Author: Cranky Crone

Ted Kooser, my favorite poet in the whole world, published a new book of poetry (Red Stilts) in September 2020.  Of course, I ordered several – one for myself and some for relatives and friends.  Signed by the poet.  Everybody should have a copy of Ted’s work.

For many years now, maybe, ten or twelve, I’ve been writing poetry.  I remember starting to write while at Ghost Ranch one summer.  I found that I really enjoyed selecting a subject and writing about the topic.  Children at the Ranch, the red and yellow and orange cliffs, the old sway-back horse who stepped on my foot, so many topics, right there at the Ranch.  I kept writing and writing.  I write regularly for the Tips and Chips, the monthly newsletter for the Denver Gem and Mineral Guild.  Nothing published by a book publisher, yet; but there is always hope.

On Tuesday, September 8, we had our first snowfall for the 2020 season.  Of course, it had been snowing in the high country for some time.  I seem to remember a long time ago when the first snow of the year was on Labor Day; and, as I remember, it was after Larry and I had finished our college work and moved to the metro area.  I don’t remember the exact date, but I do know that it was a tree-trimming storm.

With leaves still on the trees, the snow became too heavy to be tolerated by tree branches.  Fallen limbs littered streets, sidewalks, and yards.  Whole trees fell on houses, across sidewalks, and on parked cars.  Navigating an automobile through the maze was less that pleasant; even, dangerous.  The clean up took some time and chainsaws and trucks and people power.

Please forgive me for the length of this post.  A journalist friend in Nebraska has cautioned me that blogs should be about five hundred words long.  Well, this one has to be longer because the people I’m talking about would be short changed if I tried to tell their stories in five hundred words.  So, once again, please bear with me.

The other day when I had almost nothing to do, during this pandemic, I took stock of the people I know.  Wonderful women and men.  I thought about the men I know – and how many of them have the same first name.  Not all of them, of course.  But, many.  If I consider them in alphabetical order – I like alphabetical order (my spices are in alphabetical order) – this is what I find.

Bill lives across the street on the corner.  He has the sweetest dog Chloe.  She is tiny and spunky.  He always offers to help.  I know that he helps a friend – another widow (I really don’t like that word) who lives across my side fence.

Bob, husband of my daughter and father of my two grand children.  Clearly, he loves his family and wants the best for them.

I like the changing of the clothes season.  Oh, I know.  There is the Changing of the Guard.  And, the changing of the seasons.  People like those.  But, I like the changing of the clothes.  In fact, I love the changing of the clothes.

The temperature cools a bit.  Maybe, it snows or rains.  If the temperature drops toward freezing, the hoses have to come off of the outdoor faucets to keep them from freezing.  Some conscientious gardeners cover viable plants with light tarps … and take off the tarps in a day or so when the temp returns to autumn normal.

We begin to see the real disappearance of our favorite flower stalks.  All of the tomatoes are picked and canned or stored.  The rest of the zucchini go to friends and relatives – whether they want the squashes or not.

Animals put on their winter woolens, just like we do.  If they are fortunate, they have added a little weight to make it through the winter.

Joining the Sisterhood

A heartbeat or the lack of one can change your life, forever.  It’s been three years and almost three months since it changed mine.  Larry (he was 78 years old) and I were in the ICU at Swedish Hospital.  He had been there for a day.  After his monthly chemo at the oncologist’s office, he had a problem with being cold – freezing, he said – to the point that the nurses brought out warm blankets.  The blankets helped some, but he was immediately transported to the ICU at Swedish.

When I arrived at the ICU, there was an argument going on with Larry at the center of it.  A nurse told me that he was refusing – very vocally  – to wear the oxygen mask, even though, at home, he slept with a CPAP mask on every night.  “His oxygen levels are too low,” she said.  I asked them to wait just a moment while I put down my things, and then, I turned on him.  I told him that he was not going to be mean to his caregivers – he was being mean to them.  I told him that they were following the doctor’s orders and both he and they would be in trouble if he continued to refuse to wear the mask.  “So,” I said, “you will put on this mask as you are being asked to do.”  He put on the mask.

Have you lost something?  Did it just “disappear?”  That happened to me, today.  I knew that it had to be in the house, but where?  I looked and looked and just couldn’t find it.

The “thing” I was looking for is my “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” device.  Today, following my usual routine, I woke at the usual time, dressed, washed my face and hair, ate my breakfast, and put all of the things into my pants pockets (shorts, these days).  I usually wear a watch pinned to my tee shirt but because its battery is shot, I haven’t been wearing it.  It was part way through the morning that I realized I had not pinned my emergency alert unit to my pants pocket and I began, somewhat frantically, to search for it.  Everywhere.  Even in places where I knew it could not possibly be.  I figured  it would be expensive to replace.  So, the looking didn’t stop for a long time.  Then, I gave up.

I wear an emergency button everyday.  I call this thing my “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” device.  Keith, my neighbor, bullied me until I decided he was right.  Like his mother who has one of these devices, I live alone and Keith thought I should get one.  And his wife Rita concurred.  So, I gave in and purchased the devices and the plan, and when they came, I reviewed all of the pieces and parts:  a red button to keep in the bathroom, a little one-inch button to wear around my neck in the house, and a larger unit with a button that has a GPS in it.

Right away, I decided that the house button is not for me.  If I wear the house button while at home, the receiver for the part that I have to talk to when there is an emergency is always in another part of the house plugged into the wall socket.  When I leave the house, I have to change it for the GPS unit and I forget.  So, there I am in the car with the house button, not the GPS unit.  That’s why I only use the GPS unit, at home in the house or the yard or on the go.  The company isn’t very happy about that, but that’s their problem¸ not mine.  It works for me.

The last lesson of the workshop I talked about in the last post was about finding beauty in the flowers and plants as they faded from their glory of the summer.  Sometimes, it is difficult to believe that the dying flowers and plants can have any beauty.  But, some do.  The image I’ve included with this week’s post shows a yellow Missouri primrose in full bloom and what happens as the bloom begins to fade.  You can see that it changes from the cupped yellow blossom to the spiraling look of a candle flame.  Even the colors changed from pure yellow to red and orange!  This candle shape is as beautiful to me as the newly blooming blossom.

Until Judith’s workshop directed students to really look at the fading flowers in this new way, I simply deadheaded those faded primrose flowers and threw them away.  Looking at our environment in new ways is revealing.  Really revealing.

Outside the flowers are fading; but that’s for another article.  Right now, the flowers are glorious.  Sunflowers.  Cone flowers.  Hollyhock.  Yellow Missouri primrose.

I recently took a virtual workshop with one of the best teachers and mentors I’ve ever met, with whom I’ve worked for years.  And, I know these things because as a supervising educator (school director at one of the two Colorado state hospitals, school superintendent of a district on Colorado’s eastern plains), it was my job to evaluate the educators who worked in those places.  Judith’s workshop, this time, was about looking outside to find special things in our environment.  She usually teaches this class in Crested Butte, Colorado, but, of course, with the pandemic, it has become a virtual class.  So, out into our yards, parks, alleyways, and roadsides, we went searching for anything to catch our eye and sketch.  We were promised that by the end of the workshop, we would have a journal filled with wonderful images.  And, writing.

            You are reading a first post of a blog by an 82-year-old woman who has never completed a blog before.  In fact, until Karl, one of my computer gurus, mentioned it to me, I never had a thought about publishing a blog.  After asking some friends and relatives for their thoughts about me writing a blog and receiving several “you go girl” responses, I decided to take Karl up on his suggestion.  So, bear with me while I develop my “sea legs” for this activity.

            You should be told something about the person whose work you are reading.  For sixty years, I was married to and lived with one of the best man human beings that has ever walked the earth until his life was taken as a result of being a uranium worker to make money to pay for our college education.  You will hear about Larry a lot, I think.  You will also hear about my daughters (two, H&J), my son-in-law (one, B), granddaughters (two-R&L), as well as my neighbors and other friends that I have been blessed to have in my life.  I consider my life is enriched by all of them.