Everything about Y’s party was festive–except Y.  I’m not sure what’s going on, beyond the usual teenage stuff.  To look at him, you’d think he was in existential emptiness and despair.  Which, to be honest, is exactly how I was as a kid and teen, so it should be familiar.  It just worries me, knowing some of his history.  And there’s nothing I can do.

Anyway the party was a success.  Jess, Stacey, and J joined us, as well as a friend of Y’s, who spent the night.  The raspberry pie by E and the raspberry cheesecake by Stacey were wonderful.  Stacey and I and S hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  We got Wingstop chicken for everyone.  Then Stacey took S home.  Avdi left for the night and I slept over.  I took some traz and slept all night.

This morning was perfect out–cool, sunny, and breezy.  E harvested a pile of veggies, which had doubled in size overnight from all the rain.  He also picked elderberries and made jam.  I got a lot of garden jobs done.

I organized the messy pile of pots and flats.  I put some (sycamore?) saplings in water.  I raked and cleaned up the front area along the fence, in prep for seeding in fall.  I laid down some more cardboard for paths in the veg garden, and weeded and straightened up some rows.  I weeded, trimmed, and cleaned up the whole herb garden.  I weeded some of the rock garden and transplanted a flower plant there.

Stacey dropped S off around noon on her way back to MI  for her last two weeks of field work and finals.

It’s been raining a lot, and it got much cooler.  Yesterday for erev I made roasted veggies mostly from the garden: zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, fresh basil and oregano, with sautéed beef, garlic, onions, red wine, served with pasta.  It was a packed house after all, like 9 people; we almost couldn’t fit everyone at the table.  Loucious did his challah tricks.  It was fun hanging out with the extended family.

Today almost everyone, plus Y’s friends, went to the zoo for his birthday.  E and Stacey are baking a raspberry pie and a raspberry cheesecake, respectively, as per Y’s request.  Later on we’ll have “festivities”.  I’ll sneak over while they’re gone and make it look more festive, and maybe play in the garden between rains.

Off I go.

It thunderstormed and rained buckets this morning, and got cooler.  Stacey is driving from Michigan to her new house with a boatload of the rest of her stuff, arriving any time now.  She’ll stay through Y’s birthday (everyone’s going to the zoo tomorrow), and then return to an airbnb to finish out her work for a couple of weeks, then here for good.

As the rain was tapering off, I took these photos, and was excited to figure out that these red flowers are in fact red lobelia!  So we now have red, white, and blue lobelia!  So patriotic.  Another find was an actual bean in the three sisters!  Note the corn, beans, and squash growing together.

We have peppers, tomatoes, a couple of eggplants, and little squash/gourds all over the place.  Not to mention all the okra and baby melons.  And new flowers, like the red amaranths, coming up.  The silphium forest is full of yellow blooms, like tall sunflowers.

In fact the whole place is turning into a jungly forest in the rain.

I’m prepping for erev as usual…it’s always a surprise who will and won’t show up, but I suspect we’ll have a full house!

Yesterday evening Avdi and I managed to squeeze in a “Mom date” ahead of his trip to Knoxville.  We checked out Side Project Brewery in Maplewood.  We had unique craft beers and casual food (burgers, etc.).  We got to talk.  He also agrees with my choice to go with distance vision, and just rely on glasses (as he does) for close up.

After that we went to the book store–“two floors, two cats, and we close at 8!”  The cat sitting on the desk was a gorgeous silky black and super-friendly; I just stood there and got my kitty fix.  Then I meandered through the windy passages of books to the ceiling, and Avdi got a book.  I love that bookstore.

Then we drove home in the beautiful sunset.  I can’t think of a better time: my son, beer and burger, cats, books, and a sunset.

All I’ve done all day is make arrangements for my upcoming surgeries.  I had to find rides, which may or may not be forthcoming, and fill out and submit volumes of medical history data online, which took hours.  This is the kind of stuff I had to do for my parents, and now it’s just me, but at least I’ve had plenty of practice!

But the hardest part is more subjective; worrying about if I made the right choice of distance vs close-up.  I only get one option with the basic, covered surgery, so I chose distance, because driving safely and effectively is more critical for our purposes than being able to read anything up close without serious prescription microscopes on me all the time.

It’s pretty sad that poor people can’t afford routine functional vision surgery because it’s considered an elective by insurance companies, same as in dentistry.  They can easily do all the procedures and more at the same time, if you have thousands of dollars to spend out-of-pocket.  Anyway, I think I made the right decision.  Being able to see to drive gkids around safely is more of a priority.

Anyway, I did as much as I could today, and hardly ventured outside.  Today’s photo theme is The Jungle.  The garden is jungling up admirably, and there are so many native trees hiding in there!  Redbud, catalpa, oaks, maples, sycamore, and mystery species, just waiting to be transplanted or left in place.  I have to stay alive to see next year’s forest with my own upgraded eyes.

Today was my surgery evaluation exam.  After many hi-tech gadgets, squirty stuff, flashy lights, and decisions, I’m scheduled for the most basic (cheapest) procedures, which will restore my distance sight to where I technically won’t need glasses for driving, but will still need prescription glasses for close up.  There will be separate surgeries for each eye, with recovery time and exams in between and after.  All this will take me into September.

It was hard to decide which is my priority, seeing better to drive, or being able to read print and screens, which I also do a lot of.  But as S sagely commented later, it’s better to be safe on the road.  I can always get better reading glasses.  You have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for the fancy elective upgrades, wherein you get all the vision.  Seems a little greedy at people’s expense, but that’s our capitalist system.

My eyes were super-sensitive to light without the dilation shade inserts they gave me, so I stopped home for a bit to recover.  The apprehension is a little overwhelming.  I felt really weird and tired, for some reason.  Partly it’s the nervousness.  All the other patients there were nervous, too.  We agreed it sucks to get old.  Also I suspect the numbing and dilating drops went to my brain.

But I made it over to Avdi’s, finally, and immediately had to lie down on his bed and rest.  Then I got up and did some stuff in the garden.  I harvested the zucchini and some tomatoes, found lots of little baby watermelons on the vines, more little pumpkin-looking gourds, and a growing eggplant.  S was swimming in the pool.

Here are a couple of photos I snuck of E’s party setup, and the obligatory garden shots, including a lurking dog, not posing.

Being the grownup on the scene is hard work sometimes.  I’m not talking about the 16-year-olds holding their private party out back.  They’re fine.  It’s quite easy for me to stay inside and respect their boundaries.  It’s the younger kids who are baffling sometimes.

For example.  The youngest, S, could not understand why he couldn’t stay outside and crash the party.  People!  FOMO! Outside!  E very patiently explained that it was a private, by-invitation-only, teen going-away party for his friend C, located here because of the conducive back yard, and S needed to respect their boundaries.  Just as, if Y or S had a friends-only party, it wouldn’t be considerate for us to barge in just because of all the action.  A B&B is different, because we’re all invited and a part of it.

E did a really good job of calmly explaining and empathizing, better than I could have done, patiently hearing him out.  The whole time, S was standing there looking uncomprehending, not able to process the concept or articulate adequately what had him so lost.  E was able to talk him down, and S and I ended up doing some fun things together that were more age appropriate, and he was ok.  I’m actually curious to understand if it was a common autistic response to not being included, or something more complex.

Y, on the other hand, stayed holed up in his room as usual the whole day, until it was time for his scheduled tele-therapy.  I reminded him, as Avdi had asked me to, a half hour ahead and a few minutes before, which yielded the usual surly monosyllable, so I know he knew.

A half hour went by; then E came and got Y to go outside to see someone, not knowing about the appointment.  I stopped them and explained Y was supposed to be in the middle of the call, and wasn’t he?  To which Y, with characteristic indifference, replied, oh, I forgot.  He proceeded outside, then back to his room, no doubt disgusted at me for inconveniently expecting him to follow through.

I mean, I’m just the messenger.  I don’t nag, especially not Y, who will bite my head off if I even talk to him or look at him!

That’s what I mean by being the grownup substitute–I’m not an authority figure.  I can’t even visualize myself as one.  Other people younger than me are much better at getting results.  I was always under someone else’s dominance and control, conditioned to see myself that way.  Even at work, I couldn’t supervise or manage people confidently.  I felt like I had imposter syndrome.

But enough of that.  Just needed to vent to the void.  Have a beer.

This is a big going-away party day for E’s good friend C, who is (lucky duck, or should I say goose) moving to Canada!  We all want to go with them.

I know E is not too happy, but he’s compensating by making a big bash of it.  The food and preps alone are impressive.  S assisted in setup.  All I did was some of the shopping, and finally taking down all my pink garden tie tapes.  Mostly I plan to stay out of the way.

It’s still steamy out there, after yesterday evening’s quick t-storm, but if the plants are happy, so am I.  There are still more flowers showing up.  There hasn’t been a flowerless interval all season.  Speaking of which, I must go pick a bouquet for E’s party.  And here it is now.  And oh look!  A zucchini!  And a little pumpkin gourd!  And more okra!  Keeping hopes alive.

A weather map I saw said STL’s heat index reached 124 yesterday, and outlying towns were close to it.  I was not far off.  Today’s warning is up to 115 heat index.  This is getting real.  Real unhealthy for humans and other lifeforms.   Not complaining, exactly!  An ice age would be worse, IMO.

Speaking of health, I got my cataract eval appointment made.  I’m both hopeful and nervous.  It’s for routine outpatient surgery, but the description sounds horrifying!  They peel your outer eyeball layer off and replace it with an artificial synth one.  If you pay lots more (not) you can get all sorts of hi-tech cybernetic enhancements.  What could possibly go wrong?

My excuse not to go outside is legit valid, so far: I had actual business to conduct by phone and computer.  But soon I will run out of excuses.  I already have terminal cancer, so I can’t use that one.  I still half-bakedly insist it beats winter!  You can quote me.

So I made it into the broiler and back, watered, and discovered my two prize slicer tomatoes got eaten by bugs!  I’m sad.  I wanted to show Avdi I can grow bigger balls tomatoes.  There is a lot of pest action this year.  Probably because OPP (other people’s pesticides) have killed all the good predators of the bad bugs.  Yeah you know me!

No the heat isn’t frying my brain.  I’m already toast.

And now a PSA.  Bet you didn’t see this coming.

I can’t do it justice, but Dr. Stacey Patton the Genius IMO [who BTW is not transphobic] said, and I lamely paraphrase, we don’t even have a democracy to lose or improve.  If we were going to have a democracy, we’ve had 250 years to get it right.  But nothing has really changed.  The greedy psycho corporate political racists and conmen are always in the majority and get to call the shots.

When so-called dems get their periodic chance, they can’t even manage to get us back to square one, let alone two steps forward.  You can’t compromise with evil.  Then the deviant pervy predators reverse any short-term fixes.  Even white people suffer and get poorer, but they’re too stupid or inbred to see they’ve been scammed.  And POC and queer folk just keep getting redlined and denied human rights.

How many centuries or millennia more do we need to fix a system built on systemic brutality and genocide?  Half the population apparently wants to go back to that.  Even the math is wrong.  If we don’t have equal rights, universal healthcare, a secure social safety net, a viable environment, leaders who serve the people, and all the other definitions of democracy by now, it’s not going to happen under this system.  Either we change the whole system from the ground up, or live with the status quo until the earth itself gets revenge.

OK, I may have embellished upon Dr. Patton’s comments just a little, but I think we’re basically in agreement.  She speaks from a lot more history knowledge and education than I do, plus personal experience, in a much more eloquent way, but I believe she and other Black educators and leaders are correct.  They know their history firsthand, up close and personal.

White people keep deluding themselves into believing either that democracy looks a lot like the “good ol’ days” of slavery, genocide, and aryan nation, or, that if we keep on working hard within the system we have, magically we may achieve a semblance of equality and justice we (white people) can live with, in like a few hundred more years, when all the irrevocable damage has already been done.  Nope.  Not happening.

Did I hear someone (of my 2.5 readership) say they preferred the gardening column?  Hey, it’s my blahg and I get to blahg about any f—ing thing I want so as to avoid melting!  You’ll miss me when I die of cancer or heatstroke, whichever comes first!

Thank you.  Have these fine and worthwhile real donuts made by K, and the Monster Crawling Sasquash.  Ahahahaha……………….

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside again–heat indices of like 112º!!  Or was that 121, it’s hard to tell.  This is a lot, even for Missouri, the Misery State.  Just add toxic waste and fumes, manure, and hot spices, and you get India!  At least there you have some wild jasmine and incense to compete with the aromas.

So naturally Y went to 6 Flags, an even hotter place!  Fortunately I mentioned the dangerous heat, so he modified his outfit.  I’m very aware of how fortunate we are to have AC, and to be able to stay in it!  But some like it hot.

I’m daring myself to go out in the broiler just to take photos.  Stay tuned.  Actually, don’t hold your breath.

In other news, my rent predictably goes up in September.  By a lot.  Yet it’s still below 1K, somehow.  But it means I def won’t have even enough left each month for food or other necessities.  Avdi and Jess have graciously offered to help.  I was hoping to avoid this, but it’s reality.  Again, fortunate to have a family who can do that.  They even more generously offered to help me pay for the cataract surgery, so I don’t have to add further medical debt to my growing list (or go blind).

I found a way to get some sleep overnight at Avdi’s–drugs!  Amaze amaze amaze! I actually slept like a normal person.  Such a novel experience.

So, S is contentedly making noises on the sofa, K is determined to burn down the kitchen experimenting, Y (minus the ticket he forgot) is out there sweltering, and E is probably in his room, which is slightly less warm.

As for me, I’m running out of excuses to not go outside.  If you don’t hear from me, I got clarified like ghee.  Here goes.

Four (well, 3 and a dog under the table) whole photos later, I made it back alive!  Even the flowers are cowering in the heat.  I’ve had to content myself with making wishlists of native flower seeds to get for next year during the fall sale.

Update: 115º heat index possible in STL!!