In Sickness and in Health

MY TURN

We had quite the surprising week. Not a good surprise, but an opportunity nonetheless for me to give back, and I always appreciate that.

Michael, my healthy, robust, always giving partner, contracted a couple of hernias this month. The day he remembers feeling “something” was a day he spent with the leaf blower outside trying to outmaneuver the mounds of spring goodies that have fallen from the giant live oak between our house and our neighbors’.  It’s a losing battle ~ you rake or blow away this stuff, and the porch and yard are filled with it the next day.  But he tried.  Then Michael took on the bathing of our squiggly, wiggly Yorkie, Willie, with his rapidly expanding girth ~ the dog now weighs 13.2 pounds! By the time that day was over, my husband was doubled over with pain and on his way to the doctor.

This past Monday morning Michael was scheduled for a couple of minor hernia repairs, laparoscopic, quick and easy.  Wrong!  One incision is the simple laparoscopic kind, an inch or so right at the belly button.  The other, however, is a good 4 or 5 inches long.  The result:  My poor sweetie has been bedridden all week, in terrible pain, unable to eat, entirely dependent on me, and in a hazy Percocet delirium.

So, I’ve had to go from being well cared for since my shoulder surgery to suddenly being the caregiver myself ~ and I am exhausted!  Needless to say, the 16-year-old has been little help.  I’ll be glad when my sweetie is up and about and back to normal.  It’s hard to see someone you love hurting and not be able to make it go away.

OUR GARDEN GROWS

Last year we planted dozens of exotic daylily bulbs, and I could kick myself for not writing down what everything was.  But the first of them started blooming this week in our front bed.  This magenta darling will bloom only once this year, but what a glorious sight when she does!

 

 

We’ve also got every kind of herb you’d want, plus cucumbers, lettuce, strawberries, zucchini, Meyer lemons, spinach, arugula and a new crop of heirloom tomatoes shipped from Laurel’s Heirloom Tomatoes.  For 18 years I lived downtown in the historic district, with only a courtyard and no earth of my own ~ and prior to that, five years in Manhattan preceded by five years in downtown Boston, so you can imagine how much I love being able to literally put down roots.

GOING GRAY

Coming from that New York state of mind, I’ve been all about the black for a long, long time.  My closet looked like a funeral director’s.  In the last year or two I ventured a little toward the browns, but they just weren’t me, and I kept drifting back to black. 

I’ve found a new niche in GRAY, ironically well-suited to my station in life as part of a retired, fixed-income couple.  (Too bad my taste doesn’t lend itself to that income.)  You may have noticed a trend in my recent knitted items, from the “Charlotte” wrap, knitted in charcoal Rowan Ribbon Twist, to “Grey Gardens,” my luscious Cascade Cloud 9 triangle wrap in dark gray, to even the ill-fated “Nightfall Cropped Top” from Twinkle’s Weekend Knits in dark gray and ivory Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.  The wardrobe is filling in with lovely gray items by Eileen Fisher and Garnet Hill.  And what about these cool shoes (the pewter ones, left) by Palladium?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re comfy comfy comfy from Garnet Hill, and I adore wearing them with GH’s Knit Layered Skirt in dove gray, their Elbow-length Scoop-neck Tee in warm gray, and ~ soon ~ this amazing Martin Storey striped cardigan sweater I am almost finished with, from Rowan Classic’s “Colour of Summer” book, which has quite a few terrific patterns.

         

The sweater calls for Rowan Cashcotton DK, but I’m using Wool Cotton (probably my all-time favorite Rowan yarn) in two shades of green, elf and citron, along with Rowan Cashsoft DK in mist, which is ~ what else? ~ a lovely, soft gray.

 

 

A Hand Knit Wedding

Last Sunday my friends Rachel and Solumon were married on Columbia Square in Savannah, in front of a fountain gushing green-dyed water for St. Patrick’s Day and among several dozen friends and family ~ many of whom were dressed or wrapped in hand-knit items. 

Rachel was the star, of course, and her delicate lace veil-turned-shawl ~ knit by the multi-talented Kristen of our stitching group ~ was the showstopper of the day. 

  

About a month ago, after Rachel caught sight of Kristen’s work on the lace piece and admired it, the rest of us got together and raised money to buy it for Rachel’s veil.  As you can see, Rachel was delighted to wear the piece, and it really made her wedding ensemble.  Bravo, Kristen!

But Rachel wasn’t the only one rocking a hand-knit.  With the weather unseasonably nippy, we all hauled out our wraps and sweaters (yay! It’s often too warm here to wear anything knitted), and some even borrowed others’ creations to ward off the chill.  I wore my new ‘Grey Gardens’ wrap (down below in the previous post), and several other gals, such as Sarah (below right) wore the colorful and imaginative creations of Tracy (left).

  

Kate (above right), also wearing one of Tracy’s wraps, took many of these pictures (the good ones).  Aren’t all these women gorgeous?  Brooke, Julia and Penny (l-r, below) didn’t wear their hand-knits, but they look so good I had to put them in anyway.  Besides, Julia did all the flowers and decorations for Rachel, and they were wonderful.

Now, here’s one of my favorite pictures, of Sandy (left) and Jennifer walking home from the wedding.  I swear ~ if I didn’t know better I’d say they were somewhere in Central America on the way to sell their handmade goods at market.  Sandy’s is a many-colored woolen wrap, and Jennifer is wearing a piece she hand-spun, hand-dyed, knitted and trimmed with three charming tiny bells on the bottom of that center back jagged edge.  As a matter of fact, Jennifer ~ our fearless LYS leader ~ surprised us all by wearing not one but two of her own creations, the luscious pink angora shell she has on in the picture on the right.

   

Not to forget the gifts Rachel made for her bridesmaids, these pretty sky blue felted buttonhole bags.

It was a lovely wedding on a beautiful day.  Thank you, Rachel and Solumon, for inviting us and sharing this most special occasion with us. 

AND TO THINK, THE FIRST JOB I EVER HAD IN JOURNALISM WAS WRITING UP WEDDINGS!  SOME THINGS YOU JUST NEVER FORGET.

A Valentine to My Right Arm

   A month ago today I had surgery for a significant tear in my right rotator cuff.  Since then, I’ve been trying to negotiate life in a sling attached to my body.  I can knit ~ up to a point, then it starts hurting like all getout.  I can work the computer, but some days I have to hand over the mouse to my left hand and let it do the work.   I can’t sleep at night for the pain, and I don’t know when it will end. 

I bring this up because today is That Day.  That Day when you’re supposed to shower the one you love with kisses and bouquets and candy and special tokens.  This is best I can do today, but my heart overflows with how much I mean what I have to say about my dear husband, Michael.

We met 20 years ago this coming St. Patrick’s Day, and three weeks later we were married, first marriage for me, second for him.  Everyone said it wouldn’t last, but once we got going I knew it would.  We’ve been through a lot over the past 20 years ~ open heart surgery and five bypasses for Michael, the frustration of infertility and the joy of adopting our baby from China, a knee replacement for me, a big move from his family home in the historic district to the little bungalow of my dreams in Ardsley Park. 

Through all this we’ve not always loved each other with that unflinching eye that sees no wrong and adores every pore and cell of the other partner.  Sometimes, as a matter of fact, I’m sure both of us have wished the other would just take a l-o-n-g vacation. All married couples go through this, I suppose.

But as we approach our 20th anniversary, I had begun to think there was never to be any more romance for us ~ that we would just plod together, side-by-side, wrestling for the remote and trying to dodge the inevitable insults of our teenage daughter, until she was grown and gone and we could sit and look at each other and wonder where it all went.

This month has made me fall in love all over again with the guy I was lucky enough to grab onto upon one day when I was at the end of my rope.  I can’t possibly count the wonderful ways he has cared for me this month, cooking our meals, buying our food, cleaning the house, chauffering me and April, feeding and bathing the dogs, opening and closing doors for me, washing my hair, fastening my bra in back, picking up prescriptions, bringing me surprises to try and appeal to my lackluster appetite.

When my husband’s parents were old, his mother had emphysema and was confined to their house down at Tybee beach.  Michael’s father, it seemed, lived for nothing but to take care of his wife. Even though his own dementia was encroaching, he managed to keep it together as long as his wife was alive.  My mother-in-law used to say she had married “the most wonderful man in the world,” and my husband thought she was joking.  I know she wasn’t.

I just found this picture of my husband taken a couple of years ago in a restaurant on Easter Sunday.  He hadn’t been able to find his regular glasses, so he wore these huge plastic things that I hated.  I’m sure when I took the picture I said it would have been a good one if he hadn’t worn those stupid glasses.  Well, I think it’s a great one anyway, because it perfectly captures the sweetness, humor and generosity of the man who has put up with me for almost 20 years.  And 20 more, I hope.