Farewell to a Good Friend and Neighbor

Our dear neighbor, after a valiant fight, passed away peacefully at her home with her loving husband at her side this afternoon. This wonderful person never uttered one complaint throughout her fighting this disease and worried more about how her husband was going to do whilst she had numerous surgeries, chemotherapy and many doctor's visits. Early on, we had assured her that she needn't worry, I usually cook enough food to feed an army and we would make sure he was fine. That was a relief for her and she could concentrate on fighting her cancer.



She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer already in its fourth stage. The prognosis was not good when the disease was found so late in the process. Nevertheless, she approached this battle with a determination to beat it and a grace about her to take every day in stride no matter what was handed to her. We visited her and her husband, John many times during her on going fight.




A while back, her husband John and his wife Fran, decided he needed to go shopping for what he planned to wear for her funeral. He was afraid to leave her without anyone there whilst he went shopping. This is where Steve and I decided to see if we could be of service. Steve took John to a store where we buy our suits etc., and I had a wonderful afternoon sitting with Fran talking about anything from politics, to cooking. She was very aware of her politics and even protested during the Vietnam Conflict. She told me she was never going to let "them" have her boys.




When she was convalescing, I used to cook for them and she would immediately call her sister in California and tell her what I had made and we all shared recipes back and forth. When I was sitting with her, she asked me if I would play the piano and sing for her, which I did. She was always so easy to please. Steve and John came back with some of the clothes he purchased whilst the pants would be altered and ready later. I can not imagine going shopping for the clothes I am to wear at my spouse's funeral. He did well, with Steve's help. He had come over and asked if we could go with him since he didn't think he knew enough about style etc, and I guess he thought us being gay, we would know all about that sort of thing. Little did he know. ;-)




Last night, John saw Steve watering the lawn and came over to talk. We have always been available for him to just vent and tell us how he is doing. One of our neighbors is a nurse and has been checking in on Fran along with the Hospice nurse so John was free to break away for a moment. We invited him in for a nice glass of Glen Livet scotch and sat and talked for quite awhile. I do not know if it was the scotch or the company ( or both ) but he did seem to feel better afterwards. I told him one of my bad Irish jokes, ( What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? - - -One less person drinking. ) He enjoyed the bantering a bit. Our neighbor told him she thought Fran would be passing sometime during the night, so she stayed the night with her. As it turns out Fran made it through the night and passed away this afternoon.

It has been my privilege to know her and be friends with her and John. We will miss her smile, laughter, and kindness to us.

Rest In Peace, Fran and may you enjoy many, many sunrises and sunsets on your new journey.

A Little Bit of This and That On a Wednesday

Happy belated Canada Day to all my Canadian friends!

After my eye surgery last week, I was given upon leaving the eye centre, a wee basket of red flowers. I thought it was such a nice gesture to do. The clinic, staff and physicians were super and made my visit as pleasant as could be under the circumstances. This basket was the icing on the cake for me.




A few weeks ago, I saw this urn at the local Costco and kept going back to it until my next trip to the store when I purchased it. It weighs in somewhere between 60 to 80 lbs. dry so I had a young, strong, and an eager gentleman who worked there, help place it in the basket and then another one who told me to just hold the cart whilst he did all the work of lifting it into our wee SUV. Gotta love that store. Here it is with some dirt from the "Faerie Hill" ( hope they didn't mind too much ) along with the recently transplanted Ficus tree. It seems to love its new urn.





I missed the blooming of theses wild roses in the yard by some days so these are at the end of their blooming cycle. Sorry. Next year I will watch for them and catch them just as they bloom.




Here are more of the wild roses intertwined with the berries. About five years ago, we cleaned out the berries which had taken over that area which allowed the roses to go into their growth. Slowly, they have returned. I like harvesting the berries and making pies and jams out of them but they can become over powering unless they are kept pruned back.




This last picture is of Steve and Seán helping him take a nap! Thought you would enjoy that one. He tries to help so much. ;-)

My Cataract Surgery on Tuesday Morning

For those of you who may be interested in this type of surgery, I had a cataract removed and a new lens replacing it this past Tuesday. The first picture is the ophthalmologist on the left, his assistant nurse on the right and yours truly on the table.




Here is one of my "baby-blues" pre-surgery. One can see the opaque colouring in the pupil which is the cataract. Interestingly, this is as far as they could get my eye to dilate.





Here, the physician is making an incision on the inferior surface near the iris where he will be doing all the surgery through this very tiny hole. It is about the size of a pencil tip.

He is using a tool to cut the lens into pieces in this picture.

This picture is where he is "peeling" the lens which is now in pieces.

You can see the cataract in pieces in this one and he is preparing to "vacuum" the cataract lens out of the eye.



In this picture, he is putting in the new lens. It is rolled like a crape so he can fit in through the incision where he will unfold it when it is inside the eye.

Here is the finished product.

Complements to my partner, Steve for taking these pictures off of the monitor during surgery.

What was strange was the local injection in the lower part of my eye of the anaesthetic. It will immobilize the eye and makes one blind in that eye during most of the surgery. Afterwards it took approximately 4-5 hours before it would start moving and a bit longer to get it to track properly with my other eye. Therefore, I had double vision and upon looking into the mirror, I was reminded of Professor Moody in the Harry Potter series. My one eye was moving where I wanted it to whilst the other on remained stationary. Very strange to watch when it is yourself experiencing it. I hope this didn't gross any of you out since I wanted it to be informative and not sensational.

I'm still on the mend but my vision is getting better and better as I progress. Thanks to all who sent their best wishes.
Butch

See you (literally) in a few days. ;-)

Just a note to let you all know that I'll be off the blog for a few days.

I'm having cataract surgery tomorrow morning and will be back on the

blogs when I can see better.

Until then . . .

Butch

Midsummer's Eve & The Transparent Butterfly

Greg, of the Midnight Garden's recent entry of his lantern picture, reminded me of this painting by Edward Robert Hughes, 1851-1914 entitled, Midsummer's Eve. I thought it would tie in nicely with the Transparent Butterfly at the advent of the Summer Solstice on June 21st.

Are not butterflies like the wee faeries? ;-)

I received these beautiful pictures of this amazing transparent butterfly this morning and had to share them with you. Isn't nature truly amazing? Enjoy!!

(Click on photographs to enlarge.)

Transparent Butterfly (Absolutely gorgeous! )
It comes from Central America and is found from Mexico to Panama. It is quite common in its zone, but it not easy to find because of its transparent wings, which is a natural camouflage mechanism.
A butterfly with transparent wings is rare and beautiful. As delicate as finely blown glass, the presence of this rare tropical gem is used by rain forest ecologists as an indication of high habitat quality and its demise alerts them of ecological change. Rivaling the refined beauty of a stained glass window, the translucent wings of the Glasswing butterfly shimmer in the sunlight like polished panes of turquoise, orange, green, and red. All things beautiful do not have to be full of color to be noticed: in life that which is unnoticed has the most power.

Additional Spring Photos of Our Back Yard

Some additional pictures

Here are some additional pictures I want to add to this entry starting with my Mint plants.

Some additional blossoms opened on this Iris plant. Unfortunately, Seán likes to run in between the chair and the plants when visiting his friends on the other side of the fence and the plants are the one's to suffer the consequences. I may have to transplant these so they have a chance in the future.



Here is the other Iris growing near the Lilac bush by the house with more blossoms on it.

Here's the same plant from another angle.

There are more blossoms open on the Red Prince Weigela bush we planted a few years ago as well. There is one vertical branch that has grown out of the middle of this bush since last year.



Here was a wee surprise I had missed until I went out to take some more pictures today. This Iris has been hiding near the tub with the Fir tree in it. As I was taking the picture of the Red Prince, I saw it out of the corner of my eye and thought it deserved a picture as well. Well, that's it for the additions.

Enjoy!




Is there such a thing as blue Columbine's? These popped up after the white one's.




We have Iris blooms this year! I planted them two years ago and I guess they decided to bloom this year. Because of the rain, the flower became heavy and started drooping almost touching the ground so I helped the plants along with a support stick to keep them upright.




Here is the same plant from another angle beside a lilac bush that hasn't bloomed yet. ( maybe, next year )



Our Red Prince Weigela is in bloom and I thought I would add it to the mix. We spent a short vacation in Long Beach, Washington on the coast and the house we rented had one of these beautiful bushes facing the Pacific Ocean. We enquired what type of plant it was and found one at our local nursery. It began blooming right away. I didn't get the whole plant in the picture since one branch shoots vertically out of the bush and beyond the camera lens for this picture.

Here is a closer look at its blossoms.

Window Installation Day

Today, we're having windows installed throughout the house. Of course, Mother Nature is going to add her two-cents and rain the whole day. So far it hasn't been torrential, but just a wee bit heavier than what the Irish call " a soft day."

Poor Seán hasn't a clue what is happening since we've been moving everything out of the way so the workers can get to the windows. He's been running back and forth and being very, very attentive. ;-)

Taking down all the drapes and blinds in every room has been interesting. I'm embarrassed to say we have never taken them down ( that I can remember ) since we've lived here. It may be time to rethink what we want to do for the future regarding privacy. I also didn't realize how huge the picture window was in the living room since we keep the drapes pulled slightly and that the drapes over shoot the window on both sides creating the illusion of the window being larger than it really is.

I also had to move my two harps out of the way taking one of them completely out of the room. The other one, in the living room "gave up the ghost" a few years back and now can not withstand the pressure of the strings tuned up to the correct pitch so it became something beautiful to look at and nothing more. I tuned the strings way down so there would be no pressure on the wood. The arm snapped from the harp slowly imploding from the pressure of the strings pulling on it. I had it repaired and decided it had seen better days so its new role is beautiful furniture. ha! I'll post some pictures of them soon. The newer and larger one doesn't like abrupt temperature changes and having a window out of the room would not do well for the harp which is why it was moved. Likewise, all crystal has been moved to safe places save, the dining room chandelier which we'll just have to watch them as they bring in the windows for that room.




This is a picture of the old windows in the office. These were the old aluminum type with single pane glass. ( These were not very effective at holding heat. If a thermogram were done of the house, it would look like the house was on fire because of all the heat escaping through the windows. )





Here is a picture of the two gentleman installing the windows. I asked if I may take a picture of them working and the fellow on the inside immediately pushed out his stomach to make him appear much larger. ;-) Nice guys and obviously knew what they were doing.






So the fellow on the inside didn't look like a "supervisor", I took another picture of them both working on the installation of the new window.



Here is the finished installation of the kitchen window from the outside looking into the kitchen.



This view is from the inside looking out. ( of course ) Delivery of the windows was at 8:00a this morning and they started working at 9:00a and finished about 11:30a. Very fast, but thorough and I'm very pleased with them. Hopefully, we should start noticing the difference in how the house holds the heat or the cold, depending on the season. We also heard that the house will be much quieter from blocking the outside noise. ( The neighborhood is never that noisy anyway.)