They needed to start her on the first chemo drug they gave her, an induction drug, Elspar. And continue her on Prednisone. Next week she will get blood tests and get checked over, then we start her on yet another drug, but I don’t remember what it is. It’s a pill rather than an injection.

She seemed to be doing okay after treatment on Wednesday. On Thursday, she ate quite well, some wet dog food, a little bit of steak, a bit of baked potato, some broccoli (which she loves—go figure ... ), plus her dog biscuits and her Greenie. Not much of her dog chow. She sometimes gets diarrhea when she eats beef or pork fat (or just beef or pork), so I didn’t think much about it when she had to go out repeatedly starting around 2 am on Friday morning. I was up monitoring a server upgrade anyway, so it wasn’t like I was going to sleep right away. I put newspapers down before I finally went up to bed just in case it wasn’t over.

come back squirrel, i want to play (click to enlarge)

It wasn’t. Only it was much worse—fierce vomiting was the next event. She snagged the cat tuna and blew it. She drank some water—gone at once. Between the vomiting and the diarrhea, I knew it was bad. I called the onco vet, who prescribed some pills to give her, one for each problem. Pills. For a dog that couldn’t even keep water down. A trip to the vet to pick up the scripts and $40 later, I gave her the meds. Barf in 60 seconds. No pills in evidence, but oh she looked so so sick and in pain. The onco vet said to call her regular vet, Dr. Meredith Re at Strawberry Hill Animal Hospital (we’re crazy about Dr. Re, and the creatures love her too, even though she sticks them with needles and shoves thermometers up their butts).

Dr. Re had us bring her in, and it was very difficult because Ginger just did not want to walk anywhere. She got up into the car, but did not want to get out of the car. Stanley had to half pick her up and half shove her out—we didn’t want to yank her by the collar because of her swollen lymph glands. Then, when we finally got her in to the exam room, Ginger shoved her head between the table and the wall and tried to make herself as small as possible.

Bottom line was Ginger needed IV liquids and pretty close supervision overnight at least, since she was dehydrated because of all the liquid she lost—she lost three pounds in two days and only some of it was the lymph fluid going down (they have gotten smaller, but they’re still very much noticeable). Dr. Re’s hospital doesn’t provide ICU-type care and is not staffed during the wee hours, so she recommended we take her to the VCA Veterinary & Emergency Center—the animal ER here in Norwalk. Off we went. Dr. Re was worried that it might be pancreatitis induced by the chemo. We thought, before we saw Dr. Re, that it was all the stuff she ate, or maybe the potato skin poisoned her (they can if they’re green).

Ginger was first “triaged” by an intern? Or orderly? I’m not quite sure who the guy was. We told him that Dr. Re had already called and faxed over her records, seemed rather pointless and a silly procedure—we wanted her taken care of as soon as possible. He left, and soon the vet, Dr. Vaishali Kamath, came in to take a look. I got a good feeling from Dr. Kamath—I felt like I could trust her to take good care of Ginger. The only times Ginger hasn’t been with me are the few days I was in hospital and when we went to Washington DC on our honeymoon, so it was really difficult to leave her there. The vet got her settled in for diagnosis and treatment, and came back to go over the estimate. After leaving $1,500+ to pay for everything (75% of the high-end estimate), we went home to a very quiet house. I asked Stanley if we were crazy for paying so much for a dog who is terminal, and he said, “probably.” I asked if it bothered him and he said, “no.”

Dr. Kamath said, around 11:30 when I finally reached her to get an update (lot of dogs into the ER tonight, but only one from heatstroke), that Ginger was perking up quite a bit, that her blood pressure was back up to closer to where it should be and her blood work was fine except for some abnormalities which the hospital oncologist said was due to her chemo. Lots of IV fluids, IV steroid injection. Her vomiting was stopped, though the diarrhea continues. She is wagging her tail and had just gone out for a walk. We will probably be able to bring her home Saturday—we will hear from the hospital and Dr. Re Saturday morning. Oh, and the vomiting and diarrhea are the result of her chemo and not us letting her eat beef or potato skins. Just a lot of different poisons in her, a lot for her system to handle.

So it seems like she is not ready to go just yet. We’re not ready to let her go yet, either—as long as she is comfortable and seems happy and not in any pain, we’ll hang on to her. The onco vet told us we will know when it’s time to let her die. She’s not under my chair as I write this and the void is huge—I can’t wait to bring her home.

Anyway, Slink, our Very Bad Cat, has a way of ensuring he gets some attention when he wants some attention:

you WILL pay attention to me ... (click to enlarge)

So he sprawls long enough across Stanley’s keyboard to totally disrupt the flow of whatever Stanley was trying to work on. I swear this cat has ADD. He comes, he wreaks mayhem, and before one can adjust to Slink’s new reality, he leaves to chase a moth or watch the bird in the wisteria or just torment the dog.

Twitch is a very mellow cat. We placed a stem of crocosmia on the desk, and he’s content to just sniff it and see if he can scratch his chin on it and if not, it’s not worth bothering with:

twitch examines the crocosmia (click to enlarge)

This particular crocosmia is called Lucifer. Slink had to check it out after Twitch finished his examination:

slink eats the crocosmia (click to enlarge)

And because Slink is a devil cat, he tried to eat Lucifer. He was shooed away, but later snatched the leaves, which I found shredded all over the office.

HEATING OIL
July is the time of year to secure heating oil contracts here in New England. You try to decide if it makes sense to pay the market rate at time of delivery, to pay a fixed rate no matter what the market rate is (along with a fee), or to pay a capped rate, which requires an up-front payment of a certain amount. The up-front payment does not count toward your oil bill—it’s just a fee the heating oil supply companies charge you to cover their asses. This is a new thing this year, at least around here.

Then you have to figure out who offers the best rates, which involves phone calls (the websites are usually non-informative or very confusing, especially about this new charged for the capped rate) and waiting for information. Then you need to figure out how much oil you’re going to need this winter, which is a real crapshoot in Southern New England. Last couple of winters were mild, but three years ago it got really cold, but if it’s windier than usual (we live on the coast) it’s colder than usual even though the temperature might be higher ... and last winter we got a new furnace, so I couldn’t even average over three or four years. I settled on 700 gallons.

Then you have to try to guess what the cost of heating oil is going to be. You can’t really go by the price of gas—it’s more like the cost of diesel (since heating oil is diesel with different additives) so you need to ignore the brouhaha over the rising cost of gas and look at other stuff—requiring a lot more knowledge than I have, or have time to acquire and sort out. Fortunately, I have a very smart friend who understands the commodities market, Stu Johnston. He understands it so well he wrote a book about it and put together a database and wrote an application to mine the database that provides all kinds of information about commodities prices and other stuff I only vaguely understand—you can subscribe to this database at Time and Timing (a trial subscription is available). Anyway, I asked him what he thinks makes sense.

We juggled the numbers, ruling out market rate, and looked at the difference between the fixed rate contract and the capped rate contract with the fee (which is 30 cents per gallon from the company we selected, which is Gault Oil of Westport). The capped price is $4.84/gallon plus the fee, or $3,598 for 700 gallons if you pay the cap. The fixed price fee is $4.79/gallon plus a $55 fee for 700 gallons, totaling $3,408.

So the difference is $200, and deciding what to do amounts to whether we want to gamble $200 that the price of heating oil will drop enough to cover the fee (and hopefully then some) or not. Stu also said we could hedge as well, but that’s more thinking that I have the energy for at this time. And he said he thinks heating oil might go down. So do I, especially if we have another mild winter.

We decided to gamble and went with the cap. And now we’re watching as the cost of oil is dropping and keeping our fingers crossed. And doing what we can to tighten up this 200-year-old sieve of a house and wishing there was such a thing as affordable solar heating systems.

After it was all buttoned up, it hit me: $3,500! That’s $700 per month just to stay warm enough so we don’t see our breath in the house and are able to move our fingers enough to keyboard. It’s tight for us—I just can’t imagine how people on fixed incomes or low income families can afford these oil prices. Electricity is just as expensive in this state ... what are people going to do?

It’s so great to have oil men in the White House, isn’t it? Did us sooo much good ...

Eight hours. That’s how long I sleep naturally. Three nights in a row, eight hours each night almost to the minute. So now I know: that’s what I need in order to feel functional.

Today I spent a couple of hours getting things into pots and hellebores into the ground. I’ve had no luck with hellebores until this summer—I hope they survive the winter—that will be the true test of luck, to see them bloom in early spring.

Things are lush this year. The mimosa we planted a couple of years ago, maybe three years ago, that wasn’t much more than a tall stick has grown beautifully and is even blooming this year:

mimosa blooming, © 2008 lee fleming thompson (click to enlarge)

The garden in the middle of the yard is going crazy. We planted a clematis a couple of years ago and it is blooming this year—I wish I remembered which clematis it is, but it’s pretty growing around the rosa rugosa (beach rose). I would like to train it to go more toward the center of the trellis, but don’t have the kevlar gardening gloves I need to deal with the wicked thorns on the beach rose:

We planted tomatoes, peppers, basil, and a cucumber vine before we left, and those, too, are doing pretty well (even though we didn’t get any tomatoes by July 4th, as promised by Burpee):

Ginger went out with me so she could play keep-away with her frisbee. She still hasn’t figured out that she gets to run more if she’ll just give the damn frisbee (or ball) back to us instead of making us either chase her or try to outsmart her to get it back to throw it again. She’s a goofus. The prednisone seems to have knocked the swelling out of her lymph nodes again and she’s been pretty perky for the most part ...

ginger with her frisbee (click to enlarge)

... except for the fireworks, of course. She’s had three terrible evenings, and tonight wasn’t so hot either. Here she is looking very worried as she just heard a small firecracker go off in one of the neighbor’s yard—ready to bolt to the back door and beg to be let in the house if she heard another one:

oh no! not those again! (click to enlarge)

I managed to get covered in dirt this afternoon, planting the hellebores I mentioned, and putting together some pots of rosemary and basil and marigolds. Stanley put in a new peony, a coral-colored one. I noticed an astilbe I planted a couple of years ago is finally growing, and some of the plants I put in the shade garden are starting to show signs of life. I’m trying to grow shade plants that like dry shade that are not hosta—though it looks like I may have to break down and put in some hosta as well. I’m not particularly fond of hosta, but I’d rather look at those (this is the view out my office window) than bittersweet-choked burning bushes. And I wish there was an easy way to get rid of bittersweet—I wonder if somebody could figure out a way to make biofuel out of that stuff; that would be one way to get rid of it.

I’ve been thinking too much lately. My sister asked if I were worried about developing frontotemporal dementia like my mother and her mother. I kind of brushed off the question, telling her that what I’m trying to do is get everything in order so that if I do get it, I won’t be a such burden on Stanley (and if I don’t get it, well, we’ll be in a good spot to enjoy retirement) but other than that, I’m not worrying about it.

And I’m not really worrying about it, but I’ve become almost obsessed with learning about it and paying a lot of attention to how the caregivers in the FTD Forum are doing and what’s happening with their FTD loved ones, and I am worrying a lot about Dad. My mother let her worry about getting FTD like her mother did ruin a great many years of her life, and it did her no good at all. I don’t want to miss living life now to worry about the future. I decided the best thing I could do was get as healthy as I can and do what I can to stave off developing dementia, if it ever happens. So I’ve been working on that.

But it is bothering me a lot, the grief, the long goodbye, I think, more than anything, and that, coupled with Ginger’s cancer and some health problems that people I love have, has pushed me into this place where I feel like I’m sort of underwater, and it’s interfering a lot with being able to get things done. I’m not immobile, but I’m not okay, either. I’m not sure what to do about it. I’ll talk to Stanley about it and see what he says. But right now, I’m going to bed, would like to get to sleep before it starts getting light out for a change. Especially since I can’t get my eight hours in tomorrow by sleeping until past noon—the holiday weekend is over, alas.

At Ginger’s last chemo treatment, the vet felt lymph nodes again in Ginger’s legs. So a lab test was done, but came back inconclusive. Next treatment, last Friday, the lumps were still there along with the lymph nodes in her neck being enlarged. So they re-did the earlier test and another one with a sample from her neck lymph nodes. Today we got the wicked bad news that Ginger is no longer in remission.

Thursday morning we go to the oncologist vet and start what’s called a rescue protocol, the MOPP protocol. Different chemo drugs. I’m not sure what the odds are or what to expect yet. Even though I’ve been kind of expecting this since she had such weird blood tests, it still felt like a kick in the stomach. She’s not acting sick or anything, doing ok (except for thunder and the dreaded fireworks). It really, really sucks.

JUMBO MEANS JUMBO
While we were in Michigan, my parents added cable telephone so had to get a cable box, which meant a new remote control to learn. Mom was having a devil of a time mastering it. So, when Stanley saw a deal on Jumbo Universal Remotes on one of the cheap crap deal sites he haunts (he says Woot Two-fer Tuesday), we thought, “Hmm, a universal remote, bigger than the cable company remote, bet that might be easier for Mom to manage.” Program it once, if it works, and only have to master one damn remote for all the boxes. In theory, anyway. He ordered two, one for us to try (we have to use three remotes to watch our DVDs) and one to take with us in August and program for Mom and Dad if it works for us.

Only, well, he didn’t read the fine print. Such as the height and width of these Jumbo Universal Remotes. They came in a huge box, which I thought was really odd. And then Stanley opened the box—then I laughed so hard I almost peed:

Well, we certainly won’t LOSE them ...  (click to enlarge)

We still don’t know if they work. Maybe we can wall mount one of ‘em ...

THINGS WE HAVEN’T DONE YET
We got a new rug for the living room. It was waiting for us at Home Depot when we got back from Michigan. Lovely shade of blue and I can’t wait to see it—only it’s still not down yet. We meant to do it last weekend but got very busy outside, then on Sunday it was just so hot (dew point was 74°!) we just looked at eachother, too dull-witted from the heat to figure out how to tackle it. We decided to wait until the humidity broke.

We also did not replace the column on the porch yet—same story as above. And I haven’t vacuumed the house—right now there is quite a colony of spiders taking over all the corners, high and low. The cats are falling behind on their job of killing the little beasties.

But we did get a lot of yard work done. I am happy to report that my tomatoes and pepper plants survived us being away for more than two weeks—our next-door neighbor was nice and watered them for us. The black plastic cloth stuff we put down is working really well. A new rosebush we put in and weren’t sure was going to make it is now thriving. And a clematis vine we thought croaked came to life—just very late this year. A new one we planted last year is blooming and is beautiful—I forgot to take a photo of it today.

I wish it were easy to get back and forth between here and Oscoda—my parents are on my mind constantly and it’s hard not to be there. We’ll be back there some time next month, depending on Ginger’s chemo schedule and whether we can have a vet in Oscoda follow her while we’re on vacation. That’s one of the things I will figure out on Thursday.

COLD-BREWED ICED COFFEE
Started craving it and finally dug out the recipe from the New York Times website—I’d forgotten how much better it is than icing hot-water-brewed coffee. I made it with a touch of Traverse City Cherry flavored coffee I brought back from Oscoda, a touch of my favorite French Vanilla coffee from Coffee and Tea Warehouse, and a third of Harvard Blend from Green Mountain. It’s wonderful. Here is the recipe:
1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best)
Milk (optional).
1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.
2. Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste. If desired, add milk.
Yield: Two drinks.

I think I’m supposed to put the coffee grounds in the rhododendron or something—have to look that up.

Time to go make dinner—we’re making an omelet with fresh eggs given to us from a woman who collects them from her own hens.

I’ve been poking around Ancestry.com a bit—it always sucks me in. At any rate, I found the U.S. Census Record of 1930 for the inhabitants of 367 North Hawley [?] Avenue, Salem City, Ohio, a small town southwest of Youngstown. Living here in 1930 were John Fleming (32), his wife Mely [sic] H. (30), daughter Margaret (6), son John Jr. (4 1/2), son James (1 1/2), and brother Archie (35). My grandmother’s name was Mary, not Mely—I can only imagine that her Scot accent with its weird “r” sound came out as Mely to the census taker. James is my dad. Here is a portion of the entire page:

Here, if you click on the link, is the entire image, which is huge.

Dad was born in Washingtonville, Ohio in 1928. This town is even smaller than Salem, and due east of Salem. His father worked in the auto industry, and they moved to Detroit at some point, though I don’t know when (Dad, when did you move to Detroit?) Here is Dad’s graduation photo, from 1947. He lived at 7720 Vaughan Street, on the west side of Detroit, except for when he was in the Merchant Marines and later the U.S. Navy, with his parents and the above mentioned sister and brother plus Edwin, who was the baby of the family. Here are Dad and his siblings:

Edwin Fleming, James Fleming, Margaret Fleming, and John (Jack) Fleming Jr., c. 1949? (click to enlarge)

I love this photo, even though it’s pretty beaten up:

Edwin and James Fleming aboard Dad’s boat, the ‘Flamingo’ (what else?) (click to enlarge)

Alice Elaine Dunn married James Fleming on November 6, 1954 (click to enlarge)

Dad was in the Merchant Marine, and later in the U.S. Navy (he served in Korea), and later a salesman. He was a salesman (selling sewing machines?) when he met my Mom at her workplace at a dry cleaner (?). They were married on November 6, 1954. They lived in Ann Arbor after they were first married, then moved to Wyandotte, then later to Trenton, Melvindale, then Southgate before retiring to Oscoda.

Dad worked as a salesman for Sherwin Williams, as a painter, and later had a couple of paint stores. But his most important job, the one he’s held for 52+ years now, is Dad. My Dad. Dad to Lee, Maureen, Jamie, Kelly, Scott, and Carolyn. Grandfather to Kristine, Aaron, Brian, James, Kate, Scott, Ben, and Leo.

Dad and I argue over who gets the paintbrush, 1957 (click to enlarge)

James Fleming, 1968 (click to enlarge)

While working numerous jobs to support us all, Dad went to school at Eastern Michigan University to finish his degree and became a teacher in 1968. His first gig was as a science teacher at Davidson Junior High School in Southgate, Michigan, in 1968. I remember finding cow hearts and cow brains sitting in the kitchen sink—hands-on science project were never dull. He taught at the same schools I attended, first at Davidson and later at Southgate High School. It wasn’t too weird for me, except that he would bum lunch money off me in high school. He was a social studies teacher and the swimming coach at the high school, and was on the Southgate City Council for many years, until he retired.

James Fleming holding granddaughter Kristine Mitroka (now Downey) for a City Council campaign photo, around 1980. (click to enlarge)

After Dad retired from teaching, he and Mom moved up to Oscoda, Michigan in 1993, to a big house surrounded by a golf course and very close to Lake Huron. Dad was the Zoning Administrator for Oscoda for a couple of years until the winters up there made the idea of spending winters in Panama City Beach, Florida, really attractive.

Here is another photo that I like a lot—there are more in a gallery I put up: go to the Gallery page and click on the category “Dad.” I haven’t had a chance to arrange them in any particular order yet, but I will. Please comment if you know more about the pictures that I do—I would love to get the dates and people straight!

Jim and Alice, late 70s? Early 80s? (click to enlarge)

Maybe it makes me a rarity in this country, but I think I’m really lucky: I not only love my Dad, I like him. I love spending time with him and talking with him and even arguing with him, teasing him. He raised us to think, to question things, to learn. He always treats the females in his life like we have brains and deserve respect and he is a feminist, always has been (could be having a brilliant wife and five smart daughters had a lot of influence on this!)

Yep, I’m sure mistakes were made, slights went unforgiven by me for a while, but all of that was too long ago to matter now (I remember distinctly the moment I realized that I like my Dad and forgave him any mistakes—it was while dancing with him at my sister Jamie’s wedding way back in what, 1979? 1980?) Stanley and I look forward to going to Oscoda every chance we can because we just enjoy spending time with people we like. I admire my Dad, and respect him, and I’m in awe of his ability to handle taking care of Mom with such grace and such patience.

One more photo:

Dad, taking a break from caring for Mom to “read” on the porch, June 2008 (click to enlarge)

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.

It’s kind of a strange location here when it comes to the weather—I think there must be something about the geography that sets it up to be mostly located between fronts. I’ve been here when there were whiteout snowstorms to the north and south of us, but nary a flake here.

Today there was a series of wild storms that blew in from the southwest, and tornado warnings and watches—I don’t know if there were any actual tornadoes touching down within 100 miles or so, will have to wait and see tomorrow—but the especially wild weather was to the north and south of Oscoda. And tonight there was a storm around midnight that we watched for a while—Stanley was tired and went to bed, so he missed the best part. Here is the strangeness: to the west and south and overhead, there was lightening and lots of rain. To the far north and northeast, I could see lightening. But to the northwest, the stars were unbelievably beautiful. So I was looking at the stars while standing in the rain and watching the lightening. And it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen this up here.

Thursday’s thunderstorms set a record, the most rainfall on a single day in June: 2.8+ inches. Thursday it only got up to 71 degrees. Today, it got up to 90 degrees. Saturday, it’s supposed to get to nearly 90 again. I think the average for Oscoda in early June is something like 73 degree.

Besides seeing my parents, the best thing about being here now is that the lilacs are in full bloom—I can smell them now, along with the wet grass.

Now it’s time to go round up the cats and bring them in from the porch so I can go to bed.

And I found his draft card! Here it is—click it to make it bigger:

According to the registration, he was a telegraph clerk for Western Union in Lewiston, Montana, in June 1917, when he was 26 years old (b. April 21, 1891). Sure enough, I have a photo of him working at the telegraph office in Lewiston, MT in 1916 (click to enlarge)—he’s the guy standing:

I’m not sure where or when he met my grandmother, Katherine. At any rate, they ended up in Wyandotte, Michigan, where he worked for Wyandotte Chemical (which later became BASF) until he retired (in the late 1950s?). They had six kids, though my grandmother had been married before and had two, or maybe three, children. My mother’s stepsisters are Jean and Kit, and she may have an older stepbrother though I’m not sure about this since, as far as I know, this was never established definitively. John and Katherine’s kids are Walt, my mother Alice, Grace, Joan, Anne, and Connie (click to enlarge).

Here is a photo I like, showing Grandad and Grandma Dunn and my sisters and brother and me. This was taken in the early sixties, maybe 1964, judging by my baby sister’s age. I’m the oldest, dressed in pink and standing next to Grandad. Maureen is in green. Jamie is in pink, standing between Grandma and me. On the ground, on the left next to Grandma is Kelly and next to her is my brother Scott. At the bottom is Carolyn. I remember this picnic, and I think the photo was snapped by Mom—one of her more successful efforts (we all have our heads in this one.) (Click to enlarge)

My grandfather lived a long life, pretty healthy until a few years before the end despite a lifetime of cheap cigars and Old Grand Dad whiskey. When I smell Old Spice, I think of him, particularly the combination of Old Spice and cigar smoke. He liked to garden and had a gorgeous flower garden in his backyard in Wyandotte. And I remember that he always had a supply of Coke in those little Coke bottles for the grandkids when we came to visit. I was in grad school at Columbia the year he died, in 1978. This is a photo of him on his 81st birthday in 1972 (click to enlarge).

I wish I knew how John and Katherine met, where, when—maybe one of my aunts know, I’ll have to ask. I’m a sporadic member of Ancestry.com—it’s a good service, it’s just that I have other things I need to spend the subscription fee on—it’s pretty expensive, especially in terms of time ... I could easily blow through a couple of hours there!

While we were there, I wanted to price getting a piece of carpet cut and bound to replace the threadbare, filthy, and tattered rug we have in our, uh, Media Room. Yeah, that’s what it is, a media room ... anyway, we need a rug 11-12’ x 8-9’ and since it will be a good many years before we can afford that exquisite oriental rug with the tree of life pattern I want (like 50 years), we figure it would be a lot less expensive to get a piece of carpet bound. Neither of us cares for wall-to-wall carpeting, which is why we went for the area rug size since the room gets too cold without something on the floor.

Well, we ordered one—made out of this polymer that’s made out of corn sugar or corn cellulose or something like that. A “green” carpet. Only, we didn’t select it because it’s green (it’s actually this pretty blue color they call sapphire), but because this stuff is supposed to clean up like a dream if it gets stained. With three or sometimes four animals in the house, this seems like a good idea. I am pretty pleased that it’s made out of eco-friendly stuff. It should arrive around the time we get back from Michigan. A 12’x9’ area rug that is under warranty, no less, for about $250. Instead of getting the snowblower for our anniversary, like we sort of meant to do (our anniversary was January 23), we got the rug. Plus there’s the HD gift cards we got for Christmas.

Then off we went to get the mulch sheeting for the garden and in search of some basil, pepper, and cucumber plants. Found the basil, found the pepper, but we had to search and search for cucumbers—Stanley finally found what is probably the last cucumber plant they had. We had to stop at Wally Mart, so looked there too—no luck. It’s so odd—they had everything from eggplant to Brussels sprouts to collard greens, but no cucumbers. We got a packet of cucumber seeds just in case we continue to have no luck finding a couple more cuke plants (like at Stew Leonards maybe?) Was there some kind of cucumber blight or something that made most of the plants sterile? Did some mad gardener corner the local cucumber market (and what is she going to do with them all, make pickles?)

With all that, didn’t get any actual gardening done today. Mañana.

Friday we wanted to play hooky and go see a movie, but there was nothing opening that we were interested in (the first Narnia was so awful neither of us have any desire to see the new installment). We did see Ironman on opening day, and that was really good. I didn’t think I’d like it since I never read the comic book, but I liked it a lot. We always watch the credits (I like seeing the locations and the names of the songs) so we got to see the trailer for the sequel, which I hope is just as good (though hope it will move along faster, plot-wise).

I remembered last week to take a picture of the Japanese dogwood from an upstairs window—even this photo doesn’t do it justice (alas, the blooms are finally falling):

Slink is a very strange cat. I finally realized what he reminds me of: the black cat on the bags of Tidy Cat cat litter. This photo show him stretched out with Stanley, legs in the air, very comfortable on his back (click to enlarge):

“The dog looks so much nicer when she’s upside-down ... “

Note to self: Call Ben and find out what he wants for his birthday. Which was May 13th. I’m a terrible aunt. I did remember it was his birthday, called his dad to get his email address, but didn’t follow up. It’s so unreal that he’s 16 years old now. I’m, such an old, terrible aunt ...

We’re leaving for Michigan on May 27th, after Ginger gets her chemo treatment. Spending the night in Macedonia, Ohio, at a Days Inn that takes pets. Was thinking about booking at that old Comfort Inn in Warren again, but the last time it was so awful (not our usual room) I’m not ready to go back and try it again yet (awful room plus I was so sick, what a nightmare that was). I am so looking forward to seeing Mom and Dad. We have to leave there on June 11th though, since we have to be back so Ginger can get chemo on June 13th, and Stanley has a dentist appointment on the 13th as well.

This afternoon, I cut some more lilacs for the house. The look and the smell of them always evokes memories of spending time in Wyandotte, Michigan when I was a little girl. We’d be visiting my grandparents, who lived on Maple Street—the same house Mom grew up in. Or sitting on the front steps of the house on Ninth Street, where I spent the first four years of my life.

Sitting on the porch with Mom in October, 1957, at our house on 9th Street, which was across the street from a beautiful old cemetery.

Wyandotte is an old town southwest of Detroit on the Detroit River. Its most-famous former residents are Lucille Ball and Lee Majors. Wyandotte is a city that clings to traditions—it is represented in Congress by John Dingell, who was elected to Congress before I was born and is still there. (I’m 52.) There are lots of lovely (and many unlovely) old houses and beautiful old parks and cemeteries and there were lilac bushes everywhere—huge, old, lush lilac bushes. In Wyandotte, around Mother’s Day, when the lilacs bloomed, it was a wonderment just to stand still and breathe.

Alice Elaine Dunn at 10 years old, in 1945 (click to enlarge)

So lilacs and Wyandotte and my mother are forever bound together in my mind. I loved going with her to see my grandparents and my mother’s sisters and the Fitch (or maybe it was Futch) family, who lived next door to my grandparents. I loved listening to Mom and her sisters talk—the Dunn sisters were known (and feared) for their wicked, intelligent wit. I loved hearing stories about Mom’s school days and how she was the homecoming queen in high school and made the honor roll always and how she met Dad and all kinds of stories.

So sitting here smelling the lilacs is making me miss Mom even more than ever. Dad sent this picture he took of her yesterday. As a Mother’s Day present, he treated her to a full salon treatment. The flowers on the table are her winnings from Friday-night Bingo at the American Legion. Looking at this photo, I was struck by how much she still looks like she did when she was ten—the bone structure and the eyes and the smile.

Alice Fleming, taken by James Fleming, on May 10, 2008. (click to enlarge)

(hi-res version of this photo for printing) Stanley and I are planning to go to Oscoda at the end of this month for a quick visit—I’m really looking forward to it.

I planted some perennials in the shade garden and we trimmed the old grasses. Stanley put in a new rosebush and planted a new lilac bush (it’s small—it’ll take about five years to get big enough to get even one bloom, I think, but it’s a start). Ginger was goofy, doing the silly bunny dance she does when she’s really happy. The lilac bush we planted a couple of years ago is loaded with buds and there is a lot of amazing growth on shrubs we put in over the years. Daddy Cardinal swooped down at us when we got too close to the nest tucked into the wild rosebush and clematis drapped over an arch. We watched the finch feed her babies where they’re tucked safely in the bat house (we would prefer bats in the bat house but aren’t about to evict the finch family).

The wood hyacinths and violets are wildly in bloom, with the periwinkle and lily of the valley making a showing. The Japanese dogwood is spectacular this year—it began blooming about ten days ago. The American dogwood had scant bloom. All the trees except the mimosa and the catalpas have at least baby leaves—it seems like the butternut leaves grew an inch overnight. Oh, and there are lots of dandelions. I know they’re weeds, but I love them. All of the peonies have buds.

A bleeding heart I planted a couple of years ago finally showed up (click the images to enlarge them):

The violets are abundant this year:

Our lilac bush is only about 6.5 feet tall right now, but it’s going to have lots of bloom. They should be open and smelling like nirvana by next Sunday:

Here’s a shot of the dogwood among the other trees and wisteria—I took this from the back porch. It’s hard to see the dogwood flowers in this view—I will have to get another shot of them from an upstairs window to do them justice:

Very few tulips came up this year—I think the squirrels must’ve eaten most of them. Will try to plant some more this fall.

And here is my happy girl. She’s doing well on chemo—but has lost the whiskers over her eyes (eyebrows?) and some of the fur on her nose:

Stanley felt better with the lawn mowed—I kinda like the meadow look, but it bugs him. He also planted a rosebush and the new lilac bush:

I took this shot a few days ago and love it so I’m posting it. It’s been so cold and wet that I’ve needed to use the space heater in our office—even though it gulps electricity, there’s no point in wasting oil to heat the whole house all day, not at current rates. Anyway, the space heater is next to my chair, below the counter you see here. Twitch, heat-seeker by profession, is stretched out on this counter because it’s very warm—and his butt is directly above the heater. Makes it kind of hard for me to use my keyboard, which is located to the left (you can’t see it) and I can’t rest my elbow on the counter, but he looks so content I manage to work around him.

We even managed to get a tiny bit of work done this weekend. Never enough to catch up, but better than not doing any work. I’m not going to complain about having too much work—I’m glad that we do. It was a great weekend.