Sunday, April 28, 2013

Feedback





Okay, so....I have a few people who read this blog and I'd like some feedback on this new"dynamic" style of blog site that I've opted for.  I happen to really like it because in "flip" mode it shows all the pictures I've used and I can see posts from long ago and read them again.  I could always do that but rarely did because of the way it was set up before.

So try it out and see what you think.  You can always choose the "classic" tab to see it the old-fashioned way.  Let me know.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Poetry Instead of Me

Too busy to write myself, today, so I'm going to put in a poem by Dorothy Parker that I particularly like:


INSCRIPTION FOR THE CEILING
 OF A BEDROOM

Daily dawns another day;
I must up, to make my way.
Though I dress and drink and eat,
Move my fingers and my feet,
Learn a little, here and there,
Weep and laugh and sweat and swear,
Hear a song, or watch a stage,
Leave some words upon a page,
Claim a foe, or hail a friend--
Bed awaits me at the end.

Though I go in pride and strength,
I'll come back to bed at length.
Though I walk in blinded woe,
Back to bed I'm bound to go.
High my heart, or bowed my head,
All my days but lead to bed.
Up, and out, and on; and then
Ever back to bed again,
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall--
I'm a fool to rise at all!


Friday, April 26, 2013

Calgon, Take Me Away!

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water.....

I got a call yesterday afternoon from that guy who calls himself my brother.  He had totaled his car, the old Plymouth Breeze he'd inherited from Mom two years ago.  He thinks a magazine fell down under his feet and jammed the gas and brake pedals while he was next to the Bremerton Safeway.  He ran into their sign. Chico Towing was there and taking the car to their lot.  The police were there.  He was okay and his passenger, an old friend, was okay.  Nobody hurt.  He has car insurance, which he didn't have about 3 months ago.  I was laying on the guest bed reading when I got the phone call.  I listened to my brother telling me what he thought happened, what was happening right then, his voice was high and "excited", adrenaline was coursing through his viens, I'm sure.  I wondered when the question would come--"Can you come to pick me up?"  or "Will you help me with the insurance claim?" or  "What am I going to do?"  But I deflected those potential questions with my own directives:  "Call Geiko right away!" and "Are you getting a ride home with Tom"?  Finally, he had to get off the cell phone he was using, probably his friend's, to finalize the police report.

I lay there, tried to read again, but couldn't.  I just kept thinking about how it's only been 1 year since he's truly been on his own.  It was last April that I found the Bremerton Garden Apartments place for him and my  husband and I moved all his stuff in there, cursing at each other and bickering, because his stuff was covered in cat hair and deep dust and falling apart and his paintings were huge and heavy and there were so many of them.  He didn't want to throw anything away--there were heavy boxes of magazines, books, old broken motorcycle models.  He was so out of it he didn't help us at all.  It took forever and I was 68 and not that strong and my husband is 11 years younger, but didn't want to be doing it.  It was awful, harrowing even.

Because the apartment was too expensive for him I had to put Estate money aside to help him with the rent.  I didn't know how to find apartments then, so it came down to whatever we could do quickly after Mom's house closed.  For a year I went to his dirty apartment every month and wrote him a check to cover part of the rent.  When the lease was close to running out I found him a new, studio apartment, because the Estate money had run out.  This time I was more savvy but there were still only 3 studios in Kitsap that he could just barely afford.  And this time his Special Needs Trust administrator, the miracle worker, Jenifer, agreed to move him, charging him a more than fair amount out of his trust.  She arranged it all, even to the point of getting a company to come in and move away the dilapidated furniture that he couldn't fit into the studio.  I helped him get "organized", taped boxes for him, advised, etc., but I didn't have to move him at all.  And when he was all moved out, she hired Scrubbles to clean, something I was thinking I'd have to do.

In the year that he'd been there he had a restraining order filed against him because he was obsessed with a young woman at the coffee shop he went to.  He got stopped by the police twice for a broken tail light.  He'd gone to the emergency room twice, once for a deep cut on his hand.  He had no doctor because his old one wouldn't take the new Medicaid insurance. He had neglected to get car insurance.  His coffee pot broke and his microwave, too.  His cat was limping and too fat.  He stopped taking all his meds because of no doctor.  But he felt and looked better, had more energy, was not sleeping all day.  All in one year.

So I thought I was out of the woods with a move to a place where he'd have less interaction with people he might annoy.  A place that was already rustic and that he couldn't really wreck.  His trust administrator was doing a good job.  He was reconnecting with some old friends.  I was feeling almost carefree.  I knew I'd be getting phone calls occasionally about small stuff, like he asked me last month:  "Who played the female role in Spartacus?"  I had a feeling that he might try to get money from me and I was prepared to say no.  But I didn't think I'd get this phone call just 2 weeks after he'd moved.  All I can say is "ACK"!!!!!!  He has learned some things, but he is woefully unequipped to live in the real world.  Sometimes I am angry with my folks for not throwing him out years and years ago.

But on the other hand, I must be doing better emotionally and mentally.  I did sleep soundly last night.  I did not think about my brother or his accident until I woke up.  I am having to write about it now to get it down and out of my head.  Funny thing is, yesterday I was saying to my husband that I should probably call my brother to see how he was doing in his new apartment.  I didn't want to call him for fear he would want me to do something for him--take him somewhere or bring him something or show him how to do something.  I wanted to stay off his radar.  And then he called.  Remember the old Saturday Night Live skits with the Land Shark?  I can hear the music now--dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum--knock, knock.  Who's there?  Candygram.......




Thursday, April 18, 2013

It's about time!

Well, a friend and fellow class of 1962 graduate of CK High school, wants to know why I'm not posting in my blog or blogging in my post or whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing on this page.  I gave him all kinds of excuses--writing for my writer's group, answering emails, posting and reading Facebook, reading the newspaper--I didn't talk about the floors, the laundry, the garden and all the stuff a person does in their week.  He actually excused me and said, "I guess you need to wait for inspiration."  But that's not true.  No matter how much there is to do, no matter what seems to take precedence to writing, the fact is that a person who calls herself a writer must write every day.  If she waits for inspiration she will rarely write. This is what I've learned from reading many writer's words of advice about writing.  It's simple:  write every day.

So in that spirit, I will write something here.

We had a lovely alumni lunch today at a diner in Bremerton that used to be Pat's Cookie Jar.  Now it's got car posters on the walls and motorcycle models in the case that used to hold yummy baked things.  Lots more of us geezers showed up than have come to the last few lunches.  Maybe we were all fed up with the gray skies and cold temperatures and wanted to see some sunny faces to warm us up.  What ever the reasons, it was a big, jolly group.  I saw other people in the diner looking over at our long table of laughing people, probably wondering what we all had in common besides our white hair.  Well, we know what we have in common--it's age and common experience in life and that's a marvelous, consoling commonness. I love the fact that we know each other better and we talk about our current lives now, rather than about our former, high school lives, though we still go down memory lane sometimes, too.

Another friend asked me last week if I think about age all the time.  She says she thinks about it all day, every day.  She is one year younger than me.  I don't think about it much at all.  Not even when I look in the mirror.  My husband still thinks I'm pretty nice to look at, which helps.  I don't feel terribly achey or unsteady.  I seem to have quite a bit of energy.  I don't take any medicine, which means I am fortunate to have good genes.  But it's more than outward appearance that keeps me from thinking about it.  It's my innards, my brain, my philosophy or my outlook, something like that, that allows me to forget about it.  I have to admit to noticing my memory is crappy and getting crappier.  Usually, I can blame that on having too much on my mind, but other times it's obviously that age thing.  I hope I can keep from worrying about age until the day I die.

I'm so sad about Boston, but encouraged by the way people there reacted, helping, aiding, being positive.  And by the speed at which the law enforcement people are finding clues--that's impressive.  Terrorism is a fact, but the way we react to it is our choice.

That's all, Dean.  Better than nothing, huh?