not quite Gitchee Gumee

Hint: If you’re like me and haven’t had a boat to paddle around in for roughly 30 years, do more than check for sun vs. rain before you take your canoe out. Also log onto weather.com and see what the winds speeds might be.

I did not do that today. Nonetheless, we battled our way through the choppy and noncompliant 2 footers that splooshed and slapped me (in the bow) all the way across Round Bay. I did feel a little like I was on the log flume ride at Dutch Wonderland, but we persisted, and were rewarded with a lovely, serene, and quiet paddle around the shores of Sherwood Forest across the river. (yes. It’s really called that. Furthermore, every house there must be painted forest green or brown. No joke.) Well, we made it around St. Helena’s island, heeding the warning not to trespass (and noting the abandoned chair at the top of the bluff. A sharpshooter sentinal’s perch?) It was the return trip that got dicey. The wind could have kept blowing in the same direction and been at our backs. But it didn’t. Instead, we forged our way through 3 footers, at about half a mile per hour. No, probably slower. By the time we reached the north shore, about 3 neighborhoods down from our beach, the conditions had become so ridiculous that if we didn’t both work our paddling muscles into lactic acidosis, the tide would simply slap us around into the opposite direction. Fun indeed. So we gave up and hauled ashore a couple beaches too far east. Oh...first we had to wade the canoe along 50 feet of shore to even reach the beach. We were soaked. We thanked the nice ladies who were chatting under the gazebo for tolerating our intrusion while we went to fetch our car. They very kindly offered us a lift, but we walked.

At this point I will have to confess to not maintaining the patient composure with which I try to handle Jeff’s not-always-perfect comprehension. But then, to reach our point of disembarkment I’d had to shout “paddle right!” or “paddle left!” over the wind, the water sloshing against docks and boats, and my patience was worn thinner than Paris Hilton, what with Jeff’s tendency to um...fail to maintain a straight course under the best of conditions. But here is the good thing. He remembers today as a fine adventure. And it was.

I am grateful that we have life vests on board. Because, you never know. After all, look what happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald. (I mean the legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, you know?) Granted, the Severn River at its widest doesn’t hold a candle to Lake Superior, but I’m sure checking on the wind speed before we go out again.

There is no way this is my 80th post

Sometimes when I walk up the stairs, I rub my fingers extra hard over the handrail--feeling the edges, gliding smoothly along the top. It’s nice to really notice that it’s there. Now that it’s there. I don’t want to ever take the house’s details for granted, now that they’re there. The doors bear looking at. So do the floors. So does the porch railing.

Yesterday, at Spring cleanup day at our beach, Jeff and I got bench duty. We’ve got a whole fleet of benches at the beach, and I have no idea how old they are, but they’re comprised of two concrete frame/leg pieces--one for each end--straddled by seven bolted-on 2x4s. A couple years ago, when several needed new slats, someone decided to try the new plastic lumber. The recycled coke bottle, or plastic bag, stuff. It warped within the first season. So, armed with a drill, a tape measure, and our circular saw, we set to work on the fresh, pressure-treated pile of lumber. We were into the cutting to length part when Jeff had to leave for his sax lesson. Then, forgetting I suppose, that it might be useful to come back, he spent the rest of the day puttering in the basement. As for me--I was intensely grateful not to be doing mulching or beach-raking, and it was quite interesting to field the reactions of neighbors who weren’t used to group efforts of this sort where a woman got the power tool job. But I cut, measured, drilled, and bolted--tweaking a hole here or there where the fit wasn’t exact--and now I am dang proud of those three benches with the fresh green, newly installed lumber. I hope everyone will sit on them at least once.

I think I’m learning to appreciate Namenda. Surely we are living on borrowed time--and time still marked by patchy memory function--but things are pretty good, and who can argue with that?

Jeff’s mom is 85. She called us with “the best news” two nights ago. One always worries when she calls with the best news. Sometimes it means that we are as rich as the Rockefellers--something she has just realized, and sometimes it means that she’s buying her entire 2000+ resident retirement complex where she will reign as queen. This time it was because she’d had the revelation that her dysfunctional, emphysemic lungs need trouble her no longer. She’ll simply have a lung transplant. After all, lung transplants are as common as pulling teeth these days, right? What could I say but “I guess you can ask your doctor about that.” Oh, she would, she assured me.

Tomorrow looks like a good canoe day. I will wear sunscreen.

paddling

Finally the weather accommodated my itch to take the red canoe out on its maiden voyage. Since we did not declare it unsinkable, karma felt no need to subject us to icebergs or other unexpected hazards, though we did hit one rubber buoy and veer closer to a hawk's nest than she would have preferred judging from her posture as she squawked at us.

I do believe we need a captain's hat we can pass back and forth. I'm unsure whether it should be a black one with a jolly roger, or an Indian chief headdress, but in either case the wearer would be eligible to call the directional shots without being considered a control freak. When it's Jeff's turn we could steer relentlessly into piers or moored sailboats. During my turn I would be able to say “Hey, maybe we should paddle on the left a few strokes just until we clear those pilings.”

Instead, and most unfortunately, I felt compelled to continuously suggest a directional change or point straight ahead and say “we're going that way!” knowing full well that at least one of the two people in the canoe believed I was being my usual bossy self. It didn't help that to start today's adventure the canoe needed to be lashed to the Soobie roof rack with two cinch straps which worked by a simple pinch and thread (as in thread it through once) mechanism. Jeff was clearly struggling a bit with the buckle but would not let me take over even though I asked very nicely several times throughout the ten minutes it took him to secure it convolutedly enough for his satisfaction. My toes were curling, oh yes they were. So when it came time to release the straps at the beach I undid mine and resorted to the subterfuge of pulling the buckle to the other side of the car, running around, and undoing his before he could get around to start messing with it. There are probably some excellent reasons why I am not a kindergarten teacher.

But what a great outing it was, despite our conflicting navigational styles (that is, picking a direction and going in it versus picking a seawall and running into it.) We saw an assortment of large birds which I should be able to identify but can't. We saw just how much stuff wealthy waterfront landowners have to maintain. (Including, I believe, Pat Sajak, but I cannot vouch for the fact that the spread with the brick stairs widening voluptuously toward the boathouse was his.) And we got a mighty fine upper body workout which I'm going to feel like crazy tomorrow.

how are you doing?

This is how Jeff phrases the question. It's a kind of random, out of the blue inquiry and my typical response is something along the lines of “I'm fine thanks. How are you?” He may ask several times a day, and his intentions are the very best, but it's been clear for a long time, even a long time pre-diagnosis, that even if my standard response is not always entirely honest, there is nothing to be gained by answering any other way.

As an interesting parallel, many who know of Jeff's situation will ask me the same question--the variation being that they put a heavier emphasis on the word you. “How are you doing?” They understand, wisely, that no one in a similar chapter of life could be completely “fine thanks,” and asking is a way to demonstrate that recognition. But pardon me, if you ever find yourself asking. I'm still most likely to say “fine thanks.”

And why wouldn't I? Because I am fine. (thanks!) Now it is undeniably true that my status quo boat is floating with its keel a little lower than it was a few years ago, but so are lots of peoples' for lots of reasons. I have swell kids. Four of 'em. (Well…we do wonder what the heck might become of a 15 year old boy who apart from a keen fondness for anime dramas and fantasy novels is a bit of a slug. But he's a good person. Gotta trust it'll add up to something.) My house is--for the first time in a decade plus--a very nice, and comfortable, place to dwell. And the odds are that if I manage well and frugally, I will not need to get a job at Trader Joe's at the exact moment that Jeff becomes most in need of my availability. So, while Jeff's diagnosis is inarguably horrendous, I find that I'm set up to manage it as well as anyone could.

But…in the interest of disclosure for those who'd really want to know: The most difficult thing about this is the reason I will almost always say “fine thanks,” to Jeff's regularly scheduled question. An early loss among the many faculties that diminish in a person with his illness is an ability to empathize. I don't mean that they have to become mean or unpleasant. Jeff is, as always, a fine person who asks how I'm doing because he wants me to be doing well. But, there is a quality to interacting with another person--particularly one with whom you are very close--which I will call “being on the same page.” That is, you can share things with that person and you know, that at least for that moment, he understands you. He is on the same wavelength. You are vibing. You are communicating at a deeper level. This can be what makes a relationship great, and nurturing, even if you have your bad moments. This is something that requires the higher cognitive function called empathy. This is something that people with Jeff's condition can't do. It is a huge, completely unquantifiable, loss.

And other than that, I am fine thanks.

It helps. I think. (maybe)

I’m trying to write, but the words don’t flow. They more like splutter out in a barely usable mess, as if from an almost-empty shampoo bottle. For want of a back up supply, I keep banging that upside-down bottle, to get the dregs out. I have my story, and it wants to be told--but for fear of failure, or ADD, or constant supply of more pressing needs--it is being coughed out in fractured bits. Oh heck...that’s better than nothing.

Jeff is rambling around with an iPod in his pocket, and earbuds in his ears. I was unaccountably enraged when he came home from his sax lesson Saturday with Sinatra, The Beatles, and all the jazz eradicated by Lou the music teacher in favor of healing words from Andrew Weil. Not that I have a problem with Andrew Weil or healing words, but after the iPod inexplicably decided to start communicating exclusively in Korean, and I got it to cut that the heck out, I was unthrilled to find that a day’s worth of downloads had been nuked. So I nuked right back. Jeff was characteristically willing to let others decide what he should listen to, and I decided with him in mind, but I’ll be danged if that iPod’s ever going back to Lou’s house.

Here’s what you get when you read the drug information for Namenda, paraphrased: How it works: We don’t really know but Frankie in the mailroom says that it has to do with Froggy plucking his magic twanger. When to use it: Late in the game. Unless you decide to use it in the middle of the game. OTOH, you might use it early in the game. How to tell if it even is working: It might be, if one of the following is true--a)you feel better. b)you feel the same. (because you might have felt worse.) c)you feel worse. (because you might have felt even worse than worse.) If one of these is true, you can assume it’s working even though statistics suggest it doesn’t work for everyone. How we derive our statistics: We rrlllllm diczzzz. WHAT? I said we assxk rrrrdggg. WHAT? Um. We ask Frankie.

Seriously. That’s actually more info than you really get. In spite of which I think it helps some in our case.