Welcome to my midsummer garden

My garden begins quietly in early spring with snowdrops, crocuses, bleeding hearts, lily of the valley, and columbine among the ferns and hostas. Then come azaleas, shrub roses, a few day lilies, and peonies.

In late June, there is a lull, blossom-wise. This is my time to be out dead-heading the spent spring blossoms so the plants don't waste their energy producing seeds. I also get really anxious for the next phase.

And one day in early July, the hot-summer show begins. Abundant purple coneflower, glorious yellow daylilies, spiky liatris, rosy-pink phlox...I love the spectacle. Bees and butterflies seem to be enjoying it, too, and of course they add to the experience.

This summer I'm enjoying all this mostly from my office window, because although my leg is mending nicely I still don't get around so well on uneven ground. And because it's like an oven out there. So instead of showing new photos, I'm sharing this one from two years ago (oh, and the one in the header). Let's pretend we're sitting in the garden enjoying a cup of tea. We can also pretend it's, you know, 80 degrees (F) with low humidity. Have a lovely day!

Falling out of a shampoo chair: not as much fun as it sounds

June 2012 has been (check all that apply):

   ___ a memorable experience

   ___ a colossal waste of time

   ___ a learning opportunity

I’m checking all three.

On June 1, I fell. I’ve taken to telling people I fell out of a shampoo chair, but the prosaic truth is that I fell getting out of the chair. The right leg of my jeans caught on the chair’s footrest, and as I tried to step away it held, throwing me off balance. My left leg twisted and I went down, hard, on top of it.

I had no idea it was broken. The greatest pain was from what now appear to be a severely strained and maybe slightly torn muscle and from several sprained ligaments at the ankle. I rested and iced, took ibuprofen, and wrapped my leg in an ACE bandage for a couple of days. Then I tried to carry on. I accompanied Peter and the kids to the park. I limped to both kids’ preschool classrooms to say goodbye to the teachers on the last day of the year. I went grocery shopping alone, leaning heavily on the cart. I used an old pair of crutches for the long trek from the car to our seats at the ballpark, though I lacked the strength to swing myself so I was still walking.

After 10 days, the leg felt no better, the swelling and bruising looked a bit worse, and none of our limited supply of drugs was helping. (Either Vicodin doesn’t deserve its reputation or it loses its effectiveness after a couple of years.) So I hobbled to the new Urgent Care service at my HMO clinic where, after a series of x-rays, I learned that I had fractured my fibula. Oh yes, and there was “some displacement,” meaning I had probably made it worse by walking on it.

They built me a fiberglass splint, which I’m still using, and told me not to put weight on the leg. Over the next week we made three trips across town, twice to see the orthopedic specialist and once for an MRI which, I’m happy to say, confirmed that I didn’t need surgery to put pins into my ankle. The doctor said to keep taking ibuprofen for the inflammation, and the second time I saw him he said I could put weight on it “as tolerated.” I interpreted that as “continue sitting around watching the Game Show Network and using the iPad.”

Here’s the thing, which you may already know if you’ve been through this: walking on a healing leg may feel fine at the time. But that night, when you are trying to get to sleep, the leg may decide not to be so tolerant. It may ache, or it may set up a tingly feeling that makes you crazy. In the last week it’s gotten better; one dose of ibuprofen at bedtime usually lets me get to sleep.

To those, like Peter, who live with chronic pain, I must say I am sorry. I hope you have found a way to cope with the pain better than I have…to focus on the things that are meaningful in your life and not seek escape in ridiculous 30-year-old game shows featuring “guest stars” you never heard of.

I had a lot of big projects planned for the last three weeks of June, once the grandkids were no longer coming for daycare. But I’ve been distracted by the pain and discomfort, and it’s hard to focus. My activities have been passive. I have faithfully read your blog posts, and often even commented. I’ve checked Facebook more often than usual. I happily play Dragonvale when the kids come to visit. I’ve just about finished tossing out a foot-high stack of old Newsweek and other magazines, something that requires perusing each issue just in case it contains Something Really Valuable. I’ve watched Olympic trials in swimming, diving, gymnastics, and track. And, of course, game shows.

The leg is clearly healing, but still it bothers me. Much of the time, it needs to be in the splint and elevated. But sometimes, it feels mostly okay to walk. I need to kick this invalid mentality. I need to undertake some activity that will energize me and keep my leg healing. I need to start cooking dinner again, to free up Peter for the projects he’s trying to handle on top of his heavy workload. The garden, largely ignored for the past month, is beginning to beckon.  

And now I’ve finished my first blog entry in a month. Sorry if it sounds whiney. I just needed to record this so I can kick myself into gear and move on. I wasted enough time in June; now it’s time to learn from my memorable experience.

What would Princess Leia do?

ViolaMae is four years old today. She is wearing her new princess dress and behaving with royal aplomb and new maturity. Well, not every minute, but much of the time.

Vi is learning that a princess can be strong and assertive--think Princess Leia rather than Disney characters, pretty though they may be. Now that she's four, Vi knows that a princess can get more of what she wants with a declarative sentence ("I'd like more orange juice, please") than pretend baby-talk ("Thirsty!") or whining. A princess can wear a ball gown and play hard. 

Best of all, Vi could give other princesses lessons in being loving, kind, and generous. She nurtures dolls and toy animals and friends and relatives, and she dispenses hugs and kisses freely and sincerely. 

She enjoyed being center of attention during her special pre-birthday week here at Wild Rumpus Daycare. She and I spent a day playing with her new princess paper dolls, decorating the dresses with stick-on gems and having the princesses try them on. (I was impressed that today's paper dolls are made of sturdy cardboard, and the dresses have magnets behind them. But the dresses still slide off, just as the ones with little paper shoulder-tabs did when I was a kid. Go figure!)

Another day, as we buckled in for the drive to preschool, Augie asked, "Why are the bongo drums in the car?" With that, Peter handed the bongos to Augie, pulled out new maracas for Vi, and cued up the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil." For a few weeks they've been pretending to play along to the salsa beat, and this time they played real instruments. It was an awesome "Sympathy" symphony. (The lyrics are awfully dark; I think we will find other tunes that call for maracas.)

The big gift that Vi asked for is Olivia's house, the crown jewel of the Legos "Friends" series. These are the first Legos designed expressly for girls. They are attractive, but they are meant for kids with bigger hands, so Grandma does most of the building, and then Vi does most of the playing. A good balance, don't you agree?

Her party was this morning, and I had to miss it. I managed to fall yesterday afternoon--at the hairdresser's!--and twist my leg, which hurts like crazy from hip to toe. This coming week is our last week of daycare for the season and I want to be mobile for it, so I'm resting and icing. ViMae and her mom came to see us after I got home on my sore leg last evening, and she gave me lots of hugs and kisses to help make it better. They said if I had to miss the party, they'd understand. That's the kind of princess they both are. 

Happy Birthday, ViolaMae. May the Force be with you.

By the way, I just noticed that posts on Vi's second and third birthdays also show her in princess garb. She is consistent! 

Let's forget the rules and have some fun

When I'm playing a game, I get very competitive. Or maybe I should say achievement-oriented. My motivation is seldom to beat another player; many times there is no other player. I want to excel at the game itself--win points, advance to a higher level, set a new personal best, grab whatever rewards the game designers have built in to keep me playing.

My grandchildren are teaching me that sometimes the point of a game is just to enjoy playing. It's a simple concept that I keep having to relearn.

I noticed it the first time we played "Busytown," a board game based on Richard Scarry illustrations. The children had chosen it as a Christmas gift for Pa because we had no preschooler board games and this looked like one we all could enjoy.

The first time we played, I spent a lot of time getting them focused, explaining rules, helping them use the spinner, etc. Later I mentioned to their mom that they hadn't seemed interested in doing the "search for clues" part of the game. "Not surprising," she said cheerfully. "They can get overwhelmed. If they're not interested in something we just skip that part for a while." In other words, let them explore the game at their own pace. Keep it fun and they'll be back for more. That was good advice. An especially nice thing about this game is that all the players are a team and everybody wins together. So if one kid prefers not to look too hard for clues and another would rather not spin for regular turns, we can each contribute what we like or what we're good at and still make a game of it.

(When I was 14 or so, my sister and I had a sleepover with some family friends. Their parents played Canasta with us. When I made a mistake in melding, the dad said no, I couldn't pick my cards back up. I had to leave them on the table and other players could use them. It was a harsh lesson in "rules are rules," but probably a timely one. Augie and Vi know that rules are absolute when it comes to crossing the street, but they can wait a while to learn that about board games.)

A while back we let the kids start playing a few games on our iPads. There's a little game called Snood that involves aiming at targets that get increasingly tricky. Eventually, if you've taken too many shots without reaching your goal, all the brightly colored little faces turn to skulls. For a long time Augie thought that meant he'd won. Now they're both getting quite good at it and they've even learned to bank shots off the sides--good use of geometry, no?

Something similar happened with Angry Birds. Both kids quickly learned to maneuver the virtual slingshot to vary the angle of attack--geometry and strategy in action. And both learned the special powers of the different birds that volunteer as slingshot fodder. Touch one while it's in flight and it speeds up, touch another and it splits into three identical birds. Two birds explode on contact with their targets, but to ViMae's delight you can blow them up with a touch of your finger. I used to say, "But you didn't knock anything down." Finally I've learned to laugh and enjoy her way of having fun.

It occurs to me that this lesson might have come in handy while I was working. Loosen the rules and make new discoveries. Find a way to get the job done but still enjoy the process. Construct projects in such a way that the whole team wins through cooperation. With any luck, Augie and Vi can use these ideas in their own lifetimes, and well before they become grandparents!