slowly she turned

San Miguel de Allende, May 13, 2023

June 22, 2023

We began Saturday with a slow walk uphill on this street.

So many shops and galleries were open now. One of the shops we visited was a print shop with many fine relief prints and artist books for sale. We talked to the employee there and her brother for a long time, and I laid down some money for handmade paper and a woodcut printed bag.

Across the street was a shop with beautiful amate (bark) paper pieces for sale, and a couple of those came home with me as well as a bookmark that reminded me of the greater-tailed grackles. This might be my favorite souvenir from Mexico:

Then we had brunch at Petit Four. It was delicious and their pastries were art, although we were good and only looked at them.

Every day we had said that we were going to visit a history museum, and we finally did. The Museo Histórico Casa de Allende was the renovated 18th century residence of one of the heroes of the 1810 revolution, Ignacio Allende.

^This is the parlor where the wimmens hung out. They sat on cushions on the floor while the minz got the comfy chairs when they decided to invade the space.

There was an outdoor exhibition of women artists around the Jardin Allende, but it seemed to be more of the same stuff we had seen in the artisan market, so we wandered through other places instead. I thought it would be good to find the local small book stores.

I searched for a farmacia because I had a sudden allergic reaction that was driving me crazy with itching on my arm. I left Sandy at a book store and took off down hill to the nearest farmacia I could find on Google Maps. Foolishly, I didn’t have much cash on me, and many of the stores didn’t take credit. This one didn’t. They asked for more than I had on me for a tube of hydrocortisone. I bought a tube of aloe gel instead. Then I marched back up the hill to meet Sandy and found that there was a tiny farmacia on the corner of that street, smaller than my bedroom. They asked less than half the price of the hydrocortisone cream. I think I was a victim of gringo pricing at the other place.

We took our siesta, and I started spending some time with my stitching in our little courtyard or on the roof of the hotel. I enjoyed spending time with my new friend Jorge the Beautiful Mexican Beetle. His leg was broken. I put him in one of the potted bougainvillae and gave him some water. More about Jorge tomorrow.

Then we decided to visit the restaurant at Hacienda El Sanctuario, just up the street from us. The host had engaged us in a pleasant conversation on one of our walks in search of a rooftop restaurant a couple of nights before. It was early and we were one of only two couples there, but there was a classical guitarist playing in the courtyard and the art surrounding us in the hotel and in the courtyard was fabulous. After dinner, I was told that I was welcome to go up to the roof and take photos as well. I had not ordered tacos the whole time that I was in Mexico, and I decided on the shrimp tacos here, and Sandy chose the shrimp enchiladas. I can report that these were the best tacos I’ve ever eaten anywhere, and the taste I had of the enchiladas was fabulous, too.

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Saturday morning coffee pot post

June 10, 2023

Well, as you probably know, I try to keep this a politics free space most of the time, for my own sanity’s sake. BUT YAY! And this was too funny not to share, and I still love Bernie.

Anyway, I am still working on the Mexico posts. I have most of them written and I’m still paring down the photos and editing. Already my memory is getting fuzzy and I’m relying on my Facebook posts and the dates on my photos to remember what happened on which day, so I need to finish them up.

Honestly, I’ve been so caught up in my genealogy project and reading that I haven’t felt like editing photos. And of course I went to the Tapestry Weavers South retreat in Elkin, and that’s a whole new set of posts. Soon I’ll head to the lake again. So I guess I’d better get crackin’.

Sandy is doing better, I think. Stopping some of his meds has made him feel better, although I still disagree with him about this course of action. He met with a pharmacist and she prescribed him a new diabetes drug, which is, of course, way too expensive and there was communication problems between his insurance company and Walgreen (what a surprise – snort) but now they have covered most of the expense. I hope that these meds will work with tolerable side effects.

As for me, I stopped taking the anti-inflammatory meloxicam for my bone spur/Achilles tendinitis and after a week, my allergic reactions (hives) stopped, but now the pain has started again. I’m going to try naproxen for a while and then see if I need another steroid shot. Believe me, any way that I can put off this surgery is a good thing to do – it is going to be rough if I have to have it fixed surgically. Even the surgeon said so.

Reading: Finished Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel, which was an excellent and disturbing read. I’m tempted to pick up the third in the series, but I have a huge stack of books in my to-be-read pile already. I began reading Falls the Shadow which is the second book in Sharon Penman’s trilogy about 13th century Wales and England, but the font is SO SMALL, LOL. This one will take a while. I might have to switch back and forth to another book – maybe A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles?

The rest of the day will be busy – preparing a dish for a potluck party tonight to say farewell to a faculty member who we all love but can’t blame her for leaving the hot mess that my university is right now. Then gallery sitting at CVA Gallery in the downtown Arts Center, where I’m trying to accumulate 25 hours of volunteer time to get a free membership, although mostly I’m doing it to stay connected to and inspired by other local artists. I think that tomorrow is wide open so I’m going to try to finish up the Mexico posts then and maybe weave on the little tapestries that I began in Elkin a little over a week ago. Stay tuned!
San Miguel de Allende, May 12, 2023

June 10, 2023

Finally, the streets came alive for the weekend. Suddenly there were lots of doors opened into sweet little shops and cafes. We began to get more familiar with our surroundings. I loved taking photos of doors. I may have to weave some doors soon, and I’ll do a post with only door photos.

We walked around downtown and had lunch at Restaurante San Agustin which specialized in chocolate and churros. I bought some to go, and I wonder how I’ve gotten through my life without them. Lunch was especially good here. I had an avocado stuffed with tuna salad.

I was determined to find a rooftop restaurant that night and so we took our chances on arriving early at Quince without a reservation. It was touted as one of the best views in the city by many magazines, and it was right. (Actually, the website boasts that it was awarded the “Best Rooftop Bar in the World” in 2018.) There was a wedding party going on and they gave us a seat at the bar, which turned out to be a really great location. We decided that we would celebrate our 36th anniversary here, since on our actual anniversary we would have to get up at 3 a.m. the next morning.

My dish was delicious too but not as photogenic as Sandy’s lamb chops.

This restaurant had some unusual entertainment other than the deejay pumping out tunes. We were surprised to see a young woman walk out onto a “slackline” (sorta like a tightrope) high above the courtyard below. We talked to her later and she was from South America. We talked to a lot of people – the town in general was a very friendly place. We sat through the wedding toasts and felt like we were one of the guests.

The staff was gracious and attentive even though they were busy with that wedding party, and when we mentioned that we were celebrating our 36th anniversary, they brought us a free surprise!

Then I got my sunset photo from the other side of the rooftop restaurant. The walk home was magical as well.
San Miguel de Allende, May 11, 2023

June 8, 2023

We decided to begin using Uber rides to get uphill to the center of town and walking back down to the hotel. This worked really well in Mexico, as compared to our Uber tribulations in Portugal last year. We never had a problem.

First we found lunch at a pretty little courtyard cafe named Marluz. You can see in this photo a motif that was everywhere in San Miguel de Allende – the heart of Mexico. It was often crafted in metal. I had one of my favorite meals here – enmoladas de pollo. I knew that I needed to try mole sauce again because I didn’t like it when I ate it years ago. I LOVED IT.

Our goal for the day was to explore the big central market/artisan market. In some ways it was disappointing because the artisan part absolutely catered to tourists. But there were interesting shops and foods inside and I picked up a few items. I had a friend, Pat, who studied herbal medicine in Mexico. I can see why.

We mainly dipped in and out of shops on the streets, and bought ourselves a few shirts. We peeped into this hotel because we thought it might be a cafe and were invited in to see and photograph their huge collection of Talavera sun faces. I think that it was called Hotel del Sol.

The heart of San Miguel de Allende is the Jardin Allende. This is where most of the important historic buildings still stand from their Spanish colonial past. It is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. We would return here often. It was a pleasant shady place to sit and people watch. There were many pretty smaller gardens and squares where you could sit on a bench and have something to eat or drink.

We took plenty of time to rest every day, usually in the afternoon, and then most of the time we had dinner pretty early and came back to the room before dark. I learned my lesson from planning to do too much in Portugal last year so I scheduled this extra time into our vacation.

We walked around our neighborhood a lot that evening trying to find a restaurant with a rooftop where we could watch the sunset. The one we had picked was closed for the month. We ended up giving up on the rooftop and ate dinner at Tené Kitchen & Bar which was located in the courtyard of an old mansion that had been converted into a hotel. I went for the grilled salmon and it did not disappoint! And we are always ready for flan.
San Miguel de Allende May 10, 2023

June 7, 2023

On Wednesday, we began by exploring the nearest streets. This ended up being a real foodie vacation. Our first stop was at the little coffee shop on the corner, and then we found lunch at Cafe Jess. After talking to the young woman we thought was a waitress for a while, we discovered that she was eighteen and the owner of the business, Jess. She had gone to Canada and worked as a nanny for several months to earn money to open the restaurant. Her English was excellent. These were cheese enchiladas with green chile sauce.

The owner of an antique store did his best to convince me that we should move there. He extolled the health care system and the safety of San Miguel de Allende. It was a bit too soon for me.

We decided to get badly needed haircuts at the salon on our street. I wish I had bought whatever it was that he used to get my hair to calm down and lay flat!

This was the inner courtyard of the art institute down the street. There were galleries but most weren’t open.

I went to a small grocery which they called a farmacia plus, I think. We needed a few supplies like bottled water. We needed a LOT of water. The water the hotel provided was enough to make espresso and brush our teeth but that was about it. Like in Europe, you get over-the-counter drugs at a counter instead of them being on a shelf.

This is a typical street that was around us. Cobblestones, narrow sidewalks, and hilly. There were some streets, such as the ones we rode into town on, that were very steep. There were often plants on the roofs and garlands of flowers around doorways.

This was the street just behind our hotel. I had to take a shot of this street sign. Interpret as you will.

Here’s what I said about this day on Facebook: “I see why Americans and Canadians retire here in San Miguel de Allende. It’s gorgeous, and the climate is pleasant all year around. I just found out that May is the hottest time of the year. This is kind of like June in North Carolina, but with much less humidity. We haven’t even been to the main part of town. We just be chilling. Right now I’m on the roof, listening to someone playing violin beautifully nearby, and the cathedral and churches are lighting up.”
Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies

June 4, 2023

I’m doing a catch-up post about the tapestry design workshop and Tapestry Weavers South retreat that I attended the first week in June. MJ Lord taught the workshop, “Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies,” based on her colorful abstract design work based on nature. It was the perfect workshop for me since I’ve really been into birds and bugs lately, and I needed a nudge to design some new tapestry.

First, MJ asked us to zero in on details of photos or illustrations we brought and make at least three sketches. I knew all along that my photo would be of Jorge, the Beautiful Mexican Beetle who I befriended in San Miguel de Allende. I did play loosely with the colors and some of the markings, since I was trying to work with my yarn stash of loose strands, including Paternayan yarns from the 1970s. I had warped this loom ten inches wide so I decided to weave two small tapestries side by side. Here are the sketches and the photo of Jorge.

Then MJ asked us to include at least three tapestry techniques in our weavings. I naturally gravitate toward mixing single strands of color for color blending, so that was a given. I chose a pick-and-pick background for one tapestry and “seeding” in Jorge’s wings for the other. “Seeding” was a new term for me for something I’d been doing, but in this case I did it a bit more methodically into the weave. I had not done pick-and-pick other than in small areas so going to the edge with this technique was a learning experience.

Another challenge for me in these tapestries was that after I began I realized that I didn’t have enough of the background colors to weave the entire background. I realized it early enough that I was able to use color blending to compensate for that.

Here’s a photo of a classmate with her finished tapestry based on a photo of a woodpecker.

Stacy, the lady in green who sat next to me, brought Sammy Jo, a sweet tiny elderly dog who was also a fierce guard dog who sat under the table and traveled about in Stacy’s bag. I fell in love with Sammy Jo.

At the opening for the Tapestry Weavers South exhibition, which had traveled from the Folk Art Center in Asheville to the Yadkin Valley Fiber Center in Elkin, I demonstrated tapestry in the window and a few of our members joined me for a photo.

We enjoyed meals at Southern on Main and the Crazy Pig (I think), restaurants on Main St. in Elkin, and I didn’t take photos, but we took a field trip on Friday to Sparta to Blue Ridge Fiber Fest, and April and Stacy and Sammy Jo and I ate on the patio at Muddy Creek Cafe (BEST PIMENTO CHEESE EVER). I really didn’t need to buy anything at the fiber festival, as you know, but I did anyway. Some beautiful hand dyed embroidery silk, a book on Tunisian crochet, and a spectacular scarf that really is an art piece – I may hang it on the wall. It’s hard to photograph because it was sewn and thread-painted onto water-soluble stabilizer and has a lot of open space, but here’s my try:

One afternoon, Leslie took us on a hike along one of the trails in Elkin, and I saw a jack-in-the-pulpit in the wild just off the trail. A quilting guild had scattered quilted hearts around town for people who came to Elkin for Trail Days to find and keep. We found two in the park next to the trail.

As usual, it was a lovely retreat and April gave a presentation about Archie Brennan and Sylvia Heyden and compared their approaches to tapestry. Mostly we enjoyed weaving on small projects together and socializing.

Every time I go to Elkin it gets better and I think, “I could live here.”
Querétaro to San Miguel de Allende, May 9, 2023

May 28, 2023

^This is the beautiful Templo de la Merced that we could see from the roof of our hotel. I wish that we had gone in when we heard the mass on Sunday as we walked by, because from the photos I’ve seen, the interior is gorgeous. I started to crop the electric lines from the next photo, but realized that I like all the lines and angles of the shot.

Another thing that we were learning about Mexico was that many shops and restaurants do not take credit cards, so first thing on Tuesday morning we headed to an ATM to get cash to pay the driver who would take us to San Miguel de Allende at noon. That’s when we found the true heart of Querétaro’s Centro Historico.

I nearly walked into a policeman holding an automatic weapon when I was trying to take a photo of the Mexican flag above the government buildings. Then I saw a lot of other police armed the same way. This shocked and scared me, but being from the United States, I have no comment.

^This photo isn’t great, but I loved the cats on the supports to this balcony.

I tried very hard to get in at least one visit to a museum, and we eventually spent twenty minutes in the Querétaro Art Museum (https://whichmuseum.com/museum/museo-de-arte-de-queretaro-19634). It is housed in a beautiful old Baroque monastery.

We had to hustle back to the hotel to check out and meet our ride, and so we were rushed. Querétaro would have been worth spending more time there. If I ever go back, I will.

The UNESCO World Heritage site for the Historic Monuments Zone of Querétaro: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/792

Then we were on the highway through acres of cacti to San Miguel de Allende for the rest of our time in Mexico. Right away we noticed a difference in the highway – there were one and a half lanes on each side instead of double lanes. The side lanes were used for bicycles and motorbikes but also cars pulled over into the side lanes and straddled the line when faster cars passed, who straddled the center line of the highway. It seemed dangerous but made sense as long as the traffic was light.

We were very beat after our morning rushing around Querétaro so after a ride into San Miguel de Allende which took very steep narrow (but beautiful) streets down to our hotel, we found a great Italian place to eat mid afternoon, where the warm foccaccia could make you tremble and weep. We went back to this place later and it was just as good.

We then crashed for the evening in our air conditioned room at Bito’s Hotel Boutique. This would turn out to be the ONLY air conditioning that we would experience in Mexico. So many places were outside and/or in courtyards and the temperature was usually in the mid 80s. We spent a lot of time in this very comfortable room!

I went to the roof and took photos in each direction. The Cathedral is closer than it appears! I decided to try to take a photo of the sunset each day.
Querétaro, Mexico, May 8, 2023

May 28, 2023

^I think there is a garden behind these doors. We would find that there were often beautiful surprises within plain outside facades. The sign translates to “The Snails” but I don’t know what C.S.O.A means.

I knew that there would not be much open on Monday, so I ordered breakfast at our hotel, which our host cooked and served in the courtyard. Again, there was confusion over the time. We sat down at our appointed time, when she politely told us in Spanish that breakfast would be at 8:30. I looked at my phone which said 8:30, so we continued to sit there and eventually she served us a giant breakfast. I also scheduled a couples’ massage for us at 11:00. We waited until 11:15, and I went to ask the host about it. She said that our appointment was at 11. She sent me a message in WhatsApp that our appointment was at 11. Finally at 11:30 I went downstairs and asked her if something was wrong. The massage therapists were coming in the door and I was again told in English that our appointment was at 11. I showed her the time on my phone that it was past 11:30, and THAT’S WHEN I found out that the phone was an hour off. It was pretty embarrassing but it explained so much.

I googled it. The time zone was correct, but the auto-update on the phones got the time wrong. In October they did away with daylight savings time in most of the country.

And the massages were fantastic.

That afternoon we went to the oldest shop in Querétaro, according to the current owner, who is the latest owner in the family business: Sombrerería La Popular, more than 100 years old. He sold hats, and we enjoyed talking with him. We didn’t bring our traveling hats, so we bought a hat for each of us at the dark old fashioned counters. Sandy really rocks his new Panama hat.

We explored some more shops, antique stores, another street market, and the Templo y Exconvento de la Santa Cruz at the top of the Plaza de Los Fundadores. I wondered why so many vendors were selling and processing thorns. Later I found out why. Here’s the history from this site: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/mexico/northern-central-highlands/queretaro/attractions/templo-y-convento-de-la-santa-cruz/a/poi-sig/1149080/361574.

“One of the city’s most interesting sights, this convent was built between 1654 and about 1815 on the site of a battle in which a miraculous appearance of Santiago (St James) apparently led to the Otomí surrender to the conquistadors and Christianity. Emperor Maximilian had his headquarters here while under siege in Querétaro from March to May 1867. After his surrender and subsequent death sentence, he was jailed here while awaiting the firing squad.

“Today it’s used as a religious school. You must visit with a guide – you wait at the entrance until a group has formed – although tours are in Spanish. The site’s main legend is the growth of the Árbol de la Cruz, an ancient tree in the convent’s garden, whose thorns are in the shape of crosses. This miracle was the result of a walking stick stuck in the earth by a pious friar in 1697.”

These are some very wicked thorns, by the way. I bought a magnet and the vendor inserted a thorn in the package. I use thorns in my art work sometimes, so I was happy to get one.

We ended the day with a meal that was not so great but this local English brown ale from a brewery called Hercules was one of the best I have tasted. The hat is from the shop, and my hair would soon be chopped off.
Querétaro, Mexico, May 6-7, 2023

May 28, 2023

First off, it’s pronounced kay-REE-tah-roh. I had to practice this a lot after weeks of saying qwair-ee-TAH-roh. It’s a big modern city with a Spanish colonial heart that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We flew there on Saturday, May 6.

I found a flight that our miles mostly covered that got us there in one day that stopped in Chicago and Houston. I’ve been using United Airlines and their Mileage Plus program for a couple of years now and I like United. The staff have been generous and helpful and competent. “Fly the Friendly Skies!” I didn’t choose them for a while because they aren’t the least expensive airline out there, but I’ve learned that some of these cheap airlines aren’t worth the headaches. Now that I collect miles and have the credit card, I use it for almost everything and I’ve found that they have better deals for customers in the miles program.

Anyway, part of the deal is that I get two United Club passes per year. I didn’t use those passes last year because I wasn’t on a flight that had a long enough layover, but this time we had four hours in O’Hare, so we went to the United Club lounge. And man, I will never neglect to use my passes again. There was a buffet with good food and drinks and a bar and everything was free. Comfortable seating as well.

As we came down for a landing at the airport in Querétaro, the plane was in the worst prolonged turbulence I’ve ever experienced. My motion sickness is so sensitive that I can’t ride in the back seat of a car and I’ve even gotten sick on a swing. We were already an hour late at the end of a very long day and I just cried and held my barf bag ready, but somehow I didn’t throw up. I could hear someone else throwing up. I will come to the point of implosion before I will puke.

I was communicating with the driver who was scheduled to pick us up at the airport with updates and of course we had to go through immigration and bag check. I was flipping back and forth between Google Translate and WhatsApp, a trick I started to get used to, since we don’t speak Spanish and our hotel hosts and drivers didn’t speak English. I thought that we were two hours late because of the time zone that my phone updated to, but the phone was wrong! So the driver was very confused because I paid him nearly double, since I thought he had come out to pick us up twice. Gas is expensive and it was a fairly long ride, so I wanted to award him for his patience. Turned out he was confused because he had made one trip and didn’t have to wait that long for us.

It turns out that Mexico has a very fluid relationship with daylight savings time, but I wouldn’t figure this out for two days.

Our room was in a cute little boutique hotel close to the Centro Historico. You would never know how lovely it was from the street. I knew that it would not be air conditioned, but I figured in May we could deal with it. (May is actually the hottest month of the year in Central Mexico.) It was a bit tough on the first night and day because it was so humid, but the next two days and nights were fine. It was decorated in a kind of shabby chic way, with bicycles and kitchen utensils and gardening tools around. It was a bit too hot to hang out on the roof terrace, but there was a pretty good view.

On Sunday morning I did my usual thing of getting my Google Maps directions turned around and we walked in the opposite direction than we meant to go, which meant that we did see a bit of the “real” street life and part of the modern area with its chain restaurants and a metro train. We ate a sandwich in a little coffee shop and drank the first of many, many lemonades and fruit juices.

Walking back I got oriented to the map in real life and the next foray out was a bit better when we went to the Alameda Hidalgo and strolled along the paths. Birds that I couldn’t see were rivaling our mockingbirds for crazy songs and noises in the trees. Finally I saw one on the ground and it was solid black with a tail that fanned out in the opposite way that most crows’ tails do. Turned out to be a great-tailed grackle, a very common bird, but one that fascinated me the whole time I was in Mexico. I never could get a good photo, though.

We wandered in and out of little shops and streets filled with vendors hawking tourist tchotchkes, stopping often for lemonade and bottled water. Outside of the Centro Historico, people were selling snacks and drinks and produce on the sidewalks. One place that I would have liked to have spent more time at was the Galería Libertad. It was showing huge prints and relief blocks by Victor Lopez and I was allowed to take a few photos.

After that we had dinner and mojitos at 1810 Restaurante and sat outside under umbrellas and a covering. Another big storm came up but we were okay where we were and just sat there people watching and chatted with the waiter.
Sunday morning coffee pot post

May 28, 2023

I really am working on the Mexico travel posts. I’m almost ready to post the ones from Querétaro. I wrote a lot of it when I was in the throes of a very bad mood so I need to edit that and add the photos I’ve edited and uploaded. I’ve vented a lot of this anger and anxiety in the last part of this post and I feel better.

This morning I woke up naturally after an enormous amount of sleep. Sometimes I just go down like that. I took a three hour nap late yesterday afternoon and then went down again for 11 hours last night! I always think of these episodes as recharging a nearly dead battery, and it has happened to me 2 or 3 times a year for years. I never known when it will hit, but usually it is after a vacation or after some intense social activity. This is a little late for vacation recharge, although I did volunteer at the gallery yesterday where another volunteer in love with the sound of his voice nattered on incessantly on all subjects. I freed myself from him and then Sandy walked in and hit it off with him instantly, of course. So I had to drag him off to go to Cafe Europa for lunch. Sometimes I have an intense need for quiet. I think that my body provided it.

I made some progress in getting rid of some books and supplies, but need to work on that more. Maybe I’ll tackle my closet today. I have so many shoes and clothes that I no longer wear. The temptation to keep old clothes is very powerful since there are so many ways that I can recycle them into art. In late July I have a workshop with Bryant Holsenbeck to learn to do the wire and recycled material animal sculptures that she’s famous for creating.

Just to prove that I DID warp up my Mirrix loom last Sunday, BOOM:

This is the first time I’ve warped it since I bought the bottom spring kit. It’s warped at 10 epi, since that’s my favorite sett and I have a lot of wool singles that I usually double or triple and mix colors with. It’s off center because at first I was warping around a bar in the back of the loom thinking that I could pull it around the frame for a longer length, as I have done with my other frame loom. Once I realized that would be difficult (but maybe not impossible) to pull the weaving around with the springs on, and it became super awkward to push the roll of warp through the space on the right, I decided that it was wide enough. I don’t have a design yet and will make one in my upcoming workshop with MJ Lord this week, so I’ll adapt my design size to this warp.

The next step that I’d LIKE to do, is to properly set up the shedding bar with leashes or string heddles so that I can work faster and more easily. I’ll look up the video instructions on the Mirrix site to do that part because it has been a long time since Archie showed me how to tie leashes and I didn’t follow up with doing it on my own. I do have a photo of him in action at Pam Patrie’s tapestry retreat from 2015: https://slowlysheturned.net/2015/05/28/tapestry-retreat-with-archie-susan-and-pam-day-two/ (I’d love to insert this link, but WordPress makes it increasingly difficult to do so.) I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to study with this master in Pam’s beautiful cabin overlooking the Pacific. I know that he used a half hitch on the outer bar between leashes as he worked from left to right, and I thought that I had a video of him doing this somewhere.

I’m really looking forward to the tapestry workshop and tapestry retreat in Elkin this coming week. The theme of the workshop is Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies, and I have had a lot of inspiration for subject matter! The opportunity to get together with other tapestry weavers is wonderful, and we always have good food. The opening of the TWS “Follow the Thread” is Friday evening in Elkin at the Yadkin Valley Fiber Art Center on Main St. It will have most of the tapestries shown at the Folk Art Center plus a few new ones. So if you read the rant section below (and please don’t if you aren’t interested in our woes), keep in mind that I feel much better now.

Reading: I started and finished The Round House by Louise Erdrich, and as usual, she did not disappoint. I began Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. It’s been a while since I read its prequel, Wolf Hall, but I think that I know enough of the story of Anne Boleyn that it will not be hard to get back on track. By the way, according to my research on familysearch.org, Anne’s father, Thomas Boleyn, is my direct ancestor. I’ve found, however, that I could go back to my family tree next week and look at it and someone will have changed that.

HEALTH RANT ALERT:

So anyway. I went with Sandy to his endocrinologist appointment and it was quite frustrating to listen to her go through his list of medications and him repeatedly respond that he quit taking them. He knows, though, that he cannot skip his thyroid medication any more because she made it very clear. She postponed the lab he was supposed to have. I was very angry because he emphatically told me in the waiting room that he did not want me to argue about his medication. So I listened and only interjected a few times with the doctor. I also rolled my eyes behind him when he made a bullshit excuse. I’ve been trying to get him to set alarms for his medications for months and the doctor said, “Hey, you don’t have to do that! Just take it when you first get up.” So I was angry at Sandy for being self-destructive and at her for undermining a good plan of action for him.

He still has half a thyroid and his tumors in that half are very small, so it isn’t a dire situation and they may not even take out the other half. If they do, it will be next year after they’ve done another biopsy and an ultrasound. The good thing, if you can call having still one more health issue on top of the others a good thing, is that this kind of cancer is very non-aggressive and slow.

The other thing that is driving me crazy is that after a definitive diagnosis including a surgical biopsy of muscle tissue in his leg and lab results showing antibodies that are only present with polymyositis (https://www.myositis.org/about-myositis/diagnosis/blood-tests/myositis-autoantibodies/), he believes that he doesn’t have this disease and that the medication he is taking is making him worse and is completely stubborn on the subject. So he quit taking his statins, which I can understand giving that a try, but he quit taking the steroids that keep his polymyositis in check. Keep in mind that this same medication nearly cured him and sent him into remission almost two years ago, but his tests show it is back.

I won’t even go into the diabetes meds, but at least for that he finally moved to make an appointment next week with his GP’s pharmacist to find a different med. This is something I’ve pushed him to do for over a year. His A1C was extremely high.

Sorry for all the TMI but I’ve lived with this man for over 36 years, and the level he can go to in self-sabotage is a pattern. This is not the time to go there. It makes me very depressed. After a couple of days to try to get my frustration and anger under control, he obviously took note of my silences and seems to be working on taking care of it.

My anxiety is that I am not a natural nurturer and I never have been. That’s one reason we chose to be child-free. We would have been terrible parents. Now I’m looking at eldercare in my future with no long term care insurance for a man who I love dearly but he periodically decides that he knows better than doctors what is wrong with him, and he has a rare progressive muscle disease among many other serious health problems. I worry about my ability to care for him and the alterations we need to do to the house if he has to start using a wheelchair. So yeah, it might be time to go back to therapy. I just wish I could get him to go.

As far as my own health, I learned something important since coming back from vacation. I started taking ALL my meds in the morning. I’ve taken them at night for years because it’s easier for me to remember and I don’t eat anything until a few hours after I get up. And voilà! My restless legs disappeared. Boy, do I hope that this is the solution! It has been wonderful not to deal with this disruption to my sleep every night!

Now, back to travel writing.