Belated Birthday and Turning a Hard Page

The last couple of weeks have been a bit challenging as they say, what with a flu bug that hit suddenly, caused a faint that left me with badly bruised and useless left hand and black eye and bent glasses and various other woes.  

Mostly fixed now, but it will take a while for my face to recover, and my general energy to return.  It takes a lot of energy, I've found, to recover from injuries at the same time as the flu.  Much help from neighbors and Handsome Son, too.

However, glasses now straightened and operating correctly, completely with message sent via son from optho:  remember to eat and here's your glasses!  and wrist now functioning about 75 per cent again, and eye looking better, down from my entire right face bruised and ghastly looking, now it's only a black eye.  Arnica and Aspercreme have been my friends.

So, resting, bored, unable to stitch, or do anything requiring two hands, typing okay for a few minutes, can't hold Kindle long, can't play recorder, and realizing this is going to take a few more days to come back from, I've been lying about lazy and making Plans for When.

For one thing, I realize I will not be doing studio art again any time soon, if ever.  I've moved into textiles, happy there, and now I need to empty the studio of unused materials and tools and bits of spontaneous furniture.  It's holding me back having all that personal  history lying up there.  Lesson plans for drawing workshops from long ago, that kind of thing.

Son's Christmas gift to me, I always ask for services and time, not stuff, will be to help box, sort and clear what's up there.  He's already claimed my clay tools and parts of a stacking bookcase for his own use, yay, and will help me recycle and generally move on items that should be in the hands of other artists, not mine, so they can be used.  

He'll help me unframe many pieces of finished art which have done enough for me, so I can either use or give away the frames, that kind of help that I simply can't do with one good and one wonky hand.

And today, speaking of service gifts, he came over to celebrate my birthday belatedly, cooking me a wonderful dish of chicken, garlic, mozzarella and toasted bun things, with enough for leftovers. 

 Bringing all the ingredients and tools, doesn't trust my wooden spoons.. And Ben and Jerry joined us for dessert, Cherry Garcia to be exact.

Then another difficult page turned: Karen's house is to go on the market, open house today, with it all painted and bright and lovely ready for its next life.  

This was hard, yet a good thing, and her sister, seen in the last pic showing to a possible buyer,  allowed me to make pix for your benefit so you can turn the page along with us.  

The work to get to this point has been unbelievable, mostly on her shoulders, some small parts done by me, and has impelled me to clear out my own studio as one task done before I move on (!) 

Next week I realize is Christmas.  Since I can't do food prep yet, Handsome Son will organize a lovely takeout Christmas lunch for us, so nobody has to cook.  This is a great idea of his and will make it so much easier and more fun all around.

And I've had time to think about my no good very bad horrible day last week in the middle of all the flu and injury stuff, when suddenly my phone ran out of minutes.  I'd been in too much of a blur to realize it was time to refill. No other phone available.  So I tried refilling minutes at the wireless website as usual.  And my credit card was declined.  

Neighbor across the street most unusually home on a workday, lent me her phone to get HS on the case, after I staggered over there, first time out in days. He went off and bought a card of minutes, refilled the phone, picked up my glasses to get them fixed, another neighbor meanwhile brought me his housephone to use to call the credit card company.  They found no problem at all, they were baffled as to why the wireless company had refused their card, etc.  Checked next with my bank account and found I was locked out of it, their website not operating normally.  

Glasses fixed and returned by son, I could now see to call the bank, spend half an hour punching in numbers and being cut off before finally getting a snippy operative who finally unlocked my bank account, no apologies, no explanation.  

They heard about it when they sent me an evaluation.  Amazing contrast between the kindness and helpfulness of the Chase card rep., and the high speed brush off approach of the Bank of America person.  Son meanwhile got onto the wireless service and they were unable to explain what the problem was, couldn't promise it would work next time, etc.  No reason at their end, they claimed, for the decline of the card.  In the end it was the Chase people who figured out that there was a corrupted file at the wireless site end, causing fake declines.  I heart Chase.

So at the end of the day, literally, all my high tech life was back in order, and I now see what first world problems these all were, upsetting as they were at the time.  And despite having been very ill, what luxury to be able to stay home until I get well.  Food in the house.  Friends and son available and willing. Another friend insisting on being put on the A list, on son's phone, to be called on as and when.  Good to remember all this.

It's the Equinox, light will soon return, and optimism, too. In fact I think it's starting already.