The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
I googled “Continental Divide Trail”, a perfectly accurate phrase, and I got AI lecturing me about “Intercontinental” being a misnomer, when nowhere did I ever say “intercontinental”.
Although no data retrieval system is perfect, you would think it would at least be able to accurately parrot the original search term! I know there are much more serious issues with AI than this one, but you know what? I don’t like to be told I’m wrong when I’m not. (Just ask John about that one, lol.)
I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, and today a friend was asking me for this kind of information, and I decided to just get this post up for everyone’s benefit. My purpose of this post is to provide some non-medical suggestions for lifestyle, supplements, diet and exercise to boost gastrointestinal (GI) health.
This is all coming from my personal experience of recovering from colon cancer surgery. I will be talking about myself, because that’s what I know, but I’m doing so in hopes that some of it may resonate with you. Because most of us, at various times, are not happy with how our GI systems are working. You do not have to have anything seriously wrong with your system to benefit from some tips and tricks in this post.
Lots of caveats: I’m not a doctor; this is not medical advice. Some or none of it may be useful for you. Most of what I’m going to be talking about is dealing with common symptoms such as constipation, diarrhea, bloating, etc., and I want to caution you to not just treat symptoms. Occasional bouts of these things is normal, but chronic issues have a root cause. Go to a doctor and try to figure out the reason behind your symptoms. Many things that cause GI issues need to be treated, and the sooner the better. Don’t just treat symptoms at home if you don’t know the cause.
That said – now, I’m going to talk with you about how to treat symptoms at home. This is to supplement your doctor’s directives – little details that your doctor may not have first hand experience with, or time to discuss in detail with each patient.
I’m going to start with a discussion about diet, then talk about probiotics and supplements, then finish up with an exercise.
First of all, I would suggest figuring out how long it generally takes for any given food item to get all the way through your GI system. This is going to vary, of course, person to person, and depending on whether you’re blocked up or running loose. But in general it’s useful to know how you trend. You will be trying to correlate symptoms with recent food and supplements, and being able to estimate lag time is useful. Gut transit time is generally 24 – 72 hours depending on the person and the food and other conditions. The best way to tell is eat something you don’t digest well (like corn) and see how long it takes to come back out the other side.
Now let’s start with a basic – water. Of course you’ll want to drink plenty of water. But I have a brief caveat about staying hydrated. If you get migraines, or live in a dry climate, or exercise a lot, make sure you supplement your water with electrolytes. I don’t use as strong of a dose as the package says, and I don’t use electrolytes every time I drink a glass of water, but I do use electrolytes daily. Otherwise I get migraines. I have literally brought on migraines by drinking too much water without enough electrolytes. Don’t be afraid of salt if you get migraines.
Also, be alert to your water source. We have good water in the US, and I don’t want to sound crazy, but some people are sensitive to some things that other people aren’t sensitive to. For example, for some unknown reason, Albuquerque water upsets my stomach. I do fine with Albuquerque water after it’s been filtered, so when we lived there, we installed a filter in our kitchen so I could drink the tap water.
At restaurants when I lived in Albuquerque, I needed to either bring bottled water or buy bottled water or soda at the restaurant. Remember that soda fountain drinks use local water. I also had to bring my own water and drinks to work, and make my own coffee. That was not a hardship, because after all, who likes office coffee?
Luckily, Tucson water works perfectly fine for me, although we still installed a filter in the kitchen. If your stomach is randomly going off for no apparent reason, you might consider switching to bottled or filtered water for a few days and see if it makes any difference. It’s not likely to be the water, but it’s easy enough to test.
Next, learn to notice what you’ve eaten prior to changes in your GI system. We all know about beans, beans, the magical fruit (the more you eat the more you toot.) But beans aren’t the only thing that commonly causes reactions.
For example, cheese. Hard, aged cheeses like cheddar, parmesan and swiss, can be constipating. These cheeses can be useful if you’re running loose, but limit them if you’re blocking up. Soft cheeses like cottage cheese can be an issue for a different reason. They have higher levels of lactose than hard cheeses. Lactose intolerance can develop as we age, so just because you didn’t used to have it, doesn’t mean you don’t now. For a good test, don’t eat any cheese (hard or soft) or dairy product for a few days and see what happens.
If you eat meat, pay attention to what it does to your system. Red meat can be constipating for some people, but for me, it has the opposite effect. I find that I can only eat meat if it’s very thoroughly cooked. That means I can’t eat a nice medium-rare steak. I can eat stews, posole, and other slow cooked meats. I can eat roasted chicken but I need to overcook it until it’s falling off the bone.
Cooking often helps digestibility, although I personally cannot eat cooked fruit. I especially cannot eat fruit cooked in any kind of muffin, scone, bread, etc. No raisin muffins for me! I can’t eat dried fruit either. I can only eat fresh fruit. This is a change for me – I used to eat a lot of dried fruit. Most of the changes in my gut are due to surgery, but aging changes our guts too.
Another thing I used to be able to eat but can no longer eat is raw cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower; you can google the list). I have commonly heard the complaint that now that our GI systems are compromised, how can we eat healthily? I am an advocate of buying frozen vegetables – I find them easier to digest than fresh. And they say nowadays that our fresh vegetables sit for so long in warehouses that frozen vegetables are often a more nutritious choice anyway. I am lucky that I can eat salads because I enjoy them, but I do so in moderation.
One of the big things you’ll want to do with your diet is introduce probiotics to your system in a daily, gentle manner. You can take probiotics in pill form, but I find the pills are very hard on my stomach. Instead, I look for probiotic forms of foods and learn how to comfortably add them to my diet. I say “comfortably” because many are an acquired taste. If you don’t like these foods, start with small amounts and mix them into other foods.
For example, I don’t drink kombucha by itself. I mix it 50-50 with orange juice; 1/2 cup kombucha and 1/2 cup orange juice every morning. It’s not a lot of kombucha, but my goal is to introduce probiotics into my system slowly and naturally throughout the day. My daughter buys a type of kombucha at a farmer’s market in the California Bay Area that is so delicious I could drink it straight all day, but I don’t live there. And also be aware – kombucha is often make from black tea and contains caffeine.
Here’s some of the probiotic foods currently in my refrigerator. (Haha, yeah, I fished that Trader Joe’s probiotic fizzy drink can out of the recycling bin so I could take the picture. The things I do for you!)
I will commonly eat probiotic yogurt in the morning, or I may put a small dab of probiotic cottage cheese on top of my scrambled eggs. Remember that heating your source of probiotics will likely kill the probiotics. So I usually put them on top of food that I’ve already cooked. A spoonful of probiotic sour cream can go on avocado, salads, sandwiches, meat, rice, vegetables, etc. A tiny bit of sauerkraut or fermented pickles or kimchi can liven up a salad even if you don’t think you like the sour/salty intensity of these foods. The key is to use small amounts, all throughout the day.
Plus, there are even non-sour foods with probiotics! Everyone likes granola, right? No? Then how about lemon & ginger tea?
I was skeptical about the probiotic tea, but apparently they’ve formulated a probiotic that can withstand the boiling water. Google it, see what you think. In general I don’t expect my probiotics to survive any kind of heating or cooking, but there are apparently exceptions.
Next, supplements. This part is critical for me. First of all, I like these digestive enzymes. I don’t know that this brand is any better than any other brand. I would suggest buying digestive enzymes of whatever brand you like.
Secondly, I swear by magnesium citrate and calcium citrate if you have issues with constipation. There are lots of products that will fix the problem faster, but there’s nothing else that I’ve found that I can take on a daily basis without disrupting my system. Everything stronger throws me into an oscillation back and forth between constipation and diarrhea. I call it my rollercoaster, and it’s not fun.
Not all magnesium is the same. Magnesium citrate has a very different impact on your gut than other forms of magnesium. If you look up on the internet under which kind of magnesium is “good for” your gut or “easy” on the gut, that won’t tell you anything, because it depends on your goal. If you’re using magnesium as a laxative, use magnesium citrate and pair it with calcium citrate. If you want to take magnesium and calcium but you’re running too loose, don’t take it in citrate form.
I take 300 mg magnesium (from 1350 mg magnesium citrate) which is 3/4 of the recommended dose of magnesium (1.5 pills instead of 2), and 375 mg calcium citrate, which is less than half the recommended dose (1.5 pills instead of 4 pills). It took me awhile to get the dosage right.
Plus, it depends on the situation. I occasionally take medicine for migraines that slows my GI down, so if take that medicine, then I also take a little extra mag-cal citrate. Your dosage will be different than mine, but my point is to be aware of how sensitive your system might be.
I buy tablets instead of caplets so I can cut them in half. I take between 1-2 of each of these supplements each evening, with one and a half pills of each being my best usual dose. I can’t imagine taking the entire recommended daily allowance. Note also that the recommended dosages listed are generally for a grown man. Your correct dosage may be different. My dosage is less than recommended, because the recommended dose would for sure give me diarrhea. But on the other hand, I absolutely do need to be taking these supplements daily or else I will for sure block up entirely. It’s finding that middle ground.
That’s how sensitive GI systems can be. You can imagine how the various laxatives sold in the pharmacy section of the grocery store impact sensitive systems like mine. All the laxative options, even when I cut the pills in half or quarters, are way, way too strong for my system. I overreact to everything and then the rollercoaster starts, careening back and forth between diarrhea and constipation extremes.
That’s why I’m writing this – for others who are like me. Because your doctor is not going to tell you this. In fact, if you complain of GI issues, they will probably prescribe medicines that are even more crazy-strong than the over-the-counter items.
If you are swinging back and forth between constipation and diarrhea, you are likely taking meds or supplements (or even just eating food) that is too strong for your system and you’ll want to moderate your intakes. Now, I understand it’s really hard to be moderate and not overdo it when you’re totally blocked up and have been for days and you just want to f*cking get that shit outta there. And you may need to just do that occasionally; take a lax and start all over again after you’re cleared out. But then go back and try again to find that moderate place where you don’t need the strong interventions.
By the way, if I do need an intervention, I usually just increase my magnesium & calcium citrates. But senna tea is also effective and less strong than the pharmacy meds. But it’s still too strong for me to use on a daily basis, and I can’t control the strength well enough (I can measure a 1/4 cup, but how strong was the tea?), and anyway, it causes bloating.
Speaking of bloating, let’s talk about fiber! Everybody promotes fiber. That’s because it can bulk up your stool, which can be helpful for both diarrhea and constipation. But fiber’s dirty little secret is farts. Farts, farts, farts! Fiber = farts! Now you may be saying, “Speak for yourself, Kristina, fiber works fine for me.” So if it does, that’s excellent. If fiber = fine, then eat your fiber foods and take your fiber gummies; that will definitely be useful for you. It’s good for the gut if you can tolerate it. I used to eat a raw cabbage salad with chopped pineapple and coconut flakes in the morning and a spinach and kale salad for lunch. And I didn’t have any farts! It’s amazing what I used to be able to do. Now I can’t eat anything remotely like that. That’s why I use magnesium citrate and calcium citrate instead of fiber to keep things moving.
Another thing to think about is the difference between motility and stool consistency. If you are getting constipated, is your stool too hard because you’re dehydrated? Or is it because your internal GI contractions aren’t strong enough? Or it could be even more complicated. Maybe you have nerve damage (like I do)? Or are you missing some of your colon (like I am)? Or is it for some other reason? Old age! Ha, I hear you, but be more specific if you can.
The root cause is likely a disease or injury, and the final outcome is your symptoms. But in between the root cause and your symptoms is the place I’m suggesting you think about. What exactly is going on in your gut, to the extent that you can guess?
It can be hard to know, but here is where your health history and ongoing medical testing comes into play. The more you know about the actual cause of your symptoms, the smarter you can be when treating symptoms. Some medicines make more fluid available during the stool forming process, others increase contraction strength – there different approaches. So the more you know about what’s going on in your own gut, the smarter you can be about how to help it.
Also don’t be afraid to try thing that seem gross. The less hang-ups we have about grossness, the better job we will do in taking care of our bodies. For example warm water enemas. Who wants to talk about that? I don’t actually do them myself because they are too harsh and cause that rebound rollercoaster I’ve talked about. But they are a tried and true, non-drug method that can be remarkably useful.
Also if your doctor recommends a fecal transplant, do it! I’ve heard they work super well. I didn’t need one, but if you do, don’t hesitate just because it sounds yucky. Our bodies are yucky sometimes. It’s ok. That’s how we’re made. Gloriously alive, wet, stinky, sloppy, messy, squishy, and unpredictable.
And lastly exercise! You should consult a physical therapist who is going to know a lot more than me, but let me tell you what I do. We can’t control our smooth muscle contractions of our internal organs. But we can sometimes help those processes with our skeletal muscles that are under our control.
For those women out there who know what a Kegel is, imagine a Kegel plus abdominals, and glutes, and everything from the waist to the knees. Lay flat (or stand). Start by breathing in. As you breathe in, let your belly expand, your diaphragm drop, your pelvis relax and drop. Everything is expanding and going outward to make room for your breath. Try pushing down slightly almost like you’re on the toilet (maybe use the toilet first before trying this, lol). Consider spreading your knees a bit and bear down slightly like you’re giving birth. But not nearly as extreme, of course, as that! All this opening and expansion and downward movement is what you do while breathing in. It’s a little counterintuitive, but remember you’re making as much space for your breath as possible.
Next, slowly breathe out for as long as you can, like you’re a singer holding a long note. While breathing out, bring everything in and up and tight. Belly in, diaphragm up, pelvic floor up, butt squeezing it in, hold it all in, bring it up and in as tight and as far as you can and leave no more room for any breath until your breath is all squeezed out. Keep squeezing! Imagine you’re sucking your poop right back up into your stomach! (I know, that visual was gross, hahaha, but hopefully useful, especially for all the guys who aren’t connecting with the Kegel analogy.)
Then relax and breathe in again and let it all go down and expand outward again, to allow for maximum room for your breath. Repeat a few times. Stop if you get dizzy and breathe normal for a bit, and try again later. I find it useful to do these a few times during the day, but I don’t do very many at a time.
This exercise will not only help you gain muscular strength but also help your brain-body connections in that region. My colorectal surgery did nerve damage which can interfere with my brain-body signaling (knowing when I need to go, and knowing how to go when I’m ready to go). For me, sometimes trying to poop is like trying to wiggle my ears – my brain doesn’t always quite know what to do to make it happen! Not everybody has nerve damage, but if you do, sometimes you can slowly improve that brain-body signaling by thoughtfully exercising the surrounding muscles – the ones that you can control. It seems to help the brain become re-aware of all the muscles.
I hope this was helpful. Good luck on your journey of being in a mortal body in this world. It is not always easy, but we are never alone.
Not too long after we got back from San Diego, we went to another blues festival, this time in Silver City. Two out-of-state trips in one month is a lot. But I would like to do it all again next May! Several things really made these trips work out for us. First of all, even though they were both technically out-of-state, the San Diego trip was only 6 hours away, and Pinos Altos (where we stayed just north of Silver City) is a mere 3.5 hours drive.
We brought the camper van, which makes me feel a little guilty because the gas mileage sucks, but it is really a much more comfortable ride for me. I’m getting old, and having all the comforts of home right in the vehicle makes traveling infinitely easier for me. Especially being able to lay down for awhile, because sitting for hours really does in my lower back. The van is surprisingly easy to drive, being no longer than a large pick-up truck. And it has great visibility, including truly excellent side mirrors.
The other thing that made these recent two trips especially work for us is we timed the trips to coincide with small local blues festivals. I really love music! It’s a trick to find the right kinds of festivals. John and I both dislike crowds of people. I would simply not survive in a crazy fest like Coachella or Burning Man.
Instead, I do my research and find modestly sized community festivals. The Silver City blues festival was very accessible, in the small town’s main park. Yet it offered surprisingly talented musicians. And it was free!
We usually only go to blues or world music festivals. Some other types of music festivals can have completely different vibes. The ones with electronica/dance/house/techno music can be pretty sketchy, with so much pot in the air you can get a second-hand high. Rock and metal concerts can get a bit crazy. A lot crazy. So can the big-name country music festivals. Folk and bluegrass can have similar vibes as blues and world music, but folk is often too slow for dancing. There’s a bluegrass festival in Flagstaff every September that I hope to catch at some point, maybe next year. It doesn’t work for our schedule this year.
We were able to park the van very close to the park, and come and go as we pleased. Being able to rest in the van is so helpful for me. It was rather hot, so we left Biska happily sleeping back at the airbnb. We brought our camper van but we weren’t actually camping! That’s the part that makes me feel a little guilty. We had rented a casita. But it worked out perfectly. Biska was cool and comfortable back in the casita, and we had the van parked near the park for festival breaks.
Our casita was about 15 minutes drive further into the mountains in a town called Pinos Altos. John took this picture of a Pinos Altos restaurant while on a morning walk, although we didn’t eat there. It was one of the only places to eat in Pinos Altos. It doesn’t even look like a real restaurant! But who knows, maybe it was fantastic?
Food in Silver City is also a bit hit and miss. We did get some excellent pizza in Arenas Valley, slightly east of Silver City. But when we have a casita with a kitchen, we mostly prefer to eat our own food.
It was cool up in Pinos Altos, and only 2 miles from the Continental Divide Trail! When we go to festivals, I always make sure there is something in it for John. He doesn’t mind the festivals, but they aren’t really his thing. Hiking in New Mexico is totally his thing!
I like to hike too, but I don’t have the strength and stamina that he does. But we have a system. He gets up early and takes Biska on a strenuous hike while I sleep in, because I need more sleep than he does. Then he comes back and we all go hiking together for about an hour or two. Then we eat and head down to the music festival. And by the time I get done dancing, I’ve had plenty of exercise for one day!
In this short video clip, I’m towards the right in the light gray sunhat, blue sleeveless dress, with a light gray shirt wrapped around my waist.
The wrapped shirt is not the best look (not that it matters at a festival), but it was windy and my travel dress is so lightweight I was afraid that flimsy skirt was going to flip right up. The shirt was holding my skirt down! I never thought of that when I bought the super-lightweight, immanently packable dress. Anything goes when it comes to clothing at these festivals, but getting it right for strenuous exercise plus variable weather can be a challenge.
Here’s a longer clip from the next day. John took these videos from the shade where we had set up our chairs, deliberately back from the stage. He doesn’t like it too loud or crowded. And I’m happy to periodically come back to rest in the shade because dancing can get hot and sweaty!
You can see me on the far left of the dance floor in a dark blue top, dark green skirt, and the same light gray hat. I like to stay towards the edge of the crowd. At the very end of the video you’ll see me suddenly start heading across the dance floor – that’s because I spotted a friend of mine!
We didn’t go out there with any friends, but to my surprise, I recognized many of the dancers from dancing in Tucson. About half the the people on the dance floor were from Tucson! Tucson is only 3.5 hours away, and is a much larger city than Silver City. I would guess there were people from Albuquerque there too, which is a similar distance to the east of Silver City as Tucson is to the west. But I don’t recognize any of the dancers from Albuquerque, because we would only go to one festival a year when we lived there. We were working too hard back then!!!
Nowadays I try to get out dancing weekly in Tucson during the winter months. Not only is it fun, it’s part of my exercise routine. I’m much less likely to go dancing in the summer because I prefer the parks and plazas rather than the indoor venues, and it gets too hot outside in the summer.
Festival attendance peaked in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday. I sat that section out, because it was hot and the dance floor was packed. I was happy to just sit in the shade with John and listen.
And people watch! All kinds of people show up to blues festivals. Families, old people using canes out there dancing anyway, old guys in skirts, young girls with practically nothing on, it’s always interesting.
One grumpy-looking old white guy was hogging an enormous amount of shade with a camping chair and a huge blanket all to himself, and I was getting all judgy in my head about it. Along comes a huge Hispanic family with multiple generations, clutching all kinds of bags and chairs, and they start setting up in the heat of the sun behind him. Suddenly Old White Guy notices them and leaps up and drags his chair and blanket out of the way, saying, “Put the children in the shade! Children in the shade!” They politely protested at first, but he packed up and moved into the hot sun and insisted they settle down in his shady spot next to the tree. Once again, a reminder not to get all judgy in our heads! We all have our moments, but most people mean well.
While waiting out the hottest section of the day, I made an amazing find as I wandered through the kiosks. Felted dolls! I had already been half thinking about trying to make a felted doll. I figured I could learn something from these artists.
The artists are an older lesbian couple, spending their retirement making their felted dolls together. It wasn’t even “Oh, I made this doll and she made that one.” No, it was, “We designed and created each one of them together, bouncing ideas off each other. It’s tons of fun.” Wow! I think it’s pretty special in life to find someone with your exact same special interest. John and I share several interests and do a lot together, but not one thing with such focus.
I asked the artists if they taught classes, and they laughed and said no. But they were happy to chat with me (there weren’t any other customers just then), and I asked a lot of questions. I pretty much got an impromptu class right then and there. They showed me the stages of making the dolls.
They start with a wire outline. Then they wrap the wire with some type of thick wool yarn that I don’t actually know the name of.
After the wire is wrapped, they then use techniques that I already know: layering on the roving (loose wisps of wool) and encouraging it to adhere to itself using needle felting and wet felting. I have a partially-finished blog about felting techniques that I will try to get posted one of these days.
Here are the two dolls I bought.
This second one looks like she’s holding a dove, but they told me it’s a white raven, which is a common mythical and religious symbol.
Don’t tell my new artist friends, but I think I’m going to take these two dolls off their wooden stands and display them in some other way. I haven’t quite got that figured out yet, but I’d rather put them on the wall.
I also plan to try to make a doll myself. I already have in mind an idea to make a girl on a swing. These two dolls don’t have facial features, but I think I will try to make a face on the doll I make. That will definitely be harder. Maybe I can just do eyes. My girl on a swing at least needs eyes, don’t you think? Mine won’t be so 1970’s flowing and swirly either. Everyone’s style is different!
Speaking of couple’s sharing interests, here’s some hiking pictures.
There were a lot of deer. I counted at least 8 in this particular herd; there may have been more that had already headed up the hillside.
It was a great weekend!
John and I had one more item on our San Diego trip itinerary – on our way home we had an appointment at date farm in Thermal, CA (near Palm Springs) called Regulus Ranch. (https://www.regulusranch.com/)
This story started back when Tracey and I were planning our January trip to Palm Springs. One of John’s suggestions was to do a date farm tour, and he found Regulus Ranch on the internet. It turned out to be a really fun tour and Tracey and I bought a lot of excellent dates. The place is famous for it’s low-water, organic, high quality agricultural methods; all due to an inspiring, talented and determined businesswoman named Saralyn. She’s also a truly funny tour guide.
Here’s some pictures of the beautiful farm from my trip with Tracey back in January.
The peacocks eat the bugs, so they don’t have to spray chemicals. They have tons of peacocks! They also have cats to take care of any rodents and snakes.
Here is her irrigation pond. She says she uses lower amounts of water than the other palm ranches, with workers carefully maintaining drip irrigation. Everything on this ranch is done by hand, and is thus very labor intensive.
And dinosaur statues! Because, what’s a date farm without a dinosaur statue?
The dates are way better than anything you’ll find in a grocery store.
When Tracey and I went on the tour in January, we told Saralyn about how much John loves dates and how interested he is in palm trees. That’s when she offered to sell us a male and female mejool date tree. I was not prepared to bring two trees home on that trip, but I made plans to bring John back when he had time.
We don’t really need more palm trees. Our neighbors already identify our house as “the one on the corner with all the palms.” Yep, that’s us.
But we didn’t plant those palms and they don’t produce edible dates. So in my opinion, what’s their point? Plus, I knew John would love seeing the ranch and talking with Saralyn. But John was somewhat more dubious about getting additional palm trees. Where would we put them?
I think it’s a no-brainer. I’ve been wanting to get rid of all our huge patches of sprawling cactus, which is prime packrat habitat.
We have waaay too much cactus in multiple places in our yard.
I’m not against all cactus. For example, I like this cute little purple guy, nice and upright and not providing packrat habitat.
But this – this is just awful.
Look at that prime packrat habitat. It houses bunnies too, which are cute. But after our recent dead-rat-in-the-wall nightmare, I am no longer willing to provide rodent habitat. Get this dang cactus out of here!
A lot of the cactus sprawl is in the city easement along our front and side streets. John is worried if we plant palm trees there, the city might make us remove them. Although to my surprise, the City has not asked us to remove the big palm the previous owners planted smack on the corner, inches from the street. We try to keep the palm branches trimmed so drivers can see around the corner, but it is still a blind corner.
The City did ask us to keep the palm branches cut well away from the fire hydrant.
But even if we don’t plant in the easements, we still have a lot of space to plant things because the cactus has spread from the road nearly up to the house in many places.
But back to the date ranch tour. This post was supposed to be about a date farm, not a cactus rant.
When we first arrived at the farm at our appointed time, we couldn’t find anyone. I sent Saralyn a message that we had arrived, and then amused myself taking pictures of peacocks.
Eventually a worker arrived, who radio’d Saralyn for us.
Saralyn handed John off to one of her workers, whose name I think is Amando or Armando. They set to work cutting three new trees for us. Saralyn insisted on sending us home with three – one male and two females. They gave us detailed instructions about how to hand-fertilize the trees to ensure a good crop of dates.
The palm trees propagate with pups – new trees growing at the base of the mature trees.
It’s a lot of work to cut one off. They’re tough, and you want to get plenty of roots.
Surprisingly, after removing the pups, they cut the palm fronds off. Even more surprisingly, they then wrap the cut stems in paper and leave the paper on for 6 months! I’m having trouble believing it. Will the paper even hold up that long? Luckily we can just email Saralyn with any and all questions.
Meanwhile, while the guys cut fresh little palm tree pups for us, Saralyn took me and a friend of hers around on her cart and we did various little jobs. For example, a worker in the warehouse was hand-packing a box for a customer and ran out of dates. So we went to get more dates from the big freezers where they store them. We also collected huge eggs from her chickens. She gave John and I an entire dozen fresh farm eggs. Saralyn is very generous.
Here you can see a lot of pups cut off and getting ready for a commercial customer. Yes and a beautiful peacock who happened to photobomb my picture. I’m not complaining!
After we got the palm trees home, we stuck them temporarily in pots so we could keep them watered until we figure out where to put them.
John wants to take out the cactus himself, but I think he’s nuts. I want to hire a young guy I know who could use the money. I think John just wants an excuse to rent a skidsteer. But let me tell you, taking out cactus in the heat of the summer is one of the absolute worst jobs in Tucson. John doesn’t need to be doing that.
I should have been a bit more specific about the topic when I wrote about our family drama the other day. Don’t worry, Callan and Guen’s wedding planning is coming alone fine! No issues there!
Guen’s ambitious idea was a real estate business scheme that involved selling their house, and would ultimately have bankrupted them (in our opinion). She had managed to get fairly far down that road before the family stepped in. Not that John and I haven’t made real estate mistakes ourselves over the years, but there is a difference between losing some investment money and losing everything.
In case you don’t know, Callan and Guen are planning a wedding celebration for October 11 in Boise, Idaho. If you want to come but you didn’t get an invitation, please reach out to me. Guen has some very cute D&D themed invitations, but she and I have been slightly less organized than would be ideal regarding the invitation list. Rest assured, no one was left out on purpose. Everyone is invited.
In lieu of gifts, they are requesting financial help with the plane tickets for their honeymoon trip to Scotland. You can reach out to either me or Guen regarding that. Thank you so much!!!
John was kind enough to schedule a trip to San Diego to coincide with the “Gator by the Bay” blues and zydeco music festival. It was a little odd because they were doing a Mardi Gras theme in the middle of May, and there are definitely no gators in San Diego, but whatever, we went with it. I’m not much of a zydeco fan, but I am definitely a blues fan.
We split the vacation into two parts. We spent the first few days at a resort that John’s been interested in staying at, and then for the weekend music festival we switched to a hotel adjacent to the festival.
When we first got to the resort, I thought it was a little bit hilarious. It reminded me of a Tiki bar from the 1960’s. I kept looking around thinking I’d see my grandfather and his buddies playing poker and drinking Bloody Marys.
But I have to admit the place was pretty, if a bit overdone. I’m beginning to think that faux tropics within driving distance are better than getting on a darn plane nowadays anyway.
The tiki bar vibe was complete with caged parrots.
These egrets and herons appeared to be actual legit wildlife.
The resort also had a retro arcade room, much to John’s delight.
It turned out the clientele was surprisingly diverse, and better yet, the location was excellent. The ocean was one block to the west, and the bay was one block to the east. There was a grocery store, a pharmacy, and plenty of great restaurants within walking distance.
Unfortunately it was a little hard to appreciate the restaurants because I had completely and absolutely lost my sense of smell, and therefore my sense of taste. In theory could taste sweet, salty, sour and bitter, but in reality, nothing tasted like anything. A strong cinnamon tea tasted like hot water. A decadent, and according to John, very cheesy restaurant cheesecake tasted to me slightly salty and slightly sweet. However I can tell you it had a very impressive creamy texture! I could not taste the cheese, or the raspberry topping. I have never lost my sense of smell so thoroughly and completely. What a waste of great San Diego food!
At the worst of my loss of smell, I could not smell even the strongest scents. I put my face to a bottle of vinegar – nothing. Vics Vaporub – nothing. Eventually peppermint essential oils were the first thing I could finally smell.
Here I am on the beach in my ear warmers. I didn’t go anywhere without them.
After a couple of days in San Diego, my doctor sent a second type of antibiotic ear drops out to a pharmacy near our hotel, because my ears were not improving. And I was definitely struggling with exhaustion.
One day I just rested in the hotel room while John went on a tour of a aircraft carrier.
I think we snapped this next picture because we were like, wait – what? Why is the sail up with the boat cleated to the dock?
This was the bay on one side of the hotel. That is our resort you can see in the background. We weren’t in the tower, we were in a lower building without a water view.
Here is the view out our window.
I sat inside and looked out this window a lot. Unfortunately it was just a little bit too cold to sit on the patio while we were there. The weather warmed up considerably by the weekend and it was overly hot at the music festival. Sometimes you just can’t win!
I’m glad I felt well enough to get out onto the beach a few times.
At least once John went out and took pictures of the sunset without me because I didn’t feel well enough. He borrowed my phone, because it has a better camera than his phone, so now I can’t remember which of us took these awesome pictures. But nowadays it doesn’t take a lot of skill to get awesome pictures. I love the camera on my phone, and I love that I almost always have it with me.
I kept thinking I’d feel better in time for the music festival on the weekend. And I was a little better, but not much. I was so grateful that our hotel was within a short walking distance to the festival! It was so convenient!
We bought a three-day wristband, so we could come and go as we wished. I like that kind of festival so much better than the kind that only allow you in once and you can’t come and go. If we got hot or tired or we didn’t like any of the bands, we just walked back to our room for awhile and came back later! It was wonderful for me because I did frequently get tired.
Here you can see how close we were to our hotel. It was so excellent.
This was just one of several stages along Spanish Landing Park, which is a long and narrow park along the edge of the bay. If we didn’t like one band, we just walked to another stage.
And the advantage of having completely and entirely clogged ears was that I didn’t have to wear ear plugs, lol. This experience with impaired hearing has made me realize that if I start having trouble hearing as I get older, I am absolutely getting hearing aids. I will try every kind they make until I find something that I like. I will buy the best dang hearing aids on the market. I hate not understanding what people are saying around me. I also hate hearing noises and not having any idea what the noise is or where it’s coming from. It’s more than disorienting, it’s actually anxiety provoking for me.
Our hotel room next to the festival also had an absolutely gorgeous view from the balcony.
I love, love, love city lights views. In addition to beaches and music concerts it’s probably my favorite thing! Oh yeah, I’d go back here again!
One night John took a walk around the marina to take more pictures of the lights for me.
Now you know what I meant a couple of posts ago when I said it was a great trip even though I was too sick to enjoy it! I need a repeat next year, for sure.
As I mentioned last post, John had covid and Emily and her family were all just getting over colds, and I had a new one starting. Fun times! But the house was ready, the weather was great, and the company was even better.
At first, John and I were wearing masks so we wouldn’t give them covid, but they assured us we needn’t bother. Bryan said, “The water is warm, jump right in.” And so we did!
Here is our house, transformed into playland.
The first day was a bit chaotic in that the electric company suddenly, without warning, decided to do electrical work in the alley behind us. This included us being without power for about 5 hours that afternoon. No air conditioning, no refrigerator (that is, we were trying not to open it and let all the cold air out), no microwave, no TV, no recharging devices, how were we going to survive?
Thank goodness for the pool. Here is a funny picture of our first day, with the electrical workers in the background. It looks like they could jump right into our pool from up there!
The kids didn’t care, they didn’t even notice. And I was just happy to be able to sit outside and talk with Emily.
The workers were quite busy back there, and at first we thought they were moving the electrical lines that are crossing our neighbor’s newly subdivided vacant lot. One of our other neighbors started excitedly texting me. “What’s going on? Are they moving the lines? Will the lot sell now?”
I can’t remember if I told you about all that. There’s a vacant lot on the other side of the alley from our backyard, and we even considered buying the lot. But the neighbors who subdivided the lot, separating it from their property, left the power lines that service their house strung across their newly subdivided lot. Those lines need to be moved before the lot is sold. No one wants to own a lot with someone else’s power lines crossing over it.
But it turns out the power company didn’t move those lines when they were out during Emily’s visit. They replaced a pole, and replaced one of our lines. There are still lines crossing the vacant lot that shouldn’t be there.
On the left in this next picture you can see John putting up a shade structure that I forgot we even owned. He must have found it in the storage unit. Neither of us even know what all is in there.
Ta-da, shade!
The electrical work being done was only on the first day. After that, we had our backyard to ourselves.
One day everyone went to the county fair, except me, I wasn’t feeling well. So John took these photos for me.
They also went to various parks and other fun attractions over the next few days.
I missed all the outings, which was kind of sad, but I still enjoyed having them visit. And I was relieved that John was able to take over as social coordinator – as well as photographer. And of course, favorite uncle.
For the first time in over a month, I have a free afternoon and I’m not ridiculously sick. It’s been such a hard month! And being sick was not even the half of it.
Where shall we start? Let’s start with the family drama. To all you parents out there – you know when your adult kid is contemplating doing something so obviously misguided that everyone (everyone!) knows it’s going to be a guaranteed disaster, but you’re powerless to stop it?
I’m sure my own parents have felt that way about some of the decisions I’ve made in my life! Well, it’s even worse is when it’s your kid’s partner who is the driver behind the catastrophic idea – because, let’s face it, we have less influence with their partners.
Guen latched onto a dream – a beautiful, ambitious, jaw-droppingly risky, and ultimately entirely unrealistic dream. She started down that road – and at first I watched warily, trying to stay neutral, expecting the grand idea to soon dissolve into the mist as completely unattainable dreams tend to do – but Guen is one determined cookie. (We have that in common.) Then I kept waiting for Callan to step in before all was lost. But that wasn’t happening either.
I waited and waited…I mean, what can a parent do? Stand aside and watch them hurtle towards the edge of the cliff, or say something and risk a relationship breach? And if you opt to say something, how hard do you push? This has been keeping me up at night.
Finally I couldn’t watch the train wreck any longer and called a family intervention meeting. Our schedules are impossible, so my hoped-for family meeting turned out to be me talking individually to everyone in an iterative fashion over several days. I talked to John. And then I talked to David (my ex, the kid’s dad). And I talked to Laura. And Laura talked to Alex. And I talked to Callan again. And Callan talked to Guen. And I talked to Mark. And I talked to Guen. And I talked again to David. And John again. And Laura again. And Callan about 5 more times.
I am happy to announce, we are all still talking to each other! Nobody hates anybody. And even better, this issue might have been resolved yesterday. Either that, or yesterday was just a brief, fleeting truce in a much longer ordeal. We will have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, on a completely different topic but almost as traumatizing, John and I have been having packrat issues. These awful little rodents are the scourge of the desert; more greatly feared by many of us than rattlesnakes, scorpions and gila monsters. They are larger than a house mouse, but smaller than a bonafide rat. They happily build nests under sprawling, prickly pear cactus or any sort of dense underbrush, but they prefer car engines.
First they caused $1,500 worth of damage chewing wires in my car. Then they tried to set up residence in our side yard amongst my gardening equipment. Then they tried to dig their way into the wall of our house!
This sounds impossible but our house is made of burnt adobe bricks, which are fired at a lower temperature than regular bricks, and are not a heck of a lot stronger than sandstone. They aren’t the dark red fired bricks those of you in the rest of the country are familiar with. I feel like I should be making a huff-and-puff-and-blow-your-house-down joke right now, but it’s not quite coming to me. Scritch and scratch and claw my house down?
John is a complete do-it-yourselfer, so instead of calling an exterminator, John handled the packrat problem himself, then patched the hole in the wall with cement, and then left for a week long business trip. A day or two into his trip, he emailed me with the bad news that he had some sort of food poisoning or stomach bug. Meanwhile he was stubbornly continuing to go to his meetings. This annoyed me, because in my opinion he works too hard and doesn’t take care of himself, but primarily I felt bad for him.
The following day, I had even worse news for him then he had for me. Something was dead in the office wall. As a long-time homeowner and landlord, there are few words that strike such terror. And I’ve encountered a lot over the years. Skunk spray. A broken water pipe under the cement slab. A lurking rattlesnake. A live mouse dropping from a hole in the ceiling onto the dining room table. A dead cat in the crawl space under the house. Sewer gas from an undetermined location. Ants, cockroaches, termites, all kinds of leaks and floods. I’m not easily fazed, but this one did me in.
It was the memory of the dead cat in the crawl space over 25 years ago, that made me immediately realize that for sure, no kidding, something died in our wall. Nothing else smells like that. When John got home from his business trip the next day, he was still quite sick, but he valiantly went to work tearing up the adobe brick wall to find the issue.
What followed was an ordeal that I don’t want to go into. I will spare you the details. It was not nice. It was really, really not nice. At all. It was a freaking multi-day nightmare that involved moving everything out of the office, twice. Not to mention me looking for a hotel to rent.
Meanwhile, while John was digging in our wall looking for something dead, we were counting down the 4 short days before my sister, her husband, and their 4 little girls were flying all the way from Boston for their annual spring vacation at our house! In four days! Our house was not liveable. How was I going to find a last-minute rental house big enough for 8 people and a dog? With a heated pool?
Their visit is a highlight of our year. I spend days preparing. I pack away all my breakable ceramics and glass art and white wool rugs. Then we head to our storage unit to retrieve car seats, blow up beds, strollers, and bins and bins of bedding and children’s toys and pool toys. And food! I bought food and made a gigantic basket of snacks for the kids. John bought food to grill for everyone. Emily sent huge shipments of food staples, diapers and other necessities from Costco and Amazon.
Four days until the biggest event of the year at our house, and there’s a dead rat in the wall! After working non-stop all weekend, John finally managed to find and remove the dead packrat. Whew! But oh, our problems are not over yet.
John continued to still be quite sick, but stubbornly went to work on Monday morning, despite his illness and our nightmarish hunt for the dead thing in the wall over the weekend. But by Wednesday, the day before my sister’s arrival, he was still sick and I started feeling a bit of a tickle in my chest. I wondered – who ever heard of a cold that started in the chest? My colds always start with a sore throat and runny nose. What starts in the chest? Unless – suddenly I realized – could it be covid?
I asked John to stop at the store on the way home to pick up a covid test. Sure enough, John had covid! And my family was due to get on the plane at 4 AM the next morning!
I frantically texted her, but you know Emily. She shrugged it off. She’s an emergency room doctor, and she is exposed to covid and lord knows what else, all the time. She wasn’t going to let a little covid exposure stop them. Plus, they were bringing the tail end of some cold virus of their own with them. We were going to have a happy little germ party!
And did we ever. John recovered fairly quickly and was soon splashing in the pool with the children. But I was sick for their whole visit. And the day after they left, I spiked a fever so high I couldn’t believe it. I fevered for 4 days.
I coughed so hard I would grip my head to try to keep my poor aching brains from slamming into my skull with each cough. I lost my sense of smell. My ears completely clogged up. Meanwhile I kept testing negative for covid. I tested 5 times over the course of 10 days. Whatever it was, it was very bad, but it wasn’t covid.
At the end of a week and a half, after my virus had presumably run its course, I still had huge amounts of pain and pressure in my ears, so my doctor put me on antibiotics. Optimistic that I would soon be better with the antibiotics, John and I left for our long-anticipated vacation in San Diego. My doctor told me I was not to fly for fear I’d burst an eardrum with the pressure changes. But we were driving, not flying, so I figured my ears could tolerate it.
We had an ok vacation, but I could not smell anything, couldn’t taste anything, could not stop coughing, and my ears hurt and my hearing was badly impaired. And I was chronically exhausted. My doctor sent a second type of antibiotics halfway through the trip and I still was not getting any better. But it was a great trip! I mean, it had the potential to have been a great trip. It met the criteria for a great trip, in that it consisted of all the things we like! Never mind that I didn’t actually feel well enough to enjoy it. It was still in theory a great trip.
In the next couple of posts, I’ll tell you all about Emily’s visit and our San Diego vacation. Stay tuned, it gets better. (Eventually)
Laura is doing an MS Walk fundraiser, coming up this month! You can donate here, https://events.nationalmssociety.org/participant/Laura-Wood
Go Laura!!!
To send me a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.
My title sounds like an overly hyped, unrealistic self-help book. How is it possible to be able to dance but not walk? I actually can walk, but slowly, with a certain amount of pain and limping. Weirdly, I’m not impacted out on the dance floor. How is that possible?
Is it because I just stand out there and maybe sway a bit like a tree in the breeze? Uh, no, I’m definitely an energetic dancer. Or maybe I’m so into the music that I don’t even notice my foot killing me? No, not that either, although it sounds almost plausible.
I actually had to put some thought to this. For starters, what exactly hurts? According to pictures on the internet, the problem seems to be my first metatarsophalangeal joint. Say that three times fast!
The MTP joint is down at the base of the big toe, over the balls of the foot, not out in front where you see the big toe. And it only hurts when I’m flexing it, not when I’m just putting weight on it. Which is why I don’t think the problem is in the metatarsal bones.
Here’s a fun experiment. Start by standing up, bending your knees and shifting your weight from one foot to the other. You’re not standing up, are you? It’s such a nuisance to get up out of your chair, I know. Ah, there now we have a couple of you standing up.
Start by bending your knees a little bit. Next, move first one, then the other foot around a little bit, tap the floor with your heel or toe while leaving most of your weight on your planted foot. Pretend you’re playing hokey-pokey! Put that right foot out and shake it all about. Now wiggle your butt back and forth, swing your arms a bit, do a shoulder roll or two and you, my friend, are dancing. Note which joints you’re using. It’s likely that you’re primarily using ankle, knee and hip joints, as well as elbow, shoulder and neck, maybe even wrist and finger joints. But very possibly not your first metatarsophalangeal!
For our next experiment (stay standing, we’re not done yet, don’t worry, this one is easier). Just walk forward a couple steps. That’s it! Take a couple of steps forward. Now what’s bending? Hip, knees, ankle…and most definitely your metatarsophalangeal joint! It’s nearly impossible to walk in a forward gait while keeping your foot flat. But ironically, it’s completely possible to dance!
At home I’ve been wearing a splint that braces my toe all the way back to the arch of my foot. This definitely slows me down and creates a limping gate. When I’m out, I wear stiff boots, which keep my foot from flexing too much while walking. However, it’s March and it’s soon going to be too hot for stiff boots! Now that I better understand what is aggravating my foot, I hope to get better soon.
Laura’s friend Emily took this brief video of Laura and I dancing the other night at my friend Rebecca’s retirement party. It was a great party, and a great visit from Laura and her friend!
To send me a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.