Crispy Tacos

Last night we had crispy tacos for dinner. Until Eilleen died I'd never made these at home. While at Lawry's, I had some product development responsibilities at the taco plant and ate enough of those things to last me forever..also enough of the Lawry's taco seasoning mix. Being a food snob I sneered at these Americanized tacos and only ate the genuine Mexican variety, wrapped in a soft tortilla. Eilleen and Jimmy loved the crisp tacos and ate them often - I'd harangue her a bit - she would still say taco with a pronounced as in stack instead of like in paw. For some reason, after she died, I'd feel an urge to eat these things - another haunting by Eilleen.

Her mispronounciations were hard for me to understand because she had a such a good musical ear. Yet, she couldn't seem to hear the difference in words like "taco". There were many of these and the butchering was mostly of foreign words. Even French words, she would Anglicize to the death. I wonder now if she had a hearing anomaly - some small translation thingie either in the ear or brain that didn't work with language.

Sometimes I catch myself babbling to the Hispanic workers, going a mile a minute about a concept they couldn't possibly have in their English experience. That blank look starts to appear and I realize what I've done. I imagine what it would be like to be transported to a foreign country and to try to master the language. Getting by is one thing but to express a concept or describe a feeling would likely be impossible. Fluency is necessary to achieve nuance.

I sat next to a Korean woman once on a plane and she told me she couldn't speak English well enough to express her thoughts, dreams and feelings. Sadly, she said that due to lack of use and lack of keeping up with language changes, she was barely able to do so in her native language. While living in Korea she had been something of a wordsmith and this loss was very painful for her and she felt isolated. Interestingly, she expressed this feeling to me very vividly and I could understand quite well how lonely she was.

At last, outside

After what seems like months of agitation, tension and negotiation, we are finally going forward with the exterior patios and walkways. Stalled, our pool has been sitting with it's beautiful new bonnet - the three rivers coping - and inside, an ugly scraped out shell. Half a deck sits drunkenly at it's edge. Ditches for irrigation scar the ground everywhere make walking hazardous and we track dirt inside every day. The straw I placed around the house under the eaves has ground into the dirt making it even hard to sweep up. It has the look of a war zone which in a way, it was.

Richard finally cleaned up the whole site himself, weary of trying to get Ken to live up to his obligation to leave the property "broom clean". Ken is hopeless at clean up and we have to accept this as part of his very low prices. What a lot of work it took Richard...sawing up all the old crates, carting rocks to the dumpster, sawing retaining logs. He did it over a period of weeks squeezing the job in after putting in a full day in the grove. He's been exhausted.

He drove up to LA yesterday to have a timer repaired - dropped off in the wilderness of Riverside County - dried up groves and dirty unkempt farm properties. Battling terrible traffic including a funeral cortege for a deceased fire fighter which even had the freeway at a stop, he made it to Solheim for his quarterly meeting with the staff. Patty is failing now...on morphine and down to 98 pounds. The steel trap brain is slowing and her memory seems to be deteriorating. That brain has had a marvelous go...lasting in such good condition for so long. Most telling is that her acerbic personality is losing its edge - morphine will do that. From what I hear, morphine is a marvelous drug and makes you feel wonderful. I'm glad she is in that "floating" state (as was my mother at the end) and able to have pleasant feelings as her last on earth instead of the terrible pain she would be feeling otherwise.

Jenio the welder has taken out gates for welding, Chevo is building a decorative wall at the side of the house and if on schedule should have most of the front leveled out today. They are expecting to pour the concrete on Monday or Tuesday. Manny can do the tiling week after next, once the concrete is dried and cured.

Twins times two

Pat called today - a real treat - and told me about a visit she had with Sandra and her twin grandsons. I've been thinking all day about how utterly unique this situation is - two grandmothers each with a set of identical twins. Pat said the meeting was a first for all concerned - the twins had never met identicals before. She said they could all tell each other apart! And they had a good time together, bonding instantly. They met at McDonalds and visited the zoo - how much better could a day be for little boys.

Crappy weather in Winnipeg; not a good summer so far. Winnipegers earn good summer weather by enduring that awful winter. I cannot remember a bad summer - probably because as kids every summer day is good. The sound of lawn mowers and smell of cut grass transports me to 1251 and summer mornings. My memories are of roller skating, playing hide and seek on the never-ending front yard of Dominion Street - we used it all from Yarwood half way to Notre Dame. Swinging on the swings at Sargent park, catching tadpoles in the creek, playing with a yoyo. Slathering ourselves with baby oil and iodine at the pool or later at Bird's Hill. Mom would drop us off in the morning and pick us up baked like hot dogs on a grill. I can remember looking straight into the sun so the sun tan wouldn't be creasy from squinting. No wonder we have age spots and cataracts.

And those humid warm nights when it was light 'til almost 10:00. Sitting on the front steps with my Dad proclaiming as he did every year, "Here we are sitting on the stoop reading the Winnipeg Free Press at 9:00 p.m." Swatting mosquitos, scratching the bites ( ahhhhh). Picking warm tomatoes off the vine and sitting with a salt shaker gobbling them up with Mom and Eilleen. We didn't even wait to walk a few steps into the house. Rhubarb!! Mom would make a compote we'd eat with vanilla ice cream. The mint that grew in the side yard crushed between the fingers for a swoony sniff (we didn't eat it), the crab apples, crisp and sour.

Treats from the garden - fresh green beans, yellow wax beans, baby beets (before they became a gourmet treat), baby potatoes. One year we grew peanuts. Dad ordered the seeds (peanuts) from the Burpee catalog and they grew into scraggly struggling plants; we got to see the little peanuts tangled in the roots. Fresh crisp cucumbers transformed into Auntie Addies pickles - the crispest pickles without too much vinegar or dill. Her pickles were legendary and gobbled up as fast as she could make them.

The splendid long, long summers of our childhood memory - a week passed as slowly as a month does now - giving us a chance to store the sensations away and recall and enjoy them now.

A screen door banging shut...and we'd be back at school again.

Oddball

I have never written poetry but my sister did. Yesterday I came home, sat down and wrote this without prior thought, inspiration or inclination. Clearly Eilleen is at work. It must have been a haunting.

Walking straight.
A challenge? Who would guess?
The brilliance of our gyroscope -
Its praises unsung, is a quiet miracle.

I stagger now and list left-wise.
Loopily, my destinations reached.
But I see eyebrows raised…
My aura broadcasts “Oddball”

Aging brings gifts in its wrinkled basket.
Becoming invisible was an unexpected pleasure.
Different again - I’m sticking out.
Looking crazy, looking drunk.

What did you say? I can’t hear you either.
Whisper something in the good ear.
Something kind.

Sugar in the morning, Sugar in the evening......

Sweetness perception comes and goes from day to day and sometimes from morning until night. Typically I can't sense the sweet in the morning and it returns at night. A glass of wine is a challenge and I'm training myself to concentrate on the aroma and only note the tastes, trying to ignore the lack of balance. A new way of enjoying the wine...maybe I'll see something in it that I was over-looking.

Ants have invaded my computer space and they are emerging every once in a while from the keyboard in the vicinity of "u,i,o". Woe is me, I have to clean off the whole desk and spray in order to get rid of the beasties. Their original target was the wrapper from an energy bar with a tiny piece of chocolate exposed. Thinking the invasion to be minimal, I've just been slapping them down one at a time, but now I see they are on the floor in marching formation - it's a serious attack which I must rebuff using all of my anti-ant resources - primarily the can of RAID.

Chest Xray

An X-ray accompanied me on another significant part of my life. To emigrate from Canada to the US in 1964, the requirements were virtually nothing compared to what they are today. At 21 years old, I hardly had a history to investigate and Jack Rock's brother Alex, sponsored my immigration as I was single and a student when I made application. It took six months of gathering
documents completing paperwork and being interviewed. After we were married, Jack and I left for our honeymoon and our new life in California. First stop was at Pembina, North Dakota where clutching a large manila envelope full of stamped and approved documents and the vital chest X-ray, we stepped across the imaginary line separating Canada from the US.

Twenty five years later I became a citizen and took the oath in Seattle along with 67 other grateful people, many from South Africa and South Asia. That was a great day.

Vanished sweetness

A particularly beautiful day here - dawn was splendiferous, but we may have a hot afternoon. Yesterday was difficult in that I was awakened in the middle of the night with a terrible taste sensation in my mouth and it continued all day. The taste was so bad and so distorted that it made me nauseous - finally I bought various candies to keep sucking to mask it and the nausea subsided. Today, I tested myself and I have no ability to perceive sweetness. Salt, sour, bitter and umami come through loud and clear - only sweetness is gone. However, the taste in my mouth is tolerable and I'm no longer noticing it so much. Overall, the tinnitus is less, the mild depression I was suffering (likely steroid after-effect) has lifted and even my balance seems better. Yes!!!

Richard got somebody to come and remove the dirt pile from the front of the house...the heap of asphalt, concrete and mixed stuff that Ken scraped off the back. What a relief to be rid of that stuff!

We have half finished irrigation, a half finished deck, a half finished pool and half finished exterior hard scape. Sort of stuck in a hole looking over the edge.

Looking inside

A trip to Eaton's department store was high on the joy list when I was a kid. Opportunities for exploration abounded. I would dream of being locked in the store overnight - able to run around unsupervised, jumping on the mattresses, running down the up escalator, trying on the clothes and jewelry, nosing into all the books. A visit to the shoe department on the fifth floor where they had a shoe fitting machine/x-ray machine installed was the height of delight. All the kids found this device utterly fascinating...you could look in the viewfinder and actually see the bones in your feet. The machine was a marketing gimmick installed by many department stores during that time period. The picture of my feet and bones - watching my skeletal toes wiggling, watery white on black, was mesmerizing and we couldn't get enough of it. The shoe guy would admonish us with the usual "This is not a toy". But we would wait until his back was turned or he went into the stock room, then push and shove to have a turn. The machines were poorly built and leaked radiation all over the place, we found out later. In those days we were innocent of environmental hazards - we would run with glee behind the mosquito fogger which was spraying DDT all over the city. Who knows how really damaged our DNA is?

My father had bits of shrapnel in his body, left from WW1. Once in a while he'd get a bump somewhere and inside the bump would be a small piece of metal. I imagined that his foot x-ray would show little bits of metal like pepper all over his feet.
I would have liked the chance to see inside my Dad, clanging along full of metal.

Sandi

Sandi from Village Kitchen Designs came up to the house today to continue with the kitchen layout. She did the plans originally and I want her to redo and redraw the plan with the updated ideas that have accumulated as the house as unfolded and taken shape. She was very helpful and had many ideas. She listened and absorbed my ideas and fed them back with improvements. I enjoyed our short collaboration and hope the meeting will yield the results I'm after which is to capture the kitchen and add some style.

I felt almost normal today and it was quite a relief from the screaming meemies of the past few days. Warp speed is not easy to maintain for days on end. The onlly thing sad to see go is the endless stream of energy, nifty to have at your disposal.

Tonight is one of those perfect summer evenings where the valley is purply-blue in the shadows, a brisk breeze is blowing and everything looks almost shimmery. The sky is bright blue but the light is just starting to fade out. Cats are winding down, snuffling around for something to eat. Richard's cruising his snack shelf in the pantry.

We have to plan a trip because somebody is going to break out with itchy feet soon!!!

SPEED

On steroids for 14 days to see if some hearing can be saved in my AN ear. 10 days of a full dose and the past three days have been ratcheting down. Never having taken a drug like this before, I was surprised at the effect. Hearing almost immediately returned to the ear which is like a miracle. In fact the AN ear is now about like it was when first diagnosed. I can hear sound - still can't distinguish words, but hearing sound means stereo, so much safer than the monoaural world I was descending into. Most of the 10 days were just fine and then like a bucket of cold water in the face, the speed turned on. I was compelled to move fast and for some reason, organizing things appeals (not just too me, but this is typical) and eating everything in sight. Food doesn't "hit bottom" and no satiety value whatsoever..you can just keep tossing it down and it seemingly disappears. Eilleen told me that this was the sensation she had with alcohol...no amount could ever be enough -- never satisfying so there's always the drive to get more.

Because of a huge appliance sale at Lowe's I ventured out and bought a new washer/dryer and dishwasher for the house. In the big box stores my ears are clanging and ringing like a fire alarm and of course, this puts the whole body on alert. As the swelling decreases in the tumor tissue, I imagine that the pressure on the blood vessels constricting flow changes affecting the whole system. While the swelling is changing presumably from minute to minute, so does the alarm in my head. It can't be ignored and the result is tension exhaustion after a while. Interestingly (this never lacks for interest) with perseverance the brain adjusts - at first you want only to retreat and then you notice, OK, it's coping and with a little more time, coping more. Our CPU is a magnificent piece of work...astonishing.

Staggering around

Soon I will be a Post Toastie...the term used for the walking irradiated. This should be a new and most interesting experience. Today I visited the mall to look at some furniture and get exercise in the air conditioned comfort of the concrete palace. I saw myself in a shop window, disheveled, staggering and had to laugh at how bad I can get. I'm surprised anyone approaches me to ask what I'd like in the stores. With some luck, the staggering may be lessened post irradiation.

A memorial service for my ex-boss was held on Thursday. It was a wonderful opportunity to see many old friends and remember how truly special it was to work at Lawry's when I did. Now, the grey heads outnumber the "naturals" and much of the talk is about retirement plans, grandchildren and health issues. Time marches on.

Will the picking of stuff never end? Today, more plumbing picks and selection of bathroom mirrors and storage cabinets. All nextweek will be selecting things and playing "fetch" for the installers on the job.

Richard The Imposter in photo posing as an avocado picker.

Picked up the results of my MRI and discovered that my AN is growing at an incredible rate. The tumor is usually very slow growing but mine has doubled. I'm sure my neurologist will recommend treatment and I'm predicting that she will recommend the cyberknife or gammaknife - basically radiation. Tuesday I'll see her and get a plan together.

I feel extra urgency to get everything finished in both houses in case I'm incapacitated for a while. Although with radiation, it looks like the downtime would be minimal.

Ordering toilets through the mail has an odd feeling, but we were able to save a couple of hundred dollars by doing do. Certainly we saved an $80.00 delivery charge from Home Depot. After they get here, we'll still have to muscle them up to the house from the gate - not an easy job. We also ordered a bidet seat - Richard tried one at a friends house and liked it- so we thought we'd add one.

We should move forward with the irrigation bid we get from Bob Butler. Hopefully he will be able to do the work next week which means we could do our concrete by the next week, thereby finishing the pool by mid July. Cabinets should be arriving by 1st of August. If plumbing is installed shortly after that we can move in and get Stage Coach rented.

Our paint job is now complete and it is excellent. We're very pleased.

MRI

I had my second MRI yesterday and this time took 1 mg of lorazepam in advance. Boy does that stuff help. I think I actually fell asleep in the machine despite the clanging and banging. Time passed quickly and it was not unpleasant at all. I won't be dreading it so much next time.

After the procedure, we went to the Escondido Farmers Market and enjoyed seeing all the wonderful fruit and veggies coming out of small farms around here. One vendor was selling Reed avocados which look like Canadian bowling balls. We bought fresh picked strawberries, apricots and patty pan squash. An olive oil vendor had blood orange flavored, unfiltered olive oil which was very delicious. We couldn't resist a bottle. The seller came from Delphi in Greece and expresses a few interesting opinions about religion leaving us with the Socratic directive, "Know thyself". He was 86 and looked 46.

Although it was rather early for dinner, we stopped at the French Bakery and had a light meal....the picnic plate for me which consisted of brie, copious amounts of fresh bread, salami, pate and slice of ham and one of turkey served with black olives, cornichon and pickled onions. Richard ordered a chicken tart but got some kind of meat tart which they took back and gave him the chicken version. Sadly, it was nothing more than a pizza which was disappointing. The owner invited us to pick out a dessert for free because of the confusion - we declined - they insisted, so we brought home a slice of gooey chocolate cake.

A benefit of the window shopping was a find on Richard's part - a mirrored door which just might work for our huge picture frame. I'll go down and take another look at it to see.

An ordinary Sunday

A beautiful day in Fallbrook today. Bright sunny skies with an all day sea breeze - just cool enough for working hard. I carried a lot of wood to the dumpster and generally cleaned up. As I am having balance problems the challenge of walking and carrying seems to help - if nothing else it tires me out so I can sleep. All day, I felt grateful for the pleasure of being able to work hard and accomplish something. Very satisfying.

A good Chinese dinner preceded the movie, Taking of Pelham 123, which we really enjoyed. The movie did not get great ratings but we found it entertaining. By the end of the movie I was exhausted which happens after a full day. Effort involved with balance seems to be very tiring. Richard says I should try napping and perhaps I will.

A busy week ahead - medical things, more subs to see and perhaps our irrigation to start. I'm ready to see the end of the dirt piles which we have to climb over to get anywhere. At the moment we are buried in trash and need a day's clean-up to get ahead a bit. August is starting to seem too ambitious for completion so I'm hoping now to be in by Thanksgiving.

Tiling

Our new tiler, Manny did a great job finishing up the tile. Our master bathroom shower is called "100 bottles of beer" because the glass tiles are made of recycled beer bottles. Our guest shower, Richard calls the clown shower because of the colored glass.
It all worked out and we are happy with it. Manny will be doing the outdoor tile work on the patios also. Bottom picture is the outdoor tile and Mexican accent tiles which will be mixed in. Tile in the arch is Italian tile and is now surrounded by bright blue paint. Fireplace is now painted an earth brown color and the mosaic looks much better against this color. Painters are going to paint it black inside.

House PROGRESS

The exterior of the house seems to be just sitting still. Inside the new paint job is almost complete and looks so much
better. Now there is a cozy "casa" look to the place, like old Spanish haciendas which is what we wanted. Today the painters wrap up and we make a decision on irrigation redo. If this is underway next week, by next weekend they can start the hardscape. Meanwhile I can get the cabinets started and am starting to shop for plumbing stuff. Yesterday our electrician began installing lights and light switches. We found we need an 18" access panel from the closet upstairs to our tub. Another detail we overlooked.

Richard's Roof

With the new spark arrestors on the roof, it is finally finished. Richard worked hard to get the roof the way he envisioned it. It's
5 tile colors, some of them antiqued. The design on the roof is somewhat like a shopping center in town and something like roofs
we've seen in Italy and Spain. Richard actually piled the roof guys into the car and drove them around looking at roofs in the neighborhood before he finally got them on the same page as he was.

The spark arrestors also took us some time. We make our final choice with some trepidation thinking they might look a bit Moorish. Funny thing about these decisions. Once they are made, you hardly think of them again. Or even notice the item...overall I'd say we are pleased with the way it turned out.

Today we have another irrigation person up to the job. The sprinkler system is about 1/2 complete and has to be tied together and much has to be added to it. Domingo, Mr. Sunday will give his bid.

I will start wrapping the house in plastic to protect it during the concrete work which will be taking place soon. I'm also
picking glass off the hillside where the solar panels used to be located. When they were removed, many of the panels broke and the shards went everywhere. As we'd like to put some bedding plants on that slope, we have to get the dangerous glass out of the way.

Sharon and I picked out the front lights and post lights yesterday so I'll go over to Lamps Are Us later on and pick them up. Meanwhile, I'm ordering the sinks and faucets.

My mosaic fireplace treatment turned out better than I thought. One picture shows me composing the design and the other picture shows it actually installed on the fireplace. Now I want to do the stair risers going to the garden with the same "cracked
up" design.

Pool Face Lift

Although not in our immediate plans, it turned out we had to rush to redo the pool. The pipes run under where the patios are
going and so this all had to be installed. New coping and water line tiles had to be chosen. Once more I was given a big book with
100 options. We looked at a rock yard and liked the look of three rivers stone, very colorful and variegated. I thought it might
be too much but after looking at a neighbors pool created with the same stone, we decided to go ahead. Now that it's complete
I'm glad we chose it as it looks very good from the deck above.

Before photo show plain Jane coping...just white cement. The tile was pretty and we might have kept it, but when you remove
coping, the tile goes too.

The stone masons were excellent - clean and neat. They came in and did the work and left quickly and efficiently. Very pleasant young mormon men.

New Paint

I chose a light gold paint as the main color for the house - Laura Ashley pale gold and had it cut down 25%. The color was terrible and actually made my eyeballs jitter. The whole house felt like the inside of an egg yolk, plus the painter we hired was just awful. He smeared paint all over the place, didn't cover things properly and generally made a terrible mess. I hired an interior decorator who spent two hours with me, going from room to room and a new painter who is doing a wonderful job. Now the house is a light beige with a darker accent color. We have one bright blue wall and the master bedroom is a kind of terra cotta which looks good (see picture). The swatch on the wall kind of scared me because it is bold, but once the whole room was painted it resulted in a kind of glow and made the room feel cozy.

I'm trying to pick out the colors for the stamped concrete outside which is proving somewhat difficult. My neighbor Sharon is helping a lot - she has a good eye and enjoys giving her opinion and helping out. She has good, practical suggestions.

The final big decision is the cabinet color which I am still wrestling with. White or wood or BLUE stained wood which the interior designer recommended. I might be able to do a door or two in blue but not the whole kitchen. She likes the bottom cabinets one color and the top another. A "furniture" look is really the in thing now.