family – Page 4 – The Hermits' Rest

The Slug of Exhaustion

The title is my weak analogy to yesterday’s blog title, The Salmon of Knowledge. I was pretty sluggish today after all yesterday’s exercise, though I ended up with almost as much exercise today, thanks to swimming in circles around the pool and vigorously winding yarn into ball, which counts.

Of course, I spent time in nature. Hope these Mockingbird babies make it.

It’s healthy to take a day off from being busy, though, so I gave myself permission to sit on the porch, watch documentaries on octopi, and enjoy food Kathleen made. The porch is getting even more relaxing. Two of my cushions arrived, and now lying on the couch is as comfortable as my bed.

Lee says the pillows are too loud. I say they pull together the trim, couch, and blue chair colors. Wait until he sees the outdoor rug…

Being the Slug of Exhaustion today also allowed me to ignore anything stressful that I possibly could. I just looked at my surroundings and enjoyed them, enjoyed the family, and will take the stress back up tomorrow.

Since I have nothing deep to say, let me recommend the Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes, part 1 of which just came out. This part covers the years I really liked, the 70s, when he was quite amazing to see live. You end up really liking his first wife.

Oh, here’s something exciting. The unused RV that had been next to my tack room went away today. It will be easier to get to my square bales of hay that way. It looks all color-coordinated now!

Tarot card of the day

Today I pulled the Explorer (knight) of Water (cups). It’s a pretty darned happy card, hinting I’m in a good place, emotionally today, able to navigate the waves of feelings smoothly. It also may indicate a new emotional path, sort of like yesterday’s 10 of Water.

We will see. As I grow more Hermit-like in my self preservation mode, I’ll be interested to see if anything manages to stir me in new emotional directions other than inward!

Book Report: How to Lose Your Mother

Resilience. That’s the first concept that comes to my mind when I think about Molly Jong-Fast, the author of How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir (2025). To have made it to adulthood as a functioning human being after experiencing her childhood defines resilience. Some people wouldn’t have made it. Sure, Jong-Fast is a bit messed up, but by gosh, she’s here analyzing the heck out of politics with her inimitable New York accent (Lee loves her podcast).

This memoir covers a pretty crappy year in her life, during which she spent any time not dealing with sickness or death of those around her mulling over the truly baffling history of her relationship with her mother, Erica Jong, author of semi-autobiographical books that were shocking in their time (Fear of Flying, etc.). Jong-Fast spends many pages going over how famous, talented, and interesting her mother was or wasn’t. Mostly, Jong-Fast believes she wasn’t any of those things.

What I found most interesting about this book was that although we have much in common mother-wise, I really had a hard time emphasizing with Jong-Fast. I think I like her, but her negative attitude towards herself got under my skin. I can’t tell you how many times she says she’s a bad daughter or how insistent she is that Jong is a bad mother. She is unable to give either her mother or herself the benefit of the doubt other than a few token attempts.

I guess I’d hoped that all the AA meetings she’s been at would have helped Jong-Fast be kinder to herself, but here she is, still berating herself for not making her mother happy. Sigh.

Yes, Jong was not your average mother. I don’t think she could have been, because other than her final husband, she really only liked or was interested in herself. I honestly can see how her daughter would end up unable to love her like other daughters love their mothers. They both have tried their best, for who they are.

Boundaries. Yeah. They both have problems with boundaries. Jong can’t separate her consciousness from her unconscious self, and Jong-Fast can’t let herself stop trying to get in there with her mom.

Who am I, a therapist? No. So I will stop. Everyone in the book has a therapist of their own anyway, right down the block, like every other service they need. New York is so foreign to me!

So…how to conclude this? The people in this memoir are fascinating and (to me) not like people I know. They live in a world new to me and have experiences unlike mine. Quite educational! And you will certainly find Jong-Fast to be a fascinating human. I just can’t quite figure out the moral to the story unless it’s that you never do know your parents and you certainly can’t fix that when they have dementia.

Cheerful stuff it is not. Well written, though!

Romantic Thoughts

What’s your definition of romantic?

Eh. I don’t dwell much on romanticism at the medium-old age of 67. Still, I do know what my caring spouse does that makes me feel loved and appreciated. He hits most of the love languages, too.

He notices little things I do and tells me what a good job I’ve done.
He picks up little things when he’s out that he knows I like—flowers, a book, a tasty treat, etc.
He shows interest in my interests. I can’t tell you how much it touches me that he spots birds and tells me about them or takes an insect photo to upload on iNaturalist.
He does many things to make my life easier or more pleasant, without me asking.

Yeah, Lee may be grumpy sometimes, but he’s a good guy, and quietly romantic.

Tawny Emperor butterfly he photographed for me this morning.

I hope I do something he finds romantic!

This is our engagement photo. I hardly recognize him without facial hair!

PS: it rained a good bit today. In July! That led us to romantically sit on the new porch and listen to rain.

Honest, I’m Fine

Whenever I start to go in and on about my pessimism it makes certain beloved relatives worried. When I realized that this afternoon I began to muse about how okay I’m actually doing right now. I guess if things have to get scary for those of us not in power, now is preferable to even a few years ago, for me. Spiritual growth is a big help.

Lee says a giant porch chair is a big help.

It’s taken a long time to get to where I don’t panic and start feeling paranoid. Even if “they” were out to get me, it wouldn’t hangs who I am or how I act. Like a friend mentioned in response to yesterday’s post, I’m going to choose to be kind. I’m also not going to give up my ethics and morals. Not panicking doesn’t mean not doing the right thing.

By the way, porch furniture came mere minutes after my son finished the beautiful trim work. He did so well.

(Aside: more than one person I know called their representative today and talked to a real person.)

Look at that fine detail. Craftsmanship!

Anyway, I’m coping well, my anxiety only pops up occasionally, and I’m enjoying my little hermit life. I’m staying in my lane, not asking questions of anyone who’s not wanting to share with me, and enjoying the heck out of my tiny circle of friends and loved ones, dogs, horses, and fowl. That, and birds, is enough to create a peaceful oasis.

This excellent hammertail robberfly was my nature fun of the day.

Please remind me of my peace when I start whining about being lonely, left out, or missing old friends. It does happen. Those I care about are in my heart! That has to be enough.

And all of you who read and comment and share your stories with me are also in my heart. Thank you for showing all of us how much good and caring for others there still is in the world.

Coincidentally, Coincidences Are Everywhere

I’m worn out after six hours of meetings, wrangling with new computer peripherals, then a fun meeting later. I’m not used to so much sitting and headphone wearing. I’ve gotta get back in the groove of work!

Carlton says he’s had a hard day of barking anytime a vehicle approached.

I’ll just share a story of serendipity and coincidence from this morning. I’m capable of that. So, bright and early, my son and I drove in his darned nice 2001 work truck to our nearest real city, Temple. It has big box stores, so it’s a city.

We headed to Lowe’s to look for some tile to make a border around our screened porch floor, since the leftover travertine from the inside of the house didn’t quite cover it. The quest failed. The big box store had ZERO floor tile that wasn’t porcelain. What the heck? We wanted something natural.

We left there and made the convoluted u-turn required to get back to the pitiful Temple Mall, where there’s a fairly new Floor and Decor store. We figured with “floor” in the name, they’d have more variety. And they did! I’d forgotten how much I love looking at wall tile, but I steeled myself to only look at flooring.

We did, indeed, locate natural stone in a large size that my son could cut to the required size. As I was dwelling on the color of the stone, I turned my eyes to the left. Wow, what I saw looked familiar. It was the exact travertine in the exact shapes we already were using.

What a coincidence! They had it.

But it was more than a coincidence. I realized that the stone was in the same spot in the store displayed exactly the same way it was in 2014, when our contractor and I picked the flooring. The store in Austin had the same layout!

Then we got the stuff to lay the tile and headed to checkout. The clerk asked if we had a phone number on file. I didn’t think so, but gave her Lee’s number. She said, yes, it was there all right, under Ruben Construction? I said sure, as we both laughed as we realized the last thing I’d bought there was that same tile!

What a coincidence. That certainly made the morning fun.

I got home an hour before my Pacific Time work started, too. Not bad but it made for a long (but good) day.

And now I sleep! I’ll be more pithy tomorrow, perhaps.

Corned Beef Hash

Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

My mom made it in the electric frying pan she cooked everything in. She made little wells in the canned hash and put eggs in them. Two for each of us. I ate it like it was ambrosia.

This is the exact recipe. Even uses canned hash.

I make that dish for myself sometimes. Not often. But I think of my little nuclear family and all the cheap meals we thought were special.

Mom did some good things.

Resting Truly Helps

The people who tell you to get rest and drink a lot of fluids when you’re feeling sick know what they’re talking about. After a couple of days of a sore throat and congestion I gave in to the fact that not only Lee is under the weather. I caught the latest mystery virus.

We spent all day under the beautiful storm clouds.

Once I accepted the situation I decided to be kind to myself and rest today. Tarrin fit me in for my riding lesson later in the week, so I didn’t push myself to do all the prep work and riding that entails. My only scheduled activity was a Zoom meeting for Annual Meeting field trip planning, which was easy to do sitting down.

This Hackberry Emperor was on the porch, so I didn’t exert myself to photograph it.

It helped that it rained a while, so I just wrote stuff and drank hot beverages. That was most of the day.

I did spy on the Barn Swallow nest. Still just eggs. Wonder where a Guinea fowl feather came from?

Admittedly, I’m still not as good at loafing as I was when younger, so I did take two long walks to enjoy the pleasant weather after the rain.

I thought I was taking it easy, but I got 39 minutes of exercise and 10,000 or so steps in. Plus, I cooked dinner, an easy one, but still…

These views helped me forget feeling sick.

I’m not very good at resting. And I’m nowhere near as sick as Lee, who’s still having chills and congestion and all that. Thank you, immune system, for being so hardy! Combined with my somewhat restful day, I may already be feeling better.

I saw this while convalescing on the new porch watching the sparrows flying in and out.

All in all, it was a perfect day to watch clouds and a perfect evening to watch the Strawberry Moon. Days like this make living in the moment easier.

Random Goodness – It’s Great!

I didn’t write anything yesterday, because I couldn’t think of a great theme or deep content, but this morning I realized that having a day that was just good and full of pleasant interactions was worth writing about.

I also did my nails tie dye. Oh happy day.

I guess there was one vaguely exciting thing that happened. We got a new gate opening mechanism on our front gate, because Lee was unhappy with how the previous one kept coming out of adjustment. The new one is really cool, though, and is made from a horseshoe and some chain. Once the welding machine gets some oxygen, it will even have something that helps it auto-close.

This is a lot easier to use, and quieter.

The excitement came when a welding spark ignited the long grass by the gate (mowing has been delayed by rains and husbandly illness). I saw it and went to get the conveniently long hose over to it, but in a fit of incompetence, it took me three tries to get there. First I had to go back and find a hard surface to turn the spray attachment on (it’s old and stuff), then there was a hose kink, and finally, I realized the hose actually wasn’t on. But, I did get there faster than the other hose, so I got to put it out. Now we have a nicely edged spot which will come back all green and pretty.

I enjoyed the new porch a lot, and was impressed at the good job that’s been done preparing my birding station for concrete. It’s going to be so cute, and we even have a little auto-waterer to turn into a bird bath out there!

It’s got plastic and rebar, ready for concrete.

The rest of yesterday was very pleasant. I got some work done on my temperature blanket, which has been delayed due to the package getting lost in the mail. The replacement arrived, and I’m up to the middle of May. Also pleasant was a nice visit from our friends Mike and Martha. We went swimming and then Martha made some spaghetti for dinner. Our weekly dinners have fallen by the wayside, and we need to pick it back up and try to drag Anita over (I haven’t heard from her except on Facebook since April! She’s a hard worker).

I can’t resist a purple flower, even if it is extra prolific Ruellia.

It rained over an inch last night, which made us happy. The front pond/tank is almost back to full capacity, and if we’re lucky, it will rain more this week. Now, the rain put the next “exciting” event in jeopardy, the pouring of the concrete. Nonetheless, it cleared up enough this morning for the big truck to show up and start pouring. Cleverly, it pulled into the RV parking space and could dispense concrete out that way.

I guess the highlight of the rest of the day will be watching cement dry. That’s okay with me. I’m enjoying every moment of not working and trying to savor the small things in life, like watching the horses and looking for bugs.

Typical arrangement. Everyone clustered but Apache, who’s on lookout.

Last night, Mike and I talked a bit about our Buddhism practice and whether we were doing a lot of living in the moment. We agreed we are doing better than we once did. That’s why they call it practice, I guess! In any case, I’m pretty content right now if I just focus on home and friends.

New and Exciting Things around Here

Things are happening over here at the Hermits’ Rest! It’s our turn to have some construction projects completed. The first one is a beautiful screened porch that Lee had really wanted for a long time. Our recent mosquito invasion has convinced me it’s a good idea, too!

The porch is an extension of the “outdoor room” that was part of the original floor plan of our house. It was open on one side, with doors leading out from the family room and my office and windows on the outside wall. There is even an outdoor fireplace! Sounds great, right?

I assure you it rarely looked like this.

It turned out that there were a couple of problems. First, the opening caught the north wind, which blew dog hair, leaves, June bugs, and other debris inside to be trapped in a vortex of ugliness. Also, wasps and Barn Swallows loved the sheltered areas for nesting. They like them a LOT. This nest on the back door wasn’t there last week.

We will have to leave the door open until this set of babies fledges, so no mosquito-free joy for a few weeks.

Note we have a dog door for the canine family members. They’ll have to suffer with TWO dog doors to get out.

George and his crew did a great job on the porch. It looks like it’s always been part of the house!

I was happy to see they finished the inside with Hardie plank, like the outside and they put foam insulation in cracks where the walls meet the stone. It’s like we added another living area!

We have some furniture to get and we will put a large fan in the ceiling. That will help where the rock wall is. Lee plans to bring in his spare anti-gravity chair, because he dreams of sleeping outdoors. I want a desk or table to work from home at, one that isn’t too big.

But first, we want to put a floor in there, which will be easier to sweep than the concrete. We happen to have a pallet of the travertine flooring we used in the downstairs of the house. It’s a challenge to install but looks great.

An interesting development right now is that the black willow seeds are flying around and getting on the screen. Luckily we can get them off and this season only lasts a while.

I love how the slats make shade even in late afternoon. Added benefit.

Enjoy some construction photos.

But that’s not all, folks! Another project Lee wanted to embark on was capturing water from our roofs. He and Chris decided to collect water from our garage first. The start for that project is to build a concrete pad behind the garage apartment where Lee’s brother lives. They will move the air conditioner onto the pad, and put a big old water tank on the other side between the door and window (I think; it’s not my project).

From what I can tell, they will have leftover concrete, so they decided to make another concrete pad for me to put my birding station on. They want to make me a bird blind, but I think that will be later. Lee says he’s getting a special seat to put there. We will see!

I believe this to be the frame for my little pad. This is not its ultimate location.

Oh. And I accepted the job offer. Goddess protect me.

Victorious in Victoria, Texas

It’s a victory, all right. Figuring out how to have some fun when our day wasn’t what we expected was hard, but we did it. And we two hermits who aren’t good in crowds or loud places made it just fine, and were able to share in the happiness of Kathleen as her daughter got married. Yay!

Lee came up with the idea to go to the local zoo today, and I found a birding spot nearby. That gave us a nice way to fill the early part of the day. The Texas Zoo is in a large park next to a very large cemetery complex. It’s not very big and is a bit of a mess with many empty exhibits, but the animals all seemed well cared for and healthy.

Many animals there are rescues or natives. I always enjoy the natives, especially the river otters, javelinas, and birds.

We had the best time watching the water birds being fed, while a young boy asked the zookeeper many excellent questions about the birds. What an educational experience! And the pelican and spoonbill were hilarious with their fish. (Lee crops his photos to be short but wide, which explains the look.)

The spoonbill is about to catch a fish. It’s just to the right of the tree

I’m glad Lee brought the good camera with him, because he got some great shots of a fox, coyote, red wolf, and jaguar.

We didn’t have as much luck at the birding place, as it was midday and brutally hot. There were Couch’s Kingbirds and Great Kiskadees, though, so I knew I was in south Texas.

We got dressed for the wedding and headed back to the venue. It was still stifling hot, but just the ceremony was outdoors, so no one got sick or anything. We enjoyed talking to a few family members we knew…well, pretty much the only ones we knew that will talk to us.

Yes, I was there. No Lee photos since he took them all.

It was a beautiful wedding and the decorations they worked so hard on came out great! Now, remember I’m old and don’t attend many weddings, but I was surprised to see that there were “beer boys” in the wedding party, passing out beers as they came down the aisle.

They played it up very well, and many attendees took beers from them. Apparently I’d have known all about this if I went on Tik Tok (or went to more Texas Western-themed weddings).

The “doorway “ the wedding party walked through.

Everyone else was lovely and I got all teary-eyed as the bride walked down the aisle escorted by her stepdad. That was my highlight.

Since I can’t share that photo, here’s Kathleen looking fantastic watching her daughter.

Afterward, Lee spent some time in the car relaxing and I went out to look at birds a couple of times, because we’re hermits and a little weird. It was fun enjoying the young kids playing, young adults acting their age (so much beer), and older folks beaming at each other with pride. I’m so glad it went well, at least up until we left. Who knows…

That was another victory for us. We wanted our family who live with us to have a great “parents of the bride” experience, and it looks like they did.

Now we can go to Goliad State Park tomorrow, at least briefly!