At least the weather got politics off the news

I know a couple of people are waiting for an update on my surgery, so let's get that out of the way. It went fine, and all the metal came out pristine and undamaged. I didn't suffer any post-anaesthetic trauma. I've been sitting and icing and elevating for a week and everything looks fine. I'm not requiring any medications at this point though I could use something for the boredom.

I'm doing okay with it. Got perty low yesterday what with my Mom being in the direct hit zone with the Frankenstorm and my frustration with moving around being so difficult and annoying. I guess this was cousins week. Got a call yesterday from one on my Dad's side telling me that one of my friends from the past had died in a car accident.

Dorinda Hoarty Hartson had been living in the Sedona-Parks-Scottsdale area of Arizona and I don't know much about her since we parted ways way back in the 70's. She was really important in getting me unstuck from Delaware and I joined her in moving to Colorado and New York City. She was both brave and tender and a great companion for adventure. We landed in Boulder and found it too crowded and got an apartment in Colorado Springs and waitress jobs at the Broadmoor. I'm still drawing on the material from those days.

I was in my early twenties. Each person I met led me to some person or place that became an essential part of my story. I had to work out some weighty issues in those days and I wasn't particularly graceful about it. Dorinda used to call me Diana and she was very graceful. I learned a lot about how to imagine bigger things for myself. There's no way I would have lived in NYC without the safety of her friendship and even though that only constituted six months of my life, it was pivotal. I took a calligraphy class at the Art Students League where I opened up the world of art and letters. I accompanied my Mom on her first big trip, to Greece. I saw the Bayeux Tapestries at the Cloisters and really got a taste of the amount of everything that is NYC, back when danger didn't seem so daunting.

I shouldn't have let her boyfriend seduce me in that gentrified lower East Side walkup but those were those days. At least it got me back to Colorado for the rest of my adventures, which led me to Eugene and helped me create the safe and healthy life I needed.  It's rather amazing how each little choice and each little interest we follow leads us toward and away from our various destinies and futures.

Anyway, I might not be here in Eugene without Dorinda, and it's too bad I didn't seek her out before it was too late. This is how the choices work too.

Cousins from my Mom's side fed me pineapple upside-down cake on Sunday and we got caught up with my Aunt Lud, Mom's oldest sister, and her husband Homer, two of the sweetest and oldest people I know. My generation is getting old now and these direct descendants of the Nebraska homesteaders are showing us the way. My cousin Bobbi is submerged deeply in geneology so it was super fun to let her get a glimpse of my house and house research. She said my lot description is a prime example of "meets and bounds" descriptions, which are usually long-winded things starting out with "Beginning at a point in the west line of ...."

We didn't have time to get very far into the research results but I plan to consult her some more as we go. We're trading books. She has researched the homestead records of our Nebraska family, and I know they will be fascinating. They took a tree claim too and had to document extensively each tree they planted and all the other improvements to show whether or not they proved up, so that will be some cool detail I can look for here too. 

Monroe street would have been pretty close to the center of the Huddleston holdings and I kind of see it as a grand entry to the racetrack property, so I'm thinking those huge Catalpa trees south of the Fairgrounds can probably be traced to the Huddlestons. Since the lands they claimed here in the westside were grasslands and wetlands, there were few trees when they got here, so most of the old trees were planted by the early settlers. They were farmers, after all.

So they planted fruit and nut trees, and maples and oaks to shade their dairy cows and horses. The Catalpa don't have an easy explanation but they could have been nostalgic for someone. These people weren't far removed from Virginia and Missouri. My big Gravenstein tree could have been planted pretty early on. I'm not finding many clues yet about the Vaughan Dairy farm but I think I will at the County. I think it was gone by the time the neighborhood was platted by Samantha and her son Henry in 1908.

My property wasn't platted at that time, sitting on a little peninsula still attached to the Fairgrounds. I'm thinking that this was because there were the leftover outbuildings here that became my house and the one next door. On some map I am going to find the proof of this, if I am lucky and persistent.

Mostly my research is stalled until I can make it down to the County Deeds and Records office for a few hours. I may be able to make that happen next week. I need to do it. I'm actually getting bored here, looking out the same window and walls for far too many hours in a row. I do have things to do, but you know how when things get funky you sort of lose the energy for improvement. 

I just want to walk normally again. I really can't feel content until I am back on my two feet and my bike. I don't want to rush my body and prolong the healing though, so I am resting and elevating and trying to make slow progress without pain. Really not too big of a challenge compared to running into a tree or being in the path of a giant storm or permanently disabled, which I sincerely hope I am not. 

I almost had my full mobility back before last week and I will get it back soon, no matter how many times I have to go up and down those library stairs practicing. I probably won't make it back to the Park Blocks for any more outdoor Markets this season. This is hard for me.

Loyalty is one of the qualities I have tried to develop (despite the betrayals of those early years) and I am loyal to my Market. I feel virtuous about selling on the rainy days and the days when it gets dark before I get home, and I feel like a deserter sitting here taking it easy. I probably could make it through a Market this weekend if I had people to drag me down there and help me with my stuff, but that is just too much work to do for marginal pay and questionable weather. It's a practical decision, and I also try to be practical, but I still get romantic fantasies and going to Market is one. I can go next year. I will be at Holiday Market, and it makes sense to rest up really well so the load-in of that goes smoothly. 

Lots of people skip Markets for much more dubious reasons and I know I'm forgiven and understood, so the dilemma is pretty much an interior one with no real weight. This is not a big deal, this frustration and annoyance and boredom. It just seems like a big deal because I am so seldom this annoyed, frustrated, or have so much time on my hands.

You would think I would just be able to enjoy it, for heaven's sake. I'll try to do better today. Maybe I'll watch some more footage of east coast McMansions being dragged off the beach and enjoy the refreshing intervention of nature into our best-laid plans. Anyway it's time to get up and get out some more ice.

Hope you are all out there biking and raking leaves (kinda too breezy for both today) and I will be joining you soon!