It's just a bunch of stuff that happened - Part 2: Chairs and Gardens

Friend's greenhouse on July 7th
teeny cucumbers (or zucchini?)

How it started:

In early May, we volunteered to water a friend’s greenhouse plants for seven weeks in June and July.   And then in late May I got severe sciatica.

How it’s going:

I started physical therapy in late June.  The first thing the physical therapist advised me is:  get a new office chair.  Then, do these 20 exercises/stretches at home.  Don’t do yoga.  Don't do weeding. Whenever you think of it, pull in your belly button to engage your abs.

My Black-eyed Susans on July 3rd. 
The one in the back (storebought) is prissy
 and also a favored snack of the
local wildlife. I doubt it's gonna make it.
The ones in the front are a gift
from the neighbor.

I bought a used high-end office chair.  This required crossing the Ohio River, four times, I tell you.  (There are three major rivers in this county.  Crossing any river is something people here don’t like to do.)  The local office stores had nothing suitable.  I bought from a humongous office furniture warehouse, in a warehousey section of the little river town, all the while astonished they would even entertain selling one small chair to me.   The actual chair and its price are quite comfortable for me.

This is only half of the used chairs they had.

P.T. is SOOOO time consuming.  But also beneficial.  P.T. meant less time for driving (15 minutes each way) to water plants–for a total of at least 45 minutes each time.  I had hoped to make it three times a week, but that dwindled to one or two times.  Some of the plants are thriving, but some are barely making it.  

A lovely 5-inch cucumber.
Large enough to please the Secretary of 
Defense, so I harvested it.

It’s been hellishly hot, and it doesn’t rain inside the greenhouse, so it needs a lot of water.  But not too much, because fungus can grow in the hot and moist greenhouse mini-climate (and so it has). 

I decimated the mushrooms with
the force of hose water.  I do
not think for one moment that
they are actually gone.

Then a huge sinkhole opened up in front of the hospital near where we live, adding 5 minutes to the greenhouse trip.  

Let’s do a short tally of some of the terrifying things so far this month:  

- hellishly hot, due to climate change

- sinkhole (thank God the federal government is not in charge of this one)

- cyclospora parasite infection, nationwide, due to CDC cuts

- screwworm parasite in livestock and pets, surging back, due to DOGE cuts

- dangerous smoke in the air, with AQIs above 400, due to climate change

- sciatica, due to my own stupidity + aging

And this is small potatoes compared to what some human beings are suffering because of current policies. Oh, 2026, why are you doing this?!

Those zucchini/cuke tendrils are
biologically amazing and are spreading
everywhere.  A successful species.

The tomato plants have not produced many flowers, while the cucumbers (or maybe zucchini) are threatening to take over the whole place, as squash do.  Our friend suggested I spread fertilizer and pluck some lower stems off but I simply don’t have time to do actual gardening like that, which makes me sad.

On the bright side, we have harvested some delicious lettuce, 3 beautiful little cucumbers, and 7 green beans.  This is produce that is safe from the evil parasite that the cuts to the CDC have brought us.  Yay!  It's a balm in the face of it all.

The second harvest.

Dear Reader, have you harvested anything from anywhere lately?

Part 1: Peaches Deliver Joy

Part 3 (final in this series): Empty Nest Again

Garden Tour mid-June 2026

Since this is the most effort we have put into gardening in a long time, I feel it's worth an update.  Especially since I wrecked my sciatic nerve working on it.  The garden beds have not been weeded, because of said sciatica.

The Mailbox Garden

The mailbox garden: 

snapdragons (finished blooming)

marigolds (yellow)

and balloon flowers - just starting to bloom.

Five of the six marigolds I planted have survived.

The balloon flowers are just starting to bloom!

Directly in front of the house (facing north, shady)

These impatiens (salmon-colored and white)
are planted right in front of my office.
And in the pot are supposedly
some black-eye susan vines
that I started from seed.

Geranium - a gift from the
church music director

The burnt-sienna colored coleus leaves
are being eaten by something.  And 
I think I made a mistake and planted too
much in this one pot.  

Astilbe.  Recommended for shade, and 
deer resistant.  I was only able to
plant one before being chastised by
that nerve in my leg.
I am underimpressed by this one plant.

Bleeding heart, one of two plants.
This will lose all its foliage before too long.
And then, God willing, will surge forth
in the spring and produce
those delicate hanging gems of flowers.

The "hillside" nearest the neighbor (visible from the street)

Lamb's ears (perennials, planted by me)
Verbena and Lantana (annuals, planted by
the Common Household Husband)

Verbena

Lantana

The west side - just planted this year with perennials.  

It has been hard to grow things here.

The west side, from the top.
This is on a slope.
That day lily has zero blooms.
When it does get blooms, the
creatures eat them, so maybe 
it gave up.

Bee balm - getting close to the end
of blooming.  This was gorgeous and
very satisfying to see.  I don't know
if they will bloom again this season.

Snow-in-summer.  This was done blooming
a month ago.  I love the delicate tiny
whiter-than-white flowers.

This spirea bush is almost done blooming. 

It's very bushy.  In the process of putting

together this blog post, I discovered it is

considered invasive in PA.

Blackeyed Susans.  The one in the back
is from the garden store; the others are 
a gift from the neighbor. No blooms (yet?).
That plant on the right is a mystery plant that
miraculously came back from last year.

Yarrow (tall, red) and coreopsis (yellow-orange).

Sedum.  These put forth a few little yellow flowers
which were delightful. But I  guess they are done.

This same garden bed, from below.

The east side of the house  

This is managed by the Common Household Husband, and has

practically no weeds. The plants are healthy and thick.  

That green foliage blooms bright yellow

 flowers earlier  in the spring.  

I have no idea what it is called.

The more purply plants are a large 

variety of sedum.  

The gardens are going to have to do the rest of the growing and blooming by themselves because I am currently incapable of doing any maintenance.  The blooms we are seeing give me hope.

Explosions

Holden Arboretum, Kirtland, OH

Congratulations to all you folks who had “meteor fireball” on your 2026 bingo card.  Exploding meteor over Massachusetts!  Younger Daughter says she heard it, but thought it was thunder.  

“It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a yard wide,” [American Meteor Society program monitor Robert Lunsford] said.   

Are fireballs ever normal?  

I experienced my own sort of explosion this week, due to aggressive shower scrubbing on Monday and then, stupidly, excessive gardening on Wed. and Thurs.  

The dark lines in the shower floor
are not dirt but emptiness.

I had to scrub the shower because the guy was coming on Thursday to regrout the shower floor.   The only thing good about this was that I had abandoned the idea of doing the regrouting myself.  The scrubbing of the shower brought on mild sciatica. 

Gardening on a steep slope like this
is difficult.  But of course, you can't
tell from this photo that it is a steep slope.
Lamb's ear, lantana, and verbena.

Outside, we have been planting perennials and annuals galore, as our horticultural statement that we believe there will be a future with beauty in it, despite all current evidence to the contrary.  Perennials from the garden store come in DEEP buckets.   We bought a spade to dig deep holes.  And our neighbor saw me planting stuff, and gave me gobs more perennials (for free!) from her very successful garden.

And then I wanted to put in some bleeding hearts, and on Thursday the garden store finally had them in stock. This meant digging more very deep holes in rocky soil and cutting some thick roots, in a hurry because we would be away for the weekend.   This was the last straw for my sciatic nerve, which has obviously heard that it is the year 2026.  Stinging, burning pain from my butt all the way to my heel.  It became extremely painful to sit, or move to standing, and eventually even when lying down and not moving.   The pain is as intense as labor contractions, but with no prize after. 

From inside the hole for the
bleeding heart

On Friday we drove to Ohio for a planned visit to Older Daughter.  The Common Household Husband said I should go, because if not, I would regret missing the family visit.  I achieved my lifelong goal of getting my husband to stop at every rest stop, so I could stand up for a few blessed minutes.  I went on a regime of max dosages of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, which made the pain barely tolerable instead of excruciating, but had unpleasant effects on my digestion.  

I tried to distract myself from the pain by calling Younger Daughter, who has recently studied anatomy.

Me: “Please explain to me the sciatic nerve, and why it hurts so expletive-deleted much, and why I even need this nerve.”

Younger Daughter, in teacher mode:  “Are you familiar with your spine?”

Me: “That’s a political question. There are many people these days who are not familiar with their spines.”

YD basically said that the sciatic nerve is a big honking nerve (connected to the spine) which I do actually want to have because it enables walking.

Saturday we drove 40 perturbing minutes to the Holden Arboretum. Once I got out of the car I was actually able to enjoy the arboretum, as long as I kept walking and never sat down.  We saw some Quaking Aspens, which are one connected organism! The Bald Cypress is a tree that has knees.  We saw lots of gorgeous flowers too, including some of the same species that we have planted in our own garden.  

Quaking Aspen

Bald Cypress

We probably walked more than two miles, for several hours.  Quite a hike for me!

Instead of staying in Ohio another night we drove home and got to the urgent care an hour before they closed.  Confirmed that it is sciatica. The doc said, “You shouldn’t just lie in bed because that will create other more serious problems.  But don’t go on a hike or anything like that.”    2026 strikes again - I just spent hours walking around the arboretum.

With prednisone, the pain has gone from constant agony down to a dull pain when sitting, and only excruciating when getting to standing, or putting on my socks and shoes.  I have to go up and down the stairs like a toddler.  I can’t drive.

On the plus side, the shower is regrouted, the garden beds are planted, we obtained an Emergency Heating Pad, we got to visit the folks in Ohio, if briefly.  And steroids exist, at least for two more days.

And we have an explosion of flora surrounding the house. That's pretty good, for 2026.

Yellow peonies, Holden Arboretum

Yarrow, Holden Arboretum.
I wonder if ours will look like this, ever.

Star of Persia allium, and two-toned peonies,
Holden Arboretum

You Have the Power

TEETH.
American Museum of Natural History,
New York City, August 2014

On Wed. March 11th I went to the Dentist Whom I Do Not Trust (DWIDNT?) and acquired my first crown, on a tooth that has not been causing me any pain or trouble.  I kvetched and moaned beforehand to anyone who would listen.  My friends offered concern and solace, patiently telling me that they had had this procedure and it was not painful.  Expensive dental work without pain? Can’t be, I reasoned.

I entered the appointment in a bad mood, because of All The Things, including but not limited to anticipation of pain.   I told the dentist at the start that I was nervous, for which the response was the usual medical-personnel brushoff, “Oh, you’ll do fine.”  

This reminds me of Nov 2016 after the Orange Menace was first elected, when someone at church said to me, “It will be okay.”  It has not been okay.  It has been horrendous.

I said to the Dentist Whom I Do Not Trust, “You’ve done a billion of these, right?”  Yes, pretty much.  He spent about 30 seconds administering the local anesthetic, went away until I was numb, came back and spent about 5 minutes drilling the old filling out.  Then he left the room, never to be seen again by me that day.  The rest of the work that hour was done by Kelly, the Person Whose Title I Don’t Know.  Or maybe her name was not Kelly.  I don’t remember.  (I wish that I would be handed a card at every dentist visit that says, “Your hygienist today was FirstName” because after six months I can never remember the hygienist’s name.)  I was worried about how the dentist was going to be, professionally, but I should have worried about how the Unknown Titled Person would be.  She did a lot of intricate work to make the temporary crown.

They knew I had never before received a crown, and that it was a long time since I had had anything done requiring local anesthetic.  I wanted them to tell me, for each part of the procedure, exactly what they were doing.  They did not.  Informing the patient is too much to ask in 2026.  As best I could, I asked questions, despite my mouth being numb.   But if I didn’t ask, there was very little info forthcoming.  

Wedding crowns from
Pakistan.

I was told what not to eat, and not to floss, that it’s probably a good idea to rinse with warm salt water, the warmer the better.  This info should be handed to the dental patient after the procedure, on a little card which also says, “Your hygienist today was FirstName.” I am now terrified to brush my teeth on that side.  

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had no pain, even after the anesthetic wore off.  All my friends were telling me the truth, and I am grateful.  I rinsed with salt water, while the Common Household Husband peppered me with questions:  How much salt?  How hot the water?  How often?  I have no idea, because I was not handed a little card with detailed instructions.  I am the grandchild of a train engineer and the daughter of an engineer and a teacher.  I want detailed instructions.  Or, to put it more bluntly, I want to be pampered.

It is a temporary crown, but gives me the authority to say, on March 28th, “You say ‘No Kings’, but I actually have a crown. Bwa ha ha ha !.”  It is very unlikely I will actually say that.  

I offer no final judgment until I receive the permanent crown. The temporary one makes me feel like I have glue on my gums.

*** Two days later ***

On Friday March 13, 2026 we had a huge wind storm, which knocked the power out, just after I finished cooking dinner.  We ate dinner in the light of the shabbat candles.  I had just charged up my kindle earlier in the day.  The Common Household Husband was home and, though his EV was below 50%, it had enough charge to run the fridge.  The outside temperature was above freezing.  No trees fell on the house. You can decide if all of that means Friday the 13th is lucky or unlucky.   The power was off until around 3 PM the next day.

Near our son's apartment

During the night, I skipped around on my kindle, starting three new books and eventually finishing one I had been reading, in the hopes of falling back asleep.  I had been longing to have the concentration to sink my teeth into a long book, and I took this as my opportunity, although it is hard to concentrate with the wind howling.  I bought a 571-page Pulitzer-Prize-winning history book about Cuba. I am enjoying it so far.  I will probably finish it in July.

We made it through the night, waking up on Saturday to an ambient temperature of around 58 degrees in the house.  Brrr!  We got up and made our way to Eat ‘N’ Park, a fine local eating establishment, where we found everyone else also in search of a hot breakfast.  

I completely forgot to rinse with salt water.  But I still remain without any pain or infection.  So far.

We cleaned up branches and sticks from the yard until the bin was full.  We drove over to our son’s apartment – his power had been restored Friday afternoon – charged our devices, chatted, and went for a strenuous walk to view the local damage.  When we returned home in the afternoon, the power had been restored about half an hour prior.  NAPTIME.

So we have electrical power back at our house (not so much for my church, sadly), and I have temporary regal gear, at least for Molar #31.  This afternoon, the wind is really picking up speed again.  Thanks, 2026.

Voting is my superpower, and probably yours too.  I refuse to cede that power: I have a crown. 

Hope to see you all in the streets on March 28th.

No huge branches down in our yard.

The bin is full but we still have
more branches to put in it.
And another windstorm today.

Does she wear a crown or a tiara?

The Gospel of John, Chapter 19: Crucifixion

 

The Gospel of John, Chapter 19: Crucifixion

Read Chapter 19 here.

The torture and humiliation now begin in earnest.  And so does the political maneuvering between the Jewish leaders and Pilate, the Roman governor.  There is a tragic sense of fatalism - everything is happening as it has to happen, everyone is playing their allotted role.  Numerous times in this chapter the author tells us that scripture is fulfilled.

First, Pilate has Jesus whipped.  That in itself should be enough torture, but it doesn’t stop there.

Since Pilate has repeatedly called Jesus “King of the Jews”, the soldiers mock Jesus by making a crown of thorns and torture Jesus by putting this painful thing on his head.  They dress him in a purple robe, sarcastically say “Hail, King of the Jews”, and slap Jesus in the face.  

Pilate appears again before “them” (I surmise that this means the Jewish leaders who arrested Jesus and brought him to Pilate).  Jesus appears before them all, wearing the crown of thorns and the mocking robe of “royalty.”  Pilate twice says that he finds nothing to accuse Jesus of.  The chief priests and police call out “Crucify him!” and say that Jesus’ crime is that “he has claimed to be the Son of God.” (verse 7)

Pilate becomes afraid.  I guess he doesn’t want to get mixed up in a religious-political dispute.  Or he doesn’t want to choose between dissing the emperor or dissing the God of the Jewish people.  Pilate quizzes Jesus again, trying for a third time (a mirror image of Peter’s three denials?) to find a reason to free Jesus, but Jesus says nothing.  Pilate says, don’t you know I have supreme power over your life?  Jesus then responds that the only reason Pilate has power is that it was given to him “from above.”  

Again Pilate tries to release Jesus.  The Jewish leaders who oppose Jesus throw it back in his face - they say, if you let free this man who claims to be a king, then you are being disloyal to the Roman emperor.

Next Pilate tries to appeal to the people outside the Praetorium.  Are these just the Jewish leaders, or is it a crowd of people?  I think in this gospel it’s just the leaders.  The text notes that it was the “day of Preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon.”  I am not sure what this detail means. Is there likely to be a big crowd there at that time on that particular day? 

Pilate said to “the Jews”, (the leaders who oppose Jesus), “Here’s your king!” but they shout for Jesus to be crucified.  Pilate:  You want me to crucify your king?  The chief priests declare that the Roman emperor is their only king. So Pilate sends Jesus to be crucified.

As this gospel tells it, Jesus has to carry his own cross, walking to The Place of the Skull, Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion. 

There are few details in this gospel about the mechanics of crucifixion, but suffice to say that it is an extremely cruel, humiliating, and torturous way to die. They place Jesus on a cross between two other criminals.  Pilate arranges for a sign to be on Jesus’ cross that says, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The text specifies that the sign is written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Anybody and everybody should be able to read it.  The Jewish chief priests object to this label, but Pilate says, too bad.  “What I have written I have written.”  (verse 22).  

As Jesus hangs naked on the cross, slowly dying, the soldiers take Jesus’ clothes and divvy them up between them.  This is to fulfill a scripture.

Some of Jesus’ closest family and friends are standing nearby watching.  The first mentioned are women – Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, another Mary, and Mary Magdalene.  Jesus sees his own mother and “the disciple whom he loved” and bequeaths to his mother a new son, the disciple he loves.  This is heartbreakingly touching, and I think it is further fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer in Chapter 17:12 that “not one of them [Jesus’ followers] was lost”. 

Jesus senses that his death is near.  He says, in order to fulfill scripture, “I am thirsty.”  Those in charge put a sour-wine-soaked sponge on a branch of hyssop and hold it to Jesus’ mouth.

When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.”  Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (verse 30)

Every Good Friday, when I hear this story again, it never fails to give me chills.

The gospel author notes that “the Jews” do not want the bodies of the crucified people to remain on the crosses during the sabbath.  This next detail is gruesome, and does not appear in the other gospels.  In an additional cruelty, the soldiers break the legs of the two crucified criminals.  I looked this up, and the internet says that breaking the legs makes the crucified victims suffocate, and so would hasten death.  It would be less painful, I’m sure, if the soldiers just ran them through with a sword. But this is the Roman system of punishment, and the point is to make the punishment as cruel as possible. 

But Jesus is already dead, so the soldiers do not break his legs, which the text says is a fulfillment of a scripture.  The soldiers do stick a spear into the gut of Jesus, and blood and water pour out.  This is also to fulfill a scripture.

Joseph of Arimathea is a secret disciple of Jesus.  He asks Pilate to let him have the body of Jesus; Pilate agrees.  Nicodemus (of Chapter 3, the Jewish leader who “had at first come to Jesus by night”) also arrives with burial spices.  The two men prepare Jesus’ body with the burial spices and linen.  And then they place the body into a nearby tomb which had never before been used.