Apologies to Deana Carter for the title, but I couldn’t resist.

Warning: This post shows a (real) photo of blood and talks about an accident.

As you know, my life is a never-ending parade of glamour and high-society happenings. In keeping with this lifestyle, Friday night I decided to shave my legs.

While I was in the shower, I proceeded to… shave my legs. I got done with one and started on the next. I took the first swipe up my shin and went for the next swipe and started bleeding. Anyone who has shaved their legs (or other body parts) knows that the occasional nick is inevitable. This, unfortunately, we not a nick. I’m honestly not sure what it was, but a fountain of blood was squirting from my leg like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Within seconds, the shower was covered in blood from about knee-height down. It was A LOT of blood and I couldn’t get it to stop. One thing to note: I take blood thinners for an ongoing condition. Blood thinners will make you bleed more than “normal” and you are warned to be on the lookout for cuts and even bruises because they can become more serious while on this medication.

I stood there, naked, wet, and bleeding with no idea what to do. Naked, wet, and bleeding is not my prime decision-making time. I was pretty sure it was “only” vein blood (not an artery) but I couldn’t figure out why it was coming out so violently. After a few moments I figured that the bleeding was not going to stop while I was wet and naked, so I grabbed a wad of toilet paper, applied pressure, got into my nightgown (still wet) and ran for the front room and my phone, leaving a crime-scene worthy trail behind me. I tried to call the Kaiser (my insurance provider) medical care line, but the wait time was 25 minutes. In the meantime, I had switched to paper towels to stanch the bleeding and I had replaced four of them. I had elevated my leg, but the bleeding wasn’t stopping. I hunt up from Kaiser and dialed 911.

I was hoping that the operator would tell me what to do or, barring that, would send the ambulance to stick the correct kind of bandage on. The 911 operator was lovely, and did send the ambulance. But other than telling me to apply pressure, didn’t tell me much and asked A LOT of questions. No, I’m not pregnant. No, I haven’t had head trauma. My problem was that I had cut my leg while shaving, I explained at least three times. When the ambulance guys got there, they immediately brought out the gurney. I began to have an inkling that my hopes of a bandage were not going to happen. Ii begged them to just bandage it up, but I guess they don’t do that anymore. I asked them to grab my coat and wallet and got onto the gurney. Having never ridden in an ambulance, I was surprised how bumpy the ride was. By this time I was so stressed that my heart rate and blood pressure were elevated and once they got the monitors on me they were more alarmed than ever. Once in the emergency room where they could see me clearly in the bright lights, it became apparent I wasn’t going to keel over from a heart attack. They asked me to undress from the waist up. I quipped that it was my leg that was bleeding, but they weren’t terribly understanding of that point.

More questions (this time mostly about who I was, where I lived, and if I had insurance) ensued, but in a remarkable quick time the doctor came in. She removed the bandage the ambulance had applied, examined my leg, and said, “Where’s the wound?”

In the 30 minutes (or so) it had taken to get to the hospital and with the bandage on, the wound had closed. While the doctor could see the blood (see photo above) the nick was not visible. The nurse cleaned me up and then I had to call a cab to get back home.

The actual “what happened?” in this story is that I nicked a varicose vein. Everything that I have looked up since indicates that if I had just sat quietly for ten minutes and applied localized pressure, the bleeding would have stopped and I could have covered the area with a band-aid.

I thought the cab was expensive, but when I get the bill for the ambulance, it’s going to hurt.

2020 has been hard. There may be nothing else we agree on, but on this point point, I think all humans are in agreement.

In the United States, the election is just days away. Afterward, half the country will be happy, the other mad.

COVID-19 continues to rage on essentially unchecked. No one knows, let alone agrees on, if staying home, wearing masks, or social distancing is effective or even warranted. The news is filled with “second wave” predictions and seemingly reputable sources are undermining all attempts to create a strategy.

The holiday season is upon us, with all its challenges, unrealistic expectations, and obligations.

But will 2021 really be any different? Is our happiness really dependent on a wildly random set of circumstances that happened to pick 2020 to collide? Or is the fact that 2020 seems like the contentment vortex a global attitude problem?

Well, I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to make sure I set some attitude goals for 2021. It may be a little early to start thinking about 2021, but I’m so over 2020.

This wasn’t where I stopped in my original post. I wrote a lot more. But as the week moved on, I realized that adding concrete goals right now felt counterproductive. So, I’ll just put out there that this is on my mind.

Have a happy Halloween weekend!

The news from the world at large has been so horrific lately that I have been paralysed in front of my keyboard. I don’t know what to say. And frankly, I don’t know if I should say anything. Many of the guides right now make a good point that being an ally is about stop promoting yourself so other voices can be heard. It’s good advice, and I have been trying to follow it.

At the same time, I have been busy (though, obviously, not blogging.) May 15 I took possession of my new home, and much of my time has been taken up moving into that home. The remaining time has been finishing up projects down at the beach house and getting that house back to its normal resting state.

One of the biggest projects at the beach was rather extensive clearing of the property. I had two trees taken out and dug out a lot of overgrown bulbs (more to go, though). I moved a rather overgrown pile of “false coral” and turned it into a patio liner. And I distributed about 6 yards of tree mulch onto various beds. It looks good.

Saturday (June 13) I cleared totally out of the beach house; obviously, I’ll be back, but I’m now completely stationed in Keizer. The Keizer house is also coming along nicely. I have a friend who loves tours, so “L”, this is for you!

There is even a nice little patio on the back of house.

In a couple of week the fence guy will come and redo the fencing, and then I’ll have a few of the hay field in back of the house.

As you might imagine, not a lot of painting has been going on, so I have little to show you there. But as more and more items get checked off, I am starting to look forward a little. COVID looks like it’s far from over, so that means limited activities this summer.

Maybe the time is right for a project?

Judging from my Facebook feed, I am not the only one having a hard time with the idea that in the current climate, resting is the thing to do. That doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying the opportunity, it just means that I find myself at odd times looking around and thinking, “Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be doing something?”

Take today, for example. I got up about 30 minutes late and then dawdled getting ready. I took the dog for walk 1, then worked my way through some email. Soon, walk 2 came up and out we went. I did some writing, watched church, lunch, then a small nap, then another walk (3 in case you’re counting). On my walk, I saw relatives visiting my neighbors and I stopped to chat (social distance appropriate, I swear.) The talking lead to some help being exchanged (more about that in a minute) and then I did yard work. A final walk (4) and then I’ve been doing laundry, tidying up, and generally preparing to go back to work.

I didn’t drive. I didn’t go anywhere. In all that space, you’d think I would have managed to do some painting. No. But I  thought about it, and maybe that counts.

My basic excuse for why I’m not taking advantage of this “rest” period in some creative way is that moving is taking up all my mental space. Fair enough. But it’s not the whole story. I simply just feel exhausted and adding anything new feels really hard.

Moving: Status

As I write this evening, I am no longer sleeping at my Salem house, but living down at the beach. I have to go into the Salem office on Mondays, but other than that, it’s okay to work “from home” and right now the closest thing to home I have is the beach house.

I’m still making at least two trips to Salem a week, however, because the move is not finalized. Friday (a few days from now) the movers will come and take the big and bulky stuff to a storage unit (this is the plan right now.) I’ve moved almost everything small and portable out, but it’s the big and bulky that lingers.

And as I write this, I do not know for sure if I will be moving to the house in Keizer. Last Friday we did the inspection, and while the inspectors commented what a nice, clean house it was, there were more than a few “deferred maintenance” items that start to accumulate into real money. I’ve ask for a price reduction and I haven’t heard back. We’ll see.

Entertainment

Instead, I am spending my free time cataloging the birds at the feeder at the beach house. It’s amazing that after only four days of having the feeders back up, I’ve already got such a variety of visitors.

Yardwork deferred

My other main project is to tackle some yardwork. I want the yard here to be as low maintenance as possible, for obvious reasons. However, there are a variety of areas that have gone either to weed or invasives. For example, the driveway and front walkway.

Dad would lug home pieces of “coral” that would wash up on the beach in winter and line the driveway with them. In the years since his stroke and then death, they have tumbled and generally been mobbed by weeds. So, I’m moving them aside, digging up the weeds, and replacing them to better enhance some of the things Mom did (such as the paver patio.) My goal is three rocks a day.

Bragging Rights

And finally, while the Watercolor Society of Oregon show was cancelled due to COVID-19, the juror, Michael Reardon, agreed to judge the show digitally. Imagine my pleasure upon learning that “I Feel Pretty” received an Award of Distinction! This is my first award from WSO! I feel so honored!

Over the last month I’ve found myself going into a dark place. There are some triggers and events that started it, and it’s been hard to find a way out of this particular room now that I’ve stumbled into it.

A year ago, today, Mom was visiting me to go to the doctor the next morning. We went to lunch at a local restaurant where she didn’t eat much and then did a little shopping at a local home décor store. And the next day everything changed.

The holidays (here I am using the Western time period that includes the period from Halloween through the middle of January) are not easy. I think even for people who love them, they are hard. Extra chores, extra events, extra decorating. The fight to balance commercialism against love and faith. The forces that in general urge us to stay indoors, overeat, don’t exercise, get Vitamin D deficient.  I believe the people who cope best with the season are those who can view it as an annual celebration of family and food, faith and gifts. But that doesn’t make it easy.

This will be a hard season for me. I’ve had an ambivalent relationship with the holidays, particularly Christmas, for years. While my childhood memories are good, things started to change as I got into adulthood and started being aware of the constant, never ending stress the holidays put on our culture. When I was working at Pawsitively Clean, watching people scream at each other as they washed a dog they hadn’t looked at for the last year soured my view of the holidays. When I moved into the non-profit and then government world, watching families on the brink of annihilation focus on the material aspects of the festivities completed the curdling.

Lately I’ve been checking out some articles on the subject of coping with the holidays while grieving and/or being alone. Here are a few of my thoughts. I can’t call them tips, because I don’t know if they work. But I thought I would put them out there in case anyone else was feeling like me.

As corny and trite as it is, I’m trying to think of the holiday season as an empty jar and I get to chose the rocks I fill it up with.

De-mythologize and adjust expectations

I like this enough that I put it first on the list. The holidays come with a lot of fantasy. Mom watched Hallmark Holiday movies obsessively, bought more Christmas decorations that five households could use, and worried herself into a cranky, mal-adjusted cooking frenzy in an effort to capture the things she needed. Without children to please and with a limited family in general, I have been able to swerve away from most traditions around decorating and cooking. I have a wreath I put up and a ceramic Christmas tree. That’s enough for me.

What should the holidays be? They are not a vaccuum to be filed. They are important. Unless you are completely without religion, there is some high holy day that stands out as special and we’re expected to stop and observe. And there’s the click. The holidays are about pausing, centering, and finding the thing that is important to us.

Allow Yourself to Feel a Range of Emotions

With the base layer established, it’s time to confront the fact that it’s obviously unreasonable to expect the world to stop because it makes me sad. Advice on this comes in nice little sound bites, such as “Trust that Grief is Part of Healing” and “Focus on What You Can Control“. Yes. Thank you for the tip.

If I’m pausing, it might be unwise to fill up my time with some of the other suggestions such as “plan an outing”, “pamper yourself”, and “reach out”. If these sound good to you, go for it. I’m not suggesting they aren’t wonderful. But what I’m thinking about is finding a way to allow the feelings to be, but also putting them in perspective.

While charities bemoan the fact that many people reach out during the holidays and then go absent for the rest of the year, it strikes me that this may be the perfect season to research a charity and then pick up the phone to schedule a volunteer work adventure after the holidays have passed. And then continue the adventure for the year as part of new tradition: I miss Mom; I will honor her by serving this charity we both cared about.

Set Healthy Boundaries

My imaginary holiday jar is half full, now, and I’m starting to think about people. It’s time to decide who I want to keep in my life and who I need to find. It’s been on my mind for a while. The rush of contact that made me feel so stressed and inadequate after Mom’s diagnosis and death has passed. I’ve had enough time to start to “feel” missing certain people. I’ve also had enough time to realize some people are just irritating and need to be released.

This is harder to do than you might think. I have (blood) family that falls into both categories. Some of Mom’s friends are also on the border, though most have drifted away. (Note: I’ve also discovered a few new friends.) My own friends, never a large group, has contracted. And the hole left by Mom, my most reliable confident, has not been filed. I need to work on reaching out and connecting.

This season is too busy to expect people to add more events into their life. I’m prepared to feel lonely. On the other hand, a small party or outing might be just the way to start a new year. I’m ready to have (a few) more people in my life. I need to add something to the calendar, send out those invites, and reach out. Or just find an event that hits all my targets and say, “Yes.”

Travel

It’s mixing metaphors, but I’m adding some fun confetti to the top of my jar. For Christmas, I made a decision to “run away.” I am planning on taking a meandering trip down to Monterey to do some bird watching and sight seeing. I don’t think sitting at home feeling blue or in an essentially deserted office will help my outlook.

The last few years I have tried to cope with the holidays by taking as little time off as possible and saving up vacation time. I’m going to try to embrace that this is a period where there is naturally a pause. Travel is something I love and enjoy. It’s the perfect finish to my list.

If you’re dreading the holidays, for whatever reason, create your own “jar”. As you can see in the picture above, I’ve left somethings out. Frankly, I’ve left a lot out. Think about what you want to keep instead of missing what isn’t there.

“When she decides to do something, there is no stopping her.” ~ anyone who ever knew Maggie

This week would have been Maggie’s 72nd birthday. While I’m not really one for keeping track of birthdays after someone has gone, it seemed like a good day to tackle the chore I’ve been meaning to do for eight months: Mom’s final history.

The memorial service was April 13 and was well attended, with people coming over from great distances to pay their respects. The pastor at the church gave a lovely homily and history that I have used pretty heavily in creating this post.

Margaret Marie Power was born on August 21, 1947 to Russel and Eunice Power in Missoula, Montana, in the Bitter Root Valley. Her father was a carpenter, her mother mostly a homemaker, with the occasional stints as a grocer or working in a rest home. She had a sister, Carol, five years older.

This was in the days when little girls had to wear little dresses to school every day; however, these girls wore jeans and when they got to school they changed into dresses. But when that bell was rung at the end of the day, they changed back to jeans before
coming home.

She remembered when her father built the first house in town that cost over $100,000. That was a big deal. The family moved to Stevensville, Montana, about an hour south of Missoula. Stevenville is the oldest town in Montana, founded by Jesuit missionaries. The town had around 700 when Maggie was growing up. She graduated in a class of 47 as a co-valeidictorian in 1965.

She went to the University of Montana for business education and office management. During college, she met a man named Don who was getting his masters. They first met at a party. Maggie went to the party with some guy, but left the party with Don! They both helped each other finish college and were married the day before Thanksgiving. Each year, Don would say turkey time made him nervous because his contract was up for renewal.

They moved to Oregon for work. Don worked at Chemetica Community College and Maggie worked for the Legislature that year, for the Legislative Council’s office and had floor privileges. She learned the good and the bad of statewide politics. Later, she moved to a job as an auditor for the IRS; it wasn’t her favorite job, but it helped pay the bills.

Tara was born in 1975, and the family moved up to Oregon City in a house that was just outside Oregon City, now in Oregon City. At that time, South End Road was out in the middle of nowhere, they had fields and pastures surrounding them. Tara would love feeding the horses whose fences would neighbor their property, they had an old farmhouse behind them.

For Maggie, there was a new Portland office of a group of special agents doing special prosecutions, field work, undercover surveillance, tax fraud work. And Maggie got on board. Took a few classes for accounting and away she went finding the bad guys. It was challenging, but rewarding work. Over the years, the office moved down to San Francisco, but she wanted to stay here. PC’s, personal computers, were just starting to gain usefulness in the office space, and Maggie knew her computers. She changed her focus and became a programmers.

In 2002, after more than 25 years of serves, she retired. In a cruel twist of fate, the first part of her retirement was spent beating breast cancer.

With the knowledge that life can be short, that next year the couple moved out to their vacation property in Lincoln City. Don bought the land in Lincoln City with his Vietnam money in 1972, and over the years the couple built their place from the ground up, with the aid of their parents. Free and clear!

Maggie took care of her mother, Eunice, during her long decline with dementia. Later, Maggie was Don’s primary caretaker after his stroke and gradual decline.

After Don’s death, Maggie undertook an expansion of the beach house. It took a while, but the house was eventually tailor made to meet her needs. She and her “Coffee Mates” had many parties and gatherings in addition to their Friday morning coffee breaks.

Maggie, we’ll miss you!