In spite of the cold

Western tanagers in the Sycamore tree. Bright little birds.

And they streak across my back yard like lightning.

In the front, the goldfinches have come back to my thistle feeder.

I love it.

Follow Up

I did go over. Yesterday.

And we sang together. It made us both cry, but it was good. The singing was pretty good, too.

And I have to say that the different doctor and the three pills have made a difference in her. So much so that I wonder if it is really Alzheimer's. Some things say it is, like the repeated stories and the occasional failure of words.

But wait. Doesn't that happen to me, too? And to you?

One story she has told me three times. Twice on the phone and the third time yesterday. This time she said, "Have I told you how all this started?" I said yes, but she told me again anyway. And I'm just now beginning to see what it might mean.

Here's the story, in brief.
It started about a year ago at the YMCA. She and her husband would go there a few times every week to work out and to swim. This one day, she got out of the pool, walked to the dressing room, pushed to open the door . . . and that is the last thing she remembers until she woke up to find about thirty people standing over her. She does not know how long she was unconscious or why she fell. She remembers that her head hurt.
That's because she had hit her head on something. Ten stitches on one side and three on the other. I suppose they shaved her head. She said nothing of that. She said again, "That's when this whole thing started."

Yesterday's visit revealed this, which was new information: For a while after that incident, she did not know who her husband was and so on. "So on" meaning there were other things she could not remember

So what does that sound like?

I should have lied.

I wish I had. When she asked, "Do I seem different to you?" it would have been so simple to say, "No." That was the answer she wanted, no doubt needed. I'm sure of it.

But, no, instead I answered, "Do you want the truth?"

How stupid is that? I mean, the very question is thick with implications, most of them ominous or at least unpleasant.

She did want the truth, she said. What else could she say? "Please, Carol, lie to me." Yeah, right.

So I told her the truth. "Yes, you seem different." Silence. That should have stopped me.

Did she ask me to elaborate? Did she ask, "Different how?" I don't remember, but I elaborated." You seem less sure of yourself. I remember you as always sure, always confident." Then, thank goodness, I stopped talking. But it was too late. She was crying.

If we had been together, if all this had not been over the phone, I could have put my arms around her and said, "I didn't mean it," or "Actually, today you seem like yourself, much more than the time I came over to visit." Which was true. She did seem better.

She takes three pills a day, she said, "and they are helping. I feel much better, much less paranoia." And so on. But this was early in the conversation, right after her announcement: "I've been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease." The first words out of her mouth, actually.

I already knew she had that. She didn't know I knew. And she is different, not the same person. I am so sorry to say it, to know it. And was I predisposed to thinking of her in a different way because I knew it? Surely I could allow her to be better than I expected, if you know what I mean.

And I could tell the pills are helping. I wish I had said that to her.

How much will they help? I'd like to know. Can they stop the disease? We are told nothing can, but maybe this is something new, better.

The rest of the conversation found me telling her things like, "Now that sounds like you," in response to something she had said. And it was true.

Did it do any good? I don't know. Did I do her harm? Oh I hope not. We did laugh again.

What I want to do now is go over there and sing to her, sing with her, some of the songs we sang together. And I spent that sleepless night singing some of them. Out loud. Very loud.

Seasonal

Blue skies, white clouds, tulips and daffodils waving in the breeze, the roar of nearby lawn mowers, trees leafing out, folks sneezing and rubbing their eyes. It's what we've been waiting for, and not patiently.

The pollen count is about 1200, by the way. That's not a good thing necessarily.

But, hey . . .

My lawn is looking better, and I have said no to the Tru-Green guy who came by last week. I told him then I didn't think I'd want his service but didn't say a firm no. Last night, nine o'clock, after five call backs from him--his name is Craig; we're on a first-name basis--I did say a firm no.

I'll soon be putting some flowers in the planter pots in front of my garage, and, in the meantime, I've set a pot of yellow Gerber Daisies on the front porch in my little wrought-iron Welcome stand.

As I watered it today, I saw a small frog on a leaf. (Small frogs sing through the night, you know, and they are disproportionately loud.) I poured water on him and he jumped off the leaf but not out of the pot. I don't know what frogs do to plants. Do you?

I bought a mattress pad today, and when the sales person asked the standard, "How are you today?" I answered, "I'm happy."

Amazing what a few beautiful Spring days can do for a person.

Speaking of Birds

My finches used to build their nest in my Christmas wreath but stopped--and I never knew why until someone suggested the fake owl I put out on my porch railing scared them away. Duh, Carol.

About three years ago they began making their home on the east side of my house, somewhere close to my writing room.

I hear them each year as I sit at my computer, and I heard them today, the babies asking for food.

I have not seen them, but I know them, and soon they'll fly off and leave the nest.

* * *

The Spanish word for avocado is not, regardless of what you might expect, avocado. I don't know why, since the word appears to be a Spanish one. But no. The word for avocado is aguacate.

from Wikipedia, and it could be correct. Hard to know, though, since their article on my brother insists on using the wrong first name for him. Which has nothing to do with avocado.

"The word 'avocado' comes from the Mexican Spanish aguacate which in turn comes from the Nahuatl word ahuácatl (testicle, a reference to the shape of the fruit).^[7] Avocados were known by the Aztecs as 'the fertility fruit'. In some countries of South America, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, the avocado is known by its Quechua name, palta. In other Spanish-speaking countries is known by the Mexican name and in Portuguese it is abacate. The fruit is sometimes called an avocado pear or alligator pear (due to its shape and the rough green skin of some cultivars). The Nahuatl ahuacatl can be compounded with other words, as in ahuacamolli, meaning avocado soup or sauce, from which the Mexican Spanish word guacamole derives.^[8] It is known as Butter Fruit in parts of India."

^{* * *}

The moon is a waxing crescent, 12% of full. I knew you'd want to know.

Birds and Me

Mr. and Mrs. Quail sat on my back fence with their baby, puffing up now and then to keep warm, all the while scoping out the yard. This was yesterday, and as far as I could tell, they were quite unaware of the uproar in the larger world.

Their world was my yard, their thoughts focused on what they might eat. Eat to live, you know.

After a good long rest on the fence, they dropped down--baby first--to fill up on whatever lay around the base of my two trees. First the dawn redwood, then the ash. And then they were gone.

I stood at my kitchen window and watched until they left. I wished they would stay, of course.

That was about ten minutes. Ten minutes when I didn't have to give a thought to Libya or Syria or the killing of Osama bin Laden or what it all means.

The quail didn't know it, but they were a respite from a harsher reality and I felt they were every bit relevant to my life.

Ten minutes isn't very long, though.