David woke up with a fever last night, and is sick in the same way he was sick last week:  fever, with no other apparent symptoms.

I can’t think what is causing this.  The Evil Eye, maybe?  Who gave my pretty baby the Evil Eye?  I need to get myself an egg and bowl, I think.

*

Talking of evil, the Chronicle reports Houston is being invaded by a new species of ant.  They don’t sting, fortunately, but they invade yards, pools, and homes in plague-like swarms.  Their willingness to nest in electrical boxes can cause thousands of dollars in damage.  I have a sudden urge to move.  I’m thinking someplace far.

Fiona graduated from UH this weekend.  In fact, she didn’t just graduate, she graduated summa cum laude.  I think.  In any case, she done good, real good.  She hosted a party at her new house.

C&D came home remembering all their ASL signs.  We’ll have to visit with Fiona again.

*

David making a picture to mail to one of the grandmas for Mother’s Day.  First he tried to make a circle.  It turned out a bit oblong so, making lemonade out of his lemons, said, "I made a trash bag!"  I’m sure grandmothers all around would have loved a picture of a trash bag for Mother’s Day.  To decorate his trash bag, he banged his marker against the paper, then asked me why the tip was a smushed blob.

Carmen made a shape, added accent lines and called it a banana.  Then she colored it yellow.

*

Last week David suffered under a mysterious fever.  I kept track of his temperatures and ibuprofen dosages with a dry-erase marker and a china marker.

When he started to feel better, David requested artwork.  First, he asked I draw clouds.  Sure.  "Make rain," he ordered next.  "And thunder."  Done.  "Do you want lightning too?" I asked him.  "Yeeeah," he said and smiled.  "Then," he directed, "draw Mommy and Daddy and David and Carmen and Carmen and David are crying because it’s thunder."  I did, and he was satisfied.

*

Sherry and Roy came over on Monday bringing gifts for C&D:  gardening tools for our new square foot garden.  After spending a minute stunned and asking if that day was their birthday, then grabbed armfuls of tools and ran downstairs to try them out.

Sherry and Roy also brought two gardening carts, which Carmen wanted to ride outside.  It’s almost as fun as a pony, maybe even better.

While she was trying it out (you can see in the background the bricks and cinder blocks we have been harvesting from recent residential demolition)

David was trying out the shovels and hand tools. 

Carmen went back inside, pulling the cart thunk-thunk-thunk upstairs where she could roll it around more easily, and admire her new presents without her kid brother in the way.

We had to go to the library later, so David rode in the stroller clutching his shovel like other kids clutch teddy bears.  Thanks, Sherry.

How is it that we use "register" for that machine that goes cha-ching! (or, nowadays, beep!) at the grocery store as it adds our grocery bill, but also for describing our feeling when we make an observation, or we suddenly find a new understanding?  When the world makes sense, do we feel rich?

Just wondering.  I had more of a point to that observation but forgot it by the time I turned my computer on from its sleep and started up Live Writer (the little software app I use to write in the blog).  Too bad, I think I was going to be clever and deep, or at least one of the two.  Or, so I thought.

I feel a little more fluffy-headed this evening because, even though I took two long naps today, I’m tired.  After sleeping through dinner and waking up at bedtime, I decided to lie in bed and read a book called In the Shadow of Memory by Floyd Skloot on the recommendation of a friend.  A case of encephalitis left him with a broken brain and a broken sense of self.  As he began to work through and around his new deficits, he did what he needed to do:  he wrote. 

Because I’m tired, and because my reading comprehension isn’t always as good as I’d like to pretend it is, I’m forgetting some details as I’m reading.  But I have found some bits that have registered and resonated, even though the nature of my brain injury is so much simpler and milder than Mr. Skloot’s.  In fact, that’s what’s so impressive:  by taking the time and making the extraordinary effort to speak for himself, he speaks for many more.  Like the art they are, I wish to post these book-bits up somewhere I can see them later.  I decided this was the best place. 

(Somewhere between decided to do that and actually doing that I thought of the register thing, which appeared, took form, and then floated away, like clouds that resemble objects and then blow away as soft smudges.)

On moving to the country four years after his injury in the essay "Wild in the Woods:  Confessions of a Demented Man":

I still equated the city with self-sufficiency.  But . . . I began to consider escaping the frenzy, fleeing the noise and energy and congestion.  It would always be difficult for me to think clearly, but being surrounded by urban commotion made it worse.  I felt scattered.  I had come to see that it was impossible to slow down in the city.  It was impossible to find harmony between my surroundings and my newly diminished self, reined in, slowed down, isolated from the worlds of work, running, and community that I had always lived in.  There was too much stimulation, too much outer life for a person in my situation.  I had nothing but time on my hands but was living where time seemed accelerated.  I needed an emptier place, I thought, pared down, humbler; a place where I could embrace as fitting my circumstances.

I’ve always wanted to be a country girl, driving tractors, riding horses, wearing jeans chatting at the feed store.  When I was Carmen’s age my favorite uniform was cowboy boots and overalls.  I had  a cowboy hat with a peacock feather in it.  My favorite visiting place in my childhood memory was Dr. Villafaña’s ranch somewhere around Poth, Texas, where the soil was sandy.  He had a ranch house with a windmill (that my grandfather helped repair), a pasture full of jackrabbits, and the whole sky to watch. 

In grad school I discovered backpacking, declaring public lands my own personal ranch, traveling for the luxury of tip-toeing over rocks in cold streams and spending hours listening to the wind pass over the landscape.  At home Matt and I rode our bikes over country roads, waving at the neighbors, watching the cotton and rice mature to harvest, feeling the coastal wind push against us. 

We moved here to be closer to the heart of the city.  Houston’s best museums, universities, libraries, and artists are an easy walk or drive away.  We figured if we were going to live in Houston, we would live in the center of it, not in a suburb where even a trip for groceries involved a car ride and traffic.  While, especially in the light of the AVM and my aversion to driving and long car trips, this was the best decision.  But I am often overwhelmed here.  I want to scratch away the sound of the traffic.  I hate to cross the street alone, because I don’t always feel like I can be alert and look as quickly as the cars which might in any instant have a green light, decide to make a rolling right, or speed through an illegal left.  At night as we walk I focus on moving forward, making quick glances to the left and right carefully, so I don’t lose my balance and stagger.  Roadsides feel cluttered and unkempt (not like a row of strip malls is pretty in any perspective); residential streets make little impression because while walking or riding in a car I can’t bear to look beyond the sidewalk and when I do, it’s too easy to forget what I’ve just seen.  I moved here because I wanted to be closer to people but sometimes I feel stifled by them, overwhelmed by them and their noises and smells and accents and comments that I smile and nod to even though I have no idea what I’ve just heard.  I am surrounded by friends, but sometimes don’t feel comfortable enough to act properly friendly, while other times I struggle to enjoy their company because we meet at a place where background activity competes for my attention.  It’s too busy, and I wish to get away, spend all my time someplace where the sky changes slowly, the vistas are open, and the only fast movements are those of the birds hopping and singing in a nearby tree. 

So when I read that after his brain injury Floyd Skloot left the city, where everything he needed was in walking distance, and familiar as a home of several years, I nodded, marked the page, and imagined myself somewhere else.  I continue to improve operating in those distracting, everyday places; a couple of weeks ago I actually caught a math error at the co-op while chitchatting with the cashier (a real achievement, nevermind I forgot to pay for the $18 box of vegetables in my arms).  When the sensory noise of my semi-urban environment bothers me less or finally feels as natural as the breeze, when I feel like I can drive further without being dizzy and exhausted, I wonder if I’ll feel the same way.

*

On verbal mistakes, in the same essay:

I am safe with them only when I am alone and writing, able to correct myself before anyone hears or sees the mistakes.

We all make verbal mistakes, or forget names, but it’s a little disconcerting when those mistakes happen several times a week, or day.  It’s also embarrassing because I don’t like to break my sense of cool.  Cool people make sense.  Mommies, especially.

A couple of weeks ago we were all in the car, off to run a quick errand.  Midway down the next block, we spotted our neighbors and their two dogs.  I waved enthusiastically, and to demonstrate to C&D proper friendly neighborliness, I cried out loud, "Look! Bye, Lisa!  Bye, Kirby!  Bye, horsies! Bye, horsies!"  As Matt prepared to make a right I wanted to sink into my seat.  "Bye, doggies, bye doggies."   I hoped Kirby and Lisa didn’t hear, and didn’t know how to read lips.  Carmen and David didn’t bother to say anything, either.  I think they’ve gotten used to it.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if more of my verbal centers had been compromised while repairing the AVM.  The possibilities leave me boggled, and grateful.

*

In "Living Memory," about managing to ride a bike in Ireland:

I didn’t know if I could still ride a bicycle.  When people say that it’s one of things you never forget how to do, they’re not taking brain damage into account. 

I still haven’t tried riding my bike.  I know I probably *can* ride it, I’m just not sure I’ll like it, nor am I sure I won’t break my head again.  I’m afraid of going so fast, and I’m not sure I know how to ride a bike slowly.  I’m also afraid of having to be so coordinated braking, turning, clipping in and out.  And I’m afraid that once I realize I can do these things, I’m going to collapse in bed silly and giddy, and need to sleep for the rest of the weekend. 

*

In "Living Memory," being hyper-aware after a brain injury:

I am often turned inward by the very nature of the damage to my brain, checking systems, working at remembering, thinking about where I walk, looking hard at the obstacles in my path so they will register and be avoided, reminding myself to breathe.  When I listen to people speak, I have to alert myself to block out competing stimuli–here on Achill the raucous call of a corncrake or cattle lowing on Krinnuck, rain against the windows, the movement of hedge or heather in wind.  Each slight peculiarity of sensation, however normal, raises an alarm for someone who is chronically ill.  Was that slight twinge in my gut something sinister?  Why is my right eye fluttering?  We become obsessed with the inner world.

Even though Floyd Skloot’s immune system is a bit off-kilter, and even though he’s living with a damaged brain, I don’t see him as chronically "ill," he’s just not typical.  Very much not typical.  Suddenly different myself–even if it’s only by a few IQ points and  some new quirks–I understand this.  As much as I’ve always enjoyed and craved company, sometimes I feel comfortable only within myself, and within myself I really only have one primary subject:  me.  Moving and thinking more deliberately, more singularly, I am constantly checking my gauges, metering my energy levels, my anxiety levels, my breathing and heart rate.  I listen so I know my engine is good for the next leg of the race, tonight at the playground, tomorrow at the appointment, next week at a gathering.  But then I watch my gauges and listen longer, harder, look for patterns, wary for the next time I might be similarly blindsided, next time not with a bleeding brain, but maybe something else.  I get out and seek a healthy distraction, but if I’m not careful my senses and thoughts rebound back in toward myself tired and on an emotional and cognitive edge.

Completed Mother’s Day, 2008.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  I’m not getting anything, and we’re not even doing anything out of the ordinary.  The ordinary–Carmen and David being their usual talkative, energetic selves–is plenty.

Mother’s Day weekend is also the weekend Rice holds its commencement ceremonies.  The weather has been appropriately hot and sticky.  This morning I realized Matt graduated 10 years ago today; Kurt Vonnegut spoke, with tender wisdom.  Ten years later, Matt’s living less than two miles from his own dorm, and a few doors away from his college Masters.

We had forgotten all about graduation until last night.  We were walking back from a late visit to the post office and heard a large boom coming from the south.  After we heard another series of booms in succession, we realized we were hearing fireworks from Rice’s stadium lot.  Graduation!  We stopped at Woodhead so C&D could watch the show.  They screamed, of course, and couldn’t bear to look.  Neighbors watched us through darkened windows.  Bad mommy; I had forgotten the fiasco of last year’s Fourth of July.  C&D hadn’t forgotten, of course, and I had an earful of it last night and again this morning.

We can’t help but like the Biscuit Brothers around here. The music is catchy, and it’s clear those Austin-based "brothers" have a rich sense of humor. Who else would write a song about chickens and bongo drums? I sing and laugh along, too.

Here’s one more:

I could write a post on the Biscuit Brothers and their role in C&D’s musical growth, but . . . later. I have to clean up the house before my fortissimo children are back from the post office. (That means that David’s fever broke, finally, Friday morning. Whatever it was, the rest of us didn’t catch it. Whew.)

is normalcy.

After he was not very hungry all day, and was clingy, and yawning, and even after David told me at lunch his belly hurt, I deluded myself into thinking David was okay, just a little . . . tired.  As he napped I watched him break out in goosebumps, and listened to him groan.  Holding his hot little body on my lap, I measured a 103* F fever.

Darn, anyway. 

I had plans for tonight, fun things, silly things, but now I just hope for a decent night’s sleep and a healthy family.

It’s good that a  picture says a thousand words, because this post is mainly pictures.  You can fill in the rest.

*

My postponed birthday last Friday, post-cupcakes from Sugar Baby’s.  You can see the evidence on David’s chin.

Saturday, May 4th, the Faerie Festival at Lucia’s Garden.  We didn’t want to go home.

At home, we finally figured out how to sit on Daddy’s car.

The bit of 59 between our house and our old neighborhood has the best taco trucks driving along it.  Now, really, how could you not want a taco gordo?  Ice cream trucks bore in comparison.

Carmen can tie loop-knots on my old running shoes.  Over, and over, and over.

*

George Ranch

Now, for your daily RDA of George Ranch pictures.

Somebody (the chickens?) dug up an aloe vera.  We were happy to replant it in exchange for a chance to use the shovels.

After fixing the aloe, we weeded a bit of the garden.  We figure the George Ranch has just as good adopted us, we might as well adopt them back.  We’ll be looking for more chores to do when we visit.

After the planting, C&D played in the dirt at the front porch.  They got a little bit dirty.

These bloomed this week, all over.  I need to figure out what they are.  The color was almost ultraviolet to my eye.  I wonder what the bees think about these.

On the way toward the 1930′s complex we investigated an old tractor.  The loader scoop was just the right height.