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Frisky

This morning, a boom summoned me to wake. One of those crazy moments when it seems the world is called to attention, but everything looks the same, only the racing of my heart and the weary gaze of the hubster to confirm it was not the stuff of dreams.

Then, later, but not much, there he was. Out near the little birdbath in the side yard, he hopped, right wing askew. We shared a moment of observation before I asked him if he was hurt.

Like I invoked some sort of dare, he darted vigorously across the yard and into the safe prickle of Oregon grape leaves.

His kind came and watched from high in the tree, called out, summoning him to join their search for bugs. Sadly, he could not.

The hubster, geared up for work, was called, and we worked to catch him. More arduous than I expected, the bird did not want to be captured. When the hubster did finally get him in his grasp, the little fellow’s lament was loud and wrenching.

I made him comfortable, with food, and water, and an old towel that kept him from skittering on the plastic of the cage. Then we sat for a bit, calmed our  jittery hearts, and he closed his eyes slowly, maybe in pain, maybe just to shield them from the sun.

We drove together, through downtown, where he jumped and clung to the bars, the raucous roar of diesels and the cacophony of a city on lunch break so very much to bear.

Then it was up the winding road and the terror of one tunnel of darkness and then another. Finally we turned in the parking lot and the kind-faced man with the Red-Tailed Hawk, beautifully old and wizened, showed us the way.

There was hope and gratitude and the possibility of me releasing him back to the place he was found.

I got the call later that it was not meant to be, that wing no longer meant to fly.

And then I remembered last week, in the heat before the Fourth, when I watered the garden. A young flicker came, him, I am almost certain, and fluffed and preened and waddled before fluttering off, wings heavy with moisture, and how happy I felt to witness it. That is what I will try to keep.

 

I awoke with a start Monday morning, 3:45 on the button. The vise grip of some dark apparition around my left arm. As someone with a very high tolerance for pain, I was more than peeved. I wriggled and stretched and rubbed and won that first round, drifting back to sleep after about an hour. When I rose, it had returned and gotten worse, even spreading to my shoulder and back. I felt nauseous and it became increasingly difficult to fill my lungs. Then I remembered the cheesy “Just a Little Heart Attack” video with Elizabeth Banks, and wondered if I could be having one.

I dialed the advice line quick-like, and the nurse, when I described everything, told me to get to the hospital, and pronto. “Do not take a shower!” So the hubster zip-zipped our golden chariot to the emergency room in record time. Upon my arrival, I got a wheelchair and EKG stickers in places I’d never have thought to check. Sure enough, my little heart was at a full gallop, and that damn vise was no looser on my left arm, either.

The nurse asked if there was any possibility it could be a panic attack, and to quote a recent callous observer of my life, “Colleen, you have no real problems.” I concurred, despite the fact that having no real problems does not equate with a lack of feelings, save in the observer, the biatch. Until my arm got ensnared by some unseen evil, I’d been pretty snazzy.

So, more tests. I got my blood expertly drawn, twice (no bruising!), a chest x-ray that made me feel like I’d stepped into the world of the Incredible Hulk, and, saving the best for last, an ultrasound of my left arm, because, dag-nabbit, it might smart like a heart attack but be a right and proper blood clot, for those run in the family.

And this is where I must make note of the idiosyncrasies of medical professionals. On Monday, the nurses who drew my blood complimented my good veins. “So plump I could stab it without looking.” The ultrasound tech, who joked that he learned to use the machine over lunch, said, “Wow, you image very well. Look at that valve!” Then I remembered back to my hysterectomy and my anesthesiologist uttering, “You have a beautiful spine. I would love to give it an epidural.” And, finally, the nurse who emptied my catheter bag, holding the pitcher of urine like a trophy, exclaimed, “You have beautiful pee!” It’s a different world.

And back to mine. Despite the excitement and wonder my body provided and the battery of tests and nearly six hours spent waiting and wondering, no single resolution was made. I, Colleen Sohn, remain a person without any real problems. For the sake of speculation and for someone somewhere to get a good chuckle, the likeliest source of my horrible pain? A trio of muscles, the left bicep, deltoid, and pec pulled while sleeping or applying body oil. Oh bother, and a whole week thrown off kilter.

Happy Friday!

 p.s. The photo is a detail of Richmond Burton’s “Echoing Green” at the Portland Art Museum. Pretty!

 

Dense

Yup, them’s me boobs.  I’m putting them in your face (“Do you want a Christmas card?  Here’s your Christmas card!”) not to show off their perkiness or the pretty sweater, though it is a lovely color.  J.Crew has my number, to be sure.  No, I am putting them in your face in hopes of saving you a little anxiety.

I had my first mammogram last Thursday.  They squished my boobs good and proper.  Ouch!  Then, yesterday, in the midst of my tomato canning extravaganza (seven jars of chutney and nine jars of plain-old chopped – huzzah!), I got the call that the radiologist needed additional images.  Ugh.

I wasn’t exactly surprised.  The nice lady who took the pictures started acting different after that first picture of my right boob.  Though I certainly hoped it was my imagination.  I have a writer’s mind, you know.  I can make grand palaces of match sticks.

Luckily, they could get me in today, so I wouldn’t be sweating bullets and creating even more writerly scenarios in my fertile mind over a period of days.  As it was, I thought of hardly anything else, didn’t sleep very well, and then, when I did, I had a nightmare about being cut open while I was awake and could feel it!  Good times…

Anyhoo, I got there early and looked at Architectural Digest without really looking at it, biding my time.  Then when my name was called, and I got to the little room with the machine, I started to cry.  I did not want breast cancer.  One of my best friends just went through it, and it was no party.  No siree, Bob.  So, Diane, the technician, literally held my hand and walked me through, step by step.  It turns out my breast tissue is very thick and at certain angles doesn’t look so healthy.

She took more pictures, squishing my boob even more than the first lady.  It’s not like there’s much to squish, either, so it hurt even more than the first time. Double ouch!  Then I went back to the waiting room, had a cup of hot cocoa, wished for the hubster, and hoped for the best.

The next nice lady to help me was Kim.  She let me know that I do, indeed, have very dense breasts and with that often comes this business of double checking, but I am a-ok.  Relief!  I hugged her and cried again.  She also said to expect these kind of results in the future, so maybe I wouldn’t panic quite so much if I got a call back next year.  It’s just a precaution.  So a wish for me and you: Let’s not make mountains out of little dense boobs, shall we?

 

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Sorry, I’ve got no Bowie picture, but how about Mr. Reynolds on a natural gas outlet?  Cheeky monkey…

Anyway, happy Monday, readers!  I hope you are well and that your week is off to a good start.  Mine was a little questionable yesterday after a hacker wreaked some havoc Under a Red Roof.  Thank goodness for my superstar hubster, or I would probably still be weepy and cursing the mean people of the universe, and you’d be seeing a giant HACKED message across the screen instead of my spin on the world.

As a result of all this business, I’ve decided to no longer have comments on the blog.  It’s been a long time coming, really.  Though you don’t see them, I get a lot more spam than actual messages from sweet readers, and it was becoming a hassle.  Then Mr. Evil came along, and I decided that I’d rather not deal with it, especially if it meant the black screen of death.  That being said, I do love knowing that you’re out there, so feel free to hit the Contact Me tab, and we can chat in a more personal fashion. There’s also the Facebook, Google +, and Stumbleupon buttons at the end of the post, for those of you who want the simplicity of a click.  Here’s hoping this is a happy medium and that we can streamline the buttons in the near future, too.  Like life, it’s a work in progress!

I wish I could stay and chat a while, but I’ve got a date with a box of tomatoes – chutney anyone?

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1. Um, yes, I can spell, and, 2. This will make sense eventually.  I pondered a more silly title, like “brama,” but then thought the better of it.  People will come looking for a misspelled chicken (and a rather handsome one at that), the Hindu god, or think I’m some nut going for the Brangelina word play; bless their hearts and her bad acting, but it’s quite enough to see them on the cover of the tabloids standing in line at the supermarket, thank you very much.  So this title I could settle on, which also lets you know how much I think about such things.  It can be a whirlwind and an occasional maelstrom in this pretty little head.

Speaking of maelstroms, demolishing a bathroom is loud work.  Lath and plaster walls take quite a bit of force to remove, even when there are three fine young specimens of maleness wielding tools.  For two whole days, it was boom, boom, boom, boom,boom, boom.  It was overwhelming.  Then, during a nice stretch of quiet, while Leon the electrician was repairing some uber-shoddy work (done by a previous homeowner who fancied him/herself an electrician when idiot danger monger is closer to the truth), there was a boom so loud and fierce that it quite literally rattled my insides, followed by an equally profound silence.  My heart caught in my chest as I envisioned poor Leon lying dead in the next room.  Mercifully, he bellowed, “What the heck!  I did nothing!” a second or two later, and I could breathe a sigh of relief.  We dashed outside the house to find the source of the sound and heard the the postman holler, “It was a bird!” before seeing the body of a Starling lying motionless at the foot of the utility pole.  Somehow it managed to make just the “right” connection on the transformer, losing its young life and the block our power, for the next two hours.

The following day, when the hubster left for work, he tried to ease my mind after the previous day, and said, “Today will be quiet; they’re just digging a hole.”  It was true, a simple, two foot deep trench for our new water line (the other being eighty years old and in definite need of replacement) was in store.  But, as you’ve surely surmised from the title of the post, it was not meant to be.  I sat on the back porch, happily reading and enjoying the steady chirp of birds, when suddenly I heard a hissing sound, followed by the smell of rotten eggs that can mean only one thing.  I bolted out the gate to see our lone trench digger in a panic and my fear realized. The gas line had, indeed, been cut.  Five minutes later, the fire department arrived, sirens blaring, and I had the utterly surreal experience of watching these men put up caution tape, block off our street with three trucks, and enter my house in their full gear while being told I must remain at least fifty feet away.

I wandered a little, heart aflutter, informing the neighbors of what happened, and generally feeling strange.  I was neither afraid nor sad.  I think the right word might be detached.  It was hot, so I took shelter in the shade of my neighbor’s tree.  I admired the work of brave fire fighters and NW Natural employees.  I admired my house.  I appreciated seeing it from a different angle.   It’s funny how little we step away from our homes and see them as others do.  I thought it looked nice: the paint color, the red roof (of course), the myriad plants and trees dug into the ground by myself and the hubster.  That is our home.  I can’t go in it now, but it’s okay.  Everything will be fine.  The right people are here, helping.  Then my eye drifted to the chimney, and I saw the subject of the pictures.

Bees.  A single mass of individual energy, a gentle expansion and contraction of wings and bodies.  I felt so lucky and blessed to know they chose our house, eager to see them up close.  And so I did.  Once all the danger had passed, and the fire fighters waved their final goodbyes, I came to a spot and watched my beloved bee friends.  They came and went in an endless stream, their humming bodies maintaining the same general pattern, yet moving enough to reveal the evidence of habitation.  They had made comb. Though I am a bee lover, and would one day like to have my own hive, I knew that the side of my house would not make a suitable home over the long haul.  I made the proper inquiries to the Xerces Society and the Oregon State Beekeepers Association, and the following morning Pavel and Ivan arrived at our door.  Pavel is sixteen and an avid, however nascent, beekeeper, and our hive his ninth rescue.  Ivan is his father and serves as driver and helper.

Pavel made quick work of removing the hive from the eave, but, rather unfortunately, since the bees were so happily ensconced, (they’d probably been there for a month – I had heard them, thinking them something else, but never saw them), there was so much honey that it was rather messy, and the queen got lost in the shuffle.  During the time that Pavel and Ivan searched for the queen and we all hoped she was, indeed, alive, there was much learning and cleaning.  Learning about the intricacies of a hive and beekeeping in general.  Cleaning honey and comb, gently scraping up drenched bees and getting them near their sisters to be cleaned by them (such tenderness).   Oh, and there was a little bit of eating, too.  I took a small piece of honey-filled comb, and we enjoyed it over the next couple of days.  It was light, nearly clear, and the best I’d ever tasted.  A lovely reminder that though life sometimes brings drama in the form booms and frights, it is ultimately sweet like honey.

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