Pat Bertram's Blog, page 40

Knowing and Not Knowing

We generally know what we know, and sometimes we even know what we don’t know — or at least we feel there is something we don’t know. This second feeling gives rise to conspiracy theories because we know that there’s more to many news stories, for example, than we are being told.

But we can’t know what we don’t know that we don’t know. Or maybe I mean we can’t know that we don’t know what we don’t know. An example of this is grief. I thought I knew what grief was, and I thought I knew that there was more to grief than I knew, but there was no way I could have ever known the truth about the epic grief after the loss of a life mate/soul mate. How could I? I didn’t know that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Only those who experience it can know the truth of it. Until you’ve been there, you don’t even know there is such a feeling even when people tell you there is.

This is also true of mundane things. For example, I am reading a book about the blue people of Kentucky.

What? Blue people? Yes, there were such people. I didn’t know about them, and it shocked me to realize that I hadn’t known that I didn’t know, but it shouldn’t have shocked me. How could I have known such a thing if I didn’t know it? It’s not as if blue (Blue Man Group aside) is a color we associate with humans on a regular basis. Oh, there is that whole blue blood thing, but that’s different than skin color. Supposedly the phrase originated with the Spanish — the purebred Spanish were white skinned, and so the blue of their veins was easily visible, but as they intermarried with the Moors, those hybrids had a darker skin and so their veins weren’t as visible.

On the other hand, the blue people of Kentucky actually were blue, though it wasn’t a skin condition. Rather, it was a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia inherited through a recessive gene from both parents. Their blood was blue due to a lack of oxygen in the hemoglobin. In the 1960s, doctors discovered that a commonly used dye called methylene blue could donate a free electron to the methemoglobin so it could bond with oxygen.

The blue people of Kentucky weren’t the only blue people — some isolated Inuit communities in Alaska were also blue. And there must have been others because the two people who were responsible for the blue folk of Kentucky were not blue themselves — the man was a French orphan, the woman a red-haired, pale white American, but both had the recessive gene.

Which makes me wonder if there really were blue blooded royals in ancient Spain, and that the story of their veins showing through their pale skin was simply that — a story.

All this brings me back to the whole thing about not being able to know what we don’t know that we don’t know. There are a lot of things I don’t know, but I know I don’t know them such as fractals or string theory. But since I can’t know what I don’t know that I don’t know, how could I ever learn about things I don’t even know exist? I suppose it comes down to the simple truth that I don’t need to know such things, and if I do need to know them, I will either be forced into the knowing, such as with grief, or stumble upon the knowing, such as with the blue-skinned people.

Either way, from your standpoint, it’s probably not worth your time trying to untangle these thoughts. It’s enough to know what we know and know what we don’t know without going further into the mental maze than that.

***

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.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Because of various Bob-related issues around town, I haven’t been working much lately, which has been nice. I like having my time to myself to do what I wish (and even what I don’t wish but need to get done).

Sometime during the next couple of weeks, things should settle down enough that we (my fellow caregiver and our client) can get back to our regular schedule, which will also be nice because the extra company is good for me and the extra money helps pay for a few frivolities, such as groceries and grass (the lawn kind, not the erstwhile illegal kind). Still, I’m okay with whatever might happen. Over the past decade or so, I’ve learned to be resilient enough to take whatever comes my way, though I do reserve the right to whine a bit if I feel it.

In two weeks and a day, we start a new year. I’ve never been particularly excited about a new year since basically all it means is a clean calendar and learning to put a different year on the few checks I write. Even worse, we carry our old selves into the new year, so despite all our resolutions (or lack of resolutions), the old year folds into the new one without a hitch. For some reason, though, perhaps because of uncertainties The Bob is still causing, I am looking forward to this new year with a bit of hope, as if it is actually something new.

For sure, it’s a new month, one that will bring me closer to spring and spring flowers to brighten my day. It will also bring my closer to another “elder” birthday, but that’s not a problem. The actual number of years don’t matter, of course, though what all those years have done to me does. I can still do almost everything I want to, but I am slower, and I find myself tilting forward when I stand or walk. It takes a concerted effort to remember to roll my shoulders back and stand up straight, but I can still do that, which is good. (In his old age, my father tilted forward when he walked, too, and I always wondered why. Perhaps our sense of equilibrium goes out of whack like so much else.)

The other thing that the new year will bring is an end to my 100-day blogging challenge, though that won’t be the end of the daily blogging. Although sometimes it’s hard to come up with something to say, it’s still a good exercise for me, so I will continue at least until I reach the 1000-day mark. (183 more days.) Or not. Life itself is a continual challenge, and we never quite know what each day will bring, but if everything goes as planned, I’ll be here every day until the middle of June.

Meantime, there’s the rest of today to enjoy, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

***

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.

Lazy Days

Yesterday was a lazy day for me. The winds were so strong, I barely made it to my mailbox. There was no way I could water the grass or take a walk or any other outside activity. And because of those gale force winds, I was too unsettled to do much of anything, so I spent the day reading and playing games on the computer.

Gale force winds is not a figure of speech. Gale force is 34 to 40 miles per hour, and I’m sure the winds were at least that strong. In a nearby town, the wind was clocked at 107 mph, though luckily, we were well below that number. Still, the winds wreaked a considerable amount of damage, so today was anything but a lazy day.

When I went out to water my grass, I was shocked to see the lawn covered with leaves. I have no idea where all those leaves came from because I made sure that there were no leaves on the nearby trees when I did my final raking — or rather, what I thought was my final raking. Before I turned on my hoses, I had to rake up all those leaves. It was so not a job I was prepared to do, yet I did it. I also had to gather shingles that had rained in my yard from the roof of my neighbor’s garage, and I’ll probably have more to do tomorrow since I only dealt with the largest pieces today.

I should be grateful (and I am!) that those were the only two problems I had from the wind. Other people spent the day clearing out the downed tree branches and getting estimates from roofers. I had to call someone, too, though not for me. A neighbor of the people whose house I am looking after called someone who called someone who called someone who called me to tell me that shingles had blown off the roof. (Come to think of it, next time I see that neighbor, I should give her my phone number so she could call me directly.) So I called my contractor who went out to take a look at the damage.

If that wasn’t enough for one day, I still had to go to the library to return books that were due and to get gas for my car. Now that inclement weather is popping up, I don’t like my tank to get too low in case of emergencies. Nor do I like the idea of running out of books to read. I’m sure I did a few other chores, though I can’t think of any offhand. Not that it matters — what’s done is done, right? (Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be sitting here listing all the things I did today.)

Considering the dryness and the winds, I’m glad I haven’t yet planted my wildflower seeds — they would have ended up all over the neighborhood and come spring, I’d have wondered why I didn’t get a single flower out of the bunch. I’ve been waiting for the first snow before planting, which helps glue the seeds to the ground, but I might have to make alternate plans, such as waiting for a week when the highs are only in the forties, and those weeks are coming. Around here, so I’ve been told, February is the coldest month, and this area is noted for its late snows. Besides, I’ve had enough to do without worrying about those seeds.

Tomorrow might be another lazy day, and if not tomorrow, then Saturday. The best I can say about the weekend forecast is brrrrr.

***

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.

Little Things

Yesterday I cited a quote, “Little things amuse little minds,” but I tend to think that saying is not true. Well, some little things do designate a small mind (or at least an immature one) such as body noises humor, but other little things tend to designate a great mind (or at least an imaginative one).

For example, people throughout the centuries noticed apples falling. Isaac Newton saw the same thing, but he wondered why it fell straight down. I’m sure other people had wondered the same thing, but apparently, that was an idea whose time had come.

It’s been said that genius is finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, which is the direct opposite of little things amusing little minds. (Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary is also the definition of creativity and artistic expression, so maybe all three are related.) Another apropos quote is “The ordinary think inside of the box, the extraordinary think outside of the box, but genius thinks inside, outside, below and above the box.” (Matshona Dhliwayo) My problem with the second quote is that dang box. Why is anyone even thinking about that clichéd box let alone talking about it? (Though I suppose the box itself could be one of those little things that amuse little minds and awaken the genius in those who find the extraordinary in it.)

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Appreciating the little things of life is makes us grateful, brings us happiness, and feeds our sense of worth.

Gardening is one such little thing, though it doesn’t take a great or creative mind to enjoy the activity, so perhaps that’s not a good example of what I’m talking about. A better example of little things amusing creative minds — especially when it comes to writers — is words. There is nothing as little as a word, and nothing as great. Without words, there would be no thought, no communication, no stories, no . . . humanness. (I don’t need to expound on this here since I’ve done so several times before, such as here: Giving Thanks for Words)

Word play — playing with words, not necessarily writing with them — has always amused me. For example, “words” is an anagram of “sword,” and both can be sharp objects. See? Little things amusing — little? creative? ordinary? extraordinary? — minds.

***

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.

Little Things Amuse Little Minds

On the entrance to the library, there is a sign that says “Possession of dangerous weapons is prohibited on these premises.” I always have to laugh at that, wondering why a library would ban sharp minds, because truly, there is no weapon so dangerous as that. They let me in, so perhaps I’m not as sharp — or as humorous — as I once thought I was.

I’ve been seeing all sorts of “boycott Kellogs” notes online, and I have to laugh at that, too. Even if I wanted to find out why I should boycott (I am still on my news fast, eschewing all news), and even if I did find out and want to boycott, I couldn’t. I don’t buy any of their products. Not one. So who would know if I boycotted or not? I also find it ironic that Kellogs — the company that manufactures such delicacies as Pop Tarts, Pringles, and Froot Loops — started out as a health resort. Dr. Kellogs’ invention, cornflakes, was one of the early health foods. (Graham crackers and the first cereal called “granula” predated cornflakes.)

I am also amused by all the return address labels I get. What century do those people live in? Haven’t they ever heard of texting? Email? Not that I want them to spam me — I certainly don’t them sending me emails or texts. I’m merely pointing out that hardly anyone uses return labels any more. I use maybe one or two a month. It used to be I didn’t use any until the appearance of The Bob temporarily closed the office where I paid my utility bill, and I got into the habit of mailing it. (Silly, really, because it’s only three blocks away. Luckily, the local mail stays in town, so it gets there quickly. When I lived on the western slope, my local mail went first to Grand Junction, the next county over, then back to the town where I lived, which sometimes took a week.)

Because of all the begging mail I get, I would have to live ten lifetimes to use up those address labels. And perhaps by then, even texting will be passe. We might all have implants that let us transfer information to one another instantly without resorting to such unwieldy tools as phones and computers.

I hadn’t realized so many things have been amusing me lately, but apparently, I amuse easily.

This reminds me of my eight grade teacher who would stand in front of the class and reprimand us for playing around at our desks. As she was warning us that “Little things amuse little minds,” she’d be fiddling with a pen, which always made me want to laugh.

I started out talking about smart minds and end up with little minds. I better quit before I start talking about things I never mind.

***

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.

Secondhand Christmas

I finished decorating my tree today, which sort of surprised me. I figured at the rate I’ve been working, I’d have it finished just in time to start undecorating, but I have twelve to twenty-eight days to enjoy the festive feel of the place before I feel lazy about keeping the tree up. I could do what a friend did — leave it up all year. Hers was an eight-footer that filled a bow window area, so it was out of the way of the rest of the house. It was so ornately decorated, I can see why she left it up all the time. It must have taken months to do all that work (though at the rate I was decorating my tree, it would have taken me years), and by the time she got everything off the tree and put away, it would have been time to take it all out again. So in her case it was better to just leave it up and enjoy it all year round.

My tree is small, a hand-me-down from my father. I’m not even sure why I kept it. Perhaps it was that when I was cleaning out my father’s house after he died, I didn’t know what to do with it, I had space in my storage unit, and it never seemed to be important enough to make the effort to throw it away. So I still have it, and I’m glad. The tree was actually gifted to him by my sister, and so now it reminds me of both of them. That seems as good enough reason to set it up. When I stop looking at it and stop feeling grateful, then I know it’s time to put it away for another year.

The red tree is also a hand-me-down. That one is from my brother who brought it to me back when I’d destroyed my arm and was housebound for several months.

It’s not just the trees that reminds me of others. In fact, almost everything I own at the moment has a story and a special memory, whether it is the furniture in this house, the dishes in my cupboards, even some clothes (and hats!) in my closet. For some people, living with all these secondhand possessions would make them feel poor, but it makes me feel rich. And blessed. And grateful.

Come to think of it, those are all good reasons to bring out my tree even though the Christmas season isn’t that big of a deal to me, especially now that I’m alone.

Related post: What Do You Say to Someone Who is Grieving at Christmas?

***

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.

Rain Dance

Even though there is no sign of rain or snow, and neither is forecast for the near future, I hoped that by going out to water today, it would act as a sort of rain dance so that the clouds would release whatever moisture they were holding.

But no rain came. At least, no water came from the sky. I suppose the sprinklers can be considered artificial rain, so from that standpoint, my sort of rain dance brought results.

Despite my best efforts at taking care of the grass, it’s starting to brown out a bit, but I suppose that’s understandable. Most nights the temperature hovers around freezing, though sometimes the temperature drops down to the single digits. (Fahrenheit.) In fact, although the day had warmed up to about fifty by the time I got out there, what water hadn’t drained out of the hoses was still frozen. I had decided I wouldn’t water when the temperature is in the forties because it’s way too cold, especially since I seem to get as wet as my lawn. Now I know I probably couldn’t even if I wanted too. It’s hard to water when the hoses are blocked with ice.

Can you tell I really have nothing to say? I’m just spinning my mental wheels, going nowhere. Actually, I’m not even spinning the wheels. I seem to be mired in the doldrums. Oh, I’m not depressed or anything like that, it’s more like the sailor’s doldrums — a place of such calm that ships get stuck on the windless waters. That’s me — my words are getting stuck on the windless calm of my mind. Nothing is roiling around inside for me to work out. No big questions or lessons are waiting for a resolution.

There is one lesson, come to think of it. I checked to see which came first, the doldrums meaning mental stagnation or the doldrums meaning the stagnating seas, and it turns out that the first definition came first. In fact, the “dol” of doldrums is related to our word “dull.”

Whether I am becalmed or simply dull, I do know one thing — this place itself can never be likened to the sailor’s doldrums. There are no seas for one thing, and too much wind for another. I feel bad for the neighbors. No matter how much I try to keep from watering their driveway, the winds shift and their driveway gets wet anyway unless I water by hand. Which I do — I lay out a sprinkler hose in one part of the yard while I hand water another part.

It’s been working.

So far, anyway.

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p.s. The photo is not mine, and that’s not my yard, but I didn’t think to take a picture when I was out there earlier, and now it’s too dark, so I used a free photo available from my blog platform.

***

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.

The Days to Come

It snowed a bit yesterday, our first snow of the season, though it wasn’t much of a snowfall. Big flakes floated down for about five minutes, dusted the ground like powdered sugar, then disappeared. When I saw at the last minute that snow was forecast (before that, they said it would pass us by), I considered planting my wildflower seeds, but I knew there wouldn’t be much snow because the daytime temperature was in the high thirties. Since it’s going to warm up in the next couple of days, I didn’t want the seeds to think that winter had come and gone and now it was spring and time to sprout. I still have time to plant, either right before or right after Christmas, to give the seeds a good start. After all, it’s still fall. Winter won’t come for ten more days.

I am preparing for the solstice. I set up my bowls of light, ready to celebrate the end of the creeping darkness. I even set up my little Christmas tree. I didn’t really feel like doing the work, but I thought it important to make some attempt at a festive atmosphere even if it is just for me. And anyway, I do enjoy seeing the ornaments I’ve collected over the years.

It is amusing, though — I’d just cleaned up the last speck of glitter from last year, and now I am glitterizing my house again. (Yes, Spellcheck, I do know glitterizing isn’t a word, but no matter how much you redline me, I’m leaving it.)

In three weeks, we start a new year. If you thought 1984 an inauspicious year because of the book by that name, 2022 should really creep you out. That’s the year the story in the film Soylent Green took place. Yikes.

Just one more thing to think about in the days to come.

***

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.

A Toast to Mother

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my mother’s death. I have thought about her more since I moved here to my new home than in all the years since she died. Sometimes the memories come from nowhere, just the odd thought that I haven’t talked to her for a while and should call to see how she is doing.

Sometimes the memory comes from something of hers I have and use. She used to have a cupboard full of unmatched stemware. I kept those goblets when I cleaned out the house after my father died, and so now I, too, have a cupboard of unmatched stemware.

Sometimes an old memory arises, and I’d like to ask her what that was about. For example, decades ago she told me that when I was a baby, I had casts on my legs. I was under the impression that the casts were to correct leg or hip alignment, though why casts, I don’t know, since my siblings all had braces (a curved metal piece connected to shoes). I read that the current research shows that babies’ legs adjust on their own, so I don’t even know if they use such devices anymore. But I never heard of using casts for that problem, and now I will never know what they were for. It never really mattered, but now my feet seem to be turning in more than they used to, and I wonder if age and use is undoing what the casts did. I’ll never know that now, either.

When I got my first apartment, I asked her for the recipes that I especially liked — things like pierogis, tuna roll with cheese sauce, and hamburger rolls (known to others as Runzas or bierocks). I found it interesting that I was the only one of my siblings who had those recipes, so several years ago, I made each of my siblings a recipe book, which included those recipes as well as a Friday staple of our youth: creamed tuna and peas on toast. (Sounds disgusting but was actually quite tasty.)

I didn’t copy all of her cookie recipes. Neither cherry winks nor date nut pinwheels were favorites of mine when I was young, but a couple of years ago when I suddenly got a taste for those cookies, I thought of calling her and asking for the recipes. Luckily, my sister kept them, thinking that mother’s treat recipes shouldn’t be thrown away so now I’ve collected some of the recipes I didn’t back then. Also, I imagine that at the time I got that first bunch of recipes, I wasn’t considering the distant future when she’d be gone.

Well now, she is.

She wasn’t much of a drinker, though she did love Bailey’s Irish Cream, so in honor of her this day, I offer a toast — Baileys in a Baileys glass that once belonged to her!

Here’s to you, Mom. I hope your new life is what you’ve prayed it would be.

***

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.

Water, Water Everywhere? Not Here!

I happened to catch a part of the news yesterday where they were talking about the drought in California, and how some communities were limiting the amount of water a person could use. One man, determined to keep his foliage alive, showed the newscaster the fifty-gallon containers where he collected and stored rain water. I just glossed over that bit about his collecting rain water because I was thinking of myself and wondering about the wisdom of putting in grass during a drought year.

I’m not in California, and there are no restrictions here, at least not yet. The mountains are getting some snow, so there might not be any restrictions, but I’ve always been water conscious, so I do feel a bit guilty about the grass. Still, if a thousand square feet of lawn is my worst offense against conservation, then I’m doing pretty good. In fact, until recently, I have never in my entire life used even half the water I paid for every month, so I’m just sort of evening things out.

I didn’t think anything more about the fellow collecting rain water until the early morning hours when I suddenly awoke, wondering where he was getting so much rain water in a drought. I mean, here in my corner of the world, we haven’t had any moisture for months, not even a cupful let alone gallons.

I finally was able to put the rain-collection conundrum aside and fall back asleep, but apparently, I didn’t forget it because here I am talking about it.

It did seem odd to me, though, that someone could brag about collecting rain water. If people here were to collect rain water, they dare not mention it because it’s illegal to collect rain water in Colorado. (Colorado is the only state with a ban on rain barrels, and is only one of four states where rain harvesting is illegal.) I actually know someone who got cited for collecting rain water.

The theory behind the ban on collecting water is that any rain water you collect could affect the water rights of others and also could disrupt ecosystems because any water you collect won’t go into nearby streams, rivers, and other bodies of water. Seems specious to me. I mean, if I collect rain water to water my foliage, then all I am doing is collecting water from one part of my yard and directing it to another. I can’t see that it makes any difference what I do with the water that falls on my property — it’s still going to end up where it would have ended up anyway. Come to think of it, isn’t that what rain gutters do? Collect the rain that falls on the roof and direct it elsewhere? So why aren’t rain gutters illegal?

Despite the ban, some people do collect small pans of rainwater to water their indoor plants (making sure the pan isn’t visible from the street), but I don’t even do that small bit of collecting. It has nothing to do with illegality, and everything to do with laziness. It seems like a lot of work to me.

For the next few days, at least, I won’t have to feel guilty about wasting water on my lawn because it will be too cold to water, and in a day or two there is a vague chance of some precipitation. Hmm. Just thought of something. Why should I feel guilty at all? If it’s illegal to collect rain water because it prevents water from draining into rivers and ponds, then shouldn’t watering my lawn be a good thing since it’s putting the water back where it belongs?

That question, too, will probably wake me in the early morning hours. Oh, well. Who needs sleep?

***

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.