Sunday, January 24, 2016

Remembering: There Was A Time In Fairfield . . .

I have been sitting by the window watching the snow.  It is coming down sort off sideways because of the wind, but it’s a nice snow, gradually blanketing the road below, filling in spaces in the woods opposite me and every now and then gusting off the roof  in a dense flurry. I like it. 

And I am remembering.

Remembering that before World War 2 when a snow like this appeared, as soon as it lessened, our childlike excitement would build. Soon my uncle would show up at our house with my two cousins and we would go sledding. Not your normal sledding down a hill as one might expect, although we did that, too, on nearby Brown’s Hill, but instead, a particular sledding experience that I think my father and my uncle, devised themselves in their creative, fun-loving way.

What we did was this: Using a thick rope, Dad and my uncle would lash our five sleds together forming a line of sleds. Then Dad, at the wheel of our 1935 wooden Ford station wagon, would tow us along the unplowed roads, while Uncle Goodie, watching us, would sit on the open tailgate, wrapped in hat, parka and scarf, his legs swinging over the snow.

How I loved my wooden Flexible Flyer with its shiny natural varnish and bright red lettering and runners. We all had them and they were prized possessions. The youngest kids—my brother and one of my cousins-- would be in front. I suppose that was thought to be the safest position. And my sister and I and our other cousin would be staggered toward the rear. We had to lie down on our sleds facing forward. We were pretty low to the road on those sleds and we laughed as snow blew up into our faces.

Dad drove slowly enough to be safe but fast enough so that we had to pay attention and steer. Around the Green, onto Unquowa Rd, and Pine Creek. Few houses then. No one else was ever on the road. A white, hushed emptiness: it was magical. Except for the slight rumble of the Ford engine, all would be silent.

I remember this as one of the highlights of my childhood winters in Fairfield. I remember the feeling of the cold against my face, the smooth slide of my sled along the streets, our calling out to each other: my father and his brother wreathed in smiles as, together, they gave this pleasure to us. I remember the mugs of hot cocoa topped with plump, soft marshmallows that Mom would hand us when we came inside, all pink-cheeked and shivery.

 I remember the feeling of family: the five of us kids joined in play as we so often were. Dad and his brother having fun with us.

My father and my uncle are gone. Two of the five of us are dead now. It’s so hard to believe. 

How grateful I am for this memory that today’s big snow surfaced for me.


I imagine that in these days my father and uncle would be marched into court for child endangerment. There was a time when Fairfield, indeed, this entire country, was a simpler, quieter place.

Monday, January 18, 2016

A Master's Degree In Chart Making?


No one told me that when you have cataract and lens replacement surgery you would require a Master’s degree in chart making.  No one told me that I would have to post each drop I placed in each eye and at what time, and that this regimen would go on for days before the surgery and for weeks afterwards.

There are three different kinds of “prep” drops necessary for each eye 1-4 times a day for three days before each surgery.

If that doesn’t do you in, there’s post surgery, when one eye is “post” and the other in the “prep” phase.

After the first surgery your eyes are never on the same schedule. So, if you are as panicked as I am about missing something I am supposed to do to properly take care of my eyes, you bypass the rather lame chart they give you at the surgery center, and make your own. That creative process at least gives you a clear—clear being a relative term as, post cataract surgery, nothing is really clear—idea of what you will be up against for the next three weeks.

A friend asks me to meet her for lunch at 12:15. I consult my chart- spread on the kitchen counter to calculate whether or not we need to meet at1:00 so that I can get the necessary drops into my eyes at least near to schedule. I figure I can move them forward and adjust the others for the rest of the day in order to keep the correct space between the drops. I meet her for lunch at 1:00.

“Let’s go to the movies,” a friend suggests.

“Wait a minute,” I counter, as I study the chart. What schedule manipulation would work so that I could get the drops into my eyes that are due right in the middle of the movie?

“Oh just bring your drops with you,” she says. I picture myself in the dark of the movie theater fetching three little plastic bottles out of my pocketbook, peering in the dim light at each bottle to try and figure out which is which. Then, assuming that I am able do that, tilting my head straight back and dropping the drops into each eye, mopping the excess with a Kleenex.

I don’t think so.

I adjust the timing of remaining drop requirements of the day so that I can go. In order to separate the doses properly, I will have to stay up far later than is my custom.

Eye drops rule.

My left eye—first surgery—can see at a distance just fine. Right eye lagging a week behind it, of course. I can watch television with no glasses of any kind, but I cannot read without glasses. I have “loaner” pink reading glasses, which never seem to be nearby when I need them. For out of doors I wear the gigantic plastic eye cover- ups they gave me at the surgery. 

At some point, I am assured, my eyes will “settle” and then the correct glasses will be made for my new vision. The glitch is that I am leaving town on Feb 2 and the optometrist does not expect the “settling” to have taken place by then.

So off I will go with the huge, rock star dark glasses and the pink reading glasses, which I will need to have welded to my body.

And I thought this eye stuff was going to be simple?

The take-away here?  Before any procedure ask a lot more questions, Stranahan!

Monday, January 4, 2016

Taking Care Of Some Stuff

I am going to disappear off the radar for a week or two in order to have cataract and laser corrective surgery. As it is, today--Sunday-- I have begun the eye drop protocol—three different kinds of drops 1-4 times a day—and I have a blurred vision of this screen as I write. I am using a font for first graders, whose vision is far superior to mine, but their books, if not in plot complexity, are perfect viewing for those of us in advanced stages of cataract development. I can barely see my Kindle; I have to keep blinking in order to zero in on the words.

So this surgery is a good thing, which makes me a lucky woman.

If I can write, I will. I am coping with a lot of Not Knowing, which is not my favorite thing. Who among us? After I have the first surgery I will better understand what is expected of me and what happens to my eyes. It is my hope, therefore, that I will feel less anxious about the second surgery. 

An additional concern is the matter of being anesthetized. For me that is rather a big deal. I don’t come back! Well, of course, eventually I do, but friends kind enough to pick me up after, say, an endoscopy or colonoscopy, have been sent home without me because I am still sprawled on the out patient couch or bed and couldn’t tell you my name if my life depended on it. Usually a nurse feeds me or wrestles me upwards to get me to drink apple juice. It’s not pretty. This vulnerability of mine adds to my stress.

Although with my last endoscopy I was given propofol and it was marvelous! Great dreams and I returned in a reasonably timely fashion, but I didn’t want to. I am telling you, terrible abuse, but Michael Jackson got the drug right. Unfortunately, no propofol for this surgery: I asked.

So we will see about the writing—quite literally. Don’t absolutely count me out, but blurred vision or anesthetic saturation may deter me temporarily from blogging.

If, when I post this, you find mistakes, I hope you will indulge me because I really cannot see the words very well.

Meanwhile, allow me to thank readers this week from many countries. I am so grateful to you all for reading Life Opening Up and would love to hear from you.

Russia this week, 72 of you! I am amazed. And readers from Ukraine, Germany, The United Kingdom, Portugal, Bermuda, Mexico, France and Poland,Australia, India and of course, the United States: readers whose fidelity to this blog awes me. Thank you.


Onward!