Last post, I was excited about my husband finally getting his aortic valve replaced. Then, it happened, all in an afternoon (the procedure actually took only just under half an hour) and he was up and around. The next day he was out of the Kelowna hospital (about 65 km from Penticton).
Then, a week later, he and I were manning a display table in the local mall, when suddenly, you will never guess what, I had a heart attack. It was not a big deal, really. A friend drove me to the Penticton hospital where I claimed to have a sore left arm. I really expected them to just send me home. Instead, they took a blood sample and declared there was a problem and I would have to stay until they could get me to the Kelowna Hospital for an angiogram. We had just been through all this with my husband. It was surreal that it was happening to me.
So, a week ago I had the angiogram and they found a few little problems that, thankfully, can be treated with just medication--no stents or surgery for me, thank God! When I got home from the hospital on Wednesday, February 12th, the bizarre situation was that Frank, recovering from his TAVI (transcatheter aortic valve implantation) and I (recovering from my angiogram) were neither of us allowed to lift anything over five pounds. Make a pot of coffee--nope!
Fortunately, our kids were amazing. They jumped in and looked after their dad while I was out of commission--that was my biggest worry. I had had no time, of course, to arrange for help for him--help which he needs at the best of times--and needed even more desperately with his post surgery care being untended.
The biggest problem of having to travel between Kelowna and Penticton, is that we do not have a car, but have to rely on others to drive us to and fro. Not long ago, we could use Greyhound buses, but they abandoned Western Canada a couple of years ago. BC Tansit has not really taken up the slack. It has improved from just Mondays to daily--but that is four buses on Mondays and only two (early morning and late evening) the rest of the week. There are flights, but they cost almost the same as trips to Vancouver or Calgary. Ridiculous! So when Frank needed to go, we had to ask one of our two sons, our daughter, or one of our two local grandchildren. All of whom have jobs and cannot just jump and take a few hours to drive us. Then, we had to have hotel rooms because some of the medical appointments at the Kelowna Hospital are early in the morning with a follow-up later or the next day. The last trip for Frank cost us almost $1000. Not paying our son for the transportation. For me, it was much easier and cost us nothing. Hospital to hospital by ambulance is free for the patient. I went to the Kelowna hospital early Tuesday morning, had the angiogram, and was back in my Penticton hospital room around lunchtime the same day. Easy-peezy! Home the next day. No hotels!
A word about the hotels: Last June, we took the advice of a handout from the hospital and chose a hotel from their list: Royal Anne Hotel. I confess I did not really examine the amenities carefully, but chose it for sentimental reasons: My parents met there! Not a good choice for traveling with a disabled person though. I do not recommend it.
This time, I thought I was doing better. I selected one from the Internet where it was claimed that it was wheelchair accessible. And although my husband is not in a wheelchair, he does use a walker. Again, I should have been more diligent and asked direct questions. It turned out that if you wanted the room to be wheelchair accessible, you had to ask at the desk for a ramp. I lifted the walker in and out of the room. The bathroom was definitely NOT safe--no grab bars, for starters. We had to go to that hotel twice--once for the pre-surgical screening visit then a week later for the TAVI. The second time, we came prepared, having bought a transfer bench for the bathtub so we could get in and out of the shower without falling. (The one we bought is a lot like the one in the link, but not identical. Ours cost $160, and had a grab-handle on the side.) I am not disabled, just old. And climbing over the side of a tub is quite challenging. So, for handicapped and elderly people, I do not recommend Siesta Suites.
Yup! Life is definitely unpredictable. I hope I never have to stay in a hotel in Kelowna ever again. And as for hospitals....well, I guess that is obvious.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Monday, January 13, 2020
Happy 2020!
It's COLD outside. Ok, I know I live in Canada and the whole world thinks we all live in igloos, and that might be true of some parts of the Canadian prairies and on northward, but this is British Columbia--near the US border. It's not supposed to be -20 Celsius. Well, -14 at the moment. And snow, too. That's nothing new for the Okanagan Valley, and I know we're stuck with it until about mid-March or thereabouts. One of the bus drivers said "S-N-O-W = Something No One Wants". He got that right.
Besides griping about the weather, though, other things are moving along. The good news is that my husband's long wait for his aortic valve replacement has finally been scheduled. It's on January 31st, and we're already booked into a hotel for the day before and a couple of days after. We hadn't realized how much this wait had worried us until we got the news. The wait was, pardon the pun, truly a WEIGHT that has been lifted.
It doesn't take long for the calendar to fill up with doctors' appointments and other activities such as White Cane meetings and church meetings. I'm at Cowork a couple of days a week, and don't seem to get much done. The big highlight of the week is Tuesday and, sometimes, Thursday when Frank and I go to the pool with our son, Steve. Writing? At Cowork when I can fit it in between printing out whatever is sent that I have to "show" Frank, in order to keep him in the loop. It's only fair. I couldn't possibly do that without Cowork!
Besides griping about the weather, though, other things are moving along. The good news is that my husband's long wait for his aortic valve replacement has finally been scheduled. It's on January 31st, and we're already booked into a hotel for the day before and a couple of days after. We hadn't realized how much this wait had worried us until we got the news. The wait was, pardon the pun, truly a WEIGHT that has been lifted.
It doesn't take long for the calendar to fill up with doctors' appointments and other activities such as White Cane meetings and church meetings. I'm at Cowork a couple of days a week, and don't seem to get much done. The big highlight of the week is Tuesday and, sometimes, Thursday when Frank and I go to the pool with our son, Steve. Writing? At Cowork when I can fit it in between printing out whatever is sent that I have to "show" Frank, in order to keep him in the loop. It's only fair. I couldn't possibly do that without Cowork!
Monday, December 16, 2019
Advent 2019
It's beginning to look a lot like Advent. Our church is filled with beautiful blue banners and frontal cloths and the priest's blue satin vestments. One addition this year is the Advent chapel at the front of the chancel, just under the cross--lots of candles on blue satin, sparkly, cloth covers. That is where Father Nick has Compline every Wednesday evening at 6:30. Frank and I went the first time, but missed the second one due to snow. (He has a very justified fear of slipping and falling on icy sidewalks.) Next Wednesday I will go alone because our Church Council follows immediately after Compline and goes for an hour or more. Frank would have to find somewhere to sit for an hour, waiting for me. So, again he'll have to stay home. :(
This year we actually got our Christmas cards written and mailed off in good time, I think. Our grandson came over and put up lights around our patio and Frank added lights inside our kitchen window. The Advent candles are on the coffee table, surrounded by Christmas cards we've received so far. And in a day or two, we'll pull out the little artificial tree and set it up in front of the gas fireplace that we never use. Our daughter told us how to get Christmas music of the classical type from Google Home. Just ask Google for Mid-Winter's Eve Music, and there you go.
We'll go to church on Christmas Day. Spend other days around the Holy Day with family and friends who are nearby. Then we'll start to get ready for our real celebration: Epiphany when we'll chalk the door again, and play games and eat and remember to choose gifts for the poor using a catalogue from World Vision. It's a Monday this year, but we'll celebrate at home with family on Sunday, January 5th. We'll miss the church service that day, but it's that or see family members we see so seldom. God understands.
This year we actually got our Christmas cards written and mailed off in good time, I think. Our grandson came over and put up lights around our patio and Frank added lights inside our kitchen window. The Advent candles are on the coffee table, surrounded by Christmas cards we've received so far. And in a day or two, we'll pull out the little artificial tree and set it up in front of the gas fireplace that we never use. Our daughter told us how to get Christmas music of the classical type from Google Home. Just ask Google for Mid-Winter's Eve Music, and there you go.
We'll go to church on Christmas Day. Spend other days around the Holy Day with family and friends who are nearby. Then we'll start to get ready for our real celebration: Epiphany when we'll chalk the door again, and play games and eat and remember to choose gifts for the poor using a catalogue from World Vision. It's a Monday this year, but we'll celebrate at home with family on Sunday, January 5th. We'll miss the church service that day, but it's that or see family members we see so seldom. God understands.
ending 2019
Ended November with a Women's retreat. Almost every year the women of St. Saviour's Anglican Church in Penticton, BC, have a retreat. This year, it was at Seton House of Prayer, near Kelowna. Nearer to home than our previous few retreats at Sorrento at Salmon Arm.
This year, instead of two people taking on the task all by themselves, they invited a few of us to help out. I was privileged to be assigned from 10am to 10:45 and 11am to noon, for a program of my own design. I chose the theme of colours (the others confirmed that and added Light, so the weekend was "Colours and Light". I claim to have squished a Curisllo weekend into an hour and 45 minutes. Actually, we had a short get-acquainted game followed by Bible study based on colours mentioned in the Bible. We sang De Colores. Then after coffee break, we made "Palanca" bags for our fellow retreatants. Little bags of "love notes" to be taken home at the end of the retreat. In the afternoon, another member of the team taught us how to make candles with coloured wax, thereby completing the theme of colours and light.
Our retreat ended back in Penticton at our church with the celebration of Christ the King, which we claim as our patronal festival, given that there is no saint called St. Saviour. At the church the following week, we sang Las Mananitas to our priest, Nicholas Pang, for his name day, St. Nicholas Day, December 6th.
Thus ended the Church Year. The first Sunday of Advent which falls on December 1st this year, is the Church's New Year. Not January 1st. So, Happy New Year!
This year, instead of two people taking on the task all by themselves, they invited a few of us to help out. I was privileged to be assigned from 10am to 10:45 and 11am to noon, for a program of my own design. I chose the theme of colours (the others confirmed that and added Light, so the weekend was "Colours and Light". I claim to have squished a Curisllo weekend into an hour and 45 minutes. Actually, we had a short get-acquainted game followed by Bible study based on colours mentioned in the Bible. We sang De Colores. Then after coffee break, we made "Palanca" bags for our fellow retreatants. Little bags of "love notes" to be taken home at the end of the retreat. In the afternoon, another member of the team taught us how to make candles with coloured wax, thereby completing the theme of colours and light.
Our retreat ended back in Penticton at our church with the celebration of Christ the King, which we claim as our patronal festival, given that there is no saint called St. Saviour. At the church the following week, we sang Las Mananitas to our priest, Nicholas Pang, for his name day, St. Nicholas Day, December 6th.
Thus ended the Church Year. The first Sunday of Advent which falls on December 1st this year, is the Church's New Year. Not January 1st. So, Happy New Year!
Friday, November 1, 2019
Surrey International Writers' Conference 2019
Always worth the trip. Not easy to get to, in more ways than one.
First, there's the trick to get in the registration window and actually succeed in getting a spot. Get the full three-day package that includes 3 lunches and 2 dinners--most with speakers well-worth hearing.
Next, for me, there's the transportation. Greyhound, my old stand-by, deserted all of western Canada about a year ago, and so since I don't drive, the only way to the Lower Mainland from the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia is to fly. Book early, because flights to Vancouver sell out fast. Not to mention getting a hotel reservation. Sheraton Guildford, where the conference is held, is sold out fast, too. Better chance getting in the Sandman Suites Guildford, around the corner from the Sheraton, but about $7 per taxi ride.
Then there's the nightmare of finding help for my elderly and disabled husband. (See another post for that rant.)
But, as I said, the conference is work the trip. Highlights for me (aside from having the opportunity to reconnect with my pal Christine David) were the workshops:
In no special order, I attended two workshops by Hallie Ephron. The first was about "wounds and burdens" and the second was "suspense." I love the fact that she has excellent handouts I can put my notes on. I also attended a workshop by the famous mystery writer, Anne Perry. (Hallie is also a famous mystery writer.) Anne's workshops are another feature of the conference that I wouldn't miss for the world. I actually got to sit next to Anne one evening at dinner and we had a nice chat. Another dinner, I sat next to Diana Gabaldon, of Outlander fame, and showed her some notes I'd found just before I left home: they were notes from a workshop of hers that I'd attended in 1994. Christine, also at the table with Diana and me, had also been at that same workshop. We've been at this a very long time!
Other workshops were by Carleigh Baker, Cathy Ace, Nicole Blades, Elizabeth Boyle, Eileen Cook (author of two of my favourite young adult novels: With Malice and You Owe Me a Murder), CC (Chris) Humphreys, Mary Robinette Kowal, Owen Laukkanen, Donald Maass (New York Agent! always at SiWC). And some others in workshops, some of them solo presenters and others were on panels.
Sat "with" Dana Murphy at lunch where she was supposed to be the "hostess" and was, along with everyone at the table except two talkative women, totally ignored by her. Too big for her baby booties, if you ask me.
First, there's the trick to get in the registration window and actually succeed in getting a spot. Get the full three-day package that includes 3 lunches and 2 dinners--most with speakers well-worth hearing.
Next, for me, there's the transportation. Greyhound, my old stand-by, deserted all of western Canada about a year ago, and so since I don't drive, the only way to the Lower Mainland from the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia is to fly. Book early, because flights to Vancouver sell out fast. Not to mention getting a hotel reservation. Sheraton Guildford, where the conference is held, is sold out fast, too. Better chance getting in the Sandman Suites Guildford, around the corner from the Sheraton, but about $7 per taxi ride.
Then there's the nightmare of finding help for my elderly and disabled husband. (See another post for that rant.)
But, as I said, the conference is work the trip. Highlights for me (aside from having the opportunity to reconnect with my pal Christine David) were the workshops:
In no special order, I attended two workshops by Hallie Ephron. The first was about "wounds and burdens" and the second was "suspense." I love the fact that she has excellent handouts I can put my notes on. I also attended a workshop by the famous mystery writer, Anne Perry. (Hallie is also a famous mystery writer.) Anne's workshops are another feature of the conference that I wouldn't miss for the world. I actually got to sit next to Anne one evening at dinner and we had a nice chat. Another dinner, I sat next to Diana Gabaldon, of Outlander fame, and showed her some notes I'd found just before I left home: they were notes from a workshop of hers that I'd attended in 1994. Christine, also at the table with Diana and me, had also been at that same workshop. We've been at this a very long time!
Other workshops were by Carleigh Baker, Cathy Ace, Nicole Blades, Elizabeth Boyle, Eileen Cook (author of two of my favourite young adult novels: With Malice and You Owe Me a Murder), CC (Chris) Humphreys, Mary Robinette Kowal, Owen Laukkanen, Donald Maass (New York Agent! always at SiWC). And some others in workshops, some of them solo presenters and others were on panels.
Sat "with" Dana Murphy at lunch where she was supposed to be the "hostess" and was, along with everyone at the table except two talkative women, totally ignored by her. Too big for her baby booties, if you ask me.
What happened to October 2019?
It came and it went. Even my autobiography got shoved aside. Monday, September 30th, I started teaching a new ESL student, referred to me by my previous ESL student. Luz comes twice a week, Wednesdays 10 to 11, and Fridays 4 to 5. Today, somehow, she didn't show up. Could have been because of the changes from October 24th to 31st. I had to cancel the Friday and Wednesday of that week. More about that in a few minutes. So, the ESL tutorials account for a "loss" of two hours a week writing time.
Much of my time was taken with preparing to go to the Surrey International Writers' Conference, October 24th to 27th. Not the writing I'd hoped to take with me, or to prepare to do there, just preparing to leave my husband alone for seven days. I wanted to have some "me-time" after the conference, stay with friends until the end of the month. Not doing that again. I was leaving on Thursday, October 24th and coming back on October 31st, flying home on my broomstick.
But first I had to arrange for someone to check in on my 86-year-old crippled husband once a day, help him get his shoes on if he wanted to go out, make sure he had his medicines, and at least make a sandwich for him for his lunch. Interior Health (the regional health service for this part of the province of British Columbia) assured me that a visiting nurse would come every morning between 9am and 11am. They pledged to do "dress assist" and "medicine assist" and "meal assist". We would pay $31 (and change) per hour or $72 per day whichever was less. I'm just waiting to see what the bill will say when it comes. Because: over 7 days, 6 "nurses" came (one came twice) but none of them were nurses. They were "care support workers". So--Frank attempted to be up every morning with at least most of his clothes on. Not once did any of these "workers" offer to put on his shoes. When he asked them to give him his morning pills, one of them (the one who came twice) didn't know how to open a blister pack, and when she checked with her supervisor, she was told not to give him any of his medicines. The second time she came, she had mastered the mysteries of the blister pack but would not set the Victoza pen to the correct dosage. Frank managed to get her to let him know when he had clicked to the correct dosage, so that was okay. (He's legally blind, so he can't see the numbers on the pen.) All six women objected to giving him Tylenol-for-arthritis. Only one actually did give it to him because she reasoned that it was an over-the-counter medicine. But he had to promise not to tell on her as she wasn't supposed to. Because she wasn't a nurse. WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE NURSES. He's also supposed to have hydromorphone, but there was no use asking for that. As a result, he spent the week in pain because we didn't have nurses. Meal assist? One woman made him a peanut butter sandwich, but that was while I was still there and I told her to. One peanut butter sandwich was supposed to last him for seven days? Too much to ask that he be given one peanut butter sandwich every day for seven days? There were also half a dozen dinners from "meals on wheels" that the surveillance nurse said could be heated up for him. I still have all those dinners in the freezer in exactly the same spots that the MOW volunteer put them the day after I left. So, $31 an hour? Not one of these women stayed even 15 minutes, let alone the hour we were promised. What do you bet they try to charge us $31 X 7 days of "service"? Seven hours of nothing. But they're the government. However, when I mentioned to someone that I planned to write a letter of complaint, my friend suggested I send the letter to the newspaper. I think I will. As soon as I get that bill.
He did cope pretty well. Our son, Steve, came over several times, and helped him. They had meals at restaurants. They even went shopping and Frank cooked a big pack of sausages and had sausage sandwiches every day for supper. One night he added fried eggs. When I got home I was amazed that he hadn't created a bigger mess than the one that greeted me on my arrival. Next time I leave him alone, he's going into a respite centre whether he wants to or not.
Much of my time was taken with preparing to go to the Surrey International Writers' Conference, October 24th to 27th. Not the writing I'd hoped to take with me, or to prepare to do there, just preparing to leave my husband alone for seven days. I wanted to have some "me-time" after the conference, stay with friends until the end of the month. Not doing that again. I was leaving on Thursday, October 24th and coming back on October 31st, flying home on my broomstick.
But first I had to arrange for someone to check in on my 86-year-old crippled husband once a day, help him get his shoes on if he wanted to go out, make sure he had his medicines, and at least make a sandwich for him for his lunch. Interior Health (the regional health service for this part of the province of British Columbia) assured me that a visiting nurse would come every morning between 9am and 11am. They pledged to do "dress assist" and "medicine assist" and "meal assist". We would pay $31 (and change) per hour or $72 per day whichever was less. I'm just waiting to see what the bill will say when it comes. Because: over 7 days, 6 "nurses" came (one came twice) but none of them were nurses. They were "care support workers". So--Frank attempted to be up every morning with at least most of his clothes on. Not once did any of these "workers" offer to put on his shoes. When he asked them to give him his morning pills, one of them (the one who came twice) didn't know how to open a blister pack, and when she checked with her supervisor, she was told not to give him any of his medicines. The second time she came, she had mastered the mysteries of the blister pack but would not set the Victoza pen to the correct dosage. Frank managed to get her to let him know when he had clicked to the correct dosage, so that was okay. (He's legally blind, so he can't see the numbers on the pen.) All six women objected to giving him Tylenol-for-arthritis. Only one actually did give it to him because she reasoned that it was an over-the-counter medicine. But he had to promise not to tell on her as she wasn't supposed to. Because she wasn't a nurse. WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE NURSES. He's also supposed to have hydromorphone, but there was no use asking for that. As a result, he spent the week in pain because we didn't have nurses. Meal assist? One woman made him a peanut butter sandwich, but that was while I was still there and I told her to. One peanut butter sandwich was supposed to last him for seven days? Too much to ask that he be given one peanut butter sandwich every day for seven days? There were also half a dozen dinners from "meals on wheels" that the surveillance nurse said could be heated up for him. I still have all those dinners in the freezer in exactly the same spots that the MOW volunteer put them the day after I left. So, $31 an hour? Not one of these women stayed even 15 minutes, let alone the hour we were promised. What do you bet they try to charge us $31 X 7 days of "service"? Seven hours of nothing. But they're the government. However, when I mentioned to someone that I planned to write a letter of complaint, my friend suggested I send the letter to the newspaper. I think I will. As soon as I get that bill.
He did cope pretty well. Our son, Steve, came over several times, and helped him. They had meals at restaurants. They even went shopping and Frank cooked a big pack of sausages and had sausage sandwiches every day for supper. One night he added fried eggs. When I got home I was amazed that he hadn't created a bigger mess than the one that greeted me on my arrival. Next time I leave him alone, he's going into a respite centre whether he wants to or not.
Monday, September 9, 2019
clutter
I don't have a cluttered desk at Cowork, because I have to clear it off every evening when I leave--nothing on the desk, nothing on the shelf above the desk (except for the official notice that it is reserved for me on Mondays and Fridays), and nothing in the three drawers that I used to have full to over-flowing when I rented this desk "permanently." I have a small suitcase that I use to bring to Cowork anything that I need to use at the hot desk.
At home I have a small desk in my bedroom. It's handy for me to use when I make a phone call or need to make a quick note to myself. Too small to allow it to get cluttered. It's a roll-top desk, borrowed from my son Steve, and it has a shelf-like top above the roller. I have pictures made by my son Ken, and a box of his with his brother's pumice stone inside. I keep the pumice stone because there's some dried blood on it, from Frank's forehead when he rubbed a wart he should have left alone. I also have some pictures of St. Francis of Assisi, a couple of crosses, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and some printed out prayers. I guess it's a shrine of sorts, devoted to the memory of my eldest son Frank (1957-2005) and my second son Ken (1959-2012), both victims of the demon Cancer. I don't consider this shelf to be cluttered.
My bedroom itself is cluttered with boxes and bags of things that have yet to be sorted since we moved to Penticton in April 2016. I'm working on it. I've made more progress than you might imagine, given that I still haven't finished in three years. Everything that didn't have an obvious place to reside, got put in my bedroom. Now, most of it is getting tossed in the garbage anyway. I just have to look at it first, and decide.
It's my head that's cluttered. I come to Cowork to write. Sometimes, I print out documents sent to me by the church where I serve on the Church Council, or documents from various doctors that I have to read to my husband and are illegible on my little iPhone. But mostly, I want to write here. I've been working very hard on my autobiography, If Anyone Should Ask, now on Decade 7 of my life. Finish this decade and Decade 8 and I'm done. It's rough. Not much editing. But it's not for publication. If you aren't a member of my family, there's no chance you'll get to see it. I mentioned it at the writing critique group I belong to, and the "leader" said she "had concerns about it." No she doesn't. It's absolutely none of her "concern" at all. She was "concerned" about my using anecdotes. She writes non-fiction books about submarines, so I guess she doesn't have any anecdotes. It was her husband's profession, and her knowledge is second-hand at best. So, autobiography aside, what else do I write here?
Today, I've taken refuge in this blog. I'm writing about writing, or not writing. Being at this desk only twice a week, I feel a bit nervous when I'm not making good use of the time. Blogging is good, but creative writing is better. At home, I've been reading about short stories, and reading short stories from all different sources--classics like Guy de Maupassant and Hemingway, for example, and contest winners from 2019 Short Story Contest at the CBC. I think I could write short stories long-hand in notebooks at home, between Cowork session. Maybe submit something for the 2020 contest. Sounds like a good plan. So far, no progress.
So what should I be doing at my hot desk at Cowork? Besides my autobiography and blog? It's the novels that are cluttering my mind: First there's the trilogy that was sabotaged when my thumb-drive went crazy and turned the whole thing into a mess of upside-down question marks, and I lost my first book, House of Secrets. And about half of the second book, Baby's Breath. And notes for the third book of the trilogy, Flowers and Flames. I'm sure I have most of the above printed out, but I haven't the courage to look.
Then there's the book I started when I was taking Creative Writing courses at UBC. I guess I started it long before that, but it was in one of these courses that I got pushed to go outside of my comfort zone--try a fantasy. Really? I always say I don't like fantasy, but that's not true. I loved Lord of the Rings, The Narnia Chronicles and Harry Potter. Fantasies, all of them. So, I drew a deep breath and re-started my story which doesn't have a title yet. It's a historical ghost story. Historical because the main part of the story is circa 1950, in London, England. Then the protagonists (two girls) meet a couple of ghosts and, in the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London, they meet the ghosts of the two princes allegedly murdered by their favourite uncle. But the boys don't believe it was their uncle, and command the girls to travel back in time to their murder and find out whodunit. (They were smothered in their sleep, so they didn't see it coming.) I'm having a ball researching and scribbling. I can't find the scenes I've actually written, but that book might get done before the trilogy! Maybe!
At home I have a small desk in my bedroom. It's handy for me to use when I make a phone call or need to make a quick note to myself. Too small to allow it to get cluttered. It's a roll-top desk, borrowed from my son Steve, and it has a shelf-like top above the roller. I have pictures made by my son Ken, and a box of his with his brother's pumice stone inside. I keep the pumice stone because there's some dried blood on it, from Frank's forehead when he rubbed a wart he should have left alone. I also have some pictures of St. Francis of Assisi, a couple of crosses, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and some printed out prayers. I guess it's a shrine of sorts, devoted to the memory of my eldest son Frank (1957-2005) and my second son Ken (1959-2012), both victims of the demon Cancer. I don't consider this shelf to be cluttered.
My bedroom itself is cluttered with boxes and bags of things that have yet to be sorted since we moved to Penticton in April 2016. I'm working on it. I've made more progress than you might imagine, given that I still haven't finished in three years. Everything that didn't have an obvious place to reside, got put in my bedroom. Now, most of it is getting tossed in the garbage anyway. I just have to look at it first, and decide.
It's my head that's cluttered. I come to Cowork to write. Sometimes, I print out documents sent to me by the church where I serve on the Church Council, or documents from various doctors that I have to read to my husband and are illegible on my little iPhone. But mostly, I want to write here. I've been working very hard on my autobiography, If Anyone Should Ask, now on Decade 7 of my life. Finish this decade and Decade 8 and I'm done. It's rough. Not much editing. But it's not for publication. If you aren't a member of my family, there's no chance you'll get to see it. I mentioned it at the writing critique group I belong to, and the "leader" said she "had concerns about it." No she doesn't. It's absolutely none of her "concern" at all. She was "concerned" about my using anecdotes. She writes non-fiction books about submarines, so I guess she doesn't have any anecdotes. It was her husband's profession, and her knowledge is second-hand at best. So, autobiography aside, what else do I write here?
Today, I've taken refuge in this blog. I'm writing about writing, or not writing. Being at this desk only twice a week, I feel a bit nervous when I'm not making good use of the time. Blogging is good, but creative writing is better. At home, I've been reading about short stories, and reading short stories from all different sources--classics like Guy de Maupassant and Hemingway, for example, and contest winners from 2019 Short Story Contest at the CBC. I think I could write short stories long-hand in notebooks at home, between Cowork session. Maybe submit something for the 2020 contest. Sounds like a good plan. So far, no progress.
So what should I be doing at my hot desk at Cowork? Besides my autobiography and blog? It's the novels that are cluttering my mind: First there's the trilogy that was sabotaged when my thumb-drive went crazy and turned the whole thing into a mess of upside-down question marks, and I lost my first book, House of Secrets. And about half of the second book, Baby's Breath. And notes for the third book of the trilogy, Flowers and Flames. I'm sure I have most of the above printed out, but I haven't the courage to look.
Then there's the book I started when I was taking Creative Writing courses at UBC. I guess I started it long before that, but it was in one of these courses that I got pushed to go outside of my comfort zone--try a fantasy. Really? I always say I don't like fantasy, but that's not true. I loved Lord of the Rings, The Narnia Chronicles and Harry Potter. Fantasies, all of them. So, I drew a deep breath and re-started my story which doesn't have a title yet. It's a historical ghost story. Historical because the main part of the story is circa 1950, in London, England. Then the protagonists (two girls) meet a couple of ghosts and, in the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London, they meet the ghosts of the two princes allegedly murdered by their favourite uncle. But the boys don't believe it was their uncle, and command the girls to travel back in time to their murder and find out whodunit. (They were smothered in their sleep, so they didn't see it coming.) I'm having a ball researching and scribbling. I can't find the scenes I've actually written, but that book might get done before the trilogy! Maybe!
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