such small hands

Golf Season Update

I was going to title this post "End of Golf Season," but I realize it's really not. We'll certainly keep playing here in Michigan as long as weather allows and the courses stay open. Plans include some travel to South Carolina in October and November, so that will extend the season still further.

Although I'm in a bit of a slump at the moment, I have been playing some of my best golf ever. The trip to Lost Lake Woods Club last month saw me make birdie on two separate days (same par-3 hole) and my best score there ever, a 108. I also managed to shoot a 102 at one of the Maple Lane courses (I forget which). So, Ken tells me that breaking 100 is "inevitable." It just may not happen this year. Stay tuned.

The irony of it all is that, now, when I score a rather average 113, as I did this weekend, I feel that I've been playing badly. What a difference just a few strokes makes to the ego. Then Ken reminds me that I was shooting around 140 at the end of last season. I have to thank golf pro Jim Dahline for the big improvement. Just a 6-week course of golf lessons through the city of Royal Oak rec department last winter. Best $86 I ever spent on my golf game. Which works out to about $2.87 per stroke to lower my score. Such a deal!

Peer Mentoring

Last November, I took some training to become a Peer Mentor through the hospital where I received my kidney transplant and the National Kidney Foundation. I waited and waited to be assigned to a person, but nothing happened.

Then just before Labor Day, I got a call from the social worker at the transplant unit. She had matched me with a woman who has been on dialysis only a few months. Would I be willing to meet with her?

I was very hesitant and nervous at first, but I prayed about it and asked other people to pray as well. I called the woman and our first conversation went well. She was enthusiastic about having a Peer Mentor and was more than willing to get together. We set up a date to meet for lunch.

Our first meeting went very well. Kathie is a bright, intelligent woman who is going through some very tough and scary times with her health right now. It helps to have someone who will listen to your fears and frustrations and share their own experience with you. You know you are not walking through this experience alone.

Many of her feelings mirrored my own as I was beginning dialysis: the frustration with procedures that don't go well and the desire to just get through one treatment without something going wrong. Now I can look back on those times and see that yes, things did get better, treatments went more smoothly and I got stronger. Kathie will, too.

End of the Garden

It's already September and the summer has flown. Amy is back at school; Alyssa is still with us, working part-time and going to school.

The garden is beginning to fade. Overall, because the weather has been so cool and wet, the vegetables have been a disappointment. Poor tomatoes. We had a decent crop of leaf lettuce, but the onions and radishes didn't produce anything edible. A few pathetic cucumbers. A handful of green peppers. A steady few bits of broccoli; never enough for a batch to cook, but plenty for tossing into salads. Something kept nipping off my zucchini blossoms just as they were fading, so the plant never yielded any fruit.

The herbs did pretty well though. Lots of flat-leaf parsley which still persists. Tons of chives and oregano. The cilantro bolted right to seed and never produced anything worth eating. The basil is still looking good and growing well. Tarragon is coming along too. The thyme and sage in pots are also fine and I'll be wintering them over inside the house again this year. My rosemary died, however. I repotted it and realized too late that the pot wasn't draining properly, so the plant drowned. Ken drilled some holes in the pot, so I may buy another plant and try wintering that over.

In the spring, we replaced the dying holly "bushes" with yews. They've been taking hold well and I expect in a few years we'll have to prune them back to keep them from growing over the front window.

While the cool temperatures were a blessing for the low electric bills, I can't help thinking we didn't have much of a real summer here in Michigan.