Estimates

Today I think what I felt the best about during my time at my father's was vacuuming and cleaning the laundry room windows, not something that needed to be done now by any means, but it made me feel better, when things look better over there it feels less overwhelming. I also reorganized the mounting pile of things in the living room (waiting for some place to donate them to reopen) so they were more compact.

I started a new strategy last week where I drive over to my dad's to work on sorting etc, then bike home. Then a day or two later I bike back to work a while and drive home. It's a good way to get some exercise and time outside. Today I drove over and biked back using his bike - to try it out. I wasn't really in the mood for a bike ride even though it was a gorgeous day. My partner recently asked me what I thought about willpower. I'm kind of negative on it, it seems to me that using willpower often creates its own opposite force. Yet upon further reflection I am certain of the power of habits, and I suppose habits are built on willpower. Anyway, it's good that biking is a habit for me and that usually once I decide to do something I do it, because though I didn't enjoy my bike ride as much as last week, I'm sure it was good for me. I even started to meander a bit, I didn't go the shortest, most direct route.

As a result of this I went down a block in South Minneapolis where I thought I heard a parade. A parade? Now? I continued to investigate, it wasn't a parade, it was a really cool block of neighbors out on their sidewalks, stoops etc playing music - drums, cowbells etc together! They were just finishing as I rode past. I saw a house for sale on the block so I looked it up when I got home - it is on the pricey side (in fact twice as much as some of its neighbors - so you might want to wait), but it is certainly a cool street - 3941 Harriet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55409.

When I got home I saw the first flower had emerged outside our side door. I had this quote in my head that I read somewhere recently.

"Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." ― Georgia O'Keeffe.

So I decided to sit down and see the flower. At first I was distracted moving rocks that should not have been in the lawn. But eventually I took it in and decided to get my journal to draw it. I knew though drawing can be stressful for me, to try would force me to see it more fully.

It did. I did not have the right colors, the part inside the thin yellow ring was a difficult to describe hue, but I did my best.

Piecing It Together

I just realized how long it's been since I've been in the home alone here. A long time! Michael just left to pick up an order at the hardware store and then get his daughters for the week. The only other time he's been gone somewhere is to take a short walk. Maybe that is why I haven't left yet for my weekly grocery trip, I am now alone briefly before the house is full. We have modified the kids' schedule with this and instead of going back and forth throughout the week, they do one full week with each parent.

Every week when I go to the grocery store things change. I already know this week's change (or at least I think I do), which is that almost everyone has their mouth covered. Usually I'm only there once a week, but we stopped there unexpectedly on Friday and I didn't plan to go in, but Michael wanted me to and almost everyone else had a face cover, I felt a bit negligent. It does make sense to me that it protects other people if you are asymptomatic.

The best info I've been getting on all this are the Cuomo brothers. Andrew Cuomo, governor of NY, whom I knew nothing about previously, and his brother the news anchor who is giving informative and honest firsthand accounts of the illness.

Michael woke up today with a start/wondering why his alarm didn't go off and then soon after abruptly came back. He thought it was Monday. Monday mornings he and I have been doing our own yoga class together, so I would have been up if it was Monday. Anyway, I tried to get him to do a different exercise with me, but he wanted to sit outside with some tea. So thanks to Pandora and Macklemore, I found the gumption to motivate myself. I told myself I'd do a half hour, but the hardest part is always starting and I kept going and even made a new exercise (to me) of chest arm pulses with light weights.

There is a public television special on Tuesday on the 1918 flu pandemic, I'm not sure if it is a rerun of a previous show or if they happened to pull that together recently. Either way I wouldn't have watched it previously but want to now. I was thinking about trying to get Michael to bike over with me and watch it at my dad's so we could get some exercise too.

Speaking of my dad. I found in my 2016 journal something I'd told at my dad's memorial service, but with more detail, a conversation I'd had with my dad in the car.

The nurse told my dad that his father really had a strong heart, it just kept going.

"Yeah but it's really hard on my mom," my dad replied. "Because it was," he said to me. "So maybe I killed him because later the hospital called to say you better get over here, and he died the next morning. He was in terrible pain."

"Was he on hospice or wasn't there hospice?" I asked.

"There wasn't any hospice. The doctor didn't want to make him a drug addict. I should have shot him, pardon my language, I'm still pissed off about that."

(This was 40 years later. I thought he meant he should have shot his father to put him out of his pain, but when I read it here it makes it sound like he should have shot the doctor.)
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A couple more gratitudes

#1- A friend who reached out on email and asked for some prayers - going thru a rough time - I'm grateful to be asked.

#2 - My brother said he got 8 good hours of sleep for the first time in a while.

Persistence

I tried to get everyone out for a bike ride earlier this week, but no one was convinced. Everyone pretty much stayed in the house all week.

So I decided to use my "family" activity for the month to make some outdoor exercise happen. (In January we started doing a monthly "family activity". It's going well so far, it rotates each month with who decides what we are going to do. April is my turn.) So last night I said, "We are going to go for a bike ride, picnic and frisbee golf for my activity this month. Does lunchtime work for everyone?" Michael doesn't usually work on the weekend, but the job Michael got in Dec is at a company in the grocery business. They have been busy and Michael had something he needed to finish up today, so we decided on a picnic dinner.

I asked the girls to meet me at the garage at 3:40pm, the three of us hadn't biked yet this year and I knew our tires would need filling, so I gave us some extra time to get ready.

I got all the food packed, the sun was out, and we were going somewhere.

However when we pulled the bikes down the tire was flat on the eldest's bike. She went inside to tell Michael. We didn't have a spare tube, so he called the bike shop but of course it is not an "essential" business. What could we do? I could go get my dad's bike. But that would take more than an hour. One of us could drive, but that defeats the "family" aspect of the activity. We could see if a neighbor had a bike to borrow... One of our neighbors happened to be at her window talking to some people outside, I ran over when they were done and inquired if she happened to have a bike we could use. "If it is a fancy bike, I understand you might not want to lend it out and that's fine." She apologized that the bike was the opposite of fancy, but that was perfect. I wasn't worried about us using it. So we got the bike and I went inside to tell Michael to finish up work because we were going after all.

On my way back out the girls came to ask if I'd heard that loud sound.

"Nope."

"Your bike tire just popped," they said.

Seriously??

I went out and yep, the tire we'd just filled was now flat.

Sigh,

I thought I may have another tube and I went inside to look. I found it and hoped it was the right size. I've changed a tire before but it's been a long time, so I didn't have a lot of patience, but eventually we got that tire changed, and soon enough were off.

A few blocks later, I realized I forgot the bread for the sandwiches.

So I turned around and biked back.

After that it turned cloudy and cool.

But we had a bike ride.

We had a picnic.

We had frisbee golf.

We had our health.

We had each other.

No Work, Other Work

Well I don't have any work right now so I have time to do things like today:

#1 - Call organizations that my father donated to, like Doctors without Borders or Amnesty International to ask them to remove him from their mailing list.

#2 - Go to the drive-thru at the bank and get a medallion signature for a document.

#3 - Do a yoga class over Zoom with my favorite instructor at the local studio. For the first half of the class I was just thinking about getting the probate filed. I kept thinking I was done with it and then I'd realize something was incorrect and I'd have to scan the documents over again. But after about a half hour of yoga, I finally landed on my mat and ended up in a place of peace.

#4 - Finally did file for probate.

#5 - I mailed what my brother and I wrote for my dad's service to a few friends and family members he was close to that were unable to make the service. I just got a very sweet reply from one who was a long-time neighbor of his which included the following -

"THANK YOU for sending the memorial you & Scott wrote. You are a very talented writer; words being your love language is so evident. There were many things about Dave which resonated with me as I read your message. There were also many aspects of Dave's life of which I was unaware.

His love language was most definitely Acts of Service..."