Pat Bertram's Blog, page 23

I Saw Something Nasty

I saw something nasty today, and it wasn’t in the woodshed as in Cold Comfort Farm. Not that I have a woodshed for something nasty to happen, unless my garage could be considered a woodshed since I do have some wood in there. Just boards, though. No firewood. Still, as far as I know, nothing nasty has yet happened in there.

No, the nasty thing was on my lawn, and it horrified me. Bindweed! Not just one, but several of them. Of all the weeds to find, that is the worst. Others you can dig up or pull up or even ignore in the hopes that they will disappear in the mowing, but bindweed? That thing grows like a . . . well, like a weed. And you can’t get rid of it. The more you pull it up, the more it spreads, though apparently, eventually all that pulling will dissipate the weed’s energy and it will become more controllable.

I have a bad patch of bindweed in the back corner of my yard, but I have been mulching that area with the grass clippings because mulch can help control the weed. I can’t do that on my lawn, of course, because a thick mulch might kill the lawn, and if not, would certainly be unsightly.

I’m not really sure where the bindweed came from. The grass is so thick that I doubt any seeds could take hold, so perhaps the bindweed was in the soil beneath the sod and pushed its way through like a couple of tulips did. Whatever its origin, the weed is there now. I’ll just have to patrol that area of the lawn daily and hope I can keep on top of it.

That wasn’t the only nasty thing I found. This area is swarming with feral cats, due in part to the loss of funding for the spay and release program and in part to the neighbor across the street who feeds the cats. The cats used to use my front easement (between the sidewalk and the street) for their litter box, but now that I’ve covered it with rock, apparently, they’ve moved to my lawn. It’s surprising because I wouldn’t think grass would something they’d gravitate toward since they can’t bury their waste as they tend to do.

Luckily, nasties weren’t the only things I saw today. There was plenty of beauty — the grass, of course. The plants that are doing well, especially those that will bloom this summer. The larkspur that’s going to seed. (That might not be pretty, but it sure makes me feel good to think of all the larkspur that will grow from those seeds next year.) And the wildflowers.

Although the wildflower areas are small rather than a field, they are every bit as beautiful as I’d hoped, with not a nasty thing in sight!

***

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.

Afternooze

I feel like I just woke up from a long winter’s nap. It was actually just a short spring afternoon snooze, but it might as well have been winter’s nap. Today was cloudy and cool with only a brief hint of sun. In fact, this is the first June I can remember where I turned on the heat in the morning! It wasn’t that cold, only three or four degrees below my normal winter temperature (though a whopping ten degrees below my normal summer temperature) but without the sun blasting through my windows, I couldn’t be sure the house would heat up on its own. In previous years, I just dealt with it by layering on clothes, but today I didn’t have the requisite fortitude. So I got lazy and turned on the heat for a few minutes this morning.

So why the afternooze? (I meant to write afternoon snooze, but I like the typo, so I’m claiming the word.)

I don’t exactly know why I napped. Tired, of course. The lack of sunshine, perhaps (the clouds parted for a second just now and the sun peeped out at me, putting the lie to my words). I’m probably to the age where I should be using lights in the afternoon on dark days to keep me and my brain awake as is recommended for those dealing with Sundowners Syndrome. I tend to think I’m still a decade or two away from having to deal with Sundowners. Although sundowning (growing tired, confused, agitated as the daylight dims) is often associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s, it can also appear in the elderly who show no signs of dementia. Researchers say it has to do with a disruption of circadian rhythms, the biological clock being out of sync, and/or a shrinking brain’s inability to cope with the stress of daily life.

I doubt I am so elderly that I need to worry about sundowners (since I spend so much time alone, though, would I even know if it’s an issue?), but there is no doubt I am sensitive to light and dark. I’m not as susceptible to Seasonal Affective Disorder as I was in my younger days, but my body does seem to want to shut down when it doesn’t get enough light.

And so I nap.

I also wake up inordinately early in the morning — at first light. This isn’t my choice, of course. I’d much prefer to sleep in, but ever since I moved here, I’ve seldom been able to sleep beyond sunrise. It’s as if my body decided that since I dragged it to a rural area, then by gum it would keep farmer’s hours!

Oh, well, at least I’m not complaining about the heat and too much sun, though I’m sure that will come. And then I’ll blame the heat for my afternooze.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Cocooning

This was a cocooning sort of day. Chilly. Dark. Heavy clouds. Rainy morning. Misty afternoon. A good day to stay inside, huddle under the covers, and read.

So I did.

The end.

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***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Cactus Flower

My prickly pear cactus bloomed today. It’s always such a treat to see those lovely blossoms, and the main reason I never got rid of the plant.

I transplanted the cactus from my neighbor’s yard (at her urging) when I first got here because they don’t need to be taken care of. That was back when my idea was to make a care-free yard, so that as I grew older, it could take care of itself and still look passable. I gave up on that idea last year when I had the lawn put in. It was supposed to be a small lawn, just for a bit of green, but I bought the leftovers from a project the local landscapers did, in the hopes that it would be enough for what I wanted. Instead, it covered half my yard! And then there were all the flowers and plants I couldn’t resist, so now I have a yard that is far from care-free.

Even the areas filled with gravel aren’t as care-free as I’d expected. There’s always some sort of cleanup such as weed picking or leaf blowing, but at least it doesn’t have to be watered and mowed.

The cactus doesn’t really fit with the rest of my yard, though it is rather a point of interest. Still, if it weren’t for those elusive flowers, I’d probably get rid of it. It’s a vicious thing. Well, perhaps not vicious. Maybe it just wants to be left alone. Those huge thorn-like prickers say “stay away” loud and clear! If those prickers were the only problem, there wouldn’t be a problem, even if one were to ignore the warning and clear away weeds, because those spines are big and easy to see. The problem is with the tiny hair-like barbs (glochids). You don’t even have to touch the prickly pear cactus to be nailed with glochids; they can attach to a person who’s just in the vicinity of the plant. And ow! Do those things hurt! They are so tiny, they are almost impossible to see, and yet you have to get rid of them or they will cause additional problems. (I just read that if they get in your eye, they can cause blindness. Yikes.)

I have been able to tweeze the glochids out of my skin, and when that doesn’t work, masking tape will.

Every time I have an issue with the glochids, I think I should get rid of the plant, but I don’t see how to dig it up without getting hurt. I wear gloves, of course, but the glochids get inside the gloves, making them impossible to wear. So I put it off, and put it off, and then one day, like today, the cactus blooms, and it all seems sort of worthwhile.

There should be a life lesson in this, a moral of some sort. That even if you can avoid the obvious prickles of life, the small, unseen problems can do you in, but in the end, it’s all worth it.

Well, maybe not.

Still, it is a gorgeous bloom.

***

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.

Ill-Conceived Stories

There have been a whole slew woman characters over the years who were amateur detectives. In many of them, the amateur was smarter than the whole police force put together, and she managed to find out the truth while they were still bumbling along. In others, the amateur had a cop boyfriend or a reporter or someone who could feed her information while she made fools of them all. Some put a twist on the story, and make the woman character the detective — private or otherwise — and she still finds out the truth before the professionals with all their equipment and resources.

I’ve recently come across still another version of this same archetype, a variation on the cop boyfriend theme. In this version, the amateur and the cop are not in a relationship but are merely best friends. (Even though it’s obvious to everyone but them that they really are in a relationship, just haven’t gotten to the sex part yet.) What makes this version so appalling is that the girlfriend, whether an ex-cop or merely a know-it-all, is allowed to accompany the cop on his investigations, as if she were her partner, and no one has any complaints about this — not the other cops, the police higherups, or the victims. They all just go along with that. Despite the ridiculousness of this, and the ridiculousness of the girlfriend showing up the cop, the worst is that the cop is a doofus and lets the girlfriend tell him how to do his job and even does her bidding when she sends him on assignments. For example, in once case, the amateur tells the cop, “I’ll go talk to the guy. You go find out what the woman has to say.”

How did these books get published? I suppose stories like this made sense before women became street cops and detectives, but it doesn’t make sense that such inane novels would be published now.

Luckily, not all books are as poorly conceived and written. There are plenty out there for me to choose from.

Even luckier, at this time of year, I don’t need to hunker down with a good book quite as often as I do in the winter.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Focus on My Garden

With so much going on in the world — wars, unrest, shootings, wind-driven horrors — is it any wonder that I focus on my garden? Out there in my yard, all is serene.

Well, except when the wind is blowing, and even then, all is serene because I am inside looking out. (Apparently, the winds really have been bad this year — dustbowl bad. It’s not just my perception.)

Oh, so weird! MSWord wants me to change the word “bad” in the above paragraph to “bid” or “bidden.” What the heck?!

Maybe I’ll just stick with pictures today. As far as I know, there is no spellcheck-type program for images, though I’m sure, with all the “big brothering” online, it will be coming soon.

All these pictures were taken in my yard this morning. From the stately oriental iris to the humbler wildflower patches, there were plenty of photo opportunities! And plenty of beauty for me to focus on.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Where the Day Takes You

The current crop of young clerks seems to be even less gracious than the last couple of generations. Back in the day, it used to be that clerks thanked customers for shopping at the store. Then it got to the point where clerks expected us to thank them for deigning to wait on us. Actually, we’re still to that point. I wish I could break myself of the habit of saying “thank you” to someone I just gave a fistful of dollars. But I was a touch rude today, so perhaps that offset the thanks.

The clerk, as they all do now, told me “Have a good one” in a bored tone as she handed me my change.

What does that even mean, “Have a good one?” So I asked her. She just stared at me as if I were Homo Unsapiens Unsapiens, then finally responded, “Day?”

So why not say “Have a good day”? “One” and “day” each have a single syllable, so these clerks are not saving any time by using “one” instead of the more concrete word. Perhaps it’s that “one” is comprised of soft sounds, and “day” is not, which might make it infinitesimally harder to say.

Oh, well, it’s not my world anymore. My world is one of precise speech, words that mean something, people who care not just about words but about those they come in contact even if only for a moment.

I suppose it’s foolish of me to waste time and words on such trivial matters as to the meaning of a meaningless phrase when the rest of the world is resorting to desperate measures and coping with trauma, but for the most part, you have to go where the day takes you and deal with day you are dealt.

And the hand I’ve been dealt today is a good one. It’s such a beautiful day that even a barely civil clerk couldn’t ruin it.

The day after tomorrow is Memorial Day. If you’re travelling this weekend, please take it easy.

And if you want to play a silly game, count how many movies titles I used in this blog.

***

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.

My Exciting Life

I had a rare treat today. My body got me up at 5:00 a.m. as usual, and as usual, I went back to bed. And surprise! I actually went back to sleep and didn’t wake up again until 7:00. As much as I like not dragging my tired body through the day, the restfulness came with a price — two hours less in the day.

So here I am, scrambling to find something quick to write about for today’s blog post before I head out to work. I mean, head out to my job. I’ve already been working. I spent the past three hours outside getting caught up on gardening chores — weeding, watering, planting, transplanting. And oh, my. I hurt from top to bottom!

It’s funny — I keep telling people in another few years I’m going to have a fabulous yard, but the truth is, I have a fabulous yard this year. Admittedly, in a few years the lilac bushes will grow to maturity, offering me a few more nooks and crannies in my yard to give me an excuse to wander around and see what’s there (instead of being able to see everything at a glance, that is). And more perennials will take hold, as well as the last few wild places filled in. The raised garden is still just an idea built on top of a long rectangular hole in the ground, and as much as I’d like to see the finished project, I have enough to keep me active. I certainly don’t need another forty-square-feet of garden to take care of right now. One day, however, I will be glad of a new garden spot.

Just not today.

I’m glad I’ll be going outside again — I’ll be walking the couple of blocks to my job — because in all the working this morning, I forgot to enjoy the perfect day. No high winds, just a bit of a breeze to temper the heat of the sun, and blue skies.

Well, thanks for reading. I’ll be back again tomorrow for more news about my oh, so exciting life!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

What a Day!

I don’t know where I get the idea that I don’t do much. Perhaps because there are times when I lay about, such as the rainy day a couple of days ago, but today wasn’t such a day. I woke this morning at 5:00 a.m. (Not by choice, you understand. It’s just when my body decided it didn’t want to sleep anymore.)

It is now 5:00 p.m., and this is the first time I’ve managed to sit all day. Well, I did take a break for a quick meal, and I’ll be eating again soon, but for the most part, I’ve been on the go since I awoke.

After I exercised and straightened the house, I did a bit of weeding, then a friend came to pick me up so we could check the roof on our absent friend’s house. It’s still holding up despite the rain we had. We made a couple of quick stops at food stores, then she dropped me off and I put the groceries away.

By that time, the morning dew was long dried, so I hauled out my lawn mower. The mowing is easy. The hard part is emptying the grass catcher. It seems a very long way from the northwest corner of my yard to the southeast corner where I need to dump the clippings, and since the grass got long and thick because of the rain, I had to empty the catcher about ten times. The good part is the mower mulches the clippings, and I need a lot of mulch to try to suffocate the bindweed that proliferates in that far corner.

While I was resting after my hard work, I got a text from my neighbor asking if I wanted to look at her “yard pretties” and see what I wanted since she loved to share. We wandered around her lush yard, and greedy me, I said I wanted a bit of everything except the climbers. Although ivy and Virginia creepers are pretty, I don’t want to deal with keeping them in check. Once I finished admiring everything in her yard, we came over to my place and looked at everything here. I ended up giving her some larkspur and wildflower seeds, and promised to give her some New England aster in the late fall when I divide them.

She was glad to see I still have so much uncultivated yard. She can thin her plants as much as she needs to because she will have an extension garden to fill up. (That’s what I’m calling that unplanted area, her “extension garden.”)

I still had a couple of errands to run, so she promised to send the plants over to me when they were dug up, we said goodbye, and I headed out again.

Despite the offer of plants, as I passed the hardware store with the racks of plants out in front, I stopped and browsed and bought. Just one four-pack of petunias to fill in an area that cried out for a bit of color. I’m not totally obsessed.

What a day!

I must admit, I was so exhausted after all my exertions that I didn’t plant the flowers, even though it wouldn’t have taken long.

While I’m admitting things, I might as well admit I never thought spending so much time (and money) on a yard would be worth it, but I do so love to wander around my paths and see what’s new. There’s always something to look at, and what’s even better, it can’t all be seen at a glance. Knowing so many elderlies who are property-bound (not housebound exactly; they just don’t feel comfortable straying too far from home), I wanted to make sure that if the same thing happened to me, I’d have things to look at as I wandered around my yard. As I’d hoped, with each curve of the pathways, I get a different view. Even better, I don’t have to wait until I’m property-bound to enjoy the scenery.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Sadness and Gladness

Today was a strange, rather unsettling day. It started out fine. I did my normal morning routine (tarot reading, exercise, Wordle, Quordle) then wrote the note to my friend overseas. I sure was glad to have that small accomplishment out of the way! It’s been niggling at me for the past two months.

On the way to the post office, a friend who was driving by pulled over to chat. I was saddened to hear that her husband had passed away. It’s always hard to get such news, but harder for us who have been there (as opposed to those who haven’t had to deal with such a loss) because we have a good idea what the one left behind is going through. We also know there’s nothing we can do or say to make things better. Each of us has to learn to cope the best way we know how, and to learn how to live alone. That sounds cold, I know, but it’s the bitter truth. Still, I feel sad for her and all that she’s going to have to deal with in the coming months and years.

After she drove off to do her lonely errands, I continued to the post office. I was glad to discover that I could walk normally up the ten or so steps to the post office door. It’s a far cry from being able to hike up eighteen flights of stairs as I did when I worked in a downtown Denver office building (so long ago that it was the tallest building in the city), but ever since I damaged my knees, I’ve had to climb stairs the way a small child does. One foot up and then the other foot dragged up to the same step.

I was glad to discover that the postage to a European country is relatively cheap — only twice what it is to send a letter domestically.

I was glad that this was such a nice, cool day that I could get my errands done and still be able to do some weeding in my gardens.

All those things I was glad about today seem paltry in comparison to the sadness of death and a friend’s grief, but still, I was glad, which is why today was so strangely unsettling.

But that’s life, I suppose — the sadness and gladness all jumbled together so we never quite know how to feel.

***

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.