Birthday action adventures

The night before my birthday, my sister-in-law e-mailed me that I needed to open one of the birthday packages she'd sent when I was home alone. She said I'd understand why when I opened it. She also said she'd been saving it for a while and felt like now was the time to give it to me. When she said that, I knew what it was. So after I came home from my birthday party the other night, I opened the box. Sure enough, there it was:

Fort Apache. Yeah, baby! It was really my older brother's toy, but we usually played with it together. Who wouldn't like a toy like this? The plastic picket gates swung closed to shut out the invading Indians (see the unfortunate settlers who got left outside in the picture above). Now check out a wider view:

I mean, come on. This toy has it all: gun turrets and towers to put action figures in, plastic horses, even a plastic tee pee. Imagination opportunities all over the place. My brother and I played with this for hours. Here's a taste of the Indian contingent:

The Indian chief on his horse was my favorite. Of course, he was the only Indian who could actually ride a horse. Several horses are in the set, but all the Indian figures have plastic bases to stand on, which makes it impossible for them to ride the horses. The settler figures have the same problem. Here's the one lone settler rider (and even he doesn't balance very well):

My camera didn't focus on him very well for some reason. Does that give the illusion of speed? Since we couldn't use most of the figures for riders, apparently at some point during the years we created a solution:

I was wondering why there were astronaut figures in the play set. This one's got a little camera and he's documenting the, um, well, the carnage from the fort attack. Yeah, that's it!

Play potential aside (and even as an adult, this play set is FUN), this gift meant a lot to me. My sister-in-law signed the note accompanying the gift with my brother's name. He's been dead almost 15 years, but she felt like he needed to be part of this birthday.

If anyone wants to do some role play with cool little action figures and a fort, let me know.

Putting Pieces in Place

Ta-dah! This is the jigsaw puzzle my mom and I started on Christmas. It was a little more complicated--okay, a LOT more complicated-- than we'd expected it to be. Even putting the frame together was complicated (we had to re-do it several times). It was really tricky to figure out how pieces fit together. I love the end result, though.

But this blog entry really isn't about jigsaw puzzles (although you have to admit that it looks cool, right?). Let's say the jigsaw puzzle is my metaphor of the week. Why? Thought you'd never ask.

So for a while now-- probably since about Christmas, or maybe mid-January-- I've been feeling kinda tired. I figured it was just being overworked. Then, gradually, running's been getting harder to do. At first I'd just plain stop wanting to run after half a mile or so, but I'd gut my way through until I'd at least finished two miles. My motto has always been, "Anyone can find the energy to run two miles." Then, maybe a month and a half ago, my heart would really pound after a quarter of a mile. What in the world was going on?

I also noticed-- spoiler alert: reference to female issues coming-- that I was bleeding longer and heavier during my periods. I started to wonder if there was a connection, and I started to worry. Granted, I didn't worry enough to contact a doctor, but I worried. Then I figured I was being a hypochondriac.

Meanwhile, I kept getting promptings to contact a doctor SOON. I finally made an appointment, and the appointment was Tuesday morning. I had the exam, the nurse practitioner requested blood work (done by a technician who was on her FIRST DAY at the job-- a bit anxiety-causing, but she did a good job), and I went on my way. The nurse practitioner seemed very worried, but I felt fine.

Or so I thought. I came home in the late afternoon to a message to page the nurse practitioner. When I reached her, she said, "Your hemoglobin count is unusually low. Go to the ER right now and get a transfusion." Um, not what I was expecting. Turns out I needed four units of blood. For any medical readers out there, my hemoglobin count was 4.4. Normal is 12.

Here's where I have to pay tribute to a FABULOUS visiting teacher who had just gotten off her nursing shift at the hospital and had just decided NOT to attend her daughter's softball game when I called and told her what was going on. She dropped everything and spent several hours at the hospital with me, staying until I was settled in a room for the night (and returning to her own shift six hours later). She drove me to the hospital. She translated doctor talk into real people talk for me. She kept me calm during the pelvic ultrasound. She knew how to tie the hospital gown so I didn't flash anyone. She made me laugh. She talked me through possible options if it turned out to be what I thought it was (which it was). She told me that my tongue and lips really were white, and it wasn't until I got a unit of blood and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror that I believed her. Without her, I would have had to lie on an emergency room bed all by myself for hours, getting myself more and more scared. Instead, we laughed hard enough that I think we disturbed the patient in the next bed over (oops). By the time I was wheeled up to my room, my Relief Society president and one home teacher and his wife had joined the crowd, so I had a little parade up to the sixth floor.

So it turns out I have a uterine fibroid. I don't know how big it is, but it's been growing gradually. That explains the anemia, the fatigue, the low hemoglobin count. It's been so gradual that I haven't noticed I was losing color, or that my ankles were starting to swell (well, I noticed that occasionally, but I attributed to air travel because that's when I usually saw it). Pieces falling into place. The Spirit had been telling me something was wrong, and I had a hunch what it was, but I didn't know for sure. Now I know, and now I move on to treatment options (might be next week's blog).

Here's another piece that fell into place for me this week: while I was waiting for another unit of blood to get into my body, I read General Conference talks in my hospital bed. I don't remember what talk I read, but it mentioned the promise at the end of D&C 89 about the destroying angel passing you by if you kept the Word of Wisdom. I immediately felt the impression that I had lived that promise Tuesday night. The doctors who saw me were shocked that I was still alert and standing at my hemoglobin level. Apparently I could have had a stroke. (Who knew? Obviously not me.) I really feel that exercising and living the Word of Wisdom kept me healthy enough that my system could still keep functioning at a much lower level of blood supply. I feel loved and protected and incredibly grateful to be home and feeling good again. I don't know what's next, but I know it'll be okay. I'm living little bitty pieces of a much bigger, much more beautiful picture and it'll all work out.

A Writer's Holiday

Did I tour a colonial home this week? Nope. Time for a story that will explain the pictures above.

When I was a little girl, my mom would load all three kids on the Greyhound bus every summer and we would toodle on down Highway 1 (I knew the names of every single stop along the way) to visit Grandma for two weeks. Grandma lived in Ojai, and her house was the BEST!! Croquet, raspberry bushes, orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees, a great big hammock, a tire swing. Who could possibly not have fun at Grandma's house? Grandma also had a rolltop desk in her den. When I wasn't making lemonade (a daily event) or playing Army guys with my brother on the den floor or going on an outing to the beach or walking around the corner to the grocery store on an "important errand for Grandma," I liked to sit at Grandma's rolltop desk and write.

Let me point out here that I didn't really know HOW to write at this time of my life. I may have mastered printing my name and telephone number, but I know I didn't know how to write cursive. Maybe I could read; okay, probably I could read. But that desk called to me. It had fun cubbyholes and pretty paper and stamps and all sorts of things to use. When I sat at that desk in the rolly chair, I felt important. Whatever I was doing while seated at that desk was important and grown-up. I would sit for a long time (maybe hours, maybe not) and "write" on pieces of Grandma's stationery. Line after line after line of squiggly scribbles. I was writing.

For years now I've been looking for a rolltop desk like Grandma's. I've wanted it so I could have my own little "writing station." Yes, I have an office on campus. Yes, I have a sewing table converted into a computer desk. But that's not the same thing as what I had at Grandma's house. I've wanted a space of my own, a place where I can store pretty paper, pens, and cards. A place to sit and write what I want to write for myself, not for work.

Just after Memorial Day I poked around a fairly new consignment shop, just to see what was there. They had a rolltop desk and a drop-leaf desk, both with fun cubby holes to store writing materials in. I looked and thought and tried to talk myself out of the purchase. I told myself delivery would be a hassle; the store delivers for a $25 charge. I told myself I didn't have room in my house; I ended up measuring and going home to check.

Bottom line, as you can see from the pictures: I have a desk and rolly chair, a writing station of my own. (The rolltop didn't fit the space as well, so I went with the drop-leaf, which you have to admit is prettier with the little spindle legs, right?) Every time I look at it I feel happy. Grandma's desk went to some relative five years ago after her funeral, and the house in Ojai has probably been sold and resold. But I have a writing space that reminds me of her.

Go zombies, go!! Or, What if Jane Austen authored a B movie?

I was going to post a picture of the book cover for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but the technology isn't cooperating right now. Instead, here's the opening sentence:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

How could you not want to keep reading?

Seriously, this was a really entertaining spoof that still managed to stay true to the original novel. Okay, so there's the zombie invasion subplot and Elizabeth Bennet as an expert zombie killer (so's Darcy; how could they not be made for each other?). I love the playfulness. To give you more of a feel, here are selected "book group discussion questions" from the back of the book:

Some critics have suggested that the zombies represent the authors' views toward marriage-- an endless curse that sucks the life out of you and just won't die. Do you agree, or do you have another opinion about the symbolism of the unmentionables?

Does Mrs. Bennet have a single redeeming quality?

Some scholars believe that the zombies were a last-minute addition to the novel, requested by the publisher in a shameless attempt to boost sales. Others argue that the hordes of living dead are integral to Jane Austen's plot and social commentary. What do you think? Can you imagine what this novel might be like without the violent zombie mayhem?

Hmm . . . can you imagine the novel without zombies? Maybe I think this is funny because I'm an English teacher geek, but give this book a try!

Things Found in the Dirt

My sister-in-law and I have been sending each other "things we found in the dirt" for over fifteen years now. This one's a little too big to send in the mail, so here's a picture:

Okay, okay, here's the story behind what you're seeing. I set out this morning with a couple of friends to dig the footings for the bottom level of the terracing project in my yard (you can see the hillside in last week's "arm workout" entry). Each of them were happily sinking their shovels into the clay and filling the wheelbarrow with dirt to be hauled off. I, in contrast, was getting nowhere. That's because I was hitting concrete. THIS concrete. As in concrete porch stairs. Complete. Thrown down the hill and buried lo these many years ago. My theory is that they're the original porch steps from before the breakfast room and deck were built onto my house. It floors me that someone would just toss a large piece of construction waste down the hill and bury it. Here's the scene as I imagine it:

Burris and Cletis have just detached the porch from the kitchen doorway. The porch is quite heavy. Burris pauses, wipes the sweat off his brow, and says, "Hey, that there porch needs hauled to the dump."

Cletis: "Yep. Kinda heavy, though."

Burris: "It's a long way to the truck, and we have to haul it all the way around the whole house. Reckon we can carry it that far?"

Cletis: "Mebbe."

It starts raining.

Cletis: "Look how it's pourin' down the rain! Now what do we do?"

Burris: "Let's just give the porch a big shove and see where it slides to. We still got lots of diggin' to do. We'll just cover it up later."

Let me also note that this was the point in the project where we wondered what else we might find as we dug: a vent into a coal mine, perhaps? A decaying sofa? The skeleton of a beloved pet? (My home teacher called dibs if we found a sofa.) Dinosaur bones?

Anyhow, we finally got the stairs shifted and broken enough to continue the trench and build the wall. (Sledgehammers are awesome when wielded by someone who knows how to use them. When they're wielded by me, they're not so awesome. Good thing I wasn't wielding it today.) This is row one, being carefully measured to be sure it's level and doesn't shift.

And here's the finished wall! Yay, pretty! Well, except for the sides we can't figure out how to do yet. Two more terrace walls to go. Next step, fill in that monster hole where the stairs were dug out.

Hans and Franz: The Summer Workout

Are you tired of those flabby arms? Are you secretly afraid of having to write on the whiteboard because you don't want students to snicker at the chicken fat hanging down as you move your arms to write? Well fear no more! This summer workout plan will guarantee that your arms will be toned and muscular by the end of the summer. No pills, no steroids, no complicated equipment. Just do the following tasks and you'll be ready to show off those beautiful arm muscles in no time!

1. Lawn mowing. This must be done on a regular basis: every one to two weeks. The best mower is one of those old-school models where the blades only spin when you push. However, if you have any slope at all in your yard, this model could have the unfortunate side effect of a heart attack. A self-propelled mower is okay as long as you have slopes you have to push up for resistance. Just don't mow over your feet or damage a rotator cuff.

2. Sod removal. This exercise is terrific because it has two parts: actually removing the sod and then picking it up and putting it in garbage bags. These two parts are followed by

3. Garbage bag hauling. A wheelbarrow is permissible (see heart attack side effect warning in #1 above). Some dead lifting is permissible to build muscular strength.

4. Wall building. Digging the ditch for the first row of wall stones will build one set of arm muscles. Hauling the wall stones over to the ditch and laying them will build another set. Finally, shoveling gravel/sand to line the ditch prior to wall laying and against the back of each row will build yet another set.

5. Wallpaper removal. Who says arm workouts can only happen outdoors? Just pick up a wallpaper scraper and some DIF and you have a great workout when it's raining!

Limited space is available, so act now to be part of this exciting summer workout opportunity! Your arms will thank you.

Note: If you return in the fall, the painting workout option may also be available (possibly in the summer, depending on how diligent you are with #5 above). There may also be a rototilling option after #4. Does it get any better than this? No folks, it doesn't!

Good fences make GREAT neighbors!

Quick review for all you blog fans out there: A few months ago, I said in one of my entries something about being tired of my yard being a doggie toilet for the neighbors' dogs (at last count, there were seven-- I think they're running a kennel). Not only that, but the Doberman has rushed me three times.

No more! Look at my beautiful new chain link fence! Yay!! The neighbors' cat can still poop in my yard, but not the dogs. My new fence says, "Lookie here, all you canines, I have MARKED MY TERRITORY!! Stay off!" I'm sure the neighbors aren't real thrilled about the fence, but it's on my property, so what can they do?

Here's the gate. I installed that because technically, all the yard just beyond it belongs to ANOTHER neighbor who allows the dog owners to use his yard as long as they clean up after the dogs. That neighbor put a fence well inside his property line, so to avoid creating a dog chute and making mowing difficult, we did the gate thing. (Do you like my finger in the corner, too?)

While I'm on yard renovations, look at my now sod-free garden area! Now it's time to terrace. I finished the sod removal and thought, "Hmm, I wonder how I do the next step?" Fortunately, I have a visiting teacher who's dad's a contractor, so she knows how to do this stuff. I also have a colleague who knows how to build walls, and a friend was over here the other night and said, "Hey, my husband likes to build walls." Wall party Saturday morning at 9 if you want to come. Or you can just wait for post-terracing pictures.