Clutching Crutches

     Until yesterday I had not used crutches for 31 years. At age 24 I had surgery to correct a kneecap that had been dislocating since I injured it playing in a sawdust pit at age 9. I was not very good with crutches back when I was younger, stronger and more coordinated. Having grown older, weaker and fatter has not improved the situation. Fortunately, I did not need to use them for long thanks to my bff Cortisone. Within a few hours my knee went from pain from any movement to able to bear weight. Now I only need a crutch for walking longer distances, like out to our mailbox, and I only use one crutch. Even I can't be too big a clutz using one crutch.
     The culmination of the crutch crisis was another of those odd answers to prayer I have blogged about.  Having a stiff, painful knee is nothing new for me, what was new is that the problem was my right aka "good" knee.  I have always counted on "Righty" to make up for "Lefty" and I suppose it felt taken for granted, so about a week ago, Righty got sore.  But not too sore.  I have had two cortisone shots in my left knee because it not only got sore, but unbending.  Bending is a handy thing for a knee to do.  It is practically their entire job description. Righty was painful but still bending fairly well so I couldn't decide whether or not to have it shot.  Then, like an idiot, I prayed about it. The answer came quickly.  Wednesday morning I gimped out to get the newspaper and around the house as usual but when I sat down at the table my right knee hurt like crazy.  I decided to have it shot after I was finished taking blood pressures at Sykes.  Halfway through my two hour shift I hobbled back to the rest room. The trip back to the pharmacy took the remaining hour.  Not really, but I realized partway back that Righty had about had it for the day and I wasn't sure I could make it back without her.
     I knew I could have asked someone to help, but the number one unspoken rule when I was growing up was--Don't draw attention to yourself. If I ever have a heart attack, I will probably text 911 so they can get back to me at their leisure. It is very hard not to draw attention when the place wounded knee decides to make its last stand is in the middle of a restaurant. I got back to my chair in the pharmacy, but by the shock waves I was experiencing, I knew I would not be able to walk out of there. I could have asked the pharmacists to help me into my car but, even if I could have driven, I still wouldn't have a way into orthopedic urgent care.  So I called Reed to pick me up after my shift--literally.
     Another odd God thing is that the doctor I have been waiting two months to see about a knee replacement for Lefty, happened to have an opening between patients and decided to help out the urgent care.  He gave me a cortisone shot, recommended crutches, and told me not to run any marathons.  What luck, I didn't happen to be scheduled for any.  For my birthday Monday, I'm getting an MRI--and I hadn't even asked for one.  If my miniscus is torn, I will need arthroscopic surgery.  I should use that time as crutch practice for my upcoming knee replacement when Clutzy Connie clutches crutches again.

Mortitas--Little Dead Things

   
    The famous philosopher Descartes said "I think, therefore, I am", although he said it in French so it sounded classier.  My philosophy is simpler, "I have cats, therefore, I have little dead things".  That might sound better in French, but I only know Spanish, and I think little dead things would be translated "mortitas".  These mortitas are usually left on the front doormat so we can appreciate them the minute we step outside in the morning. That is why I walk outside gingerly as if our front deck was a mine field. Sometimes there are whole mice on the mat, sometimes just livers, which means either they saved the best part for us or that cats don't like liver.  Thanks to the water feature we added to the front yard, our doormat has been added to the frequent feather program. I was never willing to put up a bird feeder because we had cats, but I didn't realize our little waterfall would be one of the top 10 sparrow spas. We might as well have installed a kitty McDonalds in the front yard.  For something so aerodynamic, wings and feathers don't rise from the doormat very well, even with vigorous sweeping, so the evidence of disassembled birds is there for all visitors to enjoy.
     Maynard is exceptionally proud of his hunting ability and meows loudly until someone comes out to congratulate him, which I do--sometimes, through clenched teeth.  It is occasionally unsettling to realize we share our home with creatures who take such delight in killing. I could eliminate the mortitas problem by not letting them outside, and I am aware that indoor cats live longer, but I would rather have them live shorter lives doing what cats are meant to do than long lives stuck in the house. . .wanting to kill something.

Crossing Guard

    I have worked as a home health aide since '98. That means I have probably been instructed about boundary issues 98 times.  Fortunately, in this context, it has nothing to do with the Rio Grande, and more to do with real ordinary.  Boundaries in home health care means not blurring the lines between profession and friendship.  It is wonderful to be able to assist people in the comfort of their home, the problem is the comfort of their home.  With no institutional formality, no supervisor looking over your shoulder and, sometimes, years spent with the same client, it is natural to become close. (I refuse to use the current buzzword for client--"consumer". It makes us sound like food.)  In fact, if I were a client, any caregiver who could work for me several hours a day, year after year and never discuss anything personal would give me the creeps. Clients need company as much as competence. Boundaries do not mean there is no friendship between client and caregiver, boundaries mean you function in their home as a professional, not a friend.
     I have worked the same days with the same client for years. In that time I have seen aides for the other days come and go.  Some of them have taken her laundry home to do on their own time, loaned money, borrowed everything but money (she doesn't have any), brought family members--including dogs to her home, eaten her food or taken her out to eat on a daily basis, invited her to holiday dinners, etc. The problem is not so much that it makes us boundary crossing guard caregivers look uncaring, but that eventually those aides wind up sitting on the couch watching movies. They have slipped into friendship mode. Eventually, they have to be replaced. I have many boundary violations of my own. My client has had my cell number for years, but I gave her a "special" ringtone so I can screen her calls. Every light bulb, dish sponge and razor she has used in the past 6 years have come from my house, yet somehow I have managed to keep our relationship professional enough to have had years to enjoy it. When you value your "home work", sometimes the best defense is the fence.

The Not-So-Great Smoky Mountains

    Twice in the past week I have explained to people new to Montana, or new to being alive, that summers filled with forest fire smoke are a relatively new tradition here. I grew up in Missoula, whose name means--a bowl-shaped valley especially well suited for trapping fumes.  My childhood memories smell like the pulp mill or smoke from the garbage burning barrel, back in the days when recycling was done with a match.  When I was a child, Smoky Bear was still alive and fire was considered bad because it destroyed things.  Logging was deemed good because it provided lumber to build things. In mathematical terms:  destroy = bad, build = good.  Although we understood that fires return nourishing nitrogen to the soil, we felt that returning good lumber and animals to the soil was too high a price to pay for plant food.
    Now logging is considered bad and fire is considered good--unless it it man caused fire, that is still bad. (I don't think the trees recognize the difference, but the people who hug them do.)  It is this Smoky Bear-eness and abundance of fuel in unlogged forests that produce the combustible cocktail we are forced to drink every August. This summer, we are even importing smoke from Idaho. Environmentalists consider forest fires a natural process that replenishes the soil and should not be interfered with, but breathing is also a natural process that forest fires interfere with and I'm afraid some of the soil replenishment will be the bodies of those with respiratory trouble.
     But underlogged, overhugged forests and Smoky's demise are only part of the reason for the cyclical, summer, sun siesta; turf wars among the fire fighting agencies also contribute to the Molotov meltdown.  We know of several instances where fires have been reported by pilots while they were still small and manageable but, by the time the various bureaus had finished marking their territory, the fire was a roaring conflagration.  I know that the swing of the pendulum that took us from the "spit on fireflies" fire fear of my youth to the "laissez faire" (let it be) trend of today, will someday reach a sensible synthesis. Yes, home builders should realize that their cabin/mansion in the woods will burn like a campfire/marshmallow, and that fire fighters can't save the behinds of those who chose to leave cities behind.  But it is not unreasonable for smoke soaked states to be able to breathe in the summer.  Someday I will tell my grandchildren, or anyone else who will listen, about the idiotic fire noncontrol of this time--that is, if I have enough breath to do so.
    

Environmentalwist

     Sometimes I wish I was an environmentalist because:

1. The smoke from "natural" sources like forest fires would not make my throat and head ache. I would only be bothered by man made emissions but, as a friend pointed out, that would be most of the time.
2. I could drive an electric car without worrying about the huge carbon footprint of producing the battery or the fact that, in an accident, it might electrocute the emergency responders and/or negate the term-- survivors.
3. I would be willing to pay more "green" for less efficient green energy sources, as if electricity was produced by rubbing fairy wings together and hydrogen is sucked from the atmosphere through a magic straw.
4. I could use lawsuits to destroy the economies of logging communities and still sleep soundly at night in the house logging provided for me.
5. I could jet to conferences all over the world to read mounds of papers on global warming and not recognize the irony.
6. I could protect fish from the erosion produced by logging so they can choke to death from the erosion produced by fires.
7. I could restore balance to the ecosystem by introducing an unlimited amount of predators.
8. I could protect animals from the cruelty of hunting so they can be eaten by the above or die of starvation.
9. I could work to designate more wilderness areas so fewer people will have more places not to enjoy.
10. I would be too busy supporting environmental causes to have to support my fellow man, which is okay because humans are the only species I would consider intruders in earth's ecosystem.

Shacked Up

    I'm not one of those people to run out and buy a best seller. I'm cheap. So I didn't read "The Shack" when it was a best seller, I read it when I found it at a garage sale for 50 cents.  I found the book delightful for many reasons, one of which being that I like allegories:  "Pilgrim's Progress", "Chronicles of Mansoul", "Hind's Feet in High Places", and especially children's allegories like "Riddle of the Outlaw Bear".  Allegories, like parables, present truth in a simple, understandable form. One of the reasons I liked "The Shack" is that it shook up my stereotypes by presenting God, the Father, in the first part of the book as a black woman.  This was for the benefit of the main character Mack, who had been abused by his father and did not relate well to the fatherhood of God until he had forgiven his own.  That idea forced me to remember that, although God is always represented as He in the Bible, God is a spirit.  He is as much an anthropomorphism as saying God has arms or eyes.  This is God's way of helping material man relate to an immaterial, spirit being.  I found the idea comforting because, though I knew I would feel no disappointment in heaven, I thought my need for a mother might go forever unfulfilled.  Releasing God from the limitation of masculinity gives me hope that He will fulfill that role in my life.
     "The Shack" presents the trinity in relateable, human form. Those who are offended by that should remember that "The Shack" is not a theology book and that presenting Himself in terms we can relate to was God's idea in the first place. The book made me realize my high view of God was making Him so distant from me that I was not devoting much time to thinking about Him, much less like Him. What Christians often settle for is a grand concept of God but a small reality, "The Shack" turns that around. I was faithfully performing according to my preconceptions of Christian devotion, but I wasn't seeking more intimacy with God and that is the devotion He wants. I have been a Christian for decades and somewhere along the way began to canonize my preconceptions--to write holy on the lid and put God in a box. The book contains a lot of deep understanding, simply presented. I happen to be fluent in Simple. I was especially convicted by the chapter about judging. However lofty our theology, judging God by human standards, even to justify Him, demeans Him. I got shook up in "The Shack" and I plan to come back.        

Musical Phan

     Call me a romantic, but I am a fan of musicals.  I wish life was a musical.  But I also understand the literal, logical, boring people who complain that nobody would sing like that in real life.  For those people, I have written my own anti-musical words, but they are to the tune of "Phantom of the Opera" so you have to have heard that musical to fit the lyrics with the melody.  This way I can gratify and irritate the anti-musical at the same time.

     Why do we sing our words, instead of talk?

Why should we dance our way, when we could walk?

Wouldn't it save us time if we could say

a homicidal madman's after us

let's run away?

How often do you see in real life

songs burst spontaneously

from man and wife?

What dire emergency would not get worse

by s-t-o-p-p-i-n-g to compose a melody

or write a verse?

   Now for the big finish:

I t-h-i-n-k that death itself would be more fun

if it was sung.

Oh no, I'm singing much too high now.

No, I'm singing much too high now.

O-o-h, n-o-o

 too high.

Raising the Roof

     It is not uncommon in our family to celebrate Labor Day by doing actual labor.  That was certainly the case this year as we gathered at our daughter's house in Butte to help her and Luke shingle their roof. Reed and I arrived Thursday night, Will and his girlfriend Emily on Friday, and Tracy, Friday evening after work. Friday's project was tearing off the assorted layers of old shingles and was assisted by pastor-shanghaied students  from the mining college.  Although the day was a long, ab workout of shoveling crumbling shingles, there is nothing like real wind to give an outdoor project a second wind, especially when the wind is accompanied by thunder, lightening and RAIN.  There are enough projects to do on that house without adding leaking ceilings, so the roofers were highly motivated to get the protective sheeting on the roofee, especially over the unpatched holes. 
     The holes were taken care of the next morning and the roofing was completed by Sunday afternoon, ahead of schedule.  Enough ahead of schedule to allow time for the weight lifting challenge of replacing the heavy four by eight foot picture window with its newer, much lighter, replacement.  Since I am both naturally and deliberately lacking in construction skills, I removed the roofing detritus, which any moron could do, and cooked, at which I am skilled.  It is always a blessing to be with, and help, our children, but the joy of seeing them helping each other was like winning the Nobel prize for parenting. As I've stated before, we had modest goals when we were raising our children--we wanted to survive them and tried to help them suvive each other.
     The reward for the hard labor of canning is the sound of the tiny pop of the lid.  The reward for the hard work of parenting is the sound of your children working and laughing together as the good friends you always hoped they would become. I don't know how often we will spend Labor Day raising the roof, but I hope to continue the tradition of labors of love.