Wind, wind, wind!

The past three days, the wind has blown here unsparingly. Day and night. Gusts, we are told, up to 75 mph. It has been quite amazing, really. It is very noisy, the house shakes and rattles, the glass in the windows moves, branches of trees jostle violently. I just went for a little walk and got blown all over the road. We don't have steady wind like this in Vermont. I think it's supposed to calm down later today.

Meanwhile, life goes on in a routine. Betsey has breakfast around 9a.m. or so, but stays in bed until afternoon. It is more comfortable with her shingles that way. Yesterday, she didn't come downstairs until 5p.m.  We had supper and then watched the Democratic Town Hall from Las Vegas, NV on MSNBC. It was very interesting. Both Hillary and Bernie gave direct, substantive answers to questions from the floor. They are in good command of the facts and don't bash each other, although they do point out differences. It is so civil, compared to the Republicans calling each other liers!

Ellen has pretty much stayed here at the house during the day, since Katie left on Tuesday, so she can be available if Betsey needs her. I have gone out to the store each day to shop for food for dinner, which Ellen has then prepared. This morning, Ellen got to take a short walk while she knew Betsey was asleep.

It is very mild here. Yesterday, it was 73 degrees when I went to the store in Boulder.  Among other things, I picked up a bag of Taste of the Wild dogfood for Gertie, at the Whole Pet store. Next to Whole Foods. The pet store is quite the place. I have never seen so much "high end" pet food. I think pets in Boulder must be a lucky lot. A couple of nights ago, we watched the Westminster Dog Show on TV. What an amazing group of dogs! Some of them probably get Taste of the Wild with Salmon to eat, which is what Gertie is getting. Gertie had no interest in the dog show. But she is a very sweet dog. I think she misses Katie, but she is getting a lot of loving. She spends the night on the bed with Betsey.

Heart-breaking loss

Don't freak out from the title! It was only a game. But it was a heart-breaker. Duke beat North Carolina last night, 74-73. It was a home game for Carolina. They were favored to win. They lead the ACC. They are ranked #5, nationally, Duke is ranked #20. Duke was down two key players due to injury. Carolina led  virtually the entire game. But Duke pulled ahead in the last minute. Carolina had the last possession, with 7 seconds left, down one point. A chance to win. Their shot was blocked. Game over. Fans stunned. Players crying. Betsey swore that was it for her this season. Too painful to watch. 

Today has dawned bright and clear. Amazingly, life goes on. 

Katie is off

This morning I was up at 3:30a.m. to take Katie to the airport shuttle bus from Boulder to Denver. We left the house at 3:55 and got to the bus stop at exactly 4:15, just as the bus was arriving.

              Katie in line for the bus

                         Bon Voyage, Katie! 

Her flight was at 8:00 a.m, so she got there in plenty of time. She is flying to Boston. The original plan was to leave at 4am for a 4:40 bus. But when I came out to the kitchen to meet her at 3:45, she said she had just learned online that the schedule had changed. The busses left at 4:15 and 5:15. I said, let's try for the 4:15, and we made it, mainly because we hit every single light in Boulder green and at that hour there was no traffic. 

Going back, we arrived at the Shays Sunday evening at about 7:30. Betsey looks good. She has shingles, on top of everything else, so is very uncomfortable - and on her "good" side, the right side. So movement is even more difficult. And her doc says she is suffering from "chemo brain" - mental fuzziness. But the tumor is stable at the moment. She and Rob have more trips in the works - to L.A., Miami, and maybe even Scotland!! She is determined to make every day count. 

Yesterday we hung out at home and listened to the wind blow all day and night, gusts up to 75 mph! It was incredible. Not uncommon here, I guess. Ellen folded laundry much of the day. Katie packed. Rob cooked. Betsey and I sat and chatted. We watched the news and followed the seismic changes following the unexpected death of Judge Scalia. What a time! 

Yesterday

Yesterday we drove from Lewisburg, OH to Topeka, KS, a distance of 650 miles. We left the Super Inn at 9:40a.m., and arrived at the Topeka Super 8 at 10pm (11 pm eastern time). A long day. It was I- 70 all the way. Along the way we stopped in Columbia, MO, where Katie still has a house rental and a lot of stuff. We picked up some things she needs, saving her a trip. We met Sam, her housemate, who helped us find things. Thanks, Sam. 

Crossing the Mississippi at St. Louis - we saw no obvious vestiges of flooding. Probably not in the right place. 

                     Katie's housemate, Sam

                     Katie's house rental in Columbia, MO

Today we are continuing along I-70. Traversing Kansas. We've been enjoying a loaf of bread Harry gave us - with goat cheese spread on it. I use the road atlas as a work surface for cutting bread and spreading cheese. It has a shiny surface that can be cleaned. 

                                    Preparing lunch 

We're about to cross over into Colorado. I've been reading aloud from The Radical King, a collection of MLKing, Jr.s writings by Cornel West. We keep finding extremely apt passages for today's political campaign. E.g., King's formulation, "the inseparable twins of racial injustice and economic injustice." A perfect motto for Bernie's campaign. 

Snow squalls

Yesterday we set out from Swarthmore and had an easy drive along the PA turnpike- occasional flurries but road clear and dry. We located a Roadfood restaurant west of Columbus - Henry's - and headed for that, arriving about  5:30 pm. Henry's was a classic place, utterly unpretentious with basic, very reasonably priced food, famous for their pie. Ellen had custard and I had peach. Certainly good if not 5-star.

                       Henry's in West Jefferson, OH

            Interior shot of Henry's 

But when we got on the road again, we were suddenly enveloped in a snow squall. Total white-out. We managed to get onto a side road and waited. It stopped snowing, we went on, it started again. We had intended to aim for a motel in Indiana, but the driving was so tense, we pulled off in Lewisburg, OH, near the IN line, and found the Super Inn, a very down-scale motel. One room left, and we took it. Really basic motel. The room was cold. Ellen slept in her clothes and jacket. I had my heating pad,  thank goodness. We got some sleep. It was hard to get a hot shower - we settled for lukewarm. Today is very cold but bright. Road is fine. 

                                              The Super Inn

                  Beautiful room 112

Our first leg

We are in Swarthmore, PA -  the first stop in our journey to Boulder. We stayed last night at Wallace's, and had breakfast this morning with Harry and Sarah, at Hereford Place, in Lansdowne.  We just took a walk with Sarah, and Trey, along Darby Creek. But it was very cold and blustery, so we didn't stay out long.

We learned yesterday, in an email from Rob, that Betsey has developed shingles.  Not uncommon for someone on chemo with a compromised immune system. It is evidently not a bad case, but it must be uncomfortable for her.  The medical advice we have received is that we are not at risk to get shingles from Betsey. If we had not had chicken-pox, we could get that, but you can't "catch" shingles from someone. Shingles erupts in your body as the result of a breakdown in your immune system. Neither of us have been vaccinated for shingles, but for someone my age, it is not very effective anyway, and in any case, it takes a few weeks for the vaccination to work. So we'll proceed as planned. 

              Walking along Darby Creek

A lot to report

It's been a while since my last post and there is a lot to report. Looking ahead, we are leaving in two days to drive to Boulder again, to provide some respite help to make it possible for Katie to take a week off to visit friends in the Boston area, and also just provide Rob with support. We will be away about a month.

Looking back, we left Owl's Head, ME last Tuesday, stopped in Bath, ME on the way so Ellen could visit the Halcyon Yarn store, ran into Jim there, who came down to meet music students, then went on to Ogunquit, where we walked the beach, and then Kittery, where we went to When Pigs Fly bread store, and then Bob's Clam Hut where we had lunch, and then on to home. Since being home, we have gone to a rehearsal of the Rachmaninov Vespers, a "cabin fever" workshop with Larry Gordon and Carl Linich, singing Georgian, African and Gospel songs, a wonderful Service at the Guilford Church, a powerful concert of African-American spirituals and songs by Charles Mays, and got together with John and Cynthia. There have also been meetings, Ellen was with Tamar for a while, had a supper and movie date with her daughter, Julie, I spent several hours in the Subaru agency while our Impreza had some major work in anticipation of our trip, and I also did some major cleaning and organizing in my study, which desperately needed it - that is ongoing. So it has been a full time. 

          The entrance to Jim's studio in Bath

 

                    Jim in his studio, where he meets students one day a week.

                      When Pigs Fly bread store

            Some of the delicious bread there

   

Bob's Clam Hut, featuring Lilllian Mangos, who worked the counter for decades. 

                               "Cabin Fever" workshop

       Larry Gordon leading a song 

After church at Guilford. A group of young people and adults from the church is leaving for Kenya this week, taking with  them 80 tie-dyed T-shirts they made for orphans there - on display on the wall. The church has a more than a decade-long connection with the village of Kaiguchu in Kenya, deriving from a visit by Wangari Matthai to the Guilford church back in 2001.