Grayson Works; I Don't

Woo hoo! Grayson is coming again today. I really enjoy his company, as does Sheba. But he’ll be coming alone. Happy, the wonderful, loving, fabulous retriever he’s been babysitting has gone home. His owners are back from vacation. How I will miss him! He is the kind of dog everyone wants. He is calm, obedient, excellent when off leash, and he’s absolutely gorgeous. 

Grayson split the remaining rounds of wood. They are all done, so there’s only the stacking left to do. And he must finish adding the gutters on the two renovated woodsheds. They’re an easy job to do. And finally, he’s going to clean my gutters. Then, he won’t be back until Fall to burn a lot of the forest detritus left over from his work on the felled trees, plus there are old palettes to burn as well.

Sheba and I walked with our friends in the morning, and then we went into the village to shop. When we got home, Grayson was here and while he worked, I fed the brood their lunch and found myself uninterested in doing any yard work. I did wind up doing some, but not much. My current obsession is fertilizing everything, so I fed all the plants in one half of the backyard. There’s the other half to do, plus the front yard and the edible garden. And there’s also a ton of raking to do. But there’ll be more days like today, when I do nothing.

I’m grateful for all the chores. They pull me outside and give me something to do. I can’t make progress as fast as I used to, but I can do the work, and it’s thrilled me to find how much I enjoy the work. I’m happy because going by what I’ve been able to do since the growing season began, I can stay here. Grayson is going to help me whenever I need him, and he’s all I need. Yes, it would be lovely to have someone to come and clean once a month, and it would be nice to have a gardener, but you know I adore Grayson, but I always feel very, very happy when he goes.

And that’s because I cannot relax when there is someone in my world. I’m considering hosting an evening meal here for Jay, Eoin and François. I’ve seen E&F a couple of times lately and I realize how much I like them both, and I’ve always felt there should be no rules in my life, just guidelines. I was once rigidly vegetarian for many years, and I hated having to tell everyone who invited me to dinner. And when I started cooking after taking a lot of courses, I resented having to cater to vegetarians when there were other guests who were not vegetarian, so I decided to eat meat that was served to me, but not to buy any. I liked that compromise. It was my first guideline, and a very valuable one. It was about being flexible, and when I thought about it, I was proud not to be rigid.

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I read through the support material for people with eosinophilic asthma. One thing they suggest is proactive notification to friends about the change in our asthmatic condition, especially when on an immunosuppressant drug. I have been living carefully for a long time. Primarily, that has meant leading the pack with my dog walking friends so that everyone was downwind of me. But now I am at the rear of the pack.

I’m glad I read it. I have an appointment with Dr. Dorscheid on July 23^rd. I have a short list of questions to ask him, including about Tezspire, the drug I will soon be taking. I am also going to ask him if this worse state of health with shortness of breath will make getting the flu or a chest cold harder to endure.

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I have a friend from high school. I’ll call her B. We were in a carpool together during our college years, and she met and fell in love with a man. A chemist who got a job with Dow Chemical back east. She was devastated when he left, and I was a principal shoulder for her to cry on. It was that Summer, that experience, that made us life-long friends.

But I’ve been noticing changes. Last week I got some weird texts, and a lot of them. That added to my worries because the reason I felt myself witness to decline was trying to get her to remember how to communicate with me. Yesterday, I called her, and she told me that she was going into care.

I watched my dear friend, Dianne, lose her bosom buddy and our friend, DR. She told me that she has memory problems and that she didn’t think “it was dementia yet.” But she can’t figure out how to use her phone. Her son is clearly aware and in charge; she also has a daughter who will be fully hands-on. Still, I’ve been weeping all day, off and on.

I know it will pass. I want to see her, but I’m afraid I will cry and want to hug her and that I’ll be an emotional mess, so I’ve suggested lunch together at an open-air restaurant in Nanaimo harbour. I’d like to get take-away and eat somewhere in the sunshine. I’ll have Sheba with me, and in that kind of location and time of day, I think, I hope that I can keep myself together. 

Four centuries old Topiary in the cloister garden at Pazo de 

San Lorenzo in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.