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Monday, October 31, 2016

Were There But Meds Enough...


  Like most of America, I'm having a rough go of it lately. 

  My husband discovered a suspicious growth on my back last night.  I can't think about that now  because in three weeks my ankle will be replaced.  Unlike my three knee replacements, this is an uncommon surgery.  Oddly, there's not much written by successful patients online.
   It's the aftermath that worries me.  My right foot cannot touch the ground for 6 weeks.  Sadly, I have no balance on my left foot as spinal surgery in the 90's left it atrophied and the bottom of the foot numb. 
  The first hurdle is to reach the second floor as we have no shower or bathtub on the first floor. And though my husband has graciously offered to hose me down on the porch this December and January, I'd rather not.
   His next idea was to drape me around his neck while he scaled the stairs.  Sort of like one of those moving men who strap a refrigerator to their back.  We tried it for one stair and both realized the folly.  
   Did I mention that it is a circular staircase?  My husband looked into temporary stair lifts.  Those for a curved wall start at $7000.  Short of hiring someone in front of Home Depot to carry me upstairs (and don't think we haven't thought about it), I will have to butt-hop my way up.  I have been practicing.  The only problem is once I get to the top stair I will have to pivot and hop with the aforementioned atrophied leg.  We are now looking into freight dollies.
     

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Damned Wasps


 




September 18, 2016

Why do wasps ruin all the fun?  Not Muffy and Biff, but those dreaded hornets and yellow jackets that spend September slowly circling me like I'm a slice of juicy melon. They land on me, crawl up my arms, sneak under my shirt sleeves.   My teeth all but chatter as I try to stay still.  ( I may have wasps confused with bears.)  My husband likes to bat at them.  An act of provocation that will end with me stung  six ways from Sunday.
    I should pity the wasps.  They are essentially looking for their coffins.  Over the winter, all but the queen will die.  But I have no empathy as their mortuary is smack in the middle my favorite spot to sit in all the world  And wasps mean summer is over.
    My 50th high school reunion was last weekend.  I didn't go as I was two ferry rides and fifty years away. But the lead-up to the reunion brought lots of memories posted online.  I couldn't get over how many of my classmates were dead, especially the athletic ones.
   I ran into a girl from my freshman college dorm in the Edgartown Stop and Shop.  I wouldn't have recognized her without the Facebook connection.  Unbeknownst to me, she had once dated my husband.  Stranger and stranger, this whorl of memories.
  Later that week I met up with a girl from my Chappy days of horseback riding.  We had a long, lovely afternoon speaking of the past
   All these memories swarmed.
   But the wasps were louder.