India

My daughter Melissa and I are in India!  We're here for a month, on a textile and cultural tour.  It's organized by the amazing Charllotte Kwon, who is the guiding light behind Maiwa.  I'll say more about Maiwa in future posts, but the month will be fabulous as we visit a variety of places, urban and rural, and have all sorts of adventures.  Here is one of the first adventures - riding an elephant.

And this is a map of our journey.
   Join us as we venture into crowded bazaars and rural villages, visit the Taj Mahal and all sorts of wonderful craftspeople.  India is filled with life and with colour, with crowds of people, cows, camels, dogs, and all sorts of surprises.

Medevac

Although the doctors on board the ship are very good, there are limits to what they can do, in large part because of the lack of sophisticated diagnostic and surgical equipment.  When we were on the fifth day of our northern Pacific crossing, the captain announced that we would be changing course, heading towards Kodiak, Alaska, where we would meet up with a US Coast Guard helicopter to evacuate a passenger for medical reasons.

Naturally, there was much discussion among the passengers.  It had been a long passage, and even with all the programs offered, including, of course, writing classes and book club, many passengers were restless or bored.  The captain had not told us who the ill person was, or what sort of illness required this urgent transfer to a better medical facility, and everyone assumed, naturally, that the person was elderly and probably suffering from a heart attack or respiratory illness.

Only a few people knew otherwise, and I was one of them, because the person in question was Sasha, one of Melissa's closest friends on board, and the godson of Sidney Mobell, a well-known jeweler and amazing artist with precious metals and stone.

This is Sasha, with Melissa and Sidney.

Sasha's family is from the Ukraine, and they lived close to Chernobyl.  When Sasha was five, the family moved to the US, where Sasha's father became  close friends with Sidney.  The father died of cancer at age 44, when Sasha was 19, no doubt due to the radiation caused by the Chernobyl reactor's meltdown.  Sidney, who took his responsibilities as godfather seriously, gave Sasha many opportunities, and offered his home, too, when Sasha needed a place to stay.  Sasha came on the cruise as Sidney's guest, a chance to travel and see something more of the world.

During the Pacific crossing, Sasha became suddenly very ill, and Sidney spent a night awake with him, helping him as best he could.  When there was no improvement the next morning, Sidney took him to the medical center, where the doctors worked with him.  They closed the doors to anything other than emergencies, which I later learned they'd done when they worked on resetting my dislocated ankle.  They do this because even three doctors and two nurses are not enough to handle some emergencies and other patients as well.

Sasha was in a great deal of pain, but they were able to help him, and that evening he went back to the cabin.  The next morning, though, he was worse, and returned to the doctors.  When even the highest dose of morphine they could give him could no longer help him enough, they sedated him and, realizing they could do no more without diagnosing exactly what was wrong, and that they couldn't diagnose with the equipment on board, they informed the captain there was a medical emergency.

All this, of course, was very hard on Sidney, who'd just celebrated his 84th birthday on board, and on Sasha's friends.  Over the few hours it took to reach the rendezvous point where the Coast Guard would meet the ship, some passengers learned that the patient was a young person.  Given the scarcity of young people on board, other than the crew, and everyone knew this patient was not a crew member, and given the amazingly effective rumour mill on board, soon many people knew who it was that was so ill.  And, of course, everyone had a theory of what was medically wrong, and was convinced that they knew all the facts.  I have no idea how this sort of thing happens, but as we all know, rumours, however they begin, take on a life of their own.  No one really knew what was wrong, but the doctors  suspected Sasha's gall bladder was causing at least some of the extreme pain.

Melissa, needless to say, was very distraught.  She could be brave with Sidney, but spent a lot of time alone, or with me and Stryker, her other close friend.  The doctors had let her in during the day, and she said Sasha was very pale and weak.  Now, as we reached the rendezvous point, she pleaded with the doctors to let her see Sasha before he left.  They refused.

Two helicopters and a small airplane arrived.  Both were painted in bright orange and white, for visibility, I assume.  The seas were rough, and once the ship stopped, it was tossed about by the choppy waves.  The transfer was to take place on the bow deck, which is the front section of deck four.  The captain asked that everyone stay well away from the area, including away from the hallways leading to the bow deck.  The plan was for one helicopter to lower a stretcher.  Sasha would be strapped onto this, and then lifted into the helicopter.  A doctor and nurse were on hand to oversee his care while the helicopter returned to Kodiak, where the hospital was waiting.  No one else could go with them, for there was no room.  Sidney very badly wanted to stay with his godson, but the doctors promised that he would get email as soon as they knew anything, and he had to be content with that. 

Since the ship was moving so much, the Coast Guard decided to do a dry run, to make sure the transfer could be done safely.  As well as the rough ocean, there were patches of thick fog, small patches, but very dense.

It had been a long passage, as I said, and a lot of people were very interested in what was happening.  As it was cold out, the best place to observe what was happening was the Crow's Nest bar, on deck 9, and although I wasn't there, I was told it was very crowded.  A few hardy people braved the weather and went outside on the decks that had a view of the bow.

I was in the library, my usual hangout, and while I was interested in how the transfer would take place, I refused to make Sasha's ordeal into an entertainment, and stayed where I was.  Melissa also couldn't watch.  She went back down after the dry run, and the doctors did let her see Sasha as they wheeled him on a gurney out of the medical centre.  He was awake, she told me when she rejoined me, and actually looked much better than he had before, so she felt somewhat better.

The dry run took a while to complete.  In the library, some people pressed themselves against the large windows, and offered a commentary on what they could see, which was a part of the bow deck.  The fog patches seemed to come at the worst moments, just as the helicopter was trying to stay in a stable still position over the bow, and the ship's motion made lowering the stretcher difficult.  The plane, which I think someone said was a C30, (there were several air force vets aboard). circled the ship the entire time.  As the time dragged on, people began to speculate why the plane was there.  The best guess was that it would pick up anyone who fell in the water, but that makes no sense, since a helicopter would be a much more manoeverable source of help.  But, I don't know much about flying and moving people over open water. 

There was some question of whether there was only one helicopter or two, but later we learned that the actual evacuation was filmed, because it appeared on the Coast Guard's website, so the second one probably was there for the cameraman.

After what seemed a very long time, at least an hour, I think, we heard that the Coast Guard and ship's crew decided to go ahead with the transfer.  Sasha was wheeled outside, and lifted successfully into the helicopter.  The aircraft them took off, and we resumed forward motion, moving back toward our original course.

Melissa and I learned later that while many of the people who watched the whole thing were respectful of both Sasha and the process, some saw it as a special entertainment just for them.  A couple of overheard comments: A man, unhappy at how long the dry run had taken, complained while Sasha was being strapped onto the gurney, "I wish they'd hurry up, or we're going to miss dinner."   One woman, after Sasha disappeared into the helicopter turned to her husband and said, sounding annoyed, "I thought he'd wave to us while he was going up.  I wanted to get a picture."

Fortunately, these people were in the minority, and Sasha's friends never learned who they were.

Sasha made it to Kodiak, and was later transferred to Anchorage.  In Anchorage, he was put in the ICU and his condition was upgraded to critical but stable.  That last word, stable, meant a lot to all of us.

Meanwhile, life on board went on.  Sidney received a lot of support from passengers and crew, which helped him a great deal.  People began to joke, in a nice way, that Stryker had better be careful, because bad things happen in threes, and two of Melissa's three closest people on board, Sasha, myself, and Stryker, had had bad things happen.  (I think she was a little relieved when the end of the cruise arrived and Stryker was still healthy.)

Sasha's mother flew up to be with her son.  Sidney had a hard time because the hospital would no longer give him updates on Sasha's condition, since he was not immediate family.  Sasha's sister, though, helped out by sending emailed reports to both Sidney and Melissa.

Sasha slowly improved, and he is now home in California, having made a complete recovery.

Cruise Ship People - Troon Sul

Troon, and I’m not sure if that’s how he spells his name in English letters, is a Korean man in his seventies.  He was born in Beijing, and lived there for a number of years.  He told me today about his former addictions, alcohol and gambling, and the one he hasn’t been able to give up, smoking, although he is down to five cigarettes a day.

He started smoking when he was in the army.  An officer came out to see the new recruits, and stopped in from of Troon.  “Do you smoke?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

The officer pulled out a pack of cigarettes and, taking one, put it in Troon’s breast pocket.  “There,” he said.  “Smoke, and you’ll be a real soldier.”

Troon married a few years later, and started drinking and gambling.  One day, years later, he came home late (to California) from Las Vegas.  When he opened his front door, he found his wife.  She’d pulled a chair to directly face the door, and she was sitting there, tears streaming down her cheeks.

He decided then that he had lost his wife’s respect.  Respect, and the idea it has to be earned, was taught him by his mother, and he determined to do whatever it took to gain it back.  He said it took him 14 years, during which she could never truly trust him or anything he said, but now, a long time later, he feels like a good man and a good husband again, even though he still has those few cigarettes a day.

I told him he deserves a lot of respect for being able to give up the two addictions.  It started me thinking, later, about how that marriage had held together.  I suspect his wife didn’t see leaving him as an option.  Although they got married in 1967, I suspect their culture was not one of ‘free love’ as it was in parts of North America.  I respect Troon, but I respect his wife even more.  She is on board, but I haven’t met her.  Troon is the only other person who ever sits in the green chairs, that I describe in another post.  We don’t always feel the need to talk, both happy to read or otherwise occupy ourselves, but we are getting to know each other.  Today we were talking about the difference between an actor and a writer, both of whom create characters.  We probably got into this because the remake movie of Fun With Dick and Jane was on a couple of nights ago, and Bob Morrisey, the acting teacher on board, has a role in it which, while not huge, is still definitely part of the movie.

Troon wondered if actors become different people when they portray a character, and then maybe find it difficult to become themselves in between roles.  Bob, though, during his classes, tells the students to figure out the situation and what the character wants, and then think about how they, the person they are, would react and do that.

I’ve always thought that if I acted, I would become the character, and that it would be liberating, in a way, to become someone else.  Bob teased me, when I was attending his classes regularly B.A. (before ankle) that I was too nice, too sweet.  He’d give me an angry scene to do, and ask what do I do when I’m angry.  I don’t usually let anger out, though, which perhaps is why I suffer from depression. (Someone once told me that depression is anger turned inward, and for some reason that concept has stuck.  But maybe it’s true.)  But I guess I have gotten angry and had arguments or fights with some people, so I tried to draw on that.  But in the class, I found it easier to just think that I had become this other person who did express anger, and my portrayal was better that way.  (I hope Bob never reads this.  He’ll be shattered.)

Anyway, back to Troon.  We had an interesting discussion that moved to creating characters in a movie, which is a combination of the writer’s words, the individual actor, the director, and probably all sorts of things how the actor is lit and what music plays during the scene, and camera angles, and all sorts of stuff that Bob knows about and I don’t.  But when I create a character, I do it all by myself.  Complete creative control.  And I told Troon that I write, in part, to become people I’m not and have experiences that I never have had and never will.  I don’t write about myself, although something of me must be in everything I write, since it comes from me.

It was an interesting conversation, and then I told him that my background is in psychology, and right away he shifted back in his chair, and said that he had to be careful what he said.  I could tell that he was genuinely uncomfortable, and I said the usual things that I used to say about how I am unable to learn secret things about people just from looking at them and that I’m essentially just like anyone else when it comes to those subconscious assumptions we are always making about others.  I talked about how we all reveal ourselves through body language and facial expressions as well as what we say, and that we are social animals, so we all can read these cues.

He went away at that point, and I felt terrible, even though, while I sometimes used to get this reaction from strangers back when I was an undergrad at McGill, nobody’s really seemed concerned about since the mid-‘70s.

A few minutes later I saw him going up the stairs to deck five, and since I know he drinks coffee, I called to him and asked if he’d bring me a steamed milk with strawberry syrup in it.  He did so, then went back upstairs for his coffee, and so I apologized profusely for making him go up twice, even though he takes the stairs nimbly and quickly compared to a lot of the other elderly people on board.  And when he came back, and we talked some more, and any fear about psychologists had vanished.

T little bit of my brain that still knows anything about psychology wondered if my asking him to do me a favour had given him a sense of control over the relationship we have, and so he felt more comfortable, but then I decided that was all nonsense.

And then he told me that when he was in the army, not only had his commanding officer given him that first cigarette, but the Red Cross regularly handed out packages which were sampler packs of different cigarette brands.  And that freaked me out more than anything else.

I look forward to our next conversation.

The Fragility of Bones

Our skeleton is all that holds us up, at least when we are trying to ignore the pull of gravity.  Muscles, of course, need to be strong, too, but without the bones, we have no way to stand tall.
  My bones are healing, and I no longer wear a cast.  I am using a cane, so I can teach my ankle and foot how to walk, without experiencing too much pain.  I can walk on my own with my right foot at a more-than 45 degree outwards angle, but I don't want to lurch from step to step in that way forever, and so am seeing a physiotherapist and using the cane in the way she has shown me. 
    I haven't used painkillers since a couple of weeks after the surgery, but she warned me to use some before each appointment, as she has to move my foot and ankle to positions they haven't experienced in three months.  The bones, muscles, and ligaments are happy with the new position they assumed during the time since my injury, and are resistant to change, even though the new positions, which really are the old positions, will be healthier.  It's okay, I am willing to deal with the pain, since I know it will bring me to a healthier place.
  We have bones, muscles, and ligaments in the non-body parts of our lives, too.  When Carl left me, I succumbed to gravity and became a puddle, something with no skeleton, no shape.  I was just a raw pool of grief and poor self-esteem, that sought the lowest level.  Just as water always follows gravity, I sank, unable to rise up and chart my own course.
  But over time, my bones have once again begun to give me a shape.  It's been painful, even more painful than what I'm experiencing as my ankle once again learns to function.  Still, I've risen against the pull of gravity, found ways to move into new positions.
  It's not a completed process yet.  A surgeon here told me my ankle will probably always be a little stiff.  My physiotherapist said my ankle will never be as thin as it was, because the healing bones build up more thickly, to better cover the breaks.  I can understand than my mental injuries may well need a thicker protective coat to keep those parts of me strong enough to function.
  It's silly, when I was quite young, I read a novel in which a boy didn't like a girl because she had thick ankles.  Because of this, I've always been proud of having thin ones.  My right ankle is still very swollen, enough that it's difficult to even get a sock on, never mind a shoe.  I'm not sure how it will look once the swelling is gone and all the healing that can take place is complete.  I'm beginning to realize that it doesn't matter.  I may have a thick ankle, and the scar from the surgery will always show.  It's okay, though.  They are there because of things I've gone through.  There's no sense in pretending these things didn't happen, and if I meet a person who can't like me because I have a thick ankle, well, I don't want to like that person anyway.  I am who I am because all these things have happened to me, and I want to be loved not despite them, but because they are part of me.
  Even more important, I am learning to have compassion for myself.  For the person who tripped and fell, who was too concerned with not making a mess and so didn't fall well.  But also for the person who married a man who loved her more than anything, but whose love changed so quickly after the marriage, who was often cruel, critical, and controlling, but who also could make her laugh.  Who, in the last years of the marriage, was more supportive, was a good partner, but who I now know was less happy because I was more happy and more independent.  Who destroyed me in many ways, but I stayed anyway.
  I can never heal without finding new positions.  And it is painful, thinking about why I stayed for so long when I knew doing so was dangerous.  It's been tempting, to see myself in the role of victim.  All the therapists I've seen, during the marriage and after, have told me he was abusive and that I should leave.  Why didn't I?  Was I truly so weak?  I know that women with abusive partners often feel they don't deserve to find happiness, and don't have the strength to handle the new life that could be theirs.  It's frightening to look change in the eye.  It's easier to keep trying, and I can't blame anyone for feeling that way.  Trying is a strength, a gift, in many ways.  But there comes a time when we realize that what we are losing, what is being taken from us, is more important, more deadly.
   I didn't have the strength to leave.  He left me.  Now, more than a year later, I can realize just how beaten down I was.  When he told told me he was leaving, I made a bitter comment about how his first wife, who left him after only a few years, must have known things that I wish I did.  He got angry with me, said it was because I said things like that he was leaving, and so I immediately felt guilty and apologized.  That was what my reality was back then, I was always wrong, and I had no idea life could be different.  I don't have it in me, not yet, to thank him for finally ending the marriage, but I do need to forgive myself for not leaving.
    I have to find ways to feel compassion for the person I was, and to welcome the pain now as I push myself into new positions, a new life, a new way to stand up and resist the pull of gravity.  It hurts, maybe it always will, but I am doing my best to work through the pain to what it will give me.
  Bones are both strong and fragile.  I've only broken a bone once before, and that was two toes.  It happened because of the one crime I've committed.  It was a long time ago, when I was around twenty.  I was at an all-night party, and at around 4:00 a.m., some of us decided to go out and steal signs.  I wanted a Dead End sign, I'm not sure why, but we found one, we got it off of its pole, and I took it home.
  When I reached home, I parked my car near my apartment, and carried the sign across the lawn towards the building.  I was with my friend Ruth, who was too drunk to get home, so she was going to stay with me.  As I walked, the sign slipped out of my hands ( it was surprisingly heavy.)  It was a diamond shape, I was holding it by its upper corner, and its full weight landed on my foot through the bottom corner.  I was wearing those suede-topped clogs that were so popular then, and they offered no protection at all.
  I picked up the sign and limped into my apartment,  My foot hurt, more than anything I'd ever experienced, and the big toe's nail was rapidly turning black.  Now, I'm someone who once, when I was a kid at camp, stuck my foot under the end of a canoe that had just slipped out of my hands, because I'd been told to never let the canoe stand in the sand.  That had hurt, and the camp councillor told me it would have been okay to let the canoe fall in the sand.  Back then, as in so much of my life, it's been difficult to put my own needs ahead of others'.  But this hurt more, and Ruth and I evenutally decided I should go to the hospital.
  I have only ever driven a standard transmission car.  Ruth was still too drunk to drive (I've never been drunk.)  So I drove, using my hurt left foot on the clutch.  When we arrived, the ER wasn't very busy, so we were shown into a cubicle right away.  Ruth promptly climbed on the bed and went to sleep.  I sat in the chair and smiled at her.
  I was so glad she was there with me.  She made me laugh turning what could have been a bad experience, into a good one.  I could have been angry at myself for my carelessness and stupidity, I could have seen what happened as punishment for stealing.  Instead it was an experience that made me feel I was alive.  I was an individual, a person who made mistakes, just as we all did.  The pain would go away, I would heal, and I would remember this time with laughter, because of my friend.  It turned out two toes were broken.  The nurse told me the pain would ease if she could remove the pressure of the blood behind my toenail.
  This was surprisingly low-tech.  She unbent a paperclip, held it in a bunsen burner flame, and put the tip against my nail.  This hurt a lot, more than the bones did, and at one point I couldn't help it, I jerked my foot away.  Embarrassed to show such weakness, I muttered, "Oh, I am such a coward." 
  The nurse stopped what she was doing at that point, lifted her head from where she concentrating on my foot, and looked straight at me.  "No, you are not," she said.  And something about how she said it, so directly, as if saying it was the most important thing she could ever do, changed something for me.
  She returned to what she was doing, and I don't remember her name, but I will always remember her with gratitude.  My upbringing up to that point, and my marriage that was to come, tried to shape me into someone who was weak, who was always at fault.  What that nurse told me that night was the first type of therapy I encountered that showed me I am not those things.  I am strong, and that's why my marriage became so difficult.  I couldn't be the weak pliable person I appeared to be when Carl met me.  That's what he wanted, and I couldn't do it.  I've been working against gravity for a long time.
  Breaking bones hurts, but it results in stronger bones and newly built muscle.  I laugh now when I think of breaking my toes.  I wish I still had that sign, with its warning that was so appropriate.  I gave it away when I left Kingston, to someone who really wanted it.  I hope it has brought laughter to him.
  And so I'm dealing with pain still, but know that it's there for a reason.  I'm moving into new positions.  Someday soon, my foot will point straight ahead, instead of to the side.  I'll move ahead, and up, resisting gravity, so I can find compassion for the person I was, and learn just how strong my bones truly are.  We are all fragile, and we are all stronger than we know.

A Whine

Okay, since I got home my life has become ever more chaotic.  Actually, it's mostly the house's fault.  I've been okay with everything until today, and so you get the whine and hopefully I can go back to being okay.
  I came back and got the cast off, which was good, so now I can kind of hobble around, even without the crutches on good days, and I can drive the car, which is also good.  I hobble to the car, take the walking cast boot thing off, drive, put the boot back on, and get groceries or whatever.  It's a sign of how housebound I was feeling, that I actually want to go grocery shopping.
  We've been having a lot of rain here, which is unusual but seems to be part of the overall weather changes that are happening all over the planet.  Since the basement has been leaking for the last few years, it is continuing to flood, only with more water than before.
  . We'd tried smaller fixes in the past, making sure the land of all sides of the house sloped away, taking up the patio and getting someone in to put more sand and a water barrier in before putting the bricks back.  These things helped some, but not completely. 
  Jesse was getting the water out while I was away, but he went to Toronto for ten days, and it rained almost the whole time.  The whole room down there, the new basement, for those of you who've been here,  (The original basement, from 1912, has never had any problems.) was full of water to about two or three inches deep.  Since I can't haul buckets of water, I found some big containers, those tubs you can get for storage.  I found some waterproof boots that probably belong to Jesse, sat on the couch, watched several episodes of House and used a mop to move water from the floor to the tubs.    I moved a lot of water, but when I reached to point where my arms hurt, I couldn't tell that I'd done anything. 
   So I got smart and looked in the yellow pages under Flood.  I discovered there are a lot of 'didaster' companies, that will come in and take care of the problem from start to finish, acting as a contractor to bring in people with the different skills and areas of expertise that are needed. 
  I've had pretty good luck choosing services out of the phone book, and I'm very happy with the people who are here now.  I chose the ad that included the word 'smile' in it.  These guys are great and knowledgeable.  The only problem, in fact, is that they are getting things going too quickly.
  They brought in a carpet cleaning truck to suck out the water.  They left a dehumidifier running, and vented it out the small basement window.  They brought in a mould guy, who showed me all the areas with mould.  They tracked down possible suspects for how and why the water is getting in.  And after just a couple of days, they started tearing out the drywall in the basement.  I knew it was going to have to come out, since there has to be damage back there.  Even I could figure out that the water was coming in along the back of the house, going down mostly inside the wall, although sometimes along the floor above a little way and then dripping from the basement ceiling. 
  I wish I'd brought in these people years ago, when the problems first started.  I didn't, in part because it made sense to try the smaller, cheaper fixes first, and part because I trusted Carl when he said everything was fine, there was no need to do expensive work.  In the past when he was still here, we took water out, and sanded and painted over stains.  This, though, has become a much more serious problem, and the mould could well be a major component of the many allergies and other health problems we've experienced over the last few years.
  Anyway, while trust, and lack of trust, is an issue I'd like to whine about, I won't.  But it turns out that the walls, part of the ceiling, and probably my lovely tile floor are going to have to come out so the mould can be removed.  Riley, the mould guy, takes this seriously, and has put up good plastic barriers, several layers in places, so dust and mould won't spread to other parts of the house.  He tells me the spores, if they spread, could grow if they find moisture in other areas. 
   It rained again over the weekend, and so there is more water.  It was actually kind of nice to go downstairs and see the water and know I didn't have to deal with it, at least I don't as long as I don't think about all these things contributing to the final bill I'll have to pay.  The dehumidifier quit working Saturday night, though, and I thought, with my tiny bit of elctrical knowledge that there'd probably been a short because the unit was now sitting in water, and that the water might be dangerous. 
  I wasn't brave, or stupid, enough to find out for myself, and I started worrying that the guys, when they arrived to work on Monday morning, might get electrocuted.  I know this is silly, that they know far more than I do about all this, and they have a lot of experience, but I couldn't help it.  Since they might arrive early, before I got up, I wrote them a note.  They were very polite about it when I did talk to them, didn't snicker at all, but were totally not worried about being electrocuted.
  Anyway, this has resulted in lots of chaos, because everything in the new basement had to come out.  Riley took the couch away to clean and dry, and he said he'd tell me if he thinks it's worth keeping.  One end of it is falling off, and I was thinking about replacing it, but that will depend on how much all this costs.  The guys put all the books and dvds in boxes and extra strong huge plastic bags, which was great because packing and moving stuff is another thing my ankle prevents me doing.  all teh Tv boxes, dvd player, VCR, speakers, etc, also came up.  I know I have to pay for their time, but I'm trying to look at how great it is to have these good-looking guys around doing stuff for me, instead of worrying about money.  The shelving unit for the dvds had to come out and can't be salvaged.  The pink bookshelf, a relic from when Melissa was very young and actually liked pink, is also a write-off for the base is rotting from being wet some often.
  Some of the this stuff could be put into the old basement, but it is already pretty full, because I cleared out my office and bedroom, and the third floor before I left for the cruise, to make room for the renters, and most of that stuff is down there.  So, lots of stuff came upstairs and is in my quilt room and office.
  I've always lived in a bit of chaos.  My desk is never neat, and usually there are piles of stuff on the floor.  It's organized chaos, though, and I can find things.  As I've grown older, I find I have less tolerance for too much stuff, and right now, with some piles blocking space between rooms and growing almost as tall as I am, I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed.
  Then yesterday, the phone stopped working.  I have a cell phone, and so this wasn't a big issue, but I guess it was the first last straw.  There were others, though.  Anupama had invited friends over for dinner, which was fine, but the table in the solarium was the only one that could reasonable be big enough, and it was covered with stuff.  I was invited for dinner, too, and so while she cooked a wonderful Indian meal, I moved it all into my quilt room and office, building piles upon piles.  She was able to use my cell to call people who needed to reach her and give them my number, and the dinner party went well, although, Monster, for some reason, has taken a dislike to all men and barks and growls at them nonstop unless you get very forceful with him.  Even then, he growls out of the side of his mouth when he thinks you're not looking.  He's fine with women.  The three women guests arrived first, and he was very cute.  When the two men arrived, well I guess he was still cute, he can't not be cute, but he was very noisy.  It's almost as if he's afraid of men, and with the work guys coming and going, he's finding plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his fight or flight impulses.
  Anyway, I called about the phone, and spent time as directed by the phone guy I spoke to on my cell.  Anupama helped, which was good, as we had to unplug all the phones and then plug them in one at a time and then I had to find the phone modem in the basement.  This was tricky because I knew about two boxes down there, but they are both internet related.  Fortunately the phone company had a note saying the phone box is near the electrical panel and thanks to the phone guy describing it, I found it. 
  All of this was complicated by my ankle, and by the fact Anupama hurt her back a week ago, lifting something heavy in her lab.  So she can't bend over or lift, and I can't crawl around to find cords.  We'd been joking about how useless we are are, even before all this began.
  Anyway, all this plugging and unplugging helped the phone guy on the phone figure out someone needed to come to the house.  He came today, and learned that the phone had shorted out from the water, which makes sense, I guess, although I didn't think any of its wires were low enough to get wet.
  The phone now works, but the work guys told me they need to take out the wall beneath the window in the solarium.  This means that everything in there has to be moved out, or at least well back, so they can put up the plastic barriers and give themselves enough room to work.  I was also shown how the tile floor along the base of that wall is beginning to crack, because of water.  Sigh.
  I've been doing pretty well dealing with all this, in fact I was pleased with how calm I've been.  I figured that as long as I could keep a pathway to my desk, to my sewing machine, and to my bedroom, I was okay.
  But, and this is a big but, tomorrow night Melissa and her friend Sarah arrive to stay, and her fiance Matt will be joining us in a few days, after his conference in Regina.  We will then have six people in the house, with no basement, no solarium, and with the usual room that Melissa uses, on the third floor, inhabited by Anupama.
  This is why way up near the beginning of this post I said it was bad that the guys were doing the work so quickly.  Still, I suppose no one would have appreciated sleeping in the basement if it meant having a snorkel handy, and I am glad that this problem will finally be taken care of.
  But today I am not calm.  I'm overwhelmed and stressed and I've been walking around in my cast without the crutches more than usual so it hurts, only it doesn't really because with my high pain tolerance I'm aware of pain but it doesn't bother me, but I always worry that I'm making things worse becasue Itlon't stop doing whatever is making it hurt becasue it doesn't bother me.
  Apparently I'm overwhelmed enough that I write run-on sentences, too.
  So, that's what I'm whining about.  I actually feel better, now that I've whined.  If my ankle wasn't a problem, I could also lie down and kick and scream, which would probably help, too, but I guess the whining is it for now.

Quilting While Cruising

  Despite the fact that everyone thought I was insane for bringing a sewing machine on the cruise, I was not the only one who did so.  There were several quilters on board and at least one of them also brought her machine.  And none of them thought I was nuts.
  I brought my older Bernina, bought in 1983, because it is built like a tank and has a good hard shell case.  I meant to bring it onto the plane as carry on, but in the beginning of January, when I flew to Florida to meet the ship, no one flying into the US was allowed any carry on.  Not even my laptop bag made it, and I had to grovel and whine in order to bring on a book, so I'd have something to read during the flights.  Once through security, the gates were full of people clutching naked laptops to their chests.
  I told the airline that the sewing machine was fragile, and they stuck one of those broken wine glass stickers on the case.  I think those stickers are seen by airline baggage handlers as an instruction, as in, "This should be broken so it matches the picture."  Even though it was treated as normal luggage, and so did the conveyor belts with their associated drops, the Bernina survived perfectly.  The case was even cracked open on one corner, but the machine worked perfectly all during the cruise.
  To get it home, I took if off the ship in Vancouver, and it is returning here by bus.  I assume teh bus ride will be gentler than the flights.
  That machine does only seven stitches, but I knew I'd have very little room to spread out while sewing, and so I brought only projects that were simple, those involving squares and rectangles, nothing more.  I brought fabric for three tops.  One was the red and black log cabin I'm making for Melissa's future grandmother-in-law, and I picked out the fabric just before I left Saskatoon.  The other two were kits I bought years ago, when I first started quilting. 
 

 When I did the first cutting for a project, I took the fabric, my mat, and rotary cutter up to the Lido, and used this round table near the back.  Through the windows behind me you can see the aft deck, which is outside on Deck 8.

For smaller cutting jobs, those that needed to be done while sewing, such as cutting apart chain-pieced block sections or trimming, I used the cabin.  Before I broke my ankle, I knelt at my bed.

There was a small moveable table in the cabin, and I put a towel over it and it became my ironing board.  The chair at the front of the picture is at the desk, and I used it while sewing, so you can see tht no area was very far from any other.

And here I am, sewing.

After I broke my ankle, I became much more efficient.

I finished two tops, which still need borders, but here they are.

Working in my cabin wasn't ideal, since the cabin, being low and right in the bow, showed clearly whenever the ship pitched while underway.  I could have taken the machine up to the library or the Lido, but there were only a few plugs near tables, and it would have been difficult to carry everything in one trip.  I need one of those rolling sewing machine carts, with lots of pockets!  But I could sew when the ship was in port, and when we were in calm water.  I started the third top, but it isn't ready to be photographed.
  I also got a pair of socks knitted, which I gave to Sidney Mobell.  I'll be doing a post on him soon.

I didn't sew the items in the following pictures.  Some of the quilters on board did a little show and tell, and I just love what these two quilters are doing and so had to share them with you.  Unfortunately, I didn't get anyone's name.

These are all clothing, and for the top two, the quilter began with a man's while business shirt.  She cut the white fabric away under the applique pieces, so that there would be no extra bulk.  Aren't these pieces amazing?

Standing on My Own Two Feet

On May 5th, exactly two months after the fall that broke my ankle, I stood on both my feet, with the weight distributed equally between them.  This was a Big Deal!
I can't put any more weight than that on the right foot, but it is progress.  The cast came off on May 3rd, which was a Very Welcome event.  I have a walking boot now, which is something like a ski book that goes up to my knee.  I can take it off at night, and whenever I am sitting for a while.  I do stretches and circles with the ankle, which currently has very limited motion.  It is slowly improving, though, which I guess is the best I can hope for.
  I am home now, but I still have more things to post about the cruise.  And, since I now don't have to pay for Internet by the minute, I can upload more photos.  So stay tuned to this spot!
  I seem to be in a mood to use Capital Letters and exclamation marks!