Fire and Water

Once, there was a dark city. Three rivers ran through it, but long ago, misguided city fathers had covered them up, channeling them underground. When the city finally underwent a long-awaited renaissance, the rivers were uncovered. To celebrate the new life of the city and the liberation of its rivers from their cement shrouds, braziers were erected in the river and filled with wood, to be set ablaze on temperate nights while drums thunder and flutes play. Voices would fill the night air with ancient sounding, harmonic chants mingling with trails of sparks blowing in warm zephyrs off the river. Gondolas would ply the waters and the people would come from many miles around to join the residents of the city in the ritual celebrating the rebirth of Providence, Rhode Island. The people call this beautiful, primal rite “Waterfire”. On Saturday evening, I was there at the water’s edge, sitting on the cool granite walls of the canal with thousands of others, waiting in anticipation of dusk. Then, at the exact moment of sunset, the sound of drums began and rose up above the waters. A black skiff appeared out of the shadows, carrying several black-robed figures. With torch in hand, one of them set the first brazier basket on fire as deep, booming voices began a chant. The festival had begun. The dark boat glided by, lighting each brazier as they went. As the river lit up with the flames, the granite walls of the canal began to glow pink and the warmth suffused us as we looked on, sipping red wine and nibbling pastries. A fire juggler appeared on a stone peninsula, cups of flame on gold chains, swirling around his bronze torso. A gondola approached, carrying a couple downriver. The gondolier wore a straw hat, and a black and white striped jersey. He poled his craft slowly along aside the flaming baskets. Next came a black skiff carrying a old man with long silver hair, dressed all in white. He handed out long-stemmed, red roses to random people who reached out over the water toward him as the deep, harmonic sounds of “Halleluyah”, by David Hykes boomed out across the river. The warm breeze sent a spangled ribbon of sparks cascading from each of the flaming braziers as my companions and I rose to walk along Canal Street, toward Memorial Park. There, at the dimly lit World War I monument, a group of statues would come to life this night. We had to see for ourselves. Sure enough, there we found a gargoyle, a Viking, a Valkyrie, a Grecian goddess, and a few other marble statues. As we watched, they suddenly came to life and slowly began to move, presenting onlookers with small scrolls containing oracles in exchange for dollar bills. The sound of “Nepalese Lullaby” by Neelam Shestha, floated on the night wind as we sauntered down to Market Square and the Rhode Island School of Design. We were surrounded by a gentle sea of humanity; all ages genders and races, ebbing and flowing, mingling happily on the granite waterfront. Dogs of every description, large and small, sauntered along with their owners, taking in the sights and sounds. There were carts selling all kinds of food and drink along the way, and the delicious smells mingled with the aroma of the wood smoke from the river. Artisan vendors offered their wares at tents set up on the side streets surrounding the waterfront area - glass jewelry, artwork and henna tattoos. Wine, beer and cocktails were served up as Dance lessons, Jazz bands, origami artists and mimes carried on nearby.  It's all  part of the scene on various nights during the season. Further along, toward the bridge we found a forest of trees hung with blue illuminated stars, twisting in the night breeze. I was told that these represented donations to cancer research. They created a magical grove near the fountain in Memorial Park. There is no admission charged for Waterfire; hundreds of volunteers and many more generous financial benefactors make it all possible. Waterfire is the inspired, artistic concept designed by Barnaby Evans, to celebrate the rebirth of the city of Providence. It is called an "installation piece", and some refer to it as a sculpture. By bringing together the two opposing elements of fire and water, Mr. Evans found a way to draw the people back to the heart of this beautiful port city. The sublime and intricate architecture of the older buildings, and the glass, polished stone and steel of the city's newer skyscrapers are illuminated by one hundred bonfires and reflect back their light, along with the rippling river surface. An ethereal mood fills the city on the nights when Waterfire happens in Providence. A Vivaldi piece ends and a  traditional Navajo song begins as we stroll across the Washington Street bridge and move (very slowly) toward the car. The black robed figures in the dark boats will continue to feed the flames until midnight. This was only one of many magical Waterfire nights each year. I have never been part of a more amazing happening of peaceful joy and sublime fun. My companions and I will be back, over and over again to be a part of the ritual and behold the spectacle that is Waterfire. What better way to welcome summer back to New England?

EMFs...What the Heck?

I’ve been thinking a lot about EMFs- Electro-magnetic fields. It seems that a lot of the shows I’ve been watching on television, and many articles I’ve read lately refer to them. I’m not scientifically inclined and don’t pretend to know anything about this phenomenon, but it seems to play a part in every strange and unexplainable happening. Paranormal researchers use EMF detectors as they investigate hauntings, and UFO documentaries almost always mention them. Whatever else they do, they seem to precipitate weird events.

I became aware of the existence of EMFs some twenty odd years ago. Around that time, a friend of mine experienced a string of very strange incidents. The things that she told me may, or may not have had something to do with EMFs. I have no idea, but it’s an interesting story and something to ponder.

Lana was given a lot of land adjacent to the high tension electrical wires that run through a nearby town. She had a nice little home built there, on the edge of the woods. The house was a pleasing design, and the yard was nice and green. It was lovely, except for the presence of the steel towers and the constantly humming wires they supported looming nearby. She said she didn’t mind the high tension wires, but was a little concerned because she had heard about vague health threats associated with them. Lana had a small daughter, and hoped her child’s safety and well-being would not be jeopardized in anyway.

After they had lived in their new home for a few years, Lana confided that she could not seem to keep fish. She had a gorgeous aquarium in the living room, but the fish were constantly dying for no apparent reason. She had taken water samples for analysis and tried all sorts of remedies, to no avail. She eventually gave up and stopped buying new fish.

Around this time Lana noticed that there seemed to be a sort of vibration in the walls inside her house, and she assumed it was caused by an electro-magnetic field produced by the wires. She was concerned, but neither she, nor her child seemed to be suffering any ill effects. Then one evening she and her daughter were coming home, driving up the long driveway, when they noticed a strange, bluish glow in the front yard. As they got closer, they were surprised to see that the light seemed to be in the shape of a cube. She said that an opaque, glowing, blue cube was sitting in front of their house. How weird is that? Even weirder is the fact that they remarked about it to each other as they got out of the car , “Hey look at that blue cube… that’s really strange…”, before turning and walking calmly into the house and promptly forgetting about it until the next morning. Lana was shaken the following day, thinking about it and wondering what the heck she saw and why she didn’t examine it more closely. Her daughter also remembered seeing it, and described it exactly the same way.

Then there was the lost weekend. On a Friday afternoon, after her daughter left to spend time with her father, Lana laid down to rest. She was awakened suddenly by pounding on her back door. She was confused when she opened the door and saw her ex and her daughter standing there and asked why they had come back. It was Sunday evening, their weekend visit was over and Jim had brought the girl back home. Lana had apparently slept through the entire weekend.

Things got even stranger when her boyfriend Carl moved in. She related tales of her nightstand shaking violently in the middle of the night, the water sloshing out of a glass she had left on top of it. She told me of her abject terror when strange lights appeared outside her windows, and seemed to flow like liquid down under the window shades to pool on the floor beneath. During these incidents, Carl could not be woken up, no matter how hard she shook him.

She had no explanation for any of this, and I could sense her fear and reluctance to even talk about it. I believe she experienced something, but I have no clue what it was. The stories Lana related reminded me of things I have read concerning UFOs and paranormal phenomena. She felt it all was somehow connected to those high tension wires.

Lana sold her home and moved away when she remarried a few years ago. I often wonder if the new owners have experienced anything odd since moving in. I guess I will probably never know.

The Bear Whisperer

For more than a decade, a California man spent much of his time living amongst the great bears of Southeast Alaska, in Katmai National Park. He became a celebrity of sorts, appearing on talk shows and as the subject of a Discovery Channel film. The book; Death in the Grizzly Maze, by Mike Lapinski, tells the story of this controversial man, and his untimely end.

Timothy Treadwell, dedicated his life to grizzly bears. Understanding and protecting them became his passion, and he spent twelve summers camped in the middle of their territory, tempting fate, and angering scientists and park rangers. He became a celebrity wildlife expert, despite the fact that he had no training as an outdoorsman, or education in biology. He wanted nothing else, but to be in the company of grizzlies, and he set out to become the “Bear Whisperer.”

Timothy was a blond, affable, surfer type. Hailing from Malibu, where he had worked as a bartender and a waiter, Tim was a self-described alcoholic and former drug abuser. He reportedly suffered from depression and possibly bi-polar disorder. He was also, by many accounts, a sweet, sensitive man, who experienced a life-changing turn-around, as a result of his time alone in the wilderness with the great bears of Alaska.

Each summer he set up camp in the heart of bear country, enduring the cold and the rain, living on sandwiches, while the mosquitoes feasted on him. He sat alone for hours, in the cold drizzle, surrounded by the enormous animals, making films that would both impress and enrage the wildlife community.

Early on in his ill-fated quest, Timothy developed a dangerously naïve attitude toward the bears, deciding that if humans radiated love to the bears, the bears would welcome our presence. He seemed determined to view the animals as friendly, anthropomorphic creatures, and he gave them names like “Mr. Chocolate”, “Downy” and “Cupcake”. Despite several close calls, he continued to push the envelope by regularly getting within arms’ reach of the powerful animals. He refused to carry bear spray, believing that it was an insult and a betrayal of trust to go among the bears armed in any way. Bear spray is an extra potent form of pepper spray, designed to discharge at high velocity and in a wide swath, capable of turning away a charging bear. Meeting with a faceful of this spray would also have the effect of discouraging the animal from approaching humans in the future, but Tim would have none of it. His belief and his message seemed to be that bears weren’t wild and potentially dangerous animals, but fun loving, friendly creatures. Timothy seemed unable to temper his love of bears with the healthy fear and respect required to remain safe in the wilderness.

Biologists and wilderness guides came to think of him as an eccentric, if not crazy, person and were outraged by his reckless behavior near the bears. Park officials repeatedly warned him not to get so close to the bears, and he promised to heed their warnings, but never did. What frustrates and confounds so many to this day, is why the Park rangers failed to take steps to ban Tim from the park, when it was obvious from his films that he was blatantly breaking all the rules set forth for behavior in bear territory. If they had, it may have saved his life.

On October 5th, 2003, Tim and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were attacked and killed by a pair of grizzly bears in Katmai National Park. The following day, park rangers who were investigating had to kill the animals. Ironically, the man who had dedicated his life to protecting grizzlies, was not only killed by them, but also caused the deaths of the bears that had attacked him...a tragedy all around and one that could have easily been prevented.

The debate continues. Tim obviously loved bears and had the best of intentions. His films and his public persona served to educate the public about these magnificent animals. But while his fans see him as a hero and a wildlife protector, whose presence in the Grizzly Maze prevented poaching, some experts believe that his presence in the bears’ midst was simple harassment and a source of stress to the animals.

Mike Lapinski’s book is an excellent and balanced accounting of the tragic story.

photo by Phil Scofield

Lovely Day

Today was a lovely day, and I thought I'd post a few photos of the yard and environs.


The barn.


The beautiful sky.


My favorite wildflowers, bluets.



My shady spot.


Long shadows in the afternoon.


Violets on the lawn.


Catboy watches it all from his window.


Have a great weekend, my friends!

Happy Birthday

This is my daughter when she was just two years old. She just celebrated her twenty third birthday... How time goes by! As you can plainly see, she was a star even at that tender age.

Last evening, we went to a nice restaurant a few towns over and met with Mac's little sister for a birthday dinner. The three of us all have birthdays that fall within 12 days of each other, so we celebrated together. The food was excellent, and we even split a decadent dessert (The diet starts tomorrow...honest).
Happy Birthday, bunny!

Remembering the Neighbors from Hell

I was musing the other day, about how lovely it is to be out in the backyard now. Things are quiet, except for the sweet twittering of birds, the rustle of the breeze and the occasional drone of lawnmowers. For many years, however, this was not the case.

Screams, cursing, incessant barking and bad, top forty music filled the air on our part of the street, every sunny day before the neighbors from hell finally moved away.

Things had started to go downhill when the girl who'd grown up next door found that she was expecting a child, and decided to move back in with her parents, who happened to be our neighbors. Along with her other baggage, she brought the father of her child with her and a backyard wedding soon took place. Within two years, they had two sons. Her parents had never bothered us in the least, but this couple and their sons were to become the bane of our existence.

Things weren't so bad at first. While the children were very young, the worst thing was that the couple screamed at each other frequently and for long periods of time. The sound of swearing and doors slamming was the norm during good weather. It almost made us appreciate winter when they stayed inside with the windows shut so we didn't have to listen to it.

They also had a love of placing a radio out on their patio in the summer, turning the volume up as high as it would go. The cacophony would continue all day and into the evening. They'd frequently go inside and forget about it, leaving it on, blaring away, to torture the entire neighborhood.

They also had a series of dogs during their nearly two decade occupation of that house. The poor animals spent most of their lives tied up next to the back door. The family would go out for the day or the evening and leave the dog tied outside all alone, to bark pitifully, for hours. The first one they had was given up for adoption after they found him too difficult to handle. The second met his fate in the form of a car on the busy street out in front of the house. The third simply disappeared one day, and was never seen or mentioned again. I've never understood why someone would bring a dog home in the first place, just to scream at it, kick it and ignore it the rest of the time. They never played with them or walked them. It was sad.

The real trouble began when the two boys reached school age. I remember an early incident when my daughter had just gotten her first "big-girl" bike. It was her birthday and she was outside, proudly showing off her new, pink and white two-wheeler with the flowered basket. Suddenly she ran into the house, crying. I got to the window in time to see the two boys heaping black mud onto the bicycle, which was on its side in the grass. From then on, it was an endless series of problems with those two boys. Neighborhood soccer games always ended in fights and tears, our house was egged, and the barn windows were broken too many times to count. My husband Mac started a golf ball collection with all the ones he found in the yard, or amid shards of glass on the barn floor.

We'd started out on friendly terms with them. We tried to be neighborly. I watched the boys before school and got them on the bus when the parents had to be to work early. When a big tree came down in their yard during a hurricane, Mac went over with his chainsaw and spent hours cutting it up for them. We did our best to be kind and cordial, but it became more difficult with each passing year.

A favorite game of the two boys was "army". It involved running and screaming through their yard and ours, with toy rifles and machine guns, pretending to kill one another. This happened almost daily and lasted well into their high school years. In junior high, they once again targeted my daughter, taunting her on the school bus, and yelling things at her whenever they saw her outside. When they were in high school, they started a campaign of cyber-harassment, sending her instant messages, pretending to be an anonymous girl who was supposedly dating my daughter's boyfriend. This continued until we got proof that it was them, and let them know about it.

Late one night, Mac was coming in from the barn and saw them with a few of their friends, and their father, huddled in the backyard, passing around a pipe. I'm guessing it wasn't a peace pipe ceremony. Another morning, just at dawn, Mac stepped outside and observed the father out in his yard, vomiting into the bushes. So this was the role-model these kids had grown up with. Meanwhile, the screaming and slamming of doors continued, only now the two sons joined in.

One fine summer day, I was sitting under a tree, reading in the yard. My neighbor was mowing his lawn, and he stopped to inspect some pine trees I had recently planted near the property line. He got down on one knee and was really studying them. He didn't notice me sitting in the relative darkness of the shade, a dozen yards away. He finally went back to his mowing, but the incident stayed with me. The more I thought about it, the more odd it seemed, and I finally went back there myself to look at the trees and see what was so interesting. When I did, I saw that the needles were turning brown and all the trees looked sick. There was a grayish-white powder packed around the base of each tree, and when I scooped up a handful, I was overcome with a strong, chemical smell. It was either a weedkiller or more likely, chlorine. Our neighbors had a swimming pool in their yard. As strange and unbelievable as it seemed, our neighbor had apparently poisoned our trees.

Then, I recalled how our rabbits had mysteriously died. We'd had three rabbits over the past few years, and Mac had built a beautiful wooden hutch for them, out behind the barn. All of them had died, one by one, for no apparent reason, although two of them had been relatively young. We just went out to feed them in the morning and found them cold and stiff. Now I had to wonder if my neighbor had poisoned our rabbits as well as our trees.

I called him on the telephone and casually told him that we'd inexplicably found chlorine in the soil around our trees, and I wanted to make him aware of it. I suggested that he make sure his pool shed and all his chemicals were safely locked up. I stopped short of accusing him. Wow! He had no idea how THAT had happened. He thanked me for alerting him.

It was about four years ago that the "For Sale" sign went up on the front lawn next door. The youngest son was graduating from high school, and having had enough, his mother had filed for divorce. His grandfather had recently passed away, and grandma put the house on the market. The neighborhood breathed a collective sigh of relief, as the moving van pulled away from the curb in front of their house that fall. A nice young couple moved in shortly thereafter, along with their little Shih Tzu. The neighborhood is peaceful again. It's a joy to be out in the yard now, enjoying the sounds of tree frogs and mockingbirds, just breathing in the calm. It feels like heaven once more.

It's a mystery to me, how people can live in such discord and misery of their own making, but obviously, some do.

The Sentinel Bee

I took a break this afternoon, between walking Rigby and painting the living room to sit outside behind the garage for a spell. It was ninety degrees and sunny, with a cool, dry breeze. Beautiful, really. As they say so often up here in these parts, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity!" So true. I think it could be a hundred and I wouldn't mind it too much as long as the humidity was low. The sheets and blankets I hung on the line were dry almost as soon as I finished hanging them, and they snapped in the breeze, startling my little dog Rigby.

I was sitting in the shade with Rigby, just noticing how green and lush things are getting out there. We have a hedge of forsythia separating us from our neighbors to the west, and right now it is a riot of shocking, brilliant yellow. It's so bright, it almost hurts the eyes. The grass really needs cutting now, and I watched a male cardinal fluttering about in it. His bright red color was so striking against the new grass. Everywhere, the ubiquitous robins were hopping around, or singing loudly from the trees. I've heard that the first settlers named them after European birds with similar plumage, but that our American Robins are really thrushes, and would be more accurately called "black-capped thrush", or "orange breasted thrush". At this time of year, they are by far the most commonly seen bird on suburban lawns in these parts.

A robin suddenly started up an alarm call as I sat there, and I could see him calling from a low branch a few yards away. At first, I thought I was the reason for his distress, until I saw the big hawk rise up and flap away over the treetops. I haven't been able to identify him yet, but he is lightly colored underneath and is pretty large. I've never been able to get a good look at him, except from beneath.

Mac and I have both noticed that there is a big bumble bee that apparently lives underneath the eaves of the barn, behind the gutter. There's probably a bunch of them living in there, but we most often see this one huge, solitary guard hovering around the edge of the roof. It's as big as my thumb, it seems much bigger than other bumble bees I have seen, and the rear end of his body is shiny and leathery looking. It has a habit of zooming down and investigating anything going on in the yard. I don't know much about bumble bees, their habits, or how they live. I've seen them flying up out of holes in the ground, and I'd assumed they always lived underground, but this guy(or girl, maybe), seems very intent on guarding this spot under the eaves. Maybe it's a different kind of bee altogether. Today, the big bee sentinel suddenly appeared in front of my face. It hovered a few inches away from me and I had the distinct impression it was "reading" me...deciding whether I, or Rigby, might be a threat. I looked into those big black eyes and stayed still for a moment. It studied me for a few seconds, then dropped down for a look at Rigby. I was glad that Rigby didn't snap at it - she generally tries to eat any insect she comes across. It hung in the air for a moment longer, sizing us up, then buzzed off toward the barn, apparently satisfied that we weren't any cause for concern. I intend to do some research and find out more about them, because this big bumble has peaked my curiosity.

Legend Of The Fall

Another sunny, unnaturally warm spring day here in the northeast. Mac and I were talking about going down to the shore today. Before I headed out to Mass this morning, I checked the forecast and found that the tide would be high right around the time we got there, and cloudiness, along with a potential for thunderstorms were also predicted. It's an hour and a half of driving to get there, so once we commit to going, there's no turning back.

In the end, we decided to wait for a more settled day and low tide so we could really enjoy the beach. Plus, we have so much to do around here. There's a lot of yard work still to be done, and we're doing the living room over. In order for it to look halfway decent, we had to tear out the old paneling and put up new sheetrock before painting. Today we stained the wood work and Mac sanded down the joint compound on the sheetrock seams. Tomorrow I should get to do some painting.

As I type this, Rigby is dropping her favorite ball on my feet every few seconds so I will stop and throw it across the room for her. She gets bored so easily!

So, back to the legend of the fall!

I drove home, late that night with my head spinning. Mac had been admitted to the hospital with a broken pelvis. My daughter was living away at school, and my son was working all kinds of different shifts, so Rigby was crated during the day. I'd called my sister from the hospital and she kindly went over and took her out for a walk. It was late as I drove home, but hopefully my son would have gotten home and was taking care of her.

My second concern after the well-being of my husband was financial. Mac is a self-employed contractor. He either works directly for homeowners, or with other builders, roofers and carpenters as a sub-contractor. If he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid. He can't collect unemployment compensation, as I am now doing. If he stays home, there's no money at the end of the week. Of course, he had no short-term disability insurance either, so this was not a good thing. Our income had just been cut in half. On the up side, it could have been so much worse. He could have injured his spinal cord and lost the use of his limbs. He could have injured his spleen or some other organ. He could have landed on his head and been killed. All things considered, he was very lucky. My daughter would be graduating in a month from the University of Massachusetts. I couldn't imagine that Mac would be able to be there. He'd be so disappointed to miss his only daughter graduate from college. I made up my mind that I would not let everything overwhelm me, and I would take it all one day at a time.

Those first days were grim. He was on a lot of pain medication and so he wasn't himself, to say the least. Sometimes we would talk and he would not remember anything of our conversations. I'd spend a couple of hours with him and he wouldn't remember me being there. The nurses had him up and were making him walk with a walker which seemed very wrong to me, and I told them so, but what the heck did I know? He told me through gritted teeth, that he could feel the pelvic plates grinding against each other, which I thought was a very bad sign. When the Orthopedist finally saw him, he confirmed that my suspicions were correct...he shouldn't have been up and moving for he first three days - it apparently takes that long for the bones to begin to knit together, and he could have made things much worse by shifting them around. I felt a lot better about everything once the Orthopedist took over his care.

Meanwhile, I continued working full-time and taking care of Rigby and the apartment, and I also took over all the household tasks that Mac normally did, like doing the dishes, taking out the trash and recyclables, and mowing the lawn. Although we rent here, taking care of the property, which includes an acre of yard, is part of the deal. My son helped me as much as he could, and my sister and her husband, as well as my brother, all lent a helping hand too. I was so lucky to have them living so close by. I came to really understand how difficult it must be, for people that have no close friends or relatives to help them in times like this. We all really need someone to rely on.

It turned out Mac is a really fast healer. After two weeks, the doctor announced that he was ready to go to a rehab hospital and begin physical therapy. I was concerned that they were rushing it, but they disagreed, and Mac wanted to get home and get back to his life. At fifty two years old, he had excellent blood pressure, was not on any medications (except for the pain meds, at the moment), and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds(soaking wet with all his clothes on). He was really in great health, except for his injury, which was healing nicely. They claimed he was ready, so off to the rehab hospital we went. Once there, he made excellent progress, and after ten days, they released him. He'd be walking only with a walker for a while, then he'd graduate to crutches. He had a home health aide scheduled to visit a few times a week, and a physical therapist would be coming by too. He'd be doing exercises on his own as well. The trickiest part, was that he would need help getting outside for fresh air, or to take Rigby out, since we live entirely on the second floor. I took six vacation days off from work so I could be there with him for the worst of it.

For the next two months, he hopped around in the yard on his crutches, played with Rigby, ate three meals a day(a real novelty for him), and watched "The Deadliest Catch" on cable T.V. so often, he soon knew every fact about Alaskan crab fishing that there is to know. By mid-July, he was back to his old self and was ready to climb up on the staging again, and so he did.

The only good thing about Mac being hospitalized, was that he couldn't smoke. He was a two pack a day guy at that point, but he was forced to quit, cold turkey the night he was admitted. It was wonderful to have him in the house at night, instead of outside or down back in the barn, smoking. But, it was too good to last. After three solid months without a cigarette, as soon as he could drive again, he drove to the convenience store and bought a pack. I was so disappointed, I don't think I spoke two words to him for at least a couple of days. He says he will quit again, but he won't say when. I thought he'd gotten the monkey off his back for good, but alas, it was not to be. He knows how much I hate it, but it's his decision, not mine.

That's the story of the fall. By the Grace of God, he had a full recovery, and we somehow survived it. Mac attended our daughter's graduation at the end of May, on crutches, but he was there, after all.

An Unhappy Landing

Today was a day of record setting warmth here in southern New England. Temperatures hovered around eighty five degrees Fahrenheit. Trees are exploding with pink and white blooms, and the grass has sprung up, new and sparkling in a an amazing shade of green.

Rigby was panting, and I was drenched, as we walked around our usual route today. That little dog was in such a hurry to get to her water bowl when we got home, that she dragged me into the kitchen without waiting for me to take her leash and harness off. Even though it’s still April, today really felt like the first day of summer.

Today is also an anniversary of sorts. It was one year ago today that Mac fell off the scaffolding while he was roofing. I got his phone call around four o’clock while I was still at work. He sounded like his calm, normal self, but his first words were that he had some bad news for me… He needed me to take him to the hospital because he couldn’t drive… or walk.

Just outside my office door in the common area, some of the girls were setting out wine glasses. It was our custom to have a glass before closing up on Friday afternoons. I shut off my computer and grabbed my handbag. “I can’t stay…I need to go. Mac just fell off a roof and I have to take him to the hospital”, I babbled as I ran out the door, leaving my co-workers looking shocked and concerned.

I could see the white van in the driveway as I drove up the street toward the house. As always, there were about six ladders of varying size strapped to the roof. I saw Bart and Nash, Mac’s friends and co-workers, their arms linked, forming a chair, and Mac in the middle, being carried. I pulled up beside the van and jumped out to open the passenger side door so they could slide him in. All three of them were laughing and joking as they made their way over to my car. This was to be expected of tough guy roofers. Questions roiled about in my mind at that moment, foremost among them, “Why didn’t they take him straight to the hospital…better yet, why didn’t someone call an ambulance?” But, I already knew the answers. Mac didn’t want them to. He didn’t want anyone making a big deal over him. The staging had buckled, and the plank he was standing on gave way and he fell, landing squarely on his hip with a sickening crunch. His first thought was, "I hope my legs still work". They did, thank God, but he found that although he could move them, he couldn't walk. He was in excruciating pain. This had happened in the early afternoon. He didn't want to be a bother, so he sat and waited until the other guys had finished the job. That's Mac for you.

We started out toward the hospital which was about thirty minutes away. I was balancing trying to drive fast with trying to avoid sharp turns and bumps, because my husband’s yelling and moaning corresponded directly with the smoothness of the ride. I realized that he must have broken bones at the very least. He was never one to complain much, but he was obviously in terrible pain now.

About a mile away from the hospital, I grabbed my cell phone and called the emergency room desk. “ I’m bringing my husband into the emergency room”, I said to the nurse who picked up the phone. “We’re a few minutes away, and I need someone to meet us in the parking lot. He fell off some scaffolding and he can’t walk.”

“Sorry”, came the reply, “You’ll have to call an ambulance, we can’t come out into the parking lot. It’s against regulations.”
“Call an ambulance from the hospital parking lot? What?!” I was incredulous. No one was going to help us. I’d be damned if I was going to call an ambulance to get us from the parking lot to the front desk. And you wonder why your health insurance premiums are so high, my fellow Americans?

I pulled my car right up to the door of the emergency entrance, parked in the “no parking” zone and flicked on my flashers. I jumped out and ran up to the automatic doors, bolting inside. I told the first four people I saw that my husband was injured, he couldn’t walk and I was going to carry him in myself if someone didn’t come and help me. From behind the desk, the nurse in charge pointed out a fleet of wheelchairs in a corner, and I grabbed one and headed for the door with it. A young nurse took pity on me, and looking back over her shoulder toward the desk, muttered, “I’ll help you”, as she turned on her heel and followed me out. Somehow, the two of us wrangled him into the wheelchair.

Then began a long night of x-rays, examinations, scans and waiting… lots of waiting. At one point during the wait, I was astonished when a woman about my age, carrying a clipboard, entered the cubicle we were in. She announced that she had come to collect the one hundred and fifty dollar emergency room deductible on our health insurance. This was possibly the rudest thing I had ever experienced. Here we were, in the middle of a crisis, my husband obviously in pain, I'm distraught, and they want the money now. I was beyond irritated, but the woman’s kind demeanor and obvious empathy for our situation quickly softened my attitude. She was only doing her job, after all. As I wrote out the check, she talked about her children and asked about ours. Her gentle smile and soft spoken words were a comfort to me. She left after telling me that she would pray for a good outcome for my husband.

After many hours, a doctor came in and announced that Mac would be admitted to the hospital. His pelvis was fractured in four places, front and back. Unfortunately, since it was Friday, a orthopedist would not be able to see him until Monday at the earliest, but at this point, they expected Mac would be hospitalized for probably six weeks. Physical therapy would be required after that, of course.

Thus began the lost spring of 2008. The rest to follow...

Back To The Office

I had been trying to stall. I tried not to think too much about it, but in the back of mind, I knew I had to go back to my office and test the waters. I needed to know what the climate there was, whether business had picked up at all since I’d been “Cut Adrift!” I initially told myself that I would wait until April first to start looking for a new job in earnest. Spring is the season when my workplace had always kicked into high gear. At this time of year, it was not unusual for me to go in an hour early, and still find myself in the office after 6pm each day, because there was so much work to do.
Surely things would be better by April, I’d assured myself, back in the dark days of January.

When last week came, I could wait no longer. I got up early on Thursday morning and prepared myself. I took extra time styling my hair and carefully applying my makeup. I donned pantyhose ( my most hated accessory), and dressed in my spring suit. It’s light green, and textured in a mossy cross-hatch pattern. I wore a dark pink shell underneath and accented the jacket with a sparkly pin studded with pink and green, fake jewels. Finally, I slipped on the dreaded high heels, cream colored patent leather. I am a girl who usually wears jeans and flats (preferably, flip-flops), so this was a foreign state for me to find myself in, to say the least. Truth be told, the suit’s a little small for me now, but it looked okay. I thought I looked pretty good and felt I would make a good impression.

I thought about saying I had a job interview in the area, so I thought I’d just…you know, “stop in.” I knew I couldn’t pull it off, though - I’m terrible at lying. I decided I would go to the unemployment office, which is pretty close to the office, to pick up a schedule of events. I would swing by the office too, since I’d be in the general vicinity. Besides, I had a book which had been loaned to me by the president last fall. “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett. It’s a humongous tome, about nine hundred pages, and since I have the bad habit of reading three or four books at a time, I’d only just finished it. I could just say I wanted to return the book, since I was, sort of, in the neighborhood. Sounded kind of legitimate, and not too pathetic, right?

It was important to make sure my supervisor, as well as the company president were there when I went in. I scanned the parking lot for their cars and once I located them, I pulled into a space and shut off my engine. I sat for a minute and took a few deep breaths. I realized I was trembling and hoped I could keep it in check when I went in.

I was nervous at first, then I started to relax as four or five of my former co-workers came out to the lobby to see me. We stood around in a circle, chatting casually. Everyone acted glad to see me.
Then, as if he knew exactly why I had come, the president knitted up his eyebrows in that expression of sympathy and said; “Well, I wish I had better news for ya, darlin’. We’re only doing about half the business we should be now. We’re back to the numbers we saw in 2001.”

My heart fell. Nothing had changed. I made a little more small talk, then mumbled something about having to get going over to the unemployment office and I tried to move with some shred of dignity to the door.

It was hard to get out of bed for the next few days. I did, and I forced myself to go out and go through the motions of chores and errands, though I felt like a cinder block was sitting on my chest and a small, black cloud hung over me. I find it hard to reflect upon the day ahead and realize that I have no one to meet, and nothing of importance to do. The highlight of most of my days now is my walk with Rigby.

I realize now that I have to focus harder on finding a new job.