Recovering — state of home library

Bookcase bought for enclosed porch: DVDs, notes on TV and theater movies, books on films, sequels, and translations (mostly of Austen & Trollope, section just by Andrew Davies)

Dear friends and readers,

I thought I might convey how I, my cat, my books & my daughters are doing with few FB timeline diary or journal-like entries.

Saturday, May 18th:

I see some Mother’s Day (or is it Mothers’) postings this morning. So I’ll tell a little of my activity too. I spent most of the day not unusually. Saturdays Izzy & I shop for groceries online for now. I read, took notes, enjoyed two zooms (poetry at noon, Trollope’s Dr Thorne at 4 pm). Laura & Rob showed up to take us to (very expensive but also very nice with decent edible food) restaurant. This week also Izzy’s 40th birthday.

I experienced two warnings today: I am not as well as I have been assuming. Morning I tried to reach for a Kaiser documents drawer on floor by bending knees but found I could not rise again, only sit on floor. Izzy had to pull me up with me pressing on table. Very difficult. Process unnerved her and not fun for me. Evening: Went to restaurant just with cane,—Laura said outdoor walker would not fit in restaurant but wow did I teeter totter and w/o Laura’s hand would have fallen more than once. At home I am mobile w/o cane or walker. Do hold onto things, like walls, doorknobs, Etc. Outside steps beyond me. I did have 2 drinks (at least one too many). We had a good time. Izzy had been sad; much cheered. Laura invited me for August to go w/her to NYC. I want to go (especially for theater), but have to be stronger. Steps everywhere in subway.

I know Exercise is important for overall fitness, not merely for recovery of lost mobility.
But I learnt I can’t use Metro, & present staying home except local walks w/walker right thing to do for me for now it is simply true I am exercising less. As I do more literary and other stuff (tidying up every day which Izzy just didn’t do — filth on the floor is okay by her; slowly re-order my books) there is less time. Only once a week for private physical therapy and I get no more from Kaiser/medicare.
I dislike it — it’s still sometimes painful and hard. I never was athletic so I don’t do them well. I never was strong. Got Cs in gym in school. Absolute flop at most sports. I can’t reach gyms here in Alex, public or private, w/o ability to drive. Staying home makes me safer but I am more sedentary this way. This morning Izzy and I without sinus medication (pollen bad) and Laura will drive me to where I can get it.

There is less train service than ever, fewer stops. Plane travel is abominable. Meanwhile Uber and Lyft continue to grow. I was beginning to make a heavier use of them before my stroke. One of my women friends (lives in DC) slightly older than me uses nothing else—she is good barometer of what middle class older people do regularly. She habitually shops on line insofar as she can. Another very different friend (lives in Fairfax) too. I would use buses more if there were more of them; ditto the Metro. Many middle class white people won’t get on Metro (or NYC subway stations). This is ridiculous. They are safe and comfortable except rush hours. Here in Alexandria we do have buses, but the one that stops near me stops at 10 am, resumes at 4:30 pm weekdays, doesn’t run weekends.

Friday morning, May 23rd:

Petherbridge and Walter as Lord Peter and Harriet in Have His Carcase

Carmichael and Houston as Lord Peter and Bunter in earlier wonderful iteration

So I’m trying again. A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk on Trollope’s Lady Anna; in a week and a half I’ll return to teaching. This winter at OLLI at Mason I gave the first third of this course: we read & discussed Josephine Tey’s A Question of Time, Richard III and saw An Inspector Calls; now it’s summer and for 4 weeks at OLLI at AU I’ll cover the 2 novels left when I had the stroke (one a favorite, Gaudy Night, the other, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, learning to love through watching marvelous mostly unknown ITV adaptation, stellar cast) and An Inspector Calls w/Gosford Park optional. Today 44 (!) people registered and I just did the syllabus, which I’ll send them tomorrow. Later this summer at OLLI at Mason for 6 weeks (late June and throughout July), 5 sessions I’ll finish what I had 2/3s left to do, i. e., the same 2 books with Gosford Park required and An Inspector Calls optional (for those not the winter course).

This past Monday Sunday afternoon (May 26th):

Yesterday I was happy at my work (books, articles reading) posting (nice replies & letters).  Very enjoyable 2 hour zoom last night 7-9 with autistic friends. Tonight I have one at 9pm my time (from California where it’s 6 pm). house slowly becoming orderly again; routine for summer classes/zooms emerging.

Books at long last getting to be in that much disorder; the worst are those that were in my room, the enclosed porch, the 2 corridors.  I had been switching from strict alphabetization and putting books in groups (within that alphabetical by author/editor). Like an Austen, a Finch, a Trollope (my room), Poldark and Cornwall section, 2 small bookcases for all DVDs — and Rory’s copies of BBC and other DVDs in baskets (in porch), women’s books (in little closet space and porch); I know what I need to put back in order — my idea is while doing that I de-access going through whole library.  I do not mean to get rid of major parts of library, except for Jim’s valuable math & science which I’ll try to give to an academic library, I’ll keep all that is valuable; Jim had been collecting Darwin is this sort of thing; my Samuel Johnson section  And record all I do in Librarything book by book.  Not really a lifetime –but months. Obstacle: I can’t do what did last week  (rearranged books, even moving bookcases) as it strained my back badly; watering flowers/plants  risks falling on top of straining back again. I need Laura &/or Izzy’s help.  Laura more willing. She longs to conventionalize house.

I have books that have sat upon my shelves for over 50 years unread by either me or Jim — or either daughter when they lived here. Why not de-access? do we de-access unknown people next door? no we say hello and are neighborly …

In reply, from a book-writing as well as book-reading friend:

I have many books I haven’t read, but sometimes after thirty years, I pick them up and read them. I have gotten rid of books I’ve read only to want to read them again years later. I try to weed out what I can and buy more ebooks to save space, but it’s impossible to keep my bookshelves under control.

From another, an artist (paints pictures):

I de-accessed half the books when I departed my marriage, & half again in my last move, & should donate a lot before I push off, so my poor son doesn’t wind up like Leonard Bast, trying to deal with them afterward. And then recall Penelope Lively writing of her 3000 books, her last end & her children, that they would just have to deal with them. If we do ever choose The Charterhouse of Parma, of course then I’ll have to have a newer Oxford or Penguin edition. And then will I de-access my old Anchor.

My reply:

Same here. I’ve a plan to de-access, partly driven by what’s happened to my books since Jim died. Even before my stroke, I had found them too heavy and too many to cope with, even with the help of library
thing. Years before he died, we catalogued them all, a software which lists them and includes a comments section where you can say where you put a book

I had to move whole bookcases when I had parts of the house renovated, separately painted; I solved the problem by moving nearby cases into a new room I made, which I call an enclosed porch or sun-room. It faces east and is cheerful and sunny in the mornings. I bought two smaller bookcases and they went there too — filled with DVDs and most of my books on films. Also exercise bike. But they are not in good order, alphabetized inexactly.

Then I began to put books by subject and within that alphabetically. I bought no ore bookcases and out these group in baskets which allow for putting books in a row and placed them near where they’d be were they in the bookcases. Stroke! Coming home from rehab Laura thought there would be no room for walker in several places. She and friends rearranged and made lots of walking space. Spare a long description but now several bookcases are disordered and many akphabetized inexactly.

So I think I could de-access 1/5th of them — I’ve also had the experience of re-buying and need to re-order. I have been re-ordering and now only one huge bookcase is all in disorder.

I should go through improving the order of books within bookcases and baskets but the books are too heavy, it strains my back to lean down, and I can’t move cases. Laura has begun to help.

But guess what? I’m buying again as I begin to read, take up new topics (women’s detective stories, Sayers, P.D. James, Cornwall itself). It’s my way of being alive to write reviews — I’ve returned to Trollope, Austen, Poldark! and there is always new and even good books still. I haven’t lost my life-long loves.

A problem I have to live with. I might not have let this library form, had I not had a husband who did it with me, and loved books (he collected Darwin books, math and science reading) and read much too. I am not strong enough physically.

Today, June 3rd:

I keep dropping or overturning things like mugs of coffee — or my left hand does. I am typing a lot more and left hand fingers hit wrong keys or any combination, so printer starts printing like mad; I find I gave my credit card information to google pay so now (whoopee) I can pay using google pay with said card. Luckily I never did the other steps. Left hand can only do so much damage on its own. So I am repeatedly asked to verify or this wonderful opportunity won’t go through. If I type with only right hand, especially keeping to index finger these things don’t happen. But oh how slow this goes (as I type this blog). Overturning, breaking cups I don’t know what to do about, nor lurching, nor nearly falling, or tiredness, occasional vertigo.

More seriously: the coughing does not stop, wild fits of it, chest feels awful, and still making mistakes swallowing. It’s hard relying on zooms. I long to be with people in person.

OTOH, Ian and I growing closer. He behaves more like Clarycat but with his own quirks

This is a photo of Ian my cat taken by Laura . To understand its charm you have to realize he thinks that I or, now we, don’t see him because he doesn’t see us fully (is sitting behind the computer monitor in his cat bed but facing us not the window).. A couple of months after we adopted him I wished I had called him snuffleupagus (after Big Bird’s friend who, as I recall, is invisible to everyone but Big Bird) or Snuffy for short. When younger, he would hide his head with the rest of his body under a bed or stool, clearly thinking we couldn’t see him. Now the idea we can’t see him upsets him; he wants to be where he sees us and thinks we see him.

Ian holding on tight in new rocking, reclining chair

Ellen