Our house yesterday morning. Photo by friend David. 

disaster

It started Wednesday with an early morning phone call. 

“Dave, there is a flood at your house.” The word “full” was used as was “street blocked.” My mind froze. 

I called a friend to look and call me back. 

He called back. It was not good.

“Go pack.” Daughter said. I was planning on making a trip to Idaho later in the day, taking Miriam with me. With the phone call I knew where I was going and it would be soon, but not when I would come back.

And my brother from Georgia was due on Thursday. 

It was noon before I got there. The water had been pumped out of the house. There had been 30 inches at the peak. Everything that was there was ruined. Crews were taking things out, others were inventorying the content. 

I didn’t cry, not out loud at least.

Today the crews tore out the drywall, took the cabinets off the wall, tore out the beautiful moldings I had labored over, the ones with 5 coats of oil enamel paint. 

The inspectors were sure the electrical wiring would be condemned. They were pretty sure that with that much water the ceramic tile on the floor might come loose. 

Right now there is cleanup going on, but no answers. The water came from a city controlled source. They are taking responsibility for the structure, we are not sure about the home owners policy. They are a tad slippery sometimes.

I cannot begin to imagine rebuilding the house.

The adjusters tell me that they will have word by mid week. I told them I was leaving town and that my friend David would be their contact person.

I don’t believe the Lord hurts one person for the benefit of another, but I do believe that the Lord is here to help us in adversity. This might be a blessing in disguise and it might be the end of a lot of good things.

It is too early to know. 

I came across this great quote from Dave Barry: "It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent."
Don't read Dave much lately. He must have lost his funny. 

underwear for men

Yesterday I decided I needed some new underwear. 

That sounds simple enough. But it ain’t. There are more styles of men’s underwear than you can imagine, and all of them come in tightly contained packaging that defies opening. No chance to check any details up close. 

I found the rack where I hoped they would have what I wanted. Simple low rider, cotton, stretchy style with a simple waist band and no fly. 

When I found what I thought was the right one, I made the purchase and made my way home. 

When I get them home I noticed the first bad sign. There was NO indication of sizing. One size may fit most, but there are skinny most and there are not so skinny most and there is no way in this world anything is going to fit them both.

I got the wrong most. The fabric is OK, the waist band is way too wide and way too tight and I don’t like them. So, 5 pair of new men’s shorts to Goodwill, and I will start the process over.

Sometimes I never find what I am looking for. Some years ago I bought some boxers that were really OK. The fabric was the right weight, the colors were OK (men’s boxers can get really wildly colorful and graphic) and they fit nicely.

So I went to get more like them. Ha. They only made that one batch apparently. I thought I had found some, but of course I could not inspect them more carefully. The fabric was the wrong weight, the size was wrong and they ended up at Goodwill. Never did find what I wanted.

I have bought Miriam’s lingerie most of our married life. I suppose somewhere there are women’s underwear packed in blister wrap able to resist terrorist attacks, but I don’t remember ever seeing any.

Tomorrow we go to the big city where I was born and I will give it another try.

Wish me luck.  

Miriam was always a phonetic speller.

Just read it out loud I would say.

Lots of very creative people have spelling issues, and while she was made to feel like a dunce, it was not necessary or correct.

Besides, we have all (including Miriam) gotten a lot of laughs out of her interpretation of the spelling process!

better

Miriam's boil got worse then better.

Night before last it broke, but daughter had a dressing on it with an Ace bandage wrapped around Miriam's head, like the cartoon characters! The bandage went under her chin and then over the crown of her head.

It looked bad but it worked pretty well.

Of course, after it broke and drained a bit, it was a lot better. In fact, I had to remind her to be careful of that side of her head. She could not remember why I was giving that advice.

Having had a few boils myself, I know they are not fun, but they do get better right after they were awful!

Today is a sunny day (at least for most of the day). I have an AD support group to attend and then a pair of peach trees to plant.

Ahh the life of a faux farmer!

Don't think this has been tightened for a while.

Spiders don't mind.

boils

Miriam has a boil this week.

This one is right in front of her hair right where a side burn might end, were she a guy. It has nothing to do with her ear, but it is close.

She is usually a good patient, but not so much this time. Daughter took her to the Doctor a week ago, she was given some antibiotic and told to check back in a week.

Tomorrow is the week so we will see how it is in the morning. It is swelled like half a bright red cherry and is irriattiong. I have had boils (two in one spring a few back). Mine were right under my shirt colar and uncomfortable for sure.

Hers is not rubbing anything, but it irritates her. Last night she insisted on putting a bandaid on it, but today it had to come off and that pulled hair and she was not happy about any of that.

Tonight she wants to cover it up someway, but we want to just put a towel over her pillow, in case it breaks during the night. That brought on a long and repeated discussion about the condition of the boil (which has not broken open yet).

Boils are not fun any time, and for someone who cannot remember that she just took a pill or had hot packs or that the bandaid hurt like crazy when it had to come off, it is even more terrifying.

Tomorrow we will decide what to do next.

I bought a little wood stove a while back.

Made out of a smallish propane bottle, it is a well thought out design. I bought it from the guy that made it. Not sure where he got the idea (probably borrowed from some one else). He did a decent job putting it all together.

The legs are about ugly, but I'll work on that.

I might take the stove camping with me, but it will probably end up in the little house I am building.

We will see.

country livin'

We are now living in rural Amerika.

That is not bad, but this area is a lot more rural than our home in Idaho. The surrounding hills are huge wheat farms. They need a lot of land to make that kind of life work, and they do. Farms are in the 5 to 10 section size (640 acres to a section).

But here in the flat lands, there are lots an lots of little places. Some are active farms, some are “going to be” farms. Some have goats or cows or sheep running on them, though often the critter is a mostly neglected horse.

Lots of people think they need five or ten acres to be happy, but that is a lot of hobby land, and not nearly enough commercial dirt. The are is mostly small holdings a few acre in size.

Some of these little farms are badly neglected, with old car bodies and ancient RV’s scattered among the run down mobile homes. Others are well kept and orderly. While I am sure there are people who worry about such things, they seem to cohabit with a degree of calm.

We live a mile from the state line between Oregon and Washington. A mile to the East of us is the “old” highway that connected the larger town in Washington to the smaller one in Oregon.

A new straighter 4 lane road was built some years ago that connect the two. The “old” road was abandoned as the main road. Now it is just another country road. When I go to the farm store in Oregon, I usually drive the old road. It is not faster, but it is wonderfully more diverse.

There once was a lot of market gardens along the road (there are still a few) and the owners often built their stands right out on the edge of the road. As I drive the 7 or 8 miles into Oregon I drive by and marvel at these old buildings.

As a photographer and amateur architecture student, I find all of this infinitely more interesting than a row of MacMansions that dot the top of the hills in the area. I guess higher class mortgages need to be closer to God!

As it warms up and the beauty of the place emerges from it’s long winter nap, I’ll start taking pictures that I’ll post on this blog.

Meanwhile I marvel at the ruralness of it all.

A sort of on the ball shrink would observe that I seem to be drawn to photograph old non working things.

"What would you say about that Dave?" She might ask.

I would be speechless!

certain uncertainty

“There seems to be a lot of uncertainty in your life,” my sister observed.

Yea, I guess there is.

AD is an uncertain disease. It might go fast it might go slow it might be ugly it might not, but it is uncertain.

We lived comfortable in the bus last winter, except that that all aluminum bus was cold and in order to get it to comfortable temps (wearing a sweater or two), the power bill was off the charts.

What will we do next summer? Don’t know yet. We might do this and we might do that and we might not, but we won’t “live” in the bus another winter. We might sleep in it, but since we seem to have very different sleep schedules, Miriam and I, that is doubtful too.

We have a house 250 miles from where we “live.” Not a good time to sell a house, and this one has it’s own selling challenges. What is good for the goose may not be good for Bank of America.

Someone said that all that is certain is death and taxes. I would amend that.”What is certain is uncertainty, and death and taxes.”

But we go on, because that is what we do.

I am heading back to Idaho this week.

There is work to do on the house.

The new owner of the garden space does not want the drip system or the raised beds, so I am dismantling all of that and bringing it back with me.

Then next weekend is the 57th anniversary of my graduation from High School, and it is home coming weekend at the school.

Miriam will stay with daughter.

Granddaughter Brianna is going to stay another month in Albania. She is being useful, she is well taken care of and is safe, and why not? Good for her.

I've been showing a lot more old barn wood than I should, I think, but these photographs remind me that some of us are close to this old barn wood than we might think or wish: somewhat decorative, but not too useful.

Why do some of us become so incredibly difficult as we get older and others stay sweet and lovable?

I am just a zillion times thankful that Miriam falls mostly in the last category. I hope I can follow her example.

the end

The inevitable is, ahh inevitable.

Until someone comes up with another way to end this journey (christian or otherwise), we are all going to die one day. Some of us are further on the scale than others, but none of us know when our string is up.

In my family, my birth father died of an accident at 28. My mother of cancer at 65. Mom’s father made it to 98. I am closer to 98 than 28, but that does not mean I’ll live past next week. It’s a cruel calculus.

Yet it seems like there might be some dignity that goes with this death thing.

We have a member of the big family who is pushing the middle 90’s. He has been in good health most of his life, but this is getting near the end. He is demanding and he is ornery. His wife does not want him coming home from the hospital because she is sure she cannot handle him. His string is running out, but he puts up a monstrously spendy fight.

I am not sure how I will handle all of that when my time comes, but thoughts go through my head. Are we who call ourselves Christian really content with the faith and promises we claim to have? Why else would we fight this death thing so vehemently?

My sister sent me a URL for a piece about how Doctors die. They spend their career pretty close to death and their perspective is a bit closer than the rest of us, it seems. The author of this piece talks about several MD’s who were told they had a short time to live. They closed their practice, went home and spent their last days among family and friends and refused many spendy but usually futile therapies.

These people know the odds better than the rest of us perhaps. When a 90 year old is confined to bed and is incontinent it is a wild dream to think they will “heal” someway and "get well," with or without prayer and modern medicine.

One of my favorite uncles was told by his doctor that he needed bypass surgery. Unc was 85 at the time. So he did what the doc ordered. Then he spent the next and last 10 months of his life in hell, mostly living in the hospital often in ICU.

Had he gone home and refused the surgery, he still would have died, maybe he wouldn’t have lived a week longer, or shorter than he did, but he would have been in his house among family who loved and cared and certainly he would have been in less pain.

And, we have not even mentioned the cost to the system for that last 10 months of his life. The number would be totally staggering.

So, don’t break my ribs to resuscitate me. Don’t give me therapies that can be ugly, maybe even as ugly as the disease. Please hold my hand because when that time comes I promise you I will be terrified.