Catching Up: Cottage Grove to Rosh Hashanah

I realize that I haven’t written in a very long time. The first week of the month I went to Cottage Grove to visit my new friend, Anita. I met her at a cancer retreat and we hit it off immediately. She came up to visit a few weeks ago and we all immediately liked her. She, in turn, had a great time at our house. It reminded her of a big old house she had owned in Brookline, Massachusetts, which she had kept full of people. She was delighted to find all sorts of Judaica in our house since she is Jewish.

I had a wonderful time visiting her. She has a guest yurt that is a beautiful space, set in a garden, with a hot tub next it. Could I ask for anything more? The views from her property were exquisite. It was harvest time and we spent most of our time harvesting or cooking the bounty.

She and her husband Mike were so kind and delightful to hang out with. It was a very restorative time for me. I came home feeling much more energetic than when I left. Anita and I did yoga in the morning and I’ve been continuing that practice. I had given up and exercise program for a while due to the fact that my energy was so limited that I needed to spend it on survival tasks, like laundry and cooking. However, my energy coffers are now filled enough that I can do yoga in the morning and still have enough energy left over for other tasks.

Anita taught me the value of the nap. Of course, she’s good at sleeping, whereas I am not. Still, I took a rest for an hour every day and that helped tremendously.

I felt like Anita was the older sister I never had. She and I had endless things to talk about and lots of recipes to share. She sent me home with all sorts of goodies from her garden. Howard came down to pick me up and helped press a load of pears into pear juice. He was rewarded with a bottle of it and it was unbelievably good. In addition, I got plum sauce and fig puree as well as some pickles for Tasche.

I came home and hit the ground running, which is why I haven’t written anything lately. I am acting as Stephen’s patient advocate for his knee surgery. On Monday I accompanied him to pre-op appointments. I had my EFT group Monday night. Then on Tuesday Stephen had his knee replacement surgery so I hung around the hospital all day until he was safely through it and ensconced in his hospital room.

On Wednesday it was my turn for pre-op. I’m finally going to get this very painful expander out and replaced by an implant. I went to see my surgeon to discuss what I wanted. We decided on a silicone implant, which is what most people who have had the procedure recommend. Earlier we had discussed the fact that I could have the procedure done with a local anesthetic so I didn’t discuss that with her again. However, when I went to pre-op, the anesthesiologist thought that I was crazy not to have general anesthesia. Now I don’t know what to think. I do so poorly with general anesthesia. It scrambles my brains for weeks afterwards. I’m just not ready to be that impaired.

I have been applying for more jobs lately and if I actually get one, I don’t want to be cognitively impaired from general anesthetic. It has felt so nice to have my memory working again and to have increased energy lately that I’m loathe to compromise that.
I went to Fred Meyer’s the other day with Stephen so he could lay in some clothing supplies before surgery. I happened to remember that I had a coupon for three free cloth grocery bags. I got the bags and brought them home. David, Howard, and Andrine were so impressed at my cognitive abilities to remember to get the bags and use the coupon that it gave me a reality check about how spacey I have been lately.

Today was the first day of Rosh Hashanah. We went to services last night and today. It was great to be back with the congregation and see so many familiar faces. I rode my electric bicycle there and back. It was pretty cold. That’s one of the drawbacks to electric bicycles. One doesn’t work up a sweat. This afternoon as I rode the temperature kept dropping, from 68 to 64 degrees. I guess our hot spell was short-lived.

I would post some photos from my trip but I can’t locate my camera cord. Hopefully it will turn up soon.