A beautiful Sunday Morning

I am sitting on my little back porch.  The air is cool, coming up from a low of 49 last night to a high in the upper 70s or low 80s today.  A perfect day to don overalls and do some gardening.  I need to move half of the hydrangeas I planted.  I started out so well, and then in my usual style I just started filling in holes with more hydrangeas.  These shrubs will be too big for the beds, and it will crowd out the more delicate and special plants I have in front.  There is re potting and moving plants up that is needed, and then I also need to go back to the trailer and get more of the plants I want to plant in these beds.  It is a glorious morning.  The air still clear and bright with one of those deep blue skies.  The air cool and the breeze makes it nippy.  I am wearing a sweater, long pants, Nancy socks and an afghan I made a life time ago thrown over me.  The lap top sits on my lap and warms me further.  My arms ache to keep writing and the Hospice doctor is upping my meds for the neuropathy by three fold.  I am currently on the lowest possible dosage and I understand some patients take 15 - 20 times as much as I do, so there is wiggle room to see if we can make me more comfortable.  To be able to write a thank you note, to type on this computer, to not throw drinks on myself or others and to stop kicking inanimate objects, that is what I am hoping they can do for me.  Especially the kicking thing.  My right leg is by far the twitchiest and I have buzzing and bruising and burning from the bottom of my foot to about my knees.  This is not a big deal most of the time, I really can't even remember what it felt like before. 

On Sunday morning with Charles Osgood, as I sipped my tea that my Honey made for me, Earl Grey with a splash of milk and a drip of Montana honey (thank you Mr and Dr. Lay for you very generous gift!) and watched a show on computer games.  I ate the scrambled eggs that Bug cooked for me piling the golden deliciousness that our chickens gift to us on top of a thick slab of Ms Moon's bread toasted to a golden brown.  All prepared by my husband for me.  He also cleaned up the kitchen while I finished watching Charles Osgood. 

The show on gaming gave me a little glimmer of hope for the future of humans and technology.  Up to this point it seemed to me that these games, although some can be played in a group, it still did not seem to encourage human connection by quite the opposite.  Many of the games seemed to suck you in to their world and keep you there as you challenge yourself to continue moving up another level.  The news on Charles Osgood was about Amazon paying $1 billion for Twitch, a game network.  This is where people watch other people play computer games.  At first this sounds as boring to me as watching paint dry, but as someone who spent most of yesterday watching college football, and with plans to spend most of today with my honey watching NFL games, maybe some NASCAR at Dover during commercials or halftimes, and might throw in a few holes of golf.  So as bizarre as it sounded at first, okay, just down right boring, I could see how people might watch other people's games to learn how to be better players.  I can also how they fill coliseums in Japan with fans cheering on their favorite players while big screens show each of the players games.  There did not appear to be more than two players for the events they showed, and I do not know if they were competing against each other in the game, or if they were each playing their own game and the person with the higher score won.  I don't know, but these venues of thousands and thousands of people are selling out.  This is a huge phenomena occurring around the world.  Other then they are computer gamers it doesn't seem to be any different then how we watch most of the games and sporting events around the world.  I had always feared that these games would send children to their rooms and take them out of the real world and to contact with other humans.  But someone figured out how to make money and bam!  people are back crowding together in giant stadiums.  There are still a lot of kids and grown ups who have disappeared from the world into games, and they may never come back out with the rest of us, but they would have found some way to slip into their own world with something else.

Another comment made on Charles Osgood this morning was by the commentator who was covering the game story.  He said at one point that game makers are trying to make each new version more real and life like.  Then some comment about putting the game down and walking outside.  There the world is already 3D.  I would add and HD.  Especially as I sit here on this cold Sunday morning.  I know it is going to warm up this week, but today it is less than 70 and I never complain about the weather unless it is less than 70, so I could complain, but instead I put on a sweater and a throw across my legs just so I could sit on my little porch.  Outside, surrounded by plants and trees, my Bob laying at my feet, ball at the ready and the world crisp, cool and bright. 

The chickens and ducks are enjoying their morning rituals.  The ducks dancing up to their bucket as I filled it to the top with water, then their dance and splashing as they swoop down into the bottom of the small bucket.  I think we may need to get them a bigger bucket.  One that is big enough for them to be real ducks swimming.  Wait, they have a pond.  Well, it is a thought for the future of my Willie and Lily.  I think we have finally figured out their sex.  Lily is the one with barely any crest, Willie has the bigger crest.  Not that it matters anymore, they are happy, and so are we.

I did crash as I was writing my last post and am still in crash mode.  I spend most of Friday sleeping, yesterday I slept in between watching football, and today I am still shaking and know that I need to spend more time sleeping.  Kim came yesterday and I hope I did not chase her away.  I knew she had an 8 hour drive and that she wasn't in a rush and wanted to just take the trip home easy.  Bug, Kim and I had breakfast at Tupelo's.  Here at the house I had taken her out to the pond and we had sat on my bench that Bug moved over from our other place.  It was wonderful to have that woman here.  This place feels so comfortable.  My Farmboy place had one spot that felt magical, the little front porch.  As I added gardens I felt more and more a part of the place.  Here Bug and I felt at home at once.  The house was a wreck.  Honestly the photo I posted here was the best I had out of dozens.  The house was a wreck, but as we stood in front of and looked 360, we felt at home.

Now the house is livable, far from "done", but for me, I couldn't be happier, and there isn't a spot where I do not feel a part.  And to be here as I disappear is peaceful and welcoming.  We have quite a variety of wind chimes and with the picture of a sunset that plays ocean sounds, and the breeze finding endless melodies with the chimes and the leaves and branches.  The native birds are very active these past few days.  The giant pileated scream out like monkeys before swooping out and into a new group of trees.  Back and forth the male and female laugh and scream at each other, searching through the forest in a swooping grid as they search for food and good nesting areas.  Maybe they are also checking out the competition in the swamp we now have responsibility.  The cardinals and blue jays have been more visible.  The woods are a never ending source of bird and insect song.  The chorus of frogs in the evening out by the pond compete with the toads around the house and the frogs in the swamp. 

I have crashed again and I am down to 102 pounds.  My heaviest was in the low 140s.  My average 125.  My low, 102......so far.  I am a walking skeleton where my left hips juts out so that it looks like two different hips on one body.  Just think if my skeleton should be preserved and studied by people unfamiliar with our species would probably guess that I was a curious specimen, unlike the normal.  They would probably wonder at the age I obtained from such a severe handicap. 

Here and now I am not handicapped, at least by my hip.  I feel as if I have come to some understanding that I do no know what the cancer is doing, I am feeling better with the meds I am on, and the drugs that are finally past, and that is a pretty good MO for right now.  The worry over the spreading cancer just shouldn't make one bit of difference to me because we always knew it had moved beyond the stopping stage.  We had only hoped for quality of life. Both the incredible and amazing handsome Dr. McCutie and Dr. M both succeeded.  And with the quality of life came the quantity.  Right now I am eating.  Not perfect, but I am eating.  I have been able to do so much and for quite a few weeks.  So if I need to take these next few days resting, so that I can enjoy my life a little more, not so bad.

I admit that I do feel the pain of the cancer.  I can adjust my meds so that I don't feel anything, but I prefer a touch of reality in my life, including pain.  I go a little too far at times, like lately and then I really have to feel the pain until I can get ahead of it again.  It is a good reminder that I am sick.  That I am going to leave this glorious place behind and my actions should reflect that, even if my dealings with other people, it should not interfere.  If life was easy there would be an instruction books.  Oh wait, there are a lot of them out there.  I think I shall just put the technology away for a moment and enjoy the sun and shade and trees, and animals and the wind and............