Memorial Day Tribute

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My dear husband, the Big Bison, co-wrote and produced this song with Steve Chapman, who produced the video. I hadn't watched it in a while, but had the opportunity to watch it this morning with my Uncle Harry, and his lovely bride Doris, as they stopped by the Boonies for an all too brief visit. Uncle Harry was a WWII vet, entering the war just as it was ending, being too young to see combat. All four of us - me,  the BB, Harry and Doris - sat upstairs in my husband's studio and teared up, watching this. It's powerful, and a fitting tribute, not only to the soldiers who gave their lives during World War II, but to all the men and women of our military.

Grab a hankie before you watch it. Watch it again, even if you've already seen it, grab your spouse, and gather the kids around and show it to them, too.

Please share this on Facebook or Twitter if you like it.

Heart Break

Pin It I guess I'm finally ready to tell this story. I wanted to wait to see how it was going to turn out before I told it, but really, do we ever REALLY know how "it" is going to "turn out"? When a story says, "and they lived happily ever after",  c'mon. Did they, really? Well...maybe in fairy tales, they did, but this is real life, and real life has its ups and downs, does it not? I just haven't experienced so many intense ups and downs in such a short period of time before.

The Bison in question.

This all started on Monday, May 16th, at about 4:30 in the afternoon, when my dear, dear, DEAR husband, the Big Bison (henceforth to be referred to as the BB) was feeling his energy wane. He had ideas in his head that he wanted to try to write (he's a musician, and a writer and producer), but felt a bit listless. In hindsight, he says he has been feeling tired for quite a while now, maybe since the beginning of the year, but neither of us paid much attention to it. He always struggles with allergies, and the Boonies are nothing else if not pollen-laden, so, he feels cruddy from time to time. Lots of folks do.

So, anyway, what to do about this tiredness he was feeling that evening? He made a reasonable decision (and what turned out to be the first of many reasonable decisions he made that evening). He decided to go outside and get a bit of exercise. The exercise that turned out to be a self-induced stress test.

I know many of you will remember my post from several weeks ago, where I told you about a particularly vicious spring storm we had had,  that knocked down six trees around our house. A friend of ours from church came with some big machinery and took care of completely taking down those trees and chopping them into big chunks, and stacking them. One of them was a hickory tree, and if you are a regular reader, you will also remember that the BB is really into smoking meats right now. When we heard we had a built-in free supply of hickory, we were delighted! The BB asked our friend to leave those trees in big chunks, and he and our son would split them into smoker-ready size pieces, for exercise.

So, my BB, on May 16th at around 4:30 in the afternoon, decided it would be a good idea to get his blood flowing by chopping some wood. We were in an unseasonably cold snap, and it was only 53º outside, a chilly, overcast, gray evening. He swung the ax once, and felt quite lightheaded, and not well. He swung the ax a second time, and on that chilly evening, he felt a cold sweat break out all over his body. Not really the kind of sensation one would expect. And then, he noticed the fist pushing on his chest. And then, he thought of his Dad who had died of a massive heart attack at age 62. And of his uncle, who had died of a heart attack at age 50. (The BB is a very young, vital and vigorous 56.) And so he made the next smart decision of the evening: he decided to stop, and come inside and lay down for few minutes. And then, as he lay on the floor, with his hand on his own chest, praying, his left arm began to feel wonky. And then he made his next good decision: "I think I better go tell Sooze."

At 4:45 that evening, I was sitting in front of my computer screen in my homeschool uniform. Yes, I had on my little black nightie. Don't judge me. The BB entered the room and sat down on the futon to my right - I never glanced up. "Sooze,", he said, "I think you need to get dressed and take me to the hospital."

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!
Woooooooop! Wooooooooop! Wooooooop! (imagine if you can the sound of the siren on the Star Ship Enterprise, warning the crew to go to Battle Stations,  and you'll get the feeling that was going off in my body. In fact, I just now had to run to the bathroom before I could finish typing this part of the story: every time we tell this to friends, I feel MY chest starting to tighten up, so I'd say it's going to take me a while to work through this, but telling the story here is part of my therapy, so bear with me. THIS, telling the dramatic portion of it, is what I've been dragging my feet on, because it still affects me physically. Deep cleansing breath. Onward. )

 Adrenaline began pumping, nay, gushing through my system. I looked to my right and saw his face, which was as grey as the temples of his hair. I shot up out of my chair. I called to my son to grab his Dad a couple of aspirin and a glass of water, and I told my dear husband to lie down on the living room couch. Did he? No. He went upstairs to get his shoes. Idiot. But that's about the only thing he did wrong that night. So I ran to my closet and grabbed a pair of pants, and stood, paralyzed, like a deer in the headlights, looking at my shirts. I couldn't find a shirt that would go with those green pants. God in heaven (to whom I was praying), my husband may be dying, and I can't find a shirt to wear. And then, the calm voice of reason whispered, "You cannot drive him to the hospital. You can do many things, but if he slumps over in the car while you are driving, you cannot perform CPR. You have no paddles, you have no EKG, you have no nitroglycerin, you must not do this." I am firmly convinced it was the voice of the Holy Spirit, who had had a conversation with me through my friend Chloe a year or so ago, when I had mentioned how isolated I feel sometimes out here in the Boonies, and how long it would probably take an ambulance to ever get to me out here, if it could even find me in the first place, and for gosh sakes, my BB's family has a history of heart disease, and what if ever, God forbid, he should have a heart attack, I guessed I was going to have to just drive him in...And she said those very words that came to my mind while I stood paralyzed in front of my shirts in my closet.

As you know, we are self-employed, and we live pretty frugally, because financially it seems to be either feast or famine around here, and I was thinking about the cost of an ambulance, and how my dear husband accuses me from time to time of overreacting to health crises, but I KNEW I needed to call an ambulance, so I geared up my mind for the fight he was going to give me. "Honey," I called, "I really believe I need to call an ambulance". So, when he said, "Well, go ahead, then," you could have knocked me over with a feather. No fight???? Well, alrighty then!  I grabbed a shirt, ran to the phone, and dialed 9-1-1, and in the most surreal moment of my life, said, "I believe my husband is having a heart attack".

Oh God, oh God, oh God, let it not be so, but I believe he may be.

With the ambulance on the way, and my clothes on, I looked at the BB's face. His color was coming back a bit, and he claimed to be feeling a bit better, and within 15 minutes, which I found to be AMAZINGLY fast (found out later that they just recently put in a brand new ambulance station 15 minutes from our house, and I love those guys. I am so taking them some cookies, soon!) and they and the local police were soon pulling down the driveway, and entering our delicious smelling home, where the chicken I had fixed earlier in the afternoon was just approaching doneness. The BB told the guys he was feeling better, and maybe it was just not eating that afternoon, and maybe a sinus infection that was coming on, and they smiled and shook their heads, and told us they couldn't MAKE us do anything, but they encouraged us to strongly consider getting him checked out. We agreed. Another surreal moment: my husband is placed on a rolling cart and wheeled out of our home. SERIOUSLY??? I leave my kids at home, because my son is 17 and able to drive, and I head out to the car, where I quickly call my friend Chloe, and tell her that I'm waiting for the ambulance that is parked behind me in my driveway and blocking my car to move, so that I can follow it to the hospital. She sounds stunned, but I figure not any more than I am, and frankly, my hubby and I could use the prayer cover, and I'm reasonably certain that she will contact the necessary parties.

The ambulance is going nowhere. What the crud is going on??? Is he back there dying, inside it? I climb from my car and peek in the back window of the ambulance, and no one seems to be moving in a hurry, although I can't see him. Turns out they have been giving him an EKG, and checking his vitals, and everything looks good, and he asks to speak to me, and he again wants to ask me if we should send him on this ride, or if I should take him in our car. The paramedics have told him that at present, he looks good, but this could have been a little warning shot. Those words were enough for me. "You know, you're strapped in there: you might as well go for a ride with them."

So, off we go to the hospital.

No lights, no sirens were used, although I knew the whole 35 minute drive that there was every chance that they might turn those suckers on somewhere along the way, so I was as tense as a tightly tuned guitar string. Driving at 80 mph down the interstate, with me wondering if the police will stop me. Turns out my dear husband was sitting in the back of the ambulance TEXTING his friends, while I'm driving praying out loud the whole way. At least one of us was having fun.

OK, I don't think I can type anymore. My shoulders are in knots from the tension of telling this. Let me tell you more tomorrow.

Wow. We're Home.

Pin It Home from the hospital! Home from my husband's bypass surgery.

I  don't even know what to say!

God is good: how's that?

I  don't know why, thus far, we have been granted mercy. But one week after my dear Big Bison of a husband had a heart attack out in our "yard",  and three days after them slicing into his chest, and spreading his ribs like they were prying a wedge into a piece of firewood, and after cutting and cauterizing arteries in order to graft them together again, my man is home. With a huge, itchy,  red, angry rash over much of his back, tummy and tail, like the boils that must have afflicted Job.

They open up your chest and  handle your heart on Friday, and send you home on Monday: what a weekend. But, that's where we are. With eight new medications, and exhaustion and emotional trauma to boot.

But the choice was simple: you can die, now, before your kids are raised, OR you can undergo torture and some very, very hard work, and permanent lifestyle change, and POSSIBLY live to see your kids raised, and maybe even see them married, and MAYBE even bounce a grandkid on your knee, and hopefully, enjoy many long years with your wife/lover/best friend.

The Big Bison went for the torture, and I'm along for the ride.

How do people DO this?

But they do....every day. So many times, when I have spilled my agony out loud to others, I have been encouraged by the number of people who have a tale of a relative who not only survived, but who has enjoyed a long and fruitful and productive life, since.

So, thanks to all those folks for your stories, and thanks for the encouragement they bring. They really DO help me take heart, as it were.

My darling was spared for a reason: I know it! There is still work for him to do.

I will end this post with one of the best stories I have heard, so far, on this journey.

Recently, a friend of ours flatlined in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital. He had  fainted, and his friends called 911. He died on that ride, and was absolutely, completely dead, for somewhere between two and three minutes. All at once, as the vehicle continued on its way to the hospital,  he opened his eyes, and began talking to the paramedic, as if nothing had happened! The paramedic was completely amazed! His remark was, "The other paramedics are never going to believe this one when I tell them!"

Fast forward to about a month later for our friend. This fellow's sister, who is in her 50's, and has Down's Syndrome,  lives with our friend and his wife. One day, recently, his sister had a terrible case of diarrhea, and she had made a terrible mess in his home. He was on his hands and knees on the floor, cleaning up the awful mess, and as his wife walked by, he remarked to her, "You know, I could have been in heaven long about now."

Sometimes, the work that God has for us to do isn't so glamorous. Sometimes, it's downright unpleasant. But the fact of the matter is: God has purposes for each one of us in our lives. And whatever we do, even for the least of these, maybe even especially for the least of these, is worthy of being done with all our hearts.

Picture from here.

I guess my job right now, is the care and keeping of the Big Bison when he's weak. Seeing him suffering ANY pain is hard for me to bear, but to this, I have been called. It is my joy, and my privilege. May God grant me the skill to do what He has called me to do, May He fill up my empty cup, so that I can pour out something of value.

The Bison is On the Move!

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Aslan isn't the only one.

Or, to mix a metaphor, something I have NEVER been shy about doing, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride Rolls On.

I don't think I'm ready to recount the whole tale yet, but I want to record it all, truly, I do, in its entirety.

Suffice it to say that on Wednesday, we were given a surgery date of Friday morning. Again, the reason for the delay was that they were waiting for his blood clotting levels to normalize from the dose of Plavix he was given in the ER. On Thursday night at 9:30 PM, after spending all day gearing up and making phone calls to inform everyone of the imminent surgery,  our surgeon's nurse practitioner came to inform us that our doctor had an emergency surgery the following day that would likely take all day, and the Big Bison's surgery had been bumped to Monday.

Our initial reaction was one of "Really? Really??? Are you kidding me??????" A whole week waiting in the hospital? (And yes, it really was a necessary thing to be IN the hospital. My Bison had two blockages in his one main artery, one blocking 95% and one blocking 99% of the blood flow in that artery.) What are you going to do? You're kind of at their mercy. Then, the night nurse came in and asked us, "Is the doctor delaying because of a transplant? You know he does transplants, right?" Well, no, we didn't know. So, then, our thoughts went to the family of someone so sick that they might need an all-day surgery, possibly a transplant. And THEN, our thoughts were directed to the family of the donor, who would  have lost THEIR special someone - sweetheart, husband or wife, son, or daughter - yet who were willing to give up that heart that someone else might live, and it was kind of hard to get TOO bent out of shape over 3 more days of waiting in the hospital.

I went to bed thinking, "Well, at least I don't have to face my husband having surgery tomorrow."

At 6:00 AM, I was awakened from a DEEP sleep by the jangling of the phone. It was my Bison. "Sooze, the doc is on the phone with the nurse out in the hall, and he says the emergency surgery was canceled, and he wants to know if we want to go ahead."

CrimeinItly!!!

We had just called everyone and their dog a second time to cancel the surgery, and now? NOW???

Hey...in the words of my cousin, Jeff...."It's GO time!"

So, I woke up my sleeping children, and my Bison's sister, and her friend, and said: "Time to go to the hospital - surgery is a go!" What a way to wake up! 

Friday morning, at 9:46 AM, they sliced into my husband's chest. They chose a minimally invasive technique that is made with an incision under the left nipple, where they spread the ribs apart, and shift and move stuff around till they get to the left mammary artery. This they graft into the left atrial descending artery. Stop and think about that for a minute. Can you even begin to imagine someone having sharp instruments that cut and cauterize inside your chest, shifting your vital organs, rerouting your bloodflow, and handling your HEART???

My mind absolutely boggles at the thought!!!! And yet, that's exactly what they did to my sweet baby. God, how I love that man.

When the two became one, in our case, my heart was joined to his, and when they cut, and burned, and shifted, and rerouted HIS heart, I think, spiritually, they went rooting around inside of me as well. I have felt a few times this week like someone has absolutely pulled the blanket right out from underneath my picnic, leaving me stunned, a bit dazed, lying flat on my back, gazing up at the sky, going, "What just happened???"

OK, I'm going to skip a lot of the story, and cut to the chase, because I have to get upstairs to see him as soon as he gets to his room.

The surgery went WELL. He went to the Critical Care Unit, and stayed there for 24 hours, and despite a tremendous amount of pain, they feel like he is ready to be moved to the Post Op side of the Cardiac floor. So, that's why I said he's on the move. But he's not alone, for Aslan, too, is on the move, with him, every step of the way. (Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe reference).

I'm not proud of the caliber of this post...it ought to be better crafted, more fine tuned. But my heart is getting moved to his new room, and I've got to go spend some time with him. Thank you for your prayers on his behalf. We felt them! God was merciful, not because we deserve it. I don't really know why. But we're humbled, and we're grateful.

Love,





image  from here

The Big Bison needs your prayers.

Pin It My dear husband had a heart attack. I can't even believe it as I am writing it.

I'm not going to try to dress things up, or find just the right way to say it. Plain and simple, on Monday evening at dinner time, while the chicken was roasting, he told me he thought I needed to drive him to the hospital. Thank God I didn't. Thank God I called 911. I thank God at every bend of this road that we're on, that we made the decisions that we've made so far on how to handle the unrecognized bomb that was quietly going off in our midst. Those decisions seem to me to have been God-directed.

I don't have the time or the energy to recount all the details right now. This week has been a whirl of driving to the hospital, and coming back home exhausted. Of prayers, and tears. Of hopes that soared, and hopes that crashed to the ground, and hopes that then clawed their way back up to the top of the rim of the pit into which they'd just been kicked.

I don't know how all this is going to turn out.

Tonight, Wednesday night, he's sleeping in his hospital bed, thanks to the fine folks who developed  Ambien, and I'm about to go and see if they might offer me a little help as well. We have one more day to wait for the effects of the blood thinning drug Plavix to wear off, so that on Friday, the doctors can slice and reroute his "widow maker" artery with his mammary artery, and come up with a working facsimile of a major blood vessel, so that he can reclaim the life that came terribly close to slipping away from him on Monday evening.

We'll take all the prayers you've got.

I absolutely believe that God DIDN'T allow him to slip away on Monday evening BECAUSE there are good works, and lots of them,  for my Big Bison still to do in his life. But we covet your prayers for a successful surgery.

Friends and family have come to stay with us and help us here in the Boonies, and they and my great big dogs stand watch over the house. Your help and support and most of all, your prayers mean more to me than I can say.

Take That, Osama Bin Laden

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As many of you know, I hold Osama Bin Laden (well, at least, his death, and the heightened security alert and greater restrictions on what you can fly with) personally responsible for the regrettable shape that my hair was in since Monday of last week. My perfectly wonderful hairdresser, who now resides in Houston, was prevented from flying to Gnashville (so named, because of all her clients who were weeping and gnashing their teeth) that day The airline wouldn't let her bring her hair cutting/coloring tools with her on the plane.

It's been a long, dark, stressful time. (Yes, I jest. Mostly.)

But light has broken on the Boonie horizon.

My dear husband and son have been seeing a lovely hair stylist here in the Boonies for their hair, only 15 minutes down the hill. My husband has been bugging me to at least give her a try. I went in, had my consultation with her, told her what I did and didn't want, and dang if she didn't nail it. For a lesser fee, and closer to home, I am rockin' my new 'do.

Take that, you rotten evil terrorists, you! No burka for THIS head!

My revenge:

Liking the color.

 

Side view - like a mug shot, sorta.

I am tickled to death to have found such a good thing, and so close to home. Good hair, in the Boonies? Almost too good to be true!

Are you liking your hair these days? There's nothing quite like a good hair day, to me!

Big Bison's Birthday

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Last week was my dear husband, the Big Bison's, birthday and I made him a cake. I have no skillz whatsoever in cake decorating, but my daughter and I did what we could. Thought you might appreciate seeing our lowly homespun efforts.


Wanna see what we did?

Grazing.

In all his glory.

Aerial view: pardon the soiled napkin.

A lot of laughter ensued. Because we're just juvenile that way. :-D

If you can't laugh with your family, what's the point, right?

For the culinarily curious among us (Anne): The recipe we used was The Barefoot Contessa's birthday cake. This was per my husband's request. It has lemon zest in it, which makes it taste very fresh, despite the fact that it has way, way, way too much butter and sour cream in it.   The frosting was just an almond buttercream, from my Southern Living cookbook, that I altered ever so slightly. Yummy. I prefer a slightly lighter cake, but I had to make the BB (either Birthday Boy or Big Bison, take your pick) happy.

The bison is foam. I bought him one year for my Bison's stocking at Christmas.

A Day Late, and a Mom Short.

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23 years later.

 

 

This picture was taken 23 years ago, and is the best of the last of the pictures that I have of my Mom. She died 5 months after I got married, and one week before I turned 30. My sister ended up with a lot of the family photographs, so the photos that I need to take a stab at doing a more Mom-worthy post are not at my disposal.

 I regret that I am a day late even getting this picture up, since everyone else in Blogdom was doing their Mom-salute posts this past weekend. It's typical of me to be (at least) a day late and a post short.

Suffice it to say that Mom was an amazingly gifted, talented, loving woman - loved by all who knew her. And I'm still just a bit miffed that God didn't let her stick around a few years longer so that she could spoil my kids.

She was a seamstress par excellence, her cooking was legendary, she was a self-taught artist whose paintings grace the homes of her children, she was a lover of opera and classical music who was known to bust-a-move (CLOGGING) when some hot blue grass was playing in the kitchen.

She was a most amazing woman, who loved her children and her husband with all her heart, and she poured out that love every day of her life.

What worthy tribute can I possibly bring to such an excellent woman?

Well, I have an idea that something that would very much please her would be for me to pass on to you one of the skills that she passed on to me.

The world would be a better place if it had more pie. Is this not so?

And I'm not talking about mediocre pie. I'm talking about pie so good it would make you want to turn around and smack your Mama. (pardon the politically incorrect choice of wording) Pie with a homemade, tender, flaky crust.

I watched my Mom make pie from the time I was the littlest girl. Her pies were epic. She used to keep what she called "pie crust mix" in a Crisco can under the sink. It was homemade, so it wasn't really a "mix", but she did pre-blend the shortening/flour/salt mixture in big batches, and then she could pull out enough for a couple of crusts if she wanted to make apple pie for dinner. I don't do THAT, but I did, as a child, used to dip my greedy little fist into that Crisco can on the sly and eat flour, salt, and Crisco. (Isn't that disgusting? I can't believe I'm owning up to that, but I saw my sister do it first. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

She would teach me about the importance of using ice water, and then let me help her roll out the pie dough, and with the scraps of leftover dough, she would make me a pie crust cookie, by sprinkling the little re-rolled out circular wad of dough with cinnamon and sugar and baking it for me. That was one of the best parts about helping Mom make pie: that pie crust cookie.

Anyway, wouldja like to learn to make the world's best homemade pie crust? What if I told you that once you know the secrets to my Mom's crust, that it's really EASY, and YOU CAN DO IT?

What a tease I am. The pie crust recipe is over on the Fun Girls, along with lots of great pictures. Go check it out!


Anyway, I had the very happiest Mother's Day that a girl without her Mom can have, because of all the sweet ways that my kids and my husband honored me. I'll tell you about that in another post.

What mad skillz did your Mom pass on to you?

Osama Bin Laden Done Messed With My Hair

Pin It  You know, I can stand a lot of things.

For instance, I can stand the fact that the flying experience has now been forever spoiled for the rest of us by the stupid terrorists. Flying USED to be fun. It USED to be an enjoyable, relaxing way to travel.

But now, it requires trying to remember all essential liquids have to be in teeny weeny containers in a quart size ziplock. It requires being at the airport WAY too early, in order to be forced to dump all my personal belongings into the bin they used to use to bus tables, and standing barefoot where all the other people with athlete's foot are standing barefoot, and walking through stupid machines that show my kibbles and bits, and being wanded and searched by people I do not even know, and frankly, some of whom I'm having a hard time working up the desire to want to know, especially when they stick their hand places I don't let other people stick their hands.

Yes, as much as I detest all those inconveniences, I can stand them, because I know they are for my protection. Because the blanketyblank terrorists are afoot among us. Well, at least a few are.

It nauseates me to think of the terrible losses suffered by many families due to 9/11, so if you think I'm making light of that, I'm not. It's heartrending. I can't even begin to know how to address that.

But the end result of the actions of a few jerks is that the whole world has to suffer these inconveniences whenever we travel, for the sake of safety.

And, I'm all for that. Better safe than sorry. I actually feel quite sorry for the TSA workers who have to do a difficult job, that is often unpleasant, as if people's lives depended on them doing their job well. Because the reality is, people's lives DO depend on them doing their job well. So, thank you to all the TSA workers out there.

BUT

In my narcissistic little world, things have just taken a terrible turn for the worse.

Osama Bin Laden had done gone and messed with my hair, and I'm none too happy about it.

My sweet hair stylist moved to Houston. (To be clear, this was not Osama Bin Laden's fault. As much as I'd like to blame him for this, but it's just not his fault). All her clients were despondent. Inconsolable. We looked around, but could not find her equal. As she received our emails, she was moved. Deeply touched. She felt our hair pain. Finally, she acquiesced. She caved to our cries. She started coming back to Nashville every 6 to 8 weeks to cut and color hair. The bells rang. The people sang. The earth rejoiced. And God saw that it was good. And so, for a while longer, my hair was happy.

And when Mama's hair is happy, everybody's happy, at least around this house.

Me, on a good hair day.

Cut to: yesterday.

If you will remember, on Sunday night it was announced that Osama Bin Laden met his end. On Monday morning, my hair stylist showed up at her airport to fly to Nashville to do hair, and was told that due to the heightened terror alert, she could not check her bag, which contained all her hair-doing stuff.

OUTRAGE!!!!!!

So, even in his departure from this earth, he has spoiled my life. THIS IS GETTING PERSONAL, BUDDY!!!


P. S. This post is totally tongue in cheek, and I am well aware that me having to find a new hairstylist is NOTHING on the scale of human tragedy and world events that we are actually talking about here.

But STILL!!!

Dang it. :-D

Some Body to Love

Pin It With all the cooking I do, and all the eating I do, it may not come as a surprise to some of you that I am not a size 0.

Neither, however,  am I regularly compared to the Goodyear Blimp.

Only in my overactive imagination.

 Today, on the Fun Girls, I address some of my concerns, and what I've been thinking about and reading and watching lately. Come by and take a peek!