Pat Bertram's Blog, page 96

Changes

[image error]Jeff and I kept our expenses to a minimum by stocking up on things when they went on sale, and really loading up on items that had been deeply discounted. I don’t see those kinds of sales any more, which is good because I no longer like keeping a lot of things on hand. Having to get rid of cases of food and paper goods when I packed up after he died was just one more stab in the heart, especially since I couldn’t find a place to donate them. The churches didn’t even want them. I don’t remember what I ended up doing — I think an older woman found me crying and said she’d find a way to distribute the items. (She also understood my tears since she’d been widowed three times and admitted that she still cried for all of her husbands.)

The wheel of time turns, and now here I am, once again stocking up on certain items like paper towels — not because paper towels are on sale for twenty-five cents a package (the sale price Jeff and I paid), but because large packages of paper goods are the only sizes available to me right now.

I’m still not stocking up on food. I prefer to eat fresh vegetables and those don’t stay fresh for very long. I don’t use many canned goods or frozen foods. And the last time I looked for meat, I walked away without buying any because the prices were more than I wanted to pay — double what they had been a couple weeks ago. Luckily, proteins like tuna and eggs and cheese continue to be within my budget. I’m grateful I can still make it to the local grocery store once a week, and things I can’t get around here, I’ve been able to get online. I might continue shopping this way even when I feel more comfortable going to a bigger town to visit bigger stores — when shipping is free, it makes more sense to order online than to pay for gas, even when I have to stock up to get the free shipping.

I’m sure there will be other changes to my life — or maybe what I mean is I’m sure I will keep the changes I have made to accommodate these times. I will have to become sociable again, of course, at least to a small extent, but I doubt I’ll ever go back to having a full calendar. I’ve become so used to being by myself that it will take more energy than I have to get myself out of the house. (Though it will be nice seeing friends again.)

For all I know, even when the library reopens, I might keep rereading The Wheel of Time series as I did once before when there wasn’t a library available to me. It’s not that the work is so great, it’s that it is so vast. By the time I reach the end of what is essentially a 4,000,000-word novel, I’ve forgotten many of the connections and relationships that led to the final confrontation, so I need to reread the books to see what I missed. And by the end of the second read through, I’ve forgotten other connections.

And so it goes, the wheel of time. Around and around and around.

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[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.

 

Planting Hope

I received ten flowering trees yesterday that the Arbor Day Foundation gifted me when I sent a donation. (It wasn’t really a donation, because I only sent the money to get the trees.) If you have ever responded to such an offer, you will understand the irony of the term “tree.” These seedlings might someday be trees, might even be the beginning of a small forest in my yard, but for now, they are nothing but skinny little twigs between six and twelve inches long with barely a growth that could be considered a root.

I’ve planted seedlings from the foundation before, and not one ever grew to babyhood, let alone achieved grown-up-tree status, but even knowing that, I sent the money. I figure I wasn’t out anything except my donation, and maybe not even that if the foundation really does plant trees with at least some of the money they receive.

Of course, these “trees” came when there is no way I would take a chance on injuring my knee further by digging holes, so I considered not planting them, but a teenager a few houses away agreed to do the work for me. That was a double blessing, not just because having someone else plant them saved my knee, but also perhaps because the trees will not immediately realize who their caregiver will be. And maybe, just maybe, when that realization dawns, one or two of them will decide they like it here anyway.

Even if none of the seedings live very long, it’s the thought that counts. Planting trees is like planting hope — hope for a future, and a more beautiful future at that.

And all of us right now can use a bit of hope.

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[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.

 

Letter to Facebook

I’m not sure it’s worth continuing to fight Facebook over their blocking this blog from their site, but people I respect have urged me to write them a letter and send it by USPS. So, here is the letter I came up with. What do you think?

Facebook Customer Service

1 Hacker Way

Menlo Park, CA 94025

To Whom it May Concern:

On April 29, Facebook erroneously blocked my blog from the networking site. They said the blog goes against community standards for spam, but it didn’t go against any such standards when I was paying to boost various posts.

Because of the block, all links to my blog posts, included the boosted posts, have disappeared as well as the comments and discussions the posts generated. I have left messages via the onsite support center concerning this matter, but all such messages have been ignored.

Please, a thirty-second perusal of bertramsblog.com will tell you that the blog is not spam. It’s a personal blog, a diary of sorts, telling about my grief after the death of my husband and how I learned to survive the loss. These posts have helped tens of thousands of people deal with their own grief and were often shared on FB. Although I don’t talk about grief much anymore, writing instead about being a new homeowner, people still find my posts inspirational since the posts tell them that there is life and maybe even happiness after grief.

If you won’t unblock my blog, please refund the $355 I spend boosting articles that you have since removed from your site. You have also removed all mention of these ads, but I can send you documentation of these payments on Paypal.

Thank you for your consideration.

Pat Bertram

https://www.facebook.com/PatBertramAuthor/

https://www.facebook.com/patbertram

https://bertramsblog.com/

Update on Garage Update

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the status of my garage and mentioned that the electrician was supposed to come and garage door delivered on Thursday. Well, here it is: Thursday.  I paused here to check to make sure it was Thursday. Considering how easily I lose track of the days, it could have been any day, but yes. It is Thursday. But no garage door and no electrician.

Apparently, because of The Bob, the lumberyard has no delivery people available. (From what I gather, the delivery guy is making twice on unemployment than he would make if he were working.) And the electricians — who knows. Maybe they want a four-day weekend for Memorial Day. (Yep, Monday is Memorial Day. I had to check that, too. Seems way too early to me.) A greater problem is that all the electricians in the area are backed up for months. The contractor had to beg them to come. It used to be that he’d do the work himself and then have the an electrician check his work before the inspector came, but the new code enforcer has vetoed that. (Weird that a such a small town has both a code enforcer and a building inspector checking everything and each other.)

So, we’ll see. The contractor is planning on being here most of next week, and if no emergency jobs come his way, maybe part of the following week. It should be interesting to see how many of the started jobs they can finish in that time — not just the garage, but the basement (fixing the cracks in the walls and painting them, concreting the last section of the floor, installing a sump pump), as well as myriad less vital jobs.

I’m in a dilemma here — he’s worried about having no other jobs lined up (he’s usually far behind, but too many people have cancelled out on him, not wanting non-family members around the house) so I’d like to send good thoughts and best wishes his way, but I am also aware that if he has no other jobs to do, he’s more or less stuck with me. Not that he minds doing my work; I think it’s more that I’m patient and forgiving of delays as well as affording him a bit of an emergency cushion, so if he finishes my work, there goes the cushion. But from my point of view — how wonderful it would be to have a garage, a basement rather than a dungeon, a yard that isn’t cluttered with building materials. (Though I have a hunch the things will be there long after the garage is done. The lumber yard overestimated some of the materials and underestimated others, so they will have to come pick up a bunch of leftover stuff, and since they don’t have a driver . . . Well, there’s not much I can do about it.)

Despite The Bob I’m not at all worried about having the workers here, even if they do some jobs in the house (after all this time, the contractor is like family). Besides, it will be good to have people around. I really am too much alone.

I did have an amusing thought today — with all the contact tracers that are supposed to be hired at an average salary of $65,000 a year, I wondered what it would be like if I applied. Even though normally it would an intrusion into people’s lives, it wouldn’t matter to me or anyone I know. I mean, I hardly ever see anyone, and I hardly ever go anywhere, and if I do, I forget my phone half the time. So they’d be paying me for nothing. (Just a joke. There’s no way I’d ever do something like that. There’s too much surveillance now.)

For weeks now, the plan has been for them to do my garage “next week.” Maybe next week, “next week” will actually get here.

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[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.

 

 

An Insular Life

When I started with the internet, blogging first then signing up for various networking platforms, I had no patience for people who posted about the minutiae of their lives. I especially didn’t care what they ate — it didn’t seem to have any relevance in the grand scheme of a thoughtful literary life, and it certainly had nothing to do with my objective of making a name for myself as an author.

Well, here I am, a dozen or so years later, writing about my latest meal. In my defense, with the isolation, meals are basically the only thing I do of any value. And generally, if I stick to a healthy diet, my meals are boring. Salads get tiresome, as does any sort of vegetable eaten regularly for any length of time, and trying to find healthy proteins is a lost cause.

Today I decided to put some effort into making something different. (It was either this or ordering a pizza I really do not need). It might not look like much, but this spinach mushroom quiche alternative (baked eggs without a crust) turned out to be quite good.

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I’m continuing to wean myself away from the computer, which leaves me with little to do but read. Since I finished my emergency stash of books, and since my email to the library with a list of books for me to pick up curbside resulted in no action, I’m in emergency-emergency mode — immersed in The Wheel of Time, a 4,000,000 word literary work that I’ve read many times before. The best thing I can say about it (besides its length — no need to look for books to read for a long time!) is that it has to be the quintessential good vs evil story. Or more accurately — sort of good some of the time vs, mostly evil all of the time.

It’s exhausting, not just the constant conflicts between the good and evil, the good and good, and evil and evil, but the sheer amount of activity. All the characters are always on the move, traveling from one part of their world to another, on foot, by horse, or by ship.

And the food they eat is even less interesting than what I generally eat — so often, they are on short rations of porridge, cheese, dried meat, and crusty rolls or bread sometimes flecked with weevils. (I must admit, though, that bread or rolls hot from the oven does sound wonderful. Minus the weevils, of course.)

I’m getting to the point where I can’t imagine a different life, though I don’t know if that is a good thing or a not-so-good thing. But it is what I have, at least for now.

And anyway, even if I couldn’t find anything more relevant in the grand scheme of things than my insular life to write about, at least I’m still writing every day.

That’s something to the good. At least, I hope it is.

***

[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.

Yay! Back to Isolation!

I am so lost in time that I have no idea what day it is. I thought it was Tuesday. Then I reminded myself it was Wednesday. Then I decided it was still several days until Thursday when — perhaps — the garage construction workers will return.

It turns out this is Tuesday, after all. At least, I think it is.

I don’t really need to worry about time since one day is much like the one before and the one before that and probably tomorrow and many tomorrows to come, but I have to be careful to drive my car occasionally. In the winter, I can get by with driving every ten days, but when the temperatures hit the nineties, the ethanol in the gas dries out and bad gas ruins the hoses, so I have to drive about every five days. When the garage is finished, I should be able to fudge a little on driving since I won’t have to deal with the hot sun beating up my car, but meantime, I have to count the days between trips around town.

Today was a driving day, but I should have stayed home. Although I do believe that The Bob does not merit all the damage caused by closing the economy, I am still careful to maintain a safe distance from people. It’s not just because of The Bob, which isn’t a problem here, but because so many people are sick from various other ailments, and because . . . because I want to and now I have an excuse for not getting too close to strangers.

Unfortunately, this was not a good day for staying away from folks.

I limped my way into one store using my trekking pole for a cane, and a woman held the inner door for me. I stopped a few feet from her, but she continued to hold. What weird times we live in when a kind gesture becomes . . . obnoxious. I finally said, “Just go.” Then the whole Bob thing must have dawned on her because she gave me a sheepish smile and hurried away.

When I left the store, a scruffy fellow came up to me to talk about my VW Bug. He got so close I had to hold him off with my pole. He too gave a sheepish smile, but remained standing just outside the pole’s four-foot range.

Then, as I was leaving the parking lot, a car came charging out of the Dairy Queen drive thru and barely stopped in time to keep from hitting me.

Needless to say, I was glad to get safely back to the cocoon of my isolation.

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I had a surprise waiting for me — although my larkspur flowers were all purple last year, this year they are coming up pink and white and purple and lavender. It was hard to get a photo of all the different colors because they seemed to also practice some sort of distancing.

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[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 Update

It feels as if it has been months since the men were here working on my garage, but it hasn’t even been three weeks. Wow, time sure goes slow when one is having fun — or not!

There have been a couple of things stalling the work — one is that although the lumber yard ordered my door and opener over a month ago, they haven’t had anyone who could deliver it. Something to do with The Bob. People laid off due to falling revenue or out sick or some such.

Another reason is that although the contractor can do the electrical work and in fact had included it in the overall labor cost, the county demands that the work be done by a licensed electrician. I’m not exactly happy about that since it will be adding tremendously to the cost of the garage, but perhaps it won’t be as much of a financial burden as I fear. I can only hope for the best (and hope that the contractor will be able to work out a deal for me.)

There is only one licensed electrician that would agree to do the work and would agree to coordinate with the delivery of the garage door. The last I heard, they will be here Thursday. Or Friday. Or . . .

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It’s interesting to me how so much of the work I need done is dependent on other work being done. For example, I need a stoop level with the back door so I can actually use the door as a door. (That extraordinarily deep step up and done is what destroyed my knee, so I can no longer go outside that way, though it’s only me that has a problem. None of the workers have any difficulty going in and out that door, but then, they are all a lot younger and stronger than I am. And anyway, I’m the one who has to live with that hazardous step so it’s my ability or lack thereof that counts.) But that can’t be done until the concrete for the garage apron and the sidewalk from house to garage ready to be poured, and of course, none of that can be done until the garage is finished, and it can’t be finished until I get the door installed and the electricians here.

Nor can I do any landscaping or have them work on the house foundation (fill in some cracks and coat the concrete to protect it) until the garage is done and the old carport removed and . . .

You get the point.

In other words, there is no garage update because there has been no more updating the garage. But soon!

Maybe.

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[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.

Treasures in My Yard

I check in with Facebook occasionally, but I’m gradually weaning myself away. They are still blocking any links to my blog with no explanation other than that it goes against their community guidelines on spam. One of the truly annoying aspects is they keep sending me notifications telling me I need to post on my page if I want viewers, so now I purposely post spam — links to my books on Amazon and Smashwords. (Speaking of which, if you haven’t yet downloaded it, A Spark of Heavenly Fire is available as a free download from Smashwords in all ebook formats. You can find the book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1842. Be sure to use the coupon code WN85X when purchasing.)

To be honest, I’m just as glad to be staying away from people, especially those who so close-mindedly believe what they believe without taking any other idea into consideration. And usually these are the very people who pride themselves on their intelligence and open-mindedness. Me? I’m willing to take all ideas into consideration as long as they agree with my established beliefs. (And yes — that is a joke! A bad one, but still an attempt at humor. In truth, I like ideas that challenge me and help me see things in a different light, I just don’t like people dismissing my ideas out of hand and being coerced into believing what others think is true.)

I’m continuing my efforts to hearten myself, though the Bob crisis is the least of my worries. The knee is a greater problem, and I’d be more worried but I know from experience that knees take a long time to heal. Or at least mine do. The last time I damaged a knee it took over a year for it to return to normal. It’s the knee more than anything else that’s keeping me home and isolated. Since I can’t go out walking, I roam my yard, looking for treasures.

Today I was delighted to discover a wild rose in full bloom as well as a bud. These are on bushes we dug up to make room for the garage apron, and transplanted elsewhere. Since the transplants were fairly tall, I didn’t expect to have much luck with them filling out for another year or two, but I had to cut back one to keep it from spreading out over the walkway, and when I noticed how well that one did, I cut most of the others back, too. (Some that had been in the middle of a clump were nothing but long empty thorny stems with but a bit of branching at the very top, so I was afraid to lop them off.)

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The rose bushes seem to be doing well. Although I have poor luck with bulbs and no luck with seeds, I do seem to be able to keep transplants alive.

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The wild iris that is moving into my yard is also doing well, probably because it wasn’t a bulb I planted.

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The poor captive roses that got caught between the garage next door and my fence are also starting to bloom. Such a joy to see any color!

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From the photos, you might think I have a fabulous garden, but what I mostly have is dirt with a few sparse weeds, an unfinished garage, building supplies, and a displaced carport taking up most of my yard. To add to the muddle, I ordered metal shelves for the garage — fifteen feet of them in five sections. I’ll need help putting them together since each section weighs 62 pounds, but that’s not something to worry about now. The garage needs to be finished first.

Meantime, I am babying my knee, roaming the fictional world in The Wheel of Time, and being heartened by the treasures I find in my yard.

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[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.

Being Heartened

The title of this article is in keeping with my most recent blogs. In Being Me, I wrote about the punishing aspects of isolation, but how even in isolation, I am doing what I am supposed to be doing — being me. In Being Herded, I wrote about the dangers of social and cultural conditioning — being behaviorally primed — in an already dangerous situation.

Today, I need to write about being heartened, because the truth is, I am very disheartened. States are still adhering to laws and orders that were meant to protect us from a disease destined to kill off 66% percent of us. The disease hasn’t done even a fraction of the damage that had been projected, and yet the iron grip still holds. To enforce orders keeping people away from each other when it has been proven over and over again how important it is to see and touch people for overall health (and without overall health, there is no way to recover quickly from any disease, let alone The Bob) is unconscionable. I’m not saying there isn’t a danger of getting sick — there is. But It should be a choice to isolate if one wants. Older people should not be left to die alone from diseases that have nothing to do with The Bob. Loved ones should not be kept from saying goodbye.

And to see small business going under and people losing their livelihood even after the original pandemic models have proven to be drastically overinflated is heart wrenching. Oh, so many things are wrong about this situation that it makes me glad Jeff isn’t here. It would have crushed him to lose his store because of such an appalling unjustice. (Made even more unjust because small stores way more than large can offer a safe shopping experience.)

Oops. I hadn’t planned to write all that especially since I am getting disheartened again after all my efforts to hearten myself earlier this morning. And I did have a lovely morning. Since my knee still isn’t allowing walks, and since I can’t go on an adventure, I decided to go adventuring in my own yard.

It was definitely heartening to see that the larkspur I transplanted from a neighbor’s yard last year reseeded itself and is doing well. It’s especially heartening considering the fiasco of my spring bulbs. Some of the tulip buds froze, some of the daffodils never flowered, some of the bulbs never even poked up out of the ground. I’m not sure what the problem was except that I am inexperienced gardener dealing with a terrible drought and a soil that sometimes defeats even the best gardeners.

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And yet, despite the problematic conditions, some bulbs do well with a bit of water. These iris come from a bed in my neighbor’s yard, but they sneaked over the fence when I watered a nearby bush, and now they are mine to love.

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And this little cactus bud truly delights me. I transplanted the cactus from another neighbor’s yard last fall, and it withered (looked like it melted, actually). I was disappointed, but not unduly — it took a long time to get the prickles out of my gardening gloves and even my hands so I wasn’t exactly pleased with the plant. But now look! It wants to grow.

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Ah, now I feel so much better! Being heartened makes such a difference I hope you find a way to hearten yourself.

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[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.

Being Herded

[image error]Social and cultural conditioning are processes where members of society consciously or unconsciously herd the other members into behaviors and thoughts that are acceptable to the group as a whole. This form of herding one another is a great survival tool out in the wild where cooperation is necessary, but now seems to only stifle those who can’t be or won’t be herded. Conditioning is one reason it’s so hard for others to grasp the scope of grief. Not only can non-grievers not understand grief, they can’t accept it. Their every interaction with the bereft is geared toward herding grievers back into the fold of societal norms.

The jargon of grief is that of illness, of negativity, of . . . fault, as if somehow we who are grieving chose our state and now we have to overcome, heal, recover, move on, get over, return to normal. By blaming us for grieving too long, by refusing to admit that our grief is normal, by assuming our inability to respond to their herding instincts is due to our stubbornness or damaging behavior, onlookers to our grief can more comfortably return to their own lives, and leave us alone with our sorrow.

This herding is called behavior priming and is prevalent in almost all group interactions. I was painfully aware of the process after Jeff died, and I’m particularly aware of it now, when certain phrases are bandied about with no objective, it seems, other than to force us into groupthink. For example, “We’re in this together.” No, we’re not. As I’ve mentioned before, everyone is coming at this situation from their own unique point of view. A person who lives alone, who has been laid off, who is in danger of losing their home or business is not living through the same crisis as a person who still has a secure job and comes home to a loving family.

“Safer in place” is another example of a phrase used to herd folks, but again, they are simply words without any real meaning. Sure, a person who lives alone and never sees anyone is safe, but what if that “place” is a nursing home? Definitely not safe, considering that in Colorado, as in many states, the majority of deaths have taken place in nursing homes.

Which brings me to the point of this particular discourse. The most common priming comments from people who disagree with those who urge the reopening of the economy are “You don’t value life,” “You’re trying to kill people,” “You want your grandmother to die,” or variations of the same, all herding people toward a certain ideology without taking into consideration the deaths and devastation that are already occurring because of the lockdown and will continue to occur when the strictures are lifted.

Besides, if the goal was to protect the elderly, then we failed abysmally, considering all the nursing home deaths.

This is what keeps going around and around in my head. If 80% of deaths from The Bob occur in those over 60, that means 20% of deaths occur in those under 60. If you subtract out the 60% of nursing home deaths from “free range” elderly, you also get 20%. So, it seems to me that if a person isn’t in a nursing home, there is no reason to protect the elderly more than the younger folks since the death rates are more or less the same.

Just another very confusing aspect of this Bob situation.

None of my cogitation will change anything, but it does help steer me away from being primed, keeps from reacting emotionally to those trying to herd me into the fold, and allows me to ponder the various ramifications of our current situation.

And that’s all to the good. My good, anyway.

***

[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.