Pat Bertram's Blog, page 108

Happy Lunar New Year

[image error]In honor of the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year), I looked up my Chinese horoscope, and oh, my! People who cast star horoscopes generally try to put a good light on their predictions, but apparently, the same is not true of Chinese horoscopes. Mine for this Lunar New Year is: “Your horoscope is not very good at all. Your career development will be hindered. Your financial fortunes are not optimistic. You need to consider carefully to weigh gains and losses before making decisions. Your health luck is not ideal. Do not drink alcohols too much. But don’t be too worried, otherwise your situation will only get worse and worse.”

Really? Sheesh. I might as well go to bed and stay there until the next Lunar New Year.

There is the gentler star sign horoscope, however, to balance this rather dismal prediction, though looking closer, both horoscopes say the same thing.

Instead of: “Your horoscope is not very good at all,” the stars say: “All your daydreams could come crashing down. You won’t want to face the realities that slowly creep in. You’re tougher than you seem, though, so having to face the music can be a blessing in disguise.” Sure sounds as if I’m in for a rocky time.

Instead of: “Your career development will be hindered,” the stars say: “This can be a time for working on a project in advance of a launch date. You may be in a processing or hatching stage with a venture.” In other words, my career is going nowhere. To be honest, that’s to be expected. Although a publisher accepted my latest manuscript, I don’t have a publication date and I don’t expect one until the latter part of the year. And, although I have a book stewing in my brain pan, I have yet to write a single word.

Instead of: “Your financial fortunes are not optimistic,” the stars say: “You need to set aside enough money to meet unexpected expenses.” Well, so much for my financial fortunes this year!

Instead of: “You need to consider carefully to weigh gains and losses before making decisions,” the stars say: “You need to refrain from making major decisions in money matters, and you are not to incur any major expenses.” Oops. Too late. A garage isn’t exactly a minor expense.

Instead of: ‘Your health luck is not ideal,” the stars say: “Health issues may come to the fore. There can be some strains on mental and physical health.” That doesn’t sound appealing, but hopefully, being careful and taking care of myself will offset some of this not-so-good health luck.

Instead of: “Do not drink alcohols too much.,” the stars say: “You might often be tempted to escape your everyday responsibilities and challenges, and should avoid reliance on drugs or drinking.” Does that mean I have to forgo my single yearly Bailey’s Irish Cream toast to my mother? But, by any calculation, a single drink can’t be considered either “too much” or a “reliance on drugs or drinking,” so I think I’m safe.

Instead of: “Don’t be too worried, otherwise your situation will only get worse and worse,” the stars say: “The cosmos asks you now to surrender some of your attachments and to surrender to the unknown. Releasing control is necessary. You could feel that you are dealing with endings more than new beginnings in some areas of life during this transit, as you let go of outdated attachments. With self-discipline, you could find more joy and confidence.” So, basically, this is a year of not so good luck for me, but I shouldn’t worry, or it will get worse. Okay, got it.

The stars, at least, offer hope. “This is a time when you are filled with ideas about the future. You are planting seeds, so to speak, aiming to get started on projects that will reap rewards in the future. For the most part, you are likely to take advantage of this period in your life in order to expand your social life and friends base as well as to dream up exciting new paths for the future.” Apparently, if I can’t have good luck this year, there is always next year.

Fortunately, horoscopes have never reflected anything that has ever happened in my life, and despite this rather interesting research project today, I don’t expect these horoscopes to be any different.

So, let’s all have a happy Lunar New Year!

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Shocker!

Of all the things I have said during my years, I think the thing that shocked people most was during a recent conversation about how everyone decorated their refrigerators. I said my refrigerator door was bare, and that statement sure brought me the stares!

[image error]

When Jeff and I were together, our refrigerator door was used as most people seem to use the door, as a bulletin board for shopping lists, notes, reminders, assorted magnets, and such. The only thing we lacked was children’s refrigerator art.

Before I moved here, I rented a room in a house where I had to share a refrigerator, and the guy I rented from kept his refrigerator door full of his niece’s artwork. I admit, she had talent, but for some reason, it irked me having to look at those same things day after day after day. (I think it wasn’t the art so much as the act — it clearly told us renters that we might live there, but it wasn’t really our home.) Though it wasn’t cause and effect (and least I don’t think it is), I’ve kept the door of my refrigerator door bare. The uncluttered look pleases me. I still jot down things I need to get at the store, but I keep the list in a drawer, which is just as accessible, if not more so, than the refrigerator door.

I don’t even like to keep things on my counter, though I have made a recent (and perhaps temporary) exception.

[image error]

A couple months ago, I posted a blog about how, when I was young, I wanted a toy oven, but more than that, I wanted the accessories — small baking pans, child-size utensils, and especially the miniature boxes of cake and muffin mixes. After reading that, my wonderful sister sent me a child’s set of pots and pans. Although they are stainless steel, they say “not for use on stove” so they sit on the counter, charming me with both their presence and the thoughtfulness that brought them to me.

Unlike most people, I don’t even keep appliances on the counter. Since I almost never eat bread, there’s no reason for a toaster, though if I ever find a toaster with narrow slots (rather than slots wide enough for bagels), I might change my mind. I have a blender, but it’s in a cupboard since I don’t use it. (Jeff was the one who used it — he made a protein drink every morning.) And I haven’t yet got caught up in the instant pot or air fryer fad. Which is great — I don’t have to sacrifice utility for clean counters.

It’s this desire for a clean look that helps overcome my natural laziness. Instead of shrugging off a mess with an “I’ll do it tomorrow” attitude, I take the extra few minutes to put everything to rights before I retire for the evening. That way I get to wake up to an inviting kitchen.

So, are you shocked?

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Third Time’s an Alarm?

[image error]I seem to have backed into period of being accident prone. That there are separate — and understandable — causes for each of these three “accidents” does not mitigate the alarm factor.

I wrote about falling a month ago, a full-frontal splat that jarred my whole body, leaving me with a couple of achy days, but no other damage. My foot had become caught in a strap attached to my carport, and since I hadn’t removed the strap when I should have, that fall could be considered my fault, but still, the fall was a result of an accident rather than a physical problem — no dizziness or weakness or imbalance. It was just one of those things that could happen to anyone (to anyone who let their attention lapse, that is).

What I didn’t write about was a fall that happened a couple of weeks ago. I generally don’t go out at night because it’s harder to see, obviously, but I got a ride from a friend who was attending the same meeting. I’d stepped out of the car, on my way into the town hall, and I tripped on the two-part curb in front of the building. (A brick pathway had been placed on top of the original sidewalk, but since the bricks didn’t go all the way out to the curb, there was a tiny step where the original curb still remained.) The irony was that I had been headed to a meeting to discuss ways to make the town safer, and there it was, a classic example of what needed to be fixed.

A couple of days later, someone asked me how I was and if I’d recovered from my fall. It took me a minute to realize what she was talking about because the fall wasn’t much of anything — the shin pain had dissipated in a couple of minutes, and I’d immediately forgotten the incident. Besides, the woman hadn’t even been there the night it happened. I asked how she knew. She laughed and said, “This is a small town,” Apparently, it’s even smaller and more insular that I thought, because how could such an insignificant fall by a rather insignificant person (insignificant in the grand scheme of town doings, that is) be a topic of conversation?

Then yesterday I went for a walk with a friend. When I’m by myself, I usually walk in the middle of the road where there are no hazards (except an occasional car, of course), but since there were two of us, I was walking off to the side, and suddenly, without warning, my foot slipped out from under me and I slowly but inexorably hit the ground. A neighbor was passing, and he got out of his truck to help, but except for a bruise on my thigh, I was fine and able to get to my feet by myself. I must admit, though, I was (still am) quite perturbed — and alarmed — at falling again.

After asking me how I was, the neighbor said, “I saw you go down.” He explained that I’d slipped on a patch of loose gravel, and then he added, “It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done.”  My friend agreed and asked me if I were accident prone. I said no. Because I hadn’t been. At least not until a month ago.

Now I need to get her question out of my head because thinking of it might make me accident prone for real, and frankly, three falls are quite enough, thank you very much.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Talking about Walking

I attended a city council strategy session last night. Part of the discussion was walkability, making the town a safer and easier place to walk. The main thing that I can see is that so many of the sidewalks need to be repaired, but apparently, there is nothing the mayor and council can do about that since it’s up to the property owner to maintain their sidewalks. The council can do something about the crosswalks, specifically the ends of the sidewalk that lead down into the street. So many of those curbs are broken, or too high, or missing. They need to make them accessible.

During the discussion, someone suggested putting bike paths on the wide streets, but oh, my, what a terrible idea! (And unnecessary in many cases because of existing sidewalks and because many of the streets are so lightly traveled they’re already serving as walking/biking paths.) First, dedicated paths would take away street parking, and second, they are dangerous to pedestrians. Since I’ve walked mile upon mile no matter where I’ve been, I have a lot of experience with bike/pedestrian paths, so I know how dangerous they are. Many bike riders do not give the right of way to pedestrians, whizzing past walkers, and often forcing them into car lanes. So . . . no. I sure hope they paid attention to my expert opinion.

People who don’t walk except to and from their cars, don’t know the challenges of walking or finding safe places to walk. After the meeting yesterday, we got to talking about possible places for me to walk in the area, and one suggestion was to walk in the community center. Apparently, the basketball court is open in the morning to give seniors a safe place to walk, but oh, how utterly boring! And how many laps to make three miles? Sixty? Eek.

Another suggestion was to walk around the golf course. Whether he meant walk around the course on the course itself, or walk around the outside of the course, is immaterial because neither is possible. The golf course is surrounded by barbed wire, so even when no one is golfing, the pathways are inaccessible. And to walk around the outside perimeter? Well, there is a little matter of locked gates and no way around them.

[image error]

They also told me there was a pond out that way, with perhaps a trail around it, but if so, it had to be inside the golf course because there was no road to a pond. Still, it was a bit of an adventure, walking to an area I hadn’t yet explored.

I was told it is also possible to walk along the dikes next to the river, but no one could tell me how to get there without trespassing on private property, and oh, by the way, there are more gates along the dikes.

I’ll keep looking. There has to be a scenic (and relatively safe) place to walk around here.

[image error]

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

 

Every Moment is a Once in a Lifetime Event

When I was at the library a little while ago, stocking up on my reading for the next couple of days, the librarian asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing great, and it was the truth.

At that moment, I did feel great. And why not? I was at a library, warm and comfortable, rosy from my walk, talking to a very nice woman, filling my carryall with books I want to read. Nothing else existed. Not any pain bleeding over from the past, no thinking or worrying about the future (except for thoughts of cozying up to read later in the day).

I had that same feeling last evening. I was reading a book about a sixty-something cop who was in his final year of work, and no matter what happened, he felt that each moment was golden knowing that the work he loved was coming to an end. I stopped to think about the golden moment I was living through and realized again, as I have done so many times before, that no matter what, each moment of our lives are golden.

Some of those moments are breathtaking, such as watching the setting sun paint the skies gold with a never-again to be seen piece of art.

[image error]

Some of those moments seem dimmed by the pain of loss or the ache of age, but still, they are special in their own way — once in a lifetime events that will never be repeated in exactly the same way.

Admittedly, when things are difficult or we are in the middle of the seemingly unending angst of grief, it’s almost impossible to see the gold in the moment, but those traumas teach us to live in the moment and not look too far ahead. No matter how agonizing, you can live through the moment.

So later, much later, when joy or peace or wonder unexpected steals over you, you can take the discipline you learned from grief and live in the moment. Experience it as if it were a once in a lifetime event.

Because it is.

Wishing you the joy of your moments.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Whose Story Is It?

I woke this morning with the perfect plot for my next book, though I’m not sure I can write it because it’s not my story. In the writing, it will become my story, of course, taking the characters in directions they wouldn’t go in real life, but the people involved in this would-be plot are the starting point, and one person already told me he didn’t want me to put him in book. Or maybe he said he didn’t want to be the villain. Or the victim. One of those. Then he sort of backtracked and said it didn’t matter, so I don’t know where I stand.

Even without his permission, I could still write the book and see what [image error] happens. If none of the characters are recognizable in the end, then it wouldn’t matter whose story I started out with in the beginning.

Figuring out who the story is about is one of the first steps to putting a book together. And in this new book, as in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, the story would be mine and the main character me. Or not. Let’s just say a character named “Pat” with a penchant for hats, who might or might not be me, would be the narrator.

This fictional Pat would buy a house in a town where many people had lived their entire lives (some returning as older adults to the very house where they’d grown up). During renovations of the house and property, many small mysteries would arise. The house itself would be a character, the way it wraps itself around Pat and makes her feel at home, and conversely, the way a visitor was made to feel unwelcome by a ghost only the visitor could see. And the fellow who didn’t want to be in the book would be there in spirit if not in a fully-developed character because he’s the one who, in fixing the place, finds many of the puzzles.

It’s possible there would be enough with just the house and possible ghost to write a cozy mystery, leaving the harder-hitting story I thought of this morning for a later book, but I don’t have all the pieces to the ghost story yet.

And then there’s the additional matter of not having the push to write — getting the house and garage fixed, daily blogging, and attempting to get back into an exercise routine — takes up most of my available “push.” For now, I’ll let both stories stew in my brain pan and see if they coalesce into one cohesive whole or if they remain two different stories with many of the same characters.

The only books I’ve written since Jeff died were all grief infused, even the fiction. Some people thought the grief in Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare misplaced because it overshadowed some of the lightheartedness, but that’s what the narrator “Pat” was feeling at the time. Besides, I do find it ludicrous that so many mysteries and thrillers are steeped in countless deaths, and no one gives even a passing thought to the emotional toll.

It would be worth writing another book just to see where that “Pat” is now, and if her new-found peace shows up in the story.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

 

Garage Installation

I wasn’t going to write more about my garage until it was actually being built, but I couldn’t pass on using the title of this piece, which is a perfect title because work on the garage is temporarily stalled. (In – stall – ation. Cute, huh?)

The contractor has a few obligations — contract deadlines he needs to take care of now, so that when he starts building the garage, he can do the whole thing without delays. (Oh, wait!! Contracts. Contractor. Now I get it! Sheesh. I sure am firing on all cylinders today.)

Meantime, he and his workers took time from their weekends to finish the part of the side fence that was hidden behind the old garage. (Though they made sure they were done by noon. Something about the Kansas City Chiefs.)

Breaks in a fence seem to attract the very people I don’t want to attract, so it’s good to have the fence finished. I do feel bad, though — the back fence will have to be redone after the garage is built, and it seems a shame that their hard work is going to waste.

But they don’t seem to mind. At least that’s what they tell me. Who knows what they say amongst themselves.

Meantime, I am completely fenced in. I always liked that song “Don’t Fence Me In,” but now that I’m alone in an ever-scarier world, I like fences. I still don’t like other people fencing me in, except, of course, for the workers who actually did fence me in.

The thing about fences is that they have gates, so I’m not truly fenced in, either psychologically or physically. I can always open the gate and leave. Doors are the same way. After Jeff died, people told me, “God never closes a door without opening a window,” which completely ignores the nature of a door — it closes and it opens.

But I’m getting off track.

[image error]

In the photo above, you can see the recently installed fence on the right, the fence in the back that will have to be redone, and the place where the new garage will go — left of the trench where the sidewalk used to be, but close to the back fence. (You can see where the garage used to be to the right of the trench. The concrete slab used to be in front of the garage.) The lilac bushes along the back fence will have to be moved, but it should be easy for the men to do so using the excavator they will get to dig the foundation for the garage. (Any extra dirt will go to fill in area where the garage used to be.)

Well, now you know more than you ever wanted to know about both the installation and the in-stall-ation of my garage.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Living on the Wild Side

In National Velvet, Edwina Brown, played by Anne Revere (who quietly stole the movie), told her daughter, “I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life.” I was taken by that line when I heard it, and have often thought about it during the past years. Such a wonderful thing — to have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly.

Though not breathtaking by any means — certainly not like winning the Grand National or swimming the English channel or even thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (as I had once hoped to do) — building a garage (or rather, having it built) is truly a folly when you consider that I’m depleting my savings to house an ancient car with a dubious lifespan.

That VW Beetle has already lasted forty-eight years, and though it runs well, there are parts that show its venerable age, such as a cracked dashboard that would cost a fortune in labor to replace, a horn that is taped in place, and a heater that doesn’t work well. (Of course, the heater never worked well, so that’s not exactly a big surprise.)

[image error]

I suppose it’s possible that the garage will add to the value of this property, even considering the depressed property values here, but since that I plan to live out my days in this house, whatever extra money the garage would bring to the sale of the property would not accrue to me. So yes, definitely a folly.

And yet . . .

Why not? Why not indulge in this bit of foolishness? I’ve always been frugal, so it worries me that in later years I might pay for my folly by being forced into a punishingly strict budget, but for now, why not live on the wild side?

Oddly, I never even knew I wanted a “dream garage.” Though perhaps I should have been forewarned. My parents bought a house that was too big for them in a place they didn’t particularly like because my father fell in love with the immense garage attached to the house. Even though the cavernous space could easily house six or seven VW bugs with room left over, they kept nothing in that garage but a single car. No storage. Nothing. (Well, maybe off in the corner were a few replacement tiles, and the water heater was there, but other than that, nothing.)

After he totaled his car (he passed out because of an undiagnosed heart condition) that garage was completely empty until I brought my stuff to store when I moved in to take care of him. Despite all that, he still found joy in the immense space.

My garage will not be anywhere near as big as his was — because of sewer pipes and gas lines, the widest it can be is fourteen feet — but it will certainly be large enough for my car, storage, the tools I am accumulating, and perhaps a workbench.

In an age where “decluttering” is the thing to do, and at an age where so many others are downsizing even to the point of getting rid of their house (and mortgage), I am upsizing. Cluttering my life with a house and furniture — things I never before had any desire to own.

And now a garage. A garage of my own! Makes me smile to think of it.

That joy alone is worth the price.

So maybe . . . not such a folly after all?

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Fund Me Too

The original concept of crowdfunding was to get people to fund artistic ventures like movies, and not, as it has become, a way to get others to help with the expense of everyday choices like moving.

To my surprise, when I wrote about being appalled by this high-tech panhandling — getting others to fund things we choose to do — many people agreed. In fact, some readers went one step further and included Facebook’s fundraising platform as an example of this egregious exploitation, and I have to admit, those readers have a point. Like them, I don’t understand the reasoning behind setting up a fundraiser for one’s birthday (it sounds too much like asking for a gift), but considering the number of such fundraisers that end up in my FB feed, many people don’t find the practice objectionable.

What I didn’t realize was that one could use the FB fundraising platform to try to get money for anything. All you have to do is set it up in a few easy stages. Just what I need — more people asking for money I don’t have.

In a wonderful show of irony, Facebook flagged my article about crowdfunding with a note suggesting I ask my community for support with a fundraiser on FB, which shows that their bots pick up words in articles but not necessarily intent. Below is the screenshot of this note above my fundraising post:

[image error]

 

Needless to say — or rather, “needful to say” since I’m saying it — I won’t be taking FB up on their kind offer.

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Shedding Light on Old Fears

Last night I again suffered a bout of fear over growing old alone. I haven’t had such feelings for a long time, partly because I have been living alone and am getting used to it, but mostly because I’ve been keeping my mind away from the inevitable decrepitude of old age, and away from thoughts of being that old lady whose house is falling down around her because she doesn’t have the funds to shore the thing up.

For now, the decrepitude is advancing very slowly, just a matter of knees that don’t bend as well as they did, not being able to walk as far as I once did, and not being able to easily climb up steep stairs without dragging myself along. But bodies do tend to break down, and one day . . .

Yeah, better not think of that day.

It’s odd, though, that the fear last night was of growing old alone rather than the fear of being broke because of all the extra expenses I didn’t expect when I bought this place, such as having to build a new garage. The old one might have lasted for years, maybe even the rest of my life (or the rest of my car’s life) but even though it seemed solid and well built, the shed-like garage had been built on shaky ground. (Probably above an old septic system, which, combined with a high-water table, made the area rather damp.)

The other things that I have had done to the house and property, such as putting in a new foundation for the enclosed porch and replacing the old porch floor, removing diseased trees, and putting up a fence, didn’t really change things that much. It just felt as if I were cleaning up the place.

But a garage is a whole other matter. Erecting a building from scratch seems so much like growing deep roots, as if I were no longer just playing house, but living here for real.

I realize I’ve been here for almost a year, setting down tender and tentative new roots, but building a garage seems like the beginning of a massive root system. Makes settling down — and settling down alone — even more real than it had been. (Besides, all the talk of security that came with planning the garage, such as lights and locks and security cameras, as well as having to be aware of the seedy characters that walk the alley, is enough to feed anyone’s fears of being old and alone.)

Luckily, I’ve made friends, and luckily, the contractor is aware of and considerate of my need to fix things now to make my old age easier, but fears aren’t logical. Or maybe they are logical, and I do have something to fear.

But I won’t — can’t — let myself be afraid.

Today is a new day, and though the sun isn’t shining and the temperature rather cool, it’s bright enough to shed light on that old fear and make it scurry from sight.

[image error]

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.