Musings, ramblings, and gripings

Screw it.

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:46:03 GMT

I am stomping on that cynical 5% of myself. I am going to enjoy Christmas caroling in the car. Heaven knows I'll have sullen moody teenagers soon enough, I don't have to worry ahead of time.

Christmas was fun and exhausting. Certain amounts of cleaning and cooking going on, although cooking a ham instead of a turkey saved a LOT of time. Turkey: thaw, cook neck and giblets, make stuffing, get up O dark hundred to pop that bird in the oven after shoving icy cold stuffing into orifices, baste, baste, baste. Try to find ways to cook other things that need to be cooked without doing it in the oven. Ham? Take out of fridge, decorate with pineapple rings, glaze with pineapple juice and brown sugar glaze, cook for one hour, done. I love turkey, but I'm thinking maybe other things for Christmas dinner from now on.

My brother and his girlfriend gave me a hot steam mop! Woohoo! I've been wanting to use it on my nasty kitchen floors since I put it together. We've got ground-in dirt around the dining room table that only goes away if I get on hands and knees and use a scrubbie. We'll see what happens with the steam mop.

I got three submersible hand blenders! Ha! I'm going to return two and get a set of flannel sheets for our bed. Best of all: I GOT A DIGITAL CAMCORDER!!! Holy smokes! Ed had been hinting at a big present that wasn't on my list, and made me wait until my moms-in-law were here before letting me open it. It was a small box, and I didn't have a clue what it could be. When I open it I screamed and then I cried. I've only been wanting one for 12 years or so!! Now I need to read the manual and know how to use it. Watch out youtube, here I come.

Saturday we had the D&Ders Christmas party. Once again I cooked a ham. I also cooked a sweet potato casserole, a crock-pot of lentil stew, and cornbread in the bread machine. Pretty much all the stew got scarfed, half the ham, and 99% of the sweet potato casserole. Funny thing, the dungeon-master's mom was here too, I would tell her what I had cooking: lentil stew--"I've never had lentils before" she'd say, I would pour her a small bowl, "Wow, that's delicious!" and the sweet potato casserole--"I'm not a big fan of sweet potatoes" she'd say, and I said it's more like a pudding, I put in butter, milk and eggs, top it with brown sugar and pecan streusel and bake it, "OK, I'll try a little" and "Oh goodness that's good, thank you so much!" I'm just glad she tried it and liked it. Now if only my kids would be that open to new foods....

Two kids about the age of my kids were here too, so in the afternoon I headed them up to the park. It was so damn good to walk and get some exercise. I brought up a bag of badminton equipment and a frisbee, my daughter brought her big styro-foam glider. The younger boys climbed in the play area, the girls and I played with the flying stuff, I walked around on the path a couple laps, we ended up in a giant game of prisoner tag with about a dozen other kids and 3 more adults. What a lot of fun! And on a glorious sunny bright chilly day. By the time we walked home my lower back no longer felt as though it had fused into one piece.

Today we played hooky from church. (Those D&D players can be difficult to get out of the house, they didn't all leave until about 11 pm, we got the kids to bed by 1130, and us about 1230.) We were super lazy all morning (I didn't get out of bed until 11 am), watching DVDs of Dirty Jobs, playing on the computer. I finally yanked us all out of the house around 4 so we could walk around the block and get some fresh air, then we made up for our laziness by moving furniture. Specifically, moving bookshelves from our family room to our front room. Which means emptying them first onto our expanded dining room table, then moving the two-ton bookshelf into the front room, then filling them with the books we'd stacked on the table. Doing that three times. Phew.

We want to move our couch to where the bookshelves were, maybe get a love seat off craigslist for the front room. I want to find a good place for the rocking chair I got when I was pregnant with Rose, maybe in the family room, maybe in the front room, but most definitely not in the hallway any more. Having Christmas stuff all over the place doesn't facilitate moving things around. Even though we only got them up last weekend, I already want to take them all down, not wait for New Year's Eve. And we found more stuff to drag to the Goodwill all over the place, mostly on top of the bookshelves before we moved them. It's going to be a good van load for sure, and a bunch of clothes to the mission, or to the St Francis house. It will be a relief to get all the boxes and bags of miscellaneous stuff OUT of here. Then maybe I'll tackle my desk.

Long time ago.....

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:49:11 GMT

I guess it's been awhile. I don't know why I haven't blogged. Temporary brain disfunction? Fuzziness in the creative cortex? Whatever.

The kids and I the last couple of days have started singing Christmas carols when we've been in the car. I drove them down to my mom-in-law's house Friday night for a sleep-over, and we just started. Sam is so cute when we sing Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer, he does the campy echoes and has the best giggle. Rose sang a couple of songs she knew by herself, and she's sounding good. I enjoy this very much, even though there's a cynical 5% of me snickering about how cheesy this is, how Leave it to Beaver, how Donna Reed. Am I bringing up my children to be too innocent? There's a lot of nastiness out there. I don't want them to not have defenses, I think....

Ed and I had a stupendous night out dancing Friday, at the Shorewood High School Big Band Dance. We had a luxurious dinner at the Thai Bistro--so relaxing, food was excellent. When we're on our own without the kids, it's as if our focus immediately centers on each other, and it's like we haven't seen each other for a long time. We took our time, and got to the dance after the instruction. We didn't care, we knew our basic steps.

As soon as we got there we dumped our coats at a table and hit the floor and I was so happy! The music was awesome for the most part. Einstein Middle School played first, then the Shoreline Community College played. Their music was well-played, but wasn't easy to dance to. Then Shorewood got up again, and baby, we moved and grooved. We have GOT to do this more often. It would certainly help get us back into shape!

I'm very proud of my daughter

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:43:16 GMT

She wrote a poem for the Reflections competition. She won an honorable mention. The theme was "Beauty is...." which I think is quite open-ended. There were a record-breaking 96 entries in our school this year. I think most of that had to do with the fourth grade teachers making all their kids write something this year for the competition.

This is a much bigger production than I thought. We went to the reception tonight, tons of snacks, tons of people all cheering for these kids who tried to be creative with the theme of "Beauty is...".

There were paragraphs, poems, photos, paintings, a collage or two, some tissue stained glass art, and so on. These were 1st graders to sixth graders works, so there was a certain range of neatness and coherency, but they were all fun to read and look at. I was there in my capacity as yearbook editor, as well as mom. Trying to take photos of groups of kids in the uproar was trying, to say the least.

On the way home my daughter says she wants to tell me something, but she doesn't want me to overreact. (Yes, I sometimes have a tendency to overreact to things my tween daughter tells me.) She says a boy on the bus put gum and a post-it note in her hair. Once she found out about it and got rid of them, she flipped the boy the bird. She said with a chuckle that she'd been wanting to do that for a while, this boy is an idiot.

I don't overreact this time. I laughed, and then I got ticked off. What the heck is he doing putting gum in my kid's hair?? I happen to know this boy, I asked her what she would do if I got on the bus tomorrow morning to confront this jerk. An immediate "NO" was her reply! I asked her if she remembered the comic strip Baby Blues where they talked about 'power eyes'. She did, and I told her to give this guy the power eye treatment the next time he tries something stupid, and say to his face "knock it off, you big jerk!"

I was kind of laughing when she told me this. My daughter at this point is a bit of a prude. She chastises me whenever I say something she thinks is a bad word. Lately she's been after me when I say 'crap'. She says it's another way of saying 'shit'. In my mind, crap is garbage, junk, trash. So we have a bit of a discussion when this comes up. So that makes her flipping the bird at this guy a bit of a turn-around for my girl.

So much for "Screw that 1230 am jazz"

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:42:03 GMT

Stayed up that late last night. It's amazing how cozy it can be to have someone else reading in the same room with you.

Couldn't sleep in this morning, which was just as well. I needed to get my daughter in to the hospital lab for a fasting blood draw. She was quite brave while the needle was in her arm, no problem. But on the way to the elevator she is clearly not feeling well. I kiss her forehead and she's clammy, I look at her lips, they're white, and she says she's feeling shaky. So I guide her over to a corner for her to lie down on her back. I scramble for something edible in my purse, all I can find is an old sugar-free butterscotch hard candy. I gave it to her, I tell my son to stay with his sister, and I go back to the lab.

"Excuse me, do you happen to have anything to eat back here? Hard candy, granola bar, anything?" The blue-coated medical people seem uncertain, don't know what to do or say. I say in a clear loud voice to the lab tech, "My 11 year old daughter just had a fasting blood draw and she's feeling faint, I need to get her something to eat." A young man from the waiting room comes up with a piece of Halloween candy. I thank him profusely, ignore the so unhelpful tech, and rush back to my daughter.

She eats the candy, feels better, we head downstairs to the gift shop. I find a pack of peanuts and a pack of Cheetos, get Cheetos for my son as well. We get home and I fix everyone something hot to eat. Phew. Crisis is over. I'm so glad I'm not normally a panicky type of person.

Had a busy day. Went to pick up the Cub Scout popcorn orders my son had gotten, now we just need to get it out to our customers. Stayed at the church for their holiday bazaar, got some stocking stuffers--handmade specialty soaps for my sisters-in-law. Headed to the pharmacy to pick up a med, went up in price, now $50. Sheesh! It used to be $40, $50 seems so much more expensive! "Heck, that's a Christmas present price!" I exclaimed to the pharmacist's assistant. It's enough to make me think of trying something else, although I tried everything else available for this problem and nothing worked as well as this. Headed home, unloaded the popcorn stuff. Practiced my flute music for tomorrow, watched a little of the Myth-busters DVD we got from Netflix. Herded my kids to the car for dinner at my mothers-in-law's house.

Lovely dinner--roast chicken, steamed broccoli, home-grown Ozette potatoes with real butter, yum. Played Scrabble with my daughter and one grandma. Grandma Maud came up with a 21 point word that landed on a triple word score, and that was all she wrote.....63 points! Always wonderful to spend time with them, even if we get trounced at our board games.

Must, must, must go to bed, but first have to get the clean laundry off the bed.

Things are better

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:55:52 GMT

The nausea has lessened. We won't have to pay the mortgage in December. I remembered to ice my back to relieve the pain. I am not so swirling in a hurricane of depression.

And I'm going to go to bed earlier tonight. Screw that 1230 am jazz. I'm tired of being tired all the time, I'm tired of not having all my smarts available for use.

And so, good night.

I'm still feeling sucky.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:48:50 GMT

The Fed Ex package was actually for the guys next door. So I had to lambaste BOA again, in a professional yet concerned manner, as to why the f&$% they haven't closed our refinance yet, since she's had it in her hands for two weeks (or rather several months). Oh, I've had the flu and I've had a death in the family. So? Just finish our refinance and you can go home. Sheesh. Now we need to pay the mortgage and we're not sure we have enough to cover it right now. Will we still have to pay in December? We were really looking forward to not having to pay mortgage one month, and that now seems up in the air, according to the impressions I got from the loan rep.

The doctor called and said I don't have an infection. I said why then the sharp pains in the lower back and the severe nausea? She says I should contact my GP and talk to them, because it's not being caused by the bladder. My back is killing me, the nausea comes and goes, it's bad enough at dinnertime that my family eats without me. What could be doing this? Reactions to meds? Sweet lord, it's almost like I'm pregnant. But I've had my tubes tied, I'm 51, I'm menopausal. Maybe it's my body's last grasping chance for a period or two....

Crap. Crap. Crap. Depressed, gloomy, misery, woe. Shit. Shit. Shit. And why is it, when I'm miserable, that I just do things to increase my misery? I spent too long on stupid computer games instead of getting things accomplished. It's better being miserable in a clean house rather than a messed up dirty one and I take some pride in keeping my house clean. Yet I look at the floor that doesn't get clean when I mop it because the dirt is so engrained, and I don't want to mop it, because it won't get clean. I want to try a steam mop, but they're close to $100, and I was going to get one to see if it worked on whatever month we didn't have to pay a mortgage. Maybe that's not going to happen....so I'll have to sit on my bum and scrub it on hands and whatever knee isn't bugging me.

I got the kids to pick up the family room, but it still looks shitty, things all over the place, needs to be vacuumed and sorted and put away. Need to get rid of a bunch of stuff.

The old bathroom is a sight. The paint is peeling where I tried to join the old and new sheetrock. Some little boy's fingers found a small area on the wall where the paint had torn and now it's a big huge spot with fingernail scrapings and yuck. We still need to tile up where the window used to be. It's grundgy. Yuck.

My desk is a mess. Papers all over. I need to straighten things out. I'm going to be doing some of the bills now, and I need to be able to find things when I need them. Do I do any of this? No, I sit and stew and hunch over my keyboard.

My eyes are bothering me, no my vision is bothering me. Is it possible for vision to improve as we age? or is it just that I need a different prescription when I sit in front of a monitor? I sure as hell don't need more places to spend money right now. Maybe it's brain problems. I think one word yet type something different. And it happens over and over again.

Grump. Grump. Grump. Hopefully the sun will rise tomorrow and I will be in a better mood. I will work out and see my doctor and go to work. Humpf. We'll see. Maybe I'll get something done tomorrow. Oh yeah, I walked a mile today and swept out the kitchen and dining room and the bathrooms. I need to do more.

I'm feeling sucky today.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:29:41 GMT

I was told I had an infection Monday morning. I have to wait until Wednesday to find out what kind and see what antibiotic to take. I've been re-evaluating some issues I had going for the last few weeks.

Such as the lower back pain. Perhaps it wasn't from not working out, perhaps it's from this infection. So by Monday afternoon my back ache is getting worse--psychosomatic, yes?

I've been nauseous back and forth for a few weeks. I'd started another statin drug: Crestor. Supposed to increase my good cholesterol as well as decrease the bad stuff. I don't react well to statin drugs, they either make me depressed or make me ache or make me nauseous. Unless the nausea comes from this infection....

What if the white cells in my sample indicate something more is wrong with me? What if they told me it took til Wednesday to cultivate the strain, when actually they just need to get more verification that it's leukemia or something? (You see how hypochondriac I can get?) Why can't I get antibiotics right away, as I usually do??

Today it's gotten worse. It feels as though someone's taken an ax to my lower back. The nausea was so strong that I thought I would throw up if I had to look at food, as in make dinner. After the kids and I got home, all I could do was kick off my shoes, grab my book, settle in the recliner and take a nap. For about two hours.

I just need to remain calm. Right. Calm. I should find out tomorrow what the infection is and I can start taking meds. Except we've had a change in our health insurance and I don't have a card to cover the prescriptions and we can't print out the permission thingie because Ed can't find it online at their website.

Tomorrow we'll also find out if the Fed Ex package they attempted to deliver today is actually the packet of closing papers for our re-fi that we started in May. Right, May. That makes it seven freaking months to refinance our freaking mortgage. We are overdue if we don't pay the mortgage by the 15th. These jackasses have been saying for the last 3 weeks "It's on my desk, I'll get right to it" and nothing is heard from them for another week and more emails have to be sent and phone calls made.

Well. If the Fed Ex package is indeed the re-fi papers, I will drive over to Ed's office to have him sign them so we can Fed Ex them back, and I'll make him print out the card for the pharmacy, and I will drive back to get my prescription from our friendly neighborhood Bartell's. All while shuffling the kids around for their play dates with friends. And maybe things will calm down and I will feel better and because we won't have to pay the mortgage this month we can get some new shoes, our old ones are falling apart--all four of us.

I think I will want brownies and ice cream for dinner tomorrow. Or maybe steak and a baked potato. Or I might just have to break down and buy the two books I've been waiting months to get from the library. I think I will need a nice little treat of some sort.

I cracked a rib once.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:38:18 GMT

I woke up yesterday morning thinking about it.

It happened when I was a publisher's rep, traveling the Midwest. I was staying the night in a hotel on the outskirts of Ames, Iowa. I had at least two appointments to meet in Ames, then I was going to move on to Iowa City. It was Monday morning. I discovered that it had sleeted a good portion of the night before. The sidewalks and parking lot were covered with at least a half inch of ice. I found that out when I was walking out to my car to put my briefcase in. I slipped, fell backward, and landed on my soft-sided briefcase.

I found myself lying on my back on wet ice howling up into a damp gray sky. This was sort of a surprise. I'm not a howler or screamer normally. I managed to shut my mouth. I lay there without moving trying to take stock of possible damages.

After collecting my wits, and lying there in a puddle for a few minutes I guessed that no one had heard me, and I would have to save myself. I managed to work my way up to a mostly standing position. I was bent double with both hands braced on my knees staring at my briefcase when someone came out the side door of the hotel.

"Oh," he says. "Are you all right?" "No," I reply. "Could you do me a favor and put my briefcase in my car? I don't think I can lift it." "Certainly," he says, and I pass him my car keys. I ask him to hand me my appointment book from the open pocket. I watch him put the briefcase in the passenger seat, ask him to lock the car back up. He brings my keys back. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" he asked. "No, thank you very much." He got in his car and drove away as I carefully turned my body around and with great care managed to open the hotel door. I got back to my room and lay down in the bed, appointment book in hand.

I proceeded to call my appointments. I told the buyers that I had fallen on the ice and I would be a few hours late. I then called the office and said, "I'm arranging for a late check-out." The front desk person said noon was the cut-off point. I said, "I don't know how long I'm going to stay. I fell on the ice-covered sidewalk that someone in maintenance didn't put any sand or salt on out the back door. I've hurt myself pretty badly. I'm going to lie on the bed and recover, and you're not going to charge me a late check-out fee." The clerk meekly agreed and I fell asleep for about 2 hours.

I woke up on the damp blanket (my suit had soaked up a lot of water). I called the front desk and asked for assistance with my suitcase. After getting that taken care of I checked out, paid my bill, and asked if anyone had salted or sanded the sidewalk yet. Given a positive reply, and someone to put my suitcase in my car, I managed to get to my first appointment.

I had a miserable time of it that week. I was at the university that morning and the buyer told me to go to the school clinic so I could get an x-ray. It took several hours and the x-ray was inconclusive, but they wrapped my ribs up tight and said to see my doctor when I got home. It hurt to breathe, I couldn't lift much of anything beyond my master catalog and an order form, it hurt to walk. It was difficult to sleep, needless to say.

It isn't a pleasant memory. Why was I thinking about it? Because that area on my side rib was aching again yesterday morning. Like someone had pounded a nail into my back. Lovely way to wake up, don't you think?

Totally stealing the 5 questions from mikigarrison

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:39:03 GMT

1) What did you love the most about where you grew up?

I loved having lots of kids to play with. I loved the huge huge field I could go roaming in by myself, a block away from the house down a dead-end road. I loved to ride my bike (and occasionally sit on my brother's home-made skateboard) down the long long hill that my street came down on (?). I loved that we lived only about 15 minutes drive from a beach warm enough to swim on most of the year. I loved climbing in the rubber trees. I loved that on random nights my dad could take us out to see some weird streak of light in the sky and say that was a rocket taking off from Vandenburg Air Force Base. And somehow, I really liked sitting on the curb after a rain storm and making dams in the gutter out of leaves and sticks and rocks, watching the rain water get pushed further and further out into the street.

2) Who was your first TV/movie/music crush?

Mr Spock. Yes, that is how geeky I am. I had friends and my sister teasing me about other actors, but it was just Mr Spock for me. Lately it's Hugh Jackman.

3) What inspires you?

Glorious music, the moon, sunsets, sunrises, great books, unusual recipes, beautiful landscapes, taking pictures, snuggly children and a loving husband fill me with joy. Meeting with writer-group friends inspires me to write. Idiot politicians, stupid elections, ridiculous laws, weird news, strange people inspire me to rant in my blog or to write letters to the Times.

4) What is the most unusual/interesting/weird job you've ever had?

I haven't gotten too weird in my job selections. The most interesting one was selling books as a publisher's rep in the Midwest. I had multi-state territories that changed every year, I was on the road 75% of the time. I had a lovely condo in a building that was built in 1926, with a sun room, bay windows, wood floors and high ceilings. I could see who I wanted when I wanted, I worked out of my office in my second bedroom. I flew to various places across the country for sales conferences: Miami, Phoenix, New York City, someplace in New Jersey. I got to visit book stores all over the Midwest!! And talk to people about books!! That was the best part. The only weird part of this job was the travel. At the beginning of the season I loved to head out of town. By the middle of the season it wasn't so much fun any more. By the end of the season I felt like a little hermit crab--I dove inside my condo and hissed at anyone who wanted to drag me out of there.

5) (Stealing this from the questions I got!) Tell me something that your internet friends probably don't know about you but you've always wanted to share.

I haven't a clue. Anything my internet friends don't know about me is probably something I'd want to keep private anyway. Hey, Internet friends, do you want to know something about me? Just ask! I'll tell you pretty much anything. And I'll tell you when I want to keep something private.

Would you talk to the dead?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:37:17 GMT

Have you ever participated in a seance? If not, would you consider it? What spirit would you summon and what question would you ask them? Do you believe we can get messages from the dead?

View 674 Answers

I don't know that I want to talk to anyone that's dead badly enough to have a seance. There is also the fact that we can't really control who we end up with on the other line. I was raised Catholic, and still go to Catholic church, although I have my differences with this religion. I believe there is/are evil spirits/entities/whatnot somewhere....out there. I don't want to try ringing up my mom, for instance, and getting something nasty who wants an entrance into our space, so to speak.

If I could be guaranteed that I'd be able to converse with my mother's spirit, I would only want to tell her how much I love her, and miss her, and how sorry I am for all the hurtful things I said and did while she was alive.

Well, I had some good ideas

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:51:11 GMT

But that was this morning. This morning I had energy, it was sunshiny, the autumn leaves were still glorious, I was in a good mood. I should have had the discipline to blog this morning, instead of thinking I'd do it tonight.

*********************

My daughter and I were watching Mercy tonight, a decent hospital series. She has questions sometimes and I answer to the best of my ability. This show ended tonight with the husband getting angry at the wife who is a nurse who had an affair when she was in Iraq. He threw her out. I was calling him a jerk, because he screwed around on his wife on her first tour. When she found out about his affairs she signed up for another tour in Iraq.

The wife has been back for several months, and the doctor she had an affair with has landed a job at her hospital and is pursuing her. She wants to stay with her husband, she says, and keeps trying to run away from the doctor. She keeps being drawn back yadda yadda.

I was saying the husband has no right to get angry when he'd had affairs too. My daughter (my eleven year old) said the fact that she'd waited to tell her husband about the affair meant she still had feelings for this doctor, all the time the husband was being sweet to her and trying to make it up to her, building (or finishing building) a house for her and showing her all the ways he loved her. That was why he was angry. I opened my mouth to disagree with her, and my mouth stayed open as I realized she had a big point there. Out of the mouths of the innocent, indeed.

Temper, temper.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:36:28 GMT

I have spent most of my life trying to control my temper and my impatience. Only now at the ripe old age of 51am I experiencing much success.

When I was in fifth grade in Catholic school, one art project involved making and decorating a bookmark. We were to write on it some small Bible verse that we thought would help us in daily life. I wrote on mine: Love is patient. Even then, I knew. As a child I was always anxious to do things at my own time and at my own pace, never mind anyone else's ideas about proper time and place. Hurry up and get out of my way......

After reading two books by Frank Gilbreth (sp?) called Cheaper By the Dozen and Belles on their Toes, I got more impatient with people in general. These books (excellent, funny and witty reads, I recommend them) explore the kind of family life the author experienced with an assortment of 11 other siblings who had efficiency engineers for parents. I wonder if the number of children made that career choice a necessity, or if raising that number of children was easier because of the engineering....Anyway, Frank's father was always exploring ways of doing things that he could make doing faster and easier, such as taking a bath, buttoning his vest, even making surgery more efficient and faster for doctors. I started trying to find ways to make my own life more streamlined and more efficient.

The effects I encountered I will save for another blog, but the end result I think has made me a better multitasker, and has helped me realize a more intelligent and efficient way to live my life. Unfortunately, it did leave me more impatient with other more uninformed and unrealized people. Ahem.

I do remember quite strongly the first time I actively held my temper and kept my patience with someone exhibiting highly annoying behavior. A very good friend of mine was helping me out at a gas station. He was cleaning my windshield, or he thought he was. The more he swiped the muddier and cloudier the windshield became. I think the cleaning fluid in the tank at the station was either exceptionally dirty or almost nonexistent, or both. My friend was even so helpful and thorough as to clean the rearview mirrors, both sides, leaving both with multiple muddy streaks and almost impossible to see any reflections in. I literally clamped my teeth together while he was doing this to keep from lambasting him. He didn't have to be "cleaning" my windshield, I'm sure he was thinking that he was doing me a huge favor, as the weather was quite nasty--cold and wet and rainy--and he was saving me from having to spend a lot of time out of the car.

When he finished he returned the squee-gee to the bucket with a flourish and climbed back into the passenger seat. I silently turned the ignition, put the car into gear, reminding myself of all the good things about my friend and all the ways he'd shown his friendship to me. And as I drove off, I finally said calmly, "Thank you, J___________, for cleaning my windshield." And all my temper drained away.

And I realized that all the times previously when I got angry at people and told them about it, that it had never made me feel better. It had probably made things worse. And by holding my tongue until I could say something polite, I managed to make my anger and impatience all--all drain away. It was an enormously clarifying experience. I cling to this memory to help me even now remember to put anger and impatience away, especially when dealing with family and friends.

.......................................

And yes, I did finally notice this morning that I missed blogging yesterday. And only the second day of the month!! Horrors! Maybe I'll just blog twice in one day sometime this month.....

What?! November already!?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:23:17 GMT

What happened to August? I'm not ready for November and holiday plans yet! Although I did finish my family's picks for names for Christmas presents.

My husband and I are sitting down with our mail-in ballots and the voter's pamphlet working on who and how we want to vote. I'm sitting here typing this as he has the voter's pamphlet for the moment. I've been reading the articles in the Seattle Times about various people running for various positions, and I have a somewhat firmer grasp on how I want to vote than he does, I believe. I do want to double check the pamphlet on a few things, so I'm waiting until he's done to finish up.

One initiative I don't need any extra information on is the one by Tim Eyman. Anything he brings up I know will be an automatic 'no' vote from me. Let me make that clearer--automatically NO!! This is one self-centered self-serving idiot who doesn't look at the long term consequences of his initiative's actions, or doesn't care. I'm ready to propose an initiative that Tim Eyman is no longer allowed to propose initiatives and that it will be a state offense for the media to pay any attention to him.

Some of the other races are tougher to figure out: what with all the bad billing from all sides, it's a case of having to figure out which person has fewer bad points about him or her. It's frustrating to vote when there's no one running against someone, in the smaller places like Fire Commissioner or Water District Commissioner. I have no idea if this person has the experience needed, and how accurate is their puff piece for the voter's pamphlet. And why are there so many people running for Tax Assessor?

Every now and then I get an itch to serve in a position on the School Board, or on the City Council. Before I do anything, though, I need to get more regular sleep. I lose way too many IQ points when I'm running low on the sleep gauge, and right now I feel about as awake as a bear before hibernation.

We actually ran out of candy this year

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:23:44 GMT

Lots of cute kids, only three bags of mini chocolate bars. Actually, this is a good thing--I didn't eat more than two candy bars! Yippee for me! I also managed to stay away from the bowls of candy at the various schools I happened to be at yesterday. Well, okay, there were two schools. At most I had a small handful of M&Ms. I did luck out with a slice of cheese pizza and an apple for lunch, yum.

Wish my eyes would quit bugging me. They're either itchy or twitchy, and it's uncomfortable wearing lenses right now.

Blah, blah. More tomorrow. Have to, have signed up for NaBloPoMO, or whatever the acronym is. I wonder if I can write something every day in the month of November....

What is it with these dreams??

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:32:07 GMT

Saturday night I dreamed a long elaborate story about being at a sales conference again. I was single when I was selling books, and I went to sales conferences two or three times a year. We reps were usually doubled up in rooms. I met a young lady at the conferences (as in 'mid-twenties' young, while I was in my mid-forties) and was told we'd be sharing a room. She was bubbly bouncy and immature, always gushing about something or other all the time. I was chatting with her and for some reason mentioned the name of a man that had been my last 'crush' before I met the man I'm currently married to. For some reason I referred to him (let's call him 'Tom') in a joking and yet intimate manner.

The young lady immediately responded coldly and cuttingly that Tom was her fiancee and how did I know him anyway? I was dumbfounded in my dream. Why would Tom, an intelligent witty sensible man in his forties, want to marry this girlish twit? I apologized, fumblingly explained my remark as nothing weird intended and we went on with the conference.

The dream continued on as if in real life. I attended meetings, met with reps, was told of new territory I'd have to cover, started stressing out about having to fly out immediately to deal with new major accounts THAT very afternoon without putting together a master catalog or finding out WHO I'd have to see and why were they in Utah when I was based in Illinois, yadda (typical stress dream of the kind I am STILL having even though it's been 14 years since I was a rep).

Several times during this mess of sales meetings, Tom would show up, sit next to me, and talk to me seriously about various sales things. He would sit close, his thigh touching mine, his eyes never breaking contact with mine, hand touching mine occasionally. And doing all this in front of his supposed fiance while she's fuming and fretting across the table from us. (None of this ever happened in real life when I was working for the same company as Tom. I just adored him from afar.)

She of course was enraged and frustrated. (No, I don't know why she didn't try to stop this in my dream.) When we got to the hotel room we were both sharing, it was a huge room in a semicircular shape with glass for the wall on the hallway of the hotel. There were several curtains on rods hanging in mid-air, and I kept trying to pull them across the curving glass wall, but they would never cover completely. Tom's 'fiance' (I never caught her name) kept talking to me sarcastically and insultingly, saying nasty evil things to me as we both unpacked and got ready to go to our separate beds, huge queen-sized things in this enormous room. I finally woke up at this point.

All day Sunday I kept feeling guilty and awful. I finally figured out that I was feeling as if I had cheated on my husband. Because of this dream! This stupid, stressful dream! I'd never felt guilty before about dreaming about other men. I'd even dreamed about Tom before, that I was married to him or involved with him, and never felt as if I'd betrayed my husband once I'd woken up. It was just a dream, no big deal. I felt guilty all day. Weird.

Last night I had another long stupid incredibly vivid dream. I dreamed that my husband had told me that he was moving out. He needed a trial separation. I was flabbergasted and enormously upset. "Why do you want to move out? What's wrong? Do you want a divorce? Are you seeing someone else?" He kept acting as if he was bored with me and bored with questions and never answered me clearly. He kept saying he just wanted to move out for a month, just a month, wanted to clear his head. I found myself totally divided: outraged that he wanted to move out, and in the dream, secretly semi-demi glad that he was going to be gone for a month. Even in my dream I was wondering why in the world am I glad/relieved that he won't be around for a month??

My husband comes back a few minutes later to state that he's found a one bedroom apartment that he can rent--for $400 an hour. I go up in flames. It's bad enough you're moving out, it's worse that you can't seem to find a reasonably priced place to live!! You can rent a room for $400 A MONTH!! If you lived for a month in this place that rents for $400 an hour YOU'D BE SPENDING $50,000!!!! (Of course it would be more than that, I don't do math in my dreams.) WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING THIS!!?? I'll find a place for you that's cheaper and nicer than this flea-ridden dump you're insisting is better than anything else!

So I find myself in my dream simultaneously freaking out that he wants to leave me, freaking out at the amount of money he wants to spend and freaking out about finding a reasonably priced 1 bedroom apartment that he can rent. I'm being pulled in three different directions. I'm tossing and turning and sweating. I want to wake up, it's so hard, I'm flinging myself around in bed, and finally thankfully the alarm finally goes off. I turn to my sweetie and say what an awful, awful dream, I dreamed you wanted to move out! And he sleepily turns over and we wrap our arms around each other and he says drowsily, no, honey, you're stuck with me for life. And I reply super-glued, right?

So is this second dream me punishing myself for having this dream Saturday night that felt as if I was betraying my husband, even though he didn't appear in that dream at all? I had no memory of being married in that dream... Or is this just another stupid overly vivid dream of the sort I've been having way too many times? I had been thinking that this vivid confusing dreaming was the result of taking melatonin to help me sleep. I'm no longer taking it, it's been a couple of weeks at least. And I'm still dreaming like this and feeling as if it's really happening. Sheesh. I wonder how long it will be until the melatonin wears off.....

Los Angeles

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:18:23 GMT

When I was in LA last month, I had a chance to chat with a lot of cousins. I jokingly suggested to one that he should come up and visit us in Seattle sometime, and he said maybe, but he'd never want to live up here where it's so dark and rainy most of the winter. He'd rather live in LA. I replied something to the tune of I'd never want to live in LA ever again, ugh.

I wouldn't live in LA if you handed it to me on a platter. I grew up there--well, until I was 14, I don't know if I've grown up or not yet. I hated it then. I still really really don't like it. I didn't know why I hated it when I lived there. It took me some time and living other places to start figuring it out. This fall I've been trying to explain to myself why I still don't like LA, but nothing really hit home until fall arrived.

I love living in a place with four separate distinct seasons. I like spring here in Seattle, when crocuses, dahlias, tulips and azaleas bloom, when it gets warmer and there's more sunlight. I love the summer here, it's hot enough to enjoy swimming at the beach most summers, and not so hot that having air conditioning seems mandatory. I love the fresh fruits that ripen in summer, the peaches, plums, nectarines and melons. I love the fall, when it cools off, when we no longer have to fall asleep to the sound of the fans in the windows blowing in the cool air, something like falling asleep when a Cessna is warming up to take off in the same room with you. I love getting into a warm flannel-sheeted bed when the house is chilly, curling up with the blankets up to my ears. And I especially love the autumn colors of the leaves. The colors range in every shade from deep dark reddish-purple to golden glowing yellow, and all the oranges and reds in between. It's like silent fireworks that last for a couple three weeks. It's a wonderful surprise to turn the corner and spot another tree blazing away. And winter is a nice slow time, when we sometimes (more often then not lately) get snow, which is great to play in for a couple of days. Then it goes away and we can continue our lives in the rain.

Los Angeles doesn't have that. There was one tree in our neighborhood that turned color in the fall, everything else stayed green. Maybe some trees dropped their leaves, but I don't remember. It was relentlessy sunny most of the year. Every morning, the sun came up and the sun went down, no change. Well, the occasional bursts of rain or hail in the so-called wintertime. But all I remember is day after day after day of sun, sun, sun. Dry dusty never-changing hot stuffy boring sun.

I like the rain. I like the fresh sweet dampness of the air after a good rainstorm has passed through. It washes everything clean, the dust and smog out of the sky, the allergens off the ground. Everything is greener. No amount of watering my lawn in the early evening gets it as green as a half hour of raining. And it doesn't rain here all the time, no no no. It rains all the time in Oregon in the fall and winter. It can drizzle steadily for weeks and months down there. I was really surprised when I transferred to the University of Washington up here my third year in college and heard people complain after two or three days of rain. Calm down, folks, you don't like rain, move. It's the Pacific Northwest, right, just another way to say "rain".

It still bugs me when I hear DJs on local radio stations in the middle of a drought getting gleeful at all the sun and heat. Hello, you don't like the rain, get a job in the Southwest, okay? Rain is good. Rain helps us. When it rains in the summer here it actually cools us off. When it rains in the Midwest in the summer it makes the muggy heat worse, much much worse. Rain increases the snowpack in the Cascades which helps us with drinking water and entertainment in the form of skiing and snowshoeing. Without regular rain all our nice green firs and pines would dry up dusty brown and die. No more dark green backgrounds for our blazing fall colors. Feh.

Los Angeles is huge. Immense. Millions of people. You can drive for hours at top speed on the freeways and still never get out of the city. Where I live an hour in any direction pretty much gets you into the rural areas. Seattle is a big city, yes, but not as big as LA, a cancer out of control settled in southern California. If it weren't for all the family I have down there, it could slide into the ocean any day.

So that's it. I like smaller cities, and I like change. I like living in a Mediterranean climate. I like the variety of the seasons. I suppose Seattle has been my home since I first settled into it. Even when I lived in Chicago, whenever I flew into Sea-Tac, it felt like I was flying home. Home is where your heart is comfortable.

Struggling with depression

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:42:44 GMT

I'm on anti-depressants. I've been on Zoloft for about 3 years now. It helps a lot. Yet there are still times, like now, where I feel myself circling that pit, that seductive slide into darkness.

Seductive? Yes. I can't explain it. But sometimes it seems it would be so easy to just let myself go. To not worry about getting errands run, house cleaned, dinner made. Sink into darkness. Pull the deep over me. Just dissolve.

What helps is not getting myself sucked into computer games. They're addictive, oh yes, and I find myself getting even more depressed playing them. What a fricking waste of time they are! I could have accomplished so many things in the hours and hours I play these games. It's a vicious cycle--I get depressed, nothing sounds like fun, I turn on the computer and play word games or puzzle games, and I get more depressed because I'm not up getting things done. It's terribly hard to break the cycle.

Thankfully I managed some this morning. I had to get on to check a job listing first thing in the morning. I just couldn't turn off the computer before I had breakfast. I came back to the monitor with a cup of coffee and managed to get some organizing done, some pictures downloaded, some email taken care of. I then played for about an hour. BUT! I turned it off at 1030, managed to scrub some bathrooms, changed my sheets to flannel, did some laundry. Came back on to eat lunch and download stuff, then turned off the computer and dashed off to my afternoon job as a teacher's aide to a sixth-grade teacher at Brookside.

I love this job! Multitasking, copying, organizing, sorting, running hither and yon, getting paperwork things done for this teacher so she can TEACH. I came home, started some baking, and experimented with my daughter's wallet, purchased at Good Will, trying to change the color. I'm going to only stay on the computer as long as I let the kids stay on, the timer is on for an hour. I can get supper started when the timer goes off.

Keeping busy keeps the depression away. Getting things done, accomplished, finished, keeps the depression from starting up. Getting help--must happen as well. I can't keep fighting this amorphous ever-lurking fog. I want it to GO AWAY.

Therapy

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:51:11 GMT

Yesterday I stapled 75 bears to popsicle sticks with no comment at all from the bears. I stapled 25 Goldilocks to popsicle sticks, ditto. I counted out 25 sets of three bowls and furniture and placed them in yellow styrofoam trays. I stapled pockets to the fronts of 25 paper houses. Those kindergardners will have a wonderful time putting together their own personal puppet show of Goldilocks and the three bears.

I worked at Cut-n-Chat yesterday morning at my kids' school. This is a weekly ritual for several moms. Teachers that have projects that need copying, cutting, collating, stapling, tracing, or laminating will leave stuff in a large box in the PTA room. Then those of us with the time and the desire can go to town. We help when it gets closer to the annual musical, too, we cut out and make costumes and backdrops and props.

I've had a nasty week, lots of up and down and around and arounds emotionally speaking. I wasn't sure I was going to make it to Cut-n-Chat this Friday, but when the kids missed the bus--again--I decided to scarf a bowl of cereal and stay at school after I drove them in. I'm so glad I did. Cutting paper pages and making them into books, tracing bats onto black construction paper then cutting them out, working on the Goldilocks puppets--all great therapy. Simple things to do--working with my hands, talking with the other moms about their summers--all combined to soothe my spirits enormously.

It's clear why mental institutions often have the inmates making simple craft items. I remember finals week my last quarter in college. I was finishing college at the end of fall quarter and I had something like two finals each day, three days in a row. I got back home after the last one to find one of my housemates making Christmas ornaments out of salt dough. I was exhausted mentally and physically and felt totally drained. I just sat there at the table, chin on my hand, for at least a half hour, watching him make the snowmen and angels and whatnot. I finally picked up a scrap of salt dough and started fiddling with it. I was amazed at how refreshed I felt after an hour of making Christmas decorations. Therapy, indeed.

Yesterday afternoon I got a short haircut that makes me smile every time I see myself in a mirror. It looks good. I look good! I no longer look like some frizzled old hag, I look younger and more energetic. And looking better, of course, makes me feel better. Therapy, indeed!

Feel free to skip this, just more dumping/venting/working through stuff.

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:53:54 GMT

We drive to our hotel, freshen up, then go to our Aunt Mary Lillian's house. We have two Aunt Marys, so we distinguish them by their middle names: Aunt Mary Therese is the McIntosh, Aunt Mary Lillian is the McGraa, also my mom's younger sister. What makes matters worse is they're both married to Johns. My mom's brother John married Mary Therese, and my mom's sister Mary married John McGraa. And I have two cousins named Mary, that we differentiate with middle names as well--Mary Kathryn and Mary Sue. We hang out with our cousins and their kids, then we go to the Rosary Service at the mortuary.

It's unusual for the rosary to be said at the mortuary, it's usually said at the church. Evidently there were schedule conflicts at the church, the mortuary is run by Catholics. No priest shows up at 7 pm. As we wait, and wait, Uncle Matt's sons get up to talk about him, his work, his love for his wife Nela, their mom. I didn't know that Uncle Matt was an aerospace engineer. I didn't know he worked on the Apollo space missions and worked on developing the shuttle. I didn't know he'd specialized in ventilation and air supply. He worked on the Apollo mission that had the oxygen problems on the way to the moon. In the movie, when they say, let's call Mac, they're referring to my uncle. His name is on plaques at the NASA museum and other places, thanking him for his help in saving those astronauts.

Finally a daughter of one of my cousins comes up to the podium. Still no priest, she's gotten on the internet in an office and copied off the current prayer for the rosary. She proceeds to lead us through 5 decades of the rosary. I pray out loud when I can, silently when I can't--my throat tends to close up when I speak out loud too long. They pray the Hail Mary the old way: with thees and thous and whatnot. At the end of ten Hail Marys they say a prayer I haven't heard in years and years, something along the lines of "Oh God, save us from final damnation...save us from the fires of Hell..."can't remember it all, but I remember those phrases. Sitting there praying I remember this as the way I was brought up to worship. It's not the way I worship now. I start to think of the old way of worship as an intricate complicated detailed piece of golden antique lace. It's all connected, like a piece of lace. It's condensed--maybe more tightened is a better word for it. The way I worship now--it's more open, it's larger, it encompasses more, it's not as detailed. I don't know that this makes any sense. Perhaps it's more--when I worshiped as a child, there were lots of rules and regulations. Now when I pray or go to a place of worship I feel more open, more outwardly directed. God will hear me even if I don't say 'thees' and 'thous'....

The priest finally shows up at the end of the rosary, and offers apologies and a few prayers. Then Matt's youngest son Tom gets up to say a few words. He looks at his father several times as he speaks. He says, his dad wasn't just a father, or a husband, or a grandfather, or an engineer. Tom looks at us and says, my dad was a hero. His voice is very tight. I melt down. I scrinch my face up, hoping not to sob out loud. I am thinking too much about how I would feel if that was my dad up there in that coffin. My brother Andy who is sitting next to me, gets out the box of tissue and hands me a couple. I thank him and wipe my face. Later I asked him how he knew I'd lost it, since I hadn't made any noise, he said with us sitting shoulder to shoulder, he could feel that I'd melted, just fallen down.

To Tom, his dad is a hero because of how well he parented each of them, how much he loved everyone, and how much time he was able to spend with all seven of his children. He was a hero because of how he'd lived his life. This makes me want to sob some more. After Tom's eloquent words, we all file up for one last view of his father. Matt is wearing his signature cap, and he has a USC cap in the coffin with him. He looks better than I remember my mom looking, ten years ago in her own coffin. I then turn to his two daughters, sitting in the front row. I hug Mary Sue, start to say how sorry I am, and I end up sobbing on her shoulder. I am mortified as she sobs quietly several times. I want to comfort her, not start her crying again. I pat Diana on the shoulder, and we say to each other that Nela, Matt and my mom are now delighted and happy with each other's company. She says her dad is likely going to be playing bingo again. I smile at her and hug her one more time.

Friday is the longest day. We get up early so we can go to breakfast at 8, so we can be driving to get to the funeral services by 9, since they start at 10. We're leaving in the middle of commuter traffic the day before the Labor Day weekend, so we anticipate tons of traffic. We actually get to the church by 915 or so. Amazing. This is Los Angeles, where you can drive for hours on the freeways at top speeds and still not get where you need to be.

The funeral service has it's bobbles too. The officiating priest says Matt is one of three siblings. My Aunt Mary Lillian and her husband John are sitting in the pew ahead of me, I see her shake her head, look down, then look at John. He frowns and shakes his head, then looks around at us. Matt is one of four siblings, my mom is included in that group--Matt, John, Mom, and Mary. When John goes up to speak, he starts out by saying he needs to clarify what the priest had said, that Matt HAD three siblings, his brother John, his sister Mary, and his sister Alice, who preceded him in death by ten years. Then he continues with what he was going to say. After communion, I meet up briefly with John and hug him, and thank him for his words about my mom. He said with a grim look (unusual for Uncle John, he is usually full of mischief) and said "It needed to be said."

At the end of the service Matt's five sons and one of his grandsons proceeded to carry his coffin to the door of the church. When I turned around, I noticed they were shaking out an American flag on his coffin. I almost broke down again. My dad had also served in WW2. How wonderful that they were recognizing Matt's service to his country.

We head to the cemetary in a line of about 30 cars. It's a rather frustrating drive--at Nela's funeral, we proceeded at a stately 30 mph most of the way, the highway patrol officers stopping at signals and waving us through. Somehow today we kept accordioning, driving up to 50 mph to catch up to everyone, then slamming on the brakes as people stopped when they weren't supposed to. Stop, start, speed up, start, stop, speed up. I recognized a lot of the scenery from three years ago, on Nela's way to the cemetary. We also spotted the smoke from the fires north of the city--a huge billowing of brown clouds.

At the cemetary, we all parked in a long line at the curb. There was a bagpipe player there (she'd been waiting there since 9 am, and here it was noon, and 100 degrees in the sun, she in a kilt and vest and hat). She played something beautiful in a minor key as my cousins brought the coffin to the small pavilion and chairs that had been set up. I again almost broke down in tears, bagpipe music moves me so much, but I hung on to my composure as rigidly as I could. There was a brief series of prayers, then an Army officer played taps. Again I almost lost it.

I have never seen in person the moving ceremony of striking the colors, if that is what this was called. Two uniformed Army officers, with precise steps and motions, took the flag from Uncle Matt's coffin and folded it carefully. One officier handed it to the other. He embraced the flag, pressing it to his heart. He carefully and precisely cornered the flag into it's triangle, then pressed it to his heart again. I realized he was behaving as if he was embracing a fellow soldier with this act, a last hug. He handed it back to the other officer, then saluted the flag one last time. The second officer took two steps to Matt's oldest child, Diane, and handed her the flag. I can't remember if he saluted the flag as well, as my eyes were flooded with tears at this point.

After one last prayer (I think) the mortuary official quietly expressed the family's thanks at our presence there, to provide comfort in this time of loss. He said before we left, we could take a flower from one of the arrangements and leave it on the coffin as a last gesture. Slowly Matt's family took a flower each, then the rest of us just as slowly chose flowers and put them on top. The bagpiper played one last song as we slowly walked towards our cars.

All during this ceremony we could hear and see the helicopters on their way to the fires. I didn't look up to watch them, but a couple of people said later they were mostly news helicopters that they could see, with a couple of helicopters further away dumping water over the fire. We couldn't see flames, just a huge cloud of brown smog hanging over the hills.

Afterwards most of us made our way to Nela and Matt's house for a reception. His younger daughter had been living in the house with her husband and daughter, to help take care of Matt the last couple of years. My brothers, my sister and I stayed there for a couple of hours, talking with family. I found out more about the McIntosh side of my family--my Grandmother McIntosh, my mom's mom, was one of 9 girls in the family. I said "Nine! Whoa!" and an aunt said "There were 8 boys as well!" 17 children! That explains all my tias--
Tia Concha, Tia Menia, Tia Estefenia, and more that I have forgotten. My grandfather McIntosh's brother Charles had married another of my grandmother's sisters, and there was a whole branch of McIntosh family cousins that I had either forgotten about or never knew. My Aunt Mary Lillian said in their last trip to Wales last year, she heard a little more about the McIntosh side of the family. Evidently my Grandfather Matt's brother Charles had been sent to the US to get Matt back to Scotland, and out of California. Instead Charles stayed over here and married into Mom's family.

We get back to our hotel about 4 pm. It feels as though the funeral service had been three weeks ago, instead of just that morning. My sister and I sit on our beds, talking, drinking cold water, enjoying the air conditioning as we watch television. Aunt Mary Lillian had invited us back to her house for supper. We said we could bring something, what should we bring? Sodas, ice, potato chips were welcomed when we arrived about 6 pm. We had tostadas--yum, with beans, pork, rice, cilantro, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, guacamole. Aunt Mary had made a banana cake. Uncle John ended up making margaritas. I had thought I was too tired and too overwhelmed to stay too late, I'd asked Karl if we could leave at 7 pm. But with all the people there, talking about the past or the present, getting to know my cousins' children, drinking and eating, we ended up staying until almost 11 pm. I'm glad we stayed late.

The past two days so many of my family had said that it was good to see us, even if we were there for a sad occasion, and we should try to get together for a happy occasion sometime. I heard that our McIntosh cousins were delighted, pleased and surprised that we had made the effort to come down. I had a couple cousins mention that they might try to get up to Seattle sometime soon. I'm hoping that they can, I would like my children to know more about my family.

We had to get up at 6 am the next day, so we could have breakfast at 7, so we could leave by 8 to get to the airport by 830 for our 10 am flight. Phew. Friday morning my sister didn't wake up to the alarm. It kept going BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ. She kept going ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ. I kept saying, Kris, wake up, Kris, good morning, Kris, the alarm is going off! I finally turned off the air conditioning fan, so the only noise in the room was the alarm, and ten seconds later she finally woke up. Saturday morning it was her turn--the alarm was going off and I didn't move. She kept talking loudly to me as she got closer, she said she was almost ready to take out one of my ear plugs when I finally said, "What?!"

Uncle John and Aunt Mary joined us for breakfast and we chatted about flying and about their upcoming trip to New England and Canada. I'm so glad they did. Being with my Aunt Mary is like having my Mom right around the corner. I still miss my Mom. When I was writing about the flag ceremony with Matt I had to stop for a few minutes, I was crying so hard from memories of my Mom. It's devastating to look at a coffin knowing that someone you love very much is in there and you will never see them alive again.

We landed safely in Seattle, with an exuberant greeting from Sam and Ed. As soon as we got to our house, my brother Karl and my sister Kris drove off to get back to Kennewick. I thanked Karl as profoundly as I could for getting us to LA on his mileage points. I was glad I had gone, but oh, I was glad to be home.

Grump.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:09:23 GMT

Grumpety grump grump pooh.

I am full of itchiness, I want to do something, I don't know what. I just need to get up and do something.

Weird week last week. My Uncle Matt passed away Friday a week ago. Saturday night I was on Facebook and started chatting with my cousin Mary Kathryn. All of a sudden, all I wanted to do was get to LA to visit family, to go to his services, to hug my cousins. I went to various websites and found a round-trip ticket to LA for $200. I emailed my siblings, stated what I was planning to do, asked if anyone wanted to come with me.

Sunday my brother Karl called. He asked if I had any further information than what I had already sent him. He said he might have a way for me, my sister, and him to get to LA. He hangs up and I am scratching my head. Driving wasn't the answer, we did that 3 years ago when Aunt Nela died. Twenty four hours straight driving, with one or another of my siblings at the wheel. Getting to LA at 7 am, crashing at the hotel, getting up for the Rosary service. Absolutely delighting my Uncle Matt (Nela's husband) with our unexpected presence. I will never forget the look on his face as he shouted "Kathy!". I said "I'm not the only one here Uncle Matt, look over there." "Karl!" he shouted, and he was inundated with Nordquists.

We all moved down the line of cousins (Nela and Matt had 7 children), hugging them and telling them how sorry we were. I was sobbing by the time I'd gotten to the end of the line of cousins. I told the last cousin, Matt Jr, with tears running down my face, that I could picture his mom and my mom up in heaven, watching over us like angels. They had been best friends, that's how Nela ended up marrying Mom's brother Matt.

We were there for the funeral the next day, followed the hearse to the cemetary. I haven't been to many funerals, I don't know if the custom of pulling flowers from the funeral wreaths and putting them on the casket before leaving is widespread or not, but I thought it was a comforting thing to do. We left immediately after, got up to Salem, Oregon by the next morning. I fell asleep driving three times before pulling over to a rest stop to nap for a couple hours.

So no, driving nonstop was not an option. It was an interesting trip, but I've done it now, and really don't want to do it nonstop again. Maybe Karl had a friend who would fly us all in a small plane. But no, that would cost more for gas. Karl called back saying that he had enough points on his credit card to fly us all down, including my brother Andy from Texas. He said he had set up all the tickets, but wouldn't buy them until Monday, to give us time to sleep on it to make sure we were doing the right thing.

So Sunday night I'm thinking: it's a crazy time to be leaving, the first day of school is Wednesday, there's a birthday celebration Friday night, we're planning a trip to Wild Waves and a board game night for Labor Day weekend. There will still be fees for the plane ticket, and I need to cover my share of the car and the hotel. Maybe I should just stay home.

Karl calls Monday and I say I'm having second thoughts. He pauses and says he's already made nonrefundable hotel reservations, and Andy is going to make it. OK, I say, I'll come. I hang up and am immediately caught up in a frenzy of anxiety about flying. Flying is normally not a problem. I flew a lot as a publisher's rep. But I've only flown twice in the last ten years, and I've gotten shakier about getting on a plane.

My dad and my sister come out from the Tri-Cities Tuesday for a couple of Mariner games. My children are there, hug them hello, then disappear into Sam's room while Dad, Kris and I sit and chat at the table. After awhile my dad asks where the kids are, and seems disappointed that they are playing out of sight. I contemplate having them play in the family room, but never get around to asking them to come out.

My dad says he is moving. He's made this decision since Uncle Matt, his best friend in college, died last Friday. Matt had a heart attack and fell, hitting his head and hurting his arm and leg. He died shortly after at the hospital. Dad lives alone in a three bedroom apartment. In the 16 years he's lived there, there's only been a couple of years where the tenants upstairs didn't sound like a herd of elephants doing gymnastics on his ceiling. While my siblings and I call fairly regularly, and my sister visits often from Salem, he is feeling insecure about living alone with no one to come help quickly if he should fall.

Dad's already found an facility that has both independent apartments and assisted living apartments. It has a dining room where he can get three meals a day. He has gone through some hassle to get a room contract based on one meal a day--he really doesn't eat more than one meal, and has an occasional snack of apple slices or cheese and crackers. His independent place will have a kitchen, so he can keep food there. Every room and in the hallway there are cords to pull at regular intervals along the walls, so if someone should fall, pulling a cord will bring someone lickety-split. I think it's a good idea for him to move. He might actually get some socializing here, especially being an attractive widower. Someone will notice him eating in the cafeteria and he'll be surrounded by man-hungry widows. There's a theater room, card room, billiards room, even computer game room. He's planning to give notice and move out by the end of this month.

They go to their game Tuesday and Wednesday, then Dad drops off Kris to sleep at my house so she can fly out with Karl and me Thursday morning, without having to spend the four hour trip back to the Tri-Cities, then the four hour trip driving back here with Karl. Karl gets up at 4 am and leaves at 5 am to make sure to get to my house before we have to leave for the airport. We need to be there by 1030 am to catch our 1230 pm flight.

No problem. We hit that little pocket of time between morning rush hour and noon time backup of traffic to Northgate, not to mention getting in the express lane. As soon as we are at the airport I feel very comfortable about getting on the plane. Vestiges of selling come back to me--I catch myself looking at the various stores in the terminal and wondering which books would sell the best here.

Karl has gotten first class seats--he and my sister wouldn't fit in coach, he explains. Indeed, they need seat belt extenders in first class. I am also heavy, but I can fasten my seat belt. First class, imagine that. Never flown first class before.

We land at Orange County Airport a little early, then have to wait on the tarmac for thirty minutes. Gotta wait for another plane to pull out. We get out and I am smothered by the heat and mugginess. LA has been broiling for weeks, and there are wildfires to the north of the city, so air quality is sucky.

I guess I just gotta dump this here. I have to get stuff out of my head, make room for other stuff. More tomorrow.

They're growing up.

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:40:41 GMT

I first realized it a few weeks ago, during swimming lessons. In previous years, I had to supervise getting into swimwear, pack the towels and goggles, make sure they rinsed off, etc. After lessons it was into the shower room, all three of us, the kids to shower and me to direct, getting soaked and soggy and having to shout over all the other little voices shrieking and the moms yelling. Usually ended up totally grumpy and frustrated.

Last year, however, I'd signed them up for a arts and crafts/swim afternoon class at the local community center. They made things out of recycled material for about an hour then swam for an hour and a half. They were in age groupings, about 10 to 15 kids in each age group. I'd just drop them off and pick them up.

So this year it occurred to me, that if they can take care of themselves in a group situation they can certainly take care of themselves by themselves. I knew my 11 year old was certainly capable. Now my son is 8 years old, and can go in the men's locker room. I'm still a little queasy about that, but it's a public place and I'm hoping it's pretty safe.

Now I drop them off in the lobby, they go to separate locker rooms, I go straight to the pool. I watch the lessons, read, chat with other parents, then go back to the lobby to read and wait. Sam takes a little long in the locker room drying and dressing, but not too bad. And it's such a surprise--No more shrieking in the shower room, no more getting sprayed as I try to rinse soap out of Sam's face, no more ears ringing from the echoing screaming. It's such a relief! It's...it's....such a huge relief! Such a small matter can make such a difference!

Enough with the weird dreams, already.

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:03:42 GMT

Two nights ago, I was dreaming I was in a high-level Russian literature course, taught in Russian (this isn't so far-fetched, I have a degree in Russian language and literature.) The problem was (of course) it was MY first day in class, but it was the last day of class before the final. I recognized the teacher, so I started writing him a note apologizing for not getting there sooner in the quarter, and how I didn't think I should be in this class anyway, he's a great teacher, it's nothing against him, but I just didn't want to be there, I would accept a 'no-pass' for the class. Except as I wrote, other people's writing started appearing on the page. It got harder and harder to read my note. Halfway through I realized I should be writing this in Russian on a clean piece of paper so he would be more likely to give me a no-pass rather than an 'F'. So I get ready to start over again and then I wake up, all tied in knots.

Three nights ago I was having another traveling dream (I used to travel for my job as a publisher's rep) and all of a sudden I was walking across country to sell books. I kept having to climb these slippery grass hills to get from house to house. I really didn't want to walk down these hills, as I was concerned about my knee bugging me and slipping out of joint. So I would go the long way around. This gradually segued into going from school to school to sell books, tramping across flat-as-pancake farms with lots of grain crops planted. Then I was walking home to my farm with lots of flowers and fruit trees and veggies and whatnot, and a house that was falling apart. (Virtual scratching of head...) I've dreamed of this house before, this time it was built on top of the garage, and the garage was getting eaten by termites and it had to be replaced quickly before the house fell into it.

..........................

Oh, shoot. Now I can't remember the dream I had last night. I even tried going back to the bedroom to lie down on the bed. Sometimes it's as if bits and pieces of the dream have been left there, and when I go to bed the next night I remember bits as I lay on the pillow. Didn't work this time.

Well, it's just that middle-aged-fusty-brain burn-out again. It's happening more and more. I in fact had a GREAT idea for something to blog about. I've had it about three times now, and each time I remember it I think OH BOY! Gotta write about that. Next time I remember what it is I will say it out loud over and over as I run for my computer.

The ontogeny recapitulates the phylogeny.

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:34:06 GMT

One of the things I remember from my high school biology class. Generally, it means the son tends to take after the father.

In my case, though, the son takes after the mother.

I will sometimes see a little idiosyncrasy displayed by one or the other of the children that can be directly related to my husband or me. For instance, my husband tends to twitch a little while reading. He will quietly drum his fingers on the recliner, or tap a foot, or click something, and not even be aware he's doing it. Rose has started tapping while she reads.

Rose used to twirl her hair in one finger when she was two or three. Sometimes she'd twirl it so much, it would tie up in a knot. Sam does this when his hair is too long. (He just got a haircut, his head is nice and fuzzy now.) Nature or nurture? Who knows?

During the last days of school I was there morning and afternoon to sell the yearbook. I was down to about 10. My children would join me after school on the patio outside the main entrance. The last day I was going to be there, Sam said, how many do you have left? I showed him the pile on the desk, just this many. He got up and started going up to students, parents and teachers, saying, have you got a yearbook yet? Do you want to buy a yearbook?

Oh my heavens. This was just a total stunner for me. I can't see Rose ever doing this. My husband can't/won't try to sell school things at work. I am the seller in the family: I was a traveling sales rep for a publishing company in the Midwest, I worked selling books at a couple different bookstores, I have no problem taking the kids around the block or to grandma's job to sell the fund-raising stuff. And here is my son, comfortably talking to people he doesn't know and asking them to buy yearbooks! I was so proud.

Too much of a good thing.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:35:34 GMT

The strawberries. The red, ripe, juicy, incredibly delicious strawberries that are growing in our front patch. About 3 weeks ago, one Saturday, the first thing I had to eat was a handful of this ruby morsels as I went to get the paper. Oh, mmm, yum.

We started picking the next day or two. Our patch is so vehement, I could pick a quart easily in about 2 minutes. I kept picking bits and pieces. It was unseasonably hot. I should have been picking gallons when I was picking pints.

Finally on a Friday when we were supposed to drive to Spokane to see my nephew graduate from college on Saturday, my husband decided to get involved in picking. He was adamant that we not leave those berries to rot over the weekend. Thursday afternoon my daughter and I had picked some Tupperware tubs full. Husband got out there Friday morning about 10, after packing, and I finally managed to drag him away about noon. Our biggest metal bowl (which is huge) was overwhelming full of ripe strawberries. I had to totally rearrange the fridge to find room for them.

Coming back Sunday night we were too blitzed to deal with them. But Monday night Ed and I cleaned them. Tuesday I made two batches of low sugar jam, with pectin. I was going to make two more batches, but I ran out of canning rings. All the rest of the berries I put in the freezer, about 12 pints. I've picked a few more tubs full to give away. But you know you're satiated when you leave the last pint of berries you picked out on the counter for a couple of days, and they get moldy.....

Now there's more ripe berries out there, but I'm thinking I should let them have a glorious end: fertilizer for the next batch, next year.

It's an interesting map.

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:00:07 GMT

visited 22 states (44%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or jurisdische veraling duits?

I've lived on the West Coast most of my life, excepting about 9 years when I lived in Chicago as a traveling sales rep, selling books. Louisiana and Florida are there because I've been to vacation or sales conferences or both. I've vacationed in the Northeast. I didn't mark some places: I've been in Texas a couple of times, but only for a day or two for meetings. I was in Las Vegas when I was five or so, with my family, but not been back since. I've been to Boise once, for two days. All the states I've marked, I've lived in or worked extensively in. All that Midwest part is where my sales territories have been at various times. Amazing, eh? At one time, my territory consisted of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. I was selling children's books for a new publishing company, and after a couple of seasons they came to their senses and cut Minnesota and Pennsylvania off my territory. Phew.

I loved the travel in that job, except when I hated it. I loved it at the beginning of the season when I'd been stuck at home for weeks or months. I loved driving through states like Iowa and Ohio, which turned out to be much more than flat fields of corn, whoo boy. Talk about gorgeous countryside--rolling hills, river valleys, trees, cliffs, wow. I hated traveling towards the end of the season, when all I wanted to do was hole up in my condo like a little hermit crab, only venturing out for food and church. There were times when I'd do one week of sales, working my way out, fly home for the weekend and fly back out, then work my way further out before driving my way home. Other times it would be: leave home Sunday afternoon or evening, drive to the city I needed to be in Monday morning, work all week, drive home Friday night, repeat. Five or six weeks in a row of that, and you'd know why I needed to quit sales.

I still dream about it, like you dream about college finals you haven't studied for? I dream I have been selling like mad all season, I haven't been paid, I look in my briefcase and there's all those orders I've been taking and not sending in to New York. Etc. I sometimes find myself thinking about a certain road, and I can't remember what city it's in. I drive that road in my thoughts until I come to something familiar, and I say to myself, "Oh, yeah, that's the main drag in Grand Rapids, Michigan" or "That's the side road to one of my bookstores in Champaign, Illinois." These little mental excursions are becoming fewer, but it's only been about 15 years since I've quit being a sales rep. It's been 30 years since I've been in college and I'm still having stress dreams about finals.