Okay.....So.....

House for Sale

2012-01-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

Momentous, incredible, long-awaited, never thought I'd make it day yesterday. Mom's house is up for sale. Finally. It's been 8 months since Mom died. I think I spent more time in her house since then that I had spent visiting her since I left home when I was 18! I waited until after the holidays to get a cleaning company to come in to do the final deep cleaning and rug removal (couldn't leave that horrible 1960's era gold shag carpeting in there!) and I had to call them back twice to get the house cleaned to my satisfaction--not as thorough as I wanted them to be--banister not cleaned, couple of floors not swept or mopped, back porch not swept--lots of things like that. What we needed was one of those Russian or Ukranian girls that Michael's Aunt Eleni hires in Greece. Anyway, after I went back and cleaned up after them, we had the locks changed (they didn't work) and the roof cleaned (big clumps of moss on it), a landscaper came to get rid of the blackberry bushes (sorry, no more blackberry pies for awhile, but they'll come back) and then the pre-inspection. Met a very nice guy inspector. Collects all kinds of stuff from the 50s and he wanted the Borax dispenser above the laundry tub and the manual pencil sharper in the basement and a couple of old newspapers. I wish I'd met him before I cleaned the house out. I knew there were many people out there looking for old stuff, but didn't know any personally. We had Puget Sound Energy come to pick up the old refrigerator and upright freezer in the basement and take them away, too. I spent a couple of hours cleaning up where they'd been sitting for 40 years, ripping ugly green wallpaper off the basement wall and sweeping, sweeping, sweeping.

The garage is still full of my brother's furniture and "stuff". That's a loose thread. He still doesn't have anywhere to go, but he hasn't put any effort into finding a place either. Now he sees the handwriting on the wall, I hope. He's spending his money on cigarettes and pot--on the 18th of this month he told me he was out of money and food stamps. He's not handling his money any better than he ever has. I don't think I need to point out what lies ahead for him.

So the trigger has been pulled. The house is listed by Doug Hallock of Windemere Realty and Gerry Kearney of Dream Realty and you can see the listing here:
http://www.windermerekingston.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&startrow=1&cfid=9563785&cftoken=21232495

If you know anyone interested in a fixer upper, this is it. The lock guy was interested in the shop and the big basement for more shop, so I'm hoping that will be a feature that gets some interest. As for me, I have to let go now. Just as I was leaving yesterday some people showed up to see the house. I instantly felt a protective feeling come over me. I wanted to be sure they had a real estate person with them and weren't just people who wanted to "get in". I knew I had to get out of there and LET IT GO. It's been my baby for so many months, my responsibility, being the one to get it ready. And now, like buying a daughter a lovely prom dress, overseeing a fancy hairdo, helping to pick out the shoes, inspecting the boy friend, I have to let her go and hope she has a good time. And hope she has a buyer who will take good care of her and appreciate her history.

Travel Fashion Observations

2011-12-30T14:29:00.000-08:00

We got back from Utah Wednesday and went out to Silver City Brewing last night. While waiting to be seated at the restaurant I noticed that the young guys coming into the place were all dressed in jeans, most with torn knees, sport shoes (not white tennis shoes but the kind you ride bikes with or climb rocks with), flannel shirts and knit hats. The tee-shirts varied, but most were black with some kind of message on them. I hadn't realized until I saw all these guys that I had missed the "northwest style".

In Utah, the style is camo. Camo shirts, jackets, ball caps, pants, gloves. The footwear of choice is hunting boots. At least in my sister-in-law's family. There was a little more pink among the girls in the family. But even the girls wear camo pajamas and underwear! This is not a look I like as it conjures up hunting parties hauling home deer and bear. And in fact, sister-in-law's house is dotted with animal heads and stuffed birds. They even have a bear rug. All of the family are gentle Mormons but they love to camp, hunt and fish.

We went to Vegas, too, and my observation about fashion there was that most people were wearing black. There are people from all over the world there and I often felt like a minority to all the Asian and Middle Eastern people we encountered. I guess the universal color is black. Even at Christmas people were wearing black.

The Year

2011-11-30T15:09:00.001-08:00

I was feeling a little emotional today. I was making perhaps the fifth apple crisp of the season and I had the radio tuned to the station that plays Christmas music starting right after Thanksgiving. The song playing was one my Mom loved to sing at Christmas and I began to think about her while I was peeling the apples. I got an awful big lump in my throat. I'm finding that music is what brings memories of Mom faster than anything else. I finally had to turn the radio off or risk having a salty apple crisp.

As you can see by the pictures, we had a bumper crop of apples this year. I've made so many batches of applesauce I've lost count. We've given apples and applesauce away and I'm beginning to put the sauce in the freezer. I have a bowl of applesauce almost every morning--a bowl of applesauce a day keeps the doctor away. They are wonderful to eat right off the tree, too. What an incredible thing it is to be able to pick fruit in your own back yard. My husband's Mom used to pick grapes, avocados, apricots, lemons, oranges--she lived in California then.

It's the time of year to compose the Christmas letter and that requires reviewing the year. Anybody who has been reading this blog knows what I've mostly been occupied with--first my Mom's health, then her death, now the house/brother situation. It's not over yet. The house is all packed up. Next is the cleaning, which will be extensive. My brother is currently living in a room attached to the garage that my other brother lived in for about a year. He has to use the kitchen and bathroom in the house. I talked to a real estate guy yesterday. He was Mom's lawyer so he knows about my brother and his difficulty finding housing. He'll be meeting me at the house next week to talk things over, let me know how we should proceed from here. I don't expect the house will go on the market before the first of 2012.

The holidays will be strange without Mom around so I'm glad we've decided to go to Utah to spend them with Michael's family. We'll take a trip down to Las Vegas, too, and see a couple of shows. Christmas will be white and noisy in Utah with the nieces and nephews. My mind won't be on my Mom as much as if we were home.

Other things happened this year besides all that involved Mom. Michael got tons of jobs done in the yard, which he listed for me to put in the Christmas letter. I had a big triumph--I got published finally. I got word this month from GreenPrints that they found a place for my piece in their December issue.
(www.greenprints.com) That was so exciting!

We had lots of alumni lunches and we actually went on trips to Vegas, Reno and Alaska and we took short breaks for overnight trips to a couple of local casinos. And I attended a writer's retreat in November and went to visit Ali and Zuzu in Wisconsin in October. So we got some pleasure out of the year, too.

My hope for next year is that there won't be as much drama and heartbreak. I want things to get back to normal and a little boring. Boring can be comforting.

Bloggily

2011-10-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

Zuzu at the library

It's been a long time since I wrote here--since the beginning of September. Have things changed much since then? Not really. I am no longer cleaning out The House (my mother's), but I am still involved with it in several ways. Am I less tense about The House? Yes, a little, but when I spent a week in Wisconsin with my son's family that includes two precious granddaughters and a daughter-in-law that is like my 3rd daughter, I had a bad dream every night about either my Mom or my Brother or both. Am I more optimistic about my future? A little. When I got back from WI I called my Brother to find out if anything new had happened on the "finding someplace to live" front and he said that when he was on the phone with the Housing Authority talking about his impending homelessness, "someone" in the background said, "Oh, I think we can find something for him by then"--by then meaning October 31st.

Some things have happened. A very sad thing--the beloved wife of an old classmate died unexpectedly and there is a memorial service for her this coming Sunday. It still upsets me to think about that.

Zuzu is in striped skirt

And I visited my dear granddaughters, Alison and Zuzu. I am much rejuvenated by being around them. They are so sweet and loving, along with all the other things little kids are, that it rubs off on me and when I come home I am softer around the edges. We had such a great time. I was able to go to a library reading time and a music class with Zuzu and to dance classes with Alison. Zuzu and I colored in many different coloring books making "colorful" kitties and doggies, meaning they were not one color, but many, many colors. I helped cook dinner a couple of times and allowed Mama to take Ali to school without having to wake Zuzu up one day. I watched Zuzu playing Nick Jr. games on the computer and Ali attacking somebody on Backyard Monsters.

My son made wonderful blueberry pancakes, fantastic Chicken Tonkatsu and his famously delicious chicken enchiladas. I discovered Bunny Snacks and drank Caribou Coffee. We all went to the Crystal Cave and saw bats hanging from the ceiling. We went to a "cheese store", a uniquely upper mid-west kind of place, and bought cheese curds. I met lots of my daughter-in-laws friends, each one as concerned with their children and husbands and how they are doing as Irene is. I listened to my son work from home, attending cyber-meetings, expressing his opinions in intelligent terms that made me proud. At one point my daughter-in-law thanked me for raising my son so that she could find him and fall in love with him. That made me glow. Later I told my son about that conversation and though he doesn't show his emotions much, I'm sure it made him feel pretty good, too.

Ali is at the far left.

I came home with stories for my husband and a new way to pronounce my name--Zuzu used to call me Nama Fistine, but now that has evolved into Gramma Chrit-stine. She never called me just Gramma. So I took to calling her Granddaughter Zuzu. And she has a wonderful way of showing her distaste for something--she growls out of the corner of her mouth. Alison has stopped being Silky, the imaginary cat, and is now a Cheeta and she has learned how to run like one. She still is obsessed with animals, particularly cats, and we played Animal Doctor many times. I got to meet her best friend, Grant, who wears glasses and looks like a blond Harry Potter. These kids are too young to have started the Harry Potter books yet, but I predict they will be favorites. Alison loves to draw and had just been introduced to the works of impressionist, Joan Miro. We looked at his paintings on the computer and she did several of her own versions of his style that were wonderful. I wish her parents had allowed me to take one home with me, but they were taped to the wall before I left. One day Zuzu was preparing to get dressed and put her clothes on the floor in the order she was going to put them on. Ali was inspired and quickly drew head and hands to put on the clothes. She wouldn't let Zuzu get dressed until she was done and until we had taken pictures.

The fake girl is in the middle

It was a lovely trip and I came home to all the dishes washed, the house tidied, lists of plans and a pile of mail. Life goes on. And I start up again, taking care of moving money into an "estate account" for my mother, trying to figure out what to do about all the paintings she left and what remains of the china and antique books. I sold some of her glassware and two pieces of furniture to her old friend, Denis Hausen, who owns a large antique store in Silverdale. I know Mom would have approved of that since she bought so many things from him long ago.

The future? Trips, lunches, book club meetings, the Fall start-up of our writing group, a writing retreat in November and isn't it time to start thinking about the "holidays"? Yikes! I wish us all Good Luck with that!

Caregiving Journal Aftermath IV--Happy Day

2011-09-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting outside on the patio, my bum on one stripey-pillowed patio chair, my feet stretched out and crossed on another. I have my new hearing aids in, just recalibrated today, so that I can hear two squirrels squaring off with each other and yelling at the tops of their little lungs. Who knows what they are communicating but I suspect it's got something to do with a land dispute and a little pique about the fact neither one of them can get to the highest bird feeder in the yard. My husband has finally come up with a device that frustrates their constant efforts.

I've done a couple of jobs I needed to do, concerning Mom's estate today--set up an estate bank account and closed down a credit union account, so I feel satisfied about that. And I got myself an iced, grande' Americano at Starbucks after the hearing aids and the banking, so I am a happy camper.

Tomorrow, which is supposed to be as warm and beautiful as today, we are going up to Bruce Johnson's farm in Sedro Wooley for an alumni picnic. It should be a splendid day as there will be beer and Potato Salad by Ralph, two of my favorite things. The farm should be peaceful, I love Bruce's wife and maybe I can get her to sing one of her songs that I also love, we'll talk about writing I hope and the November writer's retreat that I'm sure is in the works. My dear old friend, Jeanette, might be there, too, and she is always a joy to be around.

I think I am coming out of the Forest and Fog of After Death Responsibility. I seem to be thinking more clearly, though my memory is bad right now. I have been lost in that forest, not sure which way to turn, loaded with "shoulds" and conflicting opinions, mine and a significant other's, for 3 months now. Cleaning out the house of garbage and furniture is nearly done. I had my brother in the kitchen day before yesterday, making decisions about which pots, pans and utensils he'll keep. There is only one cupboard left to go through. I think that progress, which is easy to see, has caused the lifting of the fog. Until now I could barely see to the end of the tunnel. Now it's in sight and important duties are being crossed off the list. The dumpsters were picked up yesterday. We've had them since the end of June and filled them three times. That's a lot of garbage. I'm pretty much over the shock at how much my folks saved, couldn't throw away anything. Must have been something about the Great Depression and WWII. It was also about having two sons that stored all their stuff in the house, whether they were living there or not.

I'm reading Mom's diaries and reading fiction, too, but the diaries are more riveting. I was living at the same time and in the same vicinity, visiting now and then, but didn't realize what was going on with Mom and Dad during Dad's last years of life. Mom stopped writing in her diaries 6 months before Dad died. I can read about all they were going through and I'm sad I wasn't more help, but I truly didn't know what was going on. Mom didn't confide in me. It makes me wonder if I want to keep my journals around when I am getting close to death. Mom always wanted somebody to read her diaries--she said so many times, but I'm not sure I want anyone to read those intimate thoughts about married life and my friends and children. And would my children want to read them? TMI, they'd probably say.

Anyway, today is calm, productive, warm, good-smelling, a little caffeinated, satisfying. I like it.

Wild Morning

2011-08-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

That title is a little misleading. It's not wild here, it's wild on the Southern East Coast. I've been watching the Weather Channel because my daughter, her husband and two sons live in Norfolk, Virginia and they are getting hit with high winds and rain, with the eye of Irene still a couple of hours away. It tickles me to watch the Weather Channel guys on the beaches, their pants flapping violently, yelling as they attempt to be heard over the high winds. A guy in Nags Head, NC, on the beach bracing himself against the wind and being hit by a knee high wave, while he tells the "anchors" in the dry studio that he's fine, no problem, and the sand is whipping up around his knees. I can imagine how sand blasted his face will be later. when he finally leaves that beach. But these guys don't care. They love the weather. I like the Weather Channel better than those on our local channels or anybody's local channels, because they don't sensationalize it as much as the locals.

My daughter says the wind is blowing hard, so far no worse than the what she calls "Mom's Nor'easter", the storm that blew threw and flooded the basement, knocked out the lights, flooded the roads when I was in Norfolk a year and a half ago, in October. We were without lights for 3 days, trying to find a sump pump to get the water out of the basement, eating cheese and apples, playing games in the candlelight. We had a good time, but were getting dirty and finally were able to go out and shower at the local gym, which had power. I think they are going to have a much worse storm this time though, as the eye is heading straight at them. Norfolk floods easily, as it is all at sea level. I'm sure my daughter has her camera at the ready in case the water comes all the way up to their porch, which is higher than the street. Some idiots in a big black SUV just drove up behind the weather guy that's standing in a street in Virginia Beach, and waved at the camera. Nuts! It's an adventure for them, but it won't be funny when a branch flies off a tree and breaks their windshield. Apparently there has been a tornado not too far away from there. So the weather assault is getting dangerous.

And here at home, I've been watching 4 Stellar's Jays, the birds we Westerners call Blue Jays, flying and jumping around in the yard. I am running out of birdseed in the feeders and don't have any left. In order to keep this show going I have to go get some seed today. I have to go back to Mom's house today and for a couple more weeks, I'm afraid, as the cleaning slows down, dependent on my brother to do his part. He is taking that "sentimental journey" that I was taking in the early days after Mom died. Picking up a picture and then engrossed in the memories and picking up another picture and so forth, until an hour had passed and no progress had been made. In his case he is picking up magazines and looking through them, or model pieces, collecting pennies off the floor. We are getting close though. I can see the rug on his bedroom floor--we worked at it with hands, a hoe and a little snow shovel doing the work of broom and dust pan. All the tiny bits of model parts are off the floor, all the cassette tapes are picked up, all the clothing, the magazines have been sorted and bagged. All that is left to do is sorting through the items left on the bed and the table, taking clothes out of the dresser and then pulling all the magazine pictures off the walls. My husband's tolerance level for helping out is very low. He and I took furniture down the narrow stairs Thursday but there still is another coffee table upstairs, an end table, yet another coffee table and a full size bed to bring down. It never seems to end. He kept his cool on Thursday, keeping me posted as to the percentage of his tolerance--"I'm at 50% now". "Okay," I'd say, "Only 2 more things to do and then you're done."

I took a break yesterday and we went to see an alumni friend up at Keyport. I'd been telling my husband about his garage, which is a combination of work shop and museum and the incredible view from his patio. We enjoyed both of them after a lunch at Silver City with my favorite beer and some fish tacos. It was a beautiful day, a beautiful view, nice conversation. Later in the evening a coworker from my days at the ESD came by to get the mink stole that my Mom had and we were able to sit on our patio and talk. There's no view, except of trees, but it is quiet aside from the buzzing of the mosquitoes.

Eventually, I will write about our most recent cruise to Alaska, but for now the blue jays and Hurricane Irene are paramount in my mind.

Caregiving Journal 29-Aftermath III

2011-08-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is not a picture of the room in my Mom's house, but it was just like this--no blue stuffed bunny, though.

It was bound to happen. Something was going to appear that was going to force me to write a post. I’ve wanted to for days, but this is the first day I’ve actually had some time to do it, and today this appeared in the USA Today column written by one of my favorite essay writers, Craig Wilson:

Have you come to the Red Sea place in your life,

Where, in spite of all you can do,

There is no way out, there is no way back

There is no other way but through?

Annie Johnson

And this is the Red Sea place in my life. The house. Cleaning the house. Helping the house become a place that others might want. Taking all of my family out of the house, all of the artists and their artwork and their materials and their hundreds of pieces of art paper and canvases and found objects and tools and books, the upholsterer and his fabrics and his tacks and his springs and his wine –making bottles, the brother who saved every paper bag, the mother who saved all her People magazines and every book she ever read, the brother that never threw anything away, including every single piece of plastic that every model part was attached to, and every bit of clothing he ever owned from the time he was 20 and worked out for 6 hours every day to the present day when a workout is climbing the stairs to his room. The house. This will be “the year of the house”.

And indeed it is like parting the Red Sea. I thought the basement was hard to muck out and it was. But the third floor is harder. Just when I seem to be making a path down the middle of the ocean of stuff, I find more things that have been thrown back into a tiny closet. I don’t find treasures; I find more old clothes, my hiking brother’s old tent, some dishes, one shoe, more of Dad’s slides. The slides might be treasures, I haven’t had time to look at them yet or even to read the labels he put on the cartridges they are stored in. I was hoping I might find the old file box I kept my junior high notes in. I’m referring to the notes my friends and I handed back and forth to each other during the school day; it would be like texting is now. “Did you see who was holding hands in the hall?” “No, who?” “I can’t believe it! I thought they broke up!” “Are you going to the Tolo?” “No, I can’t think of anybody to ask?” Stuff like that. But they would be so much fun to find.

Yesterday I did find one pencil sketch I was looking for. It was an 11 X 14 drawing that my mother did of my grandmother as a very young woman She had it matted and framed but it had disappeared. I found it in a plastic bag with the original of a beautiful photograph of my own mother at about the age of 20. The photo is damaged, but savable. My theory is that when my Mom had her house fire, in 2003, and everything in the house was packed up and put in storage, the box these pictures were in was returned to my brother’s area by mistake. The pictures were in the back of a tiny closet with things that belonged to both of my brothers. Again, this affirms why I didn’t have some cleaning company come in to do the cleanup work, even though my body aches from my eye sockets to my ankles.

I guess I am making progress. The basement is done, except that the pool table is still in it. My San Diego daughter wants it and is trying to figure out how to deal with it. Mom’s bedroom is done but the bed and one dresser are still there—my brother is sleeping there now. The living/dining room is clear of most of it’s furniture. Two chairs, a spinet piano, TV and coffee table and small bookcase are still there for my brother. All the books are gone. The front bedroom upstairs is clean of the clothes that were piled in it, but there is still an old loveseat, a chair, a coffee table and some paintings. The furniture is from my first marriage, circa 1968. I can see the original wood floor now. The windows still have my brother’s paint on them, something about “this flag doesn’t bleed” and Harley Davidson stickers.

The room I’m working on now has a twin bed in it and probably 30 of my brother’s paintings, some of them very large. We have removed several big garbage bags of junk, and I do mean junk, as in broken ghetto blasters or boom boxes as we later decided to call them, remains of airplane models, men’s clothes, shattered glass, a television set, plaster board. There were old records that went to the Goodwill, books of music (Goodwill), books like Moby Dick in paperback (Goodwill), a small box of toys that my Mom had collected for her grandchildren (Goodwill). What remains are the large things I can’t move without help—a TV console, the bed, the plasterboard and all the paintings. My husband is so burnt out by all the junk we keep finding that he starts to get grumpy before we even leave our place to go down to Mom’s house. All he is willing to do now is cart the bags out, move the heavy stuff and take things to the dump, which is a huge help. He will not do any active cleaning or sorting. I am thinking of calling in the cavalry, better known as alumni friends, to help with the rest of it, just to keep peace at my own house.

I have been picking away at the kitchen, which is the easiest room. Most of the pots and pans will go to Goodwill, with the rest going with my brother when we figure out where he’s going. The bathroom will be the same.

The last room to be cleaned out will be my brother’s room. Have you seen the reality show about hoarders? His room is like that, though the height of the junk is not quite as horrible as I’ve seen on that program. There still is no floor showing—when he cleans a portion of it, you can’t really tell. He will need me to go in and say, “Are you keeping this?” I’m afraid he will keep way more than he will be able to fit into the small apartment he will probably end up in. His new place will end up just like his room is now and like the part of the living room he is occupying now. It is becoming exactly as I thought it would—littered with magazines, coffee mugs, old prescription pill containers, cereal bowls full of cigarette butts, TV guides, empty latte containers.

So, you see, the Red Sea is not only the house—it is also moving my brother, literally and figuratively. He is content where he is. His cat is with him, the detritus of his life is around him. But I must and will move through it and move him. Today I savor a day at home, even though I have housework to do, plants to put into the ground, a job I have to help my husband with. I have a rare moment to breath, to rest my ankles from the steep stairs and my hands from picking up and carrying garbage. A breath in, a breath out.

Caregiving Journal 28-Aftermath II

2011-07-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my car, two windows and the strangely named moon roof open. The breeze is blowing lightly through the car, dark clouds are glowering over the water and I can hear the happy laughs and voices of people who are neighbors to this park at Kitsap Lake.

I am in the “upper level” of the park, an area that appeared in the last couple of years. It must have been donated; it wasn’t a part of the park when I used to come here to eat my lunch back in my working days. I can see the lake but not be bothered by the guys backing their boat-hitched trucks down the ramp to launch.

Today I’m here taking a lunch break from my current job—the job of cleaning out Mom’s house. I started doing this work in earnest about a week before Mom’s memorial service, just about a month ago, though it seems like longer.

A lot has gotten done—St. Vincent de Paul has hauled away half a garage full of furniture, clothing, books and now we have another half a garage ready for pick-up. We have an 8 yard and a 6 yard dumpster, already emptied once, filling up again.

I was astounded by the number of scarves Mom had, but even more surprised by all the wine bottles Dad kept. My husband and son-in-law found a cache in the basement a week ago and I found many more boxes of bottles, many of them jug sized, yesterday. Apparently, Dad was making wine and who knows what else. I found three bottles with clear alcohol of some kind in them and several bottles of wine that had turned reddish brown. All went down the laundry room sink—the basement was redolent with alcohol smells for hours, mingling uncomfortably with the odor of mildew.

Upstairs in the living room I’ve managed to get all the books in boxes, helped my husband move the broken grandfather clock out to the garage and the vacuum cleaner chest, carefully upholstered in light-green vinyl, too. The chest contained a vintage Electrolux vacuum that still started. Dad, who took an upholstery course at Olympic College in his twenties, upholstered the chest. He had given away most of his important tools when his hands wouldn’t cooperate with him anymore, but there remained many end bolts of fabric in the basement, not to mention scores of long tubes that used to hold fabric and hundreds of brads and tacks.

The entire 2 ½ weeks my daughter was helping me clean, she was searching for the key to open Mom’s cedar chest. She didn’t find it so my husband jimmied it open yesterday. All along I’d suggested it would probably be like Geraldo Rivera’s hope and excitement about opening Al Capone’s vault. We’d open the chest and there wouldn’t be anything there. To the contrary, among some other not very important pieces of clothing was my mother’s wedding dress and beside it another fragile dress, one of my grandmother’s dresses from the time of the First World War. Both dresses are the color of white roses starting to fade. They are gossamer light, with almost no weight.

My husband asked me if I found any treasures in the cedar chest. I told him about the dresses and his response was typical of a man who is unsentimental and who views antiques as just old junk. He said, “Why would anyone want to keep those?” I don’t really know what I will do with them, but I won’t give them to anyone who won’t appreciate their history. I imagine my tiny mother, her dark hair spilling over the shoulders of her lovely wedding dress, nervous and excited on her wedding day, her mother and sisters assisting with the covered buttons down the back of her beautiful dress. The dress itself never appeared in a photograph because her father forgot to follow through on his only task for the wedding—hiring the photographer. My mother told me that sad story many times, with resignation. Wedding portraits were taken later, but there is no photographic history of that day in April of 1942.

The basement contains a horrible amount of junk collected by my parents who experienced the Great Depression and must have felt that saving everything, even if it was broken, would somehow be a hedge against hard times coming again. But there is also a full-sized pool table, cues, and balls, even chalk from the days when we used to go down after Thanksgiving dinner and play a game or two. Dad loved pool, as did my brother, Dan, and I liked trying to hit the balls and loved the sound of the balls clicking and falling with a satisfying thud into the pocket, the squeak of the chalk against the tip of the cue, the kidding and joking of the men. There was just enough room around the table so that your cue stick didn’t hit the wall behind you. My younger daughter, who lives in San Diego, wants the pool table and I hope she can figure out a way to get it to her fiance’s home in Eugene. She has good memories of the games, too.

At the urging and gentle encouragement of my older daughter, my brother is wrapping his Harley Davidson models, “Burrito Style” he says. This is the one and only worry he has about moving. All the models he had when the house caught on fire in 2002 were ruined by the packers who put all of his and Mom’s belongings in storage.

The last frontier in this big challenge will be the third floor of the house, my brother’s bastion. He has lived upstairs, unhampered by intruders or anyone who wanted to clean or to have him clean, since 2002 when his rooms were rebuilt after the fire. That’s 9 years of accumulation by a person who uses the floor as a closet and who also doesn’t throw anything away. Mom didn’t venture up those stairs and so she didn’t know how bad it was getting. I haven’t been up there yet, but like explorers to a primitive Amazonian village, my daughter and son-in-law reported back that it was “frightening”. I guess I’d better locate my pith helmet.

Caregiving Journal 27-Aftermath

2011-07-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

ev'rything that happens will happen today

and nothing has changed but nothing's the same

& ev'ry tomorrow could be yesterday

and ev'rything that happens could happen today

David Byrne

Shall we put this heavy coat with the Goodwill bags or the Abused Women’s Shelter stuff? Do you want this mouse pin? Does Carolyn or Stanley? I think I want that sparkly scarf. Throw that tattered hat away.

These are the decisions being made as my daughter, her husband and my husband sift through the huge amount of history in an old house. It has taken 3 days to go through all my mother’s clothes, jewelry, scarves, shoes, wigs, hats. We haven’t tackled any other room except her bedroom yet and in the midst of this challenge, the water heater broke. We got a new one at Lowe’s and the day before yesterday we gals cleaned out a swath of the basement so the guys could unhook the old one and install the new one. Turned out the wiring on the old one needed upgrading and when that was done it worked again. So the new one is going back. In the meantime, we fill bag after plastic bag with my Mom’s belongings of more than 60 years.

Because my daughter is here it is easier. She can “compartmentalize”, as she says, blocking the emotion that might come from looking at a familiar piece of jewelry or a memorable dress. If I were doing this on my own I would be stopping to moon over many of the things she quickly puts in a bag.

I have never had to go through an entire house of someone else’s possessions and decide what to do with them. I’ve moved and had to make the “shall we take this or not” decisions, but that’s different. This is personal in a way that makes me feel as if I am intruding, I am fumbling around in somebody else’s private rooms, I am not being respectful of their belongings. But I am trying to be. I pause to say, “Mom loved this shirt”, or “This is a beautiful scarf. I haven’t ever seen it.” I talked to Mom yesterday, telling her she really didn’t need all those scarves and wondering if she really used all of them, but then I remembered all the scarves I have and how few I actually wear often. Like Mother like Daughter—and Granddaugher. My daughter, Erin, responded to my musings by saying, “Mom, you can’t ever have too many scarves!”

So we laugh, sweat, pack, decide, keep the very nostalgic, throw away the shabby and rejoice that Goodwill and the Women’s Shelter will receive a bonanza of pretty women’s clothing and shoes, not to mention a wide variety of scarves. Next we will begin on the hundreds of books in the living room….and the nick-knacks.

And every day we take home a few more bags of the “keepers”, the old photographs of ancestors from the early 1800s, notebooks of Mom’s writing assignments during her writer’s group years, a favorite shirt that was way too big for Mom, an old pearl turtle pin loved from childhood, a leopard print hat. These are the keepsakes that will remind us of our Mom and Grandmother, as if we would need anything tangible for those memories to be with us.

Life

2011-06-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

Live it, love it, never take it for granted.

It's short and it can be sweet if you let it be.

It's your choice.

The Era I Grew Up In

2011-06-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Caregiving Journal 26

2011-06-07T04:02:00.000-07:00

I am up in the middle of the night, or is it early morning--it's 3:10, you decide. Too much of my own snoring, too much of my husband's restlessness, too much going on in my mind. I'm drinking chamomile tea, hoping to calm body and mind and steal a couple more hours of sleep, but first the brain must be emptied.

Today is the private inurnment. It's going to be the second goodbye. The first was on May 22 in Mom's bedroom. The third will be June 25th at the memorial service. And then there will be all the other goodbyes. The smallest things get to me--the latest ones have been commercials on television for Ensure and Twizzlers, two of the things I used to buy for Mom. I'm afraid this inurnment will "get to me", too. I've never done this. Dad's ashes were put in the niche and there was no ceremony at the cemetery. I scattered my brother's ashes in the Elwah River 3 years after he died. There will only be the three of us, my younger brother, my husband and me, at the cemetery today.

I asked the funeral people to give my brother and me some of the ashes, my brother's to go into a heart shaped container and mine just in a little bag. My cousin called the other day. He told me he'd buried his mother's ashes between her mother and father in a local cemetery. I'll put my portion of Mom's ashes there, too, next to her beloved sister and her mother and father. I'd rather visit Mom in that cemetery than visit "the wall" at the other one. I'll go to the Wall on Memorial Days with my little sprig of flowers, like I've been doing since Dad died 10 years ago. But I'll visit Mom on beautiful Spring days, like the day she died, with the birds singing loudly and the smell of lilacs in the air.

After the inurnment the three of us will come home and put the funeral home lasagna in the oven and we'll make a toast to Mom. Maybe we'll even be able to muster the good cheer necessary to tell stories. We'll have a tiny wake. Too bad we can't have alcohol at the memorial service later this month because I'd sure like to hoist a couple to Mom and sing some songs with all my old friends on that day.

Caregiving Journal 25

2011-06-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

What I want to know is this: WHY DOES IT COST SO MUCH TO DIE?

Today I have to make Comfort Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Caregiving Journal 24

2011-06-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the first lawyer appointment since Mom died. Today the Sun will get the obituary right or somebody else will die. Yesterday my dear cousin, Marc, son of my Aunt Carol, my Mom's sister, called and we talked for a long time. Yesterday my best friend went, as if going to her execution, to a doctor at UW hospital to see if ANYTHING short of mutilation can ease her years long chronic pain. Today my husband will go to Silverdale to run some errands and he is very excited to get out, that's how much he's hating this weather. Yesterday I called Lincare for the third time to ask them to remove the oxygen equipment that Mom used for the 3 days before she died. Today I am sending my grandson $20 for the birthday I missed. Today I am sending a birthday card to Marty McLaren for her birthday that I missed (which is hard to do since it's on the same day as mine). Today I am going to make a thank you card for the people at the ESD, where I used to work, to thank them for giving me a lilac bush in memory of my Mom. Today I am going to wash the dishes and do laundry and make dinner. Today I am going to watch our three little red squirrels fight over the birdseed. Today I am going to watch the swallows (either violet greens or tree swallows) swoop in and out of the nest box that is just above and to the right of the patio doors. Today, if it stops raining for a few minutes, I will start digging the hole for my lilac bush. Yesterday evening my husband and I went for a walk--I could smell Spring, late as it is. Today, as I do every day, I will look in amazement at the huge sunflowers my friend, Kay, brought me last week. Yesterday I emailed my friend, Kay, a dream my Mom had written about and the transcript of the conversation about heaven that we'd had at Northwoods, as preparation for the eulogy she will write. Today, I might make cookies, though I lack the chocolate chips I want to use. Yesterday my brother called Social Security on his own, without being reminded. Yesterday I washed the sheets and blanket that were on Mom's bed--there were chocolate stains from an ice cream/Ensure shake. The day before yesterday I cleaned out another of Mom's drawers--her makeup drawer--finding blue, black and brown used up eye liner pencils and bright red lipsticks, tiny perfume samples and sewing kits from various hotels, and many bobby pins.

The days go by. There are fewer times of crying. So many times I say to myself, "Mom would have liked that." Or, "I would have told Mom about that." There is a sadness that lies underneath. There is happiness that I loved my Mom and still love her.

Caregiving Journal 23

2011-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is not the real wall that Dad's ashes are in or that Mom's will soon be in,

but it's a good representation.

How long will I continue to call what I'm writing the Caregiving Journal? I don't know. As long as I feel I'm still writing about Mom or my brother and the aftermath of Mom's death, I guess. Or my feelings about her or my feelings about the business part of dying and there always is a business component to it, isn't there? The funeral home, the death certificates, the cancelled credit cards, the transference of the car ownership, and on and on.

I am sleeping better, but psoriasis has appeared on my elbows. I use cow juice on it--it's not really cow juice but I can never remember the real name, which is Bag Balm. I can also use some prescribed stuff I had for my scalp when it was so bad. Remember the little shower caps I had to wear every night while I used Derma Smooth? Thank heavens I know how to prevent an infected scalp now. So my elbows are itching and I'm having some allergies, but then, so is everybody else.

I finished writing Mom's obituary on Saturday, added two pictures to it (Sun said one picture will go in the paper and two will go in the online version) and sent it into the cyber void. Today the piece I wrote appeared online, but without the pictures I so carefully scanned and attached. I am mad. I know the paper will not have a picture either. And I know what it's like to try to get the Kitsap Sun to fix anything they've botched. I spent 3 months trying to get my Mom's newspaper mess ironed out. I wanted to pay for it yearly, they were charging her monthly on her credit card. I got them to stop doing that, after three calls to three different people at the Sun, but they didn't ever send the invoice for the year.....AND they stopped delivering the paper, too. Since Mom got sick shortly after that I let it slide. So now I get to wrangle with them again. Can't wait.

The cremation will take place this week. I spent some time with the folks, Bob and David, at Miller Woodlawn on Wednesday. They were nice, particularly Bob, who talked to me a long time and instantly got my "I'm tired of talking now and want to wind this up" signal--I looked at my watch. Can you believe my parting gift was a frozen lasagna? Did I tell you this already? I still can't get over it! Lasagna. My husband and I imagined the scenario. The Lasagna company is going out of business but they have a whole bunch, thousands, of boxed lasagnas left. "Who can we sell them to? Schools? No, they have their own kitchens. Hospitals? Their own kitchens. Jails? They eat better than this. The fed government? No, they eat chicken. Welfare system? No, they offer cheese, but no meat. Oh wait ! Funeral homes!!! They have their own freezers--what do people need when somebody dies? Food! It's a win-win!" It was funnier when we were thinking about it, but I guess my funny bone has arthritis today.

Next week my brother and my husband and I will attend a private inurnment at the funeral home. I think it will be hard. It will be fast. Sit in chair in the outdoor memorial thingy, have the urn delivered to us, one of us will climb on a step ladder to reach the "niche", put the urn in, mumble some words to ourselves, shake hands and thank the funeral home people and then go home. Maybe we'll eat the lasagna. Yesterday I went to the "niche" where my Dad waits for my Mom--his ashes wait, if ashes can be imagined as waiting--and put one of my rhododendron flowers in the tiny metal vase affixed to the marble slab--what the heck do you call these things--up on the wall. I do this every year. I think I am the only one in the family who knows where it is. Mom saw it once, but never visited it. She didn't like cemeteries at all--"morbid" she said. But when her ashes are in there, the "niche" will have more visitors.

I think there were lots of other things I wanted to write about, but I didn't seize the brain window of opportunity yesterday and I still have "grieving brain amnesia". There's no cure for it except time.

Caregiving Journal 22

2011-05-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have the most wonderful friends. I have had offers of lunch and walks and my oldest friend brought a huge casserole dish filled with chicken enchiladas, salad, salad dressing, bread, gigantic bright sunflowers and her loving self to see us. Cards are coming now. One of them expressed everything I've been thinking in such a sweet way:

You'll never forget your mother's face,
the sound of her voice,
the gentleness of her touch...

You'll never forget the stories she told
the traditions she handed down...

You'll never forget the lessons she taught
the things she stood for...

You'll never forget and you'll always know
that you honor her every day in how you live
and who you are.

It's true--my mother's voice, especially, will ring in my ears forever, with it's clear soprano tone. She told us stories, on her bed in the house in Tracyton, that she made up, no books, purely out of her imagination. She taught me Albert Schweizer's "reverence for all life" (except for slugs, I'm afraid) and she taught me to "get up, get dressed, brush your teeth and you'll feel better". She taught me to look at clouds and all the different greens in the landscape. She taught me to be curious, to ask questions, to find the answers. She taught me that writing was something that our family did and crossword puzzles, too and that books were the best gifts of all, aside from maybe a jewel now and then. She taught me the love of pretty, colorful clothing. She taught me to always try to look nice when I stepped out of the house. She taught me to love movies. She taught me to love cocoa and cinnamon toast on a Sunday night. She taught me that life is something to celebrate. She taught me to wear pretty socks and rings. She taught me joei de vivre. She taught me more and more and more than that.

Yesterday, an old friend from work came by, bearing a bowl of pink, purple, white and yellow plants and a card signed by my friends from work. I retired almost 4 years ago from the ESD but they still went to the effort of remembering me and my mother. After I thanked Wendy for the plant bowl and the card she led me outside to her truck because she "had something else" for me. She reached in and pulled out a 5 foot tall lilac bush. I didn't cry then because it wasn't a crying day, but now the tears are rolling down my face because it is so touching that one or two of them have been reading my blog and they understood the meaning that a lilac bush would have for me. Every time I look at it I will remember my mother and the fragrant lilacs that were blooming outside her window and the three bouquets that my daughter and I picked that were sitting on her dressers in the days before she left us. I will also think of my friends at my old work place and how giving they are, even if I don't visit them often enough.

Thank you, friends.

Caregiving Journal 21

2011-05-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw Mom's purse sitting next to her chair and I cried. I saw her tiny white tennis shoes with the rhinestones on them and the neon pink laces in her bedroom and I cried. When I gave the "most recent" picture of her to the funeral home man, I cried. When they asked me if I would like them to make her look nice, in other words, close her eyes and her mouth, straighten her, comb her hair, I cried. The day before, I didn't shed a tear. It will be like this.

The day before, my dearest, oldest friend Kay came to see me. She brought dinner big enough for 3 days, salad, dressing, bread and she brought her loving, comforting self. She wanted to hold me while I cried but there were no tears on that day. I was feeling the freedom of the end of care taking, the sun was shining, my good friend was here. She held me anyway, for a long time and told me all the ways she loved me--she loved me as much as the moon loves the sky, she loved me as much as a baby loves its Mama, she loved me as much as a car loves its tires, she loved me as much as the sea loves blue and on and on, all the while stroking my cheek. We talked like in the old days, on the couch, under a blanket or feet tangling together, of our men and our fears and our lies and our truths. We talked about Mom and Kay told me what she remembered about the first time she met her and what her impressions were and how they changed over the years of knowing her. I told her what the last hour of Mom's life was like and about the silly/crazy conversations we had before she died. It was a lovely time with my friend, just like in the old days when we saw each other many times a week and talked and drank tea in her tiny home in Manette with the red flowered curtains and the yellow enamel pitcher on the table always filled with flowers.

Yesterday was not so much fun. It was the funeral home day and though they took very good care of me and my Dad had made sure that everything would be paid for, it was still very emotional. I liked both men who served me. One was a little tentative and nervous. He was new to Miller-Woodlawn. The other one, Bob, was sweet and talkative and I learned a great deal about his family and his past in the 90 minutes I was there. He is the salesman and usually would be helping to select a coffin, but none of that was necessary with me. The cremation, the urn, the niche, were all paid for years ago. He took me into the room where "keepsake" items could be bought and I selected something for my brother--a palm-sized silver heart that he can take with him wherever he ends up. It will be inscribed Mom, like a tattoo, but it will contain about a teaspoon of her ashes. I will also get a teaspoon of ashes that I will keep or sprinkle; I'll decide on that sometime later. I've been trying to think of where Mom would like some of her ashes to be and I haven't come up with anything. Her favorite place was her chair in the living room. I'm not even going to keep that chair, let alone put her ashes in it. If it was my ashes, you could scatter them on just about any beach in the county--I love them all. Or better, on the beach of Peso Lavadi on Paros in Greece. Or in Scotland. Or in my garden. I have so many favorite places. I have some of my brother's ashes sprinkled around the hydrangea I took from his memorial service. I wrote a piece about how it blooms with only one flower each year.

There's a scattering ashes story that a friend of mine tells that I can't write about here because it's too personal to her, but I think about it every time I contemplate ashes and what might be done with them. You will wonder why it always makes me laugh.

After the funeral home I stopped to get my brother a quad latte and me an Americano, and two Dutch Chocolate Brownies from the Red Apple grocery store. I wanted to check in and to tell him what I'd been doing. I wanted to find out if he wanted to take part in the inurnment. He does, and he had received a call from the good-looking social worker, Anthony, who was putting housing paperwork in the mail to him. Things are going forward. I asked Stanley if he believed he would hear from Mom--did he believe in that kind of after life communication and he said he did. I keep remembering the sweet Dr. Vasquez and what he said about spirits and that he believed they communicated after death. My mother will be in my dreams and I so look forward to seeing her again. But what am I going to do with her purse and her shoes?

Caregiving Journal 20

2011-05-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

I am taking care of myself now. My eyes, my nose, my throat are all acting funny. They are dripping copiously. It's not just tears, it's mucous. Yesterday I took an allergy pill, then I drank a large glass of wine at dinner, and I took a slurp of cough medicine at bedtime. The cough medicine has decongestant in it and it seemed to work better than anything for stopping the dripping. This morning I am dry but a little balmy.

I planted marigolds from Costco in my gardens yesterday, creating some beautiful little scenes, using some colorful, square dishes with Mexican designs for plant saucers. I'd bought these dishes at Kohl's a long time ago and the first time I washed them in the dishwasher they started to chip. I used them longer than I should have and then finally put them in my green house. Now they are gracing my garden.

It was a pretty day, sunny and fairly warm. A good day for doing things to rejuvenate myself. Digging in the dirt, cleaning up the strawberries, encouraging my tiny potato plants, transferring baby tomato plants into big pots, fertilizing. I got several calls: from my son, from my best friend, from my daughter in Norfolk. I made up a word while talking with my son--Shrap--a combination of a word that starts with "sh" and a word that starts with "cr". I used it in place of all the things that have to be done now, referring to Mom's house, her effects, my brother's situation, the business end of dying.

Two important things got done yesterday--Office of Personnel Management notification and Social Security notification. I didn't want to do anything more than that. Today I will call Miller-Woodlawn and make an appointment to take care of the cremation. I am lucky. Mom and Dad both had cremation insurance and there is a remains spot already there, with my Dad's ashes installed in 2001. When we inurned Dad, THEY wanted to know if Mom wanted her name on the plaque too, with the end date not inscribed. She said NO! But now the inscription will be put on the stone. I wonder if they will allow me to take 1/4 of a cup of ashes to keep or spread. I will insist on it.

On Sunday two men came to take Mom's body to the funeral home. One was a regular looking fellow, still in the Navy, doing this work to augment his salary. The other young guy was skinny in his black suit, with longish black hair--pale, gaunt. He didn't say much, leaving it up to the Navy guy to explain how it all would work. He sat with his hands folded in his lap, looking funereal. My brother said his hand was cold when he shook it. I whispered to Stanley that he looked like a vampire. It would be the perfect place for a vampire to work, wouldn't it? I don't want to go there right now, but I can imagine a story about him and why he would like to work at a funeral home.

Kay will come to visit me today and to hug me and help me talk about all that has happened. She was in New York and New Jersey with her fiance, Alan, when we brought Mom home from Northwoods Lodge. She called me from New York to find out how I was doing, how Mom was doing. She said Times Square made her want to turn out all the lights. She is going to bring food and her love.

I am wearing the two rings that were on Mom's finger the past few years, a pink and yellow gold ring with a grape-leaf pattern and a gold band with five small squares of amethyst set into it. She wore them on her wedding ring finger but they are too small to fit anything but my pinkie. I have had to wrap pink yard around the bands to hold them on my finger. After I go through Mom's jewelry, which I am looking forward to, I will take a few pieces and have a pin or necklace or ring made out of them. The rest of the good stuff or retro stuff, I will show my daughters and daughter-in-law and see if they want it. There is jewelry decades old, probably not a single piece worth anything except that it was chosen by my dear fashionable Mom and worn with panache.

My brother is doing okay. He called yesterday to see how I was doing. He told me he'd walked to the coffee shop just a block away and bought two 20 oz. quad lattes. That seemed like a nice thing to do for himself, even if I can't imagine drinking that much coffee and that much caffeine. He seems to be grieving normally but he admitted to one Stanley-esque activity. I had bought Mom a bottle of liquid Tylenol because she couldn't swallow pills toward the end of her life and I had given her only two doses before she died. I gave it to my brother to use for headaches or other aches and pains. Yesterday he admitted to drinking the whole bottle. I guess he has quite a capacity for abusing his body because it didn't do anything to or for him. I suppose he thought he would get some kind of buzz from it. My husband cried out, "Oh great! That's all we need--a double funeral!"

It's the oddest feeling to have a loved person in your life for as long as you've lived and then in an instant to have them gone. I remember the feeling when my father died. Here one minute, gone the next. I saw men who looked like him, in stores, on the street. It was the same with my brother--I saw him everywhere. Will I see Mom? The day she died, an hour or so later, I was putting some garbage in the can and there was a loudly chirping bird on the very top of a tree, just past the yard fence. I called my brother out to hear it and asked him, "Is it Mom?" The bird continued calling for a short time and then flew away.

Caregiving Journal 19

2011-05-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

My Mom died at 12:40 pm yesterday, Sunday, May 22. It wasn't peaceful at first. She had pneumonia and she was gasping for air, but she died in her own bed, in her own home with her daughter and her son and her granddaughter and her great-grandson there with her. I had slept with her all night, listening to her ragged breathing, placing my hand on her every few minutes, holding her hand, kissing her and whispering to her that I was there and realizing that she was still breathing strongly. By the time dawn came I felt that in a little while I could go home, and be with my husband and daughter and Alex for awhile before coming back. My brother was sleeping on the couch and was finally getting some real rest. I sat with Mom for 2 more hours, reading pieces she'd written for her writer's group, about "surprises", "dreams", "Autumn". She continued to seem to be breathing with ease and sleeping deeply. The fever of the night before had broken. At 7:00 I decided to go home for awhile.

I had an hour before anyone got up--quiet--thinking time. I made a big pot of coffee and read an article in a magazine, enjoying the moments of peace. When the gang got up Alex and I made pancakes and we all made plans for the morning--Carolyn had to take Mom's car back, she had to pack, I wanted to be with Mom until I took Carolyn and Alex to Silverdale to catch the Airporter to fly back to San Diego. Alex had to memorize a poem for school and after pancakes we found a couple of short poems about nature on the Internet and he started to learn them. While his Mom was getting ready he played one last game on Grandma's iPad (mine, in case you are confused about Grandmas), Michael packed all the gear into the cars and I was back at Mom's by 12:15.

When I got there she was in distress. She couldn't make any sound so Stanley, who was still asleep on the couch when I got there, didn't realize anything was wrong. She was hot, the temperature had spiked, her mouth was open and she was either gasping or trying to say something. I immediately got the liquid Tylenol and slowly, slowly, so as not to choke her, dripped it into her mouth with a syringe. Just the day before we had been given the syringe and the stick sponges they use in the hospital when someone is thirsty but they have trouble swallowing. I soaked one with water and pressed it around Mom's mouth in between the small squirts of Tylenol--hoping she'd be able to swallow. While I was frantically doing this Carolyn and Alex arrived and Stanley woke up. Carolyn got on the bed and began talking to Mom, telling her we were there, asking her if she could hear us. I gave Mom the two "Hospice rescue meds", the morphine and the tranquilizer, stroked her head, held her hand. Carolyn held her other hand. Stanley was at the foot of the bed and Alex was next to his Mom. I was on Mom's left side, Carolyn on her right. She calmed noticeably. Her mouth stopped trying to speak or gasp. But we noticed that her chest wasn't rising and falling as often and we began to see the "apnea", the absence of breathing, followed by a small gasp and the resumption of breath. Carolyn and I made eye contact and I put my hand on Mom's chest. I said, "This is what I did all night long--checking Mom's breathing, counting the strong breaths and then the weak ones." Carolyn asked me if Mom was breathing as strongly as last night. She wasn't. It couldn't have been more than 20 minutes from the time I got there and the moment we realized she was leaving us. I believe she waited for someone and when she knew we were all there, she relaxed and let go. As her breathing became more and more a whisper her skin turned to alabaster, the wrinkles in her face smoothed, she became ethereal. I broke down. Alex said, "Her eyes are still open", hoping, I think, that she was still alive. At the last breath, when no more breaths followed, we looked at each other and knew. Stanley sobbed, "Oh, Mama, my best friend." I stroked her head saying "My poor little Mama, I can't believe you're gone, I can't believe you're gone." Carolyn cried and cried and took care of me, too.

Alex was the extraordinary one. As we accepted that Mom has passed from the world (as we know it) we began to do things for her. I put perfume on her hands and neck. I combed her hair and put her favorite blue shawl around her shoulders. I put her rings on my finger. Alex brought the Easter Bunny that Mom named Pinkie when I gave it to her at Northwoods, another bunny with an "I Love to Read" t-shirt on it and a bunny made of kitchen towels that Mom had won at a baby shower for granddaughter-in-law, Irene, several years ago. He lined them up along her right side. He ripped a page out of his drawing notebook that had a rose he'd drawn, drawing it the way Stanley had shown him, colored in in red, and he put it on his great-grandma's chest. And then he put his notebook under it. He was going to give her his art notebook. We wouldn't let him do that though, telling him Mom wouldn't want him to stop drawing. She was proud of him for that. Crying...I have to pause for a moment.

We started laughing and telling stories--I wish we'd had wine, but we drank strong coffee that Stanley had made for us instead. We were glad that Mom had met Anthony, the beautifully handsome Hospice social worker, just 2 days before she died. We were happy that on Thursday, when Carolyn and Alex arrived, she was talking and laughing and telling jokes and that she told Alex she loved him and that he was a beautiful and talented boy. I was so thankful that the last caregiver she had on Friday had been the girl who hummed and sang as she went about her duties. It was a gift. It was wonderful that all of Mom's flowers were blooming during the last week and that she had three bouquets in her room that Carolyn and I had picked for her. Her room had been filled with the smell of lilacs and she could see her lilac trees outside her bedroom window.

I am also glad that she had been able to experience the fullness of life at Northwoods, that she had enjoyed and openly appreciated all the people who cared for her there, that she played Bingo and won prizes and that I took her to the Mother's Day Tea and she wore a hat one more time and ate a huge chocolate covered strawberry. She found men to admire there and to dream about and she told all of them they were "good-looking". Kay's fiance', Alan, sat on her bed and kissed her. She ate cream pie and the aides made special cocoa for her. She felt as if she was being treated like a queen and she deserved to be because she was so loving in return.

I must stop writing--the tears are flowing so hard I can't see the screen. I have more to say, but it can't be today. Thank you all for your support. I will need you again in the weeks to come as the business part of death begins, but for now it's time to rest.

Caregiving Journal 18

2011-05-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

I felt like I was in the midst of a marathon yesterday. The day started at 5:00 a.m., quickly out of the gate in order to have some quiet time in the morning before daughter, grandson and husband got up. I had some time to gear up for the day, to drink some coffee, eat some yogurt, do some stretching and think. Everyone else got up at 6:30 and the day had begun.

My daughter and grandson came with me to borrow Mom's car, touched base with Mom and then left my brother and I who were meeting with the Hospice people at 10:00. We met with Mary and Anthony. When I first got sight of Anthony standing in the doorway I knew Mom was going to take a shine to him. His smile was perfectly white and the rest of his face was lovely, too. And I was right. Mom was first introduced to Mary and then I pointed out Anthony. "Oh!" she said, obviously impressed. Immediately she was off and running about how good looking he was. If his skin hadn't been such a deep shade of coffee brown I'm sure we could have seen him blush. We ushered Anthony out of the room before his head swelled to the size of a casaba melon and began our meeting.

I think my brother and I were amazed and gratified with all that Hospice has to offer. The representatives they sent yesterday explained eloquently that Hospice is taking care of the patient as well as the caregivers, that they are available to help in any way possible. I mentioned the phone call I'd gotten from the doctor's office about bringing Mom in for another appointment and Mary said Hospice would take care of any communication between patient and doctor, allowing the patient, Mom, to stay put and not have to go through going to the doctor again. All of her "levels" are low because she is dying. No amount of adding this or that drug is going to change it now. In fact, we eliminated three drugs yesterday, which means the effort to get pills into her, which has been extremely difficult, is over. She will continue the drug for pneumonia and bladder infection because that will take away discomfort, but the others are not necessary anymore.

On Monday a hospital bed will be delivered. I am concerned about how this is going to be accomplished--putting that bed in, getting the other one out. Me, my brother, my husband will be doing the moving and heavy lifting of old furniture.....all of my friends are 67 or still working and Stanley doesn't have friends. and doesn't know his neighbors. It was awful to realize that there are few strong people we can call on when there is a need. I know my husband, when I actually tell him about this, is going to say we can do it with physics and a hand truck. And I know if I can get him to help plan what should be moved and where, that he will do a good job. I am beginning to feel his stress now, as he has me with him fewer and fewer hours in the day. He was hoping for an hour of my help with a project yesterday, but I was unable to be here. He wasn't angry or petulant, but all of this is taking its toll on him, too. He is being supportive and telling me to do what ever I need to do, but still.....

Hospice was with us for 2 hours as we went over all that needed to be explained and decided. Then our caregiver arrived, a different person this time. She went to work giving Mom a bed bath and massaging lotion into her arms and legs and while she did all this she sang. She is a person who already has lived a full life at only 20. She is an old soul, having been in foster care for the first 12 years of her life and then adopted into a large family. When she was on the deck shaking a rug, she was singing. It was joyous to hear. Later she was running out of things to do because I'd already washed the dishes and swept the kitchen, so I asked her if she'd clean Mom's fingernails. Little did I expect that Mom would get her hands and nails soaked and cleaned along with using the file to clean under her nails. It was a mini-manicure and so soothing for Mom. And while she did it, she sang.

It is so beautiful to watch the caregivers gracefully going about their duties. One day a young woman who was caring for Mom expressed an envy of people with artistic talent like my Mom and my brother have, and I stopped her and told her what an incredible talent she has for empathy and compassion. All of these people we have seen since April 4th, except for one blinding exception, have had that most wonderful of gifts. ( The "blinding exception" is no longer working with us, and we learned how to cope with it anyway.) I know my Mom is one of the easier patients they have. She is cooperative, doesn't complain, doesn't demand anything, but I know they have it harder with some and yet they still maintain their optimism and joy in caregiving. I am feeling so blessed that I found out about all of these "angels" who are there to help.

When my daughter was out in Mom's car, cleaning it, washing it, gassing it up, putting air in the tires, she also went to Shari's and bought a cherry pie for Mom. The reason? Because Mom had called out in her sleep the afternoon before: "Cherry Pie!" And every time Mom and I had pie at Shari's her choice was always cherry. When she came back with it we fixed up a tiny bowl of mashed up cherry pie with whipped cream on top so that Mom could have a few bites of one of her favorite tastes. The taste brought back memories of having lunch at Shari's with her best and oldest friend, Gerry. She said, "You know, I bet Gerry doesn't know I'm sick. Maybe you should tell her". And rather than telling Mom again that Gerry had died two years ago, I told her I'd be sure to tell Gerry she wasn't feeling well.
Later in the day Carolyn put an old circa-Forties picture of my Dad on Mom's dresser next to the bouquets we'd been making of lilacs and pink dogwood. He was shirtless, his dark hair wavy, his smile cocky as he lounged on a porch step at the age of 23. The young caregiver was talking about some movie star she admired and Mom pointed out the picture and said, "You see that handsome man there? That was my husband!" She was obviously very proud of the hunky man she'd chosen.

Mary from Hospice said to me, "Your Mom has a strong life spark", and that is so true. We see it every day and I am so happy that I get to see it, that I don't live somewhere far away, that I am right here to be with her.

Caregiving Journal 17

2011-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Don't have much time this morning. Hospice people coming to talk to us at 10. My daughter and grandson arrived yesterday afternoon and we had a great time visiting Mom. She was so excited to see her beloved granddaughter, Carolyn, and to see her great-grandson, Alex. We looked at pictures, we looked at Alex's drawings, we sang songs--had a lovely time. My daughter cried several times from the surprise of seeing her Grandma so frail, but she didn't do it in front of her. Mom ate for me twice--a big accomplishment in 2 hours. She was joking and very funny and I think Carolyn feels better about things now.

Today we will see if Hospice will provide us with a hospital bed so that my brother and I can reposition Mom and get her out of bed easier. A bed that goes up and down and can be raised at the head and foot would be lovely. We have learned, from all the T's, how to stack pillows and put others under her side to give her a new position, but it's very difficult, even with such a tiny person. I think a bed that lowers nearer the floor will make things less scarier for her, too.

Lately, this past week, I can't remember which day it is and which T I'm meeting with. Is it Tuesday and we meet with the OT or is it Thursday and we meet with the PT? And I've given my first "no" to a nurse calling to tell me that "the doctor needs to see Lucretia next week". I said no, I'm not making her get herself to the doctor anymore. She is too weak and frail. It's not going to happen. I was told yesterday by the PT (or the OT???) that Hospice will take care of that kind of thing, too. They will provide the doctor with the information he or she needs that they would have gotten if the (stubborn and protective) daughter had agreed to bring her in.

It is nice to have my daughter here because we talk about all kinds of things and I can forget a little bit about my Mom and just have fun. It's also a bit of work to have someone else in the house. I asked her to come, so it's something that will just be necessary in order to have her here, but I'm not being a hostess and she gets it. She has made her own and my grandson's food and so on and she'll borrow my Mom's car while she's here, so I don't have to get her anywhere. All I had to do was pick them up at the Bremerton Ferry yesterday and bring them to Mom's house and then here. So the dynamic of my life will be different until Sunday.

Maybe it was just the excitement of seeing Carolyn and Alex yesterday, but it seemed like Mom was a little better, but at this point, "better" is a very subjective term.

Caregiving Journal 16

2011-05-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was.....hard to describe, hard to live.....emotional in nearly every way possible. Frustration, tears, laughter, more tears, despair, fear, gratefulness, deep love.

Hospice is coming. When I asked the doctor for Hospice it didn't hit me what I was saying or what it will say to Mom to have them helping her. Only last night did I realize that asking Hospice to come is saying, "You aren't going to get better and we are here to help you accept that and to ease your way." I've known that Mom wasn't going to get better but she hasn't said it yet. Even yesterday, after a tough day, she said to me, "I'm going to get better, I promise". In her heart she must know that she is failing, but she won't admit it to us. Maybe she doesn't want us to be sad or worry. She asked me while she was in the hospital if I worried about her and I told her I did and that my brother did, too. She replied, "I don't worry". She never has been a worrier. If there was any time to worry, it would be now, but she isn't worried. She is afraid of falling and under that fear there might be a fear of something else, but she hasn't said. I think today I will ask her if there is anything she is afraid of.

Yesterday morning Mom's oxygen levels were low, according to the home health nurse. She called Mom's doctor. The office said, bring her in at 3:30. I got a call at 2:30. I'd been home for 1 hour, after spending all morning with Mom and the nurse and my brother. The worry was pneumonia. I didn't want to take my Mom to the doctor, but this is the reality of modern medicine. I longed for the days when the doctor would come to you, carrying his bag, leaning over you in the bed with his stethoscope in his ears, touching your body to feel what might be wrong, asking questions, considering answers, writing out a prescription. Yes, doctors didn't know as much as they do now, but the personal touch was medicine, the doctor who knew you was comforting and sometimes that was better than pills.

It was difficult to get Mom to my car. She is so weak, she can walk with the walker but she is afraid she will fall and panics a little. The stairs from house to sidewalk were frightening for her but we got her down them. The seat in my car was high (I have a small SUV now) and I had to nearly lift her, but the strength of adrenaline kicked in for me and as my brother looked on helplessly, I got her in, along with her catheter bag, which has become a part of her body now. I would suppose my brother could have carried her, she is so light, but he is so unsteady on his feet that he would have zigged when he should have zagged and ended up falling with her in his arms, so it was better this way.

At least at the doctor's office there was a wheelchair available. My brother happened to pick one that was like a bad shopping cart. One brake didn't work and the "flippers", as I call them, those things you put your feet on, squeaked like a pig in distress every time we had to get them out of the way. We didn't have to wait long, the young nurse of the substitute doctor, Dr. Vasquez, (Dr. Fabio Vasquez) was gentle with Mom, checking her oxygen and her blood pressure. We joked with her about the doctor's name and how much teasing he's probably had over it. She said he didn't have the romance novel hair, but that he did have the lovely Latin accent.

It turned out that Dr. Vasquez was a sensitive man. Mom noticed his eyebrows going up and down as he looked at Mom's chart and I described the litany of the last several weeks. She said, "The doctor looks perplexed." I replied that it could merely be that Latins have expressive eyebrows and we all laughed. If there was a man that Mom should have found good looking, it was him, but he did not meet her tall, dark and handsome criteria--to me he was beautiful inside, his eyes conveying deep concern. He listened to Mom's heart and breathing, his eyes telling me that what he was hearing wasn't good. But he didn't convey any of this worry to Mom. He sent us down for blood tests and a chest x-ray. The blood test was easy, a little squeak from Mom when the needle went it. And then the ordeal of getting the chest x-ray. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stand in front of the x-ray panels, hold your breath for a beat and then have to do it again, when you can barely sit upright in a wheelchair, when it is nearly impossible to get your pajama top off and put on a smock, when your daughter and the tech want you to stand and your legs will barely hold you, when you are deathly afraid of falling? But Mom did it, twice. I vowed at that moment, never to put her through going to the doctor again. She had reached her limit and I had reached the point that I would be able to be strong in my refusal to bring her in again. No, my brain screamed. No, my heart begged. Never again.

Back upstairs to see what the doctor found on the x-ray. There was pneumonia. He would prescribe an antibiotic, but it would likely cause diarrhea. Quietly he said to me, "Anything we give your Mom now will cause something else to happen, she is so frail". He asked for the drugstore, took notes on his medical computer and then I asked to see him in private. He took me far away from the examination room, to the far side of the nurse's station, away from any ears. He knew what I was going to ask. My question might not have been exactly what he had anticipated. It was, "Is Mom a candidate for Hospice care now?" Not quite the same as asking if she was dying, because I knew already that she was. He looked at me with his soulful eyes and said, "Yes. I will leave a note to get it started tomorrow. I would start it now, myself, but I am new here and do not know exactly what the procedure is." And then he talked to me about Mom's spirit, all our spirits. He spoke about what he believed: "I believe our spirit inhabits a body, here on earth, and that when the body stops working, the spirit leaves and comes back in another body. This is what is happening to your mother. Her body can no longer house her spirit. Her spirit will leave soon. And I believe there is communication between the spirits that leave and those who are still here. I have seen it over and over. Make sure you say your goodbyes and tell her how much you love her." By this time I was in tears and I put my hand on his and thanked him for his words and for answering so truthfully. I think there was some kind of cosmic reason that this doctor was the one who saw Mom yesterday, even though I don't believe in cosmic stuff, or fate or any of that. He was the right person at the right time.

I had to pull myself together to get Mom back home, into her bed, with her soft blankets pulled up around her neck. I took my brother into the kitchen and told him what the doctor had said and about Hospice coming. I cried again but he didn't, to my surprise. Earlier in the day I had yelled at him in frustration for not being stronger about giving Mom her medications, about seeing to it that she ate. I told him to "step up". But now, only a few hours later, all that was behind me. Acceptance is what Hospice is about, is what life is about. As a dear friend always reminds me, his philosophy is: fix it if you can, walk away from it, or accept it. There's no fixing now, there's certainly no walking away, there is only acceptance. As I prepared to go home, I went in to say goodbye to Mom and beside her was Diana, the Cat. She has been sleeping right next to Mom, next to her head, every night. She knows, too. She is my brother's cat, but right now her place is beside Mom.

Caregiving Journal 15

2011-05-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

Today I am taking care of myself, taking a day off from care, or at least it feels that way. There are people I have to call, I'll be going to the medical appliance store, too. But my husband is taking me to lunch at HiLos, one of my favorite little kitschy restaurants, in Bremerton and I haven't had a call yet from my brother. I will call him to see how things are going today and I may end up going to see Mom depending on what he tells me, but for now the plan is to do my own thing today.

Yesterday my taking care of myself assignment was to go to my book club meeting. I went to see Mom at 11 and stayed until 1:15. My brother had no luck giving her the morning pills, so I showed him a trick I learned at Northwoods. Pills with applesauce or pudding. I'd brought some pudding to add whipped cream to and to give to Mom and so I put a pill in each spoonful--Mom even sang, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down", while I fed her each one--it was tasty, smooth and a good way to take her morning pills. She didn't want to get out of bed, though. I propped her up to take her pills, which my brother hadn't done--no wonder she refused them--who can eat or take pills lying on their backs? Not me, not you, not Mom. Stanley realized he'd been going at it in a funny way and I hope he learned from watching. After getting Mom situated I did some chores in the house and had a short talk with my brother about "the future", which means after Mom passes. Housing, where he will live, how it will be accomplished. The last time we addressed this situation he was in a panic--he imagined there would be hundreds of people who would want to buy his Mom's falling-down house--they'd be banging on the door, bidding against each other. It was a paranoid vision. The house is in such bad shape that we will likely nearly have to give it away. I assured him, though, that I would not put it up for sale until we had found a place for him.

I know that down the road, in "the future", I will have to put a limit on how long he can live in the house before he must be out. There will be a money limit already--how long can Mom's funds pay for the utilities while we find a place for him to live? That's why I'm working on it now. Unfortunately, finding a list of housing is the first and a kind of difficult task. Apparently there is not just one list. Secondly, each housing location requires that a potential renter get on their own list and each requires different criteria. Thirdly, my brother is incapable of starting or following through on doing this, so it will be me, me, me who has to do this, too. Today I feel strong, directed, decisive. I had a decent night's sleep. The book club was fun and we laughed about lots of things, my husband and I watched good TV--The Killing on AMC, a terrific new series and a recording of Blue Bloods (Tom Selleck series). And I nearly fell asleep on the couch, so I knew I would have success with sleeping. Only trouble was, I was awake by 3:00 a.m. Absolutely awake. My method for dealing with that kind of being awake in the middle of the night is to get up, go down to the guest room bed with my book, read for awhile and then fall back to sleep. Last night it worked--I read for 30 minutes, fell asleep, didn't wake up until 6.

It's not raining (yet) though the wind is blowing and we'll be leaving in 15 minutes. So far, so good. I've gotten two emails today about Chapter 14, as a friend called it, telling me how the readers reacted. I'd like to get more reactions, but truly, this blog is therapy for me. Writing has always been therapy for me. If it helps you, then that's fantastic and incredible. Know that loving someone is always worth it, no matter how much pain comes with losing them.

Caregiving Journal 14

2011-05-15T07:04:00.001-07:00

A friend calls these blog-posted journal entries my "morning pages", which are writings the first thing in the morning suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way. But they could also be "mourning pages".

Mom is home, but now that she doesn't have nurses aides to come in and roust her out of bed to brush her teeth and eat her meals, she has decided bed is where she wants to stay. I suspected this might happen when we were at Northwoods and having PT done. She would always ask if she could go back to bed now, if she could please lie down now, if lunch was done and could she take a nap now? Now she is home, her bed is wonderful, she has windows she faces that let in the light, she has her son and her cat and she wants to do exactly what she wants to do.

Caregivers are coming, as of Friday, a home health nurse has already visited and next week the Tees (OT, PT, ST) will begin, so there will be attempts to get her into a routine of moving her legs, getting her up, but for now my brother can't resist her pleas to stay in bed. I understand. Michael and I went to the house yesterday to deliver some things, it was a gorgeous rare sunny day, and Mom was in bed. She was happy being there. I sat on the bed with her and held her hand while she told me that she had "gone on a drive" last night. Stanley had followed her, she explained, and when he found her his face showed "pain and worry". The day before she'd told us of a "fling" she'd had about 2 weeks ago. She knew it wasn't right, but she needed a little excitement. She apologized for going and said she wouldn't do it again. Yesterday, as we were leaving, she called out "I'll behave myself".

I read a book a long time ago called "Dad. A Novel" by William Wharton. I have never forgotten it because of the lovely explanation of what might go on in the mind of a person with Alzheimer's Disease. Of course, it is the author's explanation, not a scientific one, but it is such a sweet notion. The idea is that while Dad is "gone", while he sits and appears to be thinking nothing, he is actually living a fantasy life on a farm, where he is completely happy. In real life his body is infirm, his memories are gone, he is merely existing, but his fantasy life is rich and beautiful. My Mom might appear to be delusional or delirious, but she is living somewhere else, she is having flings, she is driving again, she is walking without assistance, she is probably much younger. She apologizes to us for being going on her "flings", for being foolish, but I am happy she is "going" to these places. It gives her life a richness we can't provide now. All we want to do is get some calories into her, encourage her to move around, help her with the most intimate parts of life.

Yesterday, before going to see Mom, my husband and I had a conversation about caregiving. Is my brother wrong to acquiesce to Mom's wishes, to allow her to stay in bed, to refuse food? Or is that the kinder way? I have been running around buying things, food, a new walker, trying to think up solutions for her lack of appetite, making up recipes for food that might tempt her, in a frenzy of movement. Is that the kinder way? While my husband was in Home Depot, I sat in the truck with the door open and my face to the sun and reached deep down inside myself, realizing that all my frantic running is not going to stop the inevitable--it may stave it off for a few more days or weeks, but that is all. I probably can't stop myself from looking for solutions because that's my nature, but I have to slow down and sit on Mom's bed and talk with her and listen to her and hold her hand. I have to feel my deep love for her and show it to her while we both have time. We are losing her and though she promises to eat, she won't eat enough and she won't drink enough water and the end will come. No matter how much I want it, I can't keep it from happening. And what is the kinder way?

Caregiving Journal 13

2011-05-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Counting down. One last full day for Mom at Northwoods. I'm not sure she realizes she is going home tomorrow morning, but my brother and I are very aware of it. Yesterday I spent several hours shopping for the food and other items we will need to give her good care at home. I still don't have the bath bench, but found out by accident that the cost of it could be reimbursed by the Caregiver Center in Silverdale, through Kitsap County Aging and Long Term Care Services. After visiting Mom on Monday, and delivering a piece of Boston Cream Pie to her, I agreed to go to a NAARF meeting with my husband. NAARF is the National Association of Active and Retired Federal workers--they meet once a month at the West Sound Improvement Club down in Navy Yard City. Each month they have a speaker. This time it was Janet Larson from the Caregiver Center. She happened to mention in her presentation that certain home care appliances could be bought with the $250 fund per caregiver that the center can spend. I wasn't aware of this at all. Either I wasn't paying attention to that part of Janet's explanation to me a year ago, or she forgot to mention it. So that's one big expense we may be able to avoid. Even though I know a lot more about resources than I did a year ago there are still many things to learn.

After I bought the protein whey, applesauce, apple juice, peanut butter and jam at Costco, and the instant gravy and other instant foods at Safeway, and the laundry basket at Target, I schlepped it all down to my Mom's house. My brother wasn't there--it was his day to visit Mom and they wanted to give him more catheter training--so I hauled all the stuff into the house. The first thing I saw when I went into the kitchen was what looked like cat food all over the kitchen counter, along with the expected dirty dishes, utensils and mugs and pieces of cellophane and cardboard from opened packages of food sitting on top of sticky ice cream and jam leavings. The second thing I saw was cat barf on the floor. It looked like two-day old vomit, not fresh. If I'd had my blood pressure monitor with me I could have verified that my BP rose along with my anger. How the hell can my brother take care of Mom's catheter needs when he can't even notice and clean up cat vomit in the kitchen? I stomped around, cursing and putting things away, putting garbage where it belonged and noticing that the little bits of brown on the counter and floor weren't cat food, but Cocoa Puffs. Had he had a breakfast accident? Had he been using it for confetti to celebrate that his Mom was coming home? Was he doing performance art? How to explain that it was all over the counter and on the floor, too.....

About 10 minutes after I got to Mom's, my brother showed up to the back door with a coffee and a bag of magazines from Barnes and Noble. It's his first week of the month ritual--magazines and a coffee--when his SSI check comes. He'd also bought a few groceries, mostly pastries and some milk and TV dinners. The minute he got in the door I asked him to clean up the cat barf. He was going to use the Scotchbrite pad I use when I do dishes there and I said, "Please don't use that, it's for dishes. Use a paper towel." No common sense. But he cleaned it up, struggling to get down on his knees, huffing and staggering when he got back up. I was still mad at him and sullen, but later I asked how his training had been. "They worked me hard," he said, "and Mom was impatient with me. The OT wasn't, but Mom kept saying 'hurry up!' " In an attempt to make amends with me he showed me that he'd bought a special edition magazine about the Royal Wedding, ostensibly for Mom, but my brother loves that stuff, too, as do I.

Before I left I made him a list of 4 things I wanted him to do before I got there today to clean house.
1. Put your pot away. (a pipe and a baggy were on the couch)
2. Empty the dishwasher and fill it again, including the 4 dirty coffee mugs sitting in various places in the living room.
3. Empty the living room waste basket that was overflowing.
4. And sweep up the Cocoa Puffs on the kitchen floor.

After this week, a caregiver will be coming and tidying as needed. I will be at the house 2 or 3 times a week, keeping things picked up. There will be SP, OT, PT (the Tees, as I call them) going in and out at odd intervals and a nurse, too. I told Stanley his pot was to be on the lowest level possible. This means no one should be able to smell it and nobody should ever see it. All we need is for someone to blow the whistle on him and have him end up in jail. 2 years ago when Mom broke her shoulder and cracked her knee cap, we had Abiding Care serving her for a couple of weeks. Stanley got nice and comfortable with the young woman who was taking such good care of Mom. He smoked weed in front of her. She ended her services immediately. The manager of Abiding Care called me to tell me what had happened and told me they had decided not to report him. I don't think I have ever in my life been so angry with anyone as I was with my brother that day.

I know that the catheter emptying will not be the major contribution my brother makes to my Mom's care. It will be his presence that is most important. My Mom and Stanley have a symbiotic relationship. She lives for him and he lives because of her. She has told me hundreds of times how important he is to her, what a good companion. I witnessed what they have together when he and I were still visiting Mom together, during the hospital stay and the first weeks at Northwoods. She would light up when he came into the room. She laughed at his odd behavior, his strange riffs on hospital or nursing home routines. She was making a joke one day when he was there and he said, "Oh, Mom, you're so cute". It was said with deep and genuine love. I know his love has lots to do with his own security, but it's still love. Who among us doesn't have one or two of our own selfish reasons for loving someone and wanting to keep them with us?

One of the things that has happened to me in these weeks since April 4th, is that I have discovered a deeper love for my mother. The time at Northwoods has been good for me. I know that Mom is well cared for and that she is safe. When I go up to see her I often don't have anything to do except be with her in the most fundamental sense. I can listen to what she has to say, ask her important questions, like what she believes comes after death, talk to her about her lost friends and family, hold her hand, stroke her head. The surroundings are quiet and pleasant, there is no work for me to do. When she is back home I will be noticing the Cocoa Puffs on the floor, the dirty towels that need to be washed, my brother's messes. I would like to be able to let go of all that, to concentrate only on Mom and her well-being in these last months of her life.

Caregiving Journal 12

2011-05-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

I hope I can remember the details of the day of the Mother's Day Tea at Northwoods. Lodge. I have pictures to remember the tea itself so that the details of that part are helped by the images. I had managed to change Mom's clothes so that she could feel festive. I took her 6 of her hats to choose from, but she wasn't very interested in choosing so I chose for her. I chose a little black homburg with a leopard print band. She looked very nice, but I don't think she cared much about that. I got her into a wheelchair and wheeled her to the Fireside Room, placing her by the fireplace so that she could see everything. The tables were decked with lovely edibles, most of which the patients couldn't eat--maybe some could, those without swallowing problems--but I had to be selective about what I chose for Mom. She ate an entire chocolate covered strawberry--the strawberry was the size of a lemon, probably irradiated to get that size, but when you're 89, would you care? The food was not as interesting to any of us as was the 3-year old little girl, in her Easter dress and hat, who was dancing to the music. The music was being played softly by a woman I'd seen before who comes to Northwoods to entertain the troops--the troops being the people who are residing there fighting hard to get stronger, to recover from something that has happened to them.

If it had not been for the charming tot dancing, the tea would have been nice, but a little depressing. Most people were wheeled in, only a few were ambulatory. All mothers, including me, were given an orchid corsage, a lovely touch. The food was beautifully prepared but most of those accompanying the guests of honor spent more of our time being solicitous to our parents than actually eating any of the pretty offerings. I did eat a nice little quiche cup and a tiny chocolate something. Mom only lasted 15 minutes before she asked to be taken back to her bed. I think she wouldn't have lasted that long if not for the little girl swirling in the middle of the room with a fat strawberry in her chubby hand. I'm so glad that one of the attendees had thought to bring her child, the patient's grandchild. I think it's good for older people to look at the promise of youth--it's joyful for me, anyway, and my Mom seemed to enjoy it, too.

Mom exclaimed, as I wheeled her into her room, "Oh, my bed, my bed!" It is her sanctuary, her beloved place. I laid her down, still in her finery, removed her hat, left her corsage on and she exhaled that sigh of pleasure and relief that I've heard so many times lately, as she settled into her pillow.

Mom was not actually sleepy, so she talked to me, but it was mostly pronouncements.

"I want it to be known, that the paper, that paper we read, is important." I asked her if she meant the newspaper and she affirmed that yes, that's what she meant and she closed her eyes.

After awhile she said, "I'm glad there is a large space for announcements". It seemed as though she was still thinking about newspapers, or maybe this referred to a church service bulletin. She closed her eyes again.

After a long silence she said, "I'm waiting for someone to discuss the issues of time and space". That got my attention. "Time and space?" I asked. "As in the universe?"

"Yes, the Universe. If we don't take care of it, it's going to be destroyed."

"Destroyed? What do you mean?"

"It will go kaputt!" she said with emphasis. At this point I wanted a little more clarification. "Are we talking about the Universe or the Earth, Mom?"

"Both!" She seemed pretty darn certain, as if she was experiencing some kind of link with a "higher authority" who was telling her to tell me. Who knows what was occurring in her brain--a twilight sleep, a dream, whatever it was, she seemed to need to tell me.

Taking advantage of her state, I decided to ask her a question that I'd been thinking about in connection with the certainty that she is getting close to the end of her life. I asked her about Heaven. I know my Mom doesn't believe in a Heaven or a Hell, but that she does believe, very strongly, in God. I don't happen to believe in a god of any kind, but I am fascinated by other's beliefs. So I posed this question:

"Mom, I know you don't believe in heaven, so what do you think happens after a person dies?"

She said she didn't know, and of course, nobody knows. As Betty White put it very well the other day, it's a Secret that is not revealed until we die. She said only those who have died "know the secret". But Mom decided she'd talk about heaven a little more.

"If there was a heaven, your Dad wouldn't have gone there," she said, "and neither would your brother, Dan".

"Really?" I said, "and what about you? If there was a heaven, would you go there?"

"Yes! I'd go there because I've been a good person!" "And humble, too," I joked.

So, no profound statements about what comes after death, but a conversation about time and space. I look forward to more exchanges like that. Only 3 more days until we pack Mom up and take her to her home of 53 years, where she has her very own bed, her beloved son and Diana, the Cat.

Mom seemed a little sad that day and I asked her what I could do to make her a little happier. She said there wasn't anything I could do, though she appreciated that I wanted to try. I asked her then, what would make her happier and she responded wistfully, "If Dad was here."

Caregiving Journal 11

2011-05-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

It is Saturday. I haven't written in a couple of days, not because I haven't wanted to, but because I've forgotten. That's one of the problems I'm having right now--forgetting things. My husband keeps saying, "You have a lot on your mind" and he is so right. I especially have a lot on my mind today because yesterday I got a call from Northwoods that Mom's release date is May 12th, next Thursday! That's good news, but sends me into a flurry of activity and list making. There is so much to do before she sets foot in the door.

1. Get my brother to help me clean the house.
2. Buy large quantity items like applesauce and whey protein at Costco.
3. Grocery shop for Mom, keeping in mind what the nutritionist and the speech therapist said about what Mom can and should eat, instant mashed potatoes, gravy packets, instant breakfast, eggs, lots of butter, cream, oatmeal, cream of wheat, canned beans, string beans, beets, cream soups.
4. Bring a suitcase to Northwoods for Mom's clothes and flower vases and cards.
5. Call Comfort Keepers to get them started again.
6. Find out when the PT, SP, OT and home health nurse will be visiting each week.
7. Solve the problem of where we can hang the catheter bag on the side of the bed--a big safety pin was suggested by Cheryl Creelman.
8. Make sure there are sterile wipes that my brother can easily access for catheter emptying.
9. Get a clock/calendar device so my brother doesn't have to call me up at 10:00 pm to find out what day it is, like he did last night.
10. Reprogram Mom's automatic pill dispenser (my husband will do this for me).
11. Buy a bath bench from Amazon (best price) unless one appears at Goodwill. There actually was one at Goodwill on Thursday, but there wasn't a back on it and Mom needs to be able to lean back. Anyone have one in their basement?
12. I know there's probably more, but that's all I can think of at this point.
13. Unfortunately, that's all I could think of while trying to sleep last night and I finally had to get up and start making lists. I'll crash and burn later.

Today will be a fun day at Northwoods, because they are putting on a Mother's Day Tea. I went to Mom's house and invaded her hat collection, bringing home 6 of her cute hats 3 straw hats, a red beret, a black knit hat with black fur border, a felt derby with a leopard pattern band. I cleaned them of dust with compressed air (I don't think she's worn them in a long time) and they look as good as new. She will get to decide which one to wear to the tea. I also picked out a nice, colorful jacket for her to wear so that she feels dressed up. She asked me yesterday, at Dr. Yee's office, if she would need to put on stockings. I told her the dress code was casual nursing facility attire--red skid-proof stocks will be the footwear of the day. Apparently one of the aides or nurses is a gourmet baker and she will be providing the tea sweets. I will be wearing a hat, too, and will dress up a little more than I have been doing. I'll wear earrings and a bracelet or two. I hope Mom will be having one of her alert days.

Dr. Yee gave Mom a clean bill of health yesterday at her 8:00 a.m. appointment. He is a gastro doctor, the one who performed her two colonoscopies in the hospital. He cautioned her to keep drinking the metamucil and to eat as much as she could. Mom was tired, they'd waken her up, but she perked up when she saw the beautiful photos on the wall, taken by various relatives of Doctors Yee and Sharma. It seems to have become de rigueur at physicians offices to put original photos on the wall. Dr. Houck (heart) had photos he'd taken of mountains he'd climbed. At Drs Clinic there are original water colors on the walls, probably done by an employee. Are doctors and other medical personnel highly creative?
My dentist makes jewelry. My best friend, a therapist, paints and makes collage art and has exhibited it. She also sings and writes songs.

Thursday was Training Day for me and Stanley. We spent 3 hours at Northwoods learning how to bed transfer, aid stair climbing, aid standing up and sitting down, empty a catheter, toilet transfer, take walks with a wobbly Mom. The catheter training was the tricky part. My brother, even though he used to paint and sculpt and still puts together Harley Davidson motorcycle models, seems to have poor small motor skills. His hands shake, probably because of all the medication he has to take, and he was nervous, too. He had a hard time of it. He is also not familiar with medical devices or child rearing. Child rearing is an excellent background for care giving. Those of us who've done that have had to put pants and shirts on bodies hundreds, maybe thousands of times. We've cleaned poopy diapers, we've cleaned up countless messes, we might have dealt with bandages or had to help with shots. Even if we've never had to empty or change a catheter, we've got strong stomachs and aren't really nervous about stuff like this. It's just the stuff that has to be done. Period.

Are we ready for Mom to come home? Our emotions are ready. We know she will be happy there. My brother confided that she's told him countless times that she "wants to pass at home" and he wants to help her attain that wish. It won't be as easy at home, there won't be aids around the clock and my brother will probably continue to sleep on the couch in order to hear her when she calls out for him at night. He will be the one most responsible for her food intake and her catheter. He will have help from me and others who are coming, paid help or prescribed help. I will undoubtedly get calls from him on the days I'm not there or at night. He will panic sometimes. I will spend a good deal of time at Mom's, helping with the cooking, checking on Mom, checking on my brother, assessing. It's what I do right now and it will be worth it in the end.

I made a mother's day card for mom today with a picture of Mom on a couch and my other brother, Dan, and me beside her. She had fallen in our well the day before. The Bremerton Sun had taken the picture for the newspaper article they wrote about her. She had spent hours in the well, hanging onto the pipe, her back braced against the well walls, her feet in the water. The minister, who lived just a few blocks away was the one who found her there. The volunteer fire department pulled her out. She was 33 years old and beautiful in the photo and even though she was lying on the couch, she looked healthy and strong. I wrote to her in the card that even as she had inspired us then, with her bravery and élan, she has continued to inspire us now. She has been courageous, graceful and calm all through this ordeal, cooperative, even cheerful, and that's made our job all the easier. Even when she could not stand up on her own, she tried and didn't complain. Her reaction to this hard time will live with me always and hopefully, I'll be able to draw on those memories when I am in my 80s and things aren't going so well.

Caregiving Journal 10

2011-05-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

The roller coaster ride continues, but it's going up right now. Monday, the day of the urology appointment for Mom, was a low point, after riding on the high of the great visit the day before, when Mom was so bright and cheerful. After examining Mom and the records that Northwoods sent, Dr. Johnsrud looked directly into my eyes and said, "Your mother is going to have to wear a catheter for the rest of her life. She is not able to expel all her water and we can't keep her from having bladder infections without keeping her bladder emptying. There are more invasive things that could be done but I'd do them on someone much younger, not to your mother. This is what I would want for my loved one." Another gut kick. I'm not sure Mom understood right then, but Tuesday when we came for the meeting with her care team, she was wearing the catheter again.

The night of the urology appointment I'd had to call my brother and tell him the bad news. I could feel his emotion over the phone--the dead silence--the thought processes beginning. Will we be able to take care of her at home with a catheter and bag hanging from her? We will have to empty it daily. What will that be like? Can we keep it from hurting her? Will she ask us to take it out? In my brother's mind there were awful images of spilling it and having to clean it up--he told me later he was terrified at the news I gave him.

Tuesday morning when I picked him up he was still in the midst of anxiety. He cried twice on the way to Northwoods, anticipating what they might tell us, and still immersed in the frightening thoughts about how he was going to handle taking care of our fragile mother with a catheter attached to her. I told him we could try it--that if it didn't work, we could look at other options. We had a choice. The night before I was in exactly the same frame of mind he was in right now. But I'd had a chance to click on my rational mind and to think it through. We could try.

Mom was in good spirits when we got to her room, resting again, after having a couple of therapists working with her already that morning. Soon an aide came to get her up to go to the meeting. I didn't realize she was going to be asked to attend and so that was a pleasant surprise. There were six of us. Mom, Stanley, the care manager R.N., the speech therapist (Johnny Creelman's cousin, Cheryl), and the head of physical therapy and me. The three medical women went through the notes on Mom, telling us about her progress physically, which has been good as far as her walking, ability to climb stairs, her strength. Eating was the problem area. The speech therapist said that at first they had thought her weak swallowing was the main issue but they came to realize that the larger problem was her appetite. They would try a different appetite stimulant, but warned that appetite is going to be the paramount challenge when she goes home. Stanley and I, who have been battling this food war with Mom for more than a year were not surprised. I'd been at Northwoods at lunch with Mom many times in the past weeks and watched her tiny intake--she will put a glaze of gravy on her fork and daintily put in in her mouth. The only food I've seen her eat with full fork or spoons and gusto is lemon merengue pie. Even then it's been only 3 or 4 forks full.

Then we talked about the catheter. That's when the subject of training came up. I had been trained to take Mom for walks and had been watching carefully as aides had moved Mom up out of and back into her bed. I'd watched as the Speech therapists coaxed her to eat, the goal piles, the "fortified" cocoa, the applesauce replacing the pie. But my brother had missed a lot of that and neither one of has had been trained to work with a catheter. We both were onboard immediately for that and today (Thursday) we will have 2 to 3 hours of training.

The last topic of conversation was going home. This is what we've wanted to know since the beginning--how strong and stable does Mom have to be before she can be safe to go home? The consensus was that her eating problem had hit a plateau, that her physical prowess was about at it's peak from what could be expected of her, that her dexterity is good. "How soon then?" I asked. "We think within a week", they answered. "But we will be prescribing PT, OT, Speech professionals and a home health nurse to come in a couple of times a week, to keep progress going. This will be covered by Medicare for as long as the therapists see that she is meeting the requirements for it." I could feel my brother relaxing, just a little bit. With all that, Comfort Keepers three times a week, me there two or three times a week, he will have plenty of help, more than he realized. Mom was jazzed, too. She likes people and she has seen precious few of them in her last couple of years, with all her friends either too old to come to see her or gone now. I'll be taking her to Dr. Johnsrud's office once a month to have the catheter changed and they will be watching closely for any problems, too. Our Comfort Keepers care giver will, too, and the home health nurse will help us with any difficulties we encounter.

A week. A week to make sure the house is clean and ready. A week to start getting the whey supplement, the instant cocoa, oatmeal, instant breakfast, frozen strawberries, peaches and other fruit for smoothies and any other of the ingredients our training today will suggest. A week to mentally prepare for the newest normal. How long and successful this phase will be is the $64,000 question. One of the times my brother cried on Tuesday was when he said, "Mom wants to pass at home--she's told me that so many times and I want her to be able to--I don't want to mess that up." I am more realistic, but I would like that, too. So in a week, we will try.

Caregiving Journal 9

2011-05-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture my husband took yesterday of me and my Mom at Northwoods. She is very frail but she was unusually awake yesterday when we went to see her--no delusions, no napping in the middle of a conversation, seeming perfectly happy to be where she was. I helped her to the bathroom at one point and she needed only minimal help getting off of her bed and she walked quickly, holding my arm, to her bathroom. I think going home is in the cards. Tuesday my brother and I will meet with the "care team" and find out what they are thinking and what kind of progress they are seeing. I have seen progress daily, except for her eating. Friday, though, she was reported to have eaten a hearty breakfast, so if she gets what she likes, she will eat. It was either scrambled eggs made with butter and cream, or oatmeal laced with butter, protein powder, brown sugar and topped with cream. Who cares about cholesterol at this point, calories are what we are pushing.

Mom hasn't seem a single highlight of the Royal Wedding, she said yesterday. I assured her that her People magazine will have a lavish spread, with lots of pictures. She had a new flower arrangement, but didn't know who had brought it. Too bad, for patients with memory problems, that there isn't a guest book so that we and the patient can see who has visited. If Mom ends up back in a place like Northwoods eventually, I will put something like that on the counter with a place for messages that can be read later to jog her memory.

Today we have a doctor's appointment, early. I will leave at 8:15 to meet Mom at the urologist's office of Ted Johnsrud in Silverdale. She is looking forward to her van ride. There might be a good-looking driver and she says it will be "exciting". That's the Mom I like to see. The doctor is an old friend of mine from Unitarian Fellowship days. He is a sensitive and gentle man. He plays the harmonica and idolizes Toots Theilman. I think he was the doctor my Dad saw for his prostate problems years ago, so Mom may have met him. She will like him, I'm sure. He will be an important link to her future health, pronouncing her bladder fit--or not.

The doctor Mom sees on Friday this week will also be important. Dr. Yee is the gastroenterologist who did her TWO colonoscopies while she was in the hospital. I have never met him. I have only seen his chicken scratches, slightly readable, on Mom's chart. He works with Dr. Sharma who helped me discover Metamucil a long time ago when I was having frequent heartburn. I hope Dr. Yee is easier to understand than Dr. Sharma was. Dr. Sharma was a crackerjack of a doctor, I liked him, but oh dear, I had trouble with his Indian/English that flew out of his mouth like bats out of a cave at dusk. I even asked one of the people in his office how hard it was to transcribe his recorded notes. She told me one person quit because she couldn't decipher them.

This week will give us many answers, if not more questions. We are on day 20 at Northwoods. That means only 10 more days before we have to start paying the daily co-pay. I hate to have to think about money while my mom is recovering, but it's a big fact of life. And it must be, that if I am concerned about money, then I must not be quite as worried about Mom.

Yesterday was a good day. The sun was shining for the first and last time in days. We visited Mom, she displayed energy, we went to downtown Bremerton to look at the Harborside condominiums just for kicks, I got a Starbucks (half-caff) coffee and after dinner, while watching 60 Minutes, we all got the word that Osama Bid Laden was killed. Truly a memorable day. It's ironic. My Dad died 10 days before 9/11/01 and 10 years later Mom is lying in a nursing home bed while Osama Bid Laden, the architect of that horrible day of death, is found. Full circle.

Caregiving Journal 8

2011-04-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday, my brother's day to visit Mom. I slept well last night after watching a DVD of Winnebago Man (documentary about an angry man who was/is a sensation on YouTube) and then the last hour of The Glass Slipper (Leslie Caron and Michael Wilding on TMC--1955).

More and more I am able to see life beyond Mom's stay at Northwoods. I am beginning to trust that she will go home. However, I keep hearing stories of people who have gone home only to come back in a year or two. That might be in the cards, too. It seems that Tom, the raconteur at Mom's table in the dining room, was on his third "visit" to Northwoods. He was well known and well-loved by the staff. Yesterday morning he went home--I missed him at the lunch table and so did Mom.

My visit yesterday wasn't as uplifting as the one on Wednesday. I got there later than usual. I had been transfixed by the Royal Wedding from 7:00 a.m. to 10:30. I knew Mom didn't have BBC America on her television and suspected she hadn't seen the wedding so I began to sketch and color some of the wildest of the hats the invitees were wearing. They were glorious hats, deep electric blue, pink, black, champagne and all colors of the Spring rainbow. My favorite for weirdness was one that looked like a canoe, somehow affixed to the front of the woman's head. It was the electric blue one, with black flowers on the crown (which was nowhere near the crown of her head) and a brim that came all the way to the middle of her nose! Oh, wait. Then there was the hat I named The Medussa Hat. It was sort of flesh colored with a ring of fabric that stood straight up in the front, rising from the woman's forehead, another piece that sat on her hair and the best, most awful part, snake-like curlicues of fabric branching off on both sides. It was atrocious! I wondered how much it cost and why the woman had thought it was attractive. She was sitting right behind Queen Elizabeth, so she was obviously a royal. Well, the British royal family has never been known for their fashion sense.

On the way to Northwoods I stopped at the Silverdale Caregiver's Center, a well-kept secret located in the building that used to be the Lutheran church, behind the Sheriff's office. I went there when my mother's caregiving began to get very stressful for me last year. The support and counseling I got were so helpful to me that I decided to ask them to help me with finding housing possibilities for my brother. When our Mom dies, in 6 months, or 1 year, or 5 years, he will have to find someplace to live and he will need housing for a low-income person. I walked away with lists and forms and a suggestion that my brother complete a form that will allow him to access the services they have through this office.

I didn't get to Northwoods until 12:30. Mom was in the dining room, at her regular table, waiting for her lunch. As I walked in she declared, "It's my daughter!" But that was the last declaration she made, other than that she wasn't hungry at all. I learned from the speech therapist aide that she'd eaten 75% of her breakfast (yes, they pay close attention and write it down in her chart), a great accomplishment for her. But now, her pap looked even more unappetizing than usual. She ate her pudding, she drank a little lemonade and some of her chocolate health shake (Ensure in a tiny milk carton).

The aide called on another young lady to take over. She'd had good luck in encouraging Mom to eat. She is a sweet, rosy-cheeked, dark-haired young person named Levita. She and Mom had compared their names, Levita and Lucretia, both unusual. She was the girl who asked me one day if Mom was always happy. I think Levita is a happy person, too. She asked Mom to be a "team" with her and to set a goal of a certain amount of food to be eaten. She made a pile of about a half cup of mashed potatoes and ground meat and gravy, pointing it out as the "goal". She actually fed Mom, coaxing her, softening her against the stubborn refusal to eat any more. I don't think Mom ate all of her goal pile, but she ate more than she had intended to.

I showed Mom the sketches I'd made of the hats from the wedding. She gave a cursory glance, but was too tired to take much notice. She wanted to go back to her room and nap. While Levita was working on the food goal I was talking to Ted's wife. Ted, 87, didn't have a stroke as I'd assumed. He had choked and collapsed. Apparently he had choked again at the hospital. I met his wife last weekend. She is probably 20 years younger than her husband and right now very distraught, eating too much of the wrong food, crying, angry. I gave her a pamphlet and a card for the Caregiver's Center. I hope she goes to see them. She is facing a difficult future. I know they can help her if she asks them to.

Finally, even Levita had given up on getting any additional calories into my tiny Mom and I was allowed to wheel her back to her room for a nap. It is sweet to put her to bed. The relief is palpable. Her sigh of pleasure as she lies down, her eyes quickly closing, her smile of relaxation, the sound of contentment when I pull the blanket up to cover her cold hands. All reminders of how wonderful it is to feel the release of surrender to rest. How lovely it must feel to someone who has lived so long.

Caregiving Journal 7

2011-04-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

The first thing my Mom said when I entered her room at Northwoods yesterday was, "I have a job!" I cocked my head like a crow and I'm sure my face looked surprised, if not skeptical. "Really?" I said. "Yes! I'm a little scared though, because I've never done very well at jobs". Don't know where that came from, but Mom was pumped up about it. And, looking at the whiteboard on the closet I could see that she was going to have a male physical therapist at noon. The day was getting even better.

Mom was more awake and talkative than I've seen her in a long time. I'm trying to remember when I last saw her so enthused--it has to have been months ago. She was even more enthused by Kent, the PT for the day. She quickly agreed to walk without her walker, which she did very well, with Kent holding the "stability belt"strapped around her tiny waist. She got winded by the time she'd walked the long hallway and then back to the gym, but it's a huge step forward. Kent put her through her paces. She climbed stairs and played catch with me and, after a rest, walked all the way to the dining room without the walker. Mom loves men, as anyone who reads this blog knows, and she converses with them better than she does with women. Kent was a good converser and they talked about where she lives, and Scotland, where both Kent and Mom have traveled, and golf, too. Now Mom has another man-friend. She's never going to want to leave Northwoods.

Lunch was fun, too. Tom, the 65-year old bearded man, has perfectly normal speech and brain activity. It's just his arms and legs that aren't working properly. He is full of funny stories and smart observations. His eyes sparkle and his cheeks are pink with health. He has an excellent appetite, so he gets "regular" food, as opposed to Mom's chopped up variety. Mom looked at his meal and then looked at hers and pronounced hers as PAP! She looked at his cake and her dessert, applesauce, and asked, "He's got cake. Why don't I have cake?" She accentuated this question by sticking out her lower lip! Jean (speech therapist assistant) got permission from Mom's speech therapist and Mom got cake, too. But after two bites she declared it "not as good as it looks". Appetite is still a problem, but something is better with her.

Lunch and all that PT wore Mom out and I took her back to her beloved bed, helped her get into it, gave her her call button and her bunny, Pinkie, and brought her blanket up to her neck. She snuggled in and closed her eyes. Nobody would bother her now until the occupational therapist would come in to work with her at 4:15. I said my goodbyes and told her I loved her and that I'd see her soon. She kept her eyes closed but smiled sweetly, calling, "Bye-bye, honey".

What's extra good about my brother and I splitting days to be with Mom is that I get to carry the vision of Mom walking with Kent, talking enthusiastically, demanding cake, being more alert. I can carry it all day today, even though she may not be as ebullient today when my brother goes to see her. Stanley will report to me this evening about his time with Mom, but I can keep my time with her in my heart and be thankful that I got to experience one of the really great days.

Caregiving Journal 6

2011-04-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Tuesday, April 26, was the first day since April 4th that I haven't visited my mother. My brother and I are splitting the days of the week and he went to visit her yesterday. Did I stay home and rest up, read all day, exercise, do yoga, meditate, send emails, nap? No. I did something far more rejuvenating. I went to our monthly alumni luncheon. I wasn't particularly hungry, so I just had a grilled cheese sandwich and coleslaw, but I wanted a beer. We were at Hale's in Silverdale, and they have Gary Parker's Irish Death beer on tap. It's a heavenly beer--dark, smooth, pretty high alcohol content. Half way through the 11 oz. glass I felt pretty mellow and even hungry.

Bruce Johnson and his beautiful, song-writing wife, Ellen, were there so I was able to ask Ellen if the next writer's retreat had been scheduled yet and when I might see a notice in my email. We talked about last year, my first time at the retreat, and I told her that the retreat had spawned a writer's group here in Kitsap--three of us from the retreat, plus two others. She hasn't been writing much so I challenged her to write a song about gas prices. Immediately she sang, "Up, up, up...." That's a good start. Marty McLaren was there at a table with Fred Just and his pretty wife, who are working daily on the Seabeck Cemetary. He is writing a book about it, she is leading tours through the cemetery and trimming, clipping and cleaning. "It's good exercise", she said and of course, a wonderful project since Seabeck's plot is the second oldest in the State.

Trude (Jr.) Gillman has a beautiful new hat that he said is made of rabbit hide from Australia. I think he was pulling my leg when he said he had to brush it counter-clockwise. Sharon Briggs Conway and her husband, Harold, and I were eating at the same table. They live out on Seabeck-Holly road. Sharon has retired from making a living at being a baker and her husband makes extra money cutting down Alder trees, for free, carting them away, cutting them up and selling them for campfire wood. Enterprising.

Terry Baughman Tenney brought her tall, very pretty daughter and her grandson with her. Terry's daughter looks like her, has the same hairline, the same wide smile and her grandson was very friendly, considering we probably looked super old to him--a restaurant full of grandmas and grandpas. He told me Terry was a good grandma. I've never doubted that.

It was so nice to talk about things other than caregiving, although that subject did come up. Many people told me they were following this blog and that is gratifying. I told Marty I do it for lots of reasons:
1. It's therapy for me to write it all out, get if off my chest and brain, explain it to myself.
2. I can tell many friends and relatives at once what is going on and don't have to repeat the story over and over.
3. It's another way of asking for support, which I have never been good at. I always feel "I can do it by myself".
4. Sometimes, often actually, people have suggestions to offer, learned from their own experiences with a spouse or parent.
5. It is training me to ask for help and advice rather than relying solely on myself.
6. It is a way of taking care of myself, as well as my mother.

I didn't take any pictures at the lunch. It was enough just to be there, converse and laugh. I got hugs, sympathy, words of support and talk of the future. It took me away from my caregiver role for awhile. It's good to talk about Ralph's Scout cabin, Jim's garage, Gary's beer, Marty's housing community, Junior Gillman's new hat, Sharon's pea planting, the small and good things that make up a life.

Caregiving Journal 5

2011-04-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a busy day for Mom. She had physical therapy, occupational therapy, lunch with her table buddies Ted (87, tall, dignified stroke victim) and Tom (65, white haired and bearded with rosy cheeks and a sharp wit, with a disease like MS or Parkinsons) and then, just as she was about to be set free to take a nap, an ultrasound tech came in to take a look at her swollen ankle and foot. This was all between 11:00 and 1:30. They are keeping her busy and she is making progress at getting around with a walker. But she still doesn't want to eat much and prefers to be in her bed, nodding off, but easily wakened if someone says her name.

I talked to Mom's Care Manager, Kathy, yesterday about the sleeping. She said, "Your Mom is 89. Things are starting to shut down". I knew this, intellectually, but having her say it confirmed my intuition. That's why I go almost every day. Every day could be the last day. Or she could go on like this for many months or even years, like my husband's Greek Uncle Manoles, who lived to be 93, and spent his last 2 years sleeping 23 hours out of each day. Mom is not unhappy. She smiles when Stanley and I are with her together, over what we are saying or joking about. She enjoys being taken care of and tells the aides how sweet they are and of course, she notices the handsome young men. I wouldn't be surprised if her last words on this earth will be, "He is so good looking".

Remember, if you are ever in a situation like this, that every patient in any kind of medical facility needs an advocate. Doctors, nurses, aides are overworked, just like the rest of the world. Unless you follow closely what is supposed to be done, it might fall through the cracks. I had accompanied Mom to her doctor's appointment last week, as I have been doing for a couple of years now. Her doctor prescribed an ultrasound of her leg and lab tests, but Northwoods was supposed to do them. So yesterday I checked with the care manager about those things and a few others. The lab tests had been done and she showed me the results, but the ultrasound was in question. She had no record of results, but the nurses station desk person said it had been done. "Get me the results then, please," Kathy said. An hour and a half later an ultrasound tech came in to Mom's room with a portable machine. She had driven all the way from Puyallup. I suspect the test had not been scheduled until I asked about it.

When Mom was in a nursing home for 6 days, 2 years ago, this kind of thing made me very angry, but now I understand the system. Even a high quality facility like Northwoods needs a nudge in the right direction now and then. Bremerton Rehabilitation center, next to Claremont East, is a run-down, badly managed place. I was right to be frustrated. I'd had no choice when Mom was moved at midnight on that stormy night, they had the only open bed in the area. She had not been admitted to the hospital so Medicare wasn't going to cover it and we didn't have the necessary equipment at home to take care of her. At first they wanted us to pony up $8000 up front, but I knew the new manager from a jury duty stint we did together, so she cut me a deal. I paid for 2 weeks rather than 2 months and when I got Mom out in 6 days we got a refund. This time around I knew the Medicare rule about spending 3 days in the hospital before Medicare would pay for a nursing facility and she exceeded that by 6 days. I also know now that there is an Ombudsman I can call if I have frustrations with a nursing agency. I have already worked with the Caregiver Support Center in Silverdale and I know they have answers for many questions, phone numbers and pamphlets and lists. They even have free counseling available when things become too overwhelming. I knew none of this the first time around.

The memory that I will take away from yesterday is Mom saying goodbye to her table mates when she was leaving to go back to her room after lunch: "Bye buddies. It's been nice having lunch with you." And Tom said, "We'll see you at dinner". I do want to be able to get Mom back into her house, with her son and her cat and her familiar bed. I think she wants that more than anything. But it gives me pleasure to see how she is interacting with the other patients. It was the first time I had heard her talk to the fellows she has been dining with every day for a week.

Today I will go to an alumni lunch. I won't visit Mom today, but my brother will. He won't stay as long as I do. He gets uncomfortable in such places. Mom will enjoy his visit and he will get his cookie (or two) from the "visitor's coffee room. I will try not to think I MUST be there today. I know she is being taken care of and they are keeping her busy. One of the aides asked me the other day if my Mom was "always this happy". The answer was and is, yes.

Caregiving Journal 4

2011-04-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

She goes up, she goes down. Yesterday was down a little. After my Aunt Billie's memorial we went to see Mom at Northwoods. She was in her new private room, but she wasn't liking it that much. A big room with just her in it was kind of lonely. She perked up when we arrived, my brother and I, but was sad to hear where we'd been. We'd brought her the program and I had made a list of all of her old church friends that asked about her and sent their love. She was happy that people were thinking of her, but sad about Billie and sad she hadn't been able to be there. Minutes later she decided she was glad she hadn't had to go.

We found the Turner Classic Movies channel and Gunga Din, with Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. She talked to us, or rather we talked to her and she responded, while the movie played. About 10 minutes after we got there she asked to go to the bathroom. We found her "magic button" and she pushed it to signal an aide. The aide came in and got Mom up to her walker and she charged to the bathroom--literally--she can walk fast and always has walked faster than me. After she was done in there I saw the aide walking out of the room with a specimen container that had yellow liquid in it. "Did she pee?" I called. "Yes, she did!" was the reply. It was a time for celebration rather than mourning. It's amazing that a jar full of pee can be so exciting. I don't know if it was the very first time but it was the first we knew about it since she'd gone to the hospital on April 4th.

We watch Mom like hawks if we are there for a meal, to see what she chooses, for future reference, and how much she eats. That night for dinner she was having the Ground Meat of the Day again, with gravy, those pumped up potatoes, also with gravy, chopped up green beans, too. This time there was a bowl of cream soup and that's what she concentrated on, eating 3/4 of the bowl. I think it's the most I've seen her eat in a long time. So, if and when she goes home, cream soups will be a staple. Friday the OT told me that they found out Mom liked butter, so they put it on her eggs and they were adding cream to her cocoa along with some Ensure. They are adding calories in creative ways. They probably put cream in her soup, too. No wonder she liked it.

After dinner it was back to her room to sit up for 15 minutes before being allowed to lie down again on the bed she has come to love. Gunga Din was still on, Cary and Doug, Jr. swashbuckling, socking, getting lashed by pseudo East Indians in heavy dark make-up but giving it away with blue eyes. Finally, Romeo came in (Romeo!!!) to help Mom into bed. A deep sigh of relief and a comment about Romeo being cute. We left her to her nap then, in her big room, with her stuffed bunny, Pinkie, and Gunga Din.

Caregiving Journal3

2011-04-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was better. I got to Northwoods about 11:00 and on the way in spied an adorable stuffed bunny with a light green bow around one ear and a light green, chenille dress with pink flowers embroidered on it. I bought it and took it in to Mom. She loved it on sight. I wasn't sure she would take to a stuffed animal but she petted and hugged it. It will have to be a substitute for her cat, Diana, for awhile.

Mom was awake when I came in and she hasn't been quite this awake in weeks, so that was better. She has lost her roommate, Clara. Clara's hip replacement convalescence was done and I was so sad I missed saying goodbye to her. She had been a good source of information about how Mom had slept. Clara told us that she often called for my brother during the night. Mom told me immediately that she had taken a walk with a different physical therapist that morning--a man. She said they had a good conversation and it was nice to talk to a man. She described him as tall and dark haired--good looking, of course. I saw on the "therapist list" for the day that his name was Jeff. I asked around and identified him as one of the therapists I'd seen in the gym, the one who looked like Tom Selleck looks now, though not quite as handsome as Tom. He has short dark hair and a mustache. No matter where Mom is she finds handsome men to pique her interest.

My brother came about 45 minutes after I got there and we both accompanied Mom to lunch. I was able to talk to the speech therapist and to the occupational therapist who are working hard to make Mom's food palatable to her and easier to swallow. The lunch was Ground Meat of the Day in Gravy (looked better than it sounded), Fortified Mashed Potatoes (huh?), cut up string beans and Lemon Merengue Pie. Before Mom saw the pie, she dug in to her gravied ground chicken and mashed potatoes. But when she spotted the pie, that's all she wanted. I asked the OT why elderly people (and I mean people 20 years older than me) like sweets so much. She explained that the taste buds for "sweet" are the last to go, especially in people with dementia. Why dementia has anything to do with taste buds, I don't know. I might have to Google it.

I had lunch with an alumni friend after visiting Mom and it was an enjoyable, refreshing break from all the medical issues. I thought I might dump all my stresses on my friend, but I didn't, only a few of them. We talked about lots of things and that's what was so nice about it. My spirits were already better, but talking with a friend is a good way to feel normal again.

And the day was beautiful, too. Sunny and warm. It felt so good to feel the sun on my face and to get to open the windows of my car because the car was so warm and the air was so fresh. I went to Target and got a birthday card for my son and got accosted by two make-up sales people. I think the Mary Kay woman was probably not supposed to be giving out samples from her purse in a Target Store, but she hooked me by complimenting my on my "cute earrings". She gave me a plastic Easter egg with a chocolate egg in it, her address and a sample of blush. When she asked for my contact information I refused her and ran like the Easter Bunny. Not 5 minutes later another, heavily made-up woman (it must take her a half hour to get it all off and an hour to put it all back on) approached me asking if I was looking for a particular make-up (because I'd made the mistake of stopping at the aisle) and then she proceeded to lay on the compliments as heavy as her make-up, about my "great glasses". Aha!!! Another one! I fled! It's a wonder I got out of there without encountering someone else who "just loved my pink shirt". Does Target know how irritating this is? If this happens in Target again I will complain, because it will make me not want to shop there again.

Later, at home, I picked up two messages about Mom changing rooms. Northwoods needed a two-bed room for two men coming in and could they move Mom to a private room? I called back and said it was okay with me, except that her roommate had helped her numerous times to find her call button, so they needed to make sure it was where she could see it. They told me when they couldn't reach me they asked Mom if a private room was okay. She said yes. I'd bet that when she heard of "two men coming in" she was thrilled, wondering if either or both of them might be good-looking.

Caregiving Journal 2

2011-04-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I arrived at Northwoods Mom had just been returned to her room after lunch in the dining room. She was lying on her bed, looking very tired. I asked about her lunch. She said it was "delicious" but that she hadn't eaten all of it, that they always gave her too much. I didn't check with the speech pathologist, who has now included Mom at a table of patients with eating difficulty, but I would bet that she ate no more than a few bites of whatever the delicious food was. Mom nodded off soon after I arrived. Since her roommate, Clara, was gone to a doctor's appointment, it was quiet, except for the noise in the hallway. I was going to go with Mom to her doctor's appointment at 2:15, so I had brought a magazine to read and that's what I did while Mom slept. I knew she was going to need sleep if she was going to have the stamina required to go see the doctor. I watched her face as she dropped into REM sleep, twitching, grimacing, making tiny noises and then relaxing again. I remembered watching my babies sleep, wondering what their dreams were. It was the same feeling.

At 2:05 the day's aide came in to get Mom ready for her ride in the Northwood's van. She woke up pretty quickly and was helped up and into a wheelchair. I helped Mom adjust her wig (she wanted her wig on if she was going out into public) and helped her put on a sweater. The van driver came on the dot of 2:15 and I grabbed my purse and we were off, Mom to the van, me to my car to meet them at the clinic. The traffic in Silverdale was heavy--must have been because Easter is this weekend.

The van driver delivered Mom to the second floor of the clinic, handed her paperwork to the receptionist, and parked Mom in the waiting room. Mom leaned against her right hand, looking exhausted. The last time I was in a waiting room with her was her last appointment with the heart rhythm specialist, several weeks before she went to the hospital. I realized she had been much more alert then. That's when the doctor had said he couldn't really do anything for her, her heart was regular, though fast, and there didn't appear to be any other problems with her heart. He said, "Your weight loss and fast heart beat are symptoms of some underlying problem we haven't found yet. Now we have to wait until the problem manifests itself." My theory, as uninformed as it is, is that her face neuralgia (numbness in her chin) is at the bottom of all of it--the problem that was dismissed nearly a year ago by a neurologist as a "pinched nerve".

Mom had her meeting with her doctor, pretty much an overview of what had been going on with her since her admission to the hospital. The doctor checked her swelling feet which looked like pink sausages and decided she wanted an ultrasound to make sure there was no blood clot. The doctor had her concerned face on, and she probably was concerned, she has known Mom a long time, but I wish she had been more concerned last year. To be fair, Mom has always downplayed any problems she's had and, indeed, often forgot she had any problems at all.

The nurse came in to announce that she had made an appointment over at Salmon Center for the ultrasound and that we could go over there right now. She read the look on my face correctly because she amended that with, "Oh, you can't do that?" It wasn't that I couldn't do it, it was that I didn't want Mom to have to go to another appointment. She is 89, she weighs 91 pounds, she hasn't walked more than 100 feet without a walker in weeks. I couldn't make her endure it. I told her Mom had arrived in a Northwood's van and she understood then. Northwoods had to make the appointment and arrange for van service. She gave us our freedom then.

We didn't have to wait for the van--a different driver was there delivering someone else to his doctor. When Mom got a look at him she perked up, because he was a very handsome fellow, black curly hair, sultry eyes, beautiful skin. I had seen him around Northwoods but Mom hadn't and she zeroed in on him, smiling with delight. I left her to her fantasies and her ride back to Northwoods with her easy-on-the-eyes van driver. I arrived at the same time they did and followed them into Mom's room. When he asked me if I thought Mom would like to be put into her bed, I nodded yes. I knew that she would be very happy to have a fellow as fine looking as this one help her. When he had gotten her into bed she piped, "Thanks, Goodlookin'!" Even through his caramel-colored skin we could see the blush.

Caregiving Journal 1

2011-04-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

Since I have little time to email, get on Facebook, talk to people in person or on the phone, I have decided I will try communicating through my blog. At least I will be able to keep writing and those who read this will know what's going on.

What is going on is "caregiving". My poor little Mom, 89 years old, currently is at Northwoods Lodge, a nursing facility North of Silverdale. Mom would call it a "nursing home", but it's a lot more than that. She was in the hospital for 9 days, from April 4th to April12th. She was bleeding from a place I'm not going to mention here, but a hint is that she had two colonoscopies while she was there. I think most people who know me are aware that she had lost 40 pounds since last Spring. She was down to 86 pounds at the last doctor's appointment. Nobody could figure out why she was losing so much weight so fast and why she had such a poor appetite. Her heart was also beating super fast, her pulse was 130. One doctor mused that it was like jogging all day long. The lack of nutrition, lack of hydration and weakness, ended up with her in the emergency room and then in a bed on the third floor of Harrison Hospital in Bremerton.

Her time there was dismaying to her--her short term memory loss didn't allow her to remember why she was there or when she would get to "go home". My brother and I visited every day, watching while she had to drink "a gallon of Puget Sound" to prep for the first colonoscopy. She wasn't able to drink it all, but the doctor did the test anyway. Of course, it failed. So she had to be on liquids and a new prep for another full day. A good test was taken and only one polyp found, apparently a benign one. For 9 days nutrition and hydration was dripping into her veins. She had a catheter the entire time. The days blurred for me, as I called Floor Three West every morning to find out how she was and watched her go in and out of sleep while I visited her for a couple of hours each day. I did crosswords and Sudoku to pass the time, and wished that I could knit, so that I could really accomplish something during all those hours. Mom's attitude was good--she likes almost everyone she meets, including all the aides and nurses, who change every day. She even found a "good looking" man, Dr. Seyhal, a Pakistani doctor who checked her over several times. She said he looked like a fellow out of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

The day finally came, April 11th, that she was cleared for discharge. There was just one thing she had to do before she could be released: empty her bladder by herself. All day long we waited. I called and called again. Finally I went to the hospital. I had all of her clothes ready--I had the shoes and coat she hadn't worn in 8 days. She was dreaming aloud about her bed, the kitty and my brother, Stanley waiting for her at home. But each time I checked the nurse said, "Not yet." Finally, late in the afternoon, the decision was made to keep her overnight with hopes of success the next day. That night I made one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. If her bladder was still uncooperative on the 12th I would have to ask that she be moved to a rehabilitation facility (nursing home to Mom). The nurse on duty in the afternoon of the 12th looked deeply into my eyes, which were filling with tears, and said, "You are doing the right thing. They will take good care of her." But I still had to tell Mom.

I sat on the side of her bed, leaned in very close so that she could hear me and said, "Mom, your bladder isn't working properly yet. Stanley and I can't help you with this at home. We've decided you will need to be transferred to a nursing facility." Her mouth flew open and her body tensed underneath my hands and her reply was, "What the hell?!" I continued to tell her why we had made the decision, but she didn't want to talk anymore. She closed her eyes. I talked to the social worker and asked for a bed at Northwoods Lodge, not really believing we could get her in, since it is the premier place in the Bremerton/Silverdale area. Then I got in my car and drove home, tears streaming down my face. I felt so horrible, so sad, my stomach was knotted, there was an apple-sized lump in my throat. I got home at about 5:00. My husband was waiting with hugs and sympathy. He knew how hard the decision was. He knew Mom would be afraid of ghastly smells, ugly surroundings, all the images she harbored of "nursing homes", from countless horror stories she'd heard. Her biggest fear as she got older and older was that she "would be put in an old folk's home".

It was only 20 minutes after I got home that the hospital called to tell me that a bed had been secured at Northwoods and that Mom would be transported there shortly. I had never been to Northwoods, but they had that great reputation, so I was hopeful and as happy as I could be under the circumstances. By the time we got up there, only a 20 minutes drive from our home, she was in her own pajamas, had been given some dinner and was in her bed. She has a roommate, Clara, who had arrived just before Mom, to recuperate and get physical therapy after a hip replacement.

Mom has now been at NWs for 9 days. They didn't get orders from her doctor to take her catheter out until Monday, April 18th, and didn't take it out until Tuesday of this week. Every day she gets physical and occupational therapy. This week a speech therapist was added, because despite the really good food they serve there, she is eating less than 20% of it. She is now having trouble swallowing, apparently a result of the "face neuralgia" diagnosed a year ago. And she still has to relearn how to feel the signals from her bladder. The good news is that she is now 91 pounds and she is philosophical about being there. It's not smelly, it's carpeted, decorated with cottage-type decor, flower wreaths, wooden ducks, lots of big windows, a room for visiting with a fireplace that is always lit, coffee and cookies for visitors.

My brother has learned the route to drive to NWs and so I don't have to pick him up anymore and I can begin to resume my life, but it is a "new normal". We had both been going up everyday, but it occurred to me yesterday, while we were in the dining room watching Mom eat 4 or 5 bites of her lunch and talking about how the staff there probably work 5-day weeks and get time off, that my brother and I probably need time off, too. We are going to split the days of the week, allowing ourselves time to regroup. I need time for my husband and myself. I need a haircut, I need to work in my garden, I need to exercise and meditate and calm my body and mind so that I can sleep at night. It helps me to have read the "Playing God" chapter in Passages for Caregiving (Gail Sheehy) last night. I have had it in my mind that I must be there every day, that I must pay close attention to what the aides are doing to make sure that they don't hurt my mother in some way. Underneath it all is my desire to control the entire situation. I am a first child. I am the responsible one. I always think I can do it, I can make it work. If something goes wrong it will be my fault for not being vigilant enough. On a conscious level I know that's not true, but down deep inside I still cling to the belief that I can save her.

Today is the first time Mom will be out in the world since she was moved to NWs. She will be transported to the Doctor's Clinic to see her doctor. I will visit her first and then follow the van and be with her during her appointment.

I know my love and devotion makes a difference. Mom has never said, "I love you" more than she has since being in this unhealthy, weak state. And I have said it more than ever, too. I love my little Mama. But I have to get out of the way a little bit, let the experts do their jobs. I don't need to micro-manage her care. Her time is running out and I have to accept it, let my love flow to her, hope for some level of healing and quality for what will be her final years.

I Like Casinos

2011-03-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

I like casinos. I would have expected, having led a healthy, non-smoking, thrifty, intellectual life, to be disdainful of the whole idea of a place full of smoke where people spend incredible amounts of time and money sitting in front of noisy machines, pressing buttons and hoping to “hit it big”.

My casino adventures started with my first trip to Las Vegas in 1994. My husband’s Mom and Dad invited us to meet in Vegas and to stay with them at Circus Circus. They drove from Ventura, California and we flew in from Seattle. Michael’s Dad, Lou, met us at the airport, which was surprisingly filled with slot machines and advertisements for Vegas shows, including the long-legged showgirls in red, scanty, sequined outfits, showing maximum amounts of probably enhanced boobage. I realized right then I was in a bizarre land.

My husband’s Mom and Dad had been going to Vegas for many years, even taking their kids in the early days. They had been staying at Circus Circus for decades. It was inexpensive, and right on The Strip. As we road in Lou’s boat of a car, a Monte Carlo with wide, cushy bench seats, he told us about how things had changed over the years. “Mike, this used to be a vacant lot, and now they’ve put up another casino! You used to be able to drive in this town, not any more.”

Circus Circus was new and shiny once, but by the time we saw it, it was getting dusty and shabby and the smoke smell was heavy. The rooms were papered in garish pink, with clown paintings on the walls. Thank goodness it was before the bedbug scare of the 21^st century or I would have developed a psychosomatic itch. The rooms looked overused and abused; cleaning couldn’t take the ancient stains out of the carpets anymore.

Lou had brought coffee, a coffee pot, mugs, sugar. Michael’s Mom, Anta, had brought a cooler full of lunchmeats, tomatoes, mustard, lettuce and bread for sandwiches. Their trip was all about saving money wherever they could so that Anta could spend more money at her gambling. Even though they were better off than they had been when they brought their kids to Vegas, the habits of those years still persisted. Aside from the breakfast coffee and lunch, we spent very little time in our rooms. Anta is Greek and her time schedule is the same as it was when she lived in Athens. She goes to bed at 2:00 in the morning and doesn’t get up until 11:00 a.m. Lou never adjusted to her habits and so he was up at 7:00, ready to take us to Ethel’s Chocolates or the discount mall, complaining, “Your mother isn’t up yet. Let’s go!”

Later we would come back to the hotel room, have the improvised lunch and then take Anta out to find a machine she liked, while Michael and I would find other things to do. We’d meet for dinner and try a new buffet every day. In the 90s the buffets were a bargain, but as hotels in Vegas became more extravagant the prices of the buffets rose from $10 a person to $20. We still tried them; Paris, The Venetian, The Bellagio. They were fancier than the less expensive buffets, with Ahi and shark along side the more common prime rib and turkey. Lou particularly liked the desserts and would load his plate up with cheesecake, brownies, cookies, apple pie, while Anta scolded him for taking too many. She, on the other hand, filled her plate with beef, turkey and lamb.

Michael and I explored the newest casinos, went to Hoover Dam, visited the dolphin habitat behind The Mirage, watched the Treasure Island pirate show, the Bellagio fountain show and watched people. There is no better place to see a huge variety of people than Las Vegas, from the oldest, most poignant looking to prosperously decked out young business people and everything in between. It was shocking to see men and women in wheelchairs in front of slot machines, or very elderly people with oxygen tanks in tow, inside the smoky casinos. At the more posh places, like Paris or The Venetian we’d see designer dressed and artfully coifed women in extremely high-end stores like Prada or Christian Dior. Minorities, mostly Latino, worked the buffets and were the maids who cleaned the rooms. Young men on the street passed out fliers for sex shows or call girls. We once followed a tall, beautiful blond young woman, carrying a red rose, as she met with what looked like a businessman in the lobby of a hotel. We were convinced he was meeting with his paid escort. Most of the people we saw, though, were like us—from small towns, dressed in ordinary clothes from Penney’s or Target, awed by the glitz, glitter and glamour of the bright neon Strip.

We’d eventually meet with his parents who would end up at New York, New York or The Alladin, where Anta would have found a “good” machine she didn’t want to leave. Good meant it was giving her back more than she was putting in. She always played the 25-cent video poker machines, because she felt her skill at poker would help her win and it usually did. She would bring $200 to gamble and always took home more than she’d brought. Lou spent his time fetching coffee for her or watching high rollers at the Craps table. Sometimes he would play, but not often. When it was time to meet for dinner it was hard to pry her away from a machine that she was having luck with. “How can I leave now?” she’d entreat. “It’s geeving!” We learned to approach her long before we were really ready to eat.

These early days were when I developed my fondness for finding an interesting slot machine to play. I would look for good graphics or a whiz-bang twist—a machine that started spinning wildly when certain symbols lined up. These were still the days when you put real coins in the machine and you pulled the “arm” of the “bandit”. The excitement of actual coins falling, clang, clang, clang into the tray was hard to beat, even if they were only pennies or nickels. I didn’t gamble any more than $20. I didn’t have that much extra money to throw around and in those days, playing nickel machines, $20 lasted for days. Every now and then I’d win. The first time it happened was in Treasure Island. I was putting in nickels. The machine started to make all kinds of ringing and clanging noises and the light on top of it started to flash. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought the machine was broken until an attendant came by with a chit to receive $45 from the cashier. This was after only the second nickel so I really did get a windfall. I bought a Cirque de Soliel sweatshirt with my winnings and still had money left over. Most of the time, though, I’d end up gambling and losing my $20 and that was alright, too, because I was entertained. $20 wasn’t that much to pay for a couple of days of being amused.

We have gone to Vegas many times since that first time in 1994. Until the last couple of times it was always with Michael’s parents. Lou died in 2005, so now it’s his Mother and us. She longs to be there and it’s always a popular suggestion. “Want to go to Vegas, Mom?” She’s almost packed by the time we get off the phone. The same routine follows: my husband and I go around to all the new places, visit some of our favorite old ones, do a little shopping and check in with Anta at “her machine”. Michael is the one who brings her coffee now and cashes in her credits. She doesn’t bring the lunch fixings or the coffee service anymore. I guess she must feel a little more prosperous now or maybe all that was Lou’s idea.

For several months before she came to visit us last Fall, we scouted casinos in the Puget Sound area. We tried out Snoqualmie, Little Creek, Muckleshoot, Suquamish and 7 Cedars casinos. We checked to see if they had her video poker machines, which they all did. We took her to all of them when she was here and she found a good machine in all but the 7 Cedars. The video poker machines were not “giving” up to her standards but she found a Black and White slot machine that gave her jackpot after jackpot.

Now the machines are automated and it has taken me a few years to get used to the new, cartoonish graphics. There is one based on “I Love Lucy”, another has lots of weapons and explosions, there was a Lucky Charms game with shamrocks and leprechauns for a while, but I think that one has gone out of favor. Every year there is a new crop, but all are based on the same old theme—get symbols lined up in a row and you win something. Get lots of symbols lined up, or a special symbol lined up and you win something better. I look for machines that have classic illustrations, like Neptune’s Kingdom or Rembrandt’s Riches or Secrets of the Forest, so that the game is pretty to look at while it’s eating my paper credit, which is what you get now in place of real money. The machine tries to make sounds like the pennies or nickels clang, clanging into the tray, but it’s all illusion. They play music now and have screens that come up to give you bonuses. If you get three treasure chests in the Neptune game a screen appears that allows the player to pick several chests that will give you free spins or multiply your winnings. That always gives me a surge of happy adrenalin. But the old clicking, clanging machines are a thing of the past. And so are the dirty fingers from handling the coins.

My husband and I have now started to go to local casinos by ourselves. We up the ante a little by making our visits overnight trips, giving us a getaway along with the slim chance of going home with more money than we came with. Most casino hotels in the area have hot tubs and pools, though they lack the lions and dolphins and lavish stage shows of Las Vegas. Tulalip Resort Casino has outlet stores within walking distance, not as much fun as the Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden behind the Mirage, but still a draw for a bargain hunter. True to tradition, I do the gambling and my husband makes sure I am hydrated with water and coffee. He can’t make himself gamble. He’s much too frugal. Like his father he observes and enjoys watching me hopping from one machine to another while I look for a good machine, one that will give.

Goodbye, Elizabeth

2011-03-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Taylor died. I have to keep repeating it in order to believe it. She has been part of my life for so long, on my mind now and then for as long as I can remember. She was certainly on my mind in the 50s, when I was a kid and my Mom read movie magazines Photoplay, Modern Screen and Motion Picture. I was so interested in her glamorous life that when the magazines began reporting that she and her husband, Michael Wilding, were going to divorce, I sent Elizabeth a letter saying that I didn’t believe the gossip. It was the only time I ever wrote to a celebrity. I received a postcard in response, with an obviously canned statement like, “Thank you for your support”, or something like that, copied in whatever way copies were made in those days. The pictures of Elizabeth, Wilding and their two small boys were so sweet, romantic, homey, that I couldn’t believe there could be a divorce—divorce didn’t happen in my world. I didn’t know anybody who had ever divorced. It was the fifties, after all.

Over the years, though, we all got used to the way Elizabeth lived her life. Divorce was part of it, but so were love, passion, incredible beauty, opulence, indulgence, gigantic jewels, drinking, husband stealing, fighting, tragedy, illness, and always DRAMA. She lived her life so large, so much bigger than anyone else’s, how could anyone not be eager to know what would come next? What would she do after Mike Todd died? How could she marry such a small time actor/singer as Eddie Fisher? How long would the passionate marriage to Richard Burton last? Was he her true love? Marry Senator John Warner? Why? Larry Fortensky? Huh? But I always cared; I always wanted to know what she was doing. I saw all the movies even when they were bad ones like “Divorced His/Divorced Hers”. When she got fat during her marriage to Warner I knew she was unhappy and was sad for her. When she got thin again, I was glad.

She had unworldly beauty, but she ate whatever she wanted and she battled her weight because of it, just like a normal person. She followed her heart, like we all wanted to do. She flaunted her jewels. She showed off her fantastic bosom. She nearly died, many times. She was reported to be bawdy and in television interviews we heard her raucous, boisterous laugh. After the 5-year marriage to Larry Fortensky, there were long periods of time I didn’t hear much about Elizabeth. Occasionally there would be something about her Aids charitable work, a photo taken at a speaking engagement. In the past ten years there hasn’t been much at all. Last year I searched the web for a picture and found that she was photographed in a wheelchair. She was wearing a red dress, her hair died back to it’s dark color, lavish jewels at her throat and on her fingers, red lipstick, still glamorous at 78. I printed out a picture to show my Mom, who has always been a fan, too, and is exactly 10 years older. I was glad Elizabeth still looked pretty good even if she couldn’t get around very well anymore. Not long ago there was an article about her in Vogue, with quotes from the newest book about her and a picture of her from the 50s on the cover. My best friend called to tell me it was on the newsstand and the next day I bought a copy. It was a treat to be reading about her once again. It was like the best ice cream.

I think what I, and many people, loved about Elizabeth Taylor was that she lived her life exactly the way she wanted to, without apology. She truly was the Last Movie Star. What actor or actress is left that was as famous as she was? She allowed us to see her, in all her glory and with all her faults. She didn’t hide from us. She didn’t destroy herself with drugs like Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe or go into hiding as she got older, like Greta Garbo. She showed us who she was and said “take it or leave it”.

I’m going to miss having her in the world, but the silver lining in her passing is all the old interviews I’ve been seeing on television, the thousands of pictures that were taken of her over the years, showing up in magazines, on the web and during the news. On April 10^th American Movie Classics is going to have a 24-hour marathon of her movies and I’ll have it on all day. Elizabeth Taylor is dead. I still can’t believe it.

The Meaning of Life?

2011-03-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

My husband is always asking me, sometimes seriously, sometimes jokingly, "What is the meaning of life?" I never have an answer for him, but this quote, that was on my grandson's Facebook page recently, might be the answer.

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

George Eliot

Thinking about Japan

2011-03-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's hard to think about anything but Japan and the struggle that is taking place there. I keep trying to imagine what it's like to be living out in the cold, in front of your destroyed house, scrounging for water, building fires to cook your food, wondering what the future will bring. The Japanese are known to be resilient but what must it be like to not know what has happened to your relatives and neighbors, to ponder how many people are beneath the wreckage?

As we were coming into Seattle on the Winslow ferry the other day, to take my granddaughters and daughter-in-law to the airport, I noticed the boats along the waterfront. If a tsunami as large as the one that hit Japan had hit the Seattle waterfront, those boats would have been resting on top of the Alaskan Way viaduct. All of the tourists on Alaskan Way would have been picked up by the water, carried inland or back out to sea. I can't shake the vision of the hundreds of small, white cars being carried by the power of that huge wave, the houses being swept along--were there people in the houses? Did they survive?

And now there is all the speculation about the radiation from the nuclear plants, there was even a run on iodine pills here. Can you trust what is being said about no danger to us on the West Coast or do you believe those that are saying otherwise? All through the 50s we were taught to duck and cover, we were so afraid a bomb would be dropped on or near us. Who would have predicted nuclear power and earthquakes as a scenario for a new radiation fear?

My heart is heavy for the people of Japan. I will be contributing money through World Vision as my very small way of helping but it won't seem like enough.

http://www.worldvision.org/#/home/main/quake-tsunami-devastate-japan-1-1360

Oh, joy!

2011-03-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

This was sent by one of the people who actually read my blog:

"Recent studies have also found that the typical off the shelf coffee, like Folgers, Hill's, MJB, etc. have two benefits for the liver. The first is that the typical store bought packaged pre-ground coffee can actually help clean the liver. The second is that this same coffee can aid in the rebuilding or regeneration of the liver. The liver is one of the few organs in the body that can rebuild itself. There have been successful transplants of part of a liver, which after transplant, grew to a normal size adult liver in the patient. People that drink significant quantities of alcohol tend to have far less liver problems if they also drink coffee. The studies indicate that up to 4 cups per day is beneficial. More than four cups does not seem to create liver problems but more than 4 cups also does not show any added benefit. Just another good reason to enjoy your coffee."

I knew it!!!!

2011-03-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

Coffee Reduces Stroke Risk in Women

Posted by Amy Sue Andrews on March 12th, 2011

The research journal Stroke reports that women who drink a cup or more a day of coffee have a reduced risk for stroke. Greater consumption did not reduce the risk further.

The study followed 34,670 women aged 49 to 83 and found a 23% to 25% reduction in incidence of stroke compared to those who drink little or no coffee. During the 10 year follow up there were 1,680 strokes among the sample population.

So far, the mechanism in coffee consumption that effects strokes is not known.

“It is quite clear that coffee consumption at moderate to even high levels does not increase risk of stroke,” says Eric Rimm, ScD, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Roger Bonomo, MD, director of stroke care at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, says that giving up coffee to protect your health is not a good idea.

“Eliminating coffee isn’t good for your health,” Roger Bonomo, MD.says, “Keep your coffee
habits at a steady state.” He is the director of stroke care at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York
City.

This is the best permission to drink coffee I've ever had! Hallelujah!

Anybody Out There?

2011-03-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

I wonder if there is anybody that actually reads this blog, besides Mail Guy. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, because I am so inconsistent about posting things here lately. I have all these lofty goals of writing at least once a week, and STUFF always intervenes to keep me from it. Stuff like doctor appointments for my Mom, shopping for groceries, mopping the kitchen floor, making dinner, going to the movies, watching TV and most importantly, writing for my writer's group. So when someone comes here looking for something new, there's hardly ever anything they haven't already read.

I apologize, I'll try to do better, I'll strive to make time. I know how it is--I have a friend or two who have blogs and who don't write in them on a regular basis and it is always sad to go to one of their sites and not see anything new. It's like calling a friend and getting a message machine. Not even that good, really. At least you can leave a message on the machine and hope to get a call back.

Did you realize?

2011-02-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm terrible about listening to verses of songs and usually only remember the choruses, so I didn't realize how much was in this Billy Joel song from the 80s. You'll be blown away, too.

http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html

Goodbye, Jack

2011-01-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

I’m really sorry that Jack LaLanne died. I guess I knew all along that he would, but I thought he’d live to see his hundreds. I’ve always felt a special bond with Jack. Jack is the one who got me started on exercise, way back in my twenties, when I was a young Mom and trying to get back into shape after my daughters were born. I had been a failure at gym class in school, I didn’t like softball or dodge ball or tumbling. My Mom and Dad didn’t do anything other than the normal strenuous activities of raising kids and maintaining a house and yard, so I didn’t know a thing about calisthenics. Jack taught me.

He ran onto his tiny set, with his two big, white dogs, with so much enthusiasm a viewer couldn’t help but be inspired to move with him. He didn’t have any fancy weights or pulleys or machines or music or pretty girls behind him—all he had was a jumpsuit, his muscles and his enthusiasm. He told us to pull out a straight back chair, hang on to it and do leg extensions. He asked us to get a towel to do overhead stretches. He modeled getting down on the floor to do sit-ups. He even had us get vegetable cans out of the cupboard to use as weights for bicep curls. He didn’t let you have an excuse for not exercising with him because the equipment he wanted you to use was right there in your house. Not only was it easy to do the exercises, Jack’s vigor was inspiring.

I exercised with Jack for years until Jane Fonda came along with her record—yes, I said record. We didn’t have videos yet, and so I’d put on Jane’s record, and with her telling me to “feel the burn”, I got on the floor, arched my back and did my buttocks tucks to the music of the Eagles. I still can’t hear, “There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight I know” without the urge to get down on the floor and flex my butt muscles! I jogged in place with Jane for years, finally with her video, until I discovered the 20-Minute Workout, which came on television regularly at 6:30 every morning. I’d put on my royal blue leotard and sweat with four perky girls for the 20 minutes they promised. Then I’d get my kids off to school.

Over the years I’ve done aerobics in classes, dance aerobics, yoga classes, Thai Chi, exercised along with buff air force guys on the military channel, did some running while I worked in Kingston, bicycled, belonged to a couple of gyms, worked out in my own home with weights and an exercycle. I even ran around the inside of a house we lived in for a year where each room opened to the next. I broke my little toe doing that, but I haven’t stopped exercising since the early sixties and it’s all because of Jack LaLane. Thanks, Jack. If there’s a heaven, I know it won’t be long before you’ll have everybody in shape.

Telephone

2011-01-20T13:56:00.000-08:00

Brrrrrringggggg!!!!! BRRRRRINGGGGG!!!!!!! I jump at the first ring. I cringe at the second one. I pretend not to hear it. If I was alone in the house I might let it go to voice mail but my husband can’t stand an unanswered phone, so reluctantly I answer it.

What has happened to make me react so negatively to a ringing phone? Years ago, a phone ringing used to be a welcome interruption no matter when it came. It rang two longs and a short to signal it was for us and not somebody else on the party line. When I was a kid the ringing black phone on the table could mean that my parents were being invited to an evening of cards at the Potter’s, my parents best friends. The Potters had kids our age and so it was a treat to go there. We’d be put to bed late, in the Potter’s bed, my brother and I tormenting each other for an hour until we finally dropped off. Later we’d be carried to the car and then carried to bed when we got home. The drowsy memories are sweet.

As a teenager the phone became a fabulous instrument. The ringing telephone could mean a date, or a sleepover with friends, a flirty conversation or gossip. I was thrilled with anticipation when the phone rang and sorely disappointed when it was not for me. We only had one phone so I had time limits but my parents weren’t overly strict about enforcing them. I’d talk for hours if I could.

When I was a young mother, isolated at home, no license to drive yet and my husband at work all day, the olive green Princess phone, hanging on the wall in the kitchen, was a lifeline. I could call friends with their own small children to ask what to do about a fever or a diaper rash or how to handle a husband who didn’t have time to teach me to drive. I could arrange a shopping date with my girlfriend or call a taxi to get to the doctor if my daughter fell on the sidewalk and put a gash in her forehead. I could call a friend to talk to another adult for a while.

Eventually I went to work in an office and the telephone changed to one with multiple lines. “Call for Christine on line 4” would sound through the building and I would have to field questions, go over schedules, plan meetings. When I got home after being on calls all day I didn’t want to talk on the phone, but the calls that came were innocuous except for the increasing number of telemarketers who had our number. I became adept at saying, “I’m not interested” without feeling guilty. A new job in education resulted in a different relationship with my new multiline phone, which also had an answering machine. I would come into work each morning with 12 to 25 messages on my phone each day. I had to listen to them all first thing in the morning and answer each one while taking live calls and tending to customers who came through the door. It was then that the telephone became a noisy little monster with numbers on it.

The people on the other end of this phone were not always friendly. They had to complete forms that they didn’t like and didn’t understand and I was the person making them do it. There were deadlines involved, teaching jobs on the line. I was the enemy to a lot of them and they treated me that way, accusing and angry. After I left that phone in the evening I didn’t want to see another one until I came into work the next day.

After I retired I thought that my feelings about phones might mellow. The “no call” list had cut the unwanted telemarketing calls, even though there were still calls from the fire department and local law enforcement asking for money to send a needy child to the rodeo or the circus. A long chat with my daughter-in-law or a friend was a bright spot in the day, though emails had taken over most communication. Our phones were multiple and portable allowing me to roam the house or even go out into my garden when talking to someone rather than be stuck on the couch or the kitchen stool. Our cell phones were used for emergencies rather than daily calling so we weren’t as accessible as some.

What has kept my feelings about the telephone from being happy and content is my elderly mother. My father died in 2001 and since that time I have gradually taken more of a caretaking role. At first it was her finances, then legal issues, then home maintenance problems and now it is her health. Now when the phone rings it is less likely to be a friend calling with a tempting invitation and more likely to be a call from my brother saying something like, “Chris, Mom feels weird”, a call which ended up with our spending 5 hours in the emergency room. It would be easier if my brother had the capacity to assess a situation and decide whether it was serious or benign but he is not capable of that, so I have become The Decider in matters concerning Mom’s health.

Phone calls now make me jump, think immediately about difficulties, emergencies, life and death situations. I send up a silent prayer. The intake of air, holding my breath, getting ready, can only be released when I hear on the other end of the line, “Is this Christine Dosa? May I take a few minutes of your time to answer some survey questions?” Who would have thought that I’d rather receive a call from a stranger than someone I know? My heart stops pounding and I calm down and answer, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested” and hang up.

This Year's Christmas Reverie

2010-12-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Today I am alone for a little while, my newly retired husband off to run errands and meet with old co-workers for a lunch. I have time to reflect on the holiday, what is the same this year and what is different.

Things change, evolve—the shape of Christmas transforms. It used to be child-based and now my grandchildren are in three different states and half of them are over 20. There is a new element this year—my second-oldest grandson is in Afghanistan. I have made sugar cookies with sprinkles on them and there is a box set aside of cookies that Patrick will get in his Christmas package. Today I will make Brandy Balls, something a 22-year-old will like and an item that will pack well. He probably won’t get his package before Christmas, but what does it matter to a soldier in the dessert? Any package on any day will be welcome. I’ll wrap up a Calvin and Hobbes collection for him to go along with the sweets. I was going to make some chocolate candy for him, too, but was reminded that they would probably melt in the heat of the desert, so that’s out.

The tree is decorated; most of the gifts are wrapped. My Santa collection is still boxed—there hasn’t been time to get all those different Santas unwrapped and placed around the house yet. Hopefully, I can get them out before my daughter and her husband arrive from Virginia on the 22nd. This will be the second time they have come for Christmas and it is the best gift I could ask for. Their presence will make four of us in the house rather than the sort of lonely two we have become. It makes such a difference to have other people to share the warmth of the season with.

I’ve always made cookies at Christmas, even before I had my own house to make them in. I started baking at an early age and have never stopped. Some of my favorite cookies were the shortbread cookies I used to make with my daughters. They were easy, just butter, sugar and flour, and they could be shaped or rolled and sprinkled or frosted—the possibilities were endless. Long ago, when I had small children I made rolled sugar cookies with complicated shapes and frostings. My daughter-in-law makes gingerbread men every year, with frosting and various chips and candies on them. We work hard to make pretty cookies for our children. Now it seems too much work for just my husband and me. When I had lots of kids around I made a favorite we called “bubble bread”, a pull-apart bread made in a tube pan with lots of butter and cinnamon. I don’t make that anymore, either—too many calories for us oldies.

No matter how old we get we’ll still enjoy Christmas music. It’s not fattening! The first CD we bring out is the Carpenter’s Christmas Portrait. It’s 26 years old, but remains the warmest and best set of Christmas music ever put together—in our opinions, at least. When one of the 20 Christmas CDs isn’t playing, radio station 106.9 is playing a huge variety of seasonal music. Right now I’m listening to jazzy Diana Krall interpret some old favorites.

I love the smell of evergreens but we have an artificial tree now. When I was a kid my Dad would choose a tree from a lot, but it always had to be modified to fit into the living room. He often had to take a limb off of one side and add it to the other. Trees weren't as perfectly groomed as they are now. When I was a Mom we'd go to the tree farm, choose a tree, cut it down, tie it to the car, fit it to the tree stand. Some years we even popped corn and strung it for a garland. I think I may institute that tradition again with my daughter. I can’t imagine anything more cozy than stringing popcorn while drinking a hot buttered rum, toddy, cocoa, or a coffee nudge and listening to Karen Carpenter singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.

I think it’s obvious that I love Christmas in all its variations. I know people who don’t and I feel sad for them and wonder what happened to take the magic out of it for them. I was in a lower income bracket most of my life, but always had a happy Christmas. There was never opulence, except for maybe that two-year period my Dad owned a store and I got a hair dryer and a radio for Christmas. My Dad and Mom loved Christmas too, so maybe my memories are better because of that.

Some years I haven’t felt the “spirit”, the soft, giving, loving feeling that I wait for. There have been sad years, years we’ve lost a family member, Christmases following a divorce, but they have been brief periods of time. The magical spirit usually reaches me before Christmas comes and this year it’s been around for nearly a month.

I’ll be excited on Christmas Eve because the next morning I’ll get to see my husband, my daughter and her husband open the gifts I’ve found for them, I’ll get to watch my husband trying to control the paper clutter afterwards, we’ll get phone calls from across the U.S. from my kids, I’ll make calls to thank others, we’ll make a special dinner and play games or watch a movie. It will be another in the long string of happy Christmases, special in it’s own way.

Cranky Old Lady

2010-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed, as you’ve gotten older, that you seem to be a little more impatient, less apt to stand calmly in line, more apt to be irritated by a slow down. Have you raised your voice in protest, just a little, when a sales clerk insists you can fit into a size 8 when you know darn well that you’ve never worn a size 8 and never will? Have you felt like walking out with your hair half cut when a hair dresser says: you “need a wax” on your eyebrows and how about a pedicure and wouldn’t you like a manicure, too? Have you snapped at the person at the end of the phone line at dinnertime who wants you to buy tickets for “the underprivileged to attend the rodeo” or to vote for the wonderful, better-than-the-last one candidate of the moment?

Has there been a barista who is young enough to hear you, and surely has better ears than you do, who gives you a soy latte when what you’ve said is, “Oh,boy, I need a latte this morning!” Have you lost patience in a line because the person three in front of you has decided this is the day she needs to catch up with the check-out person, who is an old friend, and they can’t possibly talk on the phone, because who does that anymore? And have you actually yelled at the driver in front of you because the light has turned green and the driver’s attention is on the text he’s reading?

I think I used to be lots more forgiving and patient. I used to do buttocks tucks when I stood in line, not caring how long it took to get my groceries. I used to accept the soy latte and not complain. I used to say “okay” to the eyebrow wax. But nowadays I’m not as nice. I want good service. I want courtesy and competence. I want the hairdresser to cut my hair, charge me for it and let me go without the menu of what else she would like me to buy from her. I want all drivers to pay attention. I want friends to chat on their own time, not on mine.

Ick! I’ve become a cranky old lady! When did that happen? It’s funny—I wasn’t like this when I was working. I must not have cared. If I was standing in line, at least I wasn’t behind a desk, answering phones or emails or talking to grouchy customers who were just like I have become. Was my time not as valuable to me? Now I want to get out of that line, away from that hair salon and get on my way, because I have good things to do and I don’t want to waste a minute. Time. It’s more important now. It’s finite, it won’t last, there is an end to these days and years. I have too much I want to do and now that I have the time to do it, I don’t want others using it up.

Time hasn’t changed, but my attitude toward it, my perception of it, certainly has. No day is long enough to check off everything on the list of things I have set out to accomplish. Most of what’s on that list is pretty fun—the ratio of fun to not fun (chore) is about 3 to 1—three creative projects to one clean the floor. Let’s see, how do I decide? Shall I make a greeting card using one of the photographs I’ve taken, or shall I dust? Duh! Not going to pick dusting unless someone is coming to see me. Then I’ll relent. Hmmmmm….shall I write a piece about being a cranky old lady or should I wash the dishes? Eventually I’ll wash the dishes but for now I’ll just put a few paragraphs down—the dishes can wait. Shall I plan a lunch with my aging mother, my even more aging aunt and my long lost cousin or shall I spend that day in the garden? Lunch wins every time. Having to stand in line when young, seemingly untrained, clerks try to solve the problems of their customers, who either want to make trouble or chat, is not on my agenda of fun things to do. It comes under the heading of CHORE. For me being retired is not about chores. It is about making the very most of the time I have left on this earth, in the way I find most satisfying. There may be some who find it wonderful to have more time to do what I consider to be chores: waxing furniture, making their toilet bowls sparkle, shining their floors, passing a white glove test. I know some women like that, but I’m not one of them. I have to admit to thinking it’s nice to have more time to spend on housework because I don’t like a dirty house. Since retiring I do give more time to cleaning, but I draw the line when it gets in the way of creativity, because cleaning has never given me the satisfaction of creating something, a garden, a photo, a piece of writing, a lunch for friends or family, a gift.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an angry driver, I’m not someone who is impatient with old people (older than me) who are having trouble getting the coins out of their pockets to pay for their bread and milk. I’m not a person who wants to deprive a small businesswoman of her fees. I don’t get cranky out loud or push my way to the front—but I do find myself wanting to get on with things, get my business done and on to the fun parts of life. It’s a new, raring-to-go me—excited to get to the next enjoyable part of the day.

Let There Be Light

2010-11-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

Just Monday afternoon I was rhapsodizing about the loveliness of snow, the cozy cocoa and warm blanket and good book. All of that romantic winter feeling lasted until 5:00 pm when the lights went out.

It is now 11:00 am on Wednesday. It's 46 degrees in the house, even with a blazing fire in the wood stove. There are two warm places in the house--one foot in front of the wood stove or in bed with the flannel sheets and two quilts on top of the fleece blanket pulled up over our heads. It also feels good to wash dishes. Thank heavens for a gas-powered water heater.

No television, no radio, lanterns after 4:30 and the fancy generator is refusing to generate. We've been entertaining ourselves listening to police and fire calls on the battery operated scanner. My husband keeps asking, "How could the pioneers STAND it??? What did they do when it got DARK???" He's not buying it but we are so much better off than the "pioneers"--we have flashlights and 4-wheel drive vehicles to take us to a lighted place if we really want to go get warm.

It's Thanksgiving tomorrow. I was supposed to make a pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. I was able to grate and squeeze the oranges and cook up the cranberries on the top of the gas stove, but the pie may or may not happen, depending on when the power is returned to us. I put some Gran Marnier in the cranberries and admit to tippling a little as I cooked. I figure the more alcohol, the better. I know our hostess is also still without power and probably most of her guests will have tales of snow, cold and wind. Our hostess is a psychologist who says the jollity factor will be higher because of the tension during the last few days. I don't know about that--I just want my hands, feet and nose to warm up!

Let It Snow

2010-11-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

I know there are probably a whole bunch of people out there gnashing their teeth today because it's snowing and they have to get somewhere. They likely are not snow lovers. But I am. I love it. Even when I worked I loved it, but I didn't love driving in it. I was one of those wimps that called in "stuck" in my driveway when it snowed like this. I was stuck alright, with fear of sliding off the road.

But now that I'm retired I can love snow as much as I want to. Snow always makes me want steaming hot cocoa, a crackling fire in the wood stove, an exciting book, a warm fleece blanket....and a buttery cookie wouldn't hurt.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing out in the snow, building a snowman, sledding, throwing snowballs and your hands would get so cold they hurt and your nose was dripping and your pants were wet and there was snow down inside your boots? Remember how your hands ached when you tried to warm them in hot water? Remember how good it felt to warm up at the kitchen table with a mug of sweet cocoa and graham crackers to dunk in it? And remember how you wanted to go right back outside no matter how cold you were going to get? Remember not caring? Remember wet socks and coats and pants and mittens and knit hats hanging all over the kitchen making puddles of melted snow on the floor? Remember the smell of wet wool? I bet you do and I bet those are wonderful memories for you like they are for me.

I hope you can let yourself love the snow just a little bit because we're going to have lots of it this year and it would be a shame if it just make you unhappy.

Writing Essays

2010-11-18T15:35:00.000-08:00

I've been writing since I was a teenager, in diaries, journals, letters, for publication and then in 2005, in this blog. I went to a Writer's Retreat at Pilgrim Firs the weekend of November 5 and finally found out what I've been doing all these years. I've been writing personal essays. I was at our retreat teacher's website (Sheila Bender) just now and found this quote.

"At the core of the personal essay," Philip Lopate writes, "is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience." As essayists, in talking about ourselves, we are in some way talking about everyone. It is our experience that matters and our interest in sharing it that moves others. Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, put it this way in his acceptance speech, "All true literature rises form this childish, hopeful certainty that we resemble one another".

I guess that's been my impulse--to write about my experience and/or thoughts and hope you can relate, or that something rings a bell with you, makes you remember or think. According to some of the comments I've gotten through this blog, it appears to work sometimes.

Queen of the Mountain

2010-11-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

It’s called Afton Apple Orchard but my granddaughter, Ali, and I are focused on the mountain made of tires. Ali has been here before with her kindergarten class, but it’s the first time for me.

The tire mountain seems to get bigger as we approach it, sand packed and monstrous. Ali scrambles over the old tractor tires to the top and thrusts her arms to the sky, grinning wildly. I think, “Queen of the Mountain”. Suddenly she disappears. I am startled, staring at where she was just a moment ago, a little afraid. Then I hear her calling me and I see her half-way down a giant black PVC pipe slide, on her way back to me.

As she emerges the fall sunlight shines in her long hair and the eager cries of dozens of kids running towards us almost drowns out her small but excited voice, “Did you see me, Grandma?” In the next moments the others ascend the tire mountain and she is no longer the Queen.

Chairs

2010-10-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

This would be my ultimate dream.

Where we sit when we’re relaxing or reading or watching televisions is important to us, don’t you think? I would bet that everyone, no matter how elegant or humble the home, has a favorite spot.

My grandfather had his straight-backed wooden chair, with 3 slats at the back. Only the seat was upholstered. He sat in it to read his paper and listen to the radio, his feet on an ottoman. My grandmother didn’t sit down exactly; she perched in between chores, unless she was energetically playing rousing hymns on the piano.

As a teenager I used to flop down in my Dad’s leather club chair with footstool (which had been beautifully reupholstered by him) to read and to nap before I had to help with dinner. Later Dad would watch TV and read and often fall asleep there himself.

My mother has a favorite chair, too, but I don’t remember her having one while we kids were growing up. She was too busy waiting on my father, or refereeing fights between my brother and me, or going to choir practice or washing the kitchen floor. When she stopped it was more to nurse a migraine in her darkened bedroom. Now she has a recliner/rocker, which she’s used as headquarters for many years, next to her an end table, one of those blond wood, 2-level ones from the 50s. It’s piled high with half-done crossword puzzles, People magazines, books and pencils. Beside her on the floor is her purse.

We have broken tradition in our home. We have a large Mission-style couch, which I bought when I was working and had money to spend on furniture. It has three big cushions. The one on the right is “my area”; the one on the left is my husband’s. I have two sofa pillows on my end, one I bought in Greece, the other I got just a few months ago in Vancouver, B.C., and a crescent-shaped airplane pillow, filled with buckwheat, to burrow into while I read books, newspapers, magazines, write, play with my iTouch or watch TV. It is the center of my operations, where I drink my morning coffee, where I do my thinking, where I talk on the phone.

At the other end of the couch my husband watches TV. For anything else he has another place, a loveseat, which looks like a large version of Archie Bunker’s chair, or Frazer Crane’s dad's chair, though it doesn’t have any duct tape repairs on it…yet. This is where he reads magazines, plays with his iTouch and naps. I have tried for years to buy him a nice chair but to no avail. It’s formed to his body like a comfortable pair of shoes.

When I visited my son and his family in Wisconsin earlier this month I realized early on that I was sitting in someone else’s spot. It didn’t take much intellect to decipher the longing looks and outright plaintive meows from the two cats in the house. In the evening when the two adult humans in the house inhabit the big leather couch to read or watch television, the cats, Lucy and Sadie, share the “big, comfy” chair, as it’s called. The friendlier one, Lucy, sits on the seat cushion, the more skittish Sadie lies alertly on the chair back. I felt badly that they had to find other quarters while I was there, but I wasn’t about to perch on the windowsill so they could have their “spots”. Other cats might have snuggled up to me and shared the area, but not these two.

I have experienced the same emotions as these cats when people are visiting us. The visitors tend to take one or the other end of the couch, where my husband and I are usually ensconced, with my feet on his lap, our fleece blanket warming us. During these visits I cannot stretch out as usual and my husband is banished to his loveseat. At least I get my end of the couch. Recently my husband’s mother was visiting. She was with us for 2 weeks and when she left for home we both took possession once again of our beloved corners, just like the cats did when I left my son’s house. We were purring and happy again, like the cats must have been, back in our adored and comfy nests.

Save My Morning

2010-10-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

Bob Rivers at the mic

I wouldn’t have thought it would matter so much. I wouldn’t have expected to feel a hole, not only inside of me, but also in my daily life. I wouldn’t have expected to react so strongly.

My radio show went off the air on Friday, October 1 and I didn’t realize it until yesterday morning. Friday I turned on the station, heard rock music and assumed that my radio show people were taking a vacation, though this programming was different than usual. In the past when they’ve taken a vacation day or week, the station has played old segments, interspersed with the Twisted Tunes we listeners all love and sometimes even help to inspire. The news will be current but the rest of the show will be old material, like a great interview with a comedian or a musician, topical issues that can be repeated for our entertainment.

I didn’t think too much about it until Monday morning. I turned on my show, preset in the bathroom, and while I was getting ready for the day, washing up, brushing my hair, I noted a difference. Today it was the Gary Crow Show, blatantly not my show. I turned it off. I turned it back on in the kitchen, preset there also, and found the same thing. My brain was refusing to believe what my ears were hearing. I imagined that maybe there had been an accident, that the entire show was so affected that they’d had to take time off. I turned on another station, KPLU, and listened to NPR for an hour. At the top of the hour, 9:00 now, I tried KZOK again, and this time the awful truth sank in. My Bob River’s Show was gone. I actually stared at the radio in disbelieve, crying “no, no, no”.

There had been no announcement, no forewarning—it was like a sudden death. Bob, Joe, Spike, Maura, Pedro and Luciana gone. Anyone who hasn’t listened to this show for 17 years, as I have, won’t understand how this can feel so bad. These people were my “morning family”. I laughed at their jokes, I rooted for Pedro to get his jokes on Leno (which he did), I was excited when Bob encouraged Spike to form a rock bank and chortled when fellow listeners suggested the name, Spike and the Impalers for it. I heard all the auditions to replace Casey when she chose to leave to pursue TV work and welcomed Maura back from parenthood retirement. I cheered Arik and his wife when they finally adopted their Korean son, A.J. I cried when Bob’s oldest son, Keith, came back from Dakar, Senegal, so moved by what he saw there that his reaction moved me to adopt my own Senegalese child, Sokhna Diarra, through World Vision. I’ve listened to Bob’s younger son, Andrew, struggle to become a stand-up comedian and to get better and better. I’ve grown to know the wives, Lisa, Melissa and Kelly, and all their daughters.

I think the worst part of this absence is that I no longer have a finger on the pulse of what is going on in the world of entertainment and the scientific and political news, because these guys are the ones who used to debate it the way I liked, with all sides heard, with humor, with irreverence, with intelligence and balance. I can’t count the times my husband came home asking if I’d heard the latest on a brain study or a sensationalized news item and I’d answer, “Oh yes, they were discussing that on Bob River’s this morning” and then I’d quote some of what was said by Joe and Bob and Spike and listeners who called in. Their discussions so often helped me make up my own mind about issues in the news.

I’m probably not in the demographic that the network thinks was listening to Bob Rivers and crew. I am 66 years old, retired, didn’t start listening until I was 49, but was quickly hooked by the large personalities and the camaraderie of this group of diverse and wonderfully interesting human beings. I am missing them terribly and judging from the website I’ll put at the bottom of this post thousands of others are, too. We want them back, to help us start our days, to entertain and inform us, to open our minds to new ways of seeing things, to share their crazy songs with us, but most of all to keep us company in those early morning hours as no other morning radio show group ever has. My morning coffee doesn’t taste the same without them.

If you are a listener, or a person who thinks it’s unfair to yank a show off the air that has thousands of devoted listeners, click the link below—all you have to do is click “like” and you will be counted among those who want to save the show, whether it’s at KZOK or some other Seattle station wise enough to pick them up. Help me get my morning back.

http://www.facebook.com/BringBobRiversBack

A Poem My Granddaughter Loves

2010-09-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

My granddaughter, Alecia, pictured above, posted this poem on her Facebook page. I liked it and am posting it here. Seems several of my friends had already discovered it and I was the last one to the party.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

copyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/

Watching Anta Cook

2010-09-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Mother and Son

Well, so far, so good. I am referring to mother-in-law, Anta’s, visit with us. Our refrigerator is full to the brim with vegetables, ground walnuts (for baking), meat, French bread, special margarine (Smart Balance with olive oil), half and half. The cupboard now has Crisco Oil and Uncle Ben’s Rice in it. The counter has lots of new things on it--a coffee cup filled with cold coffee and topped with a paper towel; a paper plate with a plastic bag full of fortune cookies; a round box of little nutty cookies; a sugar bowl topped with a saucer. We have the number of the Turner Movie Classics channel memorized and the times of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. There is a lawn chair with a blanket installed in the garage with a tin can for cigarette ashes and butts.

We have taken Anta (short for Antigone) to the Snoqualmie and Muckleshoot casinos where she had moderate luck at the video poker machines. She was through with Snoqualmie pretty quickly because the machine “wasn’t giving”, but liked Muckleshoot better. I had better luck with my machine of choice, something about Neptune, at Snoqualmie and the view there is infinitely better, but serious video poker players don’t give a hoot about the view, except as a nice place to smoke.

The first full day Anta was here we took her to Costco, where she was in paroxysms of delight over the meat section and bought lamb chops with top sirloin reserved for next week’s shopping and then to Central Market in Poulsbo where she fondled the artichokes and bought peaches, pears, strawberries, peppers, Italian parsley and five bags of Stonebridge cookies. Michael and I kept eyeing the growing pile in the grocery basket and wondering where we were going to store all the stuff and more importantly, who was going to eat it.

Yesterday, Anta made her “famous Greek Coffee Cake”, which is a huge slab of spices, nuts and cognac soaked raisins held together by a half white flour, half wheat flour batter, moistened with orange juice, eggs and olive oil. This is the same cake I make for my husband for his birthday—he loves it better than all others. Anta knows how to please her boy. The cake is so huge it might still be around when his birthday comes in November.

And her boy has been trying hard to please his Mom, too. He gave her his iTouch, loaded games on it he thought she would like, and taught her how to use it. Now she is playing Solitaire on the little device when she’s not cooking, smoking or at a casino. She even plays it while she’s got the old movie channel on, but she does stop for the game shows. Playing a game while watching a game is too much for an 82-year-old. Today Michael is taking her for a ride in the little red Miata. They will go to the commissary and buy cigarettes and maybe some Retsina and I’d bet, more food. Even at 82 a Greek woman is always thinking about what she wants to cook next.

Tomorrow night we will bring my Mom over to visit with Michael’s Mom. They know each other pretty well. They shared a cabin when we took them on a cruise to Alaska a few years ago. They are both the same size, tiny, and it’s fun to listen to them talk. My Mom is always interested in Anta’s stories about WW II and how it affected her and Greece. I guess I’m on tap for making dinner for them, but it's scary to cook in front of the expert. I’ll have to do something Anta never cooks—Mexican food maybe.

Before mother and son go on the convertible ride we are scheduled to make cookies—Melomakarona—Greek honey cookies. I’ve had them every Christmas, but I’ve never watched Anta make them—it’s a complicated process of baking and soaking in a honey mixture, and rolling in nuts, so I’m anxious to learn. I will not be able to stand on my step stool and help pour the ingredients into the bowl like granddaughter, Ali, does with me. I’ll have to keep my distance and watch closely, maybe even take notes.

Sometimes visits from mother-in-law, Anta, or to her house, can be a little bit fraught. She, like her son, (and like her daughter-in-law, truthfully) has strong opinions and voices them loudly, like all hot-blooded Mediterranean’s. There have been times when I have not bitten my tongue and dared to enter the fray, but that has never turned out well. I lack that ability to yell without getting truly angry. So my tongue is being bitten, but this visit seems a little mellower. There hasn’t been so much opinion being flung around, just a lot of flour and meat.

Deaf

2010-09-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

Mother-in-law is visiting so not much time to write or even think, so it'll be this kind of thing or nothing for 2 weeks. I find this hilarious since I am half-deaf myself.

Tape of the Gods

2010-09-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

Found at the Taco Time Women's Restroom--the Taco Time across
from Central Market in Poulsbo

Last Length of Life

2010-09-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

At a little pond in the woods

I decided; this is the last length

of my life. I threw a big stick far out,

to be all the burdens from earlier years.

Ever since, I have been walking

lightly, looking around, out of the woods.

William Stafford

Waste Not Want Not

2010-09-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

An old high school chum and I were talking at a recent lunch about our desire to write. He likes my blog and I like the blog he was writing while he was traveling in Viet Nam and the surrounding area earlier this summer. He had stopped posting midway through his trip and he has been urged by several friends about finishing the trip for them, via the blog. He told me his problem was “finding the time to write”.

That is my problem, too. Finding the time, as if there is some magic time, a bagful, that is hidden, under the couch, or behind the door, or in the kitchen cupboard, that, if I could just locate it, I could use for writing. I told him I had been analyzing the ways I waste time.

Wasting time--like it was garbage--a little here, a little there, until the day is gone and at the end there is more in the garbage heap than there is in the “something worthwhile done” bin. I live by the Protestant Ethic, even though I am not a Protestant. For me anyway, the Protestant Ethic is: get work done before engaging in pleasure. Pleasure is my reward for working hard. Work includes washing dishes, cleaning floors, gardening, washing clothes, paying bills, grocery shopping, making important phone calls, making dinner, helping my husband with a job, doing stuff for my mom, exercising. Pleasure is playing with my granddaughters, getting on the computer, checking email and answering it, going out to coffee or lunch with friends, reading other people’s blogs, reading the newspaper, doing a crossword puzzle, playing Angry Birds http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=angry-birds on my iTouch, taking photographs, putting the photos on my Flickr site or organizing them, reading, reading, reading books or magazines or books about writing, taking a drive in the Miata. And then there is the writing. I love writing, but with all the work things and all the pleasure things I haven’t created a little envelope of time for writing.

I can’t even remember when I first wanted to “write”. I wrote a magazine in junior high for me and my friend, Anne, called “McCake” (after McCalls)--many pages, articles, fiction, pictures. I loved Mrs. Southworth’s composition class, but I didn’t think I was as good a writer as others in the class. I kept a daily diary then and dropped that practice when I got married and had kids, starting up again in the late sixties, but graduated to journals, which didn’t require writing every day and had a larger format for longer reflection. Sometimes I wrote down a description of a character I saw on the ferry, in Seattle, on the side of the road. Occasionally I wrote a long piece about an experience. I attended a writer’s group for a year. I went to a couple of writer’s journal workshops taught by a friend, who was a published writer. I just wrote, never saying to myself, “I want to be a writer”. Until I started my blog in October of 2005 . Pretty late in the game. But why not?

Okay, so.....this is supposed to be about wasting time and I just did something that could either be considered wasting time or research, depending on the spin I put on it. I went to my blog to see just how long ago I started it and began reading some of the oldest posts and some of the comments and then I started getting nostalgic because one of the regular commenters was my old friend, Jim Morgan, who died a few years back and his friend, Brownshoes (her blogger name), who used to comment but hardly does anymore, even though we are now “computer friends”, we never see each other anymore. And so it goes, turning left at the path and sliding down the rabbit hole of memories, and the time for writing gets eaten, like a delicious little cookie.

The idea here was to list the “time-wasting” activities and give the rationalizations for them. So here goes:

Reading and answering email.

Communicating is good for my writing, inspirational sometimes, but reading all the “funnies” people send is pretty much a waste, though I hate to blow people off by not reading them. On the other hand, would they ever know? Would they cut me off?

Reading the newspaper from cover to cover.

Again, good for writing--keeping up on current news, culture and how the world is evolving. And I have to know what is happening with Adam Lambert this week.

Doing crossword puzzles.

Good for the brain and for vocabulary--doing them every day?--maybe not productive. I'm the kind who must finish it, to prove I can.

Reading other people’s blogs.

Particularly important for the writer in me. What are others writing about, what are they doing with their blogs and their pages? To me it is research. Are they better than me?

Looking through the dozens of catalogs that come for me in the mail.

Total and utter waste of time, unless I find a hairdo I want to copy, that is, or a shirt, or pants, or.....

Reading the Quality Book Club and Book of the Month news.

Not doing it anymore. I canceled them both. In a month or so they will try to lure me back with free books.

Going to lunch with friends.

Not giving this up. A person who could be a hermit (such as I) must get out and be with people--besides I might spot a good “character study” at a cafe or coffee shop, like the older (than me) couple who were playing three handed cribbage with a younger man at the coffee shop while drinking their favorite brew. And talk with friends is inspirational, too. Who could make up a character like red-headed, big busted Mary, the Maintenance Woman, with a heart of gold and a mouth like a sailor?

Playing the game “Angry Birds” on my iTouch.

This is one I’m struggling with. Do I keep playing because the little screeching birds who are trying to obliterate the pigs that took their eggs makes me laugh out loud and it’s challenging? Or is it eating into time I could be doing something more important? Is there something more important that I could be doing between 4:30 and 5:00 in the afternoon? Lots can happen in 30 minutes--I could read an article in a writing book or magazine, I could write for 30 minutes on what I’m working on. I could edit. But my husband is usually in the room with me, so writing or editing is something I couldn’t concentrate on. For the time being, I will waste time with Crazy Chickens, as I call it, in the late afternoon and enjoy the belly laughs.

Reading.

A writer must read. That’s all there is to that--looking at style, noticing how an author puts words together, strings the plot along, begins, ends, grabs me or doesn’t. It’s a writing class. And after class I get to take a little nap.

I hope you understand that this blog post is me working things out--it’s not meant as entertainment, unless you think you are wasting time and want to see how I am making some of it seem important. My pact with David, the other writer, is meant to be challenging to both of us and he told me to write about the time we waste. And the word “waste” is subjective--maybe “spend” is a better word to describe what we do all day. We spend time doing what needs to be done, we decide how to spend the rest and why do we decide in the ways we do? This is probably totally boring to Dean, and to Dean I apologize. It also might seem like silly angst to some others, but this is the kind of dissection that a person who likes to write engages in. And since I am writing, it’s not a waste of time.

A few days before talking to David I decided the best way for me to write everyday was to write before I ever opened email, Facebook (communication again, but often excessive), or read blogs, because once I get going on those it’s all over for a couple of hours. And it’s been working. Once I get started writing I can’t stop unless I force myself to. That’s the way it should be, for someone who loves and wants to write. The future of all these words? Who knows? Surely not me, not yet. For now, it’s a triumph to get a regular schedule established. If I run out of time for all those other “wasters”, then so be it.

The Lovely Part

2010-08-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

The Petersen's View in South Keyport

Abovet: Jim's Chevy, Linda Greaves and Nancy Roi Goit

Top: Linda, Terry Scatina's eye and John Sleasman's legs

Two views of Jim's Incredible Garage

Bonnie Petersen's Quilt Craft Room

Pete, Fred, Bruce and Fred's Wife

Jim's cola bottle collection on the shelf above.

Pete Batcheller, Roger Cole and Trude Gilman

I am listening to Ellen Johnson’s CD, “Warming February”, http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/EllenJohnson1, which I bought from proud husband, Bruce Johnson, at the CK Alumni lunch at Jim and Bonnie Peterson’s home last week. She’s singing right now about bees, a metaphor for love and I’ve just been out watering plants in my yard, where I see the bees already starting their all-day work of getting every last speck of pollen out of the big lavender plant. This morning I used the container for iced tea that Vickie C. Holt brought to the lunch for me, having offered it to me a year ago. And I’m thinking about the pact I made with David Frazier to get serious about writing, to make a schedule, to try to keep to it, to notice how we are procrastinating and to ask ourselves why. I don’t think that procrastination bit was in the pact we shook on—that came later when I was talking to Ralph and we talked about doing what we want to do—“we make time for what we want to do” he said, and I said something about procrastination being what we want to do, sometimes, to avoid something we DO want to do but that we’re scared of-–and that goes for writing and letting others read it.

And I’m remembering the story Pete Batcheller told me about how his mom died—a story of wishes ignored. We need to talk to each other, the alumni, to let others know how we want our end days to be. We can help each other.

And I’m looking at the pictures I took of Jim Peterson’s incredible garage, the dream garage of any man who loves cars and is there a man who doesn’t? It’s more a showroom for his beautiful 50’s era Chevy sedan and truck and the Model A Ford that he and Gary Parker and Gary’s stepson are restoring. I nearly fell on the floor laughing when I saw the “leg lamp” in his tiny office—have you seen “The Christmas Story” movie that has now become a classic? If you have, then you’ll understand the laughter. But most of the time I was blown away by the collecting Jim has done and the beautiful way he has displayed the antique finds he has made or kept for decades. All of us were awed that he still had the water skis from his youth and the poster of a ski competition from the 60s. He also had the trophy from a car show our class had in 1962. Jim’s trophy was for The Cleanest Car and we could give him the 2010 trophy for The Cleanest Garage.

I’m re-savoring the taste of Gary Parker’s terrific beer—especially the High Five Hefe, which I hadn’t tasted before. I knew I liked his Irish Death Porter, but the Hefeweizen has a delicious taste and a rich, deep amber color, too, like a liquid semi-precious stone. And when it hits your taste buds and slides down to your belly, it’s a warming brew as sweet as Ellen Johnson’s voice.

I’m going to have to ask Ralph for the proportions of mayonnaise and mustard he uses in his potato salad, the best I’d tasted in a long time. And I’d love to know who made the tabouleh salad because it was lovely. As were the other dishes and desserts that were brought. Everybody did a super job of feeding us well.

We were honored to have Jackie Aldrich come to eat and talk with us—she is looking for members of her class (1963) and I hope we helped her out. I won’t soon forget how many offered to help me back out of the precarious parking spot I was in. They probably didn’t see it as a difficult place to park, but I am not a confident driver and I’m a worse backer-upper. As it turned out, I was having so much fun talking with Pete, David, Nancy Roi Goit, Linda Greaves Philpott and Janet Dore’ that I stayed late and it was easy to get my car out. Next time we have lunch at a house I’ll have to show up a little earlier and get a prime spot, as Pricilla Preus did with her tiny, yellow mini.

Fred Graeff and his wife, Penny, came to lunch this time and it was great to see them looking fit as always and I got to get more details of Fred Just’s Seabeck cemetery work and the book he is writing about Seabeck and has been researching extensively. His wife is equally involved and I could tell it is a love affair, not only between the two of them, but with the project as well.

Speaking of wives, Wayne Swenson brought his wife, too, and Jim Peterson’s wife Bonnie was everywhere, cleaning up after us, making coffee, and showing her beautiful quilt craft room and the results of her meticulous stitching on beds and walls. Jim has his cars (and his cola bottle collection), Bonnie has her quilts and they have a beautiful home that we were extremely lucky to be able to borrow for our August lunch. The ambience was warm and welcoming even if the day was cool, breezy and Fall-like.

Ellen Johnson has another song on her cd called The Middle Part of Love, that I like lots. In it she describes our everyday lives with our mates, the “middle part”, not the beginning dizzying part or the possible ending part, the sad falling out of love. The middle part we often trudge through, raise our kids in, get through, nearly ignore, the unglamorous part, which, really, is where the memories are made. Ellen doesn’t go into the old age part, but I think about it. Whether you feel you are in the middle part of love, or the ending part, or even the beginning part if life has thrown you a curve, I do hope you are enjoying the Lovely Part, which in my opinion is the continuation of our lunches and our getting to know each other all over again, and maybe with a few, for the first time.

PS: David, it took me a lot longer to get this onto the blog than I thought it would. Best laid plans and all that. So even when I'm trying to be disciplined, life gets in the way.

Dreams, Cruises and Automobiles

2010-08-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

I’m driving a little car. I’m not familiar with the car, its instruments are odd, my seat is too far back from the pedals. Not only that, the morning is frigid and the road I am traveling on is icy and I’m not in any neighborhood I’ve ever been before. I am trying to reach the pedals and shaking, a headache is coming on as my neck tightens and my jaws clamp in tension. I can feel the slide coming and slowly begin to glide off the road, in slow motion, frantically turning the wheel in the direction I’ve been taught, into the slide, into the slide, but nothing works and I end up in the ditch. That’s when I wake up.

Nightmares are rare for me. I have recurring unpleasant dreams, dreams that are not happy, fun, uplifting, but they aren’t terrifying. Instead they tend to be mildly disturbing, causing me to wonder what is going on inside my head, what has caused me to create a troubling scenario that I’ve never encountered this intensely in reality; what did I eat at dinner that got into my guts and made so much turmoil that I had to have this mid-night angst? The dreams are easy to interpret. If Freud or Jung were at my bedside they might insist I go deeper, to find more hidden meaning, but the meaning I have found for them seems to suit my slothful psyche.

The dreams, starting decades ago, were about cars and me. The car would be different in each dream, and the dreams were months apart sometimes, but the theme was the same. I am driving a car. The car is on a road. The road is icy. Or the road is muddy or bumpy. Or the road is full of holes. Or the road is steep. Only occasionally was the road easy to navigate, a joy to drive on, with lovely scenery outside my window. No, the road was horrid, the weather similarly awful, the conditions unhappy. I was struggling to keep the car on the road, or pushing on the gas to get it through the deep mud, or pushing harder on the gas pedal to get it up the vertical hill. The car wouldn’t cooperate, would slide off the road, would stall on the incline and move backwards. The end result was not positive. I was exhausted, afraid, without solutions.

After several of these same types of dreams, different only in the conditions of the road or perhaps the state of the car, I began to see that the car, the driver (me) and the road symbolized the problems I was struggling with in my life—an icy road was the precariousness of a marriage on the brink of disaster, slogging through mud a metaphor for trying to get to a solution about money issues, the hill the difficult climb up out of trouble. There was never anybody in that car except me. I was the one in charge of trying to keep the car on the road, trying to find the address, attempting to conquer the hill. Eventually, after a series of these uncomfortable dreams, there would come one in which the car worked magnificently, the road was dry and clear, the hills were gentle. It was clear that the problems I had were being solved; I was feeling serene again.

Then my husband and I went on a cruise to Mexico, just a short four-day cruise. We had a wonderful time, we both loved the freedom of leaving our luggage in a room and not having to move it in order to see a new town, we relished the gourmet meals, the level of service made us feel like royalty. We took cruise number two a couple of years later and that’s when my car dreams changed into cruise dreams, even though the second cruise was as lovely as the first.

In my dreams I was on a cruise, sometimes with my husband, sometimes with people from work, occasionally with people I’d never seen before. I wasn’t driving (or piloting) the ship, of course. I didn’t have that kind of control. I was a passenger who had to do something and I had to do it quickly. Most of the time it was packing. If you’ve been on a cruise you know that you have to pack your bags the night before and leave them outside your cabin door, where they are collected and taken off the boat as soon as it docks. The people who belong to the bags don’t get to disembark until several hours later.

Lots of my dreams involved me getting the bags packed on time and out to the hallway. In those dreams I was behind the 8-ball, late, scrambling, the boat was about to leave on another cruise, I was supposed to get off. I couldn’t find all my clothes, the suitcase wouldn’t open or it wouldn’t close. Anxiety!!! Other cruise dreams involved not being able to find my room in the labyrinth of the ship (a real possibility if you have a bad sense of direction). I wandered up and down the ship, from one level to another, confident people around me , laughing, eating, talking about their excursions, having a lovely time, knowing how to get back to their rooms—those dreams reminded me of the ones I used to have about not being able to find a classroom in high school, not having the Social Studies book, and realizing a test that would determine the quarter grade was in a half hour.

A couple of days ago I told my mother about these dreams. She thought changing to dreams about cruises meant I had “moved up in the world”. While this is a nice idea, I see them more as meaning that the events bothering me now are more out of my control, like a huge boat—I’m not the captain. That is in line with my “aging mom” responsibilities. I have much less control over what happens—life is the captain of this ship and it will go where it wants to go. In these dreams I never get to have the delicious meals, or the afternoon tea, or get to tour a new town. I am packing, trying to get organized, be on time, or I am searching for my room—and maybe in that room there will be safety, at the very least I will know where I am.

I don’t mind having dreams like this—it shows me what is on my mind that I might not be looking at—they aren’t so disjointed and strange that I could never interpret them without the help of a professional. There probably are more profound meanings to be found, but the ones I’ve found serve me well. I can zero in on real-life problems. If they are showing up in my dreams then they need to be addressed with more energy than I am giving them. If I’m in denial about something, my dreams will not let me look away. Pay attention! A cruise ship is bearing down on you! A car is sliding off the road! You are lost!

I am happy that I haven’t had a car or cruise ship dream in a long time. It doesn’t mean I don’t have stresses—they are still there, particularly the aging mom stress. No “transportation” dreams must mean that I am finding solutions, working through difficult things. What would be really cool is if I could ask my brain to give me Star Trek dreams on the USS Enterprise—I could be a crewman, beaming down to a new planet, finding problems to solve, worlds to explore, alien species to study. That would be more fun than driving a car on a dangerous road or trying to find my room in a huge ship and I could still have distress, if my dreaming brain insisted. I’d much rather be yelling, “Beam me up, Scotty!” than asking a steward where room #4006 is.

To Think or Not To Think

2010-08-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

I’m not thinking about being an atheist.

I’m not thinking about eating.

I’m not thinking about my ex-husband.

I’m not thinking about grocery shopping.

I’m not thinking about tea.

I’m not thinking about being old.

I’m not thinking about the sunshine.

I’m not thinking about my daughter in Norfolk.

Yes, I am, and my grandson who is going to Afghanistan in a week.

I’m not thinking about the danger.

I’m not thinking about clean floors or dirty laundry.

I’m not thinking about my brother and mother as this moment.

I’m not thinking about kayaking or canoeing or swimming.

I am thinking about coffee, caffeinated.

I am thinking about my granddaughters and hoping to visit them this week.

I am thinking about a lawyer I don’t like and what to do about her.

I am thinking about exotic travel, to places green, lush, warm, wild.

I am thinking about what it will be like when my husband retires in 4 short months.

I am thinking about exercising more.

I am thinking of walking to get the paper today and needing a raincoat.

I am thinking about rain, and wet, and damp chill.

I am thinking about slugs.

I am thinking about how good the peach/blueberry cobbler smells.

I am thinking about war.

I am thinking about youth and risk.

I am thinking about friends and reading books together.

I am thinking about reading.

I am thinking about that I love to write.

I am thinking about George Clooney and a new movie.

I am thinking about our 8^th wedding anniversary and Elvis Presley.

I am thinking that marriage is complicated and hard and sometimes easy.

I am thinking that love is baffling.

I am thinking that there are hundreds of kinds of love.

I am thinking how much I love peanut butter.

I am thinking about my son who will soon experience Southeast India.

I am thinking about giving gifts.

I am thinking that I love giving gifts almost as much as peanut butter.

I am thinking that my back hurts a little and that I need to stretch.

I am thinking about parenting and that I didn’t realize how difficult it was to know the right way while I was doing it.

I am thinking about my children as parents.

I am thinking about how good this coffee tastes.

I am thinking of starting a new religion—Coffeetarian.

Air Heads

2010-08-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

Never know what you're going to see when you take a trip to Seattle.

Toys

2010-07-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

Cowgirl Chris and her Gun

Toy Story III was recently released to great anticipation and reviews. I don’t know a soul who hasn’t enjoyed the Toy Story movies, probably because of the memories it brings back of the toys we used to play with and the imaginary worlds we entered when we played with them.

My favorite toys were dolls to begin with. The plastic doll with a diaper and her own bottle that I filled with water, fed to her and then to my delight, she immediately wet her tiny pink diaper. The wooden doll with the cloth body, which I loved better than any other doll and that my brother dunked in a bucket of water, which permanently removed the paint on her face. Neither of these dolls had hair, in fact, I don’t remember any of my dolls having hair. They didn’t have extra clothes either. And there were no Barbies then, or Bratz dolls. I think there were dolls that “walked”, had joints of some kind, but I didn’t have any of those.

I loved paper dolls, too, the kind that were hard cardboard with a book full of clothes you had to cut out with the little tabs for hanging the clothes on the doll. I had several of these, one or two of movie stars, and I played with them endlessly, changing their clothes. Trouble with these is that they didn’t bend! It was hard to get them to sit at the imaginary table, but they were better at going to bed.

I liked playing “cars”, too, but these were the days before Matchbox cars and so, oh poor kid, I played with rocks! I’d make roads in the dirt and drive my rock cars around on the streets in my “town”. (I know my brother had some cars but he wouldn't share.) And, of course, like all girls, I had a doll’s house. Mine was made of tin, with painted rugs and walls and plastic furniture, and I spent hours moving the furniture around. My paper dolls were too tall for the rooms in the house but they could walk around outside of it.

We may not have had Matchbox cars or talking dolls, but in those politically incorrect good old days we had guns and cowboy hats, so we played Cowboys and Indians. Being the oldest, I got to be Roy Rogers, my best friend, Linda, was Dale Evans, and my brother and her brother traded places being The Sheriff and The Bad Guy/Indian. We had a large lot with fruit trees so we had plenty of paths and bushes and trees to stand in for mountains and mesas and hideouts. Our laundry porch was the jail. I can still make the horse galloping sound with my mouth and tongue clicking against each other. When I make that sound it takes me right back to those days of trotting around searching for the bad guy and heading him off at the pass.

My most specific and happiest memory of playing with “toys” was recreating school in my bedroom. I loved clean paper and notebooks, large and small. I would line up my dolls and give them assignments and then put grades in a tiny notebook. I don’t recall disciplining anybody, just teaching them. I used my children’s books as texts and I taught them how to read. I might have taught them arithmetic, too, because I liked it.

When I got a little older I made my bedroom into an office and I became a secretary--another way to use clean paper and notebooks. I must have seen an office on television or heard about it on the radio, otherwise I can’t imagine how I would have known about such things. My Dad either upholstered or was a civil servant at the Navy Yard or Keyport, no offices or secretaries, and my Mom didn't work outside the home.

There were the “physical” toys, too. The hula hoop, which I got pretty good at, and my bicycle, which I rode around Tracyton endlessly, pretending it was a car. I wrote previously about how quiet our neighborhood was and I don’t remember ever having to worry about cars while I was riding. Tracyton had wide roads, some of them still dirt, and a kid could ride up and down the blocks safely. And in Winter we had a sled that our Dad made us and we had a steep hill that started up by Grant’s Store and leveled out perfectly so that we didn’t slide all the way down to the bay.

And pick-up sticks and Jacks, the games Darlene Murphy and I used to play at her house, on the kitchen floor. I loved the challenge of Jacks--I think we used to play it at grade school, too, when we weren’t jumping rope or playing Hop-Scotch. Which makes me remember the board games--Sorry, Monopoly, Operation.

We played and imagined a lot when we were kids. We had no electronics except for the radio we listened to most of my childhood because we didn’t have a TV set yet--ours came in 1954, when I was 10, but until that point I imagined Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and The Shadow and The Whistler. I will never forget the theme song to The Whistler, so mysterious, so scary.

I feel lucky that I lived in a simpler time, that I played outdoors a lot and that my imagination was percolating all the time.

Soul Food

2010-06-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

The lamb, some mushrooms, Eliza and Paniotis (cousins)

For years now I have listed my “favorite meal of the year” on my New Year’s Paper, so it’s not usual for me to think about meals I have had. The writing assignment from The Daily Writer for February 13 was “Begin writing a series of soul-food dining moments”. It has been pretty easy for me to find some good highlights as food, the cooking of it, and the eating of it, and the smell of it, and the look of it, have always been a significant part of my life.

The first meal I thought of was the Easter meal in Greece that we were honored to attend in the Spring of 2008. This was a big Greek, loud family deal. All the brothers, sisters, cousins, Aunts and Uncles were there in the tiny yard of my husband’s Aunt Eleni. I knew there would be a lamb on a spit--I had seen old pictures from Michael’s albums of the spit being hand-cranked, uncles taking turns, the lamb roasting for hours in the open air, the smell of the lamb floating up into the house. However the lamb wasn’t being hand-cranked this year as my husband had expected--someone had rigged an electric motor to turn the spit and so the uncles got to relax. With the exception of Eleni’s husband, Lefteris, they are all in their 80s after all. Cooking was taking place in the house, too, women peeling potatoes, squeezing lemons, chopping garlic, going out to take a look at the lamb. A big roasting pan was being filled with the potatoes, lemon squeezed on top, olive oil drizzled over it and then a flat piece of lamb with garlic in the fat pockets, then more garlic around the potatoes, then shortening dotted op top and more olive oil on the lamb and freshly ground pepper, and this would bake in a very slow oven for a couple of hours while more lamb roasted outside on the spit.

It was a long wait for the dinner and when it was finally done the living and dining rooms were full with relatives--we younger ones (youth being relative) all ate at a couple of card tables, the octogenarians at the dining table, drinking wine, laughing, speaking Greek, telling stories, remembering other Easters. There were the traditional red Easter eggs, which each of us would wish on and then crack together, the one with the shell that didn’t break would get his wish.

The Oldsters (Uncle Lefteris is pouring Retsina, which was made by a guy across the street.)

The Youngsters (Me, Lambrose, Cousin Mihali and Cousin Mary)

I’ve been trying to duplicate those potatoes ever since and can’t seem to get it just right. I have to go back to Greece again, probably next year if they stop striking over their anger about the economic cutbacks, and ask Eleni to show me exactly how she makes them. And then again, it might just be the potatoes, lemons and garlic that are different in Greece or maybe, really probably, it was just the company.

The yummy lemon potatoes with a hunk of lamb on top

A Poetic and Sentimental Dad

2010-06-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

This was written by my Dad when I was small, but old enough to smile. I rediscoverd it recently.

(I know there has to be a way to turn this so that it can be read, but I can't find one, so I'm going to type the text here.)

Just a Sweet little thing
With a cute little smile--
She's pretty, that's plainly seen.
She wins many hearts
With her wondrous beguile,
This shy little girl
Christine.

Up in heaven I'm sure,
No angel could be
Sweeter than this one on earth.
With her dark pretty hair
And her lovely blue eyes
No price is too great for her worth.

Gardening When Wet

2010-06-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

I was writing in my head on Friday, while I was in my garden, and doing pretty well, so I thought I’d better start getting it down before all those words disappeared.

As anyone who lived in the Pacific Northwest knows, we have had a wet and cold Spring, what feels like an extension of winter. The Jet Stream chose to give us a mild winter, no snow to speak of, temperatures mostly in the forties, but the Jet Stream seems also to have chosen to continue it’s influences on our Spring, which has seen more rainy days in a row than I can ever remember at this time of year and temperatures in the 50s during the day and often down to the 30s at night. In my memory, which admittedly is viewed through rose-colored glasses, May was a month that could often be described as summery. My son was born in May of 1977 and I distinctly remember his tiny little body in only a diaper and a t-shirt because it was so warm.

But this year, our warm Spring days could probably be counted on one hand. I have found myself on so many days standing at the window, staring out at the wet patio, the dripping apple trees, the wet soil in my new raised beds. At the beginning of April I planted lettuce and beet seeds. They germinated pretty quickly and I was excited by the 1/4 inch tall seedlings. But then the weather changed back to seriously cold at night, in the 30s, and my little seedlings stopped growing. A few weeks later, I planted more lettuce and beet seeds. Only a few of them sprouted. Two weeks ago I did a third planting. No little seedling has dared to show it’s face yet--those tiny seeds are obviously shivering below the surface of the soil, afraid to pop their heads out for fear of freezing or being drowned by giant drops of rain--glub, glub. The first seedlings have now shriveled, totally giving up and who can blame them?

Friday I had had it with the rain. I had considered drowning (you see how much I am thinking of copious amounts of liquid?) my sorrows in margaritas but I thought I’d try a more positive approach and try rain drowning first. So I put on my blue and black raincoat, the hooded one everyone in the Northwest owns that we all bought at the big warehouse store, and I put on what I think of as my clonker shoes, big, ugly navy blue ones that I bought through the catalog from the store with the letters and the legume name and I got my nitrile gardening gloves and my 5-gallon white bucket and I went out the door into the rain, shaking my fist at the sky: “You won’t win”, I yelled at the black clouds. “I will not be stopped!”

While I was staring out my windows one of the plants in my garden that had caught my ambitious attention was a large white rhododendron that had flowered profusely at the beginning of the month. The blossoms had been huge, luminescent, attracting bees, proving why we gardeners plant rhody’s here in the Northwest. But after days of rain the blooms were dragging on the ground, had become brown and slimy, the weight of the rain on the spent blooms threatening to break the skinny limbs. This would be the target of my rebellion against the constant rain.

Dead-heading a rhododendron is not my favorite garden chore. The old flowers stamens are sticky, they are hard to grasp with gloved fingers and even harder to be precise with the removal of the entire flower clump. I usually use surgical gloves because this kind of work requires care, but Friday the rain was cold and I wanted my hands to stay warm while I rebelled against the unseasonable wet.

I grasped and broke off the dead heads, throwing them in my bucket, while my increasingly wet hood slid down over my face, blocking my view of the bush. I pushed into the shrub to get at those old flowers that had hidden inside it, in the process drenching my jacket and my pants with the rain the leaves had been collecting. My clonkers were getting soaked, my nose was cold, my hair, that I had carefully blown dry earlier, never expecting that I would be leaving the house for any reason, had turned limp, my back was aching, not used to this level of gardening yet. But I looked up at the sky and cursed again, and kept at it, dead head after dead head.

I heard no dogs barking, no neighbors calling to each other, not a car or UPS truck, no birds singing--it was deadly quiet except for the sound of the rain on the cobblestones and the rhododendrons. Just as I was deciding that not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, except for crazed me, I heard the distinctive calls of the raven couple who nest near our yard and every day take a cruise over their “territory”. A big raven, maybe male, flew overhead followed noisily by either a female or a juvenile learning to fly, grocking and complaining. Another small raven brought up the rear, equally loudly. I wasn’t alone after all, in my desire to be doing something productive despite the weather. I felt a little better to know that I had company.

I forged on, almost done, then finding one more spent bloom, slimy with wet, under a dripping leaf, then one more and one more, until finally I was done, my bucket 3/4 full. I was able to stand back and be happy about what I had accomplished. I stood dripping from head to toe, not nearly as glorious looking as the rhododendron bush, which, as soaking wet as me, was now clean and lovely, her dark green gown glistening with pearls of rain. Standing next to her was another rhody just now beginning to bloom, which in a week or two would begin shedding its flowers and making a mess, probably a soggy one if the trend continued. But for now, all was well, all was serene, the rain was not my enemy anymore, but a benevolent entity bathing my garden, nourishing and gentle. Me and the rain, the only ones besides the ravens, both triumphant.....and wet.