Leaving the Heat Behind

Blog 3070, 18 August 2023, Friday                                        

Dear friend,

Yesterday morning’s walk was not what I’d hoped for. In those dawn hours I met two people in our parking lot, a place I seldom see anyone; both were walking their dogs. I walked south to Robinswood Park but didn’t enter, the park was full of people walking, jogging, running, and one group was exercising. Outside the park were several people on bikes and one whiney old man who didn’t want to share his morning world with anyone. I walked west, using the pedestrian overpass I don’t think anyone notices unless there’s a sign hanging there (there wasn’t). I walked until I was about half-way in my mini-journey, checked my pedometer. It read 353 paces, in an hour. According to that number, I was averaging just under six steps a minute. My guess is it should have read about five thousand. I despise tools you can’t trust, such as my pedometer. I kept walking, got home at 7:30, and immediately turned on the AC, shut the windows, and relocated the fans in an attempt to keep the heat out and the cool circulating. That was when my neighbor, who’d just come through heart surgery, asked if I’d walk her around the parking lot, a twice daily event for her since surgery. We walked a personal best of five trips around the parking lot, a feat she could not have managed a week ago. That’s when I moved into the condo for the day.

Last night Jean went to the Taproot Theatre to see “The Hello Girls.” Although she went with a girls-only group, she assured me I’d have enjoyed the World War One historical story about the frontline telephone operators. I’m not so sure. Besides, while she was wading in the pool of real musical-drama, I was thoroughly caught up in rewatching Mad Max under the Thunderdome, a 1985 Mel Gibson movie with no moral implications.

It was a pleasure to wake up this morning and find the hot weather had left us. It was actually cool in the house this morning. Today’s high will be fifteen degrees cooler than yesterday’s predicted high. This morning at 4 a.m. it’s a lovely 60˚. Today will find us working in Kent again, a little yard work and a little construction. I’ll be working with three ladies, each of which can run circles around me in regard to energy, task accomplishment, and endurance. Nonetheless, we’re a good team and they let me slough off to the side when I have to back off and rest for a while. They have me there for the heavy work. That’s good because I don’t do subtle well. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 5 a.m., Friday

Too Much Hot!

Blog 3069, 17 August 2023, Thursday                                   

Dear friend,

The heat makes me feel heavy, it saps my energy. This is true even in the short trips out into the weather, a weather with no mercy. I avoid the direct sun, but even in the shade I pant. It causes an amazing sense of my vulnerability. Today will be our fourth day in a row with temperatures over 90˚, I find it exhausting. As soon as I finish this blog, I will be out in the 65˚ morning, walking my miles. We are two-thirds of the way between the longest day and the equinox. Soon I will again be able to walk in the predawn light. I do this, not because of the mysterious darkness where I am so at home, but because I dread the heat that follows. The heat is like an angry dog; coolness is a cat which ignores your presence. Like our cats when Jean and I married, I will miss the heat as little as I miss the cats. Thus, I define these hot days of August.

Perhaps another sign of aging showed itself yesterday for my eye appointment. Because I don’t always trust myself, I double checked the time of the eye appointment and found it was, indeed, 8:20 in the morning. I also found it’s for next Wednesday. “Oh,” I say to myself, without energy, a soft whisper of awareness, hoping no one else noticed my confusion. Next Wednesday will suffice as well as yesterday would have. I am at sad peace. Jean, having no sense of slowing for the heat, has three things on her schedule: swimming, coffee with a friend, and a play with friends. Normally I’m with her for dramas, but this is a “ladies’ night out” and I am content to have a “guy night in.” I’ll look for a free movie on the HBO that Xfinity says we have, but we know that it’s not free, it’s simply a feature they charge us for but for which we have no ability to deny. If there’s nothing appealing, I have DVDs I’ve kept from Africa that once I loved, I will rewatch one. I’ll watch in on the big TV in front of the air conditioner, normally I’m in my office on Roku or on the Internet. That’s it. Be careful around the sun and drink more liquids. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 6 a.m., Thursday

Skipping around the Heat

Blog 3068, 16 August 2023, Wednesday                               

Dear friend,

Today we’re destined to have our third day in a row in the low 90s. Yesterday I walked in the morning, we visited a homeless facility that our church helps sponsor, went to a movie, went to visit a friend in the hospital, spending very little time in the actual weather. The transition to the car was always painful despite having a good windshield heat shield on the dashboard. The movie we saw was Oppenheimer, a movie I thought I’d enjoy more than I did, somewhat bewildered by the sheer number of characters, many of whom I was somewhat familiar with yet I was often confused as to who was who, who was speaking, and who was referred to. I learned a lot less new information about Oppenheimer than I thought I would. But the key to the day was dancing around the heat, something we did well. Two years ago we fought against the heat wave that crushed the region, yesterday, sixteen degrees cooler but still warm enough to be discouraging, we avoided direct confrontation with the heat. We’re going to do the same thing today.

We had an interesting exit from the Virginia Mason parking garage. We were visiting in the hospital long enough to owe $6 on our parking. We went to pay the money owed but the parking machine refused Jean’s credit card, so our friend paid our fee with her card and off we went, taking the parking card with us to slip into the machine. We went to our car, drove to the exit where you insert your parking card, the toll gate rises, you drive through and are done, except the gate didn’t lift. We tried the card several times, in different ways, but nothing happened. A line of people in their cars wanting to get home was starting to form behind us. The hospital guy directly behind us came and he couldn’t get the gate up either, so he used his employee parking card, Jean drove out, he followed closely, and I stood by the raised arm to protect his car if the bar was going to hit him. It didn’t, he drove away as we thanked him, but we don’t know what we’d have done without him except clog the exit. If we’d done that, this blog story would have been much more interesting. There is an exciting element between being merely interesting and riot-causing. This I know. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 5 a.m., Wednesday

It Had to Be Her

Blog 3067, 15 August 2023, Tuesday                                    

Dear friend,

Someone called OBA in Minneapolis and asked if they knew the name of the woman from Seattle was who worked with the Navajo. I wondered, “Who would that be?” It turned out it was someone I knew; they were looking for Jean. Really, it was Jean. It seemed some church or organization was getting rid of one of their funds and knew the Indian kids around the Four Corners area (where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah meet) often suffered from poor education, etc. They wanted to make a Lutheran-Navajo connection with someone who knew what was going on down there. Jason knew a somebody. I married that somebody. She was the person they were looking for, that they’d heard of. Of course, it had to be her! She had the information and made the connections they were looking for. (Two dangling prepositions. Boo.)

Sometimes I look at her and consider what she does and wonder how I ever got to marry someone that dynamic. She does stuff, always. And best, she wants me with her on her many adventures but doesn’t need me to be instrumental or dynamic. I get to be that old bear presence in her life who always loves and protects her. We’re quite well known as Jean and What’s-his-name.

Yesterday was the first time in Jean’s 40-year history of living in this condo (I’ve been here 33+ years) that we had an air conditioner on all day. This is the second year we’ve had the free-standing machine, twice last year we turned it on briefly and twice this year, both times as I came back from a walk all hot and sweaty, I turned it on for about twenty-minutes and cooled myself. Yesterday, a first, it was on all day. Today will be the second.

Tomorrow will be my last eye appointment with the eye doctor. I hope she gives my right eye a final stamp of approval, that the infected scratch is no more and the scarring will be minimal. The one question I want to ask her is how I can find an optometrist who will consider how my eyes work together (or don’t, as I think is true in my case) rather than just giving me two lenses, assuming they’ll work together. She’s already told me to wait a month after tomorrow’s checkup before ordering new glasses. It’s probably good advice; as is this: Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted 5 a.m., Tuesday

Marvin’s Wokedness

Blog 3066 14 August 2023, Monday                         

Dear friend,

It was nearly 11 p.m. last night before I got to bed because I’d been watching a wonderful Tubi film called Prospect, a movie shot on the Olympic Peninsula that cost four million dollars to produce and took in $22,700 in theater receipts. Obviously, it was going to be a good movie. Two hours later I awoke on a falling ladder, reaching out to grab a 4-inch pipe to either catch the falling ladder or by which I could grab and slide down, letting the ladder fall without me. What I grabbed onto to prevent my falling was my nightstand lamp, a 4 by 4 table lamp. I didn’t get a grip on it enough not to fall and so knocked the lamp backward and I woke up in the middle of an adrenalin rush. That’s my definition of woke. What are those politicians talking about, as if woke were another kind of nightmare scenario?

I laid there in the dark, wondering what time it was because my clock-radio was missing, my heart was pounding, and I was waiting for Jean to resume a sleeper’s pattern of breathing because I was certain she was on the verge of waking. She didn’t wake up, I think. If she did, she can tell me in the morning. She will tell me if she did! It took me almost two hours to be able to get back to sleep.

It was too hot yesterday, it’s still 68˚ at 1:30 a.m., and they say the low this morning will only be 65. Last night we turned on our Air-Conditioner, I retreated from the TV after another crushing extra-inning Mariner defeat. Later, as I went to bed, I checked on the AC and found that the exhaust tube that sends the hot air out into the climate and adds our share to the global warming had come disconnected, so while I was hidden in the relative coolness of my study, we were heating the living room. The temperature in our house remained a steady 85˚. By 5 a.m. with our fans sucking in the 65˚ morning air, the temperature in the house was down to 80˚. The good news is that our house is well insulated, the bad news is that in the summer you want the warm side to be on the outside the house. I think I’ll stay inside today, with a working air-conditioner. Sometimes, I actually do something wise. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written earlier and Posted at 5:30 a.m., Monday

A Short Blog

Blog 3065 13 August 2023, Sunday                                       

Dear friend,

One of my recent joys is life is that the pedometer on my watch keeps reverting back to zero. The other day when I’d walked to Crossroads, I checked to see how many steps the journey to the mall had been: 307. There should have been another digit in that number. When I got home, the number was 187. I now feel free to disregard that number. That’s freedom for a serious number counter. I just checked the date on my watch, January 4^th, a Monday. Apparently, you do get what you pay for; or you don’t get what you didn’t pay for. Whatever.

I think the perfect hockey score should be 1-0 and the perfect baseball score ought to be 7-6, always your team winning. Yesterday’s Mariners game, which I couldn’t stand to watch, was 1-0 but not until the teams were in extra innings. Both teams gave up three hits in nine innings, that’s one hit for every ten batters. Boring. Terrific pitching, but dull. I think the Mariners were using new bats, something that the Wiffle® company produces, or were they Nerf® bats? They swung at everything, rarely hit anything, and sent me back to doing sudoku puzzles.

Final paragraph for the day. I have sat before my computer for an hour, thinking “What can I share with thee?” Naught came, nary a thought, not even a breeze of wisdom wandered by. So I close with only this thought: Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 6:30 a.m., Sunday

Danger: Old Man Working

Blog 3064, 12 August 2023, Saturday                       

Dear friend,

Yesterday, in a fit of youthful recklessness, I broke up a section of sidewalk with a sledgehammer, removed two yard-plant holders with an iron prybar, tore two root systems out of the earth with an axe and the sledgehammer, one of the root systems probably had been growing there for fifty years, and helped them set up a porch awning. I think it was about seven hours of work. The work on the awning isn’t done yet, but it’s close to being finished. I am weary onto numbness and if it wasn’t for my weariness, I’d be feeling great. We both worked too hard and we loved it.

Today we’re promising ourselves a day of rest and recovery, a statement of necessity. Jean is spending her second night at Rita’s place. Twice a day Rita is supposed to go walking, one lap around our parking lot. Her recovery from open-heart surgery is mainly a healing process, but it also includes building her body back to a state of physical activity. She said she was shocked and embarrassed to realize how her heart condition had caused her physical fitness to deteriorate. I’ve never had that situation, my problem is my weight caused by eating too much and too often, whereas she wasn’t physically able to do what was necessary to maintain her body condition. Now her doctor told her she has to start over again. We’ll be taking longer and longer walks with her as she recovers. It’ll be a lot easier to walk with Rita than to uproot ancient bushes and break up concrete.

This coming week my “little sister” turns 80. She’s older than I am but has always tried to hide that fact by referring to herself as my little sister, which she is physically. She always wanted to imply to others that it is otherwise. It isn’t. We’ve never been close but at least tolerated each other, but even that ended with the appearance of Glen Beck and then Donald Trump in her life. I think she’s always accused me of being a mindless liberal and cannot see that isn’t true, I’m actually a mindless conservative with a tender heart. After a three-month silence, I called her last month and she, after a few minutes of tense conversation, started yelling at me once again. I told her I was hanging up on her but I don’t think she heard me due to someone (that being herself) yelling in her house. I hung up, at the time content not to talk with her again. After a month, I’ll probably call again, get yelled at for being so blind and stupid, and hang up on her again. But then, I remind you, we’ve never been close. She’s my only sibling. Since I’ve grown up, I selected to choose my own sisters (and brothers). The quality of my family has increased greatly since I started to pick my own. That’s life. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 3 a.m., Saturday

Two Nights Alone

Blog 3063 11 August 2023, Friday                             

Dear friend,

On Wednesday I walked through a fake Portugal and it was wonderful, yesterday I was back walking in summertime Seattle, in a temperature that was barely 65, the sky overcast, and a chilly breeze such as we never felt on the Camino. I could have taken a ten-hour flight or waited 24-hours to achieve such stark weather differences. I opted for the cheaper, easier method of not moving. It wasn’t cold, but yesterday was cool enough that I wore a light shirt over my summer style.

I mailed a package of African stuff to our former student, Nangole’s daughter in Connecticut. When she came to America, she didn’t bring any souvenirs from home. We had some for her, her father picked them out and we mailed them to her. I rode with Jean to the Samena pool from which I walked to Crossroads, mailed the package, and found a two-hour route home. Our home is six feet higher in elevation than Crossroads is, but between us is a hundred-foot change of altitude, both down and up. That’s like a ten-story building that we climb down and then back up, both directions. Every year that I age, the hill gets steeper and higher, but Google Earth doesn’t show those differences.

Jean spent last night and will spend tonight at our neighbor’s, Rita, condo. Rita had heart surgery last week and they also installed a pacemaker. She can’t lift or move anything remotely heavy, can’t bend over to pick things up. She can’t be alone, if she fell she shouldn’t even try to get up. She tried to get a nurse but that wasn’t possible, but Rita is well connected in life with some nice people (which might explain why I’m not there to help her) who have stayed with her. For these two nights, the one who promised to be there really couldn’t so Jean is filling in. She’s about fifty feet away, that’s not really far from home.

When Jean’s gone, I behave exactly as I do when she’s around. Usually I slip into the office, listen to music or readings, have some punk-science fiction on my Roku Tubi station, or simply waste time doing things that do not matter. I’m happy with my goofy life, it drives Jean nuts that I overload the atmosphere with opposing programs, but I like it. As I write this, my computer is softly reading Leaves of Grass to me, my Hey Google is playing Jazz24, and I’m writing a blog. The music is really just background, I don’t usually listen to it but it sometimes fills the silent gaps in my head. I listen to Walt Whitman, not for his poems but for his words, phrases, that occasionally hook my attention.

Today we’re off to Kent to hang an awning, something I’ve never done before but we’ll read the directions, talk about them for an hour, and start installing it. There’s also a handrail to put in, drilling into ancient concrete (1950s) if we get that far. It feels like a good day coming. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 7:30 a.m., Friday

A Hundred-Berry Walk

Blog 3062, 10 August 2023, Thursday                                   

Dear friend,

Except for the blackberries, I felt like I’d spent the afternoon in Portugal. That was only ten months ago when we walked the Camino Trail, from Porto to Santiago. Daily the temperatures were in the mid-70s, almost always there was a breeze slipping through the valleys. Yesterday’s walk filled me with a dozen memories of that trip and a hundred blackberries. Really, I counted 20-handfills of berries, counting out five berries per bite, a hundred of berries. Most aren’t really ripe yet; I was selective on what I picked. This is a mid-summer event. To prolong my time outside, I stopped twice to complete a sudoku puzzle, sitting in the shade where the breeze and temperatures were sweet. When I got home, I told Jean and she, planning to walk anyway, strolled out into weather. She called Jane, who’d been with us on the walk. They both agreed. Sometimes the best part of walking is walking, not what you see or do or achieve but simply the walk. Yesterday was one of those days.

Simply having company for a week, wonderful though it is, is exhausting. I slept seven hours last night, 30% more than usual. I woke up thinking I’ve lost my favorite time of the day. Most mornings I’m listening to KRKO radio (Everett) on my ‘Hey, Google,’ I have a fresh pot of coffee, and I’m feeling really well rested. I wake up without pain, I know so many who almost force-start themselves every day through their pain. I blissfully go through life. Sometimes I feel guilty, always I feel grateful. I’d tell you I had no arthritis but I can’t spell it (spell-checked!).

Today Jean has plans that do not include me. I’m free to wander, do little things, count things that make no sense but make me happy to know, as in “The percentage of cars with only one person in it is about 85%, lower on weekends and for those coming out of suburban areas.” There is no science in my numbers, merely observations. I usually come from my neighborhood strolls with some insight. The older I get, the harder it is to get into a conversation with strangers. I’ve always had some problem with that based on my size, I make some people (you know, the normal ones) nervous. I’d rather speak to one person or a hundred rather than try to converse with three others. When I’m out walking, about the only ones I speak to are clerks, which is lovely but limited. Of all the groups of people in the world, one of my favorite are the baristas. The worst are probably cashiers in food places; they usually mumble, listen not especially carefully, and have no reason to say anything more serious than to tell me my order was “perfect.” In this world, what is perfect is, love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 7 a.m., Thursday

Eating African

Blog 3061 9 August 2023, Wednesday                                  

Dear friend,

Yesterday, because the pastor and his wife are with us, we were also invited to an African dinner, Tanzanian to be exact, and it was wonderful. Ugali is a mashed potato looking corn-flour mass, the sauce was a peanut and spinach combo, and the meat was roasted to perfect bite-size pieces with a bit of bone in most of the cuts. It was the best of Tanzania, and the pastor and his wife were in heaven with the meal. It was food from home, like nothing that American food tastes. It was almost as much fun to watch them eat as it was to eat it myself.

Although the Tuesday men’s group was officially cancelled, I tuned in at 8 a.m. to see if anyone had not heard or just wanted to talk. We were nine, about an average group. Most were going to work on the “little home” (see yesterday’s blog) later. I was tied up with our friends and a day that eventually led me to some fine dining. They worked; I ate: what a wonderfully symbiotic relationship.

This morning we got the pastor and his wife to the airport. Recall when they flew to Seattle from NYC, flying out of JFK, they were left sitting there when the plane left. They had to wait seven hours to catch the next flight. This time I brought them into the airport and to where you find wheelchairs. I told the woman there about what happened to them in New York City and asked if it was possible for someone to walk them to the right spot. Then I left them and walked about twenty feet away and waited, and within five minutes someone came up and led them away. What I loved was that Nangole, that old Maasai, turned around and gave me a wave. As far as I knew he didn’t know I was there. He knew. He always seems to know. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 2 p.m., Wednesday