Gratitude

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1. Morning walks. We’ve been able to adjust a lot of our regular spots to something a bit shorter as Ringo gets his strength back. Today he even got to stop by and see his friend, Theresa, at her fitness studio. He was so happy he ran in the door and barked. Everything is blooming: crabapple, cherry, pear, redbud, daffodils, forsythia, Japanese quince. There are lots of robins and I even heard a mountain bluebird. Sadly, the river is so low in spots, it’s hardly even there.

2. Some things were hard and others went okay. They are most likely not going to continue to approve Mom’s hospice placement, so she has to move — AND it’s because she’s doing so well. Our first choice placement was full AND our second choice has a spot and just so happens to be a ONE minute drive away from where her older sister may be moving and is only a couple of miles from my brother’s house. My brother got my Ubox all packed and locked up so it can get shipped to me, AND we discovered that someone who has been in the house since I’ve been there stole a bunch of my dad’s coin collection. We got our taxes signed and sent, AND Ringo’s medical needs have already spent a significant portion of our refund. We went out to lunch at our favorite BBQ spot yesterday, brought home leftovers, AND Eric spent last night sleeping on the couch because his stomach hurt so I’m afraid to have the leftovers even though he said I could have all of them. The pool is open again, the new tilework complete, AND I haven’t had time yet to go. It’s like that saying about how we are falling through the air without a parachute but the good news is there’s no ground.

3. Our new bed. I finally felt sure enough about it to leave a review on their website (which I don’t do unless I really mean it), five stars and this comment:

My husband and I slept on cheaper cotton futons when we first got married because it was the frugal, easy choice. When we bought our first house, we felt like we should “upgrade” to something more adult, so we got our first king sized traditional mattress. This was about 20 years ago when you could still get a firm spring mattress that would last more than six months and it served us well. When it was time to replace it, we went through three different “hybrid” options (can’t find just springs anymore) that all, honestly, were awful. Even at their peak, they just weren’t right. They were supposedly firm, but broke down, and they had various topper material that always threw off the feel and sleep quality. This time around, we searched and searched, willing to pay just about anything, to find that old school truly firm mattress that would last and it just wasn’t available anywhere.

We started joking around about those years we slept on a futon on a pallet on the floor and that maybe we should just go back to that, and then we realized, wait, maybe we actually should try a futon again. We didn’t stop sleeping on them because we didn’t like them, we just felt pressure to be like everyone else and get a “real” mattress. So we found Comfort Pure, poured over the reviews, and landed on the Natural Coconut, Latex Wool Bed Mattress (Extra-Firm) Kind with (as we are a bit older now) a Natural Wool Three Inch Mattress Topper. We’ve only had it for less than a month so I can’t say what the longevity will be, but the sleep and feel has been so perfect and lovely, I’d willingly buy a new one every year if they only lasted that long. I can finally get a good night’s sleep again!

4. Ringo Blue. I am so glad that his belly has been doing so well for so long, that we finally got that figured out, and that his back is feeling better, his arthritis discomfort managed. At 12 years old, he’s turned into such a Mama’s boy, follows me around everywhere, has to check in and know what I’m doing at all times.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I finally finished my portion of the great garage clean up, with Ringo there to supervise. Next is my office, my writing and art space, with two new bookshelves to build — so many books and notebooks! I’m looking forward to it being done but I don’t know how I’m going to feel about the actual doing… 

I should have taken a before pic
“Can I haz that turkey?”

Bonus joy: writing with my Friday morning writing group, texting with Chris and Chloe’, deactivating my Facebook account (again), comedy and comedians — this week Pete Holmes and Chris Higgins in particular, listening to podcasts — this week I’ve been binging Do You Need A Ride and Working It Out, getting books from the library to read on my Kindle, oranges, pasta, Pop-Tarts — because sometimes that’s just what you want, down blankets and pillows, sweet stories about unlikely animal friends, poetry and poets, writing in the morning while I drink my coffee and tea, Haflinger wool slippers, sitting in the backyard with Ringo and Eric, a/c (it was already 90 degrees one day last week, and we’ve already had a bunch of 80+ days), honey cornbread muffins, Diet Pepsi — because sometimes, as with Pop-Tarts, that’s just what you want, coupons from Tillamook for free full sized tubs of ice cream just because I said something nice about them, discounted bread, Dairy Queen soft-serve ice cream, steaming TV and movies, the Hallmark Channel (not for me, for my mom), soft flannel, music, trash service, indoor plumbing, wood stove fires, campfires, battery operated candles, a couch comfortable enough you can sleep on it all night, white noise machines, the sauna, electric and hybrid cars, a big glass of clean cold water, reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.    

Something Good

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1. Poetry: Vermeer by Tomas Tranströmer, Vita Nova by Louise Glück and Moonlight Romantica by Todd Turnidge and Honeycrisp by January Gill O’Neil and 1985 by Vincent Rendoni and Poem Beginning in Berlin, Ending in Boston, and Bookended by Rilke by Tiana Clark on poets.org, from Mosaic by Supritha Rajan and Reverse Requiem by Ina Cariño and If Night You Were a City by Adam Wiedewitsch on The Slowdown with Maggie Smith, When the screen goes black the only thing left glowing by Jasmine on The Tiny Joy Project, Heart Medicine by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Daffodil Teachers and Rough Grace from James Crews, Small Moments by James Crews on Heart Poems, The Pact by Jena Schwartz, and Because, War by Hayden Saunier and The Senior Living Bus Goes to the Churches on Sundays by Fleda Brown on Rattle. 

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2. The news ≠ your life from Oliver Burkeman on The Imperfectionist. “But if it really has become a privilege to retain one’s sanity, I think it’s one the privileged need to exercise, not disavow. In an era when the news leaves half your friends paralysed by misery, it’s no indulgence to make time for whatever’s pleasurable or engrossing in your life. On the contrary, the world needs sane people more than ever.”

3. Hachette pulls horror novel Shy Girl after suspected AI use on The Guardian. In related news, Shy Girl, AI In Writing, And A New Perniciousness from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

4. Good stuff from The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz: How Will This End for MAGA Americans? The Same Way It Did for NAZI Germans: Feigned Ignorance, and Trump Supporters, Is This Really What You Voted For?, and MAGAs Are Destroying America For Spite, and Confronting the Mental Health Crisis of Trump’s America.

5. Transparent Toilets Take Tokyo’s Culture of Hygiene to the Next Level. “Don’t worry—once their doors are locked, smart glass technology ensures the exteriors become opaque.”

6. Not Missing Your Life. “In 1979, Jon [Kabat-Zinn] started MBSR in the basement of a medical facility at the University of Massachusetts. The patients referred to him were the ones nobody else knew what to do with. Chronic pain. Chronic anxiety. Chronic depression. They had an average of eight years of symptoms with no improvement.”

7. Thank you, Darkness/Welcome, Light! “a turn of the wheel, a new beginning {Letter One: Spring Dreaming}” from Alix on Earth & Verse.

8. Mental Declutter: 8 Gentle Ways to Spring Clean Your Mind by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

9. in the closets of my mother-the-model. “From Dior to The Gap, my mother was defined by her clothes until the end” by Elissa Altman on Poor Man’s Feast.

10. Haunted by Waters by Amy Marie Turner. “What will this summer look like when there isn’t melt water or precipitation to recharge our vital rivers? How do we get to the other side of the environmental damage that we are witnessing in our lifetime?” *sigh*

11. The Best Things I’ve Done to Cope With Anxiety. Be sure to take a look at the comments section too.

12. We asked experts about the most responsible ways to use AI tools – here’s what they said on The Guardian.

13. Books of Love, “A conversation about poetry, community, and being Black in America” with Camille T. Dungy and Sean Hill on Orion Magazine.

14. The Plan. “How much of the pleasure of making a garden is in the plan?” by Eula Biss on Orion Magazine.

15. How a Film About Andrea Gibson Became an Oscar-Nominated Love Story. “Director Ryan White talks about making Come See Me in the Good Light, the acclaimed documentary about Colorado’s late poet laureate Andrea Gibson that captures their final years—and the relationship that sustained them.”

16. Please Don’t Tell Me How to Feel About My Breast Cancer. “Or any other loss I’ll inevitably face” by Giulia Rozzi on Open Secrets Magazine.

17. Recipe I want to try: Gochujang Chicken Burgers with Kimchi Bacon Jam.

18. Paula Doress-Worters, an Author of ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves,’ Dies at 87 on The New York Times. (gift link) “She wrote about postpartum depression when it was an unmentionable like abortion or birth control, and her research on her own suffering helped countless women.”

19. The Funniest Conversation You’ll Ever Hear About Achieving Inner Peace, Pete Holmes with Dan Harris on 10% Happier. (video) “You were taught that spiritual growth takes effort. Comedian and writer Pete Holmes thinks that might be exactly backwards — and he’s got the mushroom trip, the divorce, and the Richard Rohr quotes to back it up. Pete Holmes is a comedian, actor, writer, and host of the long-running podcast *You Made It Weird*. He is the author of *Comedy Sex God*, a memoir about faith, comedy, and the search for meaning…This is a live conversation recorded in front of an audience — and one of the most joyful, wide-ranging spiritual discussions Dan has ever had on stage.”

20. A Reason to Send You a Letter from Jamie Attenberg on Craft Talk.

21. Lowering the Volume. “On attunement, erasure, and what reveals itself in the quiet” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

22. The Queen of Three Beautiful Things. An interview with Clare Law and Satya Robyn.

23. An Existential Guide to: Regret. “Regret is a bruise that never ripens” on The Shadowed Archive.

24. We need you, hopepunks. “You are the antidote to apathy and cynicism” from Brad Montague on The Enthusiast.

25. Why My Father Wants His Workbench. “On familiar spaces, Alzheimer’s, and what we grieve when we lose home” by Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

26. What We Write About When We Write About The Self. “Some thoughts on the recent memoir discourse” from Summer Brennan on A Writer’s Notebook.

27. Why Sucking at Your Hobby Could Be a Secret Weapon.

28. Lou Reed’s Nephew: The Collages. “How they came to be” by Jim Hanas.

29. The Bigness of Small Talk, a guest opinion essay on The New York Times. (gift link)

30. Monarch butterfly population increases by 64%.

31. 5 Beautiful Articles About Creativity.

32. And finally, a few random things I saved to my phone this week.