Some Girls Prefer Carnations: Lloyd's last...

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Lloyd's last...

In the days leading up to surgery I took some time for myself to do things that I enjoy. As I undertook these things with mindfulness, I cracked myself up by thinking of them as Lloyd's last____ . Here are some photos from my final days with Lloyd.

Lloyd's last nature walk

Lloyd's last outdoor concert and sangria

Lloyd's last night out with friends. Wait a minute, Lloyd didn't have any friends. Martha here treated me to a thoughtful and fun evening with snacks, a movie, and a drinking game. We watched Vertical Limit, and drank tea or lemonade every time someone made a poor decision or said nitroglycerin, and ate lots of chocolate covered things from Trader Joes. Martha even made up a table-top drinking game menu so we wouldn't forget the rules. Thank you Martha! We're so silly, but it was so so fun!!! We need to pick a post-Lloyd climbing movie--perhaps Cliffhanger? It's sooo bad!!!

Lloyd's last walk in the neighborhood, observing the milkweed ecosystem.

Lloyd's last time returning library books

Lloyd's last chai latte at the tea shop.

Lloyd's last embroidery project. While vacationing out in Washington the first week of June, my brother and I were having a mindful minute on a bench by a lake. Suddenly an osprey flew across the water and dove in for dinner. It was amazing. Until we realized that a nearby momma duck who used to have 5 ducklings now only had 4--the osprey had picked off duckling number 5 and took it across the lake for dinner! I decided that this needed to be immortalized on a dishtowel, especially since my brother had not yet unpacked his dishtowels in his new home and so could use some more dishtowels. So instead of packing for the hospital or doing something useful before eyebrow craniotomy, I saw it fit to sit on the couch and embroider this epic vacation scene. Not my best work, but I was on a serious time crunch. The osprey turned out about how I intended it to, but my duckling is way way way too big!!!

the spread at Martha's vertical limit viewing

5 comments:

mapmanJuly 11, 2019 at 9:16 PM
For the record, the dish towel is perfectly to scale.
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DadJuly 11, 2019 at 11:15 PM
Great pics! Poor duckling. Mean ole' osprey.
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Aunt JacqueJuly 18, 2019 at 7:47 PM
You are soooo entertaining :). Quite the send off for Lloyd
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HeidiJuly 22, 2019 at 8:57 PM
Ah, it's a marvel!
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Amanda BotchkoJuly 23, 2019 at 8:45 PM
Love this all!
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Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Thursday, July 11, 2019

Lloyd's last...

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