Day 25 WK. Before Kenny retired, we lived in Woodstock. Which meant that whenever happened at the school that required opening something, closing something or finding something during the off-hours, Kenny was called. I never once heard him tell anybody no. I did hear him grumble a few times when journeying out required putting on pants and shoes, but he was always ready to help. That was just his nature. If he could do something about a problem, he was ready to go. The picture that accompanies this post is the first time Central hosted a cheerleading competition. He recruited me to help set up the room for the judges with some drinks and snacks. He took this competition every bit as seriously as any other athletic competition, making sure that he read all the rules and requirements prior to the event. It went so well that Central hosted many more. Once again a problem solver, taking this on when other schools did not want to host.

I got a letter today from the hospice that is affiliated with UVa. I know this organization helps a lot of people, but for us, it was a hindrance as we had to put off things to wait for paperwork to be completed. It was awful. Not helpful at all. And now I am receiving a form letter with my name stamped on top with advice on how to grieve and I am just so angry. (Which the letter says it is OK to be angry...) They failed when it came to problem-solving for my husband and my family. They needed a little Kenny Rinker problem-solving. Get it done and then do the paperwork. And don't make promises you will not keep.

Eye-eye-eye

Like most people, I despise being sick or otherwise out of commission. Last week, I had to have surprise surgery on my right eye which knocked me out of work for a week.
I refer to it as surprise surgery because it wasn't really emergency surgery, but it certainly was not in my plans. However, walking around with an eye that appeared to have (from my perspective) a frosted window pane was not an option. So, hi-ho off to surgery I did go.
Originally, I told the doctor to knock me out. It didn't seem like a good idea to be in a state of semi-awake during a surgery on my eye. Call me crazy.
Then, as the nurses were asking me questions, I ascertained that being knocked out would add an hour to my recovery time and could possibly make me sick to my stomach. I changed the order with the promise that if I started to freak out that they would push some good drugs into my IV and send me to twilight. And I am not talking about the one with vampires.
I did get knocked out so that they could give me a shot in the eye, but then I came out of it and they wrapped my head in some kind of turban covering my face with room for my mouth and nose and the right eye,
The doc asked me what kind of music I wanted to listen to and my thought was to make him as happy as possible, so I said "What do you like to listen to?" We eventually settled on the Eagles and a Don Henley song was playing when surgery began.
Fortunately, I could not see what was going on, though I could hear some noises.Nothing freaky or unpleasant. Kenny told me when they did laser surgery on his eyes that he could smell the laser. Thank goodness I could not because he shot my eye with 910 bolts of laser.
The other fun fact is that in order to perform the vitrectomy, he had to scrape my cornea. It felt about as bad as that sounds. Image a thin dime-sized piece of sandpaper in your eye for four days. On second thought, don't imagine it.
All-in-all, I have healed nicely. The vision has not returned to normal yet, but my eye has been dilated for five days straight. I an hopeful that tomorrow will be different. I have been cleared to drive and to return to work. I have been chomping at the bit. Not a lot you can do when you can't look at any type of light (like a computer, television or even a mirror - maybe I am a vampire.)
The doctor did give me a bright pink eye patch which I have used today to keep my eye closed. Either I have a large head or this was really designed for a kid because after a couple of hours when I took it off, I could feel the blood surge to my head.
As I type this blog entry, I am squinting one-eyed at the screen. Patch is on the desk. Think I will leave that at home tomorrow. Here's hoping that right eye will be all right!

Autumn is a lovely word

Fall is the familiar word for this season, but autumn sounds more beautiful, more descriptive.

The Latin word autumnus is actually predated by the French word automne. Before autumn became commonly known, the season was referred to as harvest which is also a lovely term that evokes images of farmers hard at work in the fields bringing in their crops.


There are thousands of reasons to love autumn. It is the flashiest month. Its color bursts upon the scene and quickly fades. Nature's fireworks. Not only because of the reds, yellows, golds and oranges, but because of the unpredictability of the season. We never know exactly when the maples will go from faded green to bright orange. Some years the colors are dim - like an aging watercolor. At other times the boldness is breathtaking with the heft of an oil portrait layered with just the right mixture.

The art metaphor extends from the individual trees to the patchwork quilt of the mountains that guard our valley. On those days when the air is clean and the sky is bright, the texture of the mountains is palpable. A feast for the eyes.

Dear autumn, I feel to the pore
The speechless beauty of your 
Stippled canvas.
Your leaves amass 
And add to the deep, rich brew
That accompanies your hue.
I drink you with the sunrise
Each dawn a sweet new surprise.
Dear autumn.

Dad in April at their 50th wedding anniversary party

To see or not to see

I am up way past my bedtime because I keep thinking about what is going to happen tomorrow.

Flash back to mid-September and you would find a very surprised me sitting in the chair at the eye doctor being told that my cataracts are ripe for the picking. Well, he didn't say picking, but he did tell me I have ripe cataracts.

How can this be? That's something grandmothers have done, right? I am not even eligible for AARP (which annoyingly seems to keep lowering its age of acceptance. Pretty soon when you turn 29 they'll start sending you the Aging Gracefully magazine.

I am thinking about eating something. I am not hungry. It's the thought that I will not be able to eat until probably after 3 p.m. tomorrow that makes me want to stuff something in - like a cow packing in cud for winter. Not an attractive metaphor, perhaps, but you know what I mean. 


Eye drops. That's all I can have tomorrow. Not even gum or a mint, the nurse told me. I said, "Wow." And she replied, "That's right! Nothing at all."


I am uncertain how having a mint would affect my surgery. Except that she mentioned that violation of the anti-intake rule would cause automatic default and no surgery for me.


And I know I want this done. I have been really struggling the past six months or so. I figured it had something to do with being on the computer all the time. Or all that crying. If tears can grow cataracts, then my cataracts should have cataracts.


So the doc said that they will use a special tool to cut my eye. crunch up my lens, suck it out and replace it with a prosthetic lens which will enable me to see better than I ever have. I will be Steve Austin. We can rebuild him... The Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin, by the way, not the wrestler. My brother had that doll when we were kids. I'm sorry - action figure. Boys didn't play with dolls. Anyway, the doll version of the SMDM had a window in the back of his head so that you could see through his super eye which had some kind of magnifying lens in it.


I just re-read that paragraph. I think it is time to go to bed and dream of the day when I will be able to see when I wake up in the morning. I bet I'll feel like six million bucks.

Duke

My husband's birthday was May 1.

I was in a quandary. What should I get him for his birthday. Kenny is not the type to request things and if you ask him what he wants he invariably says "Nothing." And he means it. Whereas if my reply to the same question was "Nothing" that would - in reality - mean "I want you to read my mind and come up with the perfect gift that will prove just how much you love me." With some men this might work. Not with my husband. That is why I bought my birthday present, told him what it was and how much it cost and he bought me flowers and a card.

Back to his birthday. Everything this year has been colored by my Dad's illness and subsequent death. It has become a frame of reference for me - good or bad. When I came up with my plan for Kenny's birthday, I was very much feeling aware of mortality and our limited time on this planet.

Do you remember the humorist columnist Erma Bombeck? She wrote a column asking women why they don't use the good china or allow the kids to sit on the living room furniture. She was an advocate (after many years of doing the opposite) of living each day fully. Don't put off until tomorrow...

In that frame of mind, I decided to buy my husband a 1976 Chevy Nova SS. My uncle bought the car five years ago. It is in mint condition. Only 7300 original miles. It is black with gold trim (perfect for the Pittsburgh fan)! It is two-door and even has an eight-track tape player.

Kenny had talked about getting an old muscle car many times, but it was in the context of "some day." May 1, 2010 turned out to be some day.

There was some risk in doing this. Kenny might decide I lost my mind and have me committed. Uncle E gave me a good deal on the car, actually a great deal on the car - but it still was risky to make this kind of decision without consulting my bank partner.

I had Uncle E deliver the car to Central High School on that Saturday. Kenny had gone out to Marty's to work on the farm in the morning, so I had a brief window of opportunity to get the car to the house  before Kenny came home. The only problem was that it took awhile to get the car off the trailer. So I called him and asked if he could meet me at the high school.

"Why?" he asked. "So I can see my new golf cart?"

Now Kenny is one of those people who always guesses his gifts. I try hard to surprise him and he invariably figures it out. I was so excited that he thought that I was getting him a golf cart for running between the fields at the school. (Actually, that would have been a much cheaper present...had I thought of it.)

So when he pulled up at the high school and I was standing beside the car, he was surprised. Really surprised. I asked him what he said when he saw the car and he said "Holy X#@$!"

The Nova definitely made him the envy of many of his friends who probably took the opportunity to mention to their wives what I did. Sorry, girls.

The story - and the spending - did not stop there, however. We only had a carport. Notice I said "had." Kenny decided that we needed to enclose the carport for the Nova. "What about my car?" I asked. My Cadillac CTS may be four years old, but she deserves a garage too. So we now have a two-car garage.

But before the bucks started flying for that, my husband had to improve upon his sweet ride by adding chrome wheels, new tires and Flowmaster headers. Yeah, you can hear him coming from a mile away.

Dad liked the idea that Kenny got his dream muscle car. He thought the world of my husband and Kenny loved him too. Mom and Dad came up Memorial Day weekend and Kenny took Dad for a ride around town and then they blew a little carbon out on I-81. Dad came back with a grin on his face. Then it was Mom's turn. She came back with a grin too, though her hair was a little messed up.

We named the car Duke. Kenny is a graduate of JMU and the car needed a tough, masculine name to match its muscle car ID.

I asked Kenny to pick me up at the office the other night. I was running a little late and I figured he might be ticked off that he had to sit in the parking lot for a half hour. When I got to the door I realized why he hadn't been calling me and fussing about my tardiness. A small group of men were standing around Kenny and Duke.

I smiled to myself as I got into the car. "Thanks, Duke," I whispered. This birthday present may turn out to be my little ace in the hole.

Anniversary

Our wedding anniversary is next week.

I am trying to think of something special for us to do to commemorate our nine years of wedded bliss.

There are some things we definitely should not do. We should not paint the walls of any room - no matter how small - together. We got the big idea to save money and paint our entire downstairs, including the stairway to the second floor and the hallway up there. Not good. Not only is painting much more painful than you probably remember, we almost killed each other. I was a little afraid that we may have trapped our anger in the paint where it will lurk until just the right moment (probably when we are assembling a piece of furniture.)

Also, I will not be giving Kenny computer lessons for an anniversary present - unless I hire someone else to do it. He is not a fan. As a teacher, he knows how to use his work computer, but take him out of that environment and try to show him some trick or shortcut and his face gets red and he starts to sputter about the evils of Facebook and Twitter (and he doesn't even know what Twitter is).

We also will not go to the woods to "sight" his guns in preparation for hunting season. Hunting was never part of my life until we got married. As I type this blog, two sets of glassy deer eyes are staring at me from across the room. Last year when we took his guns to the woods to sight them, he brought his handgun which he encouraged me to try out.

The gun was heavy. I leaned forward and tried to do everything he was telling me to do and I forgot that the gun might have a kick - because it is a .357 magnum. I pulled the trigger and the gun caught me on the side of my nose. After he stopped laughing and the stars circling my head retreated, I pouted the rest of the way home because he was more worried that something (my cartilage) may have scarred his gun.

So I have been thinking about something romantic and quiet and fun. I have not consulted him yet because I am afraid there will be a volleyball game or cross country meet or other event on Sept. 22. Work has a habit of getting in the way of life these days.

Whatever we do (or don't do) being Mrs. Rinker has been an interesting experience (in a good way, not like the Chinese curse). Having lived alone the majority of my adult life, stepping into the married world was a bit of a shock at first, but I have settled into this role quite nicely.

I'll let you know what happens next week.