happy birthday to me...

Wow - it was just a year ago I was celebrating my birthday in Portland, the big three - oh!   My birthday sort of started a couple weeks ago when Joyce and Andy's package arrived, but I held off opening it, just kept looking at it next to the front door.  A package from home arrived on Thursday, so I stacked it with the other and waited until today.  Last night, out to dinner with Tom, a gentleman I recently began seeing, and his friends, the servers came over with ice cream and a "happy 21st birthday" - oh sure, give or take ten years.    But today it is.  I decided tearfully last spring while talking to Mom that I couldn't possibly come home.  This is my first year without Grandpa - how lucky to have had the thirty years together!  I am still sad sometimes that I don't have him physically in my life, but I am grateful he is with God.  I talk with him sometimes.  I had a little cry about it today and was grateful to talk with Grandma and Roxy and Abba.  Auggie and Nick talked to me tonight, and I got a great song from the three M's.  Mom and Miki had to wish well early since they are both out of the country.  I had a pretty leisurely day...sleeping in and breakfast, lots of phone calls, and a BBQ with my friends.  Mary and Jennifer put in lots of prep time, and I enjoyed having them in the kitchen.  Andrea and Shaun came over and entertained me as I tried to light the grill.  Jenny stopped by after church, and Britta and Ryan popped in after a hike.  It was lovely and low key.  Five of us caught WALL-E at the movies, and now I am pooped!    Today, I am grateful for my friends and family.  I appreciate that I can walk on two feet and carry things in both hands (things that are not crutches).  And I feel blessed.  peace

It's official...(me new address)

So I decided it is time to share my new address...I'm not going anywhere soon. My checks still say that I am on Columbine, and the newspaper is lost in circulation, but everything else is here:

2300 Williams St #1 (80205)

I think you can go to google's map page and see it on street view - the one on the NE corner of 23rd and Williams. Pretty neat! There was a request for some more pictures, but I might wait a week, so I can try to do a little tidying. I don't want to show you the stack of legal papers next to the couch - still working to recover costs from the state for the accident. And there are cardboard boxes of this and that all over. My room has a path cleared to the bed, but I need to pull the table out of the closet now that the bed is in, but I need two hands and two feet for these little projects. If you know me well, you might guess it will take more than a week to do any of these things, but I am feeling ambitious.

This morning I crutched out of bed and poured myself some orange juice. I crutched out here to the living room to check e-mail, and when I sat down in the chair, my left hand started to curl. It is okay now; I have massaged it and stretched it, but I think I pinched a nerve or something. Scary how little things can change so quickly. My neighbor Andrew's new bike helmet arrived yesterday in the mail, and he was telling me how he's been hit twice by a car - neither time with a helmet! Lucky man! Deb was justifying the whole cause of helmets with her line that "you only get one brain", so why wouldn't you protect it? Oh, how fragile our health is!

Random thoughts for a Saturday morning - should be watching cartoons, but I haven't had the inclination to turn the TV on yet. For now it is a glorified plant stand. I think i will put on some music...

A day of "first"s...

This has been one exhausting week - seven nights on my own...tonight will begin the second week. I worked from home because we had a staff party last night at our director's home, and everyone was doing their own thing for work. I wasn't sure if I got to the office how I would get home. It was fine because I brought plenty home Thursday in anticipation. So after not seeing anyone, I was thrilled to have Deb stop by for a beer and some conversation in the afternoon. And then Char and Belinda both agreed to come and hang out, so I whipped up some mini-bowtie noodles with a cilantro pesto I made and froze. They brought vegetable and fruit salad. I made some garlic toast and opened some pickled beans (a little sour) and uncorked a bottle of wine, for my first little dinner party. My neighbor Laura joined us, too. It was a fabulous impromptu evening with the ladies. Jennifer and Brian stopped by later on for a bunch more conversation. Hooray! Even if everyone has to carry my plates and glasses and serve me, I felt a little more at home/"normal" getting to play hostess. But now I am so tired, my eyes are drooping. My neighbor Andrew just pulled out his guitar on the porch, and I am fighting the sleepies because I love listening to live music like this. Ah well...I am ready for dreaming...peace out

A real adventure

So taking the bus really doesn't sound like an adventure, but being on crutches, those were some big steps to get up! Tuesday I got home from a full day at the office. Laura has been so good to help me get to and from the office. So I crutched into my place and dropped my bags. I checked my e-mail and saw a note from Betty saying to come by soon. So, with no plans for how I would eat, I decided to check out RTD's map of buses and see where I could go. The westbound #32 stops at 22nd and Gilpin - a near two blocks away. It stops a block from Betty's house. Hmmm...I called her up and invited myself over for a grilled cheese, the end of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, and a number of rounds of Skip Bo. Her grandson Austin left after he finished his fried chicken, but after an hour or so of computer games, he came down for some Skip Bo, too. Pretty soon Betty mixed us up a couple cocktails, and cards were flying! It was a lot of fun. To get back on the bus, it is about two blocks from Betty's house, and then it's only one block away from my house. But it was late, so she called me a cab. I don't think I have ever ridden a cab by myself in the US. Interesting, huh? Well, it made for a really fun evening! She invited me back this weekend and insisted I bring my laundry. Sometimes I can't argue...

Night Number Four

Oh, I am so exhausted... My hips are both extra achey - my right hip and my right knee and my right wrist are all begging for attention, as if they were injured...and they are for having carried me around so far. It is hard to believe that four weeks ago I was walking myself - sans crutches - to the surgical table. And just four nights ago, I was finally brave enough to sleep in my new home - without the security of having someone just feet away to make breakfast or carry my bag. As it stands, I am in good hands...my neighbors are all amazingly wonderful - watering my container gardens, carrying things in for me, and offering to help. John and Laura are the other first floor folks, and I really like them. We've talked a few times. And they are the reason I can post...I am going to give them a bit of cash for use of their internet service. A good deal for me! Did I mention I am pooped? So this message will just have to go to bed like me! tori

Independence Day!

I miss Betty. After twenty-three nights of amazing attention and care, it was hard to cut the new umbilical cord I had grown. I have had a lot of help over the last twenty-five day from a lot of people, and I know it! But it is an exceptional person who opens her home to you, includes you as one of the family, prepares all your meals and delivers most up two flights of stairs (even going to the store to get things you would want – a six block walk each way), lets you invite colleagues and friends into her home and take calls at her number, changes sheets and towels, launders all your clothes and linens, and then asks if she can help pack your old home and unpack you in to your new home. Betty and I watched “Death at a Funeral”, “Down in the Valley”, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, "Lovely and Amazing", “How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer”, “Lars and the Real Girl”, “Reservation Road”, “Shattered”, and a couple more. We played Quiddler, Yahtzee, Skip Bo, and Dominoes. Her grandsons were there individually and played games with me, too. I was invited to family outings with her daughters and their families. So when Betty returned with her grandson Austin on Wednesday, she hoped I would stay another day, so we could hang out. I stayed, but was out with friends, so we didn’t get to hang out. I offered to stay another night, since (1) I still didn’t have sheets on my bed and (2) didn’t get to hang out Wednesday. This morning, after a wonderful breakfast and a couple of games, Betty carried all my belongings to [Claire’s] car, unloaded all my belongings, made my bed, wanted to water the garden, but there was no water, and then helped clear out the recycling and give-away clothes. She told me I didn’t have to leave, and there is a big part of me that would be happy to never leave. She told me not to cry, and I told her I had something in my eye. Congratulations to me for taking my first shower, listening to music here for the first time, and soon…my first sleepover. This is really a day of independence for me, but I am reminded by my heart how great it is to be in relation with people and not cling to my independence too much. For a country that struggles to do “the right thing”, we could all take a moment in our celebration of our independence to appreciate all the people we depend on for meaning in our lives, for food on our tables, for the laws that govern our society (even if we don’t really agree with our government), and for caring for us when we need it. Peace.

Four years ago now...

I was in a lot of pain, but at least they gave me some ibuprofen in the emergency room.  It was a Friday, and I was supposed to be camping outside Canon City the rest of the weekend with Chris.  I couldn't really find a comfortable position with the bruising and abrasions on knees, ankles, right hip, tail bone, shoulder...little did I know four years later I would be on crutches, still recovering from someone else missing a red light.  How my life has changed...and who knows what would have been different if I made it across the street and down Colfax to Streets of London for happy hour with Andrea?  I may not have met Rebecah and Cathy - amazing caregivers and healers.  Who knows where I would be today had my life "stayed the course" it was on?  It is hard to believe four years have passed, and sadly I wish that I could say I felt better, that I hadn't been continuing to suffer from the pain of it all, but it's been one helluva ride.     I am indebted to so many who have cared for me over the years, covered for me on the job, driven me places or loaned me a car, helped to soothe the pain, talked me through the fear, nursed me back to "health", prayed for me, picked up prescriptions, rode bikes with me in the first ocassions back in the saddle, encouraged me when I felt brave, held my hand crossing the street, prepared meals for me, laundered my clothes, watered my plants, packed and cleaned my house, moved me from one home to the next, gave me something to smile about, and hugged me when I needed it.  I am a believer.  God provides.

Pooped!

Oh, I can't remember how I used to do multiple full days in a row. It feels as though two in a row might do me in! This morning Betty left the hous shortly after sunrise. She and her grandson Blake flew to Virginia to return Blake home and pick up the other brother Austin. It's not that I do not appreciate everything Betty does for me, but that saying about not knowing what you have till it is gone comes to mind. Navigating the kitchen for breakfast was tricky. To get the glass and pour the juice is not difficult, but if I don't want to drink it standing at the refrigerator, then I have problems. Sliding bread from one end of the counter to the next was not as tricky as getting it across the kitchen to butter it and add applesauce, which had to come from the fridge. Oh bother...this is what it is going to be like...I am probably going to start calling people to take them up on meal offers because dinner is not as easy as toast and juice. So two days of work in a row at the office...I actually made it into the garden briefly yesterday and out to an agency for youth programming tonight. Both were harder than I expected, and tonight may have been the straw that broke my back. It is easy to know when I have gone to far, but it is hard to sit in a chair wondering how much more I can do. For four years I have overcome the pain to try to live as normal a life as I can, as active a life as I can, because ultimately I know that those two qualities contribute more to my health and happiness than never hurting. If I had to give up skiing, biking, walking and hiking, and all the other physical stuff, I would have to be vigilant about what I ate, so as not to gain weight and create more stress on my hip. These things I think about...So all this for nearly four years, and now I am supposed to back down at the slightest twinge. It is difficult to unlearn the perseverance through the pain, though if I can persevere through the recovery, maybe I won't have pain again? We'll see. Tomorrow makes FOUR years. FOUR long years! It makes me want to cry. Feeling like I do tonight doesn't honor the hard work I committed myself to do to get better. All the counseling and physical therapy...nearly two years before I felt comfortable biking again...getting over the fear... And if I am lucky, I will settle my case against the state for causing all this before 2 July 2009. Here's to hope! tori

End Of Columbine Days...

Oh bittersweet! The Columbine House is officially not ours. Jennifer and I had our walk through with John last night, and then he locked us out. No more keys, no more of so many things...just holding on tight to memories. The house looked so strange so empty. I felt like I should have taken lots of pictures of the space, to fill in the blanks with the movies in my head, the scenes of 2,192 days and nights like a flip book. Only I never saw the end coming so abruptly... So bittersweet - an end of an era...nostalgia and sadness to walk away (not very well admittedly, as the jarring of my crutch handles keeps me rooted in reality)...but to be done with the dusting, the cleaning, the scrubbing of walls and venetian blinds, the washing of stairs and and floors...what a relief!!! John commented on things untouched and windows cloudy with dirt, but they aren't my dirty things anymore. Now I can start shifting my attention to my new place at Williams. On Sunday I hung up some pictures - Erin's chickens are in the kitchen, my panorama from Resolution Peak is above the mantle, a frame Erin painted hugs the mirror in the bathroom, and Picasso is behind the plants in the living room. I need a handyman to help hang plant hooks in the ceiling, so a few plants can make room for others. And hopefully, if I (or Jennifer?) can get my bed made, I will plan to start staying there in Wednesday. I'm not quite independent, but July 15th gets closer every day! loveyoumeanit...