The house on Oakmont Lane

Our family moved into a rental house in Provo, Utah in the last hot days of August, 1983. I can remember that specifically because one day after we finished unloading the moving van into our new temporary home, I started the school year as a freshman at Provo High. I literally didn't know a single soul there, and my mother said that when she dropped me off at the front of the school campus on the first day, I was shaking like a leaf. But despite my fears, the kids at Provo High turned out to be kinder and significantly more welcoming to a shy, awkward teenage nerd-girl than the kids in the middle school I'd left behind in Northern California. I found my feet relatively quickly.

The rental house was a prefab home with an unfinished basement and a back yard full of boulders and little else. But it was at the lower elevations of Y Mountain, in an area known as the East Bench of the Oak Hills neighborhood, and the west-facing windows offered a gorgeous view of the city and BYU nestled into the valley, Utah Lake out beyond that, and the Oquirrh Mountains framing the sunsets. Even on days where "inversions" made the air khaki-colored and gritty and the Geneva Steel Mill did its best to give everyone in the valley lung cancer, the view was still striking.

And then there was the allure of the house right next door.

Looking up from the cul-de-sac, 2021

It was an imposing-looking place, two stories of red brick and an unfinished partial daylight basement, built in 1979 (so only four years old when we moved into the neighborhood). There was a minor tragedy about the place; the original owners had built it from the ground up, sparing no expense to create their dream home. It turned out that "sparing no expense" was their downfall, as they ran out of money and lost the house to a bank repossession. Hoping to get it back some day, they had placed a lien on the property that made it difficult for prospective buyers to purchase it. It was a gorgeous home, but we assumed we'd never have the finances to buy it, let alone the ability to navigate the legal thicket associated with the lien.

As circumstances would have it, the original owners still lived in the area when we moved in, and they attended the same church congregation we did. We'd been living in Provo for about a year when they discovered Mom was interested in buying their house, and by that point they had largely given up on ever getting it back. They liked Mom, and they liked our family, so they decided to remove one of the roadblocks to purchase by taking the lien off the property. Further, because it was bank-owned and had some plumbing issues from having stood vacant for a few years, it was offered at a very good price. In the summer of 1984, Mom bought the house on Oakmont Lane and we made what was probably the simplest move ever -- we just picked everything up and trotted it next door.

The house, like all houses, had its quirks. The huge room over the garage was originally meant to be an open-air deck, the solar panels on the side of the house didn't work properly, the roof leaked, the plumbing needed several repairs, and there was one particular section of the water pipes that tended to freeze solid in the Utah winters. But it didn't matter. We owned a home again, and it was ours.

When we first moved in, the house had three bedrooms, all on the top floor. With six kids in the family, we really wanted one more bedroom. See that little window at the bottom of the house, in the daylight part of the basement? That was the area where one of our neighbors, a contractor, framed in and finished a bedroom for my sister Julie and me. We shared that room from the time we moved in until I began a series of moving-aways -- first to a college dorm, then to a shared apartment, then to a year spent working in California with extended family, and then finally when I got married and moved out "for good" in 1993 (Captain Midnight and I did return to live in the basement for a couple of years in the early 2000s).

This place has been our family home for 37 years.

We sold it today.

None of us could afford to keep the place, and in any case Mom specified in her will that we should sell it and divide the proceeds between the six of us. We all knew it would happen eventually. Personally, I haven't lived there since late 2004; there are other places I've called home since. And in all honesty, it was only home because Mom made it that way. Since she died, the sense of "home" has slowly leaked out of the house, diminishing by degrees as the little treasures and furnishings and keepsakes were taken away. Now it's just a place.

But. It was a place where I practiced the piano over and over again, where Dan practiced his trombone, where Julie tried her hand at playing the drums and Tim worked on his practice chanter for bagpipes. It was a place where we sang together, where we told each other dumb jokes and family stories and laughed uproariously at them. It was a place where fights and family tragedies unfolded, too. It was a place where I'd often sneak our long-haired kitty Chamomile, who was supposed to be an outdoor-only cat, into the basement room for a warm, comfortable snooze. It was also the place where I returned with Chamomile's body in a cardboard box after her final visit to the vet, to bury her in the side yard. It was a place where Mom cooked homemade doughnuts at Halloween and oliebollen at New Year's, a place where the whole family (and many friends) congregated for Christmas julbords every year. It was a place where I went out onto the front balcony one winter night, looked down into the cul-de-sac and caught sight of one of my neighbors, a teenage boy, delightedly dancing in the falling snow. It was the place where I graduated from high school, where I spent most of my years in college. It was the place where I first got into dialing up BBSes, became a co-sysop and started meeting users, including a guy who called himself Captain Midnight. It was the place we held the murder mystery dinner party, when Mom first noticed CM and strongly encouraged me to date him. It was the place I first announced to my family that CM and I were engaged. It was the place where Miss V was born and where she spent most of the first decade of her life being, as my mom called it, "grandma's little sidekick." It was the place we came back to when CM lost his job and we needed somewhere to regroup. It was the place where my siblings and I helped Mom recuperate from the many, many surgeries and other medical procedures she went through during the last twenty years of her life. And it was the place where Mom had the catastrophic fall that ended up taking her away forever.

I know it isn't what it was. But it was home once, the shell of the place that used to contain our family. In many ways, it was the last vestige of Mom's presence on earth.

Maybe that's why it hurts more than I thought it would to let it go.

I just hope the new family that moves in will love the house on Oakmont Lane as much as we did. I hope they'll enjoy the million-dollar view of the valley, and I hope they'll learn how to accelerate into the cul-de-sac in winter so they can make it up into the garage without their car slipping down the icy driveway. I hope they'll enjoy taking a bath in the walk-in bathtub downstairs, and that they'll always have enough hot water. I hope they'll relish eating the apples and grapes that grow in the back yard, and that they'll become good friends with the neighbors (who are some of the most awesome people ever). I hope it will be cozy for them around the fireplace on the main floor, especially on January nights. Maybe they'll even choose to keep Mom's "Mexican restaurant yellow" color scheme in the dining room, because they'll find it as joyful and sunny a color as she did.

I hope it'll become home for them the way it was home for us.

And I hope they'll fill their home with memories to replace the ones we took away with us.

Springing Mom from the clink

No, it didn't really look like this. It was rehab, not prison.

Well, Mom is finally home. This doesn't mean she's finished convalescing, only that her doctors and physical therapists feel it's safe for her to be at home now, as long as there's someone to watch over her at all times. Yesterday I went over to the rehab center where she'd been staying and, after she signed some paperwork, promptly busted her out the joint. Her immediate request was to be taken to Trader Joe's, because PRIORITIES. (Hey, I guarantee that her priorities would be yours too if you'd just eaten some three weeks' worth of institutional food.) After a minor purchasing bacchanalia, we returned home, put the goodies away, ate brie and baguettes for lunch (because of course we did) and Mom went on a Poldark binge for most of the rest of the day. After evening meds and such she ended up falling asleep in the recliner, and she seemed too comfortable to move, so there she remained for the rest of the night.

No recliner sleeping for Mom tonight, though; she's asleep in her own bed for the first time in weeks. Today was a dialysis day, and dialysis always leaves her spent, but we still managed to get in three meals, all basic meds, some post-op maintenance activities, a doctor's appointment and a whole lotta episodes of The Waltons. (I'm so full of wholesome '70s programming I might burst!)

Now, with Mom safely in bed, I can do a little of my usual duties (la la la, laundry fairy!) and otherwise perform some minor cleaning around the apartment. Also I'll write down the things to be done tomorrow in my bullet journal, which has been a lifesaver on this trip. Mom has a number of daily needs (mostly the timing of medications) that would be tough for my little ADHD-riddled brain to keep track of if I hadn't brought it along.

Oh, and guess what. Mom has another surgery scheduled for the 25th. Her latest fistula revision didn't take properly, so they get to fiddle around with her arm some more. yay.

Da momz

Well, Mom is recuperating very well from surgery. She's hit all her physical therapy targets and then some, her appetite is starting to return, she's doing more and more things for herself and she's feeling better each day. Her goal is to be checked out of the rehab center and home by Tuesday.

I still have a few concerns. Because her depth perception is off (and probably always will be, thanks to some old surgeries on her eyes), she is a potential fall risk and I can't pick her up. Her bed at home is also pretty high off the ground and can't be lowered, unless we dismantle the bed frame and put the box spring and mattress right on the floor. But at this point, I think she'll be relatively safe at home. That said, she's going to need someone with her for at least another few weeks -- I think her surgeon said six weeks is the average time needed to recuperate from surgery.

Thanks so much to those who sent prayers and kind thoughts to Mom. She's gotten better much faster than I anticipated, and it's a huge blessing.

The final Mom update of the month

I don't dislike the rehab center where Mom is staying, but they don't have enough staff members to take care of everyone on the weekends. I found out that on Saturday Mom was left to fend for herself for about an hour, and no amount of her pressing the call button seemed to bring help. That's really not acceptable hang time for a recuperating heart patient. On several occasions while I was there, I tried using the call button myself and got no response; the only thing that worked was to trot down to the nurses' station and ask for what we needed in person. They are going to be sick of me doing this by the time Mom's ready to go home, but if showing up and pointedly asking gets the desired results, that's what I'll do.

Today I got Mom cleaned up and dressed for an outing, put her in a wheelchair and sprung her from the clink for a few hours. She enjoyed the drive and getting some sun on her face, and I took her home for a few hours, where she spent some time with Miss V, binge-watched episodes of The Waltons and ate a homemade hot lunch. However, by the time she was ready to go back to the rehab center, she was close to exhausted -- she hadn't sat upright for that many hours since her surgery, and she said the experience made her realize that she really wasn't strong enough to be at home full-time yet. As soon as she got back, she changed into her nightgown and got straight into bed.

The good news is that Mom is improving day by day. She doesn't need any pain medication to sleep through the night, she goes to physical therapy every day, and although she's still weak, she's much stronger than she was just a week ago. She is positive and in good spirits, and determined to do what it takes to go home.

Another day, another update

So yesterday Mom was discharged from the hospital. And there was much rejoicing. *yay* She went directly to the same rehab center where she stayed when she got her hip replacement, so most of the people there remembered her and greeted her like an old friend. She had something to eat, watched the Kavanaugh hearings (no, don't ask. I've got my opinions, but this isn't the appropriate place to vent them) and went to bed.

Today I was kept pretty busy getting everything ready for Miss V's 22nd birthday. It was a small but happy gathering. V went over to visit Mom and brought presents so she could open them in front of her grandma. We were also all wearing purple "Happy Birthday" tiaras and blowing into noisemakers, so I think we kept the nurses entertained. My sister and I stayed late and helped Mom get ready for bed. We left her listening to the Audible version of Nothing to Envy, about life in North Korea.

Later, back at the house, we sang V the birthday song, had ice cream cake, V's mom rolled some sushi, that kinda thing. I am slightly overfull right now, but not dangerously so. Hoping to keep it that way. I hope it was a good birthday for V.

Today's update (plus a sidebar on eating after DS surgery)

So, here's how things went with Mom today.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are dialysis days for Mom, so around 10:30 they wheeled her off to the mysterious place in the hospital where dialysis happens (I was not allowed to accompany her, so I ran errands, cleaned house, etc. for the next four hours). Dialysis always takes a lot out of Mom, both literally and figuratively. When she came back, she was exhausted. She'd also missed lunch, so she got a small snack to tide her over to the next meal. Unfortunately, her blood pressure dipped low again during dialysis and they weren't able to bring it up sufficiently, so they didn't take much liquid off her today. This likely means that Friday's dialysis session will be rough on her.

Despite being tired and having difficulty standing for even short periods of time, Mom underwent two different rounds of physical therapy today. She walked further than she ever has before. Go Mom!

Mom's heart surgeon stopped by in the late afternoon to check her vitals and see how she was feeling. She's still draining from a couple of tubes attached to her chest cavity, but I guess that's well within normal parameters a week after surgery. The surgeon didn't seem to believe Mom when she told him her typical dialysis dry weight, which was a little frustrating to her. Mom may be physically frail, but she's very mentally sharp and she knows her own dialysis stats. At any rate, if things go well she should be released to the rehab facility some time tomorrow. We've planned ahead by bringing her a change of clothing, so she doesn't have to be sent off in a hospital gown.

We ordered dinner so it would arrive at a reasonable hour, and Mom ate most of it, not having had much else to eat today. She watched a little TV, mostly Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. (Apparently there's this one show on Animal Planet that's all about these guys who build treehouses, and she's fascinated by it.) Nurses and respiratory therapists stopped by to do their thing. Everyone at this hospital has been very kind, solicitous and gentle with Mom, which I appreciate. A few hours after dinner I took my leave to pick up a few things, as Miss V's birthday is on Friday and I want to make sure I've gotten as much done as I can in advance to prep for her party.

* * *

And now, a little something about eating after DS surgery.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've had a tough time getting used to how much -- or, to be more precise, how little -- I can eat after surgery. It does help to visualize my new stomach as about the size of a banana to determine what will fit, but it's not precise. Liquid foods, for instance, go down easily and I can eat almost as much broth-based soup now as I did before surgery. Dense foods, on the other hand, fill me up so quickly that I can make myself dangerously overfull before I know it. Plus I'm fighting a lifetime of mental experience about how much I'm capable of eating at once; none of that information is accurate any more, but it will take a while until my brain and body sync up properly.

And today I figured out something else: if I dole out my own servings of food, I err on the side of caution and rarely end up eating too much, but if I let someone else determine my serving size (looking at you, takeout food), I try to finish it all and end up overfilling my tum. This has led to a couple of *blorp* incidents while I've been in Utah.

Not. Good.

I don't have much time to cook for myself since I've been spending most of the day in the hospital, but in future I think I'll be better off picking up items from the deli or Trader Joe's, portioning them out sanely and eating slowly, rather than snarfing down something from a drive-thru window. (Tempting and yummy as that option may be, it's not worth the unpleasant aftereffects. Barfing is not an entertaining activity.)

Even more stuff about Mom

So today, as every Monday, Mom had dialysis (Dialysis: ICU Edition!). Afterward we talked pretty seriously about what she should do after her hospital stay. Mom was all in favor of going straight home, but my sister and I talked to her very seriously about spending some time in a rehabilitation center to get stronger. (Here's my reasoning: during at least part of her convalescence, I will be the only one of my siblings on Mom-watch. Mom is a strong fall risk; she's still weak after surgery and unsteady on her feet, and had a spectacular fall at home the week before surgery happened. Even at the best of times, I don't have the upper body strength to pick up my mom when she falls or to support her when she faints. And I just underwent abdominal surgery last month, so picking a person off the floor is RIGHT OUT according to my surgeon. We really, really don't want Mom to fall and break open her sternum. Plus, if she goes to rehab they'll put her through physical therapy to help her gain strength and better balance. Seemed like a win-win, really.) After giving it some thought, Mom agreed that our ideas had some merit. Rehab is not her favorite place to be (and really, who could blame her?) but she does want to be stronger, so that's the plan.

Mom was also moved back to the cardiac care unit of the hospital. The rooms in this area are affectionately known as "the closets" due to their dinky size, but at least Mom has the room all to herself. She has some good nurses and technicians who are looking after her. Mom usually gets along well with the nurses who come in to see her; she's pleasant and friendly, asks them about their lives and experiences, where they went to school, etc., and always thanks them for their help, so they are usually more than willing to help her with anything she needs.

The last few days Mom has had plenty of visitors, both family and friends. I think she's appreciated the visits. It's nice to see a familiar face when you're stuck in a hospital bed for most of the day. I think she's also looking forward to something other than hospital food; at this point she's eaten nearly everything on the room service menu.

Mmmm, hospital food.

Right now Mom's surgeon is thinking about discharging her on Wednesday, but that's only if she's well enough. So we'll see. From there we'll take her over to the rehab center, I'll bring her changes of clothes and other comfort items from home, and will stay with her every day.

Also also wik: Miss V's birthday is coming up. I'm going to try to coordinate everything so it comes together. Also, making funeral potatoes because c'mon, it wouldn't be V's birthday without funeral potatoes.

Today I am tired

So, the news is good:

• The evacuation order for my in-laws' neighborhood has been rescinded (yay!).
• Roxy-cat appears to be feeling better (also yay!).
• And Mom, although she's back in the ICU, has pretty good vitals and actually got in a little PT today (double yay!).

Lots of stuff going on, and as Julie regularly used to write in her journal as a kid, "Today I am tired." But many things appear to be moving in a positive direction.

Mom-cat and kitty-cat

Mom was moved out of the ICU and into the cardiac care unit today. We weren't sure she would be -- her blood pressure has been dangerously low all the time she's been in the hospital and her nurses wanted that stabilized before anyone moved her -- but this afternoon she got transferred to a different bed and wheeled off to the East Tower of the hospital. She ordered and ate dinner, got to use the spirometer a lot more than she probably appreciated, and also got all drugged up on pain pills. Wheee.

Occasionally Mom says some funny things under the influence of pain medication. She told Julie the other day that a colt and a filly were prancing around her room. She also saw a VW Beetle in the room, and was worried about it getting a flat because someone had stuck a board with nails in it right next to one of the tires. Just after saying these things, she stopped and said, "Wait. I'm having a dream, aren't I?" Yes, Mom, yes you are.

Mom has been fortunate to have some great nurses and other medical professionals in charge of her. We're also glad they haven't taken our goofy comments too seriously. (Almost every time I run errands and ask, "Anybody want anything?" Julie's go-to response is "A big bag of cocaine.")

By the way, this hospital is undergoing major renovation and the trails to different sections of the facility currently resemble nothing more than a rabbit warren. The twists and turns are enough to give anyone vertigo. I feel like I need to lay down a trail of breadcrumbs if I want to find Mom's room again.

At home, I hear from CM that the Roxy-cat is sick. She won't eat, she's been barfing and she spent most of yesterday hiding -- all classic signs of a small predator with an illness. The vet noticed she had an elevated white blood count, dehydration, no signs of having swallowed a foreign object, and no fever. So for now kitty is getting antibiotics, anti-nausea drugs and a whole lot of subcutaneous water to help fix her dehydration. If you're already praying for my mom and my in-laws, I'm sure you probably don't want to add my cat to the list, but if you feel inclined we'd certainly appreciate the blessing.

ETA (9/21 1:55 a.m.): Well, that didn't last long. Mom's blood pressure went low again and they transferred her back to the ICU. I'm confident that if anyone can get her BP stable, they can.

In Utah, hanging with the fam and the Mom

I'm running on about two hours' sleep, not counting a couple of involuntary naps today, so I'm going to keep this short.

Mom is out of surgery and in the ICU. Her surgeon feels the surgery went very well. He mentioned that the valve he wanted to replace was in even worse shape than he'd imagined, so it's a good thing she chose to get this surgery done when she did. Tonight she's breathing on her own, able to talk -- and in a whole lot of pain. Mom has a very high pain threshold, but it can be exceeded. Her nurse is working with the surgeon to do what they can to manage her pain so she can get some rest tonight.

All my sibs were in and out of the hospital today. As is typical when we get together, we all regressed to teenhood and were making many goofy (and, in the surgery waiting room, probably highly inappropriate) comments. When I left the hospital -- yes, I did leave the hospital; if I don't get some sleep I'll be no good to anyone in the morning -- Julie and my sister Michele were with Mom. Julie may spend the night in the ICU. If so, I'll go in the morning and spell her off.

Meanwhile, at the south end of Utah County, the Pole Creek Fire is still threatening to burn a number of houses in Spanish Fork Canyon, including my in-laws' place. They have been going through the house trying to take inventory of everything irreplaceable and have packed both their cars in case they need to evacuate. Please keep them in your prayers.

I drove to my mom's place tonight with the road partly illuminated by the light of the waxing quarter moon. It was a gorgeous sight. Artists, astronomers and the like tend to focus on full moons or on crescents, but any visible phase of the moon is striking and magical. And there's something comforting about looking up at the moon and realizing that many other people are doing exactly the same thing at the same time, especially when one is far from home. That sense of shared experience calms me and makes me feel hopeful, especially about the immediate future.

Good night!

Captain Midnight, undaunted as usual, knew just what to do.

For nearly three decades, the master bath in my mom's home has featured a notorious sink with a hair-washing hose and a continuously dripping faucet. Various family members have tried to fix it, to no avail. Mom hired a professional plumber who took one look at the sink and declared it impossible to fix -- since the sink was custom made in the late 1970s, the faucet and tap holes weren't compatible with modern fixtures, and the leaky old cartridge-style faucet wasn't even manufactured any more, so the only viable option would be to extract and replace the entire sink. Another plumber said he could replace the faucet and handles if Mom would find the 40-year-old parts herself, then indicated he would further charge her for those parts when he did the job. (She took a pass on that one.) Over time, Mom's leaky sink has become a kind of impossible task, the one project at Mom's house that nobody even bothers to take on.

And over Christmas vacation, Captain Midnight fixed it.

He took the old faucet and taps apart, bought new ones, then found that the cold-water hole was too small to fit the modern tap, so he took a small hacksaw to the vitreous china and carefully enlarged the hole until the new tap fit. The teardrop-shaped hole for the faucet wasn't completely covered by the new hardware, so he just caulked over the tiny triangular area not covered by the faucet. (He did the same thing to cover the hole where he pulled out and discarded the mildew-ridden hair-washing hose. Eventually he'll find a smooth metal plug to fit the hole.) He discovered that the new drain plug he'd picked up was too large for the sink's drain hole, so he pulled out the old drain plug, took it in for reference and found hardware that would fit the existing drain. He tore apart one of the weirdest pieces of plumbed copper tubing he'd ever seen under a sink, and replaced the old setup with modern connections to the hot and cold water. He got the hot water tap working again for the first time in years, then let the hot water run until the buildup of rust and scale washed out of the pipes. He cleaned up the years of accumulated limescale and made that sink shine.

The impossible task has been vanquished. And not only does the sink work well, it also looks pretty darn good. Because Captain Midnight knew just what to do!

The new taps look kinda like this. EXCEPT COOLER!
Because CM is just that awesome.

Utah snow

HREE out of four seasons of the year, Utah really is lovely.

And then there's winter.

The biggest problem with Utah winters is that they need snow. Not just for the skiers, snowboarders and other tourists who come to experience the state's legendary deep powder, but also because when temperatures drop into the single digits and every formerly-living thing turns a uniform shade of dead grayish-brown outside, this otherwise lovely state gets butt-ugly fast. There's a deep aesthetic need for snow to create beauty and cover everything decently until the spring thaw.

When Captain Midnight and I arrived here about a week ago, we hoped to be dragging snow behind us. There was a big storm predicted for the Puget Sound, and such storms often head south and east after they've finished with our area. In fact, we left several days early in the hope of outrunning the storm and avoiding accidental auto-pirouettes on the interstate. But the snow didn't come. Oh, one morning we had a little minor frosting which melted away by midday, but that was the extent of it.

Mom, who's been hoping for Christmas snow, has been much disappointed by the local weather. (It's hard to complain too much about the temperatures, which have been pretty mild by Utah winter standards, and we've had a few absolutely gorgeous sunsets.) However, this afternoon as Miss V and I did a little last-minute Christmas shopping, suspiciously heavy clouds began lowering over the mountains. The temperature dropped briskly enough that I, the tough Swede walking around in a T-shirt and jeans (hey, the coat's at the dry cleaners), could feel it even through my protective fat layer.

And then, this evening as I ran some errands... snow. Real snow, although not the clumpy, fat flakes that look like a down pillow exploded over Provo. This is fine-grained, delicate, and falling steadily. It's supposed to continue tonight and well through tomorrow (Captain Midnight's birthday!). And frankly, I wouldn't mind being snowed in under these circumstances -- we've got heat, light, food (yay Cupbop!), plenty of gifts to wrap and amazing company.

In fact, there's only one thing we need: a working hot water heater. Wish us (and the repair guy) luck!

My inherited magical power

Well, I can tell Mom is feeling better, because for the last two days I've sprung her from the clink to go on outings in the car. Last week she wouldn't have had the strength to go out. However, I've been pushing Mom around in a wheelchair in 80-degree "it's a dry heat," so I think I've lost some five pounds in water weight. Mom is very motivated to bring up her strength in rehab so she can go home, so she's getting a little stronger every day. (And so am I. Wheelchair pushing burns calories!)

I have mentioned in the past that Mom has this magical ability to get strangers to tell her their life stories. I don't think I've explained yet that this ability apparently runs in the family. I look (and sound) enough like my mom to have the same kind of friendly, familiar, approachable, pretty-but-not-intimidating face and manner, and many's the time I've been sitting in a public place, minding my own business, when A WILD STRANGER APPEARS! and tells me all sorts of stuff. Since I fancy myself a writer, this ability is a godsend for gathering stories.

"Your thoughts to my thoughts..."

Sometimes this magic power can be amusing, as when I offhandedly asked the driver at the rehab center how he got his job, and was regaled with a long and adventurous tale of employment woes for the next twelve minutes. And sometimes it just comes out of nowhere.

For example: I was waiting in the local pharmacy to pick up a prescription for a family member (I swear, I spend about half my waking life in drugstores) when this guy came in and sat down next to me. He cut quite the figure: big, muscular, bald, with a black eye, a padded brace on his right arm and a couple of notable stitch clusters on his right knee. He was wearing shorts and a grey muscle shirt printed with the words "OBAMA CAN'T TAKE THESE GUNS" and two large arrows pointing to his biceps. Mr. Guns listened to the piped-in music ("All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor) for a few seconds, then turned to me and said, "Pfft. She ain't all about that bass."

"That right?" I asked noncommittally.

That was all that was necessary for Mr. Guns to launch into his tale. He told me about how he'd just had a knee replacement, about how he'd put it off for years because he was a bodybuilder and his doctor had warned him that after a knee replacement he wouldn't be able to lift more than 200 pounds, but finally it got to be a necessity and he was incredibly pleased with the results. Except... the first few days he was recuperating from surgery at home, he was all hopped up on Percocet for the pain and thought he was a superhero. The phone rang downstairs, and instead of letting his wife pick it up he decided he'd just run downstairs and get it. Well, he did get downstairs... the hard way. Which is how he picked up the arm brace and the black eye. (Remember, folks, despite how it makes you feel, Percocet does NOT give you magical powers of flight.)

I think Mr. Guns was all geared up to share another story, but just then the pharmacist called my name and I had to break things off gracefully to pick up the prescription. He gave me a cheery "Take care!" in parting, and I thought but did not say, "You too. Really. And lay off the Percocet."

Heh. Maybe I really should have gone into journalism. I wouldn't even have to ask nosy questions -- I'd just show up, smile, and let people tell me EVERYTHING.

Hey, Sooz, whatcha reading now?

Glad you asked.

I've got three books going at the moment -- two histories and one science fiction title. All three have proved to be slow going, but for different reasons.

Mom belongs to a book club at church, and during my two most recent visits I've read aloud to her from the latest book club title while she recuperates from surgery. (Rehabilitation isn't otherwise all that mentally stimulating, and Mom thinks I have a pleasant reading voice, so I suppose it's a good fit for her circumstances.) In the Garden of Beasts; Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin is a work of creative nonfiction in the style of Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman, in which the author uses historical documents and other media from the era to create a story about the American ambassador to the Third Reich that, while factual, reads with all the zest of a novel.

Why haven't I gotten far with this one? Well, it isn't for lack of trying. Trouble is, every time I sit down to read to Mom, she falls asleep -- usually within a paragraph or two, sometimes within a sentence or two. No, the book isn't boring (and I hope I'm not), but some of the medications Mom has been taking make her woozy and prone to drowsiness. Plus Mom has always had the enviable talent of falling asleep at a moment's notice. Sometimes I've cheated and read a chapter or two while she was asleep, but I don't want to get too far ahead.

I can't remember where I first heard about Ibram Kendi's Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, but I was intrigued by his thesis that we've been teaching about racism and racist ideas in effect-first rather than cause-first fashion. To put it another way, it's not "ignorance and hate led to racism which in turn led to racist policies," it's more like "racist policies were rationalized by racist ideas, which led to the ignorance and hate of racism."

What's slowing me down here? This is a big, thick book which means business, and with all the going back and forth between Mom's home and the rehab center, I haven't had much time to get into the meat of it -- though what I've read thus far has been both illuminating and heartbreaking. Instead I've been focusing more on the third book in my list:

Sci-fi, bay-bee! Vast is difficult to sum up simply, but I'll do my best: the Null Boundary, a partly-organic human spaceship, is doing its best to outrun an alien cruiser created by a race known as the Chenzeme, which had a peculiar appetite for annihilating all other sentient life it encountered. Five more-or-less human beings on the Null Boundary are doing their best to outwit the Chenzeme cruiser before it catches up to them and destroys them, but they have some differences of opinion about how it should be done; some would rather kill off the alien ship, while others want to try convincing it not to harm them. The writing style of this book is metaphysically seductive; most stories which involve nanotechnology feature human beings transformed in surprising ways, their tech grown more organic than mechanical. This transformational aspect of the story provides the biggest appeal, at least for me.

Why am I not getting through this book quickly? Well, actually, I've finally started to build up some steam with Vast. As I begin reading most speculative fiction, it takes a little while to sort out the world into which I've been flung, which slows down my words per minute. Once I've got it all sorted, I can get back up to RAMMING SPEED. And I need to move along with this one, because it's an interlibrary loan and I can't renew it past the due date. Read, Sooz, read like the wind!

So what are you reading lately? And would you recommend the book(s) to others?

I can drive. Really. Sort of.

As of Saturday, Mom was out of the hospital and once again ensconced in a rehabilitation center (albeit a different one this time). I've been over there every day since, talking with her, reading to her and otherwise seeing to her needs.

(By the way, if you, like me, think my mom is a lovely person and would like to help her out, we're taking up a collection to help her finish the basement of her house as a handicapped-accessible apartment. Stairs are out of the question when you've had a hip replacement, and Mom has to negotiate two flights of stairs just to get to her bedroom in this house. Not Working For Her.)

Mom had a dialysis appointment in the late morning today, so I thought I'd take the time to run some errands. I've been using Miss V's little red car, a 16-year-old sedan which has developed a few quirks, including a driver's-side window that doesn't roll down and a driver's-side door latch that no longer opens from the outside. (To get into the car, you have to unlock and open the passenger door, lean across both front seats, unlock and open the driver door from the inside, block the door latch with any handy object and run around to the driver's side before it closes again. By the time I'm done here, I should be equipped to join the circus.)

Anyway, I had a few birthday cards to mail, so I drove up beside the mail drop just south of the post office, left the engine running, opened the driver door wide and left it open, and ran to the mailbox. As I slotted the cards into the blue box, there came two ominous sounds from behind me: *SLAM* *click*. The wind had just blown the driver's side door shut. And because this model of car happens to be one where all the doors lock automatically as soon as you put the car in drive... yep. The keys were still in the ignition, the motor was running, and my purse and phone were safely locked in the car where they were doing me little good. Worse, I'd hopped out of the car in a zone clearly labeled NO PARKING AT ANY TIME.

I paused for a moment, just to listen to the universe laughing at my idiocy.

Fortunately, the shop on the corner happened to be an auto body mechanic. Hail and well met, good auto body mechanic! I went into the office and told them my sad tale of woe and ineptitude, and one of the guys grabbed a Slim Jim and had the car unlocked in five minutes. And he wouldn't accept payment, either.

So I got errands done today! Even filled and washed the car. And I am getting an estimate on having that latch fixed ASAP. Because apparently I am not bright enough to drive Miss V's car.

(Thank you, Miss V, for letting me drive your car. Even if I'm kind of derpy at it.)

Surgery

I'll have to keep this quick. Mom's in the hospital again with excruciating pain in her right hip. Turns out the pins they put in didn't work as intended, and now the top of her femur has died and broken off. The pins are currently digging into the cartilage around her hip joint, causing pain that not even morphine can touch. So she's currently hopped up on lots of the good drugs while she awaits hip replacement surgery later today.

Why they didn't just do this in the first place is anyone's guess.

Anyway, if you're inclined to pray for Mom, that would be much appreciated. She is not the best surgical risk right now, but she can't continue as is -- the pain in her hip and groin is so severe she's afraid to move, even with painkillers, and it looks like the pins have probably done damage to her hip socket. It's just not a good situation. But I'm glad we are here and can spend time with her.

Are you asking for a CHALLENGE?!

No, not this kind of challenge.

I'm most likely to reconsider my conscious choice not to own a smartphone when I'm traveling. When I'm at home, my daily habits are set up so that I don't really notice not having a cell phone. Travel is another matter. If I'm sitting next to my gate and wondering how much time I have left before boarding, I have to go in search of a public clock or subtly peek at the iPhone of the stranger seated beside me. If I'm stuck in a strange city with a two-hour layover, I can't call Captain Midnight and tell him that I already miss him. (Pay phone? It is to laugh. If you can find a specimen of this endangered species, it will charge you an arm and a leg for a call.) If I intend to use public transportation, I have to plan ahead and print out a map and schedule before I leave home. I have a fairly good sense of direction, but if I'm in an unfamiliar city I tend to be very careful so as not to get lost. Should I become curious about something new I see or experience on my travels, I just have to put that curiosity on hold -- no looking it up on the spot. And if I ever feel a bit bored while on public transit or in flight, I'd better have remembered to pack a good book or a knitting project in my carry-on, because retreating into an electronic pacifier is not an option.

With that said, I think I notice many more details -- all the little finches flying around the Long Beach terminal gates, for instance, or the conversations the flight attendants were having in the back of the plane, or the unusual view of the Wasatch Front from the FrontRunner tracks (especially the slightly creepy up-close remnants of the Geneva Steel plant, since the rail line ran right past it) -- than I would if I were to spend the whole trip glued to a smartphone. And I know I would do just that, based on the way I'm consistently glued to my computer at home.

All this is coming up again, of course, because my sister Julie and I got into a playful sparring match on social media about my advanced case of Phonus Lackus, and her continued unwillingness to read any of the Harry Potter series. And I posed her a challenge I might later regret: that if she would read all seven Harry Potter books (no, I'm not insisting on Fantastic Beasts or Quidditch Through the Ages or The Tales of Beedle the Bard or even Cursed Child), I'd get a cell phone.

Well, she says she's downloaded book #1 onto her tablet. So I'm doing some initial research into phone plans. (If she'll go through with it, then so will I.) What I really want is a dumbphone that can handle talk and text equally well. I don't need a billion apps or Internet access or even a camera -- just talk and text. That's it.

So, my 3.5 readers, got any suggestions for a dumbphone with a good QWERTY keyboard?

Behold, Utah!

Got up at Oh Dark Hundred and flew from SeaTac to Long Beach to Salt Lake, then got on the FrontRunner and eventually picked up a rental car. I've been at my mom's place for about an hour. And I plan on being here some two weeks, so all you Puget Sound folks are getting a well-deserved fortnight's respite from Soozcat, The Chick Who Won't Shut Up!

The view from Mom's balcony. It's right purty.

Mom will be going into a rehab center for a week to 10 days, getting care and information on how to handle her long-term convalescence (a broken hip takes about a year to heal completely). "So what will you be doing then, Sooz?" I hear you cry. Well, I will be doing whatever needs to be done, running errands and cleaning house and entertaining Mom and otherwise keeping busy.

Oh, and sleeping. I intend to sleep very heavily tonight, since I think my current collective sleep strength is Brief Nap. (Mornings. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.)

Gleaaaah.

It never fails. The one thing I never ask for but always receive at Christmas is a rip-roaring head or chest cold. This unwanted tradition has again foisted itself upon me, so right now I have squeaky laryngitis that makes me sound like a sick chipmunk, I'm coughing like it's going out of style and I'm downing NyQuil just to get some unbroken sleep. (I blame the lady with the hacking cough at Bavarian Meats. Grrr.)

The good news is that I'm surrounded by fantastic people. I love my family.

Freeze-dried Soozcat. Just add water.

Ah, Utah. Where people turn into beef jerky.

Me, after about a week in Utah's climate

Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things to like about Utah, especially right now. My family's here. I've had a chance to see my mom, and CM's mom and dad. Miss V is here, taking a break from college and binge-watching Jane the Virgin. We're pretty much finished with gift shopping and stocking stuffers, so there's little to no Christmas pressure. I got to see one of my sister-in-law's handbell performances. The family smörgåsbord is coming up tomorrow. It's been snowing picturesquely most of the day.

But. I have made my home in the Land of Rain, where it is fairly humid most of the year, and I've gotten acclimated to nine months of gentle drizzle punctuated by occasional sunbreaks. I am no longer inured to Utah's high-desert climate, where you can feel the aridity sucking all the juices out of your eyes, nose and mouth, where you wake up in the morning gasping for water, where your hair turns into a thatch of dried split ends and your skin grows so chapped that hand lotion becomes a necessity, not a nicety. And that's after three days. Even walking around in an unusually wet snow for the state, you can feel yourself slowly dehydrating.

Will write later... gotta go find a glass of water.