Peggy’s Prompt—010512—greens

Greens, as in veggies of the dark green persuasion—(kale, which has mysteriously gotten very popular), mustard greens, collard greens, turnip greens. We ate a lot of turnip greens and collard greens growing up. I think my grandfather probably raised them in his kitchen garden and my mother was used to eating them. We tended to eat mostly what my mother grew up with, with the exception of fish and grits, which came from my father’s side. Daddy ate his greens sprinkled with a hot sauce that my mother made from pickling tiny hot peppers that she grew in the side yard. My sister went through a phase of picking the peppers and chasing me around the yard trying to touch my lips with the cut-off end of the pepper, which would cause excruciating pain to my mouth. How Daddy could stand the heat, I’ll never know. Anyhow, I ate my greens with a dash of plain vinegar. Today we’d have to have some sort of special vinegar in an elegant bottle, infused with something straw-looking through the glass. Then, we just poured from the garden-variety vinegar bottle. The same vinegar  Mama used to clean the windows. Somehow in my adult years I lost my memory of greens, and never cooked them for my family. But now in my dotage, my 94-year old mountain man neighbor grows greens in his garden and offers them to me, and I’ve gotten back into eating greens through the fall of the year. He grows mostly kale and turnip greens. I prefer the turnip greens, probably because they taste the most familiar. Anyhow, it’s interesting how much of our childhood returns in our later years. For me, it’s the greens.

Energy escaping like the psssst of the air from a balloon……

Energy escaping like the psssst of the air from a balloon……that’s the story of my morning walk.  I set off briskly, well, OK, at least it’s a regular rhythm.  Within a few feet I’m breathing hard, and a few feet later I stop for a moment, allowing energy to build back up in my body.  It’s so frustrating, especially if other walkers are out and about, treading so confidently and energetically.  I feel like a snail amongst sand crabs—completely out of my league.  But hey, at least I’m out in fresh air, right?  And the view, for me, is probably better than for those who can rush along, attending mostly to the road ahead, and not what is at the sides of the road.  The trees budding out, the vines bursting into bloom, the spring green tendrils of plant growth everywhere.  And the mama cows and their babies, and the shy horses across the way, and the bunny that slips across the road, low to the ground, and the sound of a lone gobbler, perhaps in search of a mate, The constant flights of birds, moving from tree to tree, branch to branch, calling and calling.  Maybe that’s my reward for being so slow.  The old saying is to “stop and smell the roses”, but maybe you can get the same effect by creeping along like I do these days. 

Peggy’s Prompt—as simple as it is—032012

Peggy’s Prompt—as simple as it is—032012




As simple as it is----it’s still awfully complicated.

How can she not understand it, as simple as it is?

Simple is the operative word here.

What is simple, really?

Is anything ever really simple?

Simple, as opposed to complex...

It’s as simple as moving from point A to point B.

Simple is as simple does (could have been said by Forrest Gump)

This is not leading me into anything longer at the moment:I wonder why that is? I think it is because I lean much more toward complexity in my view of things. Nothing much seems simple to me. Even so-called simple things like taking the shell off a boiled egg (which I did at breakfast this morning). Today the shelling was easy, the cracked shell slid off without difficulty, but some days it’s just the opposite, you have to pick each little piece off with your fingernail, usually taking a chuck of the “white” with it. But I digress. Maybe for me the prompt would lead into, As simple as it is, it’s still filled with complexity. Or better yet, as simple as it is, it’s also complex. My mind wanders.

I was awakened this morning at 4:00am by Earth Kitty gently coughing next to my ear. She’s done this a time or two before, but never in my ear. Suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps she has a medical problem, especially as her right eye has been leaking a bit for the past few weeks—not much, but enough to wet down her fur under her eye. Maybe she has heartworms (based on the cough). Oh, my. I can’t remember whether she was tested for heartworms during the very few visits I made with her to the vet almost 10 years ago when she first took up with me. Since then she’s been an inside cat, and we’ve studiously avoided the vet. (Not true with one of the other cats—Sid—but that’s another story.) Anyhow, I stewed on Eartha’s cough for awhile, and by that time it was 4:30. So now my mind changed the subject and I contemplated dropping my internet subscription to Health-Space.net for women with breast cancer which sends several email notices a day, each time someone adds a comment to their virtual discussion board. It’s another long story, but I’ve never gotten much out of the discussions, especially compared to the Inspire site for metastatic breast cancer patients. That took me up to nearly 5:00, and I spent the next few minutes contemplating whether or not it would be a good idea to just get up or to spend even more time lying awake waiting for 6:30. Finally at 5:00 I got up. Given that another reason I probably woke early is the steroid “pre-meds” I got yesterday as part of my chemo treatment, that means I’ll have less pain in my muscles today and more energy. So I figured why not take advantage of that. So up I got, and actually managed to follow my doctor’s suggestion that I not eat and read at the same time, (this comes from my reaction to being weighed in, which was to impulsively yell out “oh, no, god damn”, a no-no in this very Seventh Day Adventist facility), because the scale read 1XX—the X is because even though I write about my cancer and my finances, danged if I’m going to admit to my real weight. So, following doc’s suggestion, every time I ate part of my breakfast, I put down the morning paper and surveyed my surroundings. . Anyhow, I felt all righteous by the end of breakfast, which I had modified from my usual bagel with peanut butter and a small cup of probiotic yogurt. This time I had ½ bagel with pb, a boiled egg (gotta love that protein), and a tangerine. Gad, am I noble or what? Got my bed made up, my morning ablutions done, my back exercises done with INTENTION (per instructions from my physical therapist, he’s very high on INTENTION). Now it’s 7:00 and my usual morning stuff is half out of the way. Whoa, Nelly. Slow down. So I sat down at my computer and unsubscribed from the website I had mentally chewed over while lying in bed. Had the “Eureka” insight that Eartha is probably getting ready to cough up a hairball, hence the hacking in my ear. Not heartworms or any other dreadful, expensive medical condition. Read a bunch of contributions to the INSITE website, especially the one from a woman who is contemplating refusing chemotherapy, and the 70 plus responses, mostly long and insightful/emotional/inspirational/cautionary. After that heavy load of mental activity, I cast about for something lighter. Peggy’s prompt was next on the email list. I should do that, I’ve done so few lately, always citing not enough time. Well, I have time today, in spades. So that’s how I got to this ramble, since the original prompt didn’t lead me down its path.

Well, it’s 7:41. Think I’ll get dressed and take a walk, capitalizing on my greatly reduced back and leg pain. Thank you steroids. Two more days of energy and less pain until they wear off. Got to fill every moment. Dang, it feels good to feel good.

Peggy’s Prompt—it’s like a small fire—020311

It’s like a small fire—the first thing that comes to mind is upper GI problems—like acid reflux. I’ve had some experience with that, but, knock on wood, Nexium keeps it under control most of the time. I feel truly sorry for people who suffer a lot with it, because even a small fire can burn horribly. But I’d rather think of something else that’s like a small fire, something that doesn’t have anything to do with health, or illness, both of which are on my mind too much of the time.

So, it’s like a small fire, that feeling of warmth and flushness that comes over you when you get really excited. Nope, that’s not it.

It’s like a small fire that smolders and glows and seems pretty innocuous that can flare up into a giant conflagration that destroys everything in its path. Too trite.

It’s like a small fire that mushrooms into a blazing wall of flames—that’s what lust is like. Hmmm, that has possibilities, but I’m too chicken to go there.

It’s like a small fire that crackles and glows and keeps you warm if you stay really close. That’s what the love my mother had for me was like when I was a child. She was energy and warmth and continuity and fascination and seemed to go on forever. Well, this one has the most prospects.

Peggy’s prompt—May 1, 2012—hope is a thing

Hope is a thing, an almost tangible thing that I count on. After all, hope springs eternal, doesn’t it? People ask me sometimes how I can be “so strong”, dealing with metastatic cancer day after day. And I guess a lot of how I cope is hope. Hope that tomorrow will be better, or at least no worse, or if not that, then something that I (or my doctors) can deal with. To be totally honest, often times my financial situation causes me to lose hope more than the cancer does. (Of course, the cancer is the main reason I have a financial “situation” so I guess it’s all related.)

Hope, I think, must somehow be hardwired into us. Perhaps living in a family that displays a lot of hope (which mine didn’t) can help, too. But I give credit to my hope to my human genes. Somehow it doesn’t occur to me (or very seldom does) to give up hope. I mean, what would I do with my days if I didn’t have hope? Would I just lie in bed, bored silly, restless, and wait for the grim reaper? What if that took months, even years? I couldn’t last even one day in that condition. I’d have to get up and clean the cat box, and fill the dish washer, and load the clothes washer, and read the newspaper, and watch Dancing with the Stars (yearning to be able to do what they do).

So I guess as long as I have cats, and they use a cat box, I’ll still have hope.

Peggy’s prompt—by the kitchen table—062111

Peggy’s prompt—by the kitchen table—062111




The first kitchen table I remember was the one at 641 North Sixth Street, in Fort Pierce, Florida, where I lived from the time I was born until I was eight years old. We lived in the bottom half of a rented house at the end of Sixth Street, just down from the hospital and just up from what, in time, became US 1, but we called it Fourth Street.

The kitchen was small, so I think the table must have been, too. I think it was pushed up against the wall on one side, so Daddy sat along one edge, Mama sat along the opposite edge, and my high chair was pulled forward from beside the icebox to the end of the table between them. I remember Mama walked by that table a lot on her way to the stove and sink and cabinets.

And she walked by the kitchen table in our 13th Street house a million times a day, either passing it to get to the sink, the stove, the refrigerator, the back door, or picking up or dropping off something from its surface. The table itself served multiple purposes—the place for our family to sit down and eat (three meals a day), or have a snack (Mama didn’t allow eating in the living room or bedrooms). It was a table for playing cards, for holding the ingredients for a cake being made, a place for shucking corn, or snapping beans, or shelling peas. A place to write letters or address Christmas cards, to fill out college or job application, to wrap Christmas presents, to hold the dried dishes before they were put away in cabinets.

There were three places my Mama could usually be found—working in her yard, in front of her sewing machine in her bedroom, or in the kitchen by the kitchen table.

My Daddy liked to sit down at that table about 8:30 in the evening to have a snack of Ritz crackers with peanut butter—not the kind already made, but the kind you make for yourself with a jar of peanut butter, a knife, and a box of Ritz crackers. This was his “midnight” snack and it pleased him if someone else in the family would join him. Sometimes I did, and I always felt he liked me a lot in those moments.

Peggy’s Prompt—051911—beside her chair

Peggy’s Prompt—051911—beside her chair—25 minutes




Ode to my adopted mother-in-law

Beside her chair, she keeps all the necessities for her day—cell phone, keys, glasses, a bottle of water, the morning newspaper, the TV remote, a stack of library books, a package of peanut butter on cheese crackers, some grapes. Other than potty breaks, which she keeps to a minimum by being sparing on her water intake—perhaps not such a good idea, but what can you do?—she is set until Jo comes by, bringing their lunches. What she would do without Jo she didn’t know. He's so faithful, so diligent, so kind—so much more so than he’d been before her decline. Well, sometimes adversity brings out the best in people, even the adversity felt by other people. Anyhow, she was grateful. Jo was coming through in the clutch. She just hoped he could last until all this was over. This long decline that only has one ending, but which at the moment feels so far off. Despite all her infirmities, as long as she doesn’t try to do too much, she doesn’t feel all that decrepit. Just a little tired. Maybe a twinge of pain if she moves her knee in just the wrong direction. But not bad, really, if you don’t mind sitting in one chair all day long (except for those inconvenient and complicated potty breaks), doing essentially nothing but existing.

Existence has never held a whole lot of charm for her. At least not the “mere” existence she currently has. Existing and living are two distinctly different things to her, and what she now has is not living, it's existing. And it's boring. Not to mention it makes her feel guilty. She's always been the doer, the go-to person, the achiever, the too-busy one in her past life. No more, though. Now she moves like a sloth, in slow motion, carefully. Can’t afford to fall, she know. A bad fall would be the end, for sure. On the other hand, what would be so bad about hurrying up the arrival of the end, she wonders. In so many ways, the end of her living has already arrived. About the only thing left is the complete shut-down of her internal organs. Really, she's only a baby-step away from being dead as she is. Still, she hasn’t really given any serious thought to squirreling away a stash of pills to hasten the inevitable. Of course, she’s long since passed the time of being able to obtain those pills for herself, and who wants to put up with pain in order to save the pill for later. Oh what a quandary, she thinkst. I might just as well take a nap.