Instead of a blow-by-blow, I was hoping to give you a brief synopsis of the latest crisis, followed by the happy resolution. It now appears that won’t be possible. At least now the eye doctor thinks he knows what’s causing Mom to lose vision in both eyes. It’s just that he’s having trouble figuring out what to do about it. So far she’s been allergic to everything he’s tried, including a couple of eye drops he’s bullied the pharmacist into concocting from scratch.

That’s where I’ve been the last few days, with Mom at the doctor’s office and the lab and the pharmacy. It’s frustrating for her to feel as if progress isn’t being made, because in the meantime she’s not able to do all the things she normally does, plus she’s been in a lot of pain from the medications that haven’t worked. She’s not one to give up, though, and we persist. At some point (maybe today) the right medicine (or the right doctor) will be found, and she’ll be on her way back to full strength.

The result for me, so far, has been a little more time with Mom (always a good thing) and a little less energy for cooking (a good excuse to use up all those leftovers). I did make the most delicious dish with orzo, broiled tomatoes and pan-seared asparagus Friday night. There were no leftovers from that, but I skipped lunch Saturday and Sunday (nothing wrong there), and now here it is Monday and I’m writing up my menu plan for the upcoming week. As I said, we persist.

Meanwhile, it’s been unspeakably hot for mid May, and with the rain we had a couple of weeks ago, the grasses in the yard have grown to knee height. It seems like only a month ago I had the whole yard mowed down to nothing. In fact, it was! How am I going to keep up with this all summer, especially when it’s too hot to work outside in the daytime (and too dark at night)?