Tamara Unleashed

I have started several blogs in the past 4 months but for one reason or another they did not get finished. I just saw the automatic renewal for this website and decided it was a waste of money if not used. I also heard from a couple of people that they missed my blogs so I decided today is the day.

I have been busy living and enjoying my life. Some may have wondered if my silence was a indication that my relationship with Craig that I so publicly shared in the beginning was faltering. It is not – we just celebrated our 8 month anniversary and choose every day to continue our loving partnership. While our relationship has been rock solid, we have had highs and lows in our lives. I will share a Cliff Notes version of the last 4 months and come back to more detailed reflections over the coming weeks.

In late October, Craig and I traveled to Indianapolis to see the Chapin family and original band members in a Tribute show to Harry Chapin for what would have been his 80th birthday. It was a fabulous show with much talent in the next generation. The family has kept his legacy alive.The Palladium in Carmel IN is a fabulous venue.

From Indy, we traveled through Kentucky into NE TN in peak leaf colors. Weather was great and Craig has his first AirBnB experiences. Out next destination was Hendersonville NC to spend a few days to introduce Craig to more of my friends in SW NC and NW SC. Unfortunately after we arrived, Craig found out that his best friend in TN had a massive stroke. We jumped in the car, drove the 5 hours back to Nashville and spent the next 24 hours with his friend’s wife in the hospital. His stroke was not survivable but his kidneys (and many other organs) were suitable for donation. Observing this process unfold, I truly understood that the gift of donation can be a comfort to the family.

In early November my brothers delivered my dining room table, chairs and buffet from my grandparents farm house that Aunt Carol has had for 50 years. Their trip coincided with my birthday and we had a really fun couple of days. I love having the furniture in my condo and look forward to spending more time with it in the coming months as I get back to spending some time in Nashville every week.

Craig and I took a long weekend to Isla Mujeres, an island near Cancun in November. We stayed and a very unique BnB, Villa La Bella that James and Natalie had stayed at and it did not disappoint. We enjoyed the scenery and the food and snorkeled for the first time. I had purchased a full body swimsuit so I was able to be out in the sun in the water without fear of getting burned. Fabulous.

After getting home, we had a week to get the hydraulic lift functional so Craig could start the work of salvaging his 2014 Nissan Pathfinder that had been damaged 6 weeks earlier when avoiding a dog in the road. We planned to spend Thanksgiving week finishing our trip to visit friends in the Carolinas. Unfortunately, the evening after the lift was fully functional, I started to feel unwell – very much like my Covid #2 experience. I tested negative twice but thought it was not a good idea to go visit friends. Wednesday morning I was telling Craig that Thanksgiving was the worst time to get sick when I broke out in a diffuse rash with a low grade fever. I could no longer rationalize this as just being tired from a very busy 5 months so off to urgent care I went. I was tested for Strep, Covid, Influenza A and RSV. All were negative but I did have a “dangerously” low white blood count. WHAT?? I was advised to go the ER for a spinal tap to rule out meningitis. As I had previously had viral meningitis in 1986, I really didn’t think I had it but the low WBC was confusing and concerning. Off to the ER we went. They ER confirmed everything was negative did not think I needed a spinal tap. The rash disappeared 2 days later and my white blood count improved by 2 weeks later.

The early December weather cooperated so we were able to get some much needed driveway maintenance done. After watching how much work it took to get Gilda functional, it was clear that an antique tractor was going to suck up too much time and after alot of careful research, we purchased Katie Kiota on Facebook Marketplace.

Getting an immobile Nissan from its damaged driver front wheel mechanism on the lift was another feat of creative wenching amongst other things. Craig’s creative problem solving never ceases to amaze me. This was one happy day.

Now that this was accomplished, it was time to head to Iowa for Christmas and helping my family get Aunt Carol ready for moving from her house she had lived in for 5 years to a 2 bedroom retirement facility. A planned one week trip turned into almost 2 as it was much bigger task than any of us anticipated. Craig was able to put his handyman skills to good use and stay out of the drama of trying to determine what did not need to be moved. We had some great family time and Craig is now fully integrated.

We got to spend NYE and day out of the chaos and were gifted Hawkeye shirts for the bowl game that did not go well.

We all did our best to take things from Aunt Carol so she could feel better about losing her things. Craig was not quite sure about my vision for the cauldron, but I think we will find the perfect spot for it at the Garden. I am doing my best to make use of all that I acquired most of which was not a need.

I allowed myself a week to decompress after getting back to TN on January 4th. During this time a dear friend in DC died. While I knew she was quite ill, her death came very quickly and was a shock. I made arrangements to go to DC for her services but was thwarted by the winter storm and deep freeze that hit TN in mid January. 8 inches of snow is not a lot by midwest standards but when it is combined with no snow removal on rural roads and side streets it leads to paralysis. Generally in TN quick snow melt makes having a lot of equipment unnecessary but it was sub freezing for 10 days following the snow. As we were down to one car, we were not taking any unnecessary chances on the roads. During the bitter cold, Craig was able to get most of the repair work on the Nissan done. I mainly put a very challenging puzzle together – one I will never try again.

I made a quick trip to New Orleans for a women in urology meeting the end of January. This was a leadership and mentoring meeting sponsored by the Society of Women in Urology. The speakers were mainly women urologists most of whom I did not know as they were much younger than I. Most of the attendees were medical students, residents and fellows – over 300 in total. It was astounding to me as my first Women in Urology gathering in 1985. At that time it was a informal breakfast of 6-7 women at the annual urology meeting. While it is still not an easy path for women (or men for that matter), I could clearly see the younger generations are starting their careers with a higher degree of confidence. It makes a difference. I gave a talk about wisdom gained by seniority. It was awkward for me as u=it is unclear that the sum of my experiences can be considered wisdom but the talk seemed to be well received. Hopefully I am done with this kind of public speaking.

Three days after returning to Nashville, we took off for a family wedding in Denver and a few days in Winter Park. The wedding was beautiful with great family hang time. Craig got me meet my ex and his family. Everyone got along well. it was Craig and my first opportunity to dance and it reminded me of my need for dance lessons. Craig was “forced” to do some lessons as an adolescent and it was clear he had more skills than I did. I am not good a following a lead.

We were able to visit a dear friend of Craig’s who is recovering from a hip fracture. She was doing incredibly well and Craig was able to play her favorite song for her on a borrowed guitar. It was very special for me to get to know Ann.

While the last weather forecast I had seen had not predicted snow in Denver, I learned that predictions are not that accurate. 8 inches were quickly dumped on the city and we naively thought there was no way the Berthoud Pass would be clear for us to go to Winter Park the next day. We were wrong. Both Denver and the pass were back to normal 12 hours after the snow had ended. Equipment, salt and manpower make a BIG difference,

Craig and I are not skiers but I did try snowshoeing. It was not exactly as I imagined – walking on top of the snow but it was fun. At times like these I am so thankful for KP and Ashley and their guidance over the last 6 plus years of strength, core and balance training.

We returned home to getting ready for my reschedule surgery (Feb 15th) for my hernia repair combined with my surgery to fix my urinary incontinence. More to be said about this in subsequent blogs. It was very weird benign on the patient side of the surgery that I did when I practiced. In most ways, it was not as bad as I expected. Craig has been a great care taker and monitor of my activity. There has not been as much pain as I was expecting to limit my desire for doing normal activities. Avoiding lifting more than 10# for 6 weeks is going to be challenging. Only 4 weeks to go. The good news is that I can laugh without leaking now. YEAH!!!!

During my first meeting with Craig on July 16th, he told me that his best friend from Vietnam would be visiting for several days in October and that there was several things he wanted to get done before the visit. “Oly” Olson lives in Coeur d’Alene, ID. They last saw each other in 2008 in Washington. At the top of the list was getting The Garden in good shape – reclaiming the land that had been lost to branches and getting his shop cleaned up and the hydraulic car lift installed. By the end of August, it seemed clear that our relationship was solid and we set about getting ready for Oly’s visit.

Oly and his son Erick arrived Friday night at midnight. We left for the airport at 1115PM. Craig came in from the shop at 1045 PM satisfied it was ready. Not a minute to spare. The lift was built. We tore down scaffolding and remade it into a lumber rack, removed all the lumber from the existing lumber rack, sorted it and put it in the new very custom lumber rack. Craig created a work bench for me. I cleaned 10 years of sawdust and grime off of the 46 Chevy panel truck that Craig started driving and modifying at age 17. The shop was organized and cleaned up. In the meantime the house had a deep cleaning, the land was mowed and we were ready for Oly.

Oh, by the way, Craig turned 75 last Wednesday, bought a 2000 Chevy truck with 54,000 miles with insurance settlement for his 2014 Nissan that was totaled after running into a ditch culvert avoiding a dog. He was also able to buy back the totaled Nissan with the settlement money as well which he can repair with he assistance of the new lift.

We celebrated with cake about 10 PM when we finally had the lumber rack “mostly” assembled. Neither of us felt the 75 seemed real so the problem was quickly solved.

The new lumber rack with wood organized. With this done the last day before Oly’s arrival was spent further organizing and cleaning the shop which included constucting a work bench for me.

We picked Oly and Erick up at the airport at midnight and drove back to The Garden. After snacks, the shop was inspected. Here they are looking under the hood of the 46 Chevy panel truck.

We have been so busy it has been hard to find time to catch up on the blog. All of the work to get things in shape for Oly’s visit was so worth it.

The picture below says it all.

It is a brisk 43 degrees this morning. The skies and blue and clear. While there are plenty of leaves on the ground the trees have not really started turning colors yet. It has been a challenging few weeks emotionally as we made the decision to re-home both of our dogs. Buckley’s jealousy of Carli and Carli’s jealously of Craig and displeasure that I was not available to sit with her all the time were not getting any better. She did do better the week that Craig had her when I was traveling but gradually deteriorated when I was around. After multiple failed attempts at providing the consistent feedback to Carli necessary to modify her behavior, I realized it was just not “in me”. We were very fortunate that Buckley’s previous owners were willing to take him back and so far it seems that now that he is older the pet incompatibility issues in that home are better. James and Natalie decided to take Carli. I am very grateful.

Buckley left midday on Monday so Carli had the afternoon to roam around without the fear of Buckley’s playfulness. She came with me to cut branches off of fallen trees in the Magic Forest part of the neighboring cow pasture and had a moment with a cow. She did not bark.

I dropped her off with James on Tuesday. James and Natalie now have the couch that was in my living room where Carli and I spent a year snuggling so that is familiar to her. She will be well cared for and loved.

This week I kept busy cutting branches off fallen trees, loading them in a wagon and burning them. I was able to work through much of my sadness. There is something oddly therapeutic about using a chain saw. I don’t have any good “before” pictures but imagine each of the trunks full of branches. The cedar trees are the worst. One might wonder why I am spending time in the neighbor’s pasture. I thought it was nutty until I started doing it and realized how much better the view was from our kitchen window and back deck. I like the think the cow’s appreciate having more space to roam as well.

Yesterday I mowed the entire property without any assistance. I can comfortably maneuver the lawnmower around all of the trees and managed not to destroy any of the baby trees.

I have also been assisting Craig with the installation of a hydraulic vehicle lift. It is amazing what he can do with wenches and scaffolding. While I have been able to provide some lifting assistance, my main contribution has been scraping orange paint from one of the posts and washing the various pieces – we can’t have a dirty car lift.

With this lift and this door, we can get almost anything up in the air for maintenance. The installation should be done today and I look forward to riding up and down on it.

It is so fun to be joined by the herd of cows at various times of the day. The major outdoor work is completed and now we are moving on to cleaning and organizing the shop including installation of a hydraulic lift for car maintenance. It is fun to have so many various ways to stay active and gain new skills. I will have my own workbench when we get done. I will hopefully be able to build my own tables to donate for organizations that help unhoused people furnish homes when they get them.

James had the opportunity to perform with Little Texas this summer. The band had a show in Franklin, TN last Friday so I got a chance to see the show which was fabulous. It was so amazing to watch him excel in his chosen profession. I hear him practice frequently and it is oddly comforting. The sound never bothers me but it is entirely different to see him on stage.

There is a bit of lull in activity this morning so I am able to catch up on blogging. I think of lots of things I would like to blog about but am too tired at the end of the days to do them. When I decided to go on Match.com, I was looking for a cycling partner and someone willing to do “things” to stay active physically and mentally. I was SO VERY TIRED of a mostly sedentary lifestyle. I loved my work with Habitat for Humanity and Tools for Schools and working with my trainer twice a week but that left A LOT of hours for finding things to keep me active which I was not great at. For me to safely cycle in Nashville (except for neighborhood loops which get boring quickly) I have to drive 20-40 minutes which is a HUGE deterrent.

When I first drove up to Craig’s place on July 16th, The Garden, I stopped to take a photo of the mailbox as I had a sense “The Garden” at the end of the long driveway was going to have great significance for me and it has. It has brought me back to my rural roots and provides endless opportunities for mental and physical activity. While I knew from Habitat, that I loved going out and doing physically intense work 1-2 days per week, I did not know I would love it 6 days a week as well. His 2 acres requires lots of maintenance. Lots of trees mean lots of sticks. Over the past week, we have reclaimed an area along the driveway that had gone wild for the past few years. I have learned how pruning new branches low on the trees really changes how the entire area looks. I have learned to use a chain saw and manage large fires of sticks. I am exhausted at the end of the day.

Craig and I work easily side by side or independently depending on the activity. It is highly unlikely that Craig and I would have worked as a couple at any other time in our lives. He was a risk-taking “bad ass” in his early life (much like me – HAHA). Our paths would never have crossed and if they had we wouldn’t have been been able to get beyond the obvious differences.

Of course everything is different in building a relationship without the pressures of full-time employment. Staying present in the moment is easier. While I thoroughly loved taking care of patients, the cloak of being a physician and surgeon was never comfortable for me; neither was the role in the pharmaceutical industry or a scientific officer at the NIH. Even though I was very good in each of those roles and I am very proud of what I accomplished, in my later years of employment I had a sense that all of it had been “what I did” but it wasn’t “who I was”.

Grateful does not even begin to describe how I feel now with a life partner who likes and loves me for exactly who I am. The Garden that gives me a huge number of opportunities to be physically active and learn new things every day. He wants to stay active and try new things with me. I am the most comfortable I have ever been. I am happy.

The herd of cows joined us for morning coffee. It seemed that the entire herd passed by through Magic Forest. Carli went right up to the fence had had a short conversation with one of the adults. Her barking scattered a cluster of spring calves.

Carli is getting braver at exploring around the property – especially when Buckley is in the pen and not trying to play with her. So far their play is Buckley walks up and puts his paw in the middle of her back pushing her down and she turns around and snaps at him. He repeats several times and then goes away. Sometime her tail is wagging but mostly it is tucked.

Carli continues to make progress in boot camp – the verdict is still out on Buckley. One step forward and three back.

Craig did a great job picking out his cycling helmet. Blue is definitely his color. We were fortunate to be able to borrow two bikes that had big enough frames for Craig – a trial bike and a road bike like mine for him to try to see if he indeed will enjoy cycling and to get some sense of what kind of bicycle he will feel most comfortable on. He liked aspects of both bikes. While there are many things to still figure out, the bottom line is that he enjoyed cycling in spite of some discomfort from saddle amongst other issues. We road a total of 6 miles on his paved country road. From my perspective there was just the right amount of rolling hills. We went out and back so it is possible that there will be some more challenging hills as we create our loops. We should be able to create 8, 10 and 20 mile rides from here. I think the ride reassured Craig that he will be able “to keep up with me”. I was never concerned about it.

Craig had to figure out how to mount the safety flags on the bike as the mounting device did not fit where it was intended. 3 zip ties did the trick. It is more challenging for me to get on and off the bike with the flag but I will get used to it.

There was more traffic on the road midday than I thought there would be but everyone seemed to be traveling the speed limit and was very courteous. The rural mail delivery person stopped to see if we needed help when we had stopped to make an adjustment.

We will hopefully get the yard work all done early enough today that we can get back out for another ride which was actually Craig’s idea – a good sign.

I previously mentioned that the dog patio was Craig and my second project together. Painting his master bedroom was the first. On my second or third visit, he mentioned that he wanted to repaint his bedroom and he wanted it to be romantic and cheerful. So I go to Google and search for romantic colors and essentially come up with red and pink. Neither were acceptable to him. He didn’t want yellow, blue, green or orange so we were pretty much left with purple. Now that happens to me my favorite color. We went to Lowe’s and picked up 3 color samples and painted on the wall.

We both thought the lower right color was the most cheerful shade. I thought having all 4 walls that color might be a bit much so the wall with the least light would get the lower left shade.

I did the rolling and Craig did the trim edges. As we were covering brown, we had to paint it white before painting it Wisteria. We got 3 walls done before I left for my NC beach vacation. Craig finished the 4th wall while I was gone.

Natalie was dog siting Carli while I was gone and she texted me and asked me why Carli had white paint on her tail. I sent her a picture of the bedroom walls. Her response was “He is all in!!” He is and so am I. I had to go to Iowa for my brother’s funeral as soon as I got back from NC, so I didn’t see the bedroom for 10 days. While I was in Iowa, Craig said he was working on a surprise. When I got there, I found he had painted the bed headboard and footboard to go with the walls.

The ironwork at the top has been painted purple and backed by purple inset which Craig made. A man of many talents.

While this room would not work for many/most couples, it fits us perfectly.

We feel so lucky to have found a partner for healthy, active, aging filled with love, laughter and so many projects to keep us busy.

While Carli has been responding to Craig’s Boot Camp, Buckley has remained challenging. Buckley has a nice outdoor pen with a section that has a nice roof. He has a doghouse and water under his roof. His doghouse has a nice bed (or at least it was before he chewed on it months ago). It still had lots of stuffing and was a very functional bed.

Much of Buckley’s apparent jealously (in my humble opinion) stems from the fact that Carli is a small dog and can therefore sit on my lap and she spends most of her time in the house. Buckley has too much energy to spend most of his time in the house and is too big to sit on my lap.

On days when we both volunteer for Habitat, we are gone 8 plus hours which is longer than Carli has ever been left in kennel so I wanted her to be able to be outside when it was nice as well. Buckley’s pen is big enough for the two dogs and Craig had them in it together for several hours at a time and they did not fight – basically ignored each other so we thought we could just build a bigger platform and get Carli a small doghouse similar to Buckley’s and all would be well.

We worked hard Tuesday and Wednesday to get the platform (which I call the doggie patio) built so it would be ready for Habitat on Friday.

This patio is our second project together and we work really well together. We put the dogs in the pen on Thursday evening for a trial run. For the first 15 minutes Carli sat by the gate waiting to be let out. A bit later when I looked out, I saw Carli sitting in the entrance to Buckley’s house and Buckley lying on the patio.

We left Friday morning not being clear what would happen while we were gone and wishing that we had a nanny cam up to watch their interaction. When we arrived home, we found Buckley’s displeasure clearly expressed.

Both beds had been removed from the doghouses and Carli’s was missing much of its stuffing. We had thought that a small house for Carli would give her a place to be if she needed to get away from Buckley. It never occurred to us that she would take Buckley’s for her own. You can’t really blame Buckley. Now I really wish we could see what really went down. I found more humor in the situation than Craig did.

Buckley was re-homed with Craig when he did not get along with previous owner’s small dog and cat. Buckley’s previous owners are friends of Craig’s and a dog sitting week was extended to months. Craig’s previous dogs had all been black labs and he had been dogless for about a year when Buckley came to visit. Prior to Carli and I arriving, Craig was not sure Buckley was really the dog for him. In spite of the thousands of dollars Buckley’s previous owners had spent on dog training and the considerable time Craig had invested, Buckley would not consistently respond as expected.

In spite of her age, Carli seems to be very trainable with a real attempt at training. I definitely understand that I should have spend more time training her out of her bad habits. Buckley is a bit more challenging.

When pets are the biggest and only real challenge in this new relationship, I will continue to count me blessings and become a better disciplinarian for Carli. She does seem more content when being treated as a dog with clear boundaries.

This falls into the category of something I NEVER thought I would do. This is a bass guitar – 4 strings is enough for me. I was a bit stoned when Craig asked me to give it a try or I likely would have said “no way”. We are working on “Me and Bobby Magee” which doesn’t require that much left hand finger work.

Stay tuned!!!