Changes

It’s inevitable that things change year by year.  In 2011 the big change was my mother dying.  2012 hasn’t been that dramatic, but nevertheless, there have been changes.  We are older and our bodies are beginning to show that.  Michael decided to eat less sugar and to try to exercise more and I was diagnosed gluten intolerant.  I have always loved to bake, but baking is now a whole new game of alternate flours and xanthan gum and avoiding eggs. I had been putting it off but after Thanksgiving I embarked on baking my first batch of gluten-free cookies.  I turned the radio to 106.9, All Christmas Music All The Time Starting the Day After Thanksgiving, setting the cookie baking mood.  

I got out all my baking tools, put the parchment paper on the cookie sheets, gathered the unfamiliar ingredients, the brown rice flour and the garbonzo bean flour, the familiar sugar, baking soda and baking powder, the chocolate chips and walnuts. I had been warned that GF baking is “different”. I followed the recipe from the gluten-free recipe book, the normal steps of creaming the sugar and oil (I'll use butter next time), then adding the dry ingredients and milk. I tasted the batter. It was grainy.  I hoped the graininess would retreat to the background when the chips and nuts were added.  I dropped the batter from a teaspoon onto the cookie sheet and put the first pan in the oven.  The time suggested for baking was 17 minutes.  When the timer went off the cookies were still pale.  I added 2 more minutes.  Still no browning.  2 more minutes and then 2 minutes more.  After adding 10 minutes to the baking time, 2 minutes at a time, I finally got a slightly browned cookie.  On the next batch I jacked up the heat and got browned cookies in a shorter amount of time and made a note on the recipe to use butter next time and to start with a higher heat.  

I think it's going to be like America's Test Kitchen around here for awhile, until I get the hang of this kind of baking.  In the meantime, the music was nice and the cookies aren't bad--I like them (Michael doesn't)--I'm used to gluten-free eating after several months of it and everything tastes less sweet and less flaky and let's face it, less good.  Who knew gluten was so important in mouth-watering concoctions?  I'll keep at it  until I have something I would be willing to serve to gluten-eating-people, something that feels and tastes less like cattle feed. Wish me luck!

A Voyage to Remember

In Tracy Arm

Where do I begin?  How about with the first day?  We started to see other CK alumni on the ferry out of Bremerton.  We saw Tracy and Marie Junell and got a fleeting glimpse of Ed and Judy (I think).  We saw Tracy again in the check-in line at Pier 91 and again in line at the buffet when we all got on the ship, the Star Princess.  I spotted Trude and Elaine Gillman in the long, long buffet line, too, and then later Jack and Karen Archer not paying attention during the lifeboat drill.  The first thing I did after unpacking was to call Larry McConnell to find out which bar we were meeting at on Deck 7 at 6:00.  It was called Crooners.  I called everybody on the list.  My plan was to discuss how we wanted to organize the rest of the cruise.

The best laid plans—we didn’t really get to that.  We were more interested in ordering drinks, learning everybody’s names and getting some history.  Ask Wayne Swenson how I am at ordering drinks.  I had to look some up on Michael’s iTouch in order to figure out what to drink.  I decided on a Tom Collins.  Sounds pretty sophisticated and ‘60s, no? It was delicious!

Larry McConnell

Everybody came to the party:  Tracy and Marie Junell; Trude and Elaine Gillman; Larry McConnell; Stevie Kemp and her daughter, Sherrie-Ann; Jack and Karen Archer; Ed and Judy Lively; Marty McLaren and me and my husband, Michael.  We had the waiter running and we were a noisy bunch, laughing and yelling back and forth. This was a new adventure.  Many of us had been on cruises before, but none of us had been on a cruise with alumni from our high schools.  What a trip back and forward in time. 

We did decide to troop off to dinner together and ended up at two tables far from each other.  I think they were having as much fun at their table as we were having at ours. We talked non-stop, barely noticing what we were eating—kind of like we do at our alumni lunches.  Ignoring the food on a cruise ship is extraordinary, because the meals are exquisite.  Since most of us are all at least 68, we petered out at around 9:00 and found our way back to our cabins, with promises to meet for lunch on Monday.

That’s how it went for the rest of the cruise.  We met at what we dubbed Larry’s Bar between 5 and 6 every evening and discussed the day and what we were doing for dinner.  We were a family of 16.  “What did you do today, Christine?”  “We went into Ketchikan and over to the Creek and watched the seals catching the poor salmon that were trying to spawn.”  “Are you going to the show tonight, Jack?”  “Want to eat at the Capri dining room?”   “We saw some whales today!” “What are you going to do in Juneau?” “Who wants to help me finish this bottle of wine?”

Some nights one or another of us was missing from the party at Larry’s Bar and sometimes a couple or two would opt out of the dining room and decide to go to the buffet.  One night we all sat together having our evening cocktail, worrying about whether Marty was going to make it back from her solo ride on the White Pass train before the ship departed Skagway.  (She made it back just in time.) Another night we managed to get two tables of eight right next to each other and one night we got a huge table for twelve.  The waiters earned a tip that night.  We were the last ones to leave the dining room.  At each dinner together it was the same.  Talk, eat, laugh, talk, eat, laugh, eat, talk.  And there was never an awkward pause in conversation as there sometimes is when you are sitting with strangers at a cruise ship dinner.  Even though we were together off and on for a week, there never seemed to be enough time to chat. Marty and I had to make a date for some time together and Jack kept saying, “Christine, you and Michael haven’t eaten with Karen and me yet.”  I wonder if some alumni thought they’d get tired of their old school friends if they went on a cruise with them.  I can’t imagine that.

Michael and Marty discuss politics

We all saw different things, we all did different things.  Some went into town, some didn’t.  Some went on excursions, some just walked around in Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway.  And then we’d come together and tell each other what we’d seen and done.  Remember The Big Chill movie?  It was like that except there was no kitchen.  It was the dinner table where we teased each other and found out more about each other, made toasts and compared notes.  I think Ralph might have thought we would stay on the boat and talk 24/7, but we did it differently, coming together for our evening cocktail and making plans for dinner.  It became a pleasant habit and a great regular addition to each day.  (We made a decision toward the end.  If we do a cruise again with many alumni, we will choose fixed dining so we can have a huge table for all of us and not have to worry about reservations.)

Judy and Ed Lively and Michael in the Atrium of Star Princess

Here are some things I’m not going to forget:

            Jack’s big grin and wine bottles and Karen’s huge, colorful drinks. (no, she’s not a lush but I’m not so sure about Jack!)

            Marty looking very relaxed.

            Larry talking about his grandkids with love splashed all over his face.

            Ed’s formal attire—black pants and jacket, an orange t-shirt, and orange breast pocket handkerchief and orange Converse tennis shoes. Go Cougars!

            Trude Junior “Gil” Gillman in a suit, looking good!

            Elaine Gillman’s pretty fingernails.

            Trude saying, after an excursion in Ketchikan, “I didn’t see anything I couldn’t have seen at Chico Creek”.

            Tracy’s hilarious stories about being in Mr. Huey’s office all the time.

            Jack, Karen, Ed and Judy dancing.

           

Of course, I won’t forget the seals in Ketchikan Creek corralling spawning Coho salmon or the beautiful green mountains and aqua water of Tracy Arm or the fact we could walk up so close to Mendenhall Glacier.  I won’t forget that on this fourth time my husband and I have cruised to Alaska our weather Karma finally ran out.  It rained.  I’ll always remember how quirky Skagway is, even if it does have too many “gold stores”.  I won’t forget the porcupine up a tree in Juneau or the young boy who said, “We’ve seen lots of bears.  It’s much rarer to see a porcupine.”  I won’t forget our Alaskan driver on the Blue Bus in Juneau who had such an odd accent I could barely understand him. I’ll always be thankful to our steward, Rakesh (East Indian), who was so attentive to us and made us clever towel animals when he turned down our beds at night.

Love Birds by Rakesh

What I’ll always remember about this cruise, unlike all the others we’ve taken, or will take, is the people we were with, the dear old friends and new ones, like Sherrie-Ann, Judy Lively, Elaine Gillman and Marie Junell.  Thank you, Ralph.  We toasted you and thought of you every day, wishing you were there.  And we talked about the future and another cruise, or trek, mountain lodge or ocean cabin—some other place to gather for a week—and you with us next time. 

Gluten-Almost Free

Yeah, it's been a long time. And my "readers" are probably not even checking anymore. I wouldn't be checking regularly if I was them. Oh bother, same old post as last time. I've been pretty busy though because I have just been diagnosed as Gluten Intolerant. First reaction? Anger!!!! Grrrrr!!! Can't bake anymore--have to start reading those doggone impossible- to-read-because-my- eyes-blur ingredients on the backs of boxes and jars. Have to buy SPECIAL food. Dang, dang and double-dang. But then, as always when presented with a problem, I threw a book at it. I went to the lovely, local Barnes and Noble and found Gluten-Free Recipes for Dummies and, more importantly, a recipe book for Gluten and Egg Free Baking (did I mention I also tested positive for egg intolerance?). The recipe book is called Flying Apron's Gluten-Free & Vegan Baking Book and is written by a woman who owns a bakery in Seattle--www.flyingapron.com .  I'm not going to become a Vegan but they don't eat eggs (among other things I find very delicious) so this will work for me.

Okay....so....I've been reading and researching and buying expensive gluten-free things.  My husband is flinching at the grocery costs (we have a grocery budget and he keeps track of it).  I flinch, too, when I buy a loaf of gluten-free bread and it costs nearly $5!!  But I love bread and it's one of the things I just can't live without.  I'm learning, though, that there are things I will have to live without.  I won't be able to eat Ralph's donuts anymore--maybe one, but not one everyday like I was doing when he brought me a bag full at one of our 50th alumni reunion planning meetings.  And his potato salad is incredible partly because he puts so many eggs in it--another dish I will have to avoid.  Then there are all those things I love to made--cookies, bars, muffins--that I'll have to re-invent.  Sounds like I'm not going to be any fun anymore, doesn't it?  That's part of why I don't much like this diagnosis.  I should not drink regular beer anymore, either....and that hurts.  I have found gluten-free beers, but they aren't Gary's Irish Death or Silver City Brewery's Panther Lake Porter, my two favorites.  Even a pretty light beer like Corona is now off my list.  Did I mention I turned the air blue with cursing when I got the word about the gluten?

The thing is, I have suffered from intestinal stuff for almost my entire life, and now I have arthritis that is progressing fast and I have to take anti-depressants for my moodiness.  And from December to April 2011-12 I had three bad colds.  So instead of going to a regular doctor who would have had nothing but pills in their arsenal of remedies, I went to a naturopath.  I happened to know Jane already--she's in my writing group--and I trust her.  She is the one who had me tested and she is the one who had to tell me about my intolerances.  She was afraid I might say, "Screw it!" and never come back to see her again, but I did go back and she gave me all kinds of ideas and resources.  I'm getting used to the idea, sort of.  It's only been a couple of weeks since the tests came back.  I found out right before we went to Gary Parker's Iron Horse Brewery in Ellensburg ( www.ironhorsebrewery.com ) for a tour of his tiny brewing building.  He gave us a taste of every beer he had on tap.  They were delicious, cold, refreshing and I knew with each gulp that they might be some of the last tastes of real beer I'd have in a long time, if ever again.  That made them doubly wonderful and I felt wicked and intoxicated.  We had a great 24 hours with Gary, and I ate all kinds of things I wasn't supposed to--it was a wheat binge--flour tortillas, bread and waffles.

The upside to all this "intolerance" is that without wheat gluten (which includes barley and rye) I feel more energetic, my stomach isn't rebelling, I'm less moody.  My fingers are still aching--we'll have to give it more time to see if the new diet helps that condition.

That's one of the reasons I haven't been blogging--the others are that it's summer (yahoo!!) and I can work in my garden, I'm taking an online writing class for several weeks and it's intensive writing, and my writing group demands something new every two weeks.  Reasons, reasons.  If only I could be satisfied with a one paragraph blog post....I'll work on that.  I hope this post satisfies some of my readers, if they're still out there.  If you have any gluten-free, egg-free advice, let me know.

One Year

Dear Mom,

It’s been an entire year since that May 22 that you died.  I’ve gotten pretty much past the vision of you gasping for air when I got back to your house after taking a two-hour break that morning.  It was not a sight I ever wanted to see, and it stayed in my head for a long time.  Now, 12 months later, it isn’t the paramount picture I have of your last few hours.  What I remember now is sitting on the bed by your side, stroking your head, while your granddaughter, Carolyn, laid on the other side of you, curled around your head and your great-grandson Alex laid next to you.  Stanley was at the foot of the bed.  He seemed to need a little more distance.  We talked to you and waited for your last breath to come.  We knew you were leaving us very soon.  As you took that last breathe Stanley and I said, nearly at the same instant, “Poor little Mama.”  Carolyn and I began to cry and I took your rings off your finger—I didn’t want them to be there when the people came to take you away.  I put them on my finger and they stayed there for days.  Alex put the picture he’d drawn of a rose on your chest.  He did it so sweetly, with so much sensitivity.  He really cared about you, even though he’d not known you very well.  I guess he knew that you saw the artist in him that very few others had seen yet.

Your skin turned the most gorgeous ivory just after you died.  You looked like a beautiful angelic marble statue.  I will never forget how you looked at that moment and I hope it will one day replace the gasping-for-air picture that floats in every now and then.  Strangely, Carolyn and I had the same impulse—to go through your jewelry to find a token, something to hold of yours in the days to come.  Alex wanted a large pin, Carolyn looked for a pendant she remembered you wearing.  I only remember the act of looking, not what I took.  All of the practical things that had to be done came after that.  We had to call Hospice and Michael.  Eventually the funeral home people showed up—one guy who looked like a plumber with another guy who looked like a ghoul!  We went into the kitchen when they took you out of the house, turning our backs, not looking.  There was paperwork to do, pills to destroy, decisions to make.  I remember very little of that.  I was relieved and devastated at the same time.  I had known you were dying for several months, I suppose you knew it too, though you kept promising me you were going to get better.

I’ve dreamed about you many times in the year since you left.  In the dreams you are younger, not sick.  Dad is there, too.  You are together and healthy.  I love those dreams—they are like a visit from both of you.  You would be happy to know that Stanley finally ended up in a nice apartment.  It took a long time—he didn’t move until April—but he is at Bremerton Garden Apartments with a view of the Manette and Warren Ave bridges—where Aunt Carol lived for awhile, way back in the sixties or seventies.  He is happy there and says his kitty is, too.  I am reading your diaries.  I know that you left them for me to read and I am thankful you did.  I am learning so much about you that I didn’t know and they keep me connected to you in a wonderful way.  I just wish I had the earlier ones from the 50s and 60s.  What happened to them?  Did you get rid of them?  Did they burn in the fire in 2002?  I’m in the seventies with you right now.  Your diaries are like novels to me, real page-turners, more fascinating than I ever thought they’d be.  It will take me a long time to read through them, but that’s okay—you’ll be with me longer that way.

We sold your house, Mom.  I don’t think you’d be very happy to see what they’ve done to it so far, but they have great plans, so in the end it will be okay.  The mother of the lady across the street bought it.  She wants to “bring it back to its origins, the Twenties”, she told me.  But in preparation for that they’ve cut down the lilacs, the magnolia, the pink dogwood, even the huge camellia bush.  I think they left the wisteria bush, but they also got rid of all that awful ivy and cut down one of the big fir trees that was threatening the house.  The yard looks huge now, bigger than I ever knew it was.  I’m going to have to let go of it pretty soon, but I keep going by there to see what else they’re going to do and if I approve.  The year of getting the house ready to sell caused me to have a possessiveness about it that’s hard to get over now.

I think that’s all I wanted to tell you.  It’s Memorial Day weekend and I’ll take some flowers to your and Dad’s crypt up on Cemetery Hill, like I’ve done every year since Dad died.  I should go more often, but you guys aren’t really there.  It’s only your ashes.  Stanley has some of your ashes in a heart I got for him and I kept some, too.  You are with us every day. I hope you approve of how things are going.  We miss you.

                                    Love, Chris

Dig, dig, dig

Zuzu

My youngest granddaughter, Zuzu, 4 years old, has been visiting her Other Grandparents, Marg and Dennis, in Kingston for Spring Vacation.  She and her sisiter, Alison, 6, generally come to visit me several times while they are here.  This trip, though, Zuzu  has decided not to come to see me.  This is what she told her Cousin Claire (Claire is 19 or 20).

“Why don’t you want to go see your Grandma Christine, Zuzu?”

“I don’t want to dig.  Dig, dig, dig--that’s all we do when we go see Gramma Chrit-stine.  When I was three I liked to dig, but now that I’m four, I don’t like to dig.”

Luckily, her sister, Ali, came to see me twice and we had a wonderful time.  Ali prefers spending time with me alone anyway.  Not having to share me with her sister is a big treat for her.  We bake cookies, play the piano, play Animal Vet, “walk the paths” (our long cobblestone pathways), clean up “The Camp” where the girls play in the summer, take the long walk to get the newspaper out of the mail box.  This time she wanted to help wash dishes. I asked Ali if Zuzu likes to do dishes and she said, “Zuzu doesn’t like to clean”.  She doesn’t like to dig either!

I'm Out of It!

A Toast to Michael

The long business of cleaning out my Mom’s house and getting it ready to put on the market started last June.  The first several months of that time my husband, Michael said he’d help with the heavy jobs.  He’d carry the big sacks of junk out of the house, down the stairs from the second story or up the stairs from the basement.  He’d help put the heavy pieces into the dumpster and he’d help carry the furniture out of the house.  “But”, he said, “after all that’s done with, I’m out of it.”  That meant, to him, and to me, that he wouldn’t help anymore, that he’d leave the rest to me. 

When he first used that phrase I felt angry with him, because even after the house was cleared of messes and furniture, there was still going to be a lot that needed to be done.  If I couldn’t count on him for help, I was really going to be on my own with this big, falling-down house and the specter of that made my head spin.

As time moved on though, I found that “I’m out of it” meant “until the next time I want to add my advice or my muscle to what you’re doing.”  Michael is a guy who thinks there is really only one way to do things—his way.  So when he’d see me putting something off, like getting the old freezer and refrigerator out of the basement, he found a coupon in his electric bill for removal of unused appliances. I was able to get PSE to come, remove the appliances and even send me a VISA gift card for $20 each.  When our realtor mentioned that banks want “health letters” to verify there is a working septic system before they will grant real estate loans, Michael called a septic company to come out to find the system.  I was in Wisconsin at the time.  Did I mention he doesn’t like to wait around—no procrastinating for him.  When I got home he had shovels ready for us to go out and dig the septic up.  He arranged for a landscaper, too, who came out and took all the blackberries out of the backyard and unearthed old hoses, rotted pieces of wood, a laundry room sink and other things that had gotten back there somehow.  What was left was a pile of take-to-the dump stuff, which we did together.  The most recent “I’m out of it” moment came when one of the realtors locked the basement door for which we had no key.   Michael made several suggestions as to how to handle the problem, one of them being that he would try to break into the basement with some of his tools.  He tried, it didn’t work and we called a locksmith, who solved the problem.

If I had a dollar for every time my husband has said, “I’m out of it!”  I’d have quite a little bundle by now.  And each time he’s jumped right back in, sometimes being grumpy about it, but always helping.  When he says, “I’m out of it” now, I slide a look at him and smile because it’s a sure case of the boy who cried wolf.  I just don’t believe it anymore.

I have taken him to lunch many times over the past months in gratitude for his helping me with a big job at Mom’s house.  We’ve dragged ourselves, dirty and sweaty into the Taqueria El Huarache in Silverdale and loosened our sore muscles with Negro Modelo and beans, rice and salsa.  There doesn’t seem any way to thank him enough for all he’s done, but one day I have a feeling he’ll say, “Remember all those times I told you I was out of it, but I helped you anyway?  I have a way you can repay me.”  Until that day, this public appreciation will have to do.  Thank you, dear husband, for all you’ve done to help me through this hard time.  Because of you, I can still walk upright and my knees still work and I have not had a nervous breakdown.  You’ll get your hugs and kisses in private.   

House for Sale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.