Enjoy the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World….

With my few clients, my work life began to form a routine. This day, interview a subject. This day, the article is due. This day, their newsletter needs to go out. That regimen allowed me to begin tubing.

What is tubing?

In the summer, you may have seen people floating down rivers in inner tubes, just enjoying the sunshine and sometimes a refreshing beverage. All that is required of you is to keep your butt from hitting any rocks as you float. And that is what I am doing when I am tubing my work. I float through the day, following the routine and doing just enough to keep any pain from occurring.

By switching my determination from striving for more clients to tubing, my body and soul relaxed in the nooks and crannies of my days. That space allowed the grief to sneak in, tears to be randomly shed, even a little creativity to emerge. It allowed me to enjoy walking the dog, chatting with my wife on lazy mornings, playing in our little garden spaces, designing and knitting a new piece.

Creating a routine made this possible. And a big part of that routine included doing the grocery shopping.

When working from home, grocery shopping requires a specific trip.

And that trip takes one to two hours because I want to do as many errands as possible. After all, one long trip equals many fewer small trips and uses less gas.

Saving money and the planet at the same time!

Along with the library and pharmacy, several grocery stores line my route. Pricing and availability must be checked EVERYWHERE! Start at a small farm market open year-round for the freshest produce. A local salvage grocery outlet provides deeply discounted laundry detergent and snacks. Then a more expensive national discount grocery store where most remaining items can be found. Finally the regular grocery store crosses the final requirements off the list.

Shopping is tiring!

Around the midpoint of the trip, a low energy point hits and a bag of chips or cookies emanates a magnetic glow. I stop resisting and grab the snack. Revived, my shopping tour continues!

The snack habit began in June while my wife was in the hospital. On the drive home each evening, I would eat a bit of cookie or some chips left over from my lunch and combine it with the sugar-free ginger ale that food service refused to leave off her tray. That tiny hit of empty sweetness and calories would get me home with just enough energy to feed the dog and myself actual food before collapsing into bed.

This loosening of my dietary morals progressed to snacking during errands. Then, because my mother taught me to be practical and save money, I started keeping a bag of Chex Mix in the car. Purchasing a larger bag was cheaper than grabbing the little snack-sized bags or candy bars. And Chex Mix has less calories than a candy bar.

At least that’s what I told myself.

And it does. I just looked it up!

I mean, as long as I don’t eat more than a cup.

Whoopsie!

Recently, as I got ready for the seven hour drive to visit my Dad, I stocked up on a few additional snick-snacks to eat in the car. And when I returned, the leftovers remained with the thought that they would fulfill my snacking needs.

Sooooooo, I have chewy “protein” granola bars to go with my Chex Mix now.

Since my organizational skills are uninspired in vehicles, the granola bars stayed in their box in the passenger seat until Mack sat on them while accompanying me on a quick outing.

I guess he doesn’t like granola.

Anyway, they were in the box and in their foil wrappers, so dog butt germs didn’t touch them. They didn’t even get misshapen!

Then I picked up a bag of Double Dark Chocolate Milano cookies at the salvage grocery store (expiration barely past!).

The time had come.

Let’s build this snack station!

When I got home from that grocery trip, I organized the snacks in my car door so they would fit: cookies in the middle, Chex Mix bag curled to one side and the three remaining granola bars on the other.

All the diet books and blogs I’ve read throughout my life looked down at me and shook their heads.

But eating in the car doesn’t have calories, right?

Calories aren’t the only danger at the snack station. On Saturday, the car’s interior had reached boiling levels when I opened the bag of Milanos. They looked fine. I pulled out a slippery cookie and the melted chocolate dribbled all over my hand.

Whoopsie!

Two delectable bites ended the cookie layers. Licking the chocolate off my hands left them sticky and grubby. Maybe I could hit the bathroom before starting my final shopping run? The hand sanitizing wipes appeared before me in the grocery store airlock (that big room where the carts live and then you go through another door into the main part of the store). A thorough wipe with one of those and I didn’t even get chocolate on the cart handle.

Because I’m an adult.

And the snack station saves me money! Those weak moments in line at the cash register, the ones where my bored hands are suddenly lonely for a treat? Those are alleviated by dreaming of my fully stocked car door. And if my grocery cart includes something for my snack station? My excited mind fills with “When will I eat it? Where will I store it?”

What a delicious puzzle!

The snack station doesn’t have a drink bar though, so I am required to purchase a refreshing beverage during my travels. A seltzer makes me feel fancy and special, so I’ll grab one of those green bottles of “italian sparkling water” out of the cooler at Aldis. “Yes, please! Don’t I look sophisticated now? Ooh-la-LA!”

Speaking of eating in the car, on my recent road trip, I also discovered the best way to eat Chicken McNuggets on the go. Pour the sauce into the bottom of the to-go bag and just dump the nuggets on top. No need to bother with dipping! Do you like a little barbeque sauce on your fries? The easy life has arrived!

See? Handy hints for living. Just what you come here for!

At some point, I’ll come to my senses and the snack station will turn a little healthy before disappearing altogether.

Or will it? As I type, I notice that an additional snack station is forming on my desk.

Whoopsie!

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All of this new gardening gave me a little more energy, and my neglected compost bin allured me with the promise of nourishment!

Enjoy the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World…

Every time I toss a scrap into the garbage, I feel responsible for climate change.

I mean, I’m not an idiot. I know that the entirety of climate change isn’t my fault. I recycle. The small forest on the west side of our property serves as a shelter for lightning bugs and bunnies and foxes. My veggie garden isn’t much this year, but usually I manage to grow enough to reduce a little pressure on the global food system.

But I want to do more. I make lists of what I would like to do to help the earth heal. And when I eliminate all of the things that I don’t have the resources for, only one item remains.

Composting.

Composting our veggie scraps and eggshells and tea leaves and coffee grounds instead of putting them in the landfill is one small, simple change I can make to fight the ongoing deterioration of Earth. And I have the resources to do it!

The room: Our little manufactured home sits on almost an acre of hillside, sloping down into a wooded ravine. Our compost bin nestles discreetly in the edge of the trees about thirty feet from our house.

The equipment: The previously mentioned 3’ x 3’ black plastic compost bin and a white ceramic jar with a cute purple wooden lid to hold the scraps on our kitchen workspace.

The reward: Free dirt! I paid $3.50 for a bag of bargain potting soil at the hardware store the other day, which was a deal but still…. I could have free, super-nutritious dirt. Win-win!

The problem: I’m lazy.

How lazy? Well, did you wonder why that cute little purple wooden lid is wooden and purple instead of a white ceramic lid? At one point, a neighbor dog stole the original lid off of the jar and dropped it on the road where it shattered. A friend built a little lid for the jar with measurements provided by Stephanie who then painted it purple. This covering keeps any disgusting smells inside the jar.

Now, you may be asking yourself how a dog managed to grab a lid off a jar that sits on our kitchen counter. Do I live near a house of dog super spies? Did one sneak inside for a daring snatch-and-grab?

Nope. He just nabbed it off the deck.

You see, my normal way to move the kitchen scraps to the compost bin is to fill up the jar and let it languish on the counter until flies buzz. Then, I move it out onto the deck and the flies migrate there.

Interesting Fact: When you leave the veggie ends and eggshells in the jar long enough, the composting process begins. Removing the lid releases a scent not unlike a lightly-used outhouse. It’s simultaneously disgusting and reassuring.

Because I can’t stand to open that jar in the house, my watering can fills it with water so the sludge pours easily into the compost heap.

Compost composts. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

So, it’s easy to dump the scraps into the jar, but carrying them the thirty feet downhill to the bin? The trek back up that steep slope strains my legs, and I have to put on actual shoes. With laces.

And I have to do it every day.

It’s just so much work.

Oh, I am a lazy housewife!

But I think I’ve finally found the key to unlock my inner composter. The one who won’t leave the jar on the deck. The one who will actually dump the scraps in the bin almost every single day.

Unless it rains. It gets too slick to get back up the hill if it’s raining.

So here’s the key!

Paper sticks out of the edges of the drawers of my filing cabinet. Time to shred financial documents from my old Colorado life!

All of that shredded paper can go into the compost heap and turn into beautiful, nutritious, free dirt.

So how does adding this other chore undermine my laziness?

By transforming the entire project into a covert operation!

You see, when shredding boring documents, no one will ever release you from the never-ending SLOG!

However, when you are shredding “evidence,” someone could appear at any moment to stop you!

HAHA! Try and stop me from shredding these decades-old financial docs no one cares about anymore!

But I need enough green matter to add to the “evidence” so it transforms into dirt. Compost needs equal parts brown matter like paper and green matter like fresh produce scraps, tea leaves, and eggshells to break down. Oh, and water! You have to water your compost to keep it processing, but not equal parts to the brown and green matter. Just a little splash along with the green matter works!

Before you think that I’m deluding myself with this plan, back in the spring, I had a rhythm going. Once a day, no matter what, I’d dump the contents of the jar into the compost bin. Then, I’d rinse the jar and put it back on the counter to be refilled. No matter if it had only one onion skin or the entire remains of a veggie dinner, each day included a trek down the hill to the bin.

That worked great! No flies. No grossness. Walking up the hill seemed less trouble than I imagined each time I repeated the feat.

In May and June, Stephanie’s health issues, resulting hospital trip, and recovery took all of my extra energy. The compost jar got ignored. When Monika, my sister-in-law, arrived for her visit, it had already been mouldering for a couple of weeks.

Much more than me, Monika is a cleaner. I will live in grossness, only vacuuming when the pet hair fluffs into the air behind our feet as we walk through the den.

Monika cleans as soon as she sees something that needs to be cleaned, an admirable quality I have yet to imitate in the almost thirty years I’ve been a housewife. Within a few moments of her arrival, the house was cleaner than it had been since our wonderful housecleaner stopped making regular visits.

Anyway, a couple of weeks after she arrived, she began remarking on the abundance of flies. I moved the compost jar onto the deck. The flies disappeared from the house.

It was a miracle! A lazy, lazy miracle.

Now we were two more months down the road. Each time a carrot peel or tomato core took a dive into the trash can, killing-the-planet-level guilt and shame crashed into me.

The planet needed me to clean out the compost jar.

And “evidence” needed elimination.

After a thoroughly disgusting evening (who knew that veggie leavings could leave a poopy skid mark on the bottom of a white ceramic jar?), the compost jar is clean and ready for more veggie scraps.

My resolve is renewed.

A huge stack of “evidence” waits for destruction.

Sometimes, you have to play dirty to save the world.

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Come to a place where time loosens its grip.
Where the salty breeze blows away the static.
Where creativity floats back into our spirits.

Last October, my friend, Annette Naber, approached me about creating a special retreat combining nature and creativity at one of her favorite places on the planet, Chincoteague Island, Virginia.

The little girl who fell in love with Misty of Chincoteague screamed with delight, but I played it cool with a quick “Of course! Let’s do it.”

So, this October 8-11, we invite you to cross the water into the embrace of nature and creative expression for a four-day creativity and nature retreat on Chincoteague Island, Virginia.

Join Annette Naber, author of Seasons of a Wild Life, and me in my role as author and Kaizen-Muse Certified Creativity Coach for a long weekend gathering to rest, breathe and remember who we are. We will leave this space reinvigorated, uplifted, and inspired.

How does creativity blossom in you when it is given space, rest, and reverence?

Let’s find out.

Click here for more information

Gardening heals me, mentally and spiritually. There’s something about being outside with the birds, bees, and butterflies, digging in the dirt, planting seeds or transplanting small plants. I’d blame it on the hope that each seed and plant carries, the hope for a burgeoning crop of tomatoes or herbs or flowers. But my mother, like most of my relatives, was a gardener and gardening, even just on my little deck, connects me to those ancestors. Touching soil and potting up plants feels like I am embracing them, as well as creating a healing and peaceful space to enjoy with those still with me.

Enjoy the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World!

I love mint.

This may not sound controversial to you, but gardeners know what I mean. Our love/hate relationship with this beautiful smelling weed extends so far into the past that the knowledge of planting mint only in pots seems to spring spontaneously into the mind of every new gardener as they begin their first endeavor.

Or perhaps that’s just their neighbor leaping over the fence screaming, “Good GOLLY, don’t put that mint in the ground!”

Sure, it’s useful for a cooling sip at the end of a long, hot day of digging. The happy leaves lean into the sun, and a brush of your hand releases a sharp, sweet scent.

However, mint, when allowed its freedom, invades gardens like the Russian army diving into the Ukraine. Gardeners attempt to contain it in pots, controlling its borders with ruthless regard. Runners leap out of their planters in the dead of night and bury their roots in a new location.

Once escaped, the plants flow across the dirt, rapidly filling any bare spots.

This love affair with mint began when I was in high school. Mint got a foothold behind a shed in the backyard. Each week, we’d mow it down. And each week, the mint grew back. It was my favorite part of the mowing process, the lawnmower ripping into the sweet stems and leaves and surrounding me with that fresh scent. It cooled and refreshed me in the oppressive humidity and unrelenting sun.

Ahhhhhhh!

The summer after we moved to North Carolina, I visited my mother to plunder her garden for free plants. She had a patch of chocolate mint, and we ripped a piece from the dirt. It had a long stem with short, threadlike roots sticking out along its length. “I don’t know how it got here,” she told me. “Plants have a mind of their own.”

I worried that it would survive. She snickered. We potted up two bits of chocolate mint into matching rectangular terracotta planters.

The mint pots flanked the bottom of the stairway up to our deck. I grouped the two chocolate mint plants together on one side with a spearmint plant that I’d gotten from a local nursery on the other. That one had a large pot and soared tall. The chocolate mint lingered low, with a top height of about eight inches.

I left them at the bottom of the stairway all year round for a couple of years. The hardy herbs would die back in the winter and reemerge in the summer, providing leaves for a minty limeade concoction (I occasionally add rum and call it a mojito) or a cup of fresh mint tea.

My mother-in-law came over to help us get the house ready for my wife’s birthday party in January of 2019. At some point, she decided that it was time to get rid of the planters at the bottom of the stairway. I didn’t know exactly what happened, but remember the horror I felt when I went out to discover an empty place where the mint had been. And then I found the empty planters.

I walked through the door, roaring like a dragon. “WHERE ARE THE MINT PLANTS?”

She held her ground. “They were just dirt.”

“The plants are dormant. That’s the mint my mother gave me.” I was so distressed, I could barely speak.

“I can put it back.”

“Please. If you can. I am very upset and trying to keep it together.”

Did I really say that? Just like that? Yes. Yes I did. Like a robot. Because I was trying not to weep and throw a fit because the mint that my mother had given me and that I treasured was GONE!

And that was before my mother was even sick. I don’t even want to imagine what would happen now. I definitely would not contain my upset in robot-talk.

My mother-in-law disappeared outside and returned moments later to tell me that the mint was back. I thanked her and we continued our party preparations. The next day, I added a little dirt and hope to the planters. And then I moved them up onto the deck where I could keep an eye on them.

But, the damage had been done.

The next summer, a little fluff of mint leaves cuddled into the dirt at the bottom of the stairs.

Over the next few years, the mint made a happy home in the rocks and red clay. I know I should eradicate it but 1) my mother gave it to me and now she’s dead which means it’s SACRED mint, so that’s going to be up to the next homeowner and 2) it sits by the garbage can so whenever I pull that can to the roadside, it trundles over the mint and releases that beautiful scent. I cannot recommend a mint patch by the garbage enough! Every once in a while, the lawn guys get excited and weed-eat it to the ground, but the plants spring back up, growing thicker and denser with the attention.

Meanwhile, on the deck, the mint in the pots faltered. Last summer, I coddled them with plant food, but this year, none of them re-emerged. Volunteer moss roses and pansies stole their places.

But I had my mother’s spirit to guide me…and the sacred mint patch flourishing by the steps.

Time for a plant shuffle! I assumed that the plants had used up all of the soil’s nutrition and so dumped the spent soil into my nearby “flower” garden (it’s mostly weeds and a scrappy azalea that refuses to die). A set of planting buckets hang from a purple-painted pallet leaning against the wall of our house. The flowers moved there. After refreshing the dirt in the rectangular pots, I walked down the steps to my little mint patch.

I scratched at the dense clay with a trowel and hand rake, and ripped a section of mint away from the ground. Back on the deck, the scraggly roots plunged into the now-nutritious soil, planted just below the surface so the mint would have a fighting chance.

That was a couple of weeks ago. The little plants are growing strong, gaining the strength they need for the winter ahead.

Meanwhile, the sacred mint peeks out from its sanctuary, reassuring me that I can always come back for more.

Continue reading the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World…

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First a nap. Then a dog walk. How about easing into a little creativity?

Enjoy the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World!

Nightly lavishings of puppy love and help with the housework and cooking from my sister-in-law resulted in little bursts of energy.

So, my creativity visited one afternoon in early July when berries called me from the refrigerator.

“LA-aaaaa! Don’t you want to come play with us? We want to make jam!”

Jam? Hmmmm….. An earlier escape from my computer to my friend’s house had added blackberries to my larder. A couple of years ago he began inviting me to come up and pick over his blackberry bushes. I get one pick a year, and make the most of it. Blackberry jam lifts my peanut butter toast to bliss, and this recipe for blackberry frozen yogurt I discovered during the pandemic…. Well. Remember that one summer day when you were so hot you thought your insides might burst into flame? And your mom showed up with a bowl of freshly churned ice cream, littered with fruit that sparkled when that cool sweetness rumbled onto your tongue and chilled your mouth before putting out that fire inside?

Yeah. It’s better than that.

Perhaps I could manage a couple of pots of jam.

“Jam! Jam! Jam!” They persisted, and I remembered some grocery store strawberries that needed to be used before mold snatched them away.

“Woohoo!” They cried as I appeared in the kitchen, creativity sizzling as I gathered ingredients. The salvageable strawberries got quartered, blueberries tumbled into the bowl and a full pint of blackberries joined the jam session. Sugar, lemon juice and zest completed the concoction.

Now onto the stove quickly-quickly before I lost momentum!

I stirred the mixture over medium-high heat and cautioned myself not to cook too long. After all, I didn’t want to repeat my Marmalade Mistake and have Mixed Berry Candy! Perhaps a thermometer to monitor when the mixture got to 220 degrees? At that point, the jam would be set.

Brilliant idea!

The candy thermometer was in the bottom of a wooden wine box where I hold all of the extra gadgets that I rarely use. No time to dig through that pile!

Wait! A digital meat thermometer lived in my close-and-handy drawer. That would work fine!

I dumped it out of its plastic sleeve and hit the “on” button of this very polite device.

Thermometer: Hello! Oh, I’m so excited to be out of the drawer! What are we cooking today?

Me: Let’s see how hot this is….

Thermometer: Oh, wow! That’s warm. 190 degrees, 191, 192… Gosh, it’s still getting hotter. What are we cooking?

Me: It’s boiling but it doesn’t say 212 degrees? I wonder why that is?

Thermometer: This seems wrong. How warm do you need this meat to be? 170 degrees is well-done. For any animal. What are you cooking?

Me: Is this going to gel? Or do I need to get it hotter?

Thermometer: I mean, really, this is getting out of control! 210, 211…

Me: Looks like it’s almost there….

Thermometer: [flashing its screen] STOP! STOP IT! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT, YOU MONSTER!

Startled, I zipped the thermometer out of the scalding jam and hit the power button to stop the diatribe.

Lesbian Housewyfe Rule #45: When the thermometer panics, it’s time to put the jam in jars.

Handy Housewyfing Tip: Don’t use a meat thermometer to cook jam.

And…Always put the candy thermometer into the close-and-handy drawer for unexpected jam-making.

I let the poor, abused meat thermometer calm down after its escape and turned off the flame.

In a taste test, all three of the berries’ flavor shone through the combination. I celebrated the return of creative experiments as summer’s sweetness spread delightfully across my peanut butter toast.

The impulse to experiment was returning with tasty results! Perhaps further investigation would be required….

What could I jam next?

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Okay, everyone. We’ve been through the wringer! The healing process began in the last piece as I took my first nap in ages. Now, the healing power of family and pets—especially pets!—takes center stage.

Enjoy the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World!

(Yes, I changed the title. It came to me in the middle of the night and I like it so much better. What do you think?)

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My sister-in-law showing up when she did was a life saver. Every time I got out of bed, I felt like a bag of glass shards, tinkling together and cutting into the sides of the bag in the worst possible way. Though I desperately wanted to believe I could take care of everything despite the pain, she took on the house and meals. That generous action gave me the space to rest, grieve and begin mending all those messy rips left by those sharp edges.

She also brought her big galoot of a dog, Eiger, with her. He was a welcome addition to the household, bringing joy wherever he went with his giant “Bow-OOOO” and wiggly little docked tail on this giant dog body. He was always so excited to see you and loved you unconditionally.

And helped us to make a very important realization…

Our cute little darling sweetie-pie puppa is a jealous-bealous doggo.

He’s been pampered and loved on all by himself since Dolce died. Her death left a hole in our hearts and lives, and Mack constantly attempts to fill it all by himself.

Mack loves being the only pet. He knows that the best proportion of humans to pets is two to one!

We think of Mack as this chill little dude, getting along with everyone. But really, he wants everyone—people, dogs, cats, any living being—to pay attention to him.

Only him.

When my sister-in-law came for an extended visit this summer, she brought her Bernese/Border Collie mix, Eiger, along to entertain his aunties. Eiger is a big galoot of a fellow. His old, dark face is now invaded with light grey hair.

I have to say, I love a big dog of love. Not that I don’t love our little Mack-Mack, he’s the best, but there’s something about a big dog leaning its body against you that is so comforting.

And Eiger doesn’t bark. Instead he bellows out a big “Bow-OOO” of excitement anytime something interesting happens. Did the mailbox clink? “Bow-OOO!” Did someone knock on the door? “Bow-OOO!” Did my wife move from the bedroom into the den? “Bow-OOO!”

Mack, on the other hand, rarely makes a sound. When a knock hits our door, he perks up and runs to it, nose smushed up into the crack. His whole body pushes through the opening ahead of me, despite my protests, and he leaps out to attack the hapless invader with silent love leapings.

We tend to not be jealous people, glad for him to demand pets from guests. When they leave, he’ll sit at the top of the steps of our deck to watch them leave and then returns to us. Goodbye only means it’s time to take his usual place on the couch again, or settle into his spot on top of the afghan on top of the dog pillow on the floor.

What? Is that a little over the top? Nothing is too good for our Mack!

But Eiger’s presence revealed Mack’s deep dark secret: Jealousy.

I suspect that’s why he’s so agreeable and adorable. His little eyes raise to yours and you are caught in little puddles of love. A cuddler, even on hot days when cuddling isn’t welcomed. He wants to be in contact with you, his most loved person.

Right now. In this moment. When no one else can be found.

He’s very much a “love the one you’re with” kind of fellow.

A “dawg,” one might say.

Whenever we return from a trip, whether two weeks in California or a quick trip to the grocery store, he spins in excited circles and rears up, waving his skinny front legs in the air like Kermit announcing the next guest on the Muppet Show. His feet land on our legs for balance. When we lean down to pet him, he sinks down onto his butt with his feet keeping him upright against our shins and his eyes lift to ours. “I Love YOU,” his eyes say. “You and only YOU.”

He does this with most people he knows, friends, family members, our postal delivery person. One of his favorite people in the world is our former housekeeper (oh, say the day will come again when I can hire her to clean our home regularly!). His little doggie heart thrills whenever she visits.

Now, Monika, Eiger’s mom, has joined the list of favorite people. Thus, Eiger and Mack are warring over Monika’s attention. Or rather, Mack is warring with Eiger.

I’m not sure that Eiger knows there’s a war on.

Not that he’s stupid. Just that he’s so big that he can mostly ignore the jealous little dog trying desperately to draw attention to himself. And when he can’t ignore it anymore, a quick low noise, it’s less a growl than a grumble, escapes from his throat. “Pay attention to me instead of that guy!”

And it works. “Yes, Eiger,” I’ll say as I snuggle my hand into the soft fur behind his ears. “Good boy!” If I can work it out to be petting Mack at the same time, they both close their eyes to ignore what my other hand is doing.

The other night, Mack put himself to bed early, heading into the bedroom and making himself comfortable. While I remained on the couch, knitting and chatting with my sweetie and her sister, Eiger looked up at me with “love darts,” my sister-in-law’s name for the large pup’s adoration. “Oh, Eiger, you good boy,” I exclaimed and reached down to give him pets. The suddenly wide awake Mack galloped down the hall and skidded into a perfect sit at my feet, eyes pointed up to snag mine in a lasso of love.

My sister-in-law and I dissolved into giggles. “Who’s a jealous-bealous Mack-Mack?” I asked my little love-addict as we both bestowed adoration on our respective dogs.

And Mack zipped away from me to dive onto the sofa beside his auntie, pressing his body against her legs and inserting his head beneath her free hand.

“Okay, buddy. If that’s what you want,” I said and walked down the hallway toward the bedroom. “Goodnight!”

He was in my place on the bed, all four legs in the air, before I crossed the threshold of the room.

No matter how much he snuggles with my mother-in-law, no matter how longingly he gazes after our friends leaving the house, no matter how often he deserts me for a stranger’s reluctant pat on the head, he always returns to us.

No need to be jealous of that.

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While my wife laid in the hospital, her sister moved into our guest room. She had planned a move to the east coast and now settled in North Carolina to help us out during this recovery.

When we arrived home, she helped me steady my darling on those nine steps into the house, nine steps I’d thought were insurmountable for her weakened body.

My sweetie crowed her success. She was home, out of pain and leaping into her recovery.

My sister-in-law planned dinner.

Me? I melted into the couch across the room from where my wife sat, happy in her recliner. Her presence mended the picture of our home.

Through my mother’s death, my honey’s alarming mini-stroke, the death of our sweet cat, getting fired, the wedding vacation, the traumatic hospital stay, I kept working, kept writing, kept figuring out what needed to happen next in our financial life.

During those ten days of medical system-induced trauma, writing work continued in hospital rooms, the cafeteria and waiting areas. That copywriting gig began for the company that fired me transformed our relationship during our vacation. An award letter arrived with the good news of six months of relief from a COVID-era mortgage grant that I’d applied for earlier in the year. Conversations continued with the folks from the financial assistance nonprofit. Only one creditor out of five had refused my payment plan which started teeny-tiny but promised payment in full. While my income remained low, the combination of those resources plus Medicaid and SNAP kept us fed, sheltered and supported medically.

Was it wise to keep up this level of work during all this trauma?

Maybe. Maybe not. No other choice was available to me.

But in that moment, looking across the room at the love of my life happy and secure and out of pain, oxygen finally penetrated to the deepest part of my lungs. The band of grief and fear cracked and hope trickled down my cheeks.

Surviving resilience sounds redundant, but for me, this word combination makes sense. Resilience means standing back up every dang time I get shoved back down on the ground. It means not giving up. No surrender.

Got a rejection? Time to send that pitch to someone else.

Experiencing a personal tragedy? Bill collectors do not care.

Spent the whole day walking hospital halls to find answers? Still got to walk the dog.

And there are times that I want to give up. I want to let this life slip away and go back to doing something simple. I want to dissolve into the sadness and lie in a heap on the floor and have everyone take care of me. I want to sit on the couch and open the door and let the dog take care of itself.

But I don’t. I keep sending out those pitches and doing any work that results. I allow myself to sob for a minute and then pull myself together and take care of what needs to be taken care of. I do my errands around town and return to the house.

Because ultimately, I love my life. I know that I will get bored doing something simple. I know that I will get bored just being sad all the time. And I know that I love my little family and feel empowered when I am able to fulfill all of my responsibilities.

What can I say? I like being the head of the household.

And that’s where the survival comes in. Surviving resilience is about being able to endure that rising again and again. Sometimes it’s surprising people who didn’t think you could do it. Sometimes it’s a grimace of determination before making that next phone call. Sometimes it’s asking friends, family and allies for help. Sometimes it’s sobbing until the tears stop and then taking a nap. Sometimes it’s falling in love with a redbud tree in full bloom while walking the dog.

Surviving resilience means saying yes to life, to what it means to be alive, to return to the business and the joy of life. Again and again and again.

While I needed to continue working, perhaps I could take a break from striving. After all, no matter how fast I tried to run, grief transformed the ground into deep shifting sand. Who was I kidding? Perhaps all I could do was stroll. Maybe meandering would get me just as far as the fast floundering of the past few months.

Right now, grief rimmed everything. I could try to hide away or land on my feet or put all of those uncomfortable emotions in little boxes, but the sadness trickled in like spilled glitter. My mother was gone, and my kitty-companion was gone, and I’d made this decision to go out on my own and it was all going so wrong so fast.

The panic and shock of grief were dissolving my creativity and joy. This isn’t to say there weren’t moments of laughter and wry recognition of ironic circumstances. But, to continue to support my family, I had to figure out a way to unhook the constant numbness, to pull back from the edge and move forward again.

Time to find a pace that would keep me moving and producing my creative work while respecting my grief. To give myself the space, time and tools to travel through the grief, to recognize when it crested and harvest whatever creative inspirations appeared when it ebbed.

It was time to rest. To ask nothing more of myself than the barest bones of what I needed to do. To change that floundering panicked stumble into a meander.

To make my main endeavor recovering from the pain and grief and upheaval left behind by this ridiculous and cruel series of events that had steamrolled me into pancaked cartoon of myself.

How to begin? Maybe with a nap.

How to Take a Nap

“Just try,” my mother smiles down at me. The sunlight filters through the cotton curtains, drawn to soften the impact. “Close your eyes and relax. You need a nap, honey.”

I want to be a good girl. I really do. Eyes closed, I lie on the bed and listen to her leave the room. My tiny body goes limp but my brain remains alert, wondering what will happen next in the book I’m reading, what we’ll have for supper, and how to get my fingers to do the right thing so I can play the piano.

Napping has never been a strength, despite the fact that I come from a long line of nappers. My grandfather napped during the warmest parts of the day back in Arkansas, sleeping through the 100+ degree temperatures that dominated the hours between 11am and 2pm. After lunch each day, he’d stretch out on the floor and grab an hour of sleep before heading back out to the garden and workshop. Summers, for him, meant growing food for our family. A farmer since he was a child, he’d rise early and head out to the field as dawn broke. Even with the mid-day nap, he’d be back in bed by 7 or 7:30pm, so he could get several hours of work done between dawn and when the worst of the heat drove him back inside.

My parents relished that mid-day nap as well. Each day after lunch, Mom and Dad, if they were home, would sleep for at least a half-hour. Just a little nip-nap to make it through the rest of the day. This moment of repose got them through evening meetings with parishioners, bible studies and choir practices.

That’s probably why I have that memory of Mom putting tiny me down for a nap, so she could nap, too. Or maybe my brother and I were just being more bickersome than usual.

Anyway, I must have napped sometimes. But even my kindergarten teacher gave up and let me select a book to read while everyone else slept. Settled on my sleeping mat, surrounded by the soft breathing of nappers, quiet reading soothed my body as much as a nap. Perhaps that’s why I love Sunday morning reading, where I sip my tea and read a book in bed while my wife sleeps beside me.

Heaven!

However, now I needed to nap. To get that rest that eluded me during the night. And even as the sunlight streamed through the window, my body was cooperating.

As I struggled to keep my eyelids open, I told my wife that I was going to take a nap. “Good luck,” she said, since she knows my difficulty, and went back to scrolling on her phone.

Time to march myself into the bedroom, lay down on the bed and close my eyes.

Even though exhaustion ruled my body, my consciousness would not disappear. In the past, I tried meditation to relax. And, while it stopped me from grinding my teeth, I rarely slept. Not that sleeping is the point of meditation. But emptying my mind was pretty hard. When I discovered that the point of meditation was actually training your mind to focus, I’d found a way for this relaxation to make me more productive. And a way to think of my inability to clear my mind as the point of the exercise. I wasn’t failing at meditation! I was performing as I was supposed to.

Whew!

I always want to get an A.

So I decided to focus on meditating instead of trying to sleep.

And my wife heard the snores from the living room.

Napping achieved!

Click here to continue the healing process with dogs in the next chapter of Surviving (What Feels Like) the End of the World…

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Before you begin to read this tale of the trials of negotiating the medical world as a caregiver for a loved one, you need to know that the professionals seen in this tale are real, but also that their unkindnesses are the exceptions to the rule. Most nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, and other hospital personnel are kind, caring humans who help as much as they are able. They press when we need to be pressed, cushion when we need to be cushioned, and solve medical mysteries that we can’t untangle.

The people described in this piece were working in the medical field in 2022, burned out from working through the inundation of the COVID pandemic and still shuddering with the trauma from that event. I also place blame for these circumstances on the for-profit medical company that bought this hospital system and slashed staff in order to squeeze every bit of cash out of it.

That said, here’s the next chapter of The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience.

I know what it means to be a good patient advocate. Due to my wife’s ongoing health issues, I’ve spent a lot of time politely and persistently propelling medical professionals into action. Also, I make them laugh and bring random baked goods to share with the entire floor because I’m no dummy. I’ve learned how to support my wife in her mind and body so that I am an asset to any care team, and make sure to let the nurses and CNA’s (certified nursing assistants) know I’m here to help them and my wife simultaneously.

But it also means that there are times when I have to declare enough to be enough.

And then it’s time to “Thelma & Louise.”

To “Thelma & Louise” means to break out of the medical system’s structures, head for the hills, and hope for the best.

The first time we thelma-&-louise’d, my wife had been sitting alone on a hard chair in a back examination room for two hours when I gave up on the doctor.

“Wanna get out of here?” I texted from my COVID-mandated exile in the car.

“You mean it?”

“Yep. Get up, get out of that room, and head for the front. I’ll meet you by the door.”

We are not ladies who lie back and wait, trusting that doctors will do the right thing.

We know that we’re all human. We all make mistakes. And sometimes you have to trust your body and take the reins away from those very human doctors.

During the wedding trip, my wife had been battling back pain. The final bit of air travel sharpened it to an unbearable level and the day after we landed, I called 911 as she alternately screamed and cried.

One of the fabulous things about being on Medicaid is that there’s no worry about being charged hundreds of dollars for calling 911 for a medical emergency. When we lived in North Carolina, simply being poor wasn’t enough to be enrolled but the effects of my wife’s stroke labeled her “disabled”—the magic word! With those two items checked back in 2017, she was enrolled in Medicaid and I could feel free to rely on emergency services as we searched for the solution to her terrible pain.

Frankly, except the whole “being poor enough to qualify” part, Medicaid is the BOMB for medical insurance. Just saying, in case you are wondering what I think of when I say that I support universal healthcare.

On the first visit, the ER sent us home with pain meds that didn’t do much to alleviate the pain.

On the second visit, the ER performed a roundabout accusation that my sweetie only visited to get pain meds.

That is, until we insisted on an actual solution to the problem. The combination of her obvious pain, the refusal to leave until someone helped us, and her digestive system breaking down in a way that I will not describe here finally convinced them that something had to be done.

Late that evening, the nurses assured us that my darling was on the way to a real hospital bed in an actual room. I needed feeding and knew that Mack the Dog needed the same back at the house, so I left her in hands I almost trusted and returned home to rest for what turned out to be more a medical battle than a healing respite.

Three days later, emergency surgery for spinal stenosis and a herniated disk released the compressed nerves which had been not only causing pain but affecting her lower body functions. Nine days after that, she had been prescribed inpatient short-term rehab in a skilled nursing facility and we were waiting for transport to pick her up.

Short-term rehab seemed the best option. I didn’t see how I could manage to get her up the nine steps into our home, and how I could help her effectively once I got her inside. She seemed so weak, and my belief in my ability to take adequate care of her by myself just wasn’t there. I felt like I needed her to be a little more able before coming home.

The time for transport to the facility came and passed. Neither of us thought much of it, as understaffing throughout the medical system meant we were often waiting for hours for something that should have been dealt with in minutes. Waiting for an hour past pick up time didn’t ring any alarm bells.

However, at an hour and a half, I began roaming the halls for answers.

I discovered her most recently assigned nurse at a desk on the hallway, staring at nothing on a computer screen. And when I say nothing, I mean the screen was black. Frankly, I can’t remember if he turned it off when he saw me coming. All I know is that, either way, staring at an unpowered monitor made sense given the level of overwhelm I experienced from the hospital staff.

He told me that transport to the facility that we’d been expecting had been canceled because the facility had denied her.

An hour and a half past the point where transport was supposed to arrive, he told me this. After I’d had to track him down. What the what?!

“The case manager acted like she’d already told you when she told me.”

Case managers who never show up and nurses who don’t bother to even do the required regular check of her vitals. Two of the many reasons I stayed with her all day, every day of her stay, going home only to eat and sleep in my own bed so I’d be ready to fight again the next day.

“I wish anyone had bothered to tell us,” I responded.

“If she wants to AMA, you’re on your own. I can’t give you any assistance.”

Whoa, brother! Who said anything about leaving against medical advice? That was a leap. He went back to staring at the empty computer screen.

I still didn’t feel like she’d be safe at home, but I knew this news would make her want to leave on this late Friday afternoon. This particular hospital visit had been hellish. That no one had bothered to tell us she wasn’t leaving today, that the precertification process that takes two days would start again two days from now…. That was gonna be a big nope. She’d insist on thelma-&-louise’ing.

Knowing that no help was available from that useless waste of a skin sack, I circled to the nurse’s station and explained the situation. The CNA answering the calls from patients who needed help looked at me with dead eyes. The workload caused by severe understaffing at this hospital had driven all of the caring out of her. It was 4:30 on a Friday. She took the time to assure me that all of the case management employees had gone home.

A not-useless RN finally got the case manager’s superior on the phone for me. I talked to her, explaining that I needed more information or some sort of anything to convince my wife not to AMA. They retorted that if she left AMA she could still get into an inpatient facility. Also, the information that Useless Waste gave me was false. The facility she’d been accepted by hadn’t denied her at the last minute. They just hadn’t gotten the approval from our managed Medicaid, and so we were now waiting for that approval to come through. Though the insurance company employees went home for the weekend, so that approval would probably not happen until Monday.

And no. No one would come help me explain this to her or give her any real reason that she should stay.

I was fully on my own.

The phone returned to its cradle and I pushed it back to Not-Useless. Everyone looked at me with the same question in their eyes: “What are you going to do?”

I walked back to the hospital room and gave my wife the news. She reacted just as I thought she would. Get her out of here.

I found Useless Waste and asked him what the repercussions were for going AMA. At the end of a judgmental rant about how she should just stay in the hospital no matter what, he said, “You’ll find out.”

You’ll find out.

That was the moment. That was the moment I decided that there was nothing more that ANY inpatient medical facility could do for my wife, that the negligence of this hospital system bordered on criminal, that this particular nurse was not a person but rather a demon.

“How about you contact her doctor and ask her to come explain it to us?”

“Ok. I’ll text him,” he picked up his phone and began punching keys. “I’ll come let you know what he says.”

Right. You don’t even know that her doctor is a woman. You’ve been her nurse for two days and I’ve seen you for about two minutes in the sixteen hours that I’ve been here. You didn’t show up for one trip to the toilet, take any vitals, or deliver pain meds when she needed them. I’m not letting you out of my sight.

“Oh, I don’t have anything else to do. I’ll just wait here to see what you find out.” I stared with steel resolve.

He grabbed the edges of his computer cart and backed away from me through a short hallway behind him that contained a medical supply room, a line clearly marking the space as only for staff.

I stood at the edge of the room and took one deliberate step across the line that said Staff Only. “What makes you think I won’t follow you through this hallway?” I walked toward him with deliberation. “I am not leaving your side until I hear what the doctor says.” One more step out of the hallway placed me beside his cart.

“This isn’t appropriate!” he sputtered, winding himself up for a tirade.

Not on my watch. “Nothing about this is appropriate,” I cut him off with calm, measured words. “I have a long, long list of items that have occurred over this hospital visit that aren’t appropriate. Making you do your job feels very appropriate to me, so how about you text the doctor again?”

He fled to the nurses’ station. I returned to the room and told my wife what happened. “Fine. I’ll leave AMA.” She fumbled with the IV port still stuck in her arm. “Get this shit out of me.”

“Just wait for a minute. Let me get a bandaid or some tape and gauze or something so you don’t bleed uncontrollably.”

I found Useless Waste back in the hallway and grabbed tape and gauze from his tray. He wouldn’t look at me. “Is there a wheelchair on this floor?” I asked.

“You have to find your own wheelchair.”

Back in the room, my wife had ripped the protective tape away from part of the port. She was crying with frustration, and I took deep breaths to stay strong and not join in. With a quick rip, the port was out and I taped gauze into place to stop the dribble of blood.

“I have to go find a wheelchair now. I may have to go all the way to emergency, so I could be a few minutes. Can you hold on for me?”

She nodded her assent through the tears and I zipped away to find the wheelchair. Luckily, one sat in the first floor lobby. Only fifteen minutes passed before I returned.

Back in the room, we transferred her into the wheelchair and I wheeled her to the nurses’ station. “Okay,” her strong voice rang across the room and hallway. “What do I need to sign to get out of here?”

The entire phalanx of nurses and CNAs turned toward us. Not-Useless grabbed a form and walked it over. “Did your nurse explain what it means to leave AMA?” He asked the question like he knew the answer.

“Actually, he refused to do that,” I responded, and Not-Useless gawped. I glanced down to see my wife signing a piece of paper that said all of these things had been explained to her.

Oh hell no.

“Don’t sign that, honey.” I looked up at the nurse. “She’s not agreeing that anything has been explained to us because it hasn’t. I won’t let her lie.” She drew a line through her signature and then scribbled out her name so no one could believe she’d signed it. “Get the doctor down here. We can wait for five more minutes.”

If I hadn’t been able to hold onto the handles of the wheelchair, my whole body would have collapsed. That anchor and my anger gave me strength. These people thought they could push us around, ignoring our calls for help, and then tell us what to do and we’d sheep along.

We were done with that. I could take care of her at home and save the money on the gas spent driving back and forth daily. Plus, the food would be better for her (why do hospitals always feed diabetics carbs upon carbs?).

The same nurse who had been our original nurse when we checked in (I’ll call him “Actually-Useful”) came out to chat with us. He explained that leaving AMA could give our insurance cause to renege on paying any of our costs, but the doctor could discharge us to home.

“Then let’s just discharge to home,” we chorused, as the doctor finally showed up. She mentioned that she’d wondered why we were still there when she saw my wife’s vitals input at 3pm.

Later, we realized what she said and wondered how any vitals had been input when Useless Waste hadn’t entered her hospital room all day.

She filled out the paperwork and said that our primary care practice would set up in-home PT and whatever else they could manage. And then Actually-Useful helped me get Stephanie out of the hospital.

As we drove away, holding hands except for when I needed to make turns, I thought about what it means to advocate for a patient.

How hospital patients feel out of control most of the time, and how we family members and friends are there to help them understand, untangle the systems, ask the questions, fill out the paperwork, assist with trips to the toilet and walks down the hallway. Most times, all that’s necessary is finding a nurse or doctor to get the necessary medication prescribed or filling their cup with ice water.

Though sometimes you have to be the Thelma to her Louise and break her out, grinning as you zoom over the cliff into the unknown, no matter how hard it seems like it will be.

Continue reading at the next chapter, Surviving Resilience or, How to Take a Nap…

Want to support new pieces from the Housewyfe? OMG! You’re the Best!

You can subscribe to the Diary for as little as $1/month…

• $1/month - Who’s a smarty-pants?! YOU!

• $2/month - You RIGHTEOUS BABE! (FYI - “Babe” has no gender.)

• $3/month - Look at you—Stepping it up like a BOSS!

• $4/month - SPECTACULAR CHOICE!

• $5/month - Time for Warm Fuzzies!!!!

Or maybe you want another way to support the Diary? Because it’s supported by people like you—Thank you!

• Buy Me a Tea

• Pick up a paperback copy of Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe and/or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller at Bookshop.org or order from your favorite indie bookshop! My books are currently in stock at

  • Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY

  • Protagonist Bookshop in Dryden, NY

  • Malaprops in Asheville, NC

  • Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO.

• Grab an electronic copy of one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller

• Check out or request one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller, on your favorite library app—I love Libby! (FREE!)

• Purchase a book through my online bookshelf at Bookshop.org. I’m an affiliate and so will get a little spiff. As will your favorite indie bookshop! It’s a win-win-win!

  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.

Because I can barely think with all of the inhumanity being perpetrated by our government, I’m publishing pieces from my next book, a memoir in essays that covers the period where I leaped off the cliff and ran toward my dream of being an author, consequences be damned!

And damn. Were there ever consequences…

My working title is The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience, because standing up again and again takes some surviving.

Click here to start at the beginning!

Upon seeing the bride for the first time, I bled on her.

I didn’t mean to bleed on her. I didn’t even know I was bleeding! Something happened between the car and the hotel front desk. And I opened my arms as my niece walked into the lobby and hugged her hard, so glad to see her and her soon-to-be-husband whose breath swooshed inward so loud I knew something was wrong.

“Did you know you’re bleeding?”

“What?” I held up my hands and backed away. The culprit sneered from my right hand, a bloody pinkie finger. That had just squeezed the bride and touched her so-white-it’s-silvery rehearsal dress.

I snapped away like sheer distance could undo the action. A trace of red marked my mistake on the back of the dress. Maybe neither of them would notice.

“Yup. We need to take care of that.” The groom swooped my niece away to remove the stain while leaving the actual bleeding person stunned in the elegant lobby of the winery hotel. As we checked in, I asked for a bandage, thought about that silvery dress, and knew our wedding gift probably didn’t suit.

Back in February of 2021, my niece’s longtime boyfriend finally proposed. And what do you think my first question was?

What can I knit you for your wedding?

Yep. I’m that aunt. The one who rolls up for the reunion with her knitting bag, who shows up to your concert with a half-knitted sock leg dangling from her purse, who gives all the children in her life knitted hats or mittens or, in one year of crazy effort, sweaters! Then there was the year that I knitted gifts for everyone, including this same niece who laughed and laughed at the gift I knitted for her younger sister, a bright yellow hat with spiky points all over it.

My points of defense:

Most of the college-aged folks that year were wearing crazy hats on the ski slopes.

Yellow was her favorite color.

She’s the only person I know who might take that fashion risk.

Oh well. At least they laughed.

Over the years, I hoped to knit a shawl for one of their weddings, and my time had come! The question filled my lungs and I hoped beyond hope that she would say, “Oh Aunt LA! I’d love for you to knit me an intricate lace shawl! One of the ones you can pull through a wedding ring, knitted from laceweight yarn that will gracefully drape over my shoulders at the reception.”

Yeah, no. No one in this family but me knows what laceweight yarn is. (My wife has heard the term, but only knows it means teeny-tiny.) And a traditional wedding-ring shawl will never suit either of my modern, fashionable nieces.

Still….

I threw the offer out there. After all, I’ve spent more money on yarn than almost anything except books, and knitting gifts makes sense. Asking what I can knit for them gives me a loose guarantee that they will actually enjoy their gift.

Because this lady is going to knit something for her niece for her wedding. No one can stop me.

A throw. She requested a throw. What color? Oh, blue or gray.

A throw.

In Southern California.

My mind began flipping through ideas. And then it came to me.

I’d been wanting to knit up a sock yarn afghan for a while. These afghans use up the scraps from your old sock projects as you knit diamonds into a crazy quilt of memories.

I cast on and began my journey of 326 small squares.

Since tendonitis hovers over my life like a poisonous hummingbird, darting in to send occasional bolts of pain into my hands, wrists, and elbows, my knitting activity must be monitored carefully. One square per day would be manageable. After all, I had 441 days. That gave me 115 more days that I needed for squares. Even budgeting a week for the border, 108 days of buffer remained.

Summer gardening took its toll on my work, and in September, I pruned our completely-out-of-control holly hedge. Only eight squares finished in September out of the thirty I’d hoped for.

October marked the half-way point, and I got back into my square a day cycle. By the turn of the year, I’d settled into a rhythm of one square most evenings and four getting finished on the weekends with knitting sessions in the mornings and evenings.

By the end of March, the squares were complete and the binding added. The piece was blocked and drying on the guest room bed and I stood back to view my triumph.

While prettily colorful in a monotone way, I worried that the brighter tones might not appeal. Nevertheless, I packed it into a box with their very late Christmas gift (popover pans) and a stack of her great-grandmother’s embroidered cloth napkins. A note accompanied the gift, explaining how I’d knit each stitch with the hope of a long life together, interwoven with love.

Despite the initial catastrophe, the rest of the weekend carried on pretty smoothly for a major event. I kept my distance from the bride, unwilling to trust the bandage to completely do its job. Most of the familial tempers stayed controlled, friends partied late into the evening each night, and by Sunday morning, hangovers ruled the majority of heads as people packed their bags. On Sunday afternoon, we arrived at the newly married couple’s home, and in a quick tour, I spotted the throw crumpled on their bed like they’d slept under it on their last unmarried night in their house.

I won’t deny it. I felt so proud. I do like giving a throw. Whether the couple likes it or not, it usually ends up being useful as a layer on cold evenings and rarely gets given to Goodwill.

As we sat and chatted for a few minutes while waiting to go to the hotel, the new husband asked me if it had taken a long time to knit the piece. “Yes,” I replied as I completed knitting a pair of socks. “I worked on it for a long time.”

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Because I can barely think with all of the inhumanity being perpetrated by our government, I’m continuing to publish pieces from my next book, a memoir in essays that covers the period where I leaped off the cliff and ran toward my dream of being an author, consequences be damned!

And damn. Were there ever consequences…

My working title is The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience, because standing up again and again takes some surviving.

Click here to start at the beginning!

As I got ready for the trip to the Palm Springs, I realized that I needed different jammies.

Now, I’m not precious with my clothing. Despite my love of capes and cape-adjacent finery, I tend more to the practical than frivolous.

My current pajamas consist of a long-sleeved knee-length nightgown that I pair with black leggings for warmth in the winter, and two long-sleeved winter sets that say respectively, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (with penguins!) and “Fa-la-la-llama!”

Spring temperatures in Palm Springs promised melting heat, so I needed to find something new. Something with short sleeves. Something I could pair with shorts or long enough that I didn’t have to worry about it.

Off to the local Goodwill for a pajama treasure hunt!

A while ago, I decided to go to Goodwill or other thrift/consignment stores for my clothing. The sheer mountain of waste driven by the fast fashion industry boggles the mind. By going to thrift and consignment stores, I’m reducing that pile by at least a couple of pieces and relieving an enslaved child from doing a few seams in those sweatshops.

Remember Lesbian Law #2: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

And Lesbian Law #26: Never participate in any system which uses, promotes, or enforces slavery or minimally paid working conditions unless it is you choosing to make your own clothes, grow your own food, or any other self-sustaining practice.

This means you, Jolene! Put Grandma’s blood diamonds back in the safe!

So I headed over to the thrift shop and dug through the racks. In size “Short & Round,” very few options revealed themselves. The entire nightgown area consisted of a mere foot of rack space for all sizes. Pretty bleak.

Frankly, I was surprised to actually find one. The idea of second-hand nightgowns would definitely put off a less hardy person.

That’s when I found my caftan. Black and brown leopard spots covered the white background with additional bright lavender and blue flowers swooshing their way across the polyester. Lavender edges and neck completed the look. The whole thing was seamed from just below the armpit to the bottom of the gown for modesty, leaving a good foot of fabric on each side to flow freely. A little underboob band with ties ran across the upper quadrant.

Definitely cape-adjacent.

It had to be mine!

For only $5, I took the nightgown home. On Sunday, my mother-in-law came over and I modeled my precious find. The caftan clung to my body when slipped over my t-shirt and shorts, so I decided to do some amendments. My mother’s old seam ripper removed the side seams. Then, I tacked those free-flowing edges in several spots so it wouldn’t whoosh up in a sudden wind gust and reveal my entire body like Marilyn Monroe’s skirt over that infamous New York grate.

Though my wife would take it better than Joe DiMaggio.

Now, I just had to get us to Palm Springs. That might not seem tricky to you, but even a short flight holds a bit of peril for me.

Fly Me to Palm Springs

While menopausal ladies warn about hot flashes and long chin hairs, no one mentions the inability to have more than a glass of wine or body odor that could kill small mammals or the evolution of motion sickness.

Car sickness is my nemesis. Now that I’m an adult who can call shotgun with impunity, I can mostly avoid it. However, motion sickness found new ways to surprise and delight me as I aged.

When I first began traveling by air, neither reading or writing or any of the fun things I loved to do would cause nausea. Magic! The first flight I remember, I was sixteen and headed to Europe. From Memphis to New York to Amsterdam, I listened to music, read my book, journaled, and ate several meals. I marveled at the city lights in the middle of the Atlantic. Was it Iceland? Ireland? Who cared?!

Bliss!

Each time I planned a plane trip, butterflies of excitement filled my tummy. The independence! The reading time! The free soda pop!

And then….

During his youth, our nephew visited us for a couple of months each summer. He would arrive pale and soft and leave a brown, lean little guy with hard muscles from riding bikes and taking hikes with our border collie, Cappy, from dawn to dusk.

For the first couple of years, we drove across the country to retrieve him. But busy lives meant that we needed to find a quicker way than six days of car travel. We wanted him to fly, but my parents were wary. As a compromise, we decided that I would fly out, meet them all at the airport, and then the boy and I would fly directly back together.

To prepare for the multiple flights, I carefully planned the layers of yarn and notions for my knitting bag, as well as stowing my computer to get some writing done. On the first flight of the day, I got settled, pulled out my project, and began to knit.

“What are you working on?” The flight attendant’s face appeared next to mine. I hid my slight jump and smiled.

“A lacy sweater.” I held up the rectangle of knitted cotton so she could see.

From across the aisle, a mother remarked, “My aunt knits. I didn’t know you could bring knitting needles on the plane again.”

“Oh yes. The TSA has permitted knitting needles explicitly for several years now.”

“Good! Maybe now I can get her to visit me.” One of her many children yowled for her attention and I silently apologized to her aunt for voiding one of her excuses.

A writing deadline loomed like Frankenstein. This three and a half hour flight seemed as good a place as any to get some work done. I shoved my knitting into my bag and pulled out my computer.

Moments into typing, I realized my mistake as nausea tapped my belly. I popped a mint and sat back to nap for a moment which helped. Feeling relieved but not quite restored, a preventative ginger ale seemed like a good solution.

The rather rough landing pushed me over the edge. As we rolled quietly to the gate, the bile rose. Embarrassed and miserable, I managed to hold the vomit in for three revolting moments before blatantly ignoring the “fasten seatbelts” light and bolting for the bathroom.

As I exited the lavatory, the flight attendant glanced at me with concern and a little bit of amusement. “Everything okay?” I nodded and turned to see the aisle filled with people wrestling their carry-ons. Stuck by the bathroom, I leaned against the plastic wall and willed my stomach to settle as a kind woman sitting in the last row of the plane made conversation.

With the door open, the plane quickly drained of people and I was able to return to my seat. The mother from across the way, still delayed by wrangling her children, said, “Oh! I thought we lost our knitter. I wondered where you went.”

A quick smile crossed my face and I nodded, leaning down to grab my carry-on from beneath the seat. “Have a good trip,” I replied as I stuffed my partially knitted sweater back into my bag.

As one of the last people who left the plane, the flight attendants wished me well as a group. I asked, “Anyone flying back tonight on the 5pm flight?”

One woman reluctantly replied, “Me.”

“I’m heading back with my nephew this evening. I’m so sorry, but I’ll see you then.”

Her face froze in her smile.

I didn’t see her when I re-boarded the plane at 5pm.

Why did this happen? I’d never experienced air sickness before, though motion sickness has always been a copilot when I rode as a passenger in cars. Somehow, that ailment never translated to public transportation.

Until now. The only difference I could think of was my age.

While waiting for boarding, a tin of ginger mints at the airport convenience store promised relief. Two seemed like a good starting dose, and I popped them in my mouth as I took my seat on the plane.

Though nausea showed up, the ginger did its job and prevented another inconvenient bathroom visit.

This unfortunate development continues through all of my flying adventures. My defenses include A) avoid air travel if at all possible and B) when it can’t be avoided, inhale some sort of gingery defensive mint or chew or tablet as necessary. I also avoid eating pre-flight, sleep as much as possible, and point the air blower at the exact center of my face during the experience.

How Can You Make Flying Worse?

Thus, fully prepared to endure the unavoidable flight, I bundled us into the car and headed for the airport. And despite my uncomfortable state, I decided to do a little work for my new boss while waiting for our connecting flight in Dallas.

Remember that job that seemed to fix everything? The one with part-time hours and a generous salary to take care of us financially while I continued to pursue my writing? All numbers and keeping track of inventory? And the best part was that I didn’t have to feel to make it happen?

The arcane system, the one that everyone else already knew inside and out, left me baffled and confused. Each piece seemed equally important. Some of the smaller structures made sense, but when Mom died… Well, looking back, I can see this was the point that I should have quit because that emotional tsunami destroyed my ability to learn. But the job was too good. It answered needs and took care of us in ways that we hadn’t had for a while. So I kept it. I took a week off for Mom’s death and none for Dolce. The time in California was to be a working vacation.

But the stress of all the loss and learning worked its way through me and suddenly, more information disappeared than was gathered. When I talked to my client, I knew I was letting her down in a myriad of ways.

So, when she called me and told me to stop working, to not continue any further until I heard from her, and that she’d call me the next day, I knew….

Shit. Yeah. I was about to get fired.

Now, my business had been fired before, subscriptions canceled, products rejected, pitches unanswered. But I’ve always been a great employee. I get things done. I perform at a high level without supervision. I can take charge and follow orders at the same time.

I’d never been fired as an employee.

Ugh.

The next morning as the heat rose in Palm Springs, I answered her call and fired myself for her. I told her that I understood she needed to make a change, that I couldn’t seem to keep up, that the stress of all the loss seemed to be overwhelming me. She graciously agreed and her relief at not having to say the words “You’re fired” surged through the phone. I knew her trial and felt the sadness of a failed partnership.

That job that was going to save us from destitution, that was over.

I had failed. The struggle ended. I didn’t know how I would be able to make the money work, but relief filled me to the very brim.

After we finished the “firing” part of the conversation, she told me that she was going to have their marketing person get in touch and see if we couldn’t work together for the company’s weekly newsletter, copywriting, and maybe writing some blog posts for the website.

A tiny beacon of another little gig to fill in the blanks.

She ended the call and I lowered the phone to my lap. Outside the wall of windows, sparkles danced across the blue water in the pool. Palm trees and cacti bristled sharp in the surrounding landscape.

And, while an article for that local weekly still needed to be written and another interesting person interviewed, I decided to embrace this chance to relax. To rest. To allow the waves of panic, despair and grief to flow across my surface and know that the resulting ripples sparkled with hope.

Ripples like the ones my new caftan made as I padded into the living area. Palm Springs’ unrelenting heat pounded my body, but the caftan discovered a hint of a breeze to brush my skin through the loose sides and thin fabric.

A full-length mirror sat at the end of the hallway, displaying how the garment transformed my short, round body into that distinctive silhouette of the late sixties and seventies.

Was I…glamorous now?

All I needed to complete the look was a cool cocktail. A morning cosmopolitan would do the trick! Pink, fruity, and even a little cranberry juice for a healthy breakfast.

And Lord knew, I could use one.

But even the thought of doing that much work felt like too much. Instead, I collapsed onto the sofa and stared at the ceiling.

This caftan really was quite comfortable.

I wonder if they make these for winter?

Fa-la-la-CAFTAN!

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  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.

I’m continuing to publish pieces from my next book, a memoir in essays that covers the period where I leaped off the cliff and ran toward my dream of being an author, consequences be damned!

And damn. Were there ever consequences…

My working title is The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience, because standing up again and again takes some surviving.

Click here to start at the beginning!

I’ve always loved a happy ending. A perfect evening of theater for me includes a great meal and laughter, which is why at one point, my ambition was to work in dinner theater. Really. With my actual Bachelor of Arts in Theatre.

Note the “re” instead of “er.” Because I was an artiste!

That’s one of the big reasons that I focused on humor as a writer. I love giggling and making people chuckle. That moment when the laughter takes hold of your body, when you can barely breathe and start snorting and farting and you’re afraid that you’ll pee your pants and maybe you even do.

That is my perfect moment.

In high school and college, a dark side seemed romantic. Tragic endings run at an emotional depth not usually found in comedy. The beauty of that finality rewards us, both as artists portraying the moment and audience members swept away by the story.

Plus, I look good in black.

So, when my wife suggested watching “West Side Story,” I said okay because the brilliant music and insightful words and graceful dancing and transcendent singing and the whole production looked so gorgeous.

And I knew the ending. I was prepared for the ending. I could deal with the ending.

Not so much, my mother-in-law. As the movie ended, she sat staring at the screen for a moment and then said, “I thought this was based on Romeo and Juliet?” She looked at both of us in disbelief.

Is it still spoiling if the play is over five hundred years old and studied in a wide variety of academic settings?

“It is. Except in the original version, they both die.”

“I hate musicals.” She didn’t say that, but I know it was a thought. She never has been a fan. Only the knowledge that this film was up for an academy award kept her in her chair. And really, if we hadn’t all been seduced by the overall beauty of the production, we probably wouldn’t have turned it on.

Tragic love stories make me angry because the main characters are so STUPID.

Get the hell out of Dodge, Maria and Tony!

Hey there, Juliet! Ever think about giving Romeo a clue about your plans?

Rose, you wretched whore! There’s plenty of room for Jack on that floating board.

And what the hell, Grandma Rose? Tossing that necklace into the ocean? Those jewels could have put the grandkids through college!

I am, indeed, one of those people who hates the movie, Titanic. In fact, if James Cameron could give me back that three hours of my life, I’d surely appreciate it.

In fact, the best way to describe how I feel about tragic love stories (and the dark horror of any new superhero movie and complex murder mysteries that highlight the tragedy inherent in those dark deeds and the rejection and violence that pervades any dramatic movie about queerness and race) is to tell you about Mack the Dog and his hatred of rain.

Mack, The Rain Hater

Mack, our short and stocky blue heeler/chihuahua mix (an odd combination and unreasonably adorable!), sits expectantly at our main door. His brown eyes catch mine and his gaze darts meaningfully to the portal and back to me.

Raindrops ping against the metal of the chimney.

As I turn to him, he prances in anticipation. “No. I won’t do it, you silly dog! I’ll open the door and you’ll just turn around!”

“No,” his eyes plead. “No, I’ll go outside. I really have to go potty.”

I give in and walk to the door. He eagerly follows me, inserting his nose into the crack of the door before I even have a chance to touch the knob.

“Remember. You asked me to do this.”

The door opens. Rain bounces off the deck, puddling and pooling around the various plants. The cool air whisks in and I shiver. “Go on then. Go potty.”

Mack looks up at me. “No way!” He backs up, maintaining eye contact, nervous at my reaction but unwilling to step onto the soggy deck.

“Come on, Mack! I know you need to go potty. It’s not that bad.” I walk out into the sprinkles and wince at the chilly breeze. “It’s hardly raining at all!”

“Mmmmph,” he groans. “That was before I knew.” Before I’m back in the house, he’s on the couch, cuddled into a ball on a warm wool afghan.

“You wanted to go outside! You asked me!”

Snore.

We’ve never had a dog who was as leery of moisture as this little fellow.

Now, I can’t say that I blame him. I’m the one who refuses to go camping, who rejected a paid day off at a lake on a boat for one of those team-building exercises, who won’t step into the pool at a hotel. Walking the dog in the rain is low, low, low on my own list of Want-To-Do’s. In fact, if it wasn’t that walking him was the only way to dependably get him out into the world to potty on days of downpours, I would be sending him out alone into the lawn to relieve himself.

But no, he won’t do that. Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor any sort of precipitation will touch our Mack if he had any say in the matter. He’s sincerely a fair weather dog, loving being outside ONLY in the North Carolina sunshine.

Mack is like me, happiest snuggling on the couch in front of the fireplace or any convenient space heater. I bet if he had hands, he’d join me, knitting a doggie sweater as I worked on my latest shawl while watching television each evening.

Plus, the little sucker has a bladder of STEEL! While refraining from peeing all night is a requirement for dogs, he regularly waits from eight in the evening until nine in the morning before requesting the door open for his relief.

Or, as in the case of this morning, declining the call of nature and snuzzling in for a few more hours until the rain stops.

That can’t be good for him, but he’s never had an accident in the house.

Resolve fills me as I pull on my rainboots and tromp into the utility room to retrieve my purple mackintosh style raincoat. Mack perks up and his head swivels. When I pluck his leash from the coat rack, it’s like the rain never existed. He leaps and twirls, lifting his little Kermit legs into the air. I get him to sit so I can put the leash on and he trembles with the excitement.

When I open the door, he rushes outside and shoots me a look of betrayal as the drops hit his head. A handy umbrella snatched from beside the door protects both of us.

On these rainy days, our walk pivots home after he poops. Today, the trek takes us just a few hundred feet before he finds a good spot. Back inside within fifteen minutes, he runs to my wife. “Who’s a good Mack-Mack? Was it wet out there? Did you do your business?”

His butt attaches itself to the carpet in a perfect sit, tail wagging as much as is possible in that position. “What a good brave boy! Would you like a boney-moroney?” The dog biscuit disappears from her hand and he retires to his special “treat” place on the den carpet to munch.

With soggy boots, coat, and umbrella left by the door, I pop the tea kettle onto the stove for my treat, a warming cup of herbal tea.

As I sip my tea on the sofa, Mack burrows into my side and sleeps the easy rest of one who has successfully answered the call of nature.

“How did we manage to find a dog that hates the rain so much?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

Time for a Happy Ending

You see, neither one of us is interested in being uncomfortable though we can make it happen if it’s absolutely necessary. But when things get too dark and scary and sad in my real life, I desire a flight of fantasy. I crave action with tons of special effects and very little gore and quippy heroes and strong women and spaceships. I dive into stories where I get to experience BIPOC joy and rumble in the love of cultures different from mine. I hunger to spend time in a world where every queer person is accepted whole-heartedly by their family and community. And more than accepted but treated as normal.

Is that too much to ask?

I just needed to find the umbrella of a happy ending. A short escape from reality. A couple of hours in a world where I wanted to live.

So I returned the half-read well-written horror novel to the library (Seriously. What was I thinking?) and resolved to open the queer-normative space adventure due next week. A book that I knew would end with this diverse, respectful group of intrepid space adventurers triumphing over the evil corporate villians!

These joyful resolutions restore my hope and energize me to move forward in the world.

And the fact that their occurrence is rarer in real life than portrayed on the screen makes them all the more precious to me. Real life gives me enough tragedy.

Show me a happy ending.

Click here to go to the next chapter, A Collection of Events That Could Not Be Avoided…

Want to support new pieces from the Housewyfe? OMG! You’re the Best!

You can subscribe to the Diary for as little as $1/month…

• $1/month - Who’s a smarty-pants?! YOU!

• $2/month - You RIGHTEOUS BABE! (FYI - “Babe” has no gender.)

• $3/month - Look at you—Stepping it up like a BOSS!

• $4/month - SPECTACULAR CHOICE!

• $5/month - Time for Warm Fuzzies!!!!

Or maybe you want another way to support the Diary? Because it’s supported by people like you—Thank you!

• Buy Me a Tea

• Pick up a paperback copy of Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe and/or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller at Bookshop.org or order from your favorite indie bookshop! My books are currently in stock at

  • Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY

  • Protagonist Bookshop in Dryden, NY

  • Malaprops in Asheville, NC

  • Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO.

• Grab an electronic copy of one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller

• Check out or request one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller, on your favorite library app—I love Libby! (FREE!)

• Purchase a book through my online bookshelf at Bookshop.org. I’m an affiliate and so will get a little spiff. As will your favorite indie bookshop! It’s a win-win-win!

  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.

One of my favorite places ever was at my Arkansan grandparents’ home, the family sitting around the dining table covered with fried chicken, creamed corn, green beans with pork, fried potatoes, and homemade dinner rolls.

Who could resist that feast?!

I grew up with Southern home cooking sprinkled with a few exotic outliers like my Gramps’ spaghetti sauce (that I now know is “Sunday Gravy”) and Asian style stir-fries once they became a way to “eat healthier.” Mexican food was delivered in a box of crisp taco shells and seasoned with the enclosed spice packet. The closest I got to real Latin cuisine was a casserole my mother called Arroz con Pollo, a combination of rice, cream of mushroom soup and bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces that was baked in the oven until schmaltzy and tender. My assumption has always been that she learned to make it in Puerto Rico. After college, she spent two years on that island teaching elementary children music, so some things naturally migrated back with her.

But my dips into the internet have never revealed such a recipe. Perhaps it’s because we associate more firey flavors coming from Latin America, so a recipe like this one isn’t celebrated.

But it does make me think that those creamy mushroomy flavors could have come from a woman trying to please a boarding house full of young white schoolteachers who didn’t know the joy of spicy food. And I know that Latin America has all sorts of different flavors throughout the continent, including subtle and not-spicy tones that highlight the proteins and grains instead of the chiles.

And when I used to purchase tamales from this little woman who sold them out of a cooler she carried from business to business, she suggested dousing the chicken tamales in a combination of cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soups and then baking until the whole pan warms.

Which…no. I just couldn’t do that to one of her fantastic homemade tamales.

I’d usually trade twenty dollars for the heaven sold by the tamale lady, and my yarn shop partners had ongoing instructions to make that purchase for me whenever she showed up.

Because, over the years, my comfort food expanded from fried chicken and homemade rolls to include all sorts of cuisines but especially Mexican food.

I’d never been much of a Mexican food eater until I moved to Colorado, but when I finally let myself fully indulge in Tex-Mex and then Mexican cuisine in my senior year of college, my eating life transformed.

One evening in the autumn after graduation, my hunger erupted into despondence before a tech rehearsal where I was running the sound. My stage manager and the person who was running lights pushed my teary face out the door with instructions to get some food, maybe just a taco, from a burrito joint across the street called El Taco de Mexico. I ordered my taco and the little lady behind the counter said, “That’s all?” One look at my red face and watery eyes revealed that I needed more. “You need a burrito. What kind?”

Chicken, please.

“Salsa y cebolla?”

That means salsa and onions. Your answer is “Si!”

She handed me a giant burrito, layers of foil and paper surrounding this tortilla tightly wrapped around rice, chicken, beans, cheese, salsa and onions.

The first luscious bite wrapped its arms around me. Peace flowed through my veins with the salsa. The sturdy flavors buffeted my flagging energy.

In that moment, Mexican food became comfort food, home cooking, the taste of love and understanding and support.

That an essential part of burritos was rice was a pleasant surprise, calling me back to my high school years spent in the rice-growing Arkansan delta. I get the nutritional part, that beans plus rice equals a complete protein. And of course I’d had Spanish rice at restaurants and eaten lots and lots of Arroz con Pollo, but I’d never realized they would wrap it up in a tortilla with other yummy things and then hand it to you like a flavorful gift from your favorite aunt.

Though my favorite aunt, a wonderful cook, never fully understood Mexican food. Once, she decided to serve us all enchiladas. “Great,” I said as I headed out the door to meet up with an old high school friend. “I love enchiladas!”

I never expected to come home to a travesty.

She’d poached a chicken and shredded it. No chile powder or cumin or even garlic. Just regular plain poached chicken.

The shreds were rolled into flour tortillas, lined up in a roasting pan, covered with Velveeta and baked until the “cheese” melted.

A jar of TGI Fridays salsa provided the sauce after they came out of the oven.

My brother enthused that they were the best enchiladas he’d ever eaten, and he wasn’t the only one in the crowd.

Which is yet another reason it was a good idea to get the heck out of Arkansas.

Truly, I had to leave Arkansas to realize the appeal of Mexican food. To embrace the full flavors of this amazing cuisine.

I first got exposed to salsa when I was sixteen and took a trip with my father to march on Washington. Not wanting to be embarrassed in this progressive group who’d ordered the delicacy, I dipped a tortilla chip into the sauce and became a chips and salsa addict. Not wanting to be embarrassed in my senior year of college, I ordered a chimichanga at the Tex-Mex restaurant my friend chose and discovered a joyful new taste rainbow. Not wanting to be embarrassed, I said yes to the burrito auntie at El Taco de Mexico.

And Mexican food wrapped me in a tortilla of comfort.

Forty years after that first tentative taste of salsa, a combination of garlic, cumin and chile powder get sprinkled into at least one meal a week. Perhaps this week it will be chili or tacos because I have a pound of ground meat that needs to be cooked up. Maybe I’ll pick up a package of corn tortillas and make enchiladas. Or pull a package of roasted Hatch chiles from the freezer and create some protein-filled chile rellenos.

But whatever I make, I know it will feel every bit as much like home as that platter of homemade fried chicken.

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I’m continuing to publish pieces from my next book, a memoir in essays that covers the period where I leaped off the cliff and ran toward my dream of being an author, consequences be damned!

And damn. Were there ever consequences…

My working title is The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience, because standing up again and again takes some surviving.

Click here to start at the beginning!

The skritching, skittering clicks of cat claws scraping against the slick, hard floor alerted me, and my eyes rose from my dinner plate to catch our elderly tortoiseshell kitty doing what my friend Kate calls “The Pooch Scootch” across the hall runner rug.

The noise came from the fact that, while she had her butt firmly attached to the carpet, her front paws were attempting to pull her forward on the hardwood-looking laminate at the edge. Her back paws waved in the air; her face screwed up in concentration.

“Dolce!”

Her eyes swiveled toward me with disdain. Finished, she rose leisurely and left the detritus for me to clean up.

I sighed and cleared away the mess quietly, so as not to disturb her.

Dolce will turn eighteen on her next birthday in May. She’s slimming down into that skin-and-bones old kitty body, and I know that she’s almost done with us.

Thus, I’ve begun my slide down the slippery slope of indulgence.

As soon as I open her food can, she climbs up onto the kitchen prep table. I do usually feed her in this location though with her butt on one of our kitchen stools and her food on the table. Our dainty old lady perches and eats her kibble from her small food bowl like a tiny dragon.

Seriously, she’s so cute there at the edge of my main food prep area. Because we always own dogs, we elevate the kitty food. And in the last couple of years, I moved her food station from the laundry room (so high to jump!) to the edge of our improvised kitchen island (where she can claw her way up the back of a couch to glide onto a stool).

When the top of the can pops off, she walks into the middle of the table, and grabs at my hands, claws extended. If I turn my head, even to toss the top into the recycling bin, my eyes return to find her standing on the prep table with her head in the can I AM HOLDING.

But why NOT let her eat out of the can? It won’t hurt her.

I place the open can beside her food bowl and smile at her utter joy as she slurps and chews.

Slip-slide!

After years of emptying entire glasses of water that kitty tongues had touched, I opened my eyes one morning and there she was, head fully inserted into my tall drinking glass. HER water glass, short with a heavy bottom, sat ignored on the other side of the table, full to the brim with fresh, clean water.

I knew she drank my water while I slept. I mean, I’ve owned cats for years. I’m not stupid. But still! Right there in front of me!? And selecting my half-empty glass over her full one?!

She finished her sips and retracted her head.

Gliding back to the bed, she cuddled up next to my hip.

So now I couldn’t move. After all, Lesbian Law #25 states, “If a cat touches you, cuddling or settling on your person, you must remain in place until they choose to leave.”

Trapped and thirsty, I reached for her glass. For sure, she hadn’t touched it. But my flailing fingers only brushed the side.

Probably why she drank out of mine. Hers was just that one step too far.

My irritation battled with the contentment of feeling her light weight snuggled against my body.

Surely, I’d drunk after the kitty in the nighttime multiple times, right? This wasn’t the first time.

And that’s how I began sharing my water with the cat.

Slide, slide, slippity-slide.

Back in the day, one dear friend loved her dogs deeply. Over the years, each one found a soft place to land with this generous woman. Wanting to travel with them, she made passenger beds so they could share the front seat of her car. While she wasn’t much of a walker, these little beings enjoyed being carried and playing fetch inside. I remember one beloved poodle wearing a faux sheepskin-lined bomber jacket.

And, at mealtimes, she invited them to share her food. She’d take a bite and then pick up a bite for the dog ON THE SAME FORK and offer it to the dog who would obligingly nibble. Back and forth for the entire meal.

Seeing this for the first time…. Appalled might be the right word for it? Certainly a little grossed out. But once the sight embedded itself with repeated experience, I’d just laugh and shake my head like the rest of her friends.

Cut to today. My old cat loves butter. Like, I’ll start the toaster oven for my morning toast and she shows up, waiting for her butter fix. Of course, I can’t leave the lid off the butter plate on the counter. No cat owner can do that. But she will wait on her stool, patient until I am buttering the toast. Then, “Mreeeoow! Gimme some butter!” until I hook her up with a kitty-sized butter pat.

If I butter quickly, I only have to do it once.

Recently, I made buckwheat scones. Oh! The buckwheat flour infused the scones with an almost fruity taste. The exterior was crisp and the interior soft and fluffy. They melted in your mouth and absorbed butter like crazy.

As I worked my way through the leftovers, each scone got cut in half and toasted. Upon emerging, because of their soft interiors, I just laid butter pats on top of the goodies. Any attempt at spreading disintegrated the scone into crumbs that were still good, but not as good as the butter-soaked bites.

As the butter slowly melted, I used a fork to spread it around. Dolce watched closely, following the path of this delicacy as softened butter got stuck between the tines.

And now, now I extended the buttery fork to her. Delighted, she licked it clean, and I buttered it up for her again. Over and over, she happily indulged.

My entire being thrilled at seeing her joy in eating all of the butter she desired.

And, when she was done and curled up next to me, I used the same fork and finished my scone.

Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

But the bottom line was that her soft body was giving out. Eating time turned into bowls of her favorite kitty treats and baby food.

Our plans included a trip to California for our niece’s wedding at the beginning of May. My wife began talking out loud about having to put our sweet cat down before the trip.

I felt like I was trapped in that Monty Python skit about burying the cat. “Four hours to bury a cat?!”

“It wouldn’t keep still.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t dead then?”

“No, but it wasn’t at all well.”

“Quite right! It wouldn’t do at all to come home from vacation to find a dead cat.”

Our little companion, our girl, the little healing being who cuddled on any sick family member. For eighteen years, she remained constant and faithful, and now we would rush her process? Where was the respect?

I began making alternative plans. If we were still in kitty hospice at the beginning of May, I’d put my wife on the plane and stay behind to sit with our furry sweetheart.

Though, as April progressed, Dolce grew weary of life. She picked her day and I listened, tears pouring down my face as I made the appointment with the vet.

Animals tell you when they are ready. They give you this look and you listen and do as you’re told. That’s the rule.

It’s a stupid, shitty rule.

Since COVID still restricted gathering, our vet had taken the opportunity to remodel their offices. The vet tech shuffled us past the construction debris into a treatment room and I gently lifted Dolce onto the towel-lined table.

She relaxed. The vet tech put the IV in that would deliver the medication. Dolce met my eyes, sleepy and at peace. She was ready.

I stroked her soft fur and felt the bones underneath. The vet came in to give her the final injection. He explained what would happen and I nodded. This wasn’t my first goodbye to a pet. I knew the drill.

Determined to remain present with her, my eyes stayed on hers, sending her love, giving her caresses as she drifted away.

And that’s the moment that the vet decided to make small talk. “So do you like the remodel? We think it’s going to be great.”

Really? You’re killing my cat and that’s what you choose to say?

I continued to look at Dolce and breathed a “sure” through my tears, and vowed that I’d never walk into this office again.

Though I did drop by a week later to pick up her ashes.

Later that day, a meeting was scheduled to introduce me to the rest of the crew at the company that I supported with that data entry job. As we drove to the warehouse, I closed off that part of me that was losing everything. I wouldn’t lose this job. I could do this. I didn’t have to feel to do this work. I just had to follow the system and keep everything straight.

That night, after finally sobbing so loud I frightened Mack the Dog, I decided that I needed a break from being so sad all the damn time.

Good fortune we’d already planned a trip to California.

Palm Springs! Vineyards! Weddings!

And I didn’t even have to bury the cat.

Click here to go to the next chapter, Who Doesn’t Love a Happy Ending?

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Having been a musician in my early life, I knew about how the most famous musicians passed their knowledge from one person to the next through teachers. Their musical lineage could be traced back to Beethoven or Bach with the idea that you could learn directly from someone who had learned these notes and techniques from a great composer.

I wanted that sort of lineage for myself with my knitting. Today, with the popularity of knitting publishing (Thank you, Elizabeth Zimmermann!), I was able to do that through books.

And Barbara G. Walker’s books were the first ones on my list. The four volumes of her Treasury of Knitting Patterns provided inspiration and many hours of delighted perusal as I created each knitting design. (And, in fact, were published by Schoolhouse Press, Elizabeth Zimmermann’s publishing company.)

It just seemed like the right first step, closely followed by volumes of Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmermann and The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd.

Each new design required not just pulling out these bare-bone patterns from Zimmermann and Budd, but also the heavy stack of the Treasury. Many pages continue to be spotted with notes and tape flags flare from the edges. Walker’s compendium of stitch patterns helped me to create designs to teach different techniques as well as expressing myself through knitting.

Designs Inspired by the Treasury

My first “for sale” design was the Happy Midwinter’s Eve hat. This beanie combined several stitch patterns found in that Treasury to form the basis of a class on simple colorwork as each section can be worked holding only one strand at a time.

Another favorite stitch pattern lives in the Crabapple Petals cowl and the Impronte di Dolce shawl. The simple yarnover pattern created kitty pawprints on a field of moss stitch and formed delicate petals of a simple daisy highlighted with beads. That these two designs showcase the same stitch pattern reveals the actual genius of Walker’s work—the knowledge that any pattern, no matter how simple, could be used in a plethora of different ways to create unique designs to delight knitters.

By gathering these stitch patterns, Walker gave every knitting designer an abundance of options for combination. One of my most cherished patterns is the Victory Arch shawl, a piece dedicated to a friend’s fight against cancer.

He calls his cancer “the alien” and if you turn the lace pattern upside down, it does look like a particularly nasty space creature instead of an arch.

Just one fun quirk of this piece based on one of the lace patterns from my treasured copy of Walker’s compendium!

Knitting Innovator

But Walker didn’t just stop with that generous encyclopedia of stitch patterns. Her pioneering work in Knitting from the Top allowed so many people to knit their own seamless sweaters, trying them on as they worked. This handy-dandy way to create a sweater can allow for freeform work, encouraging the knitter to incorporate stitch patterns unearthed from their own copies of the Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

In an autobiographical piece from Piecework Magazine, Walker also talks about how she invented the charting system for writing knitting patterns to convey the essence of these designs. Most knitters who work from patterns know this same system intimately. I love a good charted pattern!

Feminist Spirituality Through Books & Cards

Barbara G. Walker was also an ardent feminist who explored the ideas of the Goddess and the Great Mother in books such as Restoring the Goddess: Equal Rites for Modern Women. A wonderful surprise considering the stack of books covering the same subjects stacked in a bookcase by my chair where I knit each evening. She even designed a tarot deck, and I use tarot decks all the time in both creativity and spiritual practices. Making this connection gave me a whole new path to explore with this remarkable person’s work.

The impact of this amazing knitter and researcher cannot be underestimated in my work or the work of many, many other designers.

Thank you, Barbara. I couldn’t have done it without you.

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Hi everyone!

As a gift for my 55th birthday, I’m easing back into the rhythm of the Diary with a brand new piece.

A quick note to everyone - we have some new folks among us now, people who signed up during the break and also those who subscribed to my Thriving Creative newsletter. Hello new folks!

Just so you know, part of my plan is to integrate writings on creativity, book reviews on creativity and writing texts, and general behind-the-scenes pieces as we move forward together. Inspiration! Delight! Creativity! Books!

Maybe it’s not that different.

As a reminder, when the publication gets officially “un-paused” next week, paid subscriptions will start up again. If you have an annual or founding subscription, that will pick up where it left off. If you can’t remember, you can click here and find out when you will be charged.

Okay. Time to pull up a chair, grab a favorite beverage and circle around for storytime.

No more denying it. I needed a job-job.

Or to learn how to live outside.

And that’s just not possible with Mack the Dog. I can’t even get him to wear his little snow booties on these record-setting frigid winter days!

Besides, I hate camping.

So, I set out on a journey to get a job-job.

Something that would support my creative efforts and make space for inspiration to emerge. Something that would broaden my horizons, give me new material, and didn’t hang on at the end of the day.

I started where I always start, a part-time administrative assistant position. With the old resume updated and polished, I confronted the job boards and…

Nothing. Every once in a while, an actual rejection. The very occasional interview.

What the heck was going on?

Was it because of ageism? Did my skills not shine in my resume? Or was the break between jobs too long? Whatever the case, the majority of organizations decided to “pursue other candidates for this position.”

At least they were writing me back.

My growing desperation expanded my search, and I decided to apply to work at a regional grocery store with a record of happy employees.

Working at the grocery store was the nightmare scenario.

I’m not sure why this was the case, but back in 2022, I panicked myself awake with that scenario looping in my dreams. Despite this quirk of my brain, working at the grocery store has always seemed like a solid and, during the pandemic, heroic profession. We even have the grocery business in the family as my Gramps (my Dad’s stepfather) owned a small produce market in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Whatever the case, that store held a job fair and in preparation, I applied for a Customer Associate position in advance.

Then I settled in and waited for my “no.” The “no” seemed like it would come pretty quick. I’d been turned down by so many organizations. What was stopping the grocery folks?

Instead, they scheduled me for an interview during the job fair.

Dang it!

I’d been looking for a sign for a while, something that would tell me that I shouldn’t take a job-job, something that would shine a brilliant light down on my writing or coaching and say, “This is the way!” A few groceries were needed, so driving over to the store and walking the aisles seemed like a good way to find that symbol that said “Nope. This is not the place for you.”

A misty rain surrounded me as I pulled into the parking lot. Out of the car, I stood and stared at the building.

And saw a rainbow landing right on top of it, centered on the name.

Dang it!

At the interview, everything went great. Before I knew what was really happening, they’d hired me as a fruit cutter in the produce department. The hours were from 6am until noon, leaving me the afternoon for writing and coaching. And the pay was just enough to pay our basics each month.

For every moment between getting hired and starting my first shift, including the very nice orientation when we got our nametags and polos and hats, I searched for a reason to ignore that promising rainbow. For the moment that my writing and coaching would magically turn around and suddenly I wouldn’t need this job.

When that first 6am showed up, I decided to call on the spirit of my Gramps and his grocery store wisdom to help me out.

By my second shift, I’d graduated from training videos to actually learning the ways of the fruit cutter.

And, to my surprise, despite the pain and fatigue that settled into my body after five hours of chopping and slicing…

I felt happy. Not ecstatic or reveling or rejoicing. Just a simmering contentment.

A happiness because I was needed, because I’d found friendly co-workers, because I enjoyed the work. Contented because the job gives me enough complexity to stay interested and enough simplicity to appreciate the inspiration of this incredibly diverse set of co-workers and shoppers.

Not to mention exposing me to the taste of new fruits!

Though I must admit that dragonfruit is not as tasty as this dragon hoped it would be.

Dang it!

During our weekly phone call, I told my relieved father (Thank goodness she found a job!!!) about this peaceful contentment and he told me the story of how my Gramps began working at that produce store.

In World War II, Gramps played the oboe in the Army Marching Band. When he came home in 1945, he got a position playing the oboe with the Boston Symphony.

So…he was a talented oboe player with a bright future. In 1946, he had the chance to play a concert where Stravinsky was conducting a new composition.

But at the same time, his father became very ill. On his death bed, his dad told my Gramps that it was time to take over the family produce store. Give up the oboe and care for the family.

Gramps was a good son, so he surrendered his instrument and embraced the life of a produce merchant.

During the first morning, as he whistled and checked to make everything was ready for the day, he realized...

He was happy.

Not that he gave up the oboe entirely. Dad said that Gramps gave music lessons and was THE MAN if you were serious about learning to play the oboe.

But my Gramps had found contentment among the cabbages and apples.

So, when I sent my plea for help into the universe, Gramps replied with that rainbow, “I found happiness in this business, and this job-job will still leave you time for your art. Trust me and say yes.”

Ok, Gramps. Let’s do this.

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• I’m taking a break and have paused paid subscriptions, but if you’d like to leave me a tip you can Buy Me a Tea

• Know what would make a great gift? A paperback copy of Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe and/or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller! Find them at Bookshop.org or order from your favorite indie bookshop! My books are currently in stock at

  • Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY

  • Protagonist Bookshop in Dryden, NY

  • Malaprops in Asheville, NC

  • Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO.

• Grab an electronic copy of one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller

• Check out or request one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller, on your favorite library app—I love Libby! (FREE!)

• Purchase a book through my online bookshelf at Bookshop.org. I’m an affiliate and so will get a little spiff. As will your favorite indie bookshop! It’s a win-win-win!

  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Well, things have not gone as smoothly as I’d hoped, and I’m still figuring out my way forward. Thus, I’ve extended the pause on paid subscriptions through mid-February. You shouldn’t see any charges from me. Also, if you have an annual account, your subscription will be extended to accommodate the pause.

To give you a bit more of an update, our household has been going through a change in circumstances, and I’ve taken on a job-job to create a bit of financial stability.

FYI—the job market is brutal for everyone right now, but especially for those of us who are older. I’ve never had a search go as long as this one did and, when I did manage to get past the AI gatekeepers, the sterile rejections shredded my ego. If this is you, Oh my dear! Please know that it’s not just you. Though like me, you may need to lower your expectations in terms of money and time.

I took a job at our local grocery store cutting fruits and veggies and, except for the added wear and tear on my arms, I love it! Sure, it’s a huge step down from what I’d been paid at job-jobs in the past, but also there’s none of the usual emotional and mental stress. And this particular chain has a well-deserved reputation for being very respectful and supportive of its workers, so even as chaos sloshed through my personal life, my supervisors made sure I knew that I was in no danger of losing my position despite the emergencies that randomized my schedule.

Things are beginning to calm down and I’m feeling like I have a way forward that ends in stability with space for writing and other creative pursuits. Thank goodness!

Here’s hoping you had a lovely holiday season, and that you’re managing to endure the atrocities of the new year.

LA

These two joyous beings sit patiently outside this door, twenty-four hours a day, summer and winter, rain or shine. They haven’t been very sociable, but with the addition of their holiday finery, I took a chance and said hello.

As it turns out, they only speak Penguin, but do understand a bit of English from overhearing conversations in the hallway. However, Jolly and Icicle were the Charades Champions of their flock in 2023, and that helped us understand each other perfectly.

Me: I love your new festive look!

Penguins: Flap wings, chatter-chatter-chatter, honk, stocking flip.

Me: Thank you! I knitted this scarf myself. So, are you watching for Santa?

Penguins: Honk, honk, honk, flap wings.

Me: I’m sure Santa will remember that you like fresh fish instead of cookies.

Penguins: Whistle, click-click-click, honk.

Me: Thanks! Happy Holidays to you, too!

Mack the Dog and I get to pass this happy couple each time we go outside to take care of “business,” and they delight me more and more as their personalities continue to emerge. Why, just this morning Icicle complained to me that tape just wasn’t keeping either stocking in place! His concern was that he might miss out on the holiday herring, but I assured him that Santa would deliver—no matter the state of the stocking.

And I know that’s true because, despite my stockings falling on the ground, people keep showing up to help me survive this holiday season. Cheerful holiday lights brighten my pre-dawn drives to work and other appointments. A dear friend helped me afford some alarming car repair. My life’s currently shifting rhythm seems to be slowing from death metal to 80’s pop, and I have hope that we’ll be enjoying some calming jazz by the New Year.

What’s helping you survive this December? Any delights, wonders, micro-joys? Share in the comments and let’s all celebrate the things that are helping us keep hope for filled stockings!

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• Grab an electronic copy of one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller

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• Purchase a book through my online bookshelf at Bookshop.org. I’m an affiliate and so will get a little spiff. As will your favorite indie bookshop! It’s a win-win-win!

  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

On Thursdays, I’m posting pieces from my next book, a memoir in essays that covers the period where I leaped off the cliff and ran toward my dream of being an author, consequences be damned!

And damn. Were there ever consequences…

My working title is The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience, because standing up again and again takes some surviving.

Click here to start at the beginning!

I don’t remember things.

In our relationship, my wife is the Rememberer. I am the forgetful Mad Hatter asking “What was that thing I was supposed to do?” and “If I can’t remember it, could it really have been that important?”

Yes. Yes, it could have been and it was and since I forgot, I’ll now have to spend another thirty minutes in rush hour traffic to retrieve the cat’s medicine from the pharmacy across town.

Dang it!

And this is why, on that morning after I returned home, her inability to remember what she’d had for breakfast panicked me.

I mean, not the first time she asked. At our age, things slip, even for the Rememberer. I call it the Rolodex issue, which is how you know that I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. For those who don’t know, a Rolodex was a wheel that held cards filled with contact information. The more people you knew, the more cards your Rolodex would hold. More cards meant more time finding the correct person’s phone number. Younger people don’t need much time to find the card in their Rolodex because they don’t have as many cards, and that’s why they can come up with that name faster. We older folks just have too many cards and it takes some time to go through them all to come up with that name.

So, the first time she asked me what she’d had for breakfast, I told her without too much thought. She needed to note it on her spreadsheet to link with her blood sugar stats. (Because that’s the sort of data that tells us that yes, she can have a piece of toast every once in a while but rice makes her blood sugar shoot high and fast as a bottle rocket.)

And then back to knitting, watching television, and making a list of what needed to be done now that I was back. Because with a list I am the Astounding Rememberina, getter of ALL the groceries and performer of ALL the tasks including getting that library book back on time! The moment of sanity that leads me to write the item onto the scrap of paper turns thought into action. That act of penmanship occasionally cements a list item into my brain like a magical postman delivering the memory to my mind’s mailbox.

When she asked me again a couple of minutes later, I began to worry.

After asking a third time, I asked if she remembered asking me before.

Nope.

I attribute the fact that I didn’t immediately shove her into the car to go to the hospital to the fact that grief still whirled through me. That I didn’t really believe that the week that started with my mother’s death could end with my darling going to the hospital for a mystery health emergency. Instead, I told her to open the medical portal app and write a quick note to the doctor and let him know she wasn’t remembering.

Then she asked me why she’d opened the app.

Panic warred with the disappointment at losing this perfect snuggly day of finally being home again. Dammit.

“Sweetie, we need to go to the hospital.”

On the way, I asked her questions. Did she remember that I’d been gone that week? No, why did I leave? Because my mother died. Oh. Oh, no. I’m sorry.

Did she remember that we were going to California for her neice’s wedding? No! Brit’s getting married?! How fabulous!

After filling her in several times, I stopped telling her that Mom was dead. Why make her sad when I didn’t have to?

The nurse’s eyes widened slightly when I told her what was going on and that my wife had had a stroke before. When a stroke-affected person comes into the ER with a mysterious brain issue, they get placed higher on the list because time makes the biggest difference.

We waited at the emergency room and then they whisked her into the back. Stiff and silent and worried, I took over a chair and made the phone call to let her mother know what was going on, but that there wasn’t anything to do except wait. I played Sudoku on my phone and knitted. My email contained a request from someone asking me to write a piece for her website. She raved about my work and inquired as to my availability. Flattered, I agreed to write an article even though there was no payment. How odd for this request to show up at the end of such a weird and horrible week, a little glimmer of joy in this time of sadness.

Interspersed through all of this, I finished making my lists of things to do the following week. I have lists for Things to Do Around the House, Projects to Knit, Projects to Write, Projects to Craft (because I do some cross stitch and crochet and sewing and those things need their own list but not a list for each), Garden Things To Do (which is different than Things to Do Around the House), Books To Be Read (Beware my TBR pile!), and so on.

In order to keep myself employed, I create a list of Things to Do for My Work Day on a scrap of paper based on the list of Things To Do for My Work Week (which I keep in the Bullet Journal style). Each work day, items get completed, marked, deleted, moved, and then a new list begins before the current day ends.

Otherwise, how would I get any work done?!

Eventually, the attendant called my name and led me to my wife’s berth. An IV hung by the bed, its long plastic tubing attached to her arm. Dehydration appeared to be the issue, but no one could say for sure. All we knew was that she was remembering now. We left with orders to follow-up with her primary care physician, and a final phone call alerted her mother that her condition had returned to normal.

Was it because of the stress of me being gone? The stress of taking care of herself and the pets for those six days? Or maybe just the letdown, the relief of being off duty again? Questions flowed and multiplied.

An MRI a couple of weeks later confirmed that she’d had another small stroke. Had the additional fluids helped? Probably, but the situation warranted vigilance. A stress-filled day of flights was scheduled for the beginning of May. What would we do if she had another stroke during the trip? How could we cope?

Breathe. Flail. Make a list to focus. How about Things We Need to Take on the Trip? That list must be carefully curated because apparently checking luggage has stopped being a thing and getting your bags at the airport takes forever, so we need to carry-on anything we’re planning to take.

Which means that as we enter and exit the plane, I’m hauling my laptop bag, my wife’s laptop bag, luggage with enough clothes for two weeks plus a casual dressy outfit for the rehearsal dinner and a dressy dressy outfit for the wedding, and her walker. While pushing her in a wheelchair.

But at least my Rememberer will again be there to remind me of what I forgot!

Click here to go to the next chapter, She Wasn’t At All a Well Cat….

Support the Lesbian Housewyfe by picking your favorite:

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• I’m taking a break and have paused paid subscriptions, but if you’d like to leave me a tip you can Buy Me a Tea

• Grab an electronic copy of one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller

• Get a paperback copy of Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe and/or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller at Bookshop.org or order from your favorite indie bookshop! My books are currently in stock at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY, Malaprops in Asheville, NC, and Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO.

• Check out or request one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller, on your favorite library app—I love Libby! (FREE!)

• Purchase a book through my online bookshelf at Bookshop.org. I’m an affiliate and so will get a little spiff. As will your favorite indie bookshop! It’s a win-win-win!

  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

On Thursdays, I’m posting pieces from my next book, a memoir in essays that covers the period where I leaped off the cliff and ran toward my dream of being an author, consequences be damned!

And damn. Were there ever consequences…

My working title is The Lesbian Housewyfe’s Guide to Surviving Resilience, because standing up again and again takes some surviving.

Click here to start at the beginning!

I picked the wrong week to stop eating carbs.

In my defense, I began cutting back my carb consumption before I knew that was the week my mother was going to die.

The impetus for this carb-free diet was an interview with a charming couple who make cookie balls infused with different liquors. A week after our chat, their gift of a box of the moist orbs tempted from my counter. I ate three for dessert that evening (YUMMY!!!), and surfed waves of hot flashes all night long (YUCKY!!!).

In response to my heat-induced complaints, a friend made a recommendation. Eliminating dairy, sugar, alcohol, and gluten had also eliminated her hot flashes. But when she told people about the diet, she said they looked at her like she was eating babies.

Summer was coming, stress was building, and I desperately needed sleep to keep up with all my new responsibilities.

Time to start the “Eating Babies Diet” if I wanted a full night’s worth of sleep on those warm nights.

I’d considered going low-carb often over the years, especially after my wife got diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. After all, what kind of spouse am I that I can’t cut back on the bread and sweets to support her?

And then the line of sourdough starters call to me from the back of the refrigerator. The scent of bread baking invades my nose and my tongue blooms with the memory of butter melting on the warm soft slices, fresh from the oven.

But after my liquor-infused, sugar-fueled, sleepless night of hot flashes, giving up sugar and gluten seemed a small price to pay for a few hours of unconsciousness.

Plus, I’d dieted before. Just follow the same principles. Cut back one small step at a time. When the candy runs out, don’t replace it. Choose a taco salad instead of tacos. Eat nuts as a snack.

The hardest thing for me to give up is that little bit of sweet at the end of a meal, but I knew a good plan. Ice cream disappeared from my freezer and apples filled my fruit basket. After dinner, apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon joined my tea. My timing couldn’t be better, I thought, munching the cool sweetness in the spring dusk. This almost tastes like apple pie.

Almost.

But now my mother was dead, and “almost apple pie” was not going to soothe me.

Safely installed in the parking lot of a truck stop after receiving the confirmation Mom had passed, I allowed the grief to break into my heart and destroy it from the inside. While it ripped and squeezed and pushed and shredded my chest into shards, I wept and berated myself for not leaving earlier, not jumping in the car on Friday or Saturday, not making the effort when I was too overwhelmed to acknowledge her frailty.

The tears dribbled from a flood to a trickle. My eyes surveyed this banal place where I’d found refuge.

A kid walked out of the truck stop door, tearing open a bag of chips and shoving a handful into his mouth.

My stomach growled.

I prowled into the brightly lit space and pounced upon a bag of barbeque corn chips and a sugary fruit pie.

As I cried and made phone calls to break the news to Mom’s side of the family, the sweet and spicy flavors cuddled my taste buds. Once that sugar high wore off, a fast food chicken sandwich and fries filled the old tum-tum.

No more Eating Babies for me. Only carbs could fill this grieving maw.

My brother carried the carcass of my comfort feast into the family home, noting the contents. The next day, two boxes of mini fruit pies, apple and cherry, appeared for my consumption.

“Have I ever told you that you are my favorite brother?” I asked him, gazing into his eyes and feeling enabled in a way only someone who has known you since infancy can.

“Ha!” He chuffed and dropped the boxes in my lap. “I’m your only brother.” Then he grabbed one of the boxes and opened it up. “Can I have one?”

“Of course.” The little cherry pies disappeared into our mouths simultaneously. A crisp snap through the sugar glaze, crumbling crust, and sweet jelly with tart pops of cherry combined to obliterate the grief for one brief moment.

My mother’s desk sat in the living room, a warm space where she could write in her journal, pen letters, and create cards using her extensive collection of stamps, inks and other crafty baubles. Now, the surface piled with books, random papers, and, on the side closest to her soft chair by the fire, a stack of boxes of Little Debbie treats and York Peppermint Patties.

Bewildered, I asked my brother about this tower of sweets. “That’s Mom’s food,” he informed me. My stomach clenched and hand covered my mouth to suppress the yowl. Another film of tears bubbled onto my eyelashes. For the last few weeks of her life, Mom stopped eating real food and went Full Sugar. They had told me in various phone calls but I didn’t fully realize the extent until I confronted the half-eaten Nutty Buddys and Oatmeal Creme Pies.

Oof. This stupid pandemic. How had I allowed it to keep me away from my family? I’d last seen them the year before around this same time when I came and spent one night—ONE—to pick up a dining table and chairs that Dad built for us. During that visit, I sat next to Mom on the porch swing, but she didn’t have much to say. Sideways glances yielded not even the usual spark from her. She just sat silent and swung beside me. I took comfort in being near.

When I left, I didn’t know I’d seen Mom for the last time.

The day after Mom died, after I’d finally given up on sleep for the last time because the sun was rising, I wandered downstairs to find some warmth. My parents heated their home with a wood stove located in the den, and we all ended up there that morning. Clouds of grief and numbness eddied in that space, swirling through us. Sentences ended with fading away or short sobs stopping our lips. No amount of logs on the fire could warm the loss that chilled me.

Mom’s practicality bubbled up and I spent a few minutes on that sad morning writing emails to my clients and suspending my meager operations. Along with the notification of my absence for I didn’t know how long, emails included work partially completed, transcribed interviews, notifications of where things laid and what still needed doing. Anything I could pass along so someone else could complete what I’d left undone. Because, despite the disaster that knocked me off my path, deadlines still existed. Websites needed their next hit of new content. Newspapers needed to be dropped into racks on Wednesdays.

After a couple of days of doing nothing but mourning and eating, I decided to clean the house. Mom hadn’t had the energy to do anything, much less clean, for a long time before she died. And taking care of her had drained the necessary vigor from everyone else. Plus, frankly, they were boys. Cleaning was never a priority for them.

The whole place was filthy, and we could fix it.

I enlisted the help of my brother and oldest nephew, who both lived in the family home, to clean the house from top to bottom. While they began to sweep and dust, I turned my attention to a task set by my father, clearing all of Mom’s clothes out of the closet and putting them into bags for him to take to the “clothes recycler.”

I’m still not sure if that was a real thing or if it was the local Goodwill or some thrift shop. But with this opportunity, I grabbed every piece that spoke to me. All of her knitted pieces, dropped into my suitcases. The colorwork cardigan that had fit her perfectly. A generous cowl from my own imagination. A necklace and pair of earrings. Several pairs of unworn shoes.

In the bureau, her tooth molds for her dentures laid abandoned, reminding me of all of those times she’d enjoyed eating. That time when I visited and made her two favorite cakes for her birthday, the traditional birthday chocolate cake with seven-minute frosting sat next to an Italian cream, a coconut cake coated with a pecan-stuffed cream cheese frosting. Watching movie musicals together on Sunday afternoons and sharing a big bowl of buttered popcorn. Trying a little bit of everything at the monthly church potluck dinners. When a doctor told her that she needed to control her cholesterol during her fifties, she’d cut almost all of the fat out of her diet. That one choice meant that she lost a lot of weight and her medical numbers fell back into line, but also meant that every bite had to be policed. She continued this trend during all of the following diagnoses, hoping to fend off pain and death with dietary measures.

But in the end, none of that mattered. Or maybe it did. How many years had she added on and still died at seventy-eight?

All I could do was sob and close the drawer. I hoped Dad wouldn’t resent me for leaving them.

Two large black garbage bags full of her clothes sat next to their bed when I left the room.

Time to sweep and dust! I retrieved the broom, a roll of paper towels and cleaning spray and got to work.

The activity managed to erase the awful from my mind until my attention returned to her desk. Dusting meant removing everything, cleaning the surfaces, and then putting it all back in a way that was at least organized by size.

Her last journal sat on top of the final pile and I flipped it open to the bookmarked page. An inky scrawl dribbled down, “Today is Thursday. I have to remember what day it is.” I brushed the words with my fingers. Tears clouded my eyes and I snapped the notebook shut.

I haven’t been able to make myself read those journals. And in those first days, none of us could bear it. Which was actually a problem because, despite the memory issues, she was the keeper of the passwords, that all-important list of access to the internet and all of the subscriptions. All hidden in that pile of journals now because of the anticipation of reading her slow decline. The times that she understood what was happening. What she worried about. What she hoped for.

What would happen if people found my morning pages, those unedited lines that blab my innermost thoughts to clear my mind for writing each day? The sheer volume of her notebooks overwhelmed. I began deleting the morning pages I wrote on my computer each day, and resolved to destroy my many journals when I returned home.

I didn’t want to leave that task behind for those who love me. The job of destroying those pitiful yawps left to someone who would just pity me. The ice pick stab of the final sentence.

The notebook returned to her desk, and “Mom’s Food” moved into the dining room where the sideboard also served as the dry goods pantry.

During this day of cleansing, my oldest nephew got so excited about it that he scrubbed the bathroom with some attachment to his cordless drill and removed sections of grout from between the tiles. Quick drying grout allowed us to shower in time for Mom’s memorial that evening.

Now, before I tell you where the memorial was being held, you need to know that my mother was never one for making a fuss. And she was cheap. She got into a rhythm at one point of going to garage sales every weekend. At a family gathering, she made the mistake of twirling in front of her brother to show off her new thrifted outfit.

“Everything I’m wearing came from garage sales!” Insert proud smile here.

“Yes, I can tell.” Sideways smirk.

Oof. Brothers will always be brothers.

For Mom, funerals always felt like a waste of time and money and flowers. While she understood that funerals were for the people left behind, a formal memorial service wouldn’t have been what she wanted. Keep it simple. I really think that, if she’d had the choice, she’d have loved to have been popped into her compost pile and allowed to transform into that special dirt that feeds flowers and trees. One final way for her to serve.

Thus it wasn’t too much of a surprise when my father announced that we were going to have a small memorial dinner at a restaurant with just the immediate family and a few close friends on the Thursday after she died.

The surprise was the choice of a chain restaurant where bored co-workers unwind with a cocktail while they complain about the long day at the office. Underage college students ordering alcohol with fake IDs. High-fructose corn syrup and deep-fried foods frolicking across the menu.

Actually, in terms of the carb-fueled soothing of the grief flowing through all of us, I don’t know that there could have been a more perfect choice.

And Dad thought he could pay for everyone to eat dinner there. He invited four close friends and the immediate family, made the reservation and we all trundled out that evening for the memorial.

While all of those Thursday-celebrating co-workers and college students swirled around us (Tomorrow is FRI-YAY!), we remembered Mom. No one had really come up with a ritual or anything, so finally one of Dad’s friends took pity on our shell-shocked silence after we ordered. “What is a good memory you have?”

She shared hers and then we went around the table. My brother’s eleven-year-old said that he “didn’t have a relationship” with my mom, and I thought about how sad that was. That her illness had taken her away from him as clearly as it had taken her away from me. That even though he lived in such close proximity, her disease and resulting behavioral changes broke that connection for both of them.

Checking in at one point, the waiter caught my eye and asked, “Is it someone’s birthday?”

“Oh no,” I smiled at him as kindly as possible. “This is my mother’s memorial.”

His upturned lips dropped. “Oh.” And then he skittered away from the table into the crowd.

No free dessert then. You’d think you’d get free dessert for everyone at a memorial service.

The next morning, I packed up the car and headed home. But not before my father, brother and nephew encouraged me to add the food delivered by a lovely woman from their church.

Those church ladies KNOW how to soothe the bereaved and had showed up the day before with four bags of carb-filled comfort food. A pack of potato buns and bag of tortilla chips joined a packet of salami for the drive home. Plus a little baggie filled with peanut butter bon-bons. Because YES IT DID!

I appreciate you, Church Ladies!

But the rest stayed in West Virginia to feed three guys, two kids and whatever visitors came by to extend their condolences.

The seven hour drive home smoothly passed. Dog, cat and my darling all embraced me, and my wife declared her triumph at managing everything without me.

Feeling safe, secure and cozy in our own little den, we passed the evening in our usual way, watching television with me knitting on the sofa. Giving cuddles and skritches on fuzzy bellies. Kisses and hugs as I served us cups of warm tea and a bon-bon snick-snack.

As I felt the hot flash spread through my chest, I resolved to return to the Eating Babies diet.

Though maybe not until next week.

Continue on to read The Rememberer…

Support the Lesbian Housewyfe by picking your favorite:

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• I’m taking a break and have paused paid subscriptions, but if you’d like to leave me a tip you can Buy Me a Tea

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• Get a paperback copy of Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe and/or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller at Bookshop.org or order from your favorite indie bookshop! My books are currently in stock at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY, Malaprops in Asheville, NC, and Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO.

• Check out or request one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller, on your favorite library app—I love Libby! (FREE!)

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  Thanks for reading Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Hey everyone! I’m just starting out this post with a quick note to let you know that I am taking a little break. Lots of changes over here at the Lesbian Housewyfe’s household that need some attention so all can get balanced again.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that I won’t be publishing any posts, but I will be pausing paid subscriptions until the beginning of the new year. For regular monthly paid subscribers, this means that you just won’t get billed again until January. For the annual folks, your annual due date will be changed to reflect this six weeks of pause. If you have any questions, please contact me for answers.

Thank you for your understanding and patience in this little moment of chaos.

LA

If you were an animal, what would you be?

Do you remember where you were when you heard this question the first time? Though the specific memory hides in the mists of my mind, I’m sure some adult spilled it from their lips in an attempt to entertain a squadron of bored children. And something in that question hangs on, springing out when meditating, when studying the behavior of others, when a little too drunk a little too late in the evening.

I’ve called myself a cat curling into a comfy chair, a lizard lounging in the summer sunshine, an old crow searching for another shiny bauble to line my nest. That last one I even declared publicly.

Recently, this question appeared again, jumbled amongst various thoughts and research and ancestral forms of spirituality. A moment of contemplation revealed that none of these previous options fit quite right. In a meditation, only one animal emerged that encompassed my full being.

I am a Dragon.

Now, how do I know I’m a dragon? I mean, they’re really not seen. Or even believed to be real. And yet, we all know what a dragon looks like, what they do, that there are Eastern, European, American and Mesoamerican Dragons. We even know that a guy named George met a dragon once and killed it.

Bad George!

Don’t believe me? I have evidence!

Dragons Hoard.

I collect all kinds of items to add sparks of delight to my life: books, yarn, succulents, card decks, art. And what do I do with them? Sure, I read books, knit yarn and use the card decks. But my meter is off somehow. Plant collecting started in earnest this summer and now much time goes into puttering around a small forest gathered on my window ledge. Book get plucked from a meager collection of shelves, popped into To Be Read piles and then rearranged when new ones magically arrive before the older ones get read. Yarn gathers like the fiber apocalypse is happening next week.

In fact, in the yarn world, there’s a term called “SABLE” which stands for “Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.”

And “Stash” is fiber artist speak for “hoard of yarn/fiber/cloth with no purpose yet.”

I’m not saying that the small stash I have here qualifies for SABLE, since it’s only two full under-bed storage containers. But if you combine that with all of the yarn cushioning the breakables still in storage in North Carolina….

Hoarding sparkly things? Check!

Dragons Breathe Fire.

Until I hit perimenopause, I ran a little cold. When my body began the mid-life transformation, its temperature rose and hot flashes gifted me with my own personal summers. Sometimes multiple times each day. Extreme emotions usually prompt this fire to explode across my body, and sometimes it even erupts from my mouth.

If I’m lucky, people think my angry retort is funny. Laughter diffuses the intense rage and I end up making a note of the line to use in a future Diary entry.

At my unluckiest, my fire-breathing ends with me gasping sobs and screaming incoherently. The lack of oxygen sedates me.

Breathing fire? Check!

Dragons Fly.

So, can this round short being fly? She can when she takes a flight of fancy!

Here’s one example: I know I have wings because they unfurl when I get into “the zone.”

Also, I fly in dreams quite regularly and would fly more often in an actual airplane if I didn’t get airsick.

Final box checked and we’re ready for take-off!

If I was an animal, I would be a dragon.

So that just leaves me asking…

Are you a dragon, too?

Leave a comment

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• Buy Me a Tea

• Check out or request one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller, on your favorite library app—I love Libby! (FREE!)

• Grab an electronic copy of one of my books, Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller

• Get a paperback copy of Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe and/or The Lesbian Housewyfe: Bigger, Broader, Delightfuller at Bookshop.org or order from your favorite indie bookshop! My books are currently in stock at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY, Malaprops in Asheville, NC, and Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, CO.

• Purchase a book through my online bookshelf at Bookshop.org. I’m an affiliate and so will get a little spiff. As will your favorite indie bookshop! It’s a win-win-win!

  Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.