Genetics has blessed me with a face and attitude that bely my age.
The choice of career that I made, however, has taken a toll on my physical body. The combination of that along with genetics has wreaked havoc upon me.
Over 25 years of nursing hurts. Cement floors. Inadequate shoes. Kneeling down or bending over when I should’ve brought things up to my level. Moving and lifting patients that were way too heavy for my abilities. All of these things contributed to what I’m dealing with now.
I’m riddled with arthritis, especially in the joints that have served me during inpatient care – my hands, my shoulders, and most evidently in my knees.
I’m doing my best to recover from surgery. I want to protect the left knee – that may mean not working as a registered nurse any more.
Thirty four days ago I had a total knee replacement. My orthopedist kept telling me how young I was, even as he told me I had stage four arthritis in my right knee… And the left was not far behind.
We are having unseasonably cooler weather – and by cooler I mean instead of 90% humidity it’s 80% humidity.
It’s 84° but it feels like 97° – in the sun.
But in the shade of my porch with the breeze blowing gently, it’s tolerable.
Because it’s morning still, I haven’t been bothered by any Noseeum’s or mosquitoes… that I know of.
Soon enough, my time on the porch will be very limited, because the bugs in the heat will be unbearable.
But today, I’m hidden behind the hedges. The tree branches bow down and protect me from the top. The fern jumps in to add more coverage.
My sweet little Australian Shepherd sits next to me, watching for squirrels.
I’m watching the trees sway. Listening to the cicadas as they fire up and then settle back down. I try to identify bird song as I watch them fly from bush to tree and back.
If peace could come by osmosis, I would be calm as calm can be.
At least two years ago, one of my diamond earrings flew out of my ear.
I know that this happened in my house, I know it happened in my bedroom en suite, and I knew it was there somewhere.
Despite the screw on backs on the earrings,taking towels off my wet hair has pulled earrings out in the past. The first lesson I learned is I need to take them out at night and put them in the jewelry case.
This pair of diamond earrings is extremely precious to me because my husband got them for me – I kept them in my ears all the time. So this loss was devastating. But I knew it was here somewhere!
I do distinctly remember finding the earring and it’s circular diamond halo, and putting it in a safe place.
Because I am also a certain age, I forgot where that safe place was.
For at least two years, I have been looking for this diamond stud and halo.
My husband was understandably skeptical that I knew where it was. My ADHD has me all over the place. I had a distinct memory of putting the diamond somewhere more safe! He would nod at me reassuringly, at the same time giving me the “uh huh” look, each time I told him the story.
I have grieved this for these years. Not for the value of the diamonds, but the value of what they meant to me, as a precious thoughtful gift from my husband.
This morning, I had a doctors appointment. It was cash only because their credit card machine is broken, so I picked up the money on the way to the office, and slid it into my wallet.
I never carry cash. And if I do, I usually just put it in my pants pocket.
When I got to the office and checked in, Jennifer asked me for my co-pay. I opened my wallet and pulled out the co-pay – and there was the diamond and it’s halo.
I couldn’t believe it. Near tears, I explained the story to Jennifer.I could not wait to get home and put both diamonds in my ears again after so long!
I had another stop to make. On the way, I heard a still, soft voice tell me to put the earring in my ear. I heard it again, but I didn’t listen. I was dead set on getting to my next location.
After that stop, I started driving home and reached into my wallet to get the earring so I could place it in my ear.
It wasn’t there! I started frantically searching through my wallet, finally pulling over any parking lot so that I could really go through the wallet. It’s a fabric wallet, and I went over every inch of it and the diamond earring wasn’t there. Nor was the halo. I dumped out my purse on the side that the wallet was – nothing! 
I called Jennifer back and asked her if she had seen the earring – I noticed that there was a small hole in my wallet that was made when the wallet was unzipped, just enough space for the diamond earring to get through. She searched the office and the counter, and was not able to find it.
Then I went back to the other appointment location I was at, and had the same results. No diamond or halo.
By now I’m crying, and praying, and asking God to forgive me for not listening when he told me so clearly to put the earring in my ear. If I had done it when he told me to, it wouldn’t have gotten lost.
When I got home, I put the wallet on the counter, and I began to remove all of the items in it so that I could cut it apart in the search for my jewelry.
I realized I left my phone in the car, so I went back to the car and decided  I would look for the diamond earring while I was there.
And right there on the seat, in the seam underneath where I was sitting, glimmered my diamond earring and halo. I immediately went in the house and found its mate, and put both earrings and halos into my ears.
Still sobbing, I called my husband and said listen to this whole story before you say anything. So I told him the entire saga, start to finish. He was just as happy as I was that the diamond earring was found at last!
The really cool thing about this is on the one year anniversary of my being cancer free, my husband bought me a pink diamond pendant with a diamond halo around it.
I’ve been waking regularly for the the last four hours, each time with a dream clinging to me and trying to suck me back down into its confusing miasma.
It’s my hot flashes driving this, my disoriented mind surmises. The chemical brew that forced me into instant menopause has put the hot flash hot light on nearly constantly some nights.
So it is tonight.
As a result, my dreams are vivid.
In them, I’m back I’m Utah, the place I consider home.
I’m concerned about my dear friends. Someone is very unwell. Something bad is happening.
I wake again, confused, concerned, and prayerful at the same time.
I moved every one to three years as a military child. I lived in Utah as a small child, and in high school when I returned there, I vowed never to leave.
After several fits at starts of moving and returning, I finally did leave for good. I haven’t lived there for over thirty years.
I moved to sea level ultimately, but Utah is my heart.
So are my dear friends from there.
In Utah, in high school, I made some true lifelong friends. Starting at age 14 through my extra stay when I was 19, I made deep friendships.
It’s a handful of people who I love and miss tremendously. I wasn’t a popular girl, but I was seeking friendship – and found it in these young women and men.
We stay in touch through occasional calls, texts, and messages. We have the kind of friendship where we can pick up where we left off, even after all these years. Now we talk about gardens and grandkids.
Tonight’s dreams were uncomfortable, though. Born of my intermittent feverishly hot thrashing, real worry for them was the theme that kept troubling me.
Finally I’ve given up on sleep -for now. I’m reading a novel I’ve read at least three times – there is comfort in coming home to a familiar book.
Maybe it’s a sign I need to make a trip home, taking my husband so see the places and people that are so embedded in my heart.
And my bestie, Mo, can fly in from the Midwest where she landed to expand her family, also far from her home in Utah.
We are spending day one a long holiday weekend looking for peace.
We are at a state park, one with some of the most secluded waterways and forest preserves in the state.
We have our chairs under the Cyprus trees, and my bum knee leg is propped on one of the Cyprus knobs.
Sounds picturesque, right?
Not so much.
In front of us, a 20 something couple are pushing their floats right in front of us. Their radio goes on, and they turn up the volume as they suck on their respective vapes.
Feet away, their toddler in swimmers is shouting “help”. No glance is given toward her. Finally, the girl wiggles her way over to her mom, who shoves her away with force, causing high pitched screams from the girl.
Behind us, someone else fires up their speaker.
We haven’t spoken a word.
We are watching the cormorants dive for long periods, popping up somewhere else like a surprise.
We are appreciating the sun as it sifts through the feather like leaves on the Cyprus.
We smile as a swallowtail meanders past, dipping up and down and around, until it is out of view.
The majority of people here are silently enjoying this natural respite.
One the loud interlopers finally move from the only flat access to the spring fed water, we carefully pick our way out to cold, clear water.
We stand near the shore and look at the grasses swaying, tiny fish cutting in out of the ribbons of grass.
We return to our chairs with icy legs and peaceful souls.
The line is long to check in at the infusion center.
This is where you come to get chemo. Blood products. Monthly shots. Antibiotics.
Whatever is needed to fight the beast of cancer – or at least keep it at bay – is administered here. Lord willing it works.
One patient is belching, near vomiting, struggling to keep it together behind her cotton mask.
An elderly woman comes in, her arms covered in bruises, with a deep purple bruise on her face. She explains to the receptionist that she hit her face with the car door when she opened it. It matches my arms now, she laughs. You know how I like to match, she chuckles.
There isn’t an ounce of spare flesh on her, and the skin she has is sagging and wrinkled with time. She persists.
Four more of us wait, patiently or impatiently, for our treatments. Today, I’m getting my monthly Zolodex shot. As I will every month for 3 1/2 more years.
It’s a very small price to pay.
More people come in, give their name, sit down.
Wait.
Every time I am here, though, I am counting my blessings.
The high humidity, feels like you are drowning in a steam room when you walk out the door South.
Some people adjust. Acclimate.
Others actually embrace it!
I am not some people.
I hate hot, humid weather.
Why do I live here?
It’s complicated.
I have Pinterest boards dedicated to our retirement home that will be north of here.
It will be in the country. It will be in a place that has all four seasons.
It will not be here.
I can’t believe that I’ve lived here for almost half my life.
I’ve lived in a place I don’t want to be.
Hurricane season is something I truly dread – and it’s something we have to prepare for, and something we learn to watch the weather forecast for from the coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico for months.
I find things to make summer bearable. Planting flowers that bloom in the languid shimmering heat. Listening to the frogs at night. Swimming with my grands in the silky salt water pool.
The activity that I will be participating in more than anything else is staying in air conditioned environs.
Dreaming of a real Autumn.
Fantasizing about fresh snow and the silent blue white of a snowy white.
I was up a lot during the night, as a spring stop trundled through around midnight, and again every couple of hours. Lightning flashes and rumbling thunder made for a restless night.
One week. One week since we lost our beloved dog.
The day proved just as stormy as last night was, so I took my sourdough starter out of the fridge, and fed her.
Six hours later, after the starter had more than doubled, I made a shaggy dough for my boulle sourdough loaf, and covered the bowl while I went to my next project.
Sourdough discard dark chocolate chunk cookies soon were mixed and scooped onto parchment paper, to slide into the oven, batch by batch.
While they filled my kitchen with the amazing scent of melting butter and sugar and Ghirardelli chocolate, I took most of the rest of my sourdough starter, and began to make bagels.
After the dough had mixed in the Kitchenaid mixer, I covered it, then put the cookies, now cooled, into containers.
Then it was time for stretch and folds with the sourdough. every 30 minutes, for two hours.
In between, I made dinner.
Finally, my bread dough was ready for her long bulk fermentation, and I covered her with a plastic cap and a clean linen cloth.
Just in time for the bagels!
I plopped the dough onto the counter, and cut it into 8 even pieces. I rolled each segment in my palms, placing them on counter to form into a bagel by sticking my thumb in the middle and stretching. Once they were all shaped, I covered them with the linen cloth, and started the water to boil while I pre-heated the oven.
Once then water was boiling, I put in the bagels – smiling while they floated, just as it said they would if the dough was right. This is my first attempt at bagels.
After a few seconds, I placed them on a parchment lined baking sheet.
I brushed them with egg wash, sprinkling half of them with everything bagel sprinkles.
Into the oven they went, to come out 22 minutes later. Amazing! I made them!
And I made it through the day.
Emotionally wrung out.
Physically exhausted.
In pain from my stage 4 arthritic knee.
Satisfied that I’ve made all of this, which I will disperse among my family.
WriteRN Ramblings 
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