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This, that….

by jmgoyder

This,
that….

Well I got back from Perth last week and the first thing I did was to rush to my new beaut vegetable garden and also check the chooks. I fed and watered both with a sense of quiet glee.

The second thing I did was to go inside and log on. When nothing happened I didn’t panic since all the green lights were indicating merrily that the internet wasn’t too far away.

Six hours later, having spoken to six different technical support people, all of whom were amazingly patient, kind and positive (with the exception of one woman whose sighs, when I didn’t understand her click34xcableetc instructions, became thunderous on loudspeaker) were confident.

At one point, during this ungleeful, longwinded experience, I rang Ming who said that when he got home he’d sort it out in a jiffy. Well he tried, and even spoke to other technical support people, to no avail.

The Ming then said, with great compassion and a generous hug, “Maybe you’re just not intelligent enough, Mum….?”

I let his observation linger for the ten days during which I had no internet except via my phone. When I began to get the 5s mixed us with the Ss, I gave up.

Anyway, yesterday the replacement modem arrived at the post office and Ming picked it up, brought it home, connected it and voila!

So what am I supposed to do now? I can’t possibly answer all of the zillions of emails and comments and facebooky stuff; I can’t possibly catch up on ten days of my blog friends’ blogs; I can’t even catch up with what I was going to do before I lost the internet because my blog kind of reminded me of what to do.

I survived my ten day blip of no internet, but the person most affected by my off-the-internet-radar status was my beautiful mother. Meg and I have a strong internet relationship via email and Facebook, but she is more attentive to messages than I am, so, when I lost the internet, she was the first to miss me.

And today is her birthday. She is 81, looks 61 and acts like 21. So today Meg came to the farm to see the vegetable garden then we went to a local winery for lunch. The secret surprise was that Ming and A. would join us and that was a fantastic thing!

It’s great to be blogging again. That internet blip taught me something really profound: I need the internet!

One of the hardest things for me now is having fun – the guilt of it. Lunches with friends, learning how to garden with new friends, figuring out the future, altering and/or discarding things in this old house, renewing ….

This,
that,
and the other….

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I am so cool!

by jmgoyder

I feel the heat terribly and, as some of my friends may remember, a couple of summers ago, I developed a condition called “pompholyx“.

(Warning: if you click on the above link you might be grossed out by the pictures, just as I was by the condition).

Anyway, since one of the triggers is excessive perspiration, which I vividly remember my dad having and now it’s obviously my turn, I made a big decision. Air conditioning!

I pretty much live in my writing room, which used to be Gar’s bedroom (Anthony’s mother). Anyway, her 1970s air conditioner died last year, so last week I made the call and the aircon. guys and the electrician installed it this morning. It’s not a particularly hot day (only in the mid-20s C), but as I waved my saviours goodbye, I was already dripping, despite wearing a sweatband.

And now? Ahhh, the bliss of being so cool and the comfort of knowing that when the temperature hits 40 degrees (any time soon as summer approaches), I will have a safe haven! Okay so, in the big scheme of things, pompholyx may not seem like such a serious condition but it drove me quite mad for months a couple of years ago.

I was reminding our doctor the other day and he immediately looked at my hands where, during a funny little heatwave last week, the blisters had begun to appear.

Me: You can’t see them now – I scratched them off and it wasn’t that bad.

Doctor: Mmmmm.

Me: But I can feel them coming back – the blisters. So I think I might need botox to stop me sweating? I read about that possibility.

Doctor: No. I’ll order some blood tests; it could be hormonal.

Me: Yes, of course, but I don’t think it’s just menopausalish because I perspire a hell of a lot more than any of my equally menopausal friends!

Doctor: Mmmmm.

Me: And remember how we discussed cranio-facial hyper-hydrosis, or whatever you call it, last year? That’s me! It’s just my face, head and hands – the rest of me sweats normally.

Doctor: Mmmmm.

Okay so the doctor doesn’t do the mmmmmm thing loudly but it’s definitely a component of our conversations, with a chuckle here and there. I much prefer the mmmmm.

Anyway, as the young aircon. guys were leaving, I apologised for the peacock noise (it’s spring, so they are yaaaaawking constantly). One of the guys said ‘They are so cool!’

I agree and here are a couple of shots of Prince minus his back view!

As this beautiful white peacock does his twirling, fanning, wonderful dance, his feathers muscle their way into the breeze and sing:

I am so cool!

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The suffering conundrum

by jmgoyder

I just don’t get it. Why does one person cop multiple illnesses? And why does this seem to happen to the beautiful people?

Later this week I will be travelling to Perth to meet my friend at the airport, after which we will spend two luxurious nights at a resort. During the days, I will take my friend to her medical appointments; in the evenings we will sip wine, eat pizza, and reminisce.

She was the first kid to say hello to me on the bus to school after my family moved from PNG to Australia. Since then, we have had years of little contact due to busyness, geography etc. but, more recently, have reconnected.

‘How is it possible for you to still laugh?’ I asked her on the phone tonight, to which she replied with her laugh.

My friend suffers severe eye conditions and an unhealed broken foot and yet she can still maintain laughter within her suffering. How does she do this?

I haven’t mentioned her name because she is very private but I so wish I could salute her publicly because she is amazingly philosophical and pragmatic.

And maybe she and I will make a bit of sense out of the suffering conundrum when we see each other in a couple of days. I can’t wait!

Sorry about that image. Prince always seems to want to give me the back view. Here is a better view.

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Full of Beans 2

by jmgoyder

Well, I am so delighted that I am almost speechless. In a mere 24 hours ….

I have to admit that I found myself a bit shy of the tall, red-haired man who performed a bit of a miracle so energetically. I came in and out of the house, met his lovely wife and youngest (part of his team), made them a cup of tea but not much else.

Now it will be up to me.

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Full of beans!

by jmgoyder

A long lost dream is coming true via a tall man with red hair, named Dan, whose business is called Full of Beans. Thanks to him, my vegetable garden is being created! If it weren’t for being invited to join the gardening group I would never have known about him, so I am very grateful. Ironically, I can’t attend tomorrow’s get-together because Dan is coming back to do the planting and I want to learn.

One of the things that really appeals to me about Full of Beans is that it provides an ongoing maintenance service for gardening novices like me.

Okay, so gardening friends far and wide may see this as a kind of cheating on my part (employing someone to make me a vegetable garden) but oh well. I am already crazy about what Dan has begun to create and can hardly contain my excitement.

Anthony was an avid gardener, despite not having much time, with milking the cows and looking after his mother. Nevertheless almost everything he planted, over 50 years ago, still survives. But he was never the least bit interested in growing vegetables. A couple of years into our marriage, I asked for a vegetable garden but he said there was no room. I argued that there was plenty of room (5 acres around the house!) to no avail.

And, as Ming grew up into an adolescent, he formed the same opinion. It was just a small dream of mine but neither of them would have a bar of it. That’s okay; they just weren’t interested and maybe didn’t realise how much I wanted the vegetable garden. I couldn’t do it by myself so one year my brother came out and dug me a patch and every single gigantic zucchini gave me a thrill. But that went by the wayside in the face of Anthony’s mysterious deterioration in health (we didn’t know about his Parkinson’s then) and the fact that I was working full-time that year.

Now that Anthony is no longer cognisant of our shared reality; now that Ming is in a fantastic relationship; now that I am learning how to be completely alone, a vegetable garden seems profound.

A long lost dream is coming true via a tall man with red hair, named Dan, whose business is called Full of Beans.

http://www.fullofbeans.com.au

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An argument about Anthony’s smile

by jmgoyder

You know how I’ve been saying how wonderful it is to see Anthony smiling again, and that I’ve been crediting myself with having made a huge effort to get that smile back? Well, Ming disagrees.

Today was a day off work for Ming so he went to see Anthony and I had a day at home. When he got back he told me that he had Anthony laughing!

Ming: Mum, Dad never lost his smile!

Me: You don’t see him as much so you don’t know – anyway you can always make him smile because you’re Ming!

Ming: So can you and so can anybody!

We left it at that; after all there is no point having an argument about a smile. Nevertheless our brief argument got me thinking about Anthony’s Parkinson’s ‘mask’ (the blank, unblinking, slack-jawed expression on his face, typical of PD). And I realised that the only reason I see this more than anyone else does is probably because, when I visit, I am there for hours so I see the fluctuations.

For example, when staff come into Anthony’s room and banter or flirt with him, he smiles; when friends and relatives visit, he smiles; when Ming and I visit, he smiles. So perhaps I should adjust my thinking to the possibility that it has become easier to conjure/coerce that smile? Maybe Anthony’s smile, and even his laugh, was always there, always ready to be there.

Maybe it was my own smile that went missing for so long.

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Ordinary

by jmgoyder

For the last several weeks I have been making pot after pot of pea and ham soup, freezing it in little batches, or serving it to friends and family, but mainly eating it myself. I just can’t seem to get enough of it!

I take it into the nursing home and share it with Anthony often. He is a ~~ruthless~~ great food critic. Some of my experimental additions weren’t very successful; for example, the addition of chilli, mint, capsicums and curry powder didn’t work. I mean it was edible, but it just wasn’t pea and ham soup the way it’s supposed to be, you know?

Having run out of my last batch, I over-enthusiastically over-filled the slow cooker and had to transfer half of the ingredients to another big saucepan before the kitchen floor became a lake of pea and ham soup. So now I have two simmering pots filling the empty house with aroma.

The usual ingredients are split peas, chopped vegetables (onions, garlic, celery, but not capsicums) and, of course, a ham hock. But I do have one extra secret ingredient and I think this makes MY pea and ham soup superior, ha!

Tomorrow, the answer to this conundrum will be posted, as well as a photo shoot of the finished soup. I am hoping that, universally, kitchens, restaurants, food journalists, and people with nothing else to do, will clamour at my blog-door.

But that probably won’t happen because I’ll take a small batch of this big new batch of pea and ham soup into the nursing home and Anthony will taste it and just say, “Not bad” and then we will have the following argument:

Me: What do you mean ‘Not bad’? Why can’t you ever say it’s fantastic or wonderful?

Anthony: Because it’s, well ….

Me: What?

Anthony: Ordinary.

Almost every day, I go in and sit next to Ants, watch television, chill out, answer emails, wrestle with my iPad, for several hours – and he and I have these strange, fragmented, haphazard, conversations. Sometimes it seems really lazy to just sit there with him, always with my hand on his arm, watching Dr Phil then going back to our current series, West Wing.

He is sleepier and sleepier every day this week. I wonder what next week will be like apart from a surplus of pea and ham soup.

Next week will be ordinary, and ordinary is a joy.

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Wings

by jmgoyder

The weather here is warming up rapidly and the five peacocks are madly competing for the attention of the three peahens. (I definitely need to replenish my stock of hens but don’t tell Ming!)

Every Spring the guys do their display thing, flirting with everything from the old dairy shed, to the car, to the windows of the enclosed back veranda. They also flirt with the peahens of course whose indifference is hilarious.

For most of the year, King Ken and Prince are the best of friends but during Spring they become bitter rivals:

King Ken: Don’t come any closer, kid.
Prince: Sorry, Uncle.

King Ken: And stop copying my moves!
Prince: I don’t mean to, Uncle, it’s just sort of automatic.

Prince: I bow to your majesty. You have to believe me, Uncle!

Then, all of a sudden, they flew up and at each other with claws and wings arrowed. I wasn’t quick enough, with my phone camera, to capture this brief struggle; also I had to break it up! King Ken skedaddled with the other Kings so I comforted Prince with a bit of bread.

………………………………………………………

Sometimes I wonder why I write these little stories, put fake words into the mouths of these beautiful, wordless birds via captions. I think it’s something to do with the way I first began to cope with Anthony’s Parkinson’s – the birds we accumulated – guinnea fowl, peafowl, various poultry…. In the beginning it was such a joy.

Then, as Anthony’s health deteriorated, and Ming needed spinal surgery, and I had to resign from my job at the university, the birds became symbolically, and realistically, a source of incredible comfort.

Wings.

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Ago

by jmgoyder

‘Ago’ is a word I have never thought about until this afternoon. Now, I miss ago.

Lately, I haven’t been able to find the right words to describe Anthony’s condition as it ebbs away. A few days ago, he was so incredibly, cheekily, the Ants from many years ago; the next day he was like someone comatosed; today, as I left, he asked me to get four pieces of steak for tea.

Physically, he and I both cope well. After all, at the moment, Ants has very little physical pain, and me being a young girl (ha!) of 56, driving from farm to town to see him is not a big deal.

One of the many lovely staff at the nursing home sent me this picture of Ants during an animal visit activity. Thank you so much Chloe!

This has inspired me to take Blaze (mini-dachshund) in to see Ants tomorrow again. Blaze (son of Inky 2 and Doc 4) will remind us of once ago.

Long
ago.

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Swings and roundabouts 3

by jmgoyder

We had a couple of family gatherings on the weekend. On Saturday it was my first great niece’s birthday party. Neve, my oldest brother’s first grandchild, is already, at 2, very stylish, so I bought her a multi-coloured tutu which her mother says she loves. The finding of this tutu was somewhat serendipitous because on the day before the party, my friend (E. from the nursing home, who I wrote about a few posts back), had set up a stall of her crafts, including tutus! And, just before she packed up I found the perfect one for Neve. I am kicking myself for forgetting to take a photo of that tutu – oh well.

Then, on Sunday, we had another family gathering at the home of another crafty person – my mother. One of the purposes of this pizza + cheesecake lunch was for family members from down south, and in-laws from Scotland, to get their first glimpse of my first great nephew, Spencer. And it was a great glimpse as you can see in this photo of my youngest brother with his first great nephew.

Like E. (oh to hell with anonymity – her real name is Ellen) my mother, Meg, is talented in the art of craft, her own speciality being hairpin lace. Here is a picture of Spencer in his Meg-made baby shawl.

And the above scanned picture is a newspaper article from a few years ago that featured my mother’s hairpin lace baby shawls! I thought she was going to get famous (I was going to be her rich agent!) but I guess baby shawls are not in the category of investment, especially if they are burped upon.

There are two more babies-on-the-way in my family now so my mother will be busy with hairpin lace once again. In the last 12 months around eight of the nursing staff have had babies and we gave them all a shawl; I paid for the wool and my mother did the craft.

Okay, I need to bring this to a coherent conclusion but I can’t be bothered with coherent. Prince is still trying to impress the indifferent chooks to no avail….

The last time Anthony came to a family occasion was about two years ago and it was a horrible experience – the wheelchair taxi, my family’s empathy, my tears on his departure. When I look back, I am in awe of how we tried always to include Ants in every family gathering … until it just became impossible.

Martha: She’s forgotten to get the laying pellets again.
Mary: What? I’m starving!
Prince: Will you two just shut up!

Happy birthday, Neve!
Happy arrival, Spencer!

Animal Australia Birds blogging Embarrassing moments Family Friendship Grief Happiness Humour joy LOVE STORY Marriage My published writing nursing homes Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease dementia Western Australia Wings

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jmgoyder

wings and things

This, that….

I am so cool!

The suffering conundrum

Full of Beans 2

Full of beans!

An argument about Anthony’s smile

Ordinary

Wings

Ago

Swings and roundabouts 3

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