting some older material. To mess up everyone, I’m posting them retroactively, dating them on the actual dates I composed them, and would have posted them, if I hadn’t gotten sidetracked by other things first. So they’re suddenly shuffled into my blog as if they’d always been there.

I can picture people checking my blog, rubbing their eyes, and going, Hey, where’d that post come from?? I didn’t see it before! Am I losing my mind?

If you want to find these new, but older posts, you’ll just have to scroll down and look for something you hadn’t seen yet. Hint: anything posted as 2018, 2019, and 2020 might be “new.” Another hint: these new/old posts may go back at least as far as August 2017, when we had the big eclipse!

So, I am ashamed of myself—so much so, that I won’t hesitate to alter history by making it look like I’d been posting all along. Maybe then, I won’t feel like such a slacker.

Middle of January Ramblings

I’m writing in 2019, but I’m not sure I’ve even digested the reality of 2018. I suspect I’m not the only one having vague recollections of life in the 1970s and 80s, and thinking that the 20-anythings seemed waaaaay far off. Seriously, is it really 2019 already?

This must mean I’m getting old, according to my projections made as a kid. As Rose O’Neill commented upon her sixtieth birthday, “How roguish.”

In case you’re wondering, 2019 has actually started off on a promising note. I am entirely grateful for many things that seem to be going well. Let’s use some bullet points, shall we? Taking stock:

Patches, our elderly kitty, had a pretty bad spell with her arthritic hips in early December (right when we were heading to Ohio for Sue’s niece’s wedding). But boy howdy, with a new supplement for her joints, she’s been doing real well. I get her to “walk around the block” (circle through the kitchen, dining room, living room, and front hall) each morning once or twice before serving her her beloved soft food (Royal Canin or Science Diet kidney chow). God love her, she’s deaf, and she puts the “cat” in “cataracts,” but she shows lots of affection for me, and she’s comfortable, and she makes sure to give Lois hell whenever she sees her. I’m grateful for this time with Patches. She’s a really sweet kitty.

Patches.

Church, which has been a topic of recent posts, has been going well. Our new congregation is growing, and the sense of freshness continues. Also (and I’m glad about this, too), my former congregation seems to be moving past the split, as well.

Christmas was good, though a bit strange for me—we didn’t put up the famous Weihnacthspyramide this year . . . we simply ran out of time. That, and we weren’t excited about giving Lois the opportunity to completely destroy it. Next year, Lois will be another year older, and maybe we’ll be able to trust her not to leap onto it and, like . . . destroy it. BUT! We did help my parents put up a Christmas tree, which was right in my Mom’s sight-line as she sits in her chair, and it was there for when my brother and one of my nephews came to visit at Christmastime.

And the visit with my brother was good, too. I’m grateful that my relationship with him is maturing, just as we both are. Sometimes, in the past, I haven’t clicked very well with him, but now . . . we see more eye-to-eye. Funny how, over the years, we meet each other in between our various flip-flops . . .

Also Christmas: once again, I made a bunch of different Christmas cookies. I’m starting to accept that this “gift” is as much for me as it is to my recipients. Of course I give most of them away to family and friends, but we do end up with some ourselves. And I’m doling them out. Tonight, I relished a few of the old-fashioned ones that no one else seems to make anymore: lebkuchen, springerle, billy goats. And I let the waves of memory wash over me, Christmases past . . . my childhood, my family, and I could feel we were still connected over space and time.

Financially: I was rather foolish in 2018. Generous with my time, but it bit too much into my professional life. I don’t regret volunteering so much with local organizations, but I see that I let it get out of balance. I need more “billable hours” in 2019, and I’m off to a good start. Feeling good about a renewed discipline regarding my freelancin’.

Looking out the windows: The Capitol looks really funny, all wrapped up in plastic (or whatever that is). The maintenance is long overdue. I'm glad its under way.

Sleeping: it wasn’t occurring to me, exactly, how much my sleep (or lack of) was messing up my life. I’ve come to the conclusion that the mushy foam mattress that I’d hoped would end my problems has actually been worse than what I had before. For one thing, it absorbs heat, and with my hot flashes (!!!), it gets intolerable. Tired (exhausted, actually) of getting out of bed, standing up, in the middle of the night, with back and hip pain and sweating. It’s not a good thing when you wake up for the umpteenth time thinking, “please kill me now.” So until I find something better, I’ve returned to a futon, and I’ve been waking up feeling . . . good.

And there you have it. A little update from here. Who knows what 2019 will bring.

Belated Birthday to the Op Op

Oh. My. God. Can you believe the Opulent Opossum is nine years old already? My first two posts were on March 3, 2009, and here it is May of 2018. And look how far we’ve come! Obviously, since my blogging is diminished so much, there must not be much more to say. About anything!

I’ve covered it all!

. . . Not! I’m starting the tenth year of blogging, and the only problem now is, how do I find time to write about all the ideas in my head?

I’ve been busy doing things instead of writing and reflecting—and I suppose that’s a very good thing. Naturally, all the usual stuff continues. The house, the yard, the kitties. The elephant ears and the storm windows. You deserve an update!

Well, yes, there was the springtime landscape work.





AND we adopted a new kitty at the end of March! He’s from the Wild Thing people. He was trapped along with a clan of other cats in on a road in the south part of town called Hiview. They neutered him and ear-tipped him, thinking he’d be released with the rest of the feral/semi-ferals . . . but as he recovered, they realized he wasn’t like the others. He was nice. He liked people. He wanted attention. Somewhere in the process, the veterinarian who did his neutering surgery also fixed his cleft palate. (Didja know kitties can have cleft palates? Sure enough!)



The surgery didn’t quite “take.” It kept getting infected; stitches came out. Well, they tried—but he basically went back to the default condition. Here's a picture taken of him after his surgery. Try to imagine if this had healed:



The foster family called him “Macaroni,” I guess because he’s orange. We, of course, call him all sorts of variations of the name: Mac. Mr. Mac. Mackie. Mr. Mackie (“mmmm-kay?”) Mackadoodle. Mackie Doodle Dandy. Mack the Knife. Macaroon. . . . You get the idea!

One reason I was interested in adopting him was that Lois needed a friend with her on the first floor (elderly and deaf Patches lives on the second floor with us, and she really doesn’t deserve an immature little “friend” to surprise her as she walks blearily around the house). Another reason we wanted to adopt him was indeed his peculiarity: His cleft palate, combined with his grown-up status, meant that he wouldn’t be as readily “adoptable” as other kitties, especially during kitten season. And more—I remembered Miss Rhue, who used to rent the first floor from Grandma. She had had a cleft palate, and I liked the idea of her somewhere, somehow, maybe smiling down on a sweet kitty with the same congenital weirdness.

So . . . in addition to the extra care and attention called for in the process of adopting a new kitty into the household, I’ve been busy with some other doings, too. This year I’m the secretary of the Old Munichburg Association and have volunteered to be the “vendors coordinator” of this year’s Oktoberfest celebration (September 29 is coming up really fast!)

Also, I’ve been involved with a brilliant new arts organization here in Central Missouri, the Southside Philharmonic Orchestra. I was even persuaded to be the president of the board! I’m pretty sure that means that the SPO is a priority for me, so I’ve been trying to behave appropriately.

Meanwhile, Sue’s mom had some pretty gnarly surgery in early March, so we were in northern Ohio for a week.



The surgery was a success, but the recovery was lengthy (and continues). In fact, Sue returned to Ohio in mid-April in order to help her sister, who was simultaneously dealing with medical issues with her father-in-law (who recently passed away). Sue’s still in Ohio!



I’ve been batchin’ it. Goin’ through all the church nonsense, dealing with a health problem with Patches (yes, she has that old-cat kidney disease, it’s official), moving all the big potted plants outside, putting the elephant ears into the ground, helping put on an SPO concert, and a lot more stuff I won’t bore you with but which ate up entire weekends.

Amid all this, I took Mackie to the veterinarian that had seen him previously—who attempted to repair his cleft palate, etc. Even though she was not our usual veterinarian, I thought it was only fair for her to see him again for booster shots and whatever. And she surprised me by saying that Mackie is FIV+. What? What-the-what?? What does this mean?

Looking back, I realize I had only inquired whether or not he was feline leukemia positive, and didn’t ask about feline immunodeficiency status. Fortunately, FIV isn’t as communicable as feline leukemia, but still . . . Lois had been living with him almost a long as he’d been with us. They got along within only a few days of his arrival.

And the Wild Thing liaison had been under the impression that he wasn’t “strongly” FIV+; and if it was only a “weak” positive, it probably meant he’d only been exposed to the virus and didn’t carry it. But I did have him tested with my own vet, and sure enough—it’s a “strong” positive. He has the virus; they say his life will almost certainly be shortened to 3–5 years and end with an infection some sort, or, more likely, with cancer.

Anyway, at first, it seemed like it was no big deal. It seemed really unlikely he could transmit the virus to Lois. FIV is a lot like HIV—the virus is relatively fragile outside the body, and it pretty much needs to be injected into a recipient. Since Mackie was neutered and Lois spayed, he wasn’t going to try to inseminate Lois. We changed the water regularly, so it was very, very unlikely he’d pass it on through sharing a food or water bowl. He’d have to seriously bite her in order to give her the virus.



But within a week of learning this fact about Mack, I started noticing that he is . . . nippy. I think he just does it because he’s worked up, and he’s craving attention. But he does occasionally “strike” at my ankles as I walk around, as he weaves among my feet. And I knew that he and Lois played rather hard together—chasing, playing “gatekeeper,” and so on. Had he bitten her? Could he?

As far as I know, he hasn’t bitten her hard enough to break the skin. She’s fast! And she’s amply covered with fluff. But as he has gotten more comfortable with me, he has gotten more comfortable biting at my ankles and calves. Hard enough for me to actually say, “Ouch!”

So, as of May 21, Lois has moved up to the second floor. Sixty days after her last possible exposure to the virus, I can get her tested to see if she’s acquired it. So now Mackie’s alone on the first floor, and Patches lives in one of the second-floor bedrooms (I’m currently trying to get her and Lois to make some kind of peace). Three litter boxes to clean!



Lois’s move to the second floor meant that I had to take measures to Lois-proof our general living area. Hide/secure all the electrical cords; relocate anything she’s likely to destroy (feathers, vases); clean up and throw away the antique vase she did break . . . repair the speaker wire she did manage to sever, even though the wire was hidden under the stereo cabinet, I thought . . .

And this, my dear friends, has been my spring. Have I not been posting regularly? Well, this is why: A constant mayhem, one thing after another. And there you go.

A Humbling, Amazing Response

I’ve been putting off writing about this subject, because I haven’t been able to think of words to describe my reaction—but there aren’t any. Also, this post has two audiences: First, to “everyone,” a.k.a. tout le monde, a.k.a. “all you kids in Internet-land”; and second, to John G______ (last name withheld, because I’m not sure he’d want to be identified publicly), in Massachusetts.

Back in May, John wrote me a letter and sent it in the mail to my house. Okay, first of all, who writes actual letters anymore? That itself is remarkable. Plus, it was two pages, single-spaced, typewritten (with an actual typewriter, in good ol’ Courier), and it was a thoughtful, and warm, response to my entire blog.

No joke—John had read all 544 posts, dating back to early 2009, and instead of leaving comments here and there on miscellaneous older posts, he wrote me the letter, commenting on several at once.

Seriously: He mentioned reading about lebkuchen, venison jelly, woodchucks, stinkhorns, and spiders.



He mentioned reading about our temperamental historic storm windows, my fibula fracture, and our Christmas tree.



By golly, I think he really did read through every post. Wow!



There’s something a little disconcerting about that—my blog is, basically, an online journal, and although I refrain from posting things that are quite personal, still, if you were to read it straight through, I suppose you would get a pretty personal glimpse into “who I am.”



Despite the slightly disconcerting realization that someone had actually read my blog, the flip side is that it is deeply gratifying, and humbling, and exhilarating, to think someone enjoyed reading it so much that he waded through the whole shebang, starting all the way back at my insignificant little first post.



Again, I’m an editor. And I’ve heard it said that authors, during the editorial process, oftentimes feel this sense of being deeply flattered, because the editor has read and considered every single word of the manuscript. Such a close reading, by someone “on your side,” is supposed to be a big ego boost. At least for some authors. I suppose this is kind of how it feels to be on the receiving end.



But here’s something else. John found my blog (much to my personal satisfaction) when he was doing web searches about Edwin Way Teale’s four American Seasons books. (You might recall that I’ve written at length about Teale, and particularly about his four American Seasons books.)



I admit it: Most of my posts are not well planned. They lack structure. The blog itself doesn’t stick to a single topic the way a “good” blog should (crafts; cooking; grandchildren; hotrods; etc). I’m chatty and rambly. And the posts are way too long. I know better than this.

I worry that potential clients for editing projects will find my blog and think that my haphazard free-writings must mean I’m an awful editor. (Trust me, casual journal writing and editing are two completely different things! Make no mistake: I’m much better at editing! I do this blogging stuff just for fun! ~Honest!)



However, I took extra care with my Teale American Seasons posts. So much “care” that I haven’t even yet finished my post for the last book of the quartet, Wandering Through Winter! It’s still in my file titled “Drafts Op Op.” And someday I will post it. (Meanwhile, John, this next picture is for you!)



My Teale posts are especially long and full of words. They are the antithesis of “successful” blogging and Internet writing; they are not breezy, choppy, simple, hyped-up, dumbed-down.

But here’s the thing: I liked them. I was satisfied with them. Of all my 500+ posts, those are easily in my top ten personal favorites. And if the Internet is good for something, it can be a powerful tool for connecting people who have similar interests, no matter where we are in the world. When I posted them, I’m sure I muttered to myself, “There you go. I spent a week writing that post, and maybe three people will eventually read the entire thing.”



But it didn’t bother me too much, because whoever those three people were, I knew they’d be Teale fans. I knew they’d have just finished reading the American Seasons books, and I knew they’d relish the connection with another person who enjoyed reading them.

So my emotions upon reading John’s letter last May were all over the place. Sure, I was momentarily freaked out: How’d he find my address? —Oh yeah, it’s a matter of public record. (Though I don’t engrave it on my posts, it’s also not a secret.) But most of all, I was elated.

Well more than 500 times, I’ve clicked “post” and had the sense that my little voice has just swirled away . . . into nothingness. Or who knows.



Yes, I was thrilled back when I started blogging, when people started leaving comments. And (spammers excluded) it still thrills me each time someone leaves a comment. (And yes, John, I do get an e-mail notification from Blogger each time someone posts a comment, even on the oldest posts.)

But John’s response has felt much, much different. I’ve been trying to decide how to reply to his letter, but I realize I can’t do better than to simply describe what happened, and how it made me feel.

For weeks after I received it, I showed it to friends and family: “Look at this incredible letter I got in the mail!” I read portions of it to just about anyone who would listen. I carried that letter with me everywhere I went.



I took it with me on two recent vacations. I kept it in my possession the way a dog carries around a treasured bone. Swear to God, I want to frame it and put it on my wall, the way a business owner frames his first dollar of profit. What else can I say?

And so, John, I heartily return your final comment to me:

Thank you! I really enjoyed reading that!

My best regards,

Julie