Some Days Are Diamonds

"Some days are diamonds, some days are stones" -- Dick Feller

It's Easter Sunday. 

When I awoke this morning, it was dark, 23 degrees, and snowing. The forecast is for snow the rest of today and tomorrow and tomorrow night. 

Travel is discouraged or, in some instances, banned. When we walk together, we walk apart and wear masks. When we meet for coffee, we have Zoom meetings, spending much of the limited time helping each other navigate the technology so we can be together virtually.

And today is Easter. Traditional sites for Sunrise Services are closed. Churches are closed. The world is closed. All now relegated to the virtual.

Traditions are now virtual.

The Easter tradition, for Christians, is a time to commemorate Jesus rising from the dead, promising  life. For Jews, Passover (which shares calendar time with Easter Week) commemorates the tenth of the plagues sent by God to force the Egyptians to free the Israelites. By marking their doorposts with the blood of a spring lamb, their firstborn lived while the first born children of their Egyptian neighbors died. A promise of life in a world of death. 

"Sometimes the hard times won't leave me alone"

In this time of our own plague, traditions that promise us hope and give us peace are especially needed, but are available to us in such changed forms, it's hard to know if they will provide hope and peace.

And right now, it is snowing.

 "Sometimes a cold wind blows a chill in my bones"

But if I am still and quiet, right here, right now, I can see that today is "diamond."

I am here, cossetted in my warm home. Not alone, but with the man I love. We have food and water and access to the world. We are well. Those we love are far from us but they too, are well.

The sun may not be shining on my home today. The weather is closed in around our neighborhood and we can't see the foothills, but we do have the bright white of snow. 

Snow bathes the world in the most beautiful silence. A silence accented with birdsong. They know it's Spring. 

This layer of snow somehow makes me feel separated and safe from the worries and fears that are today's Covid-19 plague.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      And when the sun returns to our beautiful snowy world we'll celebrate the light on our neighborhood and on the foothills.

So for now, I'll have a nice cup of coffee, some buttered toast (homemade, sourdough of course) and enjoy this Easter that the snow has made "diamond."

Deviled Eggs -- Flash Fiction

Without looking up from her laptop, she chirped "Here's one! Ham and egg lasagna. Twelve hard-boiled eggs, ham, Swiss cheese..."

"We had egg salad sandwiches for lunch," he put his tablet aside and got up from the couch.

"I know," she said. "But we need to use them up."

He went to the hall closet.

"The kids had so much fun hunting eggs. How about pickled eggs?" She called after him. "Eight boiled eggs, a jar of beets ...." She sent the recipe to the printer.

He came back through the dining room carrying his favorite day pack. He hoped they'd found them all. He didn't relish finding boiled eggs with the lawn mower weeks down the road.

"Bill? Did you hear? Pickled eggs?"

"Um hum. And beets," he said as he headed for the kitchen.

"I'm glad we didn't get plastic eggs," she said. "Here are a whole bunch of recipes for deviled eggs," she cried. "You like deviled eggs!"

He opened the refrigerator door. "I think I'll take Buddy for a walk."

Hearing his name and the magic word walk, the old Lab padded happily into the kitchen after his man.

"Buddy will like that. Greek deviled eggs. Italian deviled eggs. Mexican deviled eggs."

"Yes, dear," he said filling the day pack from the fridge while Buddy waited patiently at his feet.

"Crab stuffed deviled eggs. Real eggs are just so much more nutritious. Instead of all that chocolate for the kids."

"Nutritious," he echoed with an aside to Buddy, "For the coyotes and foxes and crows and coons."

Buddy pranced a bit in anticipation as Bill closed the refrigerator door and zipped the back pack.

"I just love Easter," she enthused as Bill and Buddy headed to the back door. "The kids do so enjoy dyeing eggs. Avocado Ranch deviled eggs." She hit the send button again and he could hear the printer spitting out yet another recipe for deviled eggs. "And they were so pretty."

"Yes. Very pretty," he said and snapped the leash onto the dog's collar. "They'll look very pretty indeed. Scattered in the pasture south of the neighborhood.

*   *   *

This bit of flash fiction is my piece for Days D and E in the 2018 A to Z Blogging Challenge for which I was too late to officially enter. So I'm just shadowing.

Technically, one is supposed to post a blog every day in April (except Sundays) and each post is supposed to be about something that begins with the letter for that day. April 1 was A, April 2 was B, and so on.

Home -- flash fiction

“Good morning Ms. Jenkins. Did you go home for the holidays?” he asked over his shoulder as he stepped away with the empty pill bottle.

She thought about that. Spring was such a beautiful time for a holiday. School was out for a week, always enough time to go home. Things would be blooming. The folks would have vegetables growing strong. Lettuces and peas would already be coming off. Forsythia would be done, but the tulips and daffodils would still be blooming. Her mother must have had umpteen varieties of daffodils. Mom always said they looked like bits of sunshine.

She lost her forsythia last winter. Too dry and too cold.

Dad would be ready to put out his tomatoes and peppers, if he hadn’t already. And his potatoes would be big and strong. He liked to have fryers big enough for fried chicken Memorial Day weekend and new potatoes. That was his aim. And corn on the cob fresh from the garden by Fourth of July. He never planted his corn until after Easter, though. When the ground was warm.

She hadn’t missed an Easter at home in she didn’t know how long. First, trips home from college, then with Jim and the children. Except those two years in a row when James Jr. had the three-day measles. Twice.

Jim built her two raised beds. Four feet by eight feet. And she had a long planter on the south end of the deck. That was her “salad bar.” She planted it full of all kinds of lettuces. Just broadcast the seeds. The raised beds, she planted in an organized fashion. Her dad always took great pride in straight rows. Once a farmer, always a farmer.

She had to wait until after Mother’s Day to plant here. Except the lettuces. She just threw a sheet over them. Nights it got too cold. They’d had a nice big salad fresh from her deck, Easter Sunday.

“Here’s your prescription,” he said as he came back to the counter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear if you went home this year.”

“Not this year,” she said as she slid her card. It had been a difficult year. Emergency trips home. “Not this year,” she repeated. “This year the children and grandchildren came home.”

P is for Pain or What I did over Easter Weekend

 

Good Friday:

A little before noon. Sick at my stomach.

At noon. Ate two eggs fried in a no stick skillet and two pieces of toast.

At 2:30 got call from my out-of-town husband. Told him I hadn't been feeling well, but felt a little better. He said he was driving to Crossett, Arkansas, and would spend the night with friends. Then go on to Monroe, Louisiana, to catch his flight home Saturday morning.

He had considered staying at his deer camp that night.

I got to feeling worse. Went to bed.

My daughter and her boyfriend came over to do some laundry.

By now I was feeling really uncomfortable. No sharp pains. Too much pressure in my abdomen. I thought I had food poison. And I considered going to the Emergency Room.

My 88-year-old father lives with my husband and me. We have a woman come in Monday through Friday from 8 to noon, but of course we had no plans for anyone to be with him Friday night or Saturday.

It occurred to me that people do die of food poisoning. E. choli, listeria, etc. And then who would take care of my father?

Made the decision to go to the ER. My daughter drove me and her boyfriend stayed with my dad.

I felt bad enough that I didn't take a shower, change out of my robe, or put on shoes instead of my ratty old pink house slippers. I did brush my teeth and my hair.

At the Emergency Room, they collected the normal vital signs, checked my photo i.d., photocopied my insurance card, collect a list of meds I take daily, and ask for my social security number. They ask when did I eat last. How many times have I vomited? Any diarrhea? What did I eat when? By this time I am really not feeling well. They move me into a room.

They hook me up to an IV, take my blood, and everyone who comes into the room wants a list of my daily meds. Somebody already has this information. Leave me alone.

The doctor is not satisfied that my symptoms are consistant with food poisoning, and at my age she is concerned about a heart attack, so she orders an EKG. The EKG shows nothing out of the ordinary.

She orders a CAT scan.

Another doctor comes in and introduces herself as part of my surgical team. Surgical Team? What are we talking about here? Oh, Dr. So-and-So didn't tell you. No. She hasn't been back in yet. Ah, here she is now. Your appendix doesn't look right, she says.

My daughter calls our Home Care Agency to make arrangements for someone to come in the next day for my dad. Saturday. Holiday weekend. But they come through with a man named Richard Something-Japanese. Hmm. Daddy served in the Pacific during WWII. How is this going to go down?

And right behind Dr. So-and-So is another member of my surgical team who pushes my bed and me up to surgery. Or maybe it was down to or over to. I have no idea because I closed my eyes. My daughter stays right with me.

Then a nurse anesthetist is explaining to me the possible negative side effects of general anesthesia. My daughter calls my husband and asks the nurse anesthetist to talk to him. He's a veterinarian. He understands these things. I am so glad he's not staying out at his deer camp. There is no cell reception out there. (What kind of out-back-of-beyond is that that there are no cell phone towers?!) 

Then the surgeon. Again my daughter gets my husband on the phone to talk to the surgeon.

My daughter called my son in Texas to let him know what was going on. She left messages on his voice mail and his wife's. They very wisely silence their phones at night.

Fifteen minutes and I'm in surgery. By now it's 10:30, 11:00 p.m. Surgery lasts about 45 minutes. 

My daughter calls her father and her brother to let them know I'd come through the surgery just fine.

In Recovery for two hours. Only patient in Recovery. Have very pleasant conversation with staff. We talk books, movies. Well, of course we do. The younger staff member didn't know who Lauren Bacall is. Or Humphrey Bogart. In this age of NetFlix and Amazon Prime, how is this possible? It's just as well music didn't come up.

By now I'm feeling MUCH better. And it's up to my room with me and my daughter goes to my house and we both get some sleep.

Saturday is a good day. My daughter brings me my E-reader and my book Murder on Ceres on which I had twenty-nine pages to re-write. I got some breakfast. She got some breakfast and laid down for a nap. My husband called to let me know he was in Monroe and his flight was listed as on-time. I edited the final pages of my book.

My husband calls to tell me he's in Houston in line to board his flight home.

My daughter and I had lunch. And I got home before my husband did. 

Easter morning. I feel great. A little tender, but great.

I put the changes on my book into my lap-top. Saved it to my external hard drive. And saved it to an SD card. Three hundred and fifty-eight pages, 91,668 words, three-years' work. I feel GREAT!

Happy Easter to all!