My garden's a tight space...

Ladies,

I've spoken with Diane's daughter and she is doing well for this stage of post operative progress. I've sent you both Dmail with particulars.

I hope you're having good evenings and I look forward to corresponding with you soon.

Swoz

Thanks Swoz for keeping us updated. I sure hope that Diane is out of the severe pain and on her way to rehabilitation soon. It's so hard to get through this part of the journey.

OY! I just woke up (5:30 pm). We spent last night in the E.R. We decided to go Thursday evening (on my MDs advice), got there at 10 pm on the dot, and were discharged this am at 7:30. Remind me NEVER to go to the hospital in July again. All the new doctor ducklings graduate from medical school in the spring and the medical year starts in July. So you get these 25 yo kids calling themselves DOCTOR Smith and DOCTOR Jones. (No offense to the younger folks around intended, even if there are brand new MDs reading this!) But there is never a time when they remind me more of a sitcom about baby doctors! LOL. This kid last night wasn't sure whether to do a CT scan or not, and you could tell she was trying really hard to act professional, and she said things like "I have to ask, er, that is ...consult with some of the other, um, doctors about this."

Anyway, we have balloon flowers keeping us awake all night with their popping. (So loud, I'm surprised the neighbors don't complain!) I keep trying to catch them in the act. Here is one acting all innocent.

"Me...? Pop....? I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

I tiptoed up to this one - it's a candid shot.

He was so surprised when he looked up and saw me there with the camera.

This next one is also a candid shot - she's just on the verge of popping. I'm sure to catch them next time.

Rats! I heard the sound but by the time I got up to them, they were comparing notes on how they had evaded me. Curses, foiled again!

Dorothie (have you stopped smirking?),

If you'll back up to my comment of 6.12.06 at 5ish pm, I was talking about entitlement. I think a child is ENTITLED to grow up without fear of physical abuse. Probably emotional abuse too but just the fact that Barbie dolls exist shows that's not possible. I think the reason Emma has been of everyone's spit list recently is because she acts so ENTITLED. That's a funny word - I didn't really think about it or even use it until MY therapist introduced it to me over 20 years ago. He said there's a bad sense of entitlement where you act like everyone was put on the planet to serve you. Then there's the good kind like the certain inalienable rights or a woman's right to say "no" to a man. [Come to think of it, I wish I'd been playing closer attention.] Emma reminds me a lot of my father, with whom E has had only the most cursory contact. He, at almost 70, is The Single Most Solipsistic Person I have ever met! "Could you see to it that these are washed" when he's in my house; "I don't have a maid, so you'll have to clean up after yourself" at his house. OMG!!! But Emma reminds me so much of him, how does that make any sense. I'm the only common thread. I don't get it.

I got your irises, and thank you so much. I know I'm in a small, elite group. and I appreciate it. What do I do now? If one piece has two different sets of sprouts going in two different directions, do I cut it? I love that color of purple-almost-blue-which-color-is-it?

Well, goodnight. XXXXX, Carrie

Carrie, don't know why I'm smirking? LOL
Here's how to divide iris. Sorry that I didn't do it for you. That wasn't thoughtful.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://z.about.com/d/gardening/1/0/S/4/IrisDiv.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gardening.about.com/od/perennials/ss/DividingIrid_5.htm&h=266&w=400&sz=106&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=v3n6phg3c44tZM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddividing%2Biris%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26newwindow%3D1%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DN

But you can just plant those in the ground the way they are. They were divided last year. You can cut out the central piece where there is no fan. But it isn't necessary. Here's how to plant.
http://www.schreinersgardens.com/iris_culture.shtml

Some are white and some are certainly purple and almost blue but not a deep color. I think that you'll like them. They are grand old dames. Hope that they meet your expectations at least a little.

Ah, entitlement. I've experienced some of that. It's a hard thing to deal with all right. I had one with that problem and it made life miserable. Wish that I could tell you that it went away. Guess in your father's case it never did. I do know that it's impossible and people blame the parents for it but I'm not convinced. Too much parent blaming and not enough parent helping around here.

Love the almost-popping balloon flowers. They are a stunning color - really blue and there just aren't that many blue flowers.

Don't go to the hospital every again in July - or better yet, pick a non-teaching hospital. Better yet, don't need to go to the hospital in July ever again! It's a little alarming that you ended up there. Are you all right? We have the same problem at the Stanford Hospital. Not a pretty thing.

I spent part of the day trying to rearrange daylilies. I have some with small flowers on the other side of the pool in that planter and you just can't enjoy them so I need to take some of the larger flowered ones from other places and swap them. It was kind of a fun exercise. Now the work of swapping them. Why didn't I think of this in the first place??? Duh....

Granddaughter Zoe is coming tomorrow for a month and I'm excited to see her. She's a really great kid and needs a break from her complicated life. She's 12.

Now, what was I smirking about again? I hope that I had a lot of fun!

Dorothie

Dorothie,

Oh, I'm fine. This is Boston, Dorothie! There aren't any NON-teaching hospitals. Not that one would go to for anything more serious than a splinter, at least. There is a Milton hospital, but I would never go there!!! It would be like going to, um, East Stanford Hospital.

Nighty night, sweetie!

xxxxxx, Carrie

This message was edited Jul 14, 2006 10:37 PM

Oh, I forgot Boston. Silly Me. I had my younger daughter in Beth Israel Hospital. What a nightmare!

Hope that you had sweet dreams.

Dorothie

Doss, now let me get this straight. Zoe is whose daughter? Who is Celeste? Well, that will be diverting, I hope, for you. How is she with your vertigo, etc.?

Nancy is 12, and she's so much fun! She's loud, she's raucous sometimes, she's ridiculously giggly, she's melodramatic, she's a musical genius [but she hardly practices], and we adore each other! She went away to a choir camp for 5 days and when she got back she had a BOYFRIEND! Luckily for us, he lives in IL, and also lucky, her cousins from Italy got here just when I was ODing on the story of when they held hands!

Dorothie, didn't you know I don't dream? I am too heavily medicated, especially at night. Either I don't dream or I don't remember them.

All the good hospitals in Boston have joined into an agreement called "Partners", although they really aren't partners. All the Brigham and Women's MDs share the same mainframe computer. So my neurologist can look at the lab results from my gyn appt, although I can't imagine why. Both of which MDs are several miles from the B&W hospital. Now the BI is a "partner" of the B&W, which is practically across the street, and the MDs don't even know of each other, let alone share info. It's not a perfect world, yet!

xxxxx,
Carrie

Oh, I don't dream either! I never have much or at least haven't remembered them. For awhile with the drugs I was having more - and not good ones either.

Zoe is Sonja's daughter and Celeste is Gretchen's daughter. They are both almost twelve. Sonja also has a son, Max (6) who will be spending his first week here with us this year. Celeste is the one who comes to our house after school and camp all year. Zoe and Max live in Boulder. They moved there about 2 years ago.

I'm glad that you are enjoying Nancy. She sounds like a lot of fun.

So the Boston hospitals are starting to get their acts together, huh? Stanford and UC San Francisco hospitals became a partnership about 7 years ago and everybody knew that it was a ridiculous idea. It only lasted about 2 years. They lost money, but most of all, there were just too many big egos. I don't know what they were thinking. I used to have my MDs at a wonderful community hospital about 20 minutes from here but then getting to MD's down there took just too much effort. Stanford Hospital is just 5-10 minutes from here so I go to closer doctors. I have too many appointments not to. The neuro who does my Botox is about 25 minutes away but I only have to see him every three months. Except for my vertigo - but the aspirin isn't working. LOL Who would have guessed that it wouldn't work?

Marty's home today and he had a good time. He'll pick up Zoe at the airport. Then Celeste and Gretchen and Dan will come over for dinner. Normally Celeste would have gone with Marty to the airport but the mother of one of Celeste's classmates died recently and the service is today. The death of someone they know so closely has really affected the kids. She goes to a very small school and everyone knows everyone else.

I'm going to go out in the garden now and enjoy the flowers!

Dorothie

I have to go out at least once a day and enjoy everything. As Diane said, 7.06.06 at 8 something pm, just being with the flowers and enjoying them. Noticing what needs to be dead-headed and what mised am watering, and then going back to appreciating them. I like to go out even if it's raining, but I often don't because it's a lot of work for the people who take care of me. I wish there were a lightweight smock I could wear and get dirty in...

You have e-mail, I think.

xxxxx, Carrie

I'm glad that you can get out and enjoy the garden. As for a light weight smock, I use large men's dress shirts that I buy at the Good Will. Perhaps you need protection further down too?

Since it doesn't rain here, one of my main issues is water. As the plants grow the sprinklers have to be adjusted to it all of them and it can be quite a pain. So there are those that I just hit with the hose a couple of times a week. I've almost lost a couple of daylilies recently because I wasn't watching carefully enough. I don't deadhead the daylilies most of the time because I"m growing seed this year. I'll see how it works out. I started trying to keep track of the pollen parent as well as the pod parent but it just got to be an impossible task. Now, I just dab and hope for the best. I have a friend in Canada who grows daylilies from seed and I can never send her plants so I like to send her some seeds.

I'm feeling particularly dizzy today and I don't know why. Let's hope that it gets better so I can enjoy dinner tonight!

Dorothie

Oh Dorothie, get better, get better.

xxxx, Carrie

Hey, OK I'll do that!! LOL

Now you have to say to me, "Carrie, don't have MS!" LOL ha ha ha!

Carrie, don't have MS!!! You've been there, done that. :-)

Fine. Now what do I do next, remind me?

Tomorrow my Italian sister is going back to her adopted country with her actual 2 girls. An interesting situation... Kept me busy most of today.

xxxxxx, Carrie

So is your Italian sister an adopted sister or a blood sister. I'm so curious why it's her 'actual 2' girls. You've got me totally puzzled, Carrie.

I forgot what to do next. If I could remember, I'd certainly be doing it. How about run a marathon? No that doesn't even sound like fun. How about baking cookies. Sounds like a good thing to do - the only better thing would be to eat them.

LLOL, I have NO IDEA what to do next!
My sister seemed normal at birth, same parents as I have, had an aparently normal childhood. In HS where I took French she took Italian! She went to BU school for the arts (where I transferrred after outgrowing Pomona) but she did it the normal way, in 4 straight years. Sometime (her senior year, after she graduated, I dunno) she did a post-grad program in art restoration in Italy. I believe it was around this time that she began to suspect she was actually Italian. She met the Love of her Life, but when the 6 weeks or 6 months was over, she came home like a good American. After graduating on schedule she went back to Italy to be with the aforementioned LohL, only to find he had impregnated someone else and married her instead. Apparently the Church, being in Italy the way Rome is and all, has a rather strong hold over there. So he began divorce procedings right away, but in Italy you have to wait ten years or seven years or something. Women DON'T necessarily take their husband's last name and because of these crazy laws, lots of people live with whomever they please, not just whom they're married to. [I think except for the extremely wealthy, it's still mostly women with men.] [Trying to avoid the censor here.] Anyway she had daughter #1 in between my two; I think she is a year older than Nancy. Daughter #2 is 7. We all - Emma, 3 month-old Nancy, their father, me, my (then brothers, my mother, my father, he invited his girlfriend-du-jour - went over in 1994 for her wedding, at last. So her adopted country is Italy; she has two passports but her kids have one each. Her kids are actually her kids, not adopted. So she's my ONLY sister, but she's Italian now. For real, the people who live in her small town all think she's from some other part of Italy. It's terrifically provincial.

xxxxxx,
Carrie

This is we four siblings a few days ago. Very rare, for the four of us to be even on the same continent!

This is my 7 y.o. niece, who speahs only Italian and must always see her mother if not be touching her! Her older sister is behind her.

I didn't get a good pic of Sarah, the older of the two, because my camera ran out of memory. Apparently you not only have to upload them to your computer, you have to erase them from your computer as well! Here's Emma with Sarah in front of her.

And finally, here's Helen and I. So Dorothie, time for a picture of YOU. xxxxx, Carrie

What great photos!
I've been without power for the past 28 hours so I'll get back to you soon. And the poor dog hurt her foot so we have two times today.

I'll bet that it's really fun to be with your sister. I don't see mine very often and she lives just across the SF Bay.

So you can get an idea of what it's really like here, this is my 'office'. LOL

I'll get back to you on other photos. They are all on Marty's computer so I have to turn file sharing on and he's out at meetings today.

If it's not one thing, it's another!

Dorothie

Wow, you must see your colorist more often than I do! I just got all my hair cut off - now the gray really shows. I've been coloring my hair for at least 15 years - but usually I do it myself. My office looks a lot like yours... strange, who'd a thunk it?

It is fun to see my sister, but on the other hand, it's perculiarly stressful. Every conversation could be the last one we have.... should we talk about hair color or politics or glasses/contacts or our childhood memories or who looks like whom? I guess we probably have 40-50 20 minute conversations, but each one has a subtext of I hope this is really worth spending time on so it gets a little nutty. But she's just across the Atlantic from me...

Here's me in my office, May 27... and I already needed a haircut.

Don't think of it as being without power, think of it as electricity-free. Did you feel liberated from your reliance on the man and his power? No? I get FRANTIC when there's even a brown-out!

Have you called Diane? I sent her a card. I hope she doesn't have to be in rehab for too long. On the other hand sometimes it's better than being home where there's so much stuff to do, and chatting with her, she seems like the type who'd DO stuff instead of letting it wait.

Well, I'm glad you're in the world of the living again. I mean the power-full. My bed is full of hairbrushes I can't use! LOL

xxxxxx, Carrie

Dear Carrie,
Yes. our offices look a lot alike!

I see the colorist every three weeks or I have quite a stripe. It's a royal pain. How clever of you to do it yourself.

I'm sorry that there is the worry all of the time about your health. So much of our interaction as humans is just about little things. Those deep connection times just don't happen that often. But I can sure understand you wishing for that with your sister who you see so seldom, especially given your health. One more thing that long term illness takes away. I'm just too tired to see many people I love.

I did call Diane and she got your card - she was in very good spirits. I think we talked for almost 2 hours. She really appreciated the call. What a fun lady. I kept thinking that our laughing must be really hurting her incision but she said that it was worth it.

I'm so used to accepting "what is" that the power loss wasn't a real frustration. I was worried about my plants though. It's been really hot here and watering plants by hand is impossible. I tried to do some yesterday morning, especially the newly planted things. I have some hostas and daylilies coming this week and then no new planting until the fall. Things just don't do that well in this unusual heat.

You going to have a brush sale?

Dorothie

Very good idea! More likely, when I hear "Mommy, where's the hairbrush?" I'll be able to say "how on earth would I know??? Stop asking me these silly questions!"

I'm glad you called Diane. I'm being really chicken about it. I do have some very slightly used (LOL) gardening books I could send her. Any clues as to how long they'll spend rehabbing her?

Tania and I, since today is like 20 degrees cooler than yesterday, dug up everything that needed shipping. More pictures! What kind of plant is this?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Carrie

Oh, it's just an overgrown Tanarda lathyria that badly needs pruning!

That's much better...

xxxxxx, Carrie

It's a beautiful plant! You will love this, but I thought "This is a sweet pea" And then when I read the scientific name I had to look it on the net. I was sure that I hadn't seen one before that. LOL

Don't be afraid to call Diane. She absolutely came alive when I called. And she is so appreciative of being thought of. Notes are also wonderful. She's not too tired to talk on the phone, believe me. But I'm sure that she will tell you if she is. I called about 8:00 pm her time.

I talked to her for a long time and never got the information about how long she'll be there. I don't know if her daughter comes every day either.

I'll email you with an idea I have for a gift. Probably less expensive than shipping on the books if we all get together on it. She loves African Violets.

I'm exhausted today from all of the vet-going I did yesterday plus all of the hand watering and exercise. I need to rest and I'm crabby from being tired. I hate that!!! This too shall pass.

Dorothie

You're kidding, that's actually the name of a plant? It's Tania! Holding lemon bee balm and perennial sweet pea. I know the lemon bee balm [what a relief for all those lemon bees] is some kind of monarda, so I said Tanarda and I know sweet peas are lathy-something so I said lathyia and I thought I was being so original and now I'm sorely disappointed.

Sending out five trades today. That's probably as many as I've done all together before.

xxxxxx, Carrie

Congratulations for the big trades going out. You are sure ambitious. I find that it just takes too much energy... But I'm going to have to do some daylilies and iris in the next few years.

But the trading sure does seem like fun!

Dorothie

Sending out five trades was not that hard. I have Tania! I show her how to do something and next time she does it, she does it twice as well and in less time than I did it to begin with. It almost makes me jealous, but not quite. She has a real brain, and/or a real talent for gardening, and/or a real talent for everything she touches. Also, since the big Liar of '06 was exposed, I have a little more leverage with Emma. I mean, I can make her carry packages into the P.O.

xxxxx, Carrie

How nice to have an assistent who is so talented, and a daughter who is so willing to help! LOL

I just find with everything else that needs to get done here, there isn't much time for extras. It also makes a difference that I really can't trade with many people as California's plant import restrictions are so many so it's always for postage. Not that exciting!

I'm glad that you can enjoy it. :-)

Yeah, a daughter who has committed sins so grave that she can be prodded into doing many things she use to refuse to do.

xxxxx, Carrie

At least you've made "arrangements" and she's apparently following through - make it work for you!

I ordered Diane's gift today and it will be in the mail on Monday!

Yup, I guess. Today I started calling the other mothers of the kids involved. (Gulp.) It was really scary.

Hey Dorothie, you OK lady? I haven't heard from you.
xxxxxxx, Carrie

Oh, I'm really sorry. I must have lost this thread some how. Sometimes that happens to me. I was going to write you tonight since I hadn't heard from you but I can see that I dropped the ball.

Mothers of the world unite! I'm sorry that it's getting worse as your talk to them but glad that you have people to work with you. And I'm VERY glad that they were caught.

It's been 100 for a couple of days and I've been laying very low. My dahlias were totally limp and one of the hydrangea was laying low. No permanent damage that I can see.

Marty was away for the weekend and it's always difficult for me. You know, little things like unplugging the toilet and getting dinner and driving Zoe to camp. And I hate to drive. Doesn't sound like a lot but for me it is. Luckily we're back to our weekly schedule and I got a break.

I heard from Diane and her back is killing her. Nurses finally convinced her that she had major surgery and it was normal to have that much pain. I think that it made her feel better to know that she isn't making it up. She's going to take some time getting better. She's a champion!

Dorothie