Cinco de Mayo

I confused Cinco de Mayo w Dia De Los Muertos. So, never mind. (It's the morphine)

For the last couple of days I've had trouble breathing. I took a bunch of meds and when Michelle came in at 3:30 a.m. to check on me she couldn't wake me. I was snoring though, so she knew I was still here.

At some point i awoke to a sopping bed, as if i'd dumped a bottle. When i pulled off the oxygen mask, drops of sweat went flying. I got up and changed the washable incontinence pads Jessica gave me last week and went back to sleep. 

At 6 a.m. I awoke to the feeling of drowning. No matter how much air i sucked, it wasn't enough! I got a mono-nitrate (for angina) & some ondansetron (anti-nausea) down and .75 ml of morphine (good 4 whut ails yuh) in grape kool-aid. (Don't forget the cap and a quarter of "lax" tuh keep things regular.)

I added a Guaifenesin (600mg) to clear the congestion in my throat and took 1/2 a clonazapam to ease the nervous-in-the-service anxiety (it doesn't make me aggressive the way lorazapam does), rolled a spliff & sat back to wait.

Jessica came yesterday. She'd been to another estate sale where, she said, they were practically throwing stuff at people. I think she paid $5 for this $101.46 (from Home Despot) tea kettle.

When she saw it, she said, she thought of me.

IA couple of years ago, when even a sip of cawfee became too much, I switched to tea. She'd noticed the heirloom pots atop the cabinets.

Handed down from Michelle's grandmother, I guess she figured I could do w one of my own.

I gave her a copy of Earth Power Coming, edited by Simon Ortiz.

I got my first copy of EPC from Anna Lee Walters. Her story The Warriors is in it.

We met at a conference many years ago when she was director of the Navajo Community College Press.

I was a wet-behind-the-ears Marketing Analyst for UNM Press and she was kind to me. Not that others weren't, but this is academia. I only had a masters and everyone else had their PhD.

Simon attended the same high school as Jessica, in Grants. If you've ever been to Grants you'd know it's amazing they both survived. There's nothing to do in Grants but get drunk & roll your car. Very few live past 10th grade; median age is 7. If it weren't for the promiscuity, the town'd die out.

So, i emailed Dr. Hawk & Jessica i was ready. I transferred everything from Webull, the trading platform, over to checking, emailed Steve, brother-in-law i was checking out; even accosted Andrea, neighbor who let me plant corn & melons next to her driveway and told her i was gonna do the MAID. (Sort of like the boogaloo, but more lasting.)

We held each other, Michelle and I, on the bed and cried. Parting may be sweet sorrow, but leaving is devastating.

I talked w Kristen. She was atop the mtn at Chiricahua Ntl Monument.

For stories we read three of the Holban's Frances books: Bread & Jam, Best Friends and Gloria's (baby sister) Birthday.

This morning, at 3:30, i awoke to a miracle. Try as i might, i couldn't have trouble breathing. I have no symptoms...none. I was inclined to run around the golf course. Instead, i admired the tea kettle and made cawfee...w cream. 

At 5 Michelle came and we did the morphine, rectally.

The oral route was causing day-long nausea, but after 5 days, Rosebud needed a break. Even tho i only take it every 24 hours, i only got a couple hours respite, at the end, from the nausea. Rectal has its own issues incl a bitter taste in my mouth that no amt of toothbrushing will erase. The pink isn't as bad. When i asked about upping the fentanyl the nurse said it's for pain; the morph is for everything else. "Take the morph," she said.

Rosebud wasn't really happy, but he cooperated.

As i was having breakfast i noticed the light.

Now, at 7:30, imma try and sleep abit more. 

Kristen & Edmond's Visit

It's a whirlwind tour. Leaving from Atascadero, California, driving to Durango to pick up the trailer, then south to Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico for a five-day workshop on clay...with materials sourced from the nearby hills and arroyos.

A stop for brunch at Denny's in Albert's Turkey. Thence to Cruces to visit family and on into the semi-wilds of eastern Arizona's Cochise Stronghold and Chiricahua Ntl Monument. Eventually back to Rancho Mirage, a suburb of Palm Springs.

The Apache Plume provide a nice buffer from the street.

Kristen checks out the red & black corn poppies as Edmond gives me a tour of the Alto.

AI Portrait

The topic of "we" came up. I can't remember when I started thinking of myself as the royale We, but here I am....w a nod to AI.

Best Month So Far

For the time being, I'm limiting my trading amount to $4,000.00. Depending on whether I'm in the midst of a trade, i try and close out everything at the end of the month & transfer any above the $4k to checking. It's not always possible, but this month worked out nicely.

Opera Basics - Mozart's The Magic Flute

As part of their efforts to entice more attendendees (and appreciation), the Santa Fe Opera offers informative lectures on the season's repertoire.

They're, the lectures (it's plural so it's THERE'RE, not there's), in the Presbyterian Church

New Mexico Sky!!

The Placitas Artist Series helped sponsor

 in Placitas, a Hispanic Land Grant hamlet on the NW side of the Sandia Mountains.

The View in the Window

Back in the '70s, besides the church, the plaza and a few houses, it was open space. But in the 'early '80s they started building. Mostly custom homes, the 3,200 sq ft ones are the hovels.

Back in the day, over 35 years ago, when I was living w One El, she characterized Mozart as "sewing machine music." 

I was expecting performers from the opera company or, maybe, if not real performers, apprentices? It turned out to be a guy who's been doing this - he said - for 29 years. And the first time was for The Magic Flute.

He quoted from Wagner and I paraphrase, "This, The Magic Flute, is a timeless piece (he makes it sound as if he's gonna throw a compliment) that will appeal to the suburban Viennese..the hoi polloi."

And so it was. If you heard Bill Cosby's story about the go karts

you'll know the sound:

nnuh, nnnuh, nnuhh, nnnuhh, nuuuuunnhhhhHHHH!

nnuh, nnnuh, nnuhh, nnnuhh, nuuuuunnhhhhHHHH!

The lecturer was great! Funny and knowledgeable, but it was Mozart. I lasted 45 minutes, came home and baked cinnamon rolls to some real music,

We used to get standing room tickets for $10.00 (they're now $25). Then, at intermission, when the old people couldn't stand to sit any longer (tha's a joke...stand to sit any longer...get it?), we'd go out to the parking lot and ask 'em for their tickets. They always seemed pleased to be able to hand 'em off and we'd sit through the remainder, sometimes in choice spots.

Nowadays, and even then, if the performance isn't well-attended, the ushers'll turn a blind eye as the lights go down and you slide into open seats. Cuz iffen you aren't seated by then you have to wait 'til intermission to goto yer seat.

New Ride & Accomodation

Volvo XC60 T8 and Alto trailer.

Link to Safari Condo R (retractable roof) Trailers

They stopped by Saturday, 2.May

We had brunch at Denny's

Danielle of Conscious Crossroads

We first met in the Spring of '24. I was looking for someone to sit w me through a "heroic dose."

Despite her extraordinary story of near death and her near-death-experience, she seemed, at less than 40 years of age, too young.

When i hired Dr. Fatima to sit w me I paid Danielle's fee too. I wanted them to have time together and thought the experience might be useful in future work w Danielle. 

So when, on the 18th, i was hugging the throne and feeling desirous of some hand-holding and realizing hospice was busy, i called Danielle. Though her response came quickly, she was on her way back from Switzerland after accompanying a couple who utilized the Swiss option for self-deliverance to check out together.

Yesterday we spent an hour and a half talking about that trip, navigating the roller-coaster of good and bad days and different ways to approach one's death. 

She described how the roller-coaster actually defines the parameters of quality of life and provides a state of ambivalence that encourages someone to explore how to die.

We scheduled for once a month through July.