I'm Just Visiting This Planet

December 21 came and went, and the world is still here.  But 2012 is nearly over.  A time to look back and see what was accomplished, what was left undone, and what's next. I got my Medicare card, so Medicare is "next" for me.  And I'm thinking about retiring, so that's another "next," but not until "next" year.  Putting off the inevitable, I guess. And I got called to jury duty, so I know I'll be spending part of January at the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. My sabbatical was filled with surprises: surprise surgery, surprise Sandy.  Not enough rest and not enough done (there's never enough done, I'm afraid- Jennifer Louden has tried to instill in all of us Conditions of Enough but I'm always upping the ante). Winding down a 40+ year career is much harder than I thought it would be.  Twenty eight of those years have been at Pace University, 17 years on the downtown NY campus and now 11 on the Westchester campus.  Fou...

I can hardly wait to see what November brings. First there was my hand surgery, which went quite well, thank you very much.  Now it's occupational therapy twice a week and silicon taped to the scar to get the swelling down. So that was on September 24th, and two weeks later we drove down to Asheville, North Carolina for a few days to visit the Villages at Crest Mountain , an eco-friendly sustainable community under development. For lots of reasons we think this won't work for us, so it's "back to the drawing boards" in our search for where we live when I retire. We got back from Asheville on Saturday, October 13 and more or less resumed our routine (such as it is) for a very short period of time before we started hurricane preparations, which included things such as planting garlic (which is hard if you are trying not to get your bandaged hand dirty) and buying a one burner propane stove. We were prepared for a few days without power; we lost power aroun...

I saw a hand surgeon yesterday, and I'll be having hand surgery on Monday to repair a damaged ulna nerve on my right hand that has gotten progressively worse since I fell down the stairs (running, in my socks, to close windows against a thunder storm) on July 15. For most of our two week vacation in Utah (July 22 until August 5) I wore a  wrist band to deal with the sprained wrist, which turns out to be the least of my troubles. Ten days after the surgery the sutures come out, we go to Asheville for a week, and then I start physical therapy-it could be as much as a year before I get my strength completely back, but the alternative is that I look like Spock and my right hand gets weaker and weaker, so I really don't have a choice.  A huge shout out to Dr Alan Schefer (I have no idea when that picture was taken-he has a nice curly head of hair now) who will be doing the surgery, and I am so grateful to have health insurance to cover most of it. Right hand with pinky stuck ...

Well, I can only recount what this professor is doing on sabbatical.  The list is long and reflects things that suddenly arose, that were neglected, and things on my " someday-maybe list ." On the suddenly arose list is my finger-I fell the weekend before we went on vacation in July and when we returned in August my right pinky decided to go astray-I can't move it toward the rest of my fingers.  An EMG test seems to indicate a damaged ulna nerve, so off to the doctor tomorrow to find out what we do about this. On the things that were neglected, first and foremost is my office at home -not cleaned up in, oh, four years and two months.  I don't have any "before" pictures (too embarassing) but I do have an after, and a picture of all of the recycling sitting by the curb (and that doesn't include the stuff that just plain got tossed. You can see my meditation cushion in this picture, another practice that has been neglected, so I'm ge...

Ah for the days when summer meant lying in the hammock catching up on murder mysteries.  Now it means trying to fit in a few days vacation here and there while I wait for the new dean to accept this job and start. So what am I doing for the next five days?  Going on a retreat-a " Creative Joy " retreat!  Five days of yoga, writing, photography, rest, oh and maybe Zentangles , too! And boy, do I need this!

It's spring and I'm thinking about being outside in the hammock. Today I'm recovering from yesterday, a busy Good Friday First Seder day.  Up early, cooking for tonight, off to St. Bartholomew's for a Good Friday service, then home to pick up Anne and off to Anne's brother's for the first night of Passover, picking up Anne's mother along the way. Tomorrow it's sunrise at First Presbyterian Church of Yorktown and then into the garden to set up the tomato bed. Monday it's back to work. And I'll wish I had some hammock time! Happy Easter and Passover, everyone!