Tall Tales from Kansas

he IS the voice of Danny Conroy

I want to tell you that The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, read by Tom Hanks, is the best book that I have read for the year 2020. But that would mean closing the door to the possibility that something I might read in the coming 6 months could rival it in greatness, or perhaps be even better. Which would be quite a feat.

I want to tell you that this is the best Ann Patchett book I have ever read, but that would require me to review all of the Ann Patchett books I have read to be sure it truly is. And that seems like more effort than is necessary at this moment. 

Therefore, I will tell YOU in the most confidential manner possible, that this is a remarkably wonderful story with characters you will come to feel you really do somehow know.  I can see them all lined up in front of me now - Danny, Maeve, Celeste, Cyril, Fluffy, Joselyn, Sandy, Elna, Andrea, Norma, Bright, and May and Kevin. Moving through the years, checking in with me so I can see how their lives are progressing.

If you want a special reading experience go find this book. If possible you will want to have Tom Hanks read it to you because he IS the voice of Danny Conroy and brought him to life for me. Remember how I told you sometimes I gobble up books and chew with my mouth open? Not this one. It was a literary feast, cooked by a gourmet chef, served on the best china, in a dining room with large windows, and flowers on the table. I chewed each morsel slowly and savored every single bite. 

I left this one in the vestibule

If you go to the temple of the deep woods, where the paths are well marked, the shade is deep, and the wild roses are blooming, may offer a bit of advise?

If yours is the first car in the parking lot, meaning you are first on the trail, don't be like me and wait until 1/2 way through the hike to pick up a big stick to wave in front of you to break up all the cobwebs. 

When I departed, I left this one in the vestibule. Feel free to use it and put it back for the next person. You will thank me. 

this half-pint zucchini peddler

Happy 4th of July from baby robin 1 and 2.  Twenty-one days ago there were three eggs in the nest, today these two look about ready to fly the coop.  I see them practicing their flapping routines when I walk by the window. Mother robin is standing at the ready, and is not putting up with any nonsense from me. I open the front door, she chirps, the baby birds duck down into the nest. 

This morning I wanted to put a few flags on the porch though, so I snuck out, quickly stabbed flags into flower pots, then went to my side of the porch.  To read. After about 30 minutes mom adapted and stopped chirping. 

Which allowed me to get a few photos.  From a distance. 

The observation of baby birds is endlessly entertaining. But there was also a market to get to today. The winner of the best 4th of July Face Mask at the market prize went to this woman. I think her name is Muriel and she sells excellent brittles at the holiday market in December. 

Her pickled okra and jalapeños were also carefully packaged today.

Madeline was back from college with a table FULL of blueberries and zinnias.

The people who are selling and shopping at the market are doing a really great job about masking and distancing.

Even this half pint zucchini peddler was in good form.

I think we have reached the peak of beautiful flower season here in Kansas. So much is blooming.

Sometimes just one arrangement per household isn't enough, and happily there is not a limit. Happy 4th of July from Chris and I. We hope wherever you are, the fireworks are as colorful and quiet as this one. 

keeping a travel journal is a wonderful thing

How can this one be eight years old today? Just yesterday Sister and I were walking through the streets of Bergen, we had come out of a place where we bought a bunch of old books with cool covers and I ducked into a yarn store for a second when we somehow learned that Allie Grace had been born. 

I am sure you have seen some pictures from this travel journal before, but there is no reason you can't come with me down memory lane for a second.

I just read Sister some of the things I had written down. I have said it before and I will say it again, keeping a travel journal is such a wonderful thing... while I am doing it, when I get home, and years down the road. 

But I digress.  Happy Happy Happy Birthday Allie Grace!  Lets go to Norway together sometime. I can introduce you to Big Tom the Motorcycle Cat, or his progeny.  

Thank you Ellen Bass

Let’s face it, sometimes people say dumb things. Whether we admit it or not, even the most "enlightened" among us have committed blunders similar to those described below. The thought of it makes me cringe. So the next time you are about to open up and say 'insert platitude here', instead say to yourself "French chocolates" and be comfortable with silence. Thank you Ellen Bass for the creative, evocative, humorous, on-point, reminder.

French Chocolates
by Ellen Bass

If you have your health, you have everything
is something that's said to cheer you up
when you come home early and find your lover
arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails
because you can't stop smudging the stars
on those ten teeny American flags.

I don't begrudge you your extravagant vitality.
May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals
of your cardiovascular excellence
and the accordion polka of your lungs
sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire
like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,
with bones brittle as spun sugar,
with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

in the flaming forge of your skull,
may you be spared from friends who say,
God doesn't give you more than you can handle
and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

May they just keep their mouths shut
and give you French chocolates and daffodils
and maybe a small, original Matisse,
say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out
at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.

from a recent edition of The Writer's Almanac.

egg-shaped iron things painted the color of robin's eggs

On the other side of the dam, across from the glassy river area, there's a whole different feel to the river. The water tumbles instead of lying quietly. 

Along the trail the sun comes up over the corn, you can hear the staccato tapping of woodpeckers in the cottonwoods, and the path unspools in front of you.

There are small and extra small horses, more corn, and egg-shaped iron things painted the color of robins eggs that may or may not have something to do with the dam? 

I saw a sign for an open house, caught a glimpse of what looked like a waterfall across the way, and appreciated a variety of yellow flowers with tall hats along the path.

I did not take a photo of the man I passed wearing a Moody Blues t-shirt. I did tell him I hadn't thought about that group in years, to which he replied "I love those guys". I said "Nights in White Satin" and then we gave each other a thumbs up and went our separate ways. 

In case you now need to hear the Moody Blues, for your convenience, there is this.

 

a perfect match for the flowers

Among the umbrellas, yellow slickers, and rain boots at the farmers market this weekend, there was also a bit of sunshine. In the form of sunflowers.

Thanks to JT and Roger from Firefly farms for braving the weather, setting up your booth in the rain, and having the perfect arrangement waiting for me to bring home.  

There was also sunshine, still of the flower variety, in the form of a patch. You know I went in closer for details. 

It wasn't until I was standing on the chair to take this last picture, that I realized the tablecloth (still there from last week) was a perfect match for the flowers. 

Angie's daughter is nothing if not practical

This Friday marked the end of week 13 as part of the palliative care team caring for our COVID-19 positive patients. As the days march on we continue to adjust our practice based on experiences here at KU and what we are learning from our colleagues around the the globe. We have become ZOOM experts and I think my Spanish is getting better because I am hearing it a lot. In the first 2-4 weeks if felt like the majority of our COVID positive patients were African American. In the last month the majority are Hispanic. Room after room.

I have lost count of the number of N-95's I have gone through. I don't care what my hair looks like when I come out of a room after removing my PPE anymore. I have stopped wondering about what is coming next as our numbers creep slowly up. Charts like the one below are helpful for some. It quantifies things in a concrete way. For me, this increase registers when I walk through the ICU and see seriously ill patients, on ventilators, some for as long as 6-8 weeks. First with an endotracheal tube in place, now with a tracheostomy.

New patients continue to be admitted and our numbers of COVID-19 positive patients are back where they were a month or so age. One new admission this week is young person in their 20's, who loves music. Someone's son, nephew, brother. I do not see an end in site. What I see instead is a new way of learning to live with this. I am uncertain what it will take for some individuals to believe this is real and take it seriously. Large groups of people congregating in close proximity with no masks (even with masks) is just not acceptable behavior. I have stopped talking back to the TV when people say things that are completely ignorant. It's not helpful.

Last week I participated in an interview session conducted by medical students doing a research project about experiences of providers working with COVID-19 patients.  The last question threw me for a bit of a loop.  She asked "what do you wish for right now"?  I said "more private spaces for having conversations with families". Since then I have been wondering why I said that.  I mean if I was going to wish, why not ask for a reliable antibody test to be available soon, or that a vaccine will be developed in the next several months, or we will return to some semblance of "normalcy" by Thanksgiving. Angie's daughter is nothing if not practical. I am looking for things that will help in real time. Right now. 

We watched this PBS documentary about the 1918 flu yesterday. So interesting to see that many of the things we did wrong 100 years ago, we have repeated, and continue to persist in now. The perspectives of those who lived through that time are compelling and certainly worth watching.  

As always, these are my personal thoughts and experiences caring for patients during the last 3 months, it is not my intent to present myself as an expert, just one person living through it. Much like each of you. 

ordinary and miraculous live side by side

Happy Friday all. Tonight it's front porch/back porch, fog, and my first zinnias from the seeds that volunteered up from last year (plus a coneflower, plus mint, plus Thai basil).

With clouds + shadows on hostas thrown in for good measure.

Because ordinary and miraculous live side by side, in much the same way that joy and sorrow can both be sweet, I sometimes get mixed up about what is regular and what is amazing. But let me be very clear... the bottom 3 photos, while only so-so in the quality category, are wondrous in content. 

The eggs have hatched, feeding is underway. There has been some fretting on my part when the mama seemed to be away from the nest "too much". Like I would know what is "normal". Fingers crossed. 

rudbeckia hirta

When photographed in the kitchen by the sink, or on the table by the paper, with a blue tablecloth underneath, or no tablecloth at all, I am going to guess we can all agree that the Black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia hirta) is a heck of a flower. 

It's bold without being too flashy, or fussy, and they last a long time. 

In addition, it mixes well with red clover (trifolium pratense) and zinnias (heliantheae).  

As pretty as they look on my table, they are even more spectacular when you come upon a mass of them outside in a garden or in a prairie meadow. Sometime in the next few weeks, if you live in Kansas you are surely going to come upon some. Put a jar, some water, and your clippers in your car now. For the meadow sightings. Not your neighbors flowerbeds.