September 23: An Early Fall Hike

Came back from 4 days perfect days in Rehoboth Beach with my sister Jean and our long-time friend Jan to find Boulder had begun transitioning to Autumn.  Late in the afternoon Ben & I hiked the first mile up Bear Canyon, which was as beautiful as he promised. Welcome Fall!

(Since I find that I'm not quite ready to give up my blog I've trying a new approach this week, aiming for more frequent posts fewer words.  We'll see what happens!) 

Someone broke their arm!

I broke my arm yesterday, the result of a slip in a bit of mud at the end of a driveway just a few blocks from home.  I landed smack on my upper arm, leaving a big purple bruise that looks like a squashed eggplant and a break all the way across.  Stunned, I sat in the mud for a while marveling at the pain while Turbo sat patiently at my side.  My Apple watch began squawking that it had detected a fall and did I want emergency assistance? I painfully managed to shut off the alarm and turn down the offer.  

 I tried to call Ben but didn't reach him.  After a bit, a neighbor spotted me sitting in the alley and called out, "Are you all right?"  No, I certainly was not!  Ben arrived and helped hoist me up and drive me off to Urgent Care where x rays were taken and a preliminary diagnosis of a dislocated shoulder and a fracture determined.  Then we were off to the ER to get it reset, but more detailed x rays resulted in a final diagnosis of a break across the upper arm, the "kind of fracture which requires a very long recovery,." When the doctor asked if I'd like some painkillers I said "You bet!  Ah, the magic of a little morphine. 

It looks like I have two weeks of doing nothing ahead of me except a visit to the followup orthopedic surgeon and wincing in pain off and on during the day.  Then four weeks of mostly doing nothing except a couple of simple movements at home. and then many months of physical therapy.  I asked when I might ride my e bike again I was the cryptically told, "It will be quite awhile."

Excuse me while I go scream! 

Ok, ok, it could be worse.  The fall whacked my left arm, not my right.  All my fingers are still working.  I didn't bang my head.  I have my sweet Ben to help me.  I can still walk.  We had to  cancel our biking and  hiking trip trip next weekend to Aspen but our trip to Hawaii next month will probably be a "go," though at a much slower pace.  Still, it's going to be a long road.  

Good thing I was able to get a few thing accomplished before the accident.

I saw a big mama bear and her two cubs up in a neighbor's tree, which was very cool.

Ben and I spent the weekend in Denver to enjoy the sights and see Hadestown.

I was able to attend my brother-in-law's funeral and celebrate his love of his many children, grand- and great-grand-children, his devotion to wife (my sister Jean) his faith and his love of live.  It was a warm and loving service and I was able see many family members. including my three siblings. Dave had several years of hard trials, including dementia.  While he will be greatly missed, we were all glad he was released from his suffering.  

While I was back in the east I had a bit of time to spend on the water, always a treat for us westerners. 

It happened that Dave died a few days before Jean and I and our long-time friend Janice were going to meet at Rehoboth beach for a few days.  The funeral was Friday and our vacation started Monday, and since the beach is Jean's "happy place," and she certainly needed a little vacation, she decided to go.  We had a wonderful time.

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Life certainly brings both pleasure and pain.  

20th Annual Girl's Trip

With the bears in Vail

Finally, after having to cancel last year's reunion in NYC due to the virus, our merry gang of three was back together again!  My sister, Jean, and our friend Janice rendezvoused here in Boulder and then set out for a four-day road trip of SW Colorado and Southern Utah.  We enjoyed the hot baths in Glenwood Springs, the red rocks and arches in Moab, and stayed in a luxury hotel (half price since it was "shoulder season"!)  in the Swiss-like town of Vail.     

Jan & Jean at the Double O arch in Arches National Park 

Colorado River in Moab

Desert flowers

Jean & me at Fisher Towers near Moab 

Vista in Arches National Park

Vail

We had a great time.  What a treasure to have such a close friend and a dear sister!  We enjoyed our visit to the scenic southwest so much that we're planning to go there again next year, to see Canyonlands National Park.  

Around Here

Around here we are flip flopping between winter and spring, with cold and raw days alternating with glorious sunshine and warmth.   We don't plant much around here until after Mother's Day, so it's a good time to just admire the early spring blossoms. 

Around here we celebrated my BIL and SIL's 21st anniversary and the fact that all four of us are fully vaccinated now with a dinner at the Flagstaff House.  We shot this photo with John's new iPhone 12 Pro Max and marveled at the good quality, achieved with the phone's new "Night mode."  The camera also has a bigger sensor to let in more light and a much improved zoom. 

 I was so impressed that with a little urging from Ben I went out the next day and got an iPhone 12 Pro Max of my own!  

My old phone was six years old and I'd sure gotten my money out of it.  The battery was showing its age, the thumbprint recognition had never worked right meaning that I had to hit the home button whenever I used the device,  and then there was the much improved camera.  Not to mention the super fast response time in loading data and apps.   I'm a happy camper!

Around here I haven't been doing any artwork but I did finish up my batik scrap quilt...  

...and got inspired to sew my "beach" and "Hawaii" fabrics together to make a reversible lap quilt.  Here's one side...

...and here's the other.  It will be trimmed to the same size as the front when I move on to the next step, basting the layers together and doing the quilting.  I made this quilt just for me and I was more interested in using all these "saved up" special fabrics than matching up colors perfectly.  

Do you see "Maui" written on the island scenes?  I bought that fabric on our first trip to Maui back in 2018.   

Around here we did some intensive trip planning for a few days, and now have another fun visit to Maui to look forward to next winter.  This time we'll be traveling with John and Dawn, which we're all looking forward to.     

Around here we are so enjoying seeing our vaccinated friends face to face over drinks and at dinner.  Colorado has a high number of COVID cases right now, second in the nation after Michigan, but Gov. Pollis believes that our health care system can handle the rise and he continues to relax gathering and masking policies as our vaccination numbers continue to climb.   34% of our population is fully vaccinated, which puts us in 19th place nationwide. 

Mint juleps with friends at their home last night, the first time since last fall.  

Around here excitement is building in anticipation of the arrival next week of my sister, Jean, and our friend, Jan.  COVID cheated us out of our 20th annual "girl's trip" last year, and we're making up for it with two days in Boulder followed by a road trip to Moah, Utah, via Glenwood Springs and Vail.   Should be fun!  

Awaiting the start of the Lion King broadway production the last time we were together,
 in Cleveland in September 2019. 

 

" I Like" Thursday Post

The clock on our dining room wall is broken.  It keeps on ticking, but the hands never move.  They are stuck at 9:20 and every time I catch a glimpse of it for a second I think it's still 9:20 either in the morning or the evening.  This unraveling of time seems to fit this odd period when time isn't measured by being somewhere in particular, or starting or ending a scheduled event.  Time just unfolds and another day, or week, or month, or even a season goes by.  

It's officially spring here in Boulder now; we can tell by the blooming of the first early poppies and iris.  They'll continue on into June, when sunflowers, coneflowers, and daisies begin to bloom. 

So on this "I Like" Thursday, a weekly topic which my friend LeeAnna began as a way to promote positive thinking when the world turned grey in November 2016, my first like is the wonderful poppies and iris. We don't have any blooming in our yard yet, but I spot them on my walks with Turbo around the neighborhood and they always make me smile. 

This past week we got into baking with sourdough starter, courtesy of our friend Raymond who was given his starter by his friend John.  Starter is one of those friendly things that gets shared from one enthusiast to another.  We sure enjoyed the "sandwich biscuits" and bread that we made ...and ate!  One thing about starter is that you have to use some of it each week.  After gaining two pounds by eating yummy baked goods with delicious butter I made a deal to take the "discard starter" from Ray occasionally instead of hosting my own.  Better not to have it so readily available in the fridge if I want to get through this shut down period without gaining a ton of weight!

As time has moved on, Turbo is now ten months old.  He's discovered the water that has again filled the irrigation ditches and washes and the suddenly strong currents in the creeks and streams as water pours down from the melting snowfields up in the mountains.  Here he is trying to get up the nerve to actually take a drink of water in the ditch in the old cemetery down the block.  After seeing his dog friends lapping it up, he finally took a drink himself.  It was a big moment! 

The trails around here are increasingly busy so one afternoon we drove a few miles up Boulder Canyon to take one of Ben's favorite hikes, the Chapman trail.  I hadn't been there for a while and it was good to see the beautiful Indian Peaks off in the distance.

One result of the odd flowing of time nowadays is that we wake up when we are ready, not by the clock.  For me that means I'm sometimes up at 6:00 a.m. and sometimes sleep in until 8:00 or so.  I've found that one reward for waking up early is watching the sun come in through our east window.  We hung a stained glass window with a sun face on it some time ago and have just now discovered that when the sun shines through the glass the sun face is projected onto the side of our dresser, which looks pretty cool!  Now don't think I never got up early before; I sure did, especially when Paul was in school.  But I think I was so "on task" to get ready for the day that I never noticed this neat trick that the sun and the sun face glass pulled off every spring morning.    

I don't have any photos of one of the most fun things of the week which was having Mother's Day dinner with my BIL, John, and my SIL, Dawn and their son Michael.  We ate Dawn's wonderful BBQ ribs outside on their patio and had a relaxing visit which was very welcome after almost two months of not visiting apart from the weekly walks that Dawn and I take out on carefully selected wide trails.  It was great to enjoy a family time together. 

Colorado has begun to reopen its retail stores including nurseries and garden centers.  On the very day that our local nursery reopened for walk-in service I made a quick trip in to buy some annuals to fill a few pots on our patio and to tuck into our raised beds.

Given that I was trying to "stay safe," I was in and out faster than I could ever imagine --- oh, for the days you could linger enjoying the pretty offerings and slowly making your decisions!--- so when I got home I was delighted to find that the plants in the pots outside our patio door actually look great and give me a little spark of joy when I see them.  (I'm looking forward to watching the geraniums grown up a bit and the lobelia trail down a bit and together fill the wall to a pleasing effect.)

We have been spending a lot of time gardening and enjoying the results.  We inherited about eight separate garden areas around this house and now is the time to weed them and replant as needed, so we've been busy.  Good thing we like to garden!  We've had to reseed a fair amount of our side yard which got torn up during the stone work we had done on the raised beds last fall.  We couldn't think of a good way to keep Turbo off the new emerging grass so we're just going for it and hoping for the best.   

Here is our side yard from the street with Turbo standing at the edge of the new grass.  Good dog! He loves to hang out by the side gate and watch everyone go by.  He has lots of dog friends and always barks out a hello.    

We still eat in the dining room most evenings but the other night it was pleasant enough to take our meal out to the patio, which is one of my most favorite things.  To celebrate I brought out the tablecloth we bought at Mama's Fish House to remind us of our wonderful two trips to Maui.     

Many of our meals are accompanied by texting between us and our friends who share our love of food and drink.  This photo captures an "everyday great moment"; Ben laughing as he texts with his friend Ray about our delicious dinner of Sicilian style swordfish.

Well, if there wasn't a pandemic going on, I'd be in New York City today with my sister Jean and our good friend Janice.  We'd planned a super trip to celebrate 20 years of our annual excursions, and had even splurged on tickets to see Hamilton tomorrow night.  Since that trip is not happening, I took some time to go back through my photos and relive our earlier travels together, and found this nice photo of us by the Boston skyline in 2011.  We're already busy planning a rescheduled 20th anniversary trip with a new destination, the beautiful red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.  Reliving past travels and planning future trips is a delightful pastime in this unusual time.

Linking to my friend LeeAnna's "I Like Thursdays" at Not Afraid of Color