I didn't start out with a lot of enthusiasm for Christmas this year. We were very broke. With plenty of expenses.
Like the Snow-Tire Deadline. December 15, every vehicle has to have four snow tires on.
True to form, Hubby bought his on the 14th, and slated the installation, alignment & balancing for the 15th. Well, at least we actually MADE the deadline!
But that whopped the heck out of the paycheck. He told the kids, "Everybody's getting a TIRE for Christmas."
For days and weeks, the kids bugged us about putting up a tree.
"What's the point?" I asked. "There isn't going to be anything under it."
Our employer added to the fun. Every year since its inception, McGill has paid the end-of-the-month pay (slated for the 31st) on the 23rd of December. Hubby has been working there 32 years. For his 32 years, and my 19, we've been getting that extra paycheck just before Christmas, and we've been using it to pull Christmas presents out of a hat.
But noooo - not any more. We were notified on the 15th that, oh, by the way, your pay of the 31st will stay firmly where it is, until the actual 31st of December. Happy Holidays!
I had a quilt deadline for Christmas, so instead of sewing up a storm of presents, I was quilting. That meant for me that I couldn't start making Christmas presents till the client had picked up her quilt, which she did, on the 19th. So that's when I STARTED making gifts.
I noted with what I think is called "wry chagrin" that my cousin had all the gifts WRAPPED by that date. Sigh. Maybe next year.
Well, Santa pulled down a miracle. The EX gave Hubby back his support payment for the month of December.
See, the kid he's paying support FOR has been living here, with US, for six months.
"Has she found religion?" one of our pals asked.
I don't know. But we did find ourselves with a Christmas after all - complete with tree, food, and gifts for all.
Nobody was more surprised than me!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
On Being Gainfully Employed
So, on December 16, my eight-weeks period of Rest (HA!) came to an end. I was back at work.
It was nice to get out of the house. Nice to see the people I work with again. I still remembered how to turn on the computer this time... And they'd saved me a JOB to work on!
A loverly color brochure, with pictures taken specifically for it, and working with C, who is SO SENSIBLE about cutting text to the minimum...
I'd say my usual things like: "This brochure serves the purpose of a business card. You don't need to show how many credits each program is, just show 'em the exciting bits!"
...And she GOT IT! I love C. She "groks" things.
Everybody liked my weird fold design...
Anyway, there I was, second day back at work, and I get a tap on my shoulder. It was Hubby (who - you guessed it - works in the same building as I do). I looked up at him. "Yes?"
"Can we eat," he said.
I looked at the clock. It was past two o'clock.
"OMG!" I exclaimed. "I didn't even notice it was past feeding time!"
We grabbed our grub from the fridge and headed off to the lounge. The instant I stood up, I felt all rubbery, and realized...
"OMG! I didn't even eat BREAKFAST!"
Now, to some people, this wouldn't be noteworthy. For ME to miss not just one feeding time, but two, and IN A ROW, could be front page news! I haven't attained my "mature" profile by being a picky eater!
Not only that, but my astrological sign is LEO.
Lion.
Ever seen a hungry lion?
Want to be the guy that feeds the lions at the zoo, and MISS two feeding times, in a row, and try to go in there to feed them? I thought not!
I quipped at my boss, "See what happens when you give me something FUN to do?!"
Ah yes. I'm back at work. And loving it.
It was nice to get out of the house. Nice to see the people I work with again. I still remembered how to turn on the computer this time... And they'd saved me a JOB to work on!
A loverly color brochure, with pictures taken specifically for it, and working with C, who is SO SENSIBLE about cutting text to the minimum...
I'd say my usual things like: "This brochure serves the purpose of a business card. You don't need to show how many credits each program is, just show 'em the exciting bits!"
...And she GOT IT! I love C. She "groks" things.
Everybody liked my weird fold design...
Anyway, there I was, second day back at work, and I get a tap on my shoulder. It was Hubby (who - you guessed it - works in the same building as I do). I looked up at him. "Yes?"
"Can we eat," he said.
I looked at the clock. It was past two o'clock.
"OMG!" I exclaimed. "I didn't even notice it was past feeding time!"
We grabbed our grub from the fridge and headed off to the lounge. The instant I stood up, I felt all rubbery, and realized...
"OMG! I didn't even eat BREAKFAST!"
Now, to some people, this wouldn't be noteworthy. For ME to miss not just one feeding time, but two, and IN A ROW, could be front page news! I haven't attained my "mature" profile by being a picky eater!
Not only that, but my astrological sign is LEO.
Lion.
Ever seen a hungry lion?
Want to be the guy that feeds the lions at the zoo, and MISS two feeding times, in a row, and try to go in there to feed them? I thought not!
I quipped at my boss, "See what happens when you give me something FUN to do?!"
Ah yes. I'm back at work. And loving it.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
... but, would a jury of my peers convict me?
Okay, so, a couple of weekends ago, I had a laundry intervention.
I had gone downstairs in the hopes of putting on some laundry.
The way to the washer and dryer was blocked. A solid wall of piled laundry, laundry baskets, gym bags, blankets, boots, and hallowe'en decorations prevented access to the machines.
I ranted a few minutes, uselessly, then burst into tears and ran upstairs, where I took action. I called my friend K. I begged her to come over and view the devastation.
See, in OTHER people's houses, whenever you go in, the owner says "oh, please, excuse the mess!"
Only, there's no mess.
In MY home, however, there IS a mess.
Of BIBLICAL proportions.
See, Hubby and his two DNA replicants moved in around 13 years ago, and from that day to this, have behaved as aliens occupying my home, heedless of my pleas and protestations. They shrug their shoulders, they roll their eyes, and they use that amazing phrase that solves all their problems for them:
"It wasn't me."
Yeah. Right.
So my friend K came over and surveyed the battleground with me. I asked her one question: "Am I overreacting?"
She stared, slack-jawed for a few minutes before comforting me in her arms and saying, "No, you're not overreacting Deb. You're not imagining it or making it worse than it is. It is catastrophic. No human being should live like this."
I felt an immense surge of relief, and the tears of gratitude flowed faster than the tears of frustration had done.
From there, we went to the living room and called in the troops for a family meeting. We discussed personal cleanliness, respect for ourselves and for each other and for the house. There was whingeing and whining, and a lot of finger-pointing and many "It wasn't me"s... but in the end, rules were made.
From now on, all aliens do their own laundry.
No dirty clothes, and no clean clothes, are to be placed in any shared space.
No laundry can be started without being completed.
No-one is to sabotage anyone else's laundry-in-progress.
I continue to do linens. You should have seen the faces when it was suggested that each of them receive their own selection of towels and sheets! The horror! The humanity! Being adolescents, they're quite comfy with the idea that they will pick up their clothes from off the floor to wear out to school and work, but the thought that they might have to use a damp, smelly towel after their 45-minute showers.... Well, they were very happy to let me continue to do linens.
Buoyed by the success of the laundry intervention, I went through the kitchen and diningroom last week, removing tools, wires, electronic parts, CDs, DVDs, plugs, screws, nails, books, magazines.... In short, everything in the kitchen and dining room now belongs to the category of FOOD, and THINGS THAT GO WITH FOOD, like pots, pans, cutlery, napkins, etc.
So you can imagine my reaction today, when Hubby brought one of his new snow tires and new rims into the livingroom.
I piped up immediately. After all, one must nip these things in the bud!
I said, calmly and quietly, "Are you intending to put the tire onto the rim?"
Hubby said "That was the general idea."
I replied, "Well dear, the place for that is the basement, not the living room."
Hubby got the mat from the front hall and threw it on the living room rug. "It's okay," he said.
"Um... no it's not, dear," I said politely but firmly. "You have a workshop downstairs..."
"It's not big enough," he said flatly.
"... And there is also a nice clean section of floor in the laundry room, which is also in the basement," I continued.
He replied by throwing a wrench and a long yellow tie-down on the floor beside the tire.
"You intend, then," I said, "to continue to work on the tire, in the living room?"
"Yup," he said flatly.
I got up and went in search of my cell phone, which has a picture-taking function. I took a picture of the mat, tire, rim, tie-down, and wrench in the living room.
A few minutes later, as Hubby was bent over the tire, I took another picture.
I emailed the pictures, with the captions "Yes, he's doing this in the living room," and "Save me!" to his brother and a friend of mine.
I said to Hubby, as he was pounding away at the tire, "You know, I'm pretty sure you brother is not permitted to bring tires and rims into his living room to work on them."
No reply.
I said, "I'm pretty sure my friend R isn't allowed to, either."
No reply. Hubby now stands up and attempts to get the tire to go into the rim by rocking violently from side to side while trying not to fall.
I hear sounds of Stepkid yawning and stretching in her room. "Hey, Stepkid!" I call out. "Come and see your Dad making a fool of himself!"
"Shut up," said Hubby.
"Well, you DID make an appointment for tomorrow, right? And they have all the necessary tools, and you don't? And you have to pay them anyway?"
The reply was a soft growling sound.
"Well then, darling, I think you should stop this nonsense before you fall off and hurt yourself. Put it away, and go do something useful."
No reply, not even a gutteral one.
Stepkid came in to inspect. "What are you doing," she demanded.
"What does it look like?" Hubby snapped at her, stamping his feet on the tire.
Stepkid watched for a moment and then got up on the tire with her father. Instantly, she recognized the futility of the venture and alit. "Forget it, Dad, it's not going to happen," she said, exiting the room.
Eventually, Hubby did get down off the tire, only to try using the tie-down in a different position. I watched without comment as I did my quilting, for about ten or fifteen more minutes. Finally, Hubby got himself a cup of coffee and sat down. He looked at me soulfully.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me do this?" he asked.
"You suppose correctly, dear," I answered. "Put it away. Put it out of your head. You're always complaining you have no time to do anything around here. Well, you have six or seven hours to play with today. I don't care what you do, as long as it's useful and productive! Go fix the shoe stand like you wanted to. Do some laundry if you wish. Build a fire in the fireplace. Vaccum the sawdust from your workshop. Build something. Do some stained glass. Sort your books. Read a book. Have a hot bath. Punch a hole in the wall for the washer's new position. But GET OVER THIS."
I got a glare and a growl.
So, my question is:
Is YOUR husband/father/brother/whatnot permitted to play with tires in YOUR livingroom?
What would YOUR or YOUR MOTHER'S reaction be if your dad/spouse/whatnot tried to do this sort of thing in the livingroom?
And finally,
Would you convict me?
I had gone downstairs in the hopes of putting on some laundry.
The way to the washer and dryer was blocked. A solid wall of piled laundry, laundry baskets, gym bags, blankets, boots, and hallowe'en decorations prevented access to the machines.
I ranted a few minutes, uselessly, then burst into tears and ran upstairs, where I took action. I called my friend K. I begged her to come over and view the devastation.
See, in OTHER people's houses, whenever you go in, the owner says "oh, please, excuse the mess!"
Only, there's no mess.
In MY home, however, there IS a mess.
Of BIBLICAL proportions.
See, Hubby and his two DNA replicants moved in around 13 years ago, and from that day to this, have behaved as aliens occupying my home, heedless of my pleas and protestations. They shrug their shoulders, they roll their eyes, and they use that amazing phrase that solves all their problems for them:
"It wasn't me."
Yeah. Right.
So my friend K came over and surveyed the battleground with me. I asked her one question: "Am I overreacting?"
She stared, slack-jawed for a few minutes before comforting me in her arms and saying, "No, you're not overreacting Deb. You're not imagining it or making it worse than it is. It is catastrophic. No human being should live like this."
I felt an immense surge of relief, and the tears of gratitude flowed faster than the tears of frustration had done.
From there, we went to the living room and called in the troops for a family meeting. We discussed personal cleanliness, respect for ourselves and for each other and for the house. There was whingeing and whining, and a lot of finger-pointing and many "It wasn't me"s... but in the end, rules were made.
From now on, all aliens do their own laundry.
No dirty clothes, and no clean clothes, are to be placed in any shared space.
No laundry can be started without being completed.
No-one is to sabotage anyone else's laundry-in-progress.
I continue to do linens. You should have seen the faces when it was suggested that each of them receive their own selection of towels and sheets! The horror! The humanity! Being adolescents, they're quite comfy with the idea that they will pick up their clothes from off the floor to wear out to school and work, but the thought that they might have to use a damp, smelly towel after their 45-minute showers.... Well, they were very happy to let me continue to do linens.
Buoyed by the success of the laundry intervention, I went through the kitchen and diningroom last week, removing tools, wires, electronic parts, CDs, DVDs, plugs, screws, nails, books, magazines.... In short, everything in the kitchen and dining room now belongs to the category of FOOD, and THINGS THAT GO WITH FOOD, like pots, pans, cutlery, napkins, etc.
So you can imagine my reaction today, when Hubby brought one of his new snow tires and new rims into the livingroom.
I piped up immediately. After all, one must nip these things in the bud!
I said, calmly and quietly, "Are you intending to put the tire onto the rim?"
Hubby said "That was the general idea."
I replied, "Well dear, the place for that is the basement, not the living room."
Hubby got the mat from the front hall and threw it on the living room rug. "It's okay," he said.
"Um... no it's not, dear," I said politely but firmly. "You have a workshop downstairs..."
"It's not big enough," he said flatly.
"... And there is also a nice clean section of floor in the laundry room, which is also in the basement," I continued.
He replied by throwing a wrench and a long yellow tie-down on the floor beside the tire.
"You intend, then," I said, "to continue to work on the tire, in the living room?"
"Yup," he said flatly.
I got up and went in search of my cell phone, which has a picture-taking function. I took a picture of the mat, tire, rim, tie-down, and wrench in the living room.
A few minutes later, as Hubby was bent over the tire, I took another picture.
I emailed the pictures, with the captions "Yes, he's doing this in the living room," and "Save me!" to his brother and a friend of mine.
I said to Hubby, as he was pounding away at the tire, "You know, I'm pretty sure you brother is not permitted to bring tires and rims into his living room to work on them."
No reply.
I said, "I'm pretty sure my friend R isn't allowed to, either."
No reply. Hubby now stands up and attempts to get the tire to go into the rim by rocking violently from side to side while trying not to fall.
I hear sounds of Stepkid yawning and stretching in her room. "Hey, Stepkid!" I call out. "Come and see your Dad making a fool of himself!"
"Shut up," said Hubby.
"Well, you DID make an appointment for tomorrow, right? And they have all the necessary tools, and you don't? And you have to pay them anyway?"
The reply was a soft growling sound.
"Well then, darling, I think you should stop this nonsense before you fall off and hurt yourself. Put it away, and go do something useful."
No reply, not even a gutteral one.
Stepkid came in to inspect. "What are you doing," she demanded.
"What does it look like?" Hubby snapped at her, stamping his feet on the tire.
Stepkid watched for a moment and then got up on the tire with her father. Instantly, she recognized the futility of the venture and alit. "Forget it, Dad, it's not going to happen," she said, exiting the room.
Eventually, Hubby did get down off the tire, only to try using the tie-down in a different position. I watched without comment as I did my quilting, for about ten or fifteen more minutes. Finally, Hubby got himself a cup of coffee and sat down. He looked at me soulfully.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me do this?" he asked.
"You suppose correctly, dear," I answered. "Put it away. Put it out of your head. You're always complaining you have no time to do anything around here. Well, you have six or seven hours to play with today. I don't care what you do, as long as it's useful and productive! Go fix the shoe stand like you wanted to. Do some laundry if you wish. Build a fire in the fireplace. Vaccum the sawdust from your workshop. Build something. Do some stained glass. Sort your books. Read a book. Have a hot bath. Punch a hole in the wall for the washer's new position. But GET OVER THIS."
I got a glare and a growl.
So, my question is:
Is YOUR husband/father/brother/whatnot permitted to play with tires in YOUR livingroom?
What would YOUR or YOUR MOTHER'S reaction be if your dad/spouse/whatnot tried to do this sort of thing in the livingroom?
And finally,
Would you convict me?
Friday, November 28, 2008
The Sixteenth Birthday Fiasco
I'm writing this hoping my StepDaughter will one day read it, just not this week. Or next month. Maybe not for a year or so.
Or maybe tomorrow.
Yes, this has all the elements of a good family drama in it - shock, surprise, humor, denial, grudges, battles, and of course, lots of love for a charming, witty, talented young lady I'd give the earth to if I could. And so would anybody - she's that wonderful.
A week or so ago, Hubby and I were presented with Stepdaughter's 16th birthday wish-list.
It was a wonderful list. It was short, and it was obvious from the contents that it had been carefully thought-out. There was an Mp3, and money, of course, at the top of the list. Then came a request for trips to the rock-climbing place - definitely affordable. A request to finally get her duvet-cover MADE - we'd purchased the fabric LAST year, and never made it yet. And also on the list was - are you ready for this? - a new set of bed sheets.
I could have cried. That's so MATURE! For a 16 year old girl to realize that our finances are such that a set of bed sheets, which normally would come filed under "household expenses", to be put on a birthday wish-list... Well, I was impressed. You know you're growing up when your wish lists contain linens and appliances!
Hubby and I agonized over how much money to give her. Because the budget doesn't have ANY room at all - not for $25, certainly not for $100, which was what we eventually gave her.
And Hubby signed her up for courses at the rock-climbing establishment, which you have to take before you can do any real climbing.
We briefly discussed having the florist deliver a corsage on her birthday morning with a single pink rose, for her to wear all day. We decided it would be too ostentatious. After all, lots of other kids have birthdays, and they don't get to wear corsages all day!
And I put my head down and got to work on the duvet. It took three full days work. And there's a subplot, involving StepSon.
Subplot A: Stepson's story
Stepson is (hopefully) going to start work tonight as a busboy. He's been not working since the beginning of September. Ergo - he has no money, therefore, no gift to Stepdaughter.
He was peacefully snoring his heart out at ten yesterday morning, when I couldn't find an item I needed to finish the duvet cover properly. A seam-binding with particular qualities. I know I have another roll here somewhere... but last week my shelves fell down, and I'm still digging out from under the rubble.
ANYWAY... Hubby said to give the phone to Stepson, he'd tell him to get up and go buy the stuff for me from Fabricville. I said, was that wise? Let sleeping teenagers lie, etc etc etc.
Hubby said "He's feeling guilty about not having anything to give her. It'll make him feel good."
I said "Can I quote you?"
Long story short, eventually Stepson DID get up, go to Fabricville, pick up the item, come home cheerfully and proceeded to bake his sister's birthday cake.
But here's the subpot part: I kept wondering if Stepson would remember that, for his birthday this year, he got squat. Or rather, his Dad made him a lemon-meringue pie. No card, no gifts. No money.
And his aunt & uncle also gave him squat.
That's because Stepson was in the proverbial doghouse at the time. No need to go into details. Suffice it to say, for those dear readers who don't know Stepson, he was 19 going on 6, with all the attributes that go with that particular demographic group. And he was being given a clear message: no more gifts. Nothing more for free. Get a job.
So, back to yesterday. I kept wondering how much resentment lingered in Stepson's mind, or how much was going to be built up, over his sister's 16th birthday. We were joking about a birthday card he could make for her "On your 16th birthday, Sis, I forgive you for being born!" We laughed over that one, he and I. Then he pulled an unused birthday card from off a shelf, and said "I didn't even get a card on MY birthday! Here it is!"
And, of course, because I can't think on my feet, I told him the truth. "Oh - that was for my stepmom's birthday," I said. "You're in good company - I never gave her a card, either! And you were kind of in the doghouse, dear, on your birthday this year."
Oops. The look on his face was utter shock. He immediately hid it and turned away. But up to that point, he had not realized that the omissions were, in fact, intentional. He had honestly thought we'd all just forgotten, and he'd been fine with that. But now, it hurt.
Oops. We'd meant the message to sting, but we'd meant it to sting BACK THEN - not NOW, when he was being NICE.
End of subplot A.
Okay, so there I was, frantically sewing all day. My back was aching, my neck was going into spasms, I was too stiff to stand up. The thing was beautiful. Her dad had designed it, I'd done the cutting and sewing, and she was getting a piece of artwork for her bed that was special and unique. And, for once in my life, flawless. I done good!
I was still doing good when she arrived home. I was one half-hour short of finishing it. I kept sewing, since, well I figured she'd known I was working on it anyway, and if not, well, the best place to hide things is in plain sight... So I just kept sewing. I'd wanted to finish it and have it on her bed before she came home from school, but we'd lost time looking for the seaming stuff, so there we were.
Stepdaughter and Friend arrived, breathless, excited, positively glowing. Came right into the sewing room, and plonked down in dramatic fashion, the following items.
One dozen perfect Red Roses, complete with Baby's Breath and Greens, in their Clear Plastic Wrapping with Kisses all over it.
Four helium-filled balloons - one a metallic that said "Happy 16th Birthday", tied with multi-colored ribbons to a small tin.
Four other packages containing things like makeup and gift cards, etc.
She opened the tin and said "Read this! This all came during English class!" She was radiant.
I read the note. It said "Pack your bags darling - you're going to ENGLAND!"
Subplot B: The Trip to England
Every year the school does this trip to England during March break. Stepkid had figured out a while ago that our budget just didn't have room to pay for this trip, and had not said a word to anyone.
But two weeks ago, in casual conversation with her RealMom, she let something drop. One of her frineds was going, or something like that. RealMom got the details.
End of Subplot B.
Yesterday, during the school day, RealMom's Big Surprise took place.
RealMom had arranged with the English Teacher not to tell Stepkid about the Big Surprise.
RealMom had got her friend to go to the florist, get the balloons, do all the fancy fussing-up, all those special things one can do with presents that turn a room into a rainbow of hearts and flowers. Spectacular, Unexpected, Dreamy. Special.
Said friend arrived at the door of English Class. English Teacher welcomes Friend in, who brings this rainbow of delight to Stepkid, who starts crying with joy immediately. Who opens the tin. Who finds out that she's going on the unaffordable trip after all. Who cries more. Who's cell phone rings, who's RealMom is on the phone to hear her daughter's excitement. Friend, RealMom, English Teacher and Stepkid are all crying and shrieking with delight.
Sigh. It was beautiful. I can see it, just like it was on the silver screen, perfectly timed and choreographed down to the last detail.
Then Stepkid's Friend said "Hey! Is that the duvet cover you're sewing?!"
I just looked at her. Gee, thanks, Friend.
"Oh! Ha-ha!" laughed Stpkid. "I didnt even notice!"
They went away, leaving the rainbow sitting on my sewing table. I continued to sew.
I was thinking about the other kids. The ones in the English class. The ones who aren't going to England, The one whose cancellation made a spot come available for Stepkid. The ones who had just turned 16 themselves or who were about to, and no sudden unexpected trip to England was waiting for. Or Roses, or Balloons, or strangers arriving to interrupt the class, or to whom no cell phone calls were permitted during class time.
And I know exactly how they felt, watching all this excitement over Stepkid's 16th birthday. They might not have the vocabulary for it, but it's there.
"What's so special about her that she gets to have a phone call with her mother during class time?"
" Why are my parents making me work and pay for my own trip to England, or, why are my parents making me pay half my trip to England, or, why aren't my parents letting me go at all?"
"How come I didn't get roses on my 16th birthday?"
I thought about how Hubby and I had decided that a single pink rose corsage was too ostentatious.
And I sighed, and got on with finishing the duvet cover.
I don't remember my 16th birthday. I remember my 13th, because that's when I got my first bra.
I remember my Daughter's 13th, because that's when I wrote lyrics to a popular song and sang it for her. On my Daughter;'s 16th, I didn't have any money. But I gave her the engagement ring her father had given me, and she treasures it.
Well, Stepkid's evening progressed. When she first came home, she was of course full of adrenaline and plans for the evening, even though it was a school night. She and fifteen friends were going to Starbuck's, Village, Body Shop. She had a gift card to use at Body Shop that was only good on your birthday, and you got a discount or something. They were all going roaming the wide world over. "What time's supper" she wanted to know, since she had to plan all this for herself and her friends, and timing would be critical.
"Uh... I wanted to finish this," I said.
"That's okay!" Out she bounced, higher than a kite.
I finished the duvet cover and put it on her duvet, washed my hands and went to work making supper. I was halfway through chopping when Hubby got home, exhauseted, as usual, to see the dozen roses sitting in a vase on the table. And got told the story of the English Class Surprise from RealMom. Made all the appropriate "oohing & aahing" sounds. Tiredly got up to help me with the chopping.
Once it was cooking, I went to lie down, to give my back and my neck and my knees a rest.
And after dinner, the disappointment blow was cast. I felt awful, I went to bed. I wasn't going to drive her to the body shop.
And neither was her dad. He was tired.
She could see this - you'd have had to be blind not to see how tired he was. Every night he comes home, I worry he's in the middle of having a heart attack, that's how tired he looks.
"Pleeze!" she tried on him. Smiling, cajoling, all to no avail. She'd come bump against a fact of life: we are old, tired people. She worked on both of us for over an hour. In bed, I could hear her on the phone, couldn't make out the words, but I think she was crying. Uh-oh. The Princess has been let down. Sorry kid. I'm dead. Some other birthday.
Whe Hubby came to bed, I don't know what time, we cuddled up and he let out a long sigh.
"It's a wonderful gift," I said.
"Um-hm."
"Delivered in sensational style, as usual," I said.
"Um-hm."
RealMom has Style, with a capital "S". Gotta hand it to her.
Trying to comfort Hubby, I pointed out that RealMom probably got her dad to pay for the trip.
"Um-hm."
In one masterful stroke, she had undone anything we'd done for Stepkid's celebration. Blink, and you missed it. Boy, that was fast. "What did you get for your 16th birthday?" "A trip to ENGLAND!!!" Period.
There's no way to compete with RealMom. She's a force of Nature.
Subplot C: My high-schooling
I, too, received special treatment in high school. Like Stepkid, I was bright. Actually only studied one subject, and that for one week, to coast through and get a gold medal for the highest marks in the whole school board.
Other kids had to do the assignments as they were assigned. I got let off, because I'd been writing about something else, and the teachers loved my spark, and they let me do my own thing.
I loved it at the time. Got my own way - what teenager wouldn't have loved special treatment?
But it didn't help me. I never went on to university. I went to one class. Did half a term. Failed miserably - MISERABLY.
Because I'd never learned to work hard.
Univeristy is geared to hard workers. Like life. You can't get a degree by being smart. You have to do the work.
And I didn't have any friends in high school, either. And with 20/20 hindsight, I can see why. "Teacher's Pet."
With 20/20 hindsight, I should have failed a bunch of high school courses, not been rewarded for not doing the assignments.
That might have wakened me up to reality. In time to save my education.
As it is, I woke up to reality when I was a single mom in my thirties, the day my dad said "No. You can't have any more money. You have to pay your own bills."
What - I'm responsible for my own financial security?! How come nobody told me this before?!!!
End of Subplot C.
So, the first day of Stepkid's seventeenth year was sensational, over-the-top, joyous... well, if you don't count the fact that nobody drove her out to the Body Shop...
She'll remember it all her life. It was a marvelous, magical, thrilling event. It may outshine her Graduation or her Wedding.
I remember flamboyant. I used to be flamboyant. I used to hate people who told me I was flamboyant. Over the top. Loud. Flashy. Sensational.
But that's been beaten out of me, bit by bit, step by step, since the day Daddy said "No," and I've been paying my own bills.
Now the task remains - get Stepkid through highschool, through University, with her Flair and Panache intact, while still getting her an education, teaching her to work hard, to save her money, to pay her own way. To be sensitive to the fact that not everybody around her is having as good a time as she is. To try to explain to her somehow that though the England trip is in fact a wonderful gift, the news COULD have been delivered quietly, without a big show. Her Dad could have been told of it. That the flowers are lovely and the gifts wonderful, but they could have been delivered here, not at school, not in front of her classmates, and by extension, the whole school. That there was no need to rub everybody's nose in the fact that she's a sweet kid and her RealMom loves her.
To try and somehow get it through to her that EVERY kid's mom loves them, that EVERY kid at her high school turns 16 this year, but that not every kid got this sensational treatment, that there will be resentment she won't know of or won't understand... Or won't notice.
Without spoiling her fun.
Or maybe tomorrow.
Yes, this has all the elements of a good family drama in it - shock, surprise, humor, denial, grudges, battles, and of course, lots of love for a charming, witty, talented young lady I'd give the earth to if I could. And so would anybody - she's that wonderful.
A week or so ago, Hubby and I were presented with Stepdaughter's 16th birthday wish-list.
It was a wonderful list. It was short, and it was obvious from the contents that it had been carefully thought-out. There was an Mp3, and money, of course, at the top of the list. Then came a request for trips to the rock-climbing place - definitely affordable. A request to finally get her duvet-cover MADE - we'd purchased the fabric LAST year, and never made it yet. And also on the list was - are you ready for this? - a new set of bed sheets.
I could have cried. That's so MATURE! For a 16 year old girl to realize that our finances are such that a set of bed sheets, which normally would come filed under "household expenses", to be put on a birthday wish-list... Well, I was impressed. You know you're growing up when your wish lists contain linens and appliances!
Hubby and I agonized over how much money to give her. Because the budget doesn't have ANY room at all - not for $25, certainly not for $100, which was what we eventually gave her.
And Hubby signed her up for courses at the rock-climbing establishment, which you have to take before you can do any real climbing.
We briefly discussed having the florist deliver a corsage on her birthday morning with a single pink rose, for her to wear all day. We decided it would be too ostentatious. After all, lots of other kids have birthdays, and they don't get to wear corsages all day!
And I put my head down and got to work on the duvet. It took three full days work. And there's a subplot, involving StepSon.
Subplot A: Stepson's story
Stepson is (hopefully) going to start work tonight as a busboy. He's been not working since the beginning of September. Ergo - he has no money, therefore, no gift to Stepdaughter.
He was peacefully snoring his heart out at ten yesterday morning, when I couldn't find an item I needed to finish the duvet cover properly. A seam-binding with particular qualities. I know I have another roll here somewhere... but last week my shelves fell down, and I'm still digging out from under the rubble.
ANYWAY... Hubby said to give the phone to Stepson, he'd tell him to get up and go buy the stuff for me from Fabricville. I said, was that wise? Let sleeping teenagers lie, etc etc etc.
Hubby said "He's feeling guilty about not having anything to give her. It'll make him feel good."
I said "Can I quote you?"
Long story short, eventually Stepson DID get up, go to Fabricville, pick up the item, come home cheerfully and proceeded to bake his sister's birthday cake.
But here's the subpot part: I kept wondering if Stepson would remember that, for his birthday this year, he got squat. Or rather, his Dad made him a lemon-meringue pie. No card, no gifts. No money.
And his aunt & uncle also gave him squat.
That's because Stepson was in the proverbial doghouse at the time. No need to go into details. Suffice it to say, for those dear readers who don't know Stepson, he was 19 going on 6, with all the attributes that go with that particular demographic group. And he was being given a clear message: no more gifts. Nothing more for free. Get a job.
So, back to yesterday. I kept wondering how much resentment lingered in Stepson's mind, or how much was going to be built up, over his sister's 16th birthday. We were joking about a birthday card he could make for her "On your 16th birthday, Sis, I forgive you for being born!" We laughed over that one, he and I. Then he pulled an unused birthday card from off a shelf, and said "I didn't even get a card on MY birthday! Here it is!"
And, of course, because I can't think on my feet, I told him the truth. "Oh - that was for my stepmom's birthday," I said. "You're in good company - I never gave her a card, either! And you were kind of in the doghouse, dear, on your birthday this year."
Oops. The look on his face was utter shock. He immediately hid it and turned away. But up to that point, he had not realized that the omissions were, in fact, intentional. He had honestly thought we'd all just forgotten, and he'd been fine with that. But now, it hurt.
Oops. We'd meant the message to sting, but we'd meant it to sting BACK THEN - not NOW, when he was being NICE.
End of subplot A.
Okay, so there I was, frantically sewing all day. My back was aching, my neck was going into spasms, I was too stiff to stand up. The thing was beautiful. Her dad had designed it, I'd done the cutting and sewing, and she was getting a piece of artwork for her bed that was special and unique. And, for once in my life, flawless. I done good!
I was still doing good when she arrived home. I was one half-hour short of finishing it. I kept sewing, since, well I figured she'd known I was working on it anyway, and if not, well, the best place to hide things is in plain sight... So I just kept sewing. I'd wanted to finish it and have it on her bed before she came home from school, but we'd lost time looking for the seaming stuff, so there we were.
Stepdaughter and Friend arrived, breathless, excited, positively glowing. Came right into the sewing room, and plonked down in dramatic fashion, the following items.
One dozen perfect Red Roses, complete with Baby's Breath and Greens, in their Clear Plastic Wrapping with Kisses all over it.
Four helium-filled balloons - one a metallic that said "Happy 16th Birthday", tied with multi-colored ribbons to a small tin.
Four other packages containing things like makeup and gift cards, etc.
She opened the tin and said "Read this! This all came during English class!" She was radiant.
I read the note. It said "Pack your bags darling - you're going to ENGLAND!"
Subplot B: The Trip to England
Every year the school does this trip to England during March break. Stepkid had figured out a while ago that our budget just didn't have room to pay for this trip, and had not said a word to anyone.
But two weeks ago, in casual conversation with her RealMom, she let something drop. One of her frineds was going, or something like that. RealMom got the details.
End of Subplot B.
Yesterday, during the school day, RealMom's Big Surprise took place.
RealMom had arranged with the English Teacher not to tell Stepkid about the Big Surprise.
RealMom had got her friend to go to the florist, get the balloons, do all the fancy fussing-up, all those special things one can do with presents that turn a room into a rainbow of hearts and flowers. Spectacular, Unexpected, Dreamy. Special.
Said friend arrived at the door of English Class. English Teacher welcomes Friend in, who brings this rainbow of delight to Stepkid, who starts crying with joy immediately. Who opens the tin. Who finds out that she's going on the unaffordable trip after all. Who cries more. Who's cell phone rings, who's RealMom is on the phone to hear her daughter's excitement. Friend, RealMom, English Teacher and Stepkid are all crying and shrieking with delight.
Sigh. It was beautiful. I can see it, just like it was on the silver screen, perfectly timed and choreographed down to the last detail.
Then Stepkid's Friend said "Hey! Is that the duvet cover you're sewing?!"
I just looked at her. Gee, thanks, Friend.
"Oh! Ha-ha!" laughed Stpkid. "I didnt even notice!"
They went away, leaving the rainbow sitting on my sewing table. I continued to sew.
I was thinking about the other kids. The ones in the English class. The ones who aren't going to England, The one whose cancellation made a spot come available for Stepkid. The ones who had just turned 16 themselves or who were about to, and no sudden unexpected trip to England was waiting for. Or Roses, or Balloons, or strangers arriving to interrupt the class, or to whom no cell phone calls were permitted during class time.
And I know exactly how they felt, watching all this excitement over Stepkid's 16th birthday. They might not have the vocabulary for it, but it's there.
"What's so special about her that she gets to have a phone call with her mother during class time?"
" Why are my parents making me work and pay for my own trip to England, or, why are my parents making me pay half my trip to England, or, why aren't my parents letting me go at all?"
"How come I didn't get roses on my 16th birthday?"
I thought about how Hubby and I had decided that a single pink rose corsage was too ostentatious.
And I sighed, and got on with finishing the duvet cover.
I don't remember my 16th birthday. I remember my 13th, because that's when I got my first bra.
I remember my Daughter's 13th, because that's when I wrote lyrics to a popular song and sang it for her. On my Daughter;'s 16th, I didn't have any money. But I gave her the engagement ring her father had given me, and she treasures it.
Well, Stepkid's evening progressed. When she first came home, she was of course full of adrenaline and plans for the evening, even though it was a school night. She and fifteen friends were going to Starbuck's, Village, Body Shop. She had a gift card to use at Body Shop that was only good on your birthday, and you got a discount or something. They were all going roaming the wide world over. "What time's supper" she wanted to know, since she had to plan all this for herself and her friends, and timing would be critical.
"Uh... I wanted to finish this," I said.
"That's okay!" Out she bounced, higher than a kite.
I finished the duvet cover and put it on her duvet, washed my hands and went to work making supper. I was halfway through chopping when Hubby got home, exhauseted, as usual, to see the dozen roses sitting in a vase on the table. And got told the story of the English Class Surprise from RealMom. Made all the appropriate "oohing & aahing" sounds. Tiredly got up to help me with the chopping.
Once it was cooking, I went to lie down, to give my back and my neck and my knees a rest.
And after dinner, the disappointment blow was cast. I felt awful, I went to bed. I wasn't going to drive her to the body shop.
And neither was her dad. He was tired.
She could see this - you'd have had to be blind not to see how tired he was. Every night he comes home, I worry he's in the middle of having a heart attack, that's how tired he looks.
"Pleeze!" she tried on him. Smiling, cajoling, all to no avail. She'd come bump against a fact of life: we are old, tired people. She worked on both of us for over an hour. In bed, I could hear her on the phone, couldn't make out the words, but I think she was crying. Uh-oh. The Princess has been let down. Sorry kid. I'm dead. Some other birthday.
Whe Hubby came to bed, I don't know what time, we cuddled up and he let out a long sigh.
"It's a wonderful gift," I said.
"Um-hm."
"Delivered in sensational style, as usual," I said.
"Um-hm."
RealMom has Style, with a capital "S". Gotta hand it to her.
Trying to comfort Hubby, I pointed out that RealMom probably got her dad to pay for the trip.
"Um-hm."
In one masterful stroke, she had undone anything we'd done for Stepkid's celebration. Blink, and you missed it. Boy, that was fast. "What did you get for your 16th birthday?" "A trip to ENGLAND!!!" Period.
There's no way to compete with RealMom. She's a force of Nature.
Subplot C: My high-schooling
I, too, received special treatment in high school. Like Stepkid, I was bright. Actually only studied one subject, and that for one week, to coast through and get a gold medal for the highest marks in the whole school board.
Other kids had to do the assignments as they were assigned. I got let off, because I'd been writing about something else, and the teachers loved my spark, and they let me do my own thing.
I loved it at the time. Got my own way - what teenager wouldn't have loved special treatment?
But it didn't help me. I never went on to university. I went to one class. Did half a term. Failed miserably - MISERABLY.
Because I'd never learned to work hard.
Univeristy is geared to hard workers. Like life. You can't get a degree by being smart. You have to do the work.
And I didn't have any friends in high school, either. And with 20/20 hindsight, I can see why. "Teacher's Pet."
With 20/20 hindsight, I should have failed a bunch of high school courses, not been rewarded for not doing the assignments.
That might have wakened me up to reality. In time to save my education.
As it is, I woke up to reality when I was a single mom in my thirties, the day my dad said "No. You can't have any more money. You have to pay your own bills."
What - I'm responsible for my own financial security?! How come nobody told me this before?!!!
End of Subplot C.
So, the first day of Stepkid's seventeenth year was sensational, over-the-top, joyous... well, if you don't count the fact that nobody drove her out to the Body Shop...
She'll remember it all her life. It was a marvelous, magical, thrilling event. It may outshine her Graduation or her Wedding.
I remember flamboyant. I used to be flamboyant. I used to hate people who told me I was flamboyant. Over the top. Loud. Flashy. Sensational.
But that's been beaten out of me, bit by bit, step by step, since the day Daddy said "No," and I've been paying my own bills.
Now the task remains - get Stepkid through highschool, through University, with her Flair and Panache intact, while still getting her an education, teaching her to work hard, to save her money, to pay her own way. To be sensitive to the fact that not everybody around her is having as good a time as she is. To try to explain to her somehow that though the England trip is in fact a wonderful gift, the news COULD have been delivered quietly, without a big show. Her Dad could have been told of it. That the flowers are lovely and the gifts wonderful, but they could have been delivered here, not at school, not in front of her classmates, and by extension, the whole school. That there was no need to rub everybody's nose in the fact that she's a sweet kid and her RealMom loves her.
To try and somehow get it through to her that EVERY kid's mom loves them, that EVERY kid at her high school turns 16 this year, but that not every kid got this sensational treatment, that there will be resentment she won't know of or won't understand... Or won't notice.
Without spoiling her fun.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Din-Din
I'm often amazed by what happens to food between the time I see it on a grocery store shelf and when I throw out its mouldy remains from my fridge.
Take last night's dinner, for example. Hubby, who was the last-one-out-in-the-car, called me from the grocery store. "They don't have any pre-cooked chickens," he said tiredly. "I'm stumped."
"It's okay," I said. "Just buy anything that should feed five people - I've already started some fried rice."
He turned up with twelve chicken thighs, backs attached, and two jars of some Indian sauce. "These are what I bought last time, aren't they?" he asked. They weren't, last time he'd bought chicken breasts, but he was unconvinced and proceeded to try to persuade me that this was indeed the same cut of meat he'd bought last time.
Busy with my chopping, I declined the invitation to fight, and let it drop. He was, uncharacteristically, too tired to continue the argument alone. I went on chopping celery, my rice frying happily.
Then we had a phone call from an elderly neighbour I'd been concerned with earlier in the day. There's this guy, a great big hulking lout of a man, who frequents her house whenever his welfare cheque runs out, and he does yard work for her. He scares the willies out of me, and I often worry that one day he would try to force his way in... but that is not today's topic. Yesterday, Hubby held his cell phone up to my ear as I was trying to chop stuff for the fried rice, and while I was thus engaged in conversation with my friend, the rice burned.
First wrinkle in the dinner plans.
Fortunately, I'd seen it right away and removed the pan from the burner. I scooped out the worst bits and left the pan off the burner till I was finished chopping. Hubby said "Sorry," and I said only, "just leave the rest out. As soon as I've got this seasoned I'll start on the chicken."
Hubby, who was dead-tired, was not so easily deterred. Martyr complex aside, he knows that lots of noise and activity bustling around me when I'm trying to make dinner within a specific length of time often upsets me - a LOT - and he dutifully began trying to take the skin off the first piece of chicken. It didn't LOOK like that, you understand. He was massacring it - bending the bones this way and that, cutting off most of the usable meat and leaving the skin firmly attached.
"DARLING!" I shouted. The word I used was "darling," but It must have sounded like "SHITHEAD!", because that was in fact, the way I meant it...
"I'm only trying to help," he said feebly.
"Go lie down!" I ordered him. I've got this COVERED!"
"Are you sure?" his voice whined.
I was ready to explode. How many times, how many different ways, would I have to say it till this man would leave me alone and let me THINK!
He finally exited, and I could get back to my rice. Celery, carrot, broccoli, leftover chicken meat, pepper, salt, three cups of water... something was missing... I tossed in some Basil, realized that was a mistake, but no getting it out now, put the lid on, and started to heat the oven.
As I was stirring the two jars of sauce into the pot, tearing off as much excess fat from the chicken as I could without picking up a tool, it dawned on me that the rice would be ready in ten minutes, while the chicken still had an hour to run. So I turned off the burner under the rice and gave the chicken my full attention. Minutes later, with every piece thoroughly coated, I stacked them up in the corningware pot, stuck it in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes. Washed up, and left the kitchen to go to the sewing room.
When the buzzer rang, out came the chicken, still mostly raw. I put it on a baking tray, skin side up, and spooned sauce over it. Back in the oven for 30 minutes, and I proceeded to peel some apples for a quick apple crisp. No time to look up the recipe - I winged it totally. Had time for a quick run back to the sewing room.
Twenty minutes later, my spider-senses tingling, I arrived in the kitchen just in time to see the level of fat in the shallow tray about to come spilling over the top. I found the baster, and it was thus that Hubby found me, with oven door open, bowl of fat resting on the oven door, sucking out fat with the baster and dumping it in the bowl. Wanted to know what I was doing.
What is it about men that they always need to have the obvious explained to them, anyway?
And so a few minutes later, with the chicken and rice in serving bowls and the apple crisp in the oven, all five of us sat down to dinner. (Stepson had asked his girlfriend to join us - this time I'd had an hour's notice! Whee.)
Not enough though apparently, as Girlfriend didn't eat rice.
For crying out loud - who doesn't eat RICE?
He made her eat a bit off his fork, but teenage girls will be teenage girls. She had one measly piece of chicken and swore she was full.
I dutifully picked up a forkful of my burnt, over-cooked rice, and...
I'd never tasted anything so good.
I didn't hear much of what was being said around the table, trying to remember what the heck I'd done with the rice that made it taste so good! Could it have been the small handful of raisins I'd tossed in? I'd forgotten to put in onion - usually a staple when one is trying to make something out of rice... I'd meant to toss in a bay leaf, but had become flustered when I'd put in the Basil... I'd also forgotten the soya sauce, so the rice, despite being slightly scorched, wasn't particularly brown... The chicken I'd thrown in had been the remains of a store-cooked barbecued chicken we'd had four days previously, nothing special there...
Yet it tasted like food of the gods. Got compliments from everyone (except Girlfriend, of course).
The chicken tasted like chicken, nothing special. Everyone had two or three pieces, except aforementioned girlfriend.
Later, while we were piled on the couches in front of the tv, we demolished the apple crisp, which had apples cooked to perfection that melted on the tongue, and a crunchy topping that tasted like caramel.
Best apple crisp I ever made. And damned if I can remember what I did!
Take last night's dinner, for example. Hubby, who was the last-one-out-in-the-car, called me from the grocery store. "They don't have any pre-cooked chickens," he said tiredly. "I'm stumped."
"It's okay," I said. "Just buy anything that should feed five people - I've already started some fried rice."
He turned up with twelve chicken thighs, backs attached, and two jars of some Indian sauce. "These are what I bought last time, aren't they?" he asked. They weren't, last time he'd bought chicken breasts, but he was unconvinced and proceeded to try to persuade me that this was indeed the same cut of meat he'd bought last time.
Busy with my chopping, I declined the invitation to fight, and let it drop. He was, uncharacteristically, too tired to continue the argument alone. I went on chopping celery, my rice frying happily.
Then we had a phone call from an elderly neighbour I'd been concerned with earlier in the day. There's this guy, a great big hulking lout of a man, who frequents her house whenever his welfare cheque runs out, and he does yard work for her. He scares the willies out of me, and I often worry that one day he would try to force his way in... but that is not today's topic. Yesterday, Hubby held his cell phone up to my ear as I was trying to chop stuff for the fried rice, and while I was thus engaged in conversation with my friend, the rice burned.
First wrinkle in the dinner plans.
Fortunately, I'd seen it right away and removed the pan from the burner. I scooped out the worst bits and left the pan off the burner till I was finished chopping. Hubby said "Sorry," and I said only, "just leave the rest out. As soon as I've got this seasoned I'll start on the chicken."
Hubby, who was dead-tired, was not so easily deterred. Martyr complex aside, he knows that lots of noise and activity bustling around me when I'm trying to make dinner within a specific length of time often upsets me - a LOT - and he dutifully began trying to take the skin off the first piece of chicken. It didn't LOOK like that, you understand. He was massacring it - bending the bones this way and that, cutting off most of the usable meat and leaving the skin firmly attached.
"DARLING!" I shouted. The word I used was "darling," but It must have sounded like "SHITHEAD!", because that was in fact, the way I meant it...
"I'm only trying to help," he said feebly.
"Go lie down!" I ordered him. I've got this COVERED!"
"Are you sure?" his voice whined.
I was ready to explode. How many times, how many different ways, would I have to say it till this man would leave me alone and let me THINK!
He finally exited, and I could get back to my rice. Celery, carrot, broccoli, leftover chicken meat, pepper, salt, three cups of water... something was missing... I tossed in some Basil, realized that was a mistake, but no getting it out now, put the lid on, and started to heat the oven.
As I was stirring the two jars of sauce into the pot, tearing off as much excess fat from the chicken as I could without picking up a tool, it dawned on me that the rice would be ready in ten minutes, while the chicken still had an hour to run. So I turned off the burner under the rice and gave the chicken my full attention. Minutes later, with every piece thoroughly coated, I stacked them up in the corningware pot, stuck it in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes. Washed up, and left the kitchen to go to the sewing room.
When the buzzer rang, out came the chicken, still mostly raw. I put it on a baking tray, skin side up, and spooned sauce over it. Back in the oven for 30 minutes, and I proceeded to peel some apples for a quick apple crisp. No time to look up the recipe - I winged it totally. Had time for a quick run back to the sewing room.
Twenty minutes later, my spider-senses tingling, I arrived in the kitchen just in time to see the level of fat in the shallow tray about to come spilling over the top. I found the baster, and it was thus that Hubby found me, with oven door open, bowl of fat resting on the oven door, sucking out fat with the baster and dumping it in the bowl. Wanted to know what I was doing.
What is it about men that they always need to have the obvious explained to them, anyway?
And so a few minutes later, with the chicken and rice in serving bowls and the apple crisp in the oven, all five of us sat down to dinner. (Stepson had asked his girlfriend to join us - this time I'd had an hour's notice! Whee.)
Not enough though apparently, as Girlfriend didn't eat rice.
For crying out loud - who doesn't eat RICE?
He made her eat a bit off his fork, but teenage girls will be teenage girls. She had one measly piece of chicken and swore she was full.
I dutifully picked up a forkful of my burnt, over-cooked rice, and...
I'd never tasted anything so good.
I didn't hear much of what was being said around the table, trying to remember what the heck I'd done with the rice that made it taste so good! Could it have been the small handful of raisins I'd tossed in? I'd forgotten to put in onion - usually a staple when one is trying to make something out of rice... I'd meant to toss in a bay leaf, but had become flustered when I'd put in the Basil... I'd also forgotten the soya sauce, so the rice, despite being slightly scorched, wasn't particularly brown... The chicken I'd thrown in had been the remains of a store-cooked barbecued chicken we'd had four days previously, nothing special there...
Yet it tasted like food of the gods. Got compliments from everyone (except Girlfriend, of course).
The chicken tasted like chicken, nothing special. Everyone had two or three pieces, except aforementioned girlfriend.
Later, while we were piled on the couches in front of the tv, we demolished the apple crisp, which had apples cooked to perfection that melted on the tongue, and a crunchy topping that tasted like caramel.
Best apple crisp I ever made. And damned if I can remember what I did!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Things we do under protest...
My Grandma had an annoying little rhyme. (Actually she had several, but this one is pertinent to the theme!)
"A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still," Gran used to say.
Man, I used to hate her little rhymes and sayings! Mostly because they were bang on.
I have occupants of this house here, two "men". One man, one teenager who, while being of legal age, hasn't quite caught up to himself yet. I call it "nineteen, going on six."
Neither of these men can hang up a towel.
Not just any towel, you understand.
The hand-towel in the bathroom.
Before I let Hubby into my life, Daughter and I always managed to get the towel hanging straight, back on the towel rack, where it belonged.
When Hubby first arrived on the scene with his two DNA replicants however, the towel began to reside on the floor.
Under the towel rack.
Various excuses were made. "It's too high," or "it's too slippery" or the old favourite, "It wasn't me."
Yeah, right.
I clothes-pinned the towel to itself. They'd take the clothespin off, and drop the towel on the floor, and just for good measure, drop the clothespin on top of it.
I put in safety pins. That actually worked for two whole days, before an enterprising, if uncooperative, individual unpinned them, dropped the towel on the floor, and hid the pins in the glass for rinsing after brushing.
I tried separate towels, with name labels. But one particularly uncooperative individual decided to use everybody's towel but his own, leaving his untouched on the bar, and the other three towels on the floor.
I left notes taped to the wall, pleading, cajoling, and threatening them if the towel wasn't put back properly. They seemed to find these exquisitely amusing.
But the towel stayed on the floor.
A couple of birthdays ago, the youngest agreed she was quite capable of hanging the towel back up. And we had relative peace, except when Hubby knocked it off onto the floor, by "accident."
Then StepSon returned this summer. Nineteen, going on six.
And the towel lives on the floor once again.
I'm getting desperate. There doesn't seem to be any way I can convince either Hubby or StepSon that this issue is important. At all.
If StepSon were in his seventies, we'd be trying to get him into a "home." He leaves the freezer door open. He leaves the milk out on the counter. He leaves the burner on the stove on high, with nothing on it, and goes out for the afternoon. Not to mention the myriad stacks of glasses, cups, plates, cutlery, and candy wrappers he collects under the sofa, on top of the computer, in front of the tv. Sometimes the pile is so high, we can't even see the tv. And it's a BIG tv!
I have ordered. I have begged. I have screamed. I have cried. I have explained patiently. I have explained impatiently.
I am talking to the Rocks of Gibraltar. Two very stubborn Irishmen, with one soul between the two of them. I may as well be talking to the cat.
I'm now begging you, anyone who reads this, HELP ME!!!!! I'm DESPERATE! Please give me some ideas, any ideas, as to how I can drive this point home to these two individuals (short of nailing a note into their crania, that is...).
Please help. I don't think I can hold out much longer!
"A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still," Gran used to say.
Man, I used to hate her little rhymes and sayings! Mostly because they were bang on.
I have occupants of this house here, two "men". One man, one teenager who, while being of legal age, hasn't quite caught up to himself yet. I call it "nineteen, going on six."
Neither of these men can hang up a towel.
Not just any towel, you understand.
The hand-towel in the bathroom.
Before I let Hubby into my life, Daughter and I always managed to get the towel hanging straight, back on the towel rack, where it belonged.
When Hubby first arrived on the scene with his two DNA replicants however, the towel began to reside on the floor.
Under the towel rack.
Various excuses were made. "It's too high," or "it's too slippery" or the old favourite, "It wasn't me."
Yeah, right.
I clothes-pinned the towel to itself. They'd take the clothespin off, and drop the towel on the floor, and just for good measure, drop the clothespin on top of it.
I put in safety pins. That actually worked for two whole days, before an enterprising, if uncooperative, individual unpinned them, dropped the towel on the floor, and hid the pins in the glass for rinsing after brushing.
I tried separate towels, with name labels. But one particularly uncooperative individual decided to use everybody's towel but his own, leaving his untouched on the bar, and the other three towels on the floor.
I left notes taped to the wall, pleading, cajoling, and threatening them if the towel wasn't put back properly. They seemed to find these exquisitely amusing.
But the towel stayed on the floor.
A couple of birthdays ago, the youngest agreed she was quite capable of hanging the towel back up. And we had relative peace, except when Hubby knocked it off onto the floor, by "accident."
Then StepSon returned this summer. Nineteen, going on six.
And the towel lives on the floor once again.
I'm getting desperate. There doesn't seem to be any way I can convince either Hubby or StepSon that this issue is important. At all.
If StepSon were in his seventies, we'd be trying to get him into a "home." He leaves the freezer door open. He leaves the milk out on the counter. He leaves the burner on the stove on high, with nothing on it, and goes out for the afternoon. Not to mention the myriad stacks of glasses, cups, plates, cutlery, and candy wrappers he collects under the sofa, on top of the computer, in front of the tv. Sometimes the pile is so high, we can't even see the tv. And it's a BIG tv!
I have ordered. I have begged. I have screamed. I have cried. I have explained patiently. I have explained impatiently.
I am talking to the Rocks of Gibraltar. Two very stubborn Irishmen, with one soul between the two of them. I may as well be talking to the cat.
I'm now begging you, anyone who reads this, HELP ME!!!!! I'm DESPERATE! Please give me some ideas, any ideas, as to how I can drive this point home to these two individuals (short of nailing a note into their crania, that is...).
Please help. I don't think I can hold out much longer!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Finding Passion
No, not that kind.
Well, actually, yes, that kind is involved, but I'm starting from the clean one - finding what you're passionate about in life. (With apologies to my pal R, who first used that phrase to me.)
I was talking with Stepson earlier today - in itself a minor miracle - he seemed to be interested... Explaining to him why Daddy and I aren't footing a bunch of bills for him, now that he's enrolled himself in something. "If you're passionate about it, L, you'll find a way to do it no matter what obstacles are put in your path. If it doesn't grab you, no amount of free money will get you through it." Bottom line: get a job, pay for your stuff yourself. If you pass, you'll get it back. You don't pass, this time it's your own money you wasted.
Harsh. Well, at least by comparison to how things have been done in his young life so far. Thus far, he's had a free ride, and we've now pulled that rug out. You want it, you pay for it.
Heck, he's still living rent-free and getting fed. Nowhere near a "difficult" living arrangement. But you have to start somewhere if you're ever going to help a kid grow up.
Anyway, we got into this big discussion of our passions - things that really turn our respective cranks.
Like Hubby. Works with computers all day. First thing he does when he comes home is open up his computer. He's watching tv and surfing. Hell, he's fallen asleep with the laptop open on his tummy!
Hubby is passionate about computers.
I am passionate about layout, graphics, spelling, and quilting. And a few other things not suitable to mention in a public space.
Point is, you take your life in your hands if you ask me about one of these things - in the sense that a great deal of it may pass before your eyes while I'm going on and on and on....
Because I can't stop talking about them. Can't stop thinking about them. The ideas come flooding in, too fast to catch, too many to make in one lifetime...
Ya gotta find your passion in life! Otherwise, ...
Well, otherwise, what the heck is the point?!
Well, actually, yes, that kind is involved, but I'm starting from the clean one - finding what you're passionate about in life. (With apologies to my pal R, who first used that phrase to me.)
I was talking with Stepson earlier today - in itself a minor miracle - he seemed to be interested... Explaining to him why Daddy and I aren't footing a bunch of bills for him, now that he's enrolled himself in something. "If you're passionate about it, L, you'll find a way to do it no matter what obstacles are put in your path. If it doesn't grab you, no amount of free money will get you through it." Bottom line: get a job, pay for your stuff yourself. If you pass, you'll get it back. You don't pass, this time it's your own money you wasted.
Harsh. Well, at least by comparison to how things have been done in his young life so far. Thus far, he's had a free ride, and we've now pulled that rug out. You want it, you pay for it.
Heck, he's still living rent-free and getting fed. Nowhere near a "difficult" living arrangement. But you have to start somewhere if you're ever going to help a kid grow up.
Anyway, we got into this big discussion of our passions - things that really turn our respective cranks.
Like Hubby. Works with computers all day. First thing he does when he comes home is open up his computer. He's watching tv and surfing. Hell, he's fallen asleep with the laptop open on his tummy!
Hubby is passionate about computers.
I am passionate about layout, graphics, spelling, and quilting. And a few other things not suitable to mention in a public space.
Point is, you take your life in your hands if you ask me about one of these things - in the sense that a great deal of it may pass before your eyes while I'm going on and on and on....
Because I can't stop talking about them. Can't stop thinking about them. The ideas come flooding in, too fast to catch, too many to make in one lifetime...
Ya gotta find your passion in life! Otherwise, ...
Well, otherwise, what the heck is the point?!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Ok, Grandma - You Were Right.
Many, many years ago, I chanced to voice my displeasure at being required to share the same space with my family 4 times in one week for the feasts of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.
I was a single mom at the time, living back here in GPK. Because I wasn't part of a couple, my Grandmother considered that I didn't have anything to do on these days, that I'd be sick with loneliness, and that I'd be eternally grateful if I were invited to each of these family events.
These events always had the same people present: Grandma and Grandpa, My Cousin and her Husband and their two kids, my Auntie and her Cousin, and Auntie's Nasssty Husband. And me. Sometimes Daughter was there, sometimes she was with her father's family.
Now, don't get me wrong - I sincerely loved, and love, all these people (with the exception of Nasssty). It's just that the "Holiday Season" was anything but a holiday. I was tired. I wanted to spend Christmas Day at home. All day. With my daughter. Alone. Or with friends dropping by.
I wasn't up to doing a whole lot of cooking, and I certainly wasn't up to facing a noisy evening with plates full of food, dishes to wash dry and put away. I'd rather have watched Daughter open her gifts, watched her play with them, and gone back to bed for the day.
I didn't know anybody who went to four celebrations with the same people in one week.
When I whined a bit about this, Grandma was shocked. Well, since Grandma came from another world, admittedly, it wasn't that hard to shock her. However, she expressed disappointment that I didn't want to be with family.
I replied that I DID in fact enjoy being with family, just not four times in the same week. And that I had my own family to be with.
"What family is that?" Grandma asked in astonishment.
"Daughter and I, Grandma. We are a family."
This was apparently heresy to Grandma. Grandma had never read books like "One is a Whole Number", didn't undertand that a family could be any group of two or more people. In her world, a family consisted of a man and wife, their children, their children's spouses, their cousins. Nothing short of eight or nine people was a family in her eyes.
But Gran didn't have the mindset or vocabulary to voice this. Instead, she turned on me angrily and said "One day we'll all be dead and you can be as lonely as you like."
This, despite Grandma's history of being the supporter of her little family at the tender age of fourteen. She was working, living in an apartment with her younger brother, and protecting her little family of two alone against the world.
In other aspects of her life, Gran was astonished when I pointed out to her that she had lived in alternate living arrangements few people had opportunity to try out. Like, after the Great Depression, she was first to get a job. She worked in Sherbrooke during the week, and came home to husband and baby on the weekends. For three years.
How many families do any of you know NOW where the man is the caregiver and the woman the primary breadwinner?
To Gran, this was a simple fact of life. She saw nothing unusual in it. Couldn't understand what all the women's lib fuss was about when they talked about it on tv.
"What's all this talk I hear about glass ceilings?" she once asked me. "I don't understand what they're talking about. They keep mentioning it along with discrimination. I thought it was a good thing be a person of discriminating tastes. Are these ceilings ugly or something?"
So, patiently I sorted out the tangles for Gran, explaining that women usually had low-paying jobs compared to men, that higher-paying jobs were given to men as routine, that women, no matter how qualified, were being passed over simply because people thought men needed more money in order to support a family, whereas people thought women were already being supported, and therefore didn't need as high a salary as a man.
"And you're telling me this is common?" Gran asked in astonishment. I nodded.
Gran shook her head. "That never happend to me," she said. I pointed out to her that nobody would have DARED. Gran was what was commonly called "a force to be reckoned with."
"Then why do these women allow this sort of thing to be done to them?" she queried.
Good question, Gran. Long, long answer. But that was my Grandma. She was ahead of her time in many of the twists and turns her life took, but never saw how unusual she was, how uncommon her experiences were compared to most people's. Never saw her own power. I, in fact, hold the title as the only member of our family to EVER win an argument with her.
Be that as it may, Grandma and Grandpa departed this particular world many years ago. I made my peace with both of them, and am glad my Daughter still has memories of them.
My Father lives in Louisiana with my Stepmom. My Aunt has gone to her reward, which is namely, free at last from Mr. Nasssty, who predeceased her.
My Cousin Lives in Ottawa with her husband, her children are doing well and hold a special place in my heart. Her Brother and his Wife live in... some state. I always get it wrong. Their daughters are both married, one has a baby.
And yes, Grandma, I miss them all.
I was a single mom at the time, living back here in GPK. Because I wasn't part of a couple, my Grandmother considered that I didn't have anything to do on these days, that I'd be sick with loneliness, and that I'd be eternally grateful if I were invited to each of these family events.
These events always had the same people present: Grandma and Grandpa, My Cousin and her Husband and their two kids, my Auntie and her Cousin, and Auntie's Nasssty Husband. And me. Sometimes Daughter was there, sometimes she was with her father's family.
Now, don't get me wrong - I sincerely loved, and love, all these people (with the exception of Nasssty). It's just that the "Holiday Season" was anything but a holiday. I was tired. I wanted to spend Christmas Day at home. All day. With my daughter. Alone. Or with friends dropping by.
I wasn't up to doing a whole lot of cooking, and I certainly wasn't up to facing a noisy evening with plates full of food, dishes to wash dry and put away. I'd rather have watched Daughter open her gifts, watched her play with them, and gone back to bed for the day.
I didn't know anybody who went to four celebrations with the same people in one week.
When I whined a bit about this, Grandma was shocked. Well, since Grandma came from another world, admittedly, it wasn't that hard to shock her. However, she expressed disappointment that I didn't want to be with family.
I replied that I DID in fact enjoy being with family, just not four times in the same week. And that I had my own family to be with.
"What family is that?" Grandma asked in astonishment.
"Daughter and I, Grandma. We are a family."
This was apparently heresy to Grandma. Grandma had never read books like "One is a Whole Number", didn't undertand that a family could be any group of two or more people. In her world, a family consisted of a man and wife, their children, their children's spouses, their cousins. Nothing short of eight or nine people was a family in her eyes.
But Gran didn't have the mindset or vocabulary to voice this. Instead, she turned on me angrily and said "One day we'll all be dead and you can be as lonely as you like."
This, despite Grandma's history of being the supporter of her little family at the tender age of fourteen. She was working, living in an apartment with her younger brother, and protecting her little family of two alone against the world.
In other aspects of her life, Gran was astonished when I pointed out to her that she had lived in alternate living arrangements few people had opportunity to try out. Like, after the Great Depression, she was first to get a job. She worked in Sherbrooke during the week, and came home to husband and baby on the weekends. For three years.
How many families do any of you know NOW where the man is the caregiver and the woman the primary breadwinner?
To Gran, this was a simple fact of life. She saw nothing unusual in it. Couldn't understand what all the women's lib fuss was about when they talked about it on tv.
"What's all this talk I hear about glass ceilings?" she once asked me. "I don't understand what they're talking about. They keep mentioning it along with discrimination. I thought it was a good thing be a person of discriminating tastes. Are these ceilings ugly or something?"
So, patiently I sorted out the tangles for Gran, explaining that women usually had low-paying jobs compared to men, that higher-paying jobs were given to men as routine, that women, no matter how qualified, were being passed over simply because people thought men needed more money in order to support a family, whereas people thought women were already being supported, and therefore didn't need as high a salary as a man.
"And you're telling me this is common?" Gran asked in astonishment. I nodded.
Gran shook her head. "That never happend to me," she said. I pointed out to her that nobody would have DARED. Gran was what was commonly called "a force to be reckoned with."
"Then why do these women allow this sort of thing to be done to them?" she queried.
Good question, Gran. Long, long answer. But that was my Grandma. She was ahead of her time in many of the twists and turns her life took, but never saw how unusual she was, how uncommon her experiences were compared to most people's. Never saw her own power. I, in fact, hold the title as the only member of our family to EVER win an argument with her.
Be that as it may, Grandma and Grandpa departed this particular world many years ago. I made my peace with both of them, and am glad my Daughter still has memories of them.
My Father lives in Louisiana with my Stepmom. My Aunt has gone to her reward, which is namely, free at last from Mr. Nasssty, who predeceased her.
My Cousin Lives in Ottawa with her husband, her children are doing well and hold a special place in my heart. Her Brother and his Wife live in... some state. I always get it wrong. Their daughters are both married, one has a baby.
And yes, Grandma, I miss them all.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Waiting for Goddam...
I don't know about you, but I hate it when I'm stuck waiting for other people to get around to doing things.
Tonight, I've been attempting to sort through photographs. Electronic photos, to be precise. Photographs Hubby took on his XZ-1500-MACH20022-Turbo-XVIII Nikon camera.
Okay, I don't really know the exact model of the camera. But I've been an AV technician for 19 years, and I can't take a picture with that damned thing.
He's got the resolution set so high it would take passable satellite photos of my nose from space. You'd be able to see the pores.
Hubby has never heard of "photograph albums." When I ask him to print me a picture he's taken, he hands me 8x10s. The usual dozen years of laughing, crying, arguing, screaming, and tearing my hair out, have finally worn one edge of him down enough that if I ask for a print, he'll give me a 4x6 - printed smack in the center of an 8x10 page.
Hubby takes amazing pictures - not that anyone would ever know. He never prints them. Oh well, to be sure, he prints some. But the main reason nobody ever sees the pictures he takes, is that he lets the camera name them.
So I go to the big drive where the pictures are kept, and am presented, within the "Photo" folder, with a series of dated folders. Year, month, and day the pictures were downloaded from his camera onto the computer. Click on any folder, and you get a list of each picture:
DSCN2107.NEF
DSCN2108.NEF
DSCN2109.NEF
DSCN2110.NEF
Get the picture? (Pun intended.)
Even this could be manageable, were it not for the fact that Hubby is an incredibly PROLIFIC photographer! When he finds and interesting subject, say, a grouping of six or more daddy-long-legs having an orgy on our house wall, he takes about 100 pictures.When we went camping with friends this summer, Hubby took 800 pictures! And he saves each and every one. No deleting in-camera. (That's what I do. I look at it, say I like it, I keep it. I don't like it, I dump it. There and then.)
When I download pictures to the computer, I already know I want each and every one of them. Oh, and they're a "normal" size, meaning they'll print at high res as a 4x6, so they can be printed on high quality paper, trimmed, and put in a photo album.
Where I can enjoy sitting with a cup of hot cocoa on my lap and a child curled up beside me and talk about the memories those pictures evoke.
But I digress. There I was today, and I managed to make it from 2003 to 2006 in not too bad time.
But then I hit the wall. Not a single photo had been changed from the NEF format to a JPG. That means, for those of you whose first language is English, 15 minutes from clicking on "open" to seeing the f&#*g picture. Then I drop the resolution, save a copy, and go back to the large drive and delete the original.
There are ten folders of photos from 2006 on. All I'm looking for are pictures of the pets, right now. Any shots I'd like printed, whether they are pets or children, I rename into human language, like "Dog at xmas". THAT, I can understand. And I can say to Hubby "go to this folder and print anything with a human name to it. As a FOUR BY SIX, dear, remember?"
Well, now I'm stuck waiting for Hubby to go on the computer and print the fifteen pictures I managed to get through tonight, and to go through the next ten folders and change NEF to JPEG so I could open them and see what they are before - you guessed it - the second coming of christ.
Or the breaking point of my blood pressure.
Tonight, I've been attempting to sort through photographs. Electronic photos, to be precise. Photographs Hubby took on his XZ-1500-MACH20022-Turbo-XVIII Nikon camera.
Okay, I don't really know the exact model of the camera. But I've been an AV technician for 19 years, and I can't take a picture with that damned thing.
He's got the resolution set so high it would take passable satellite photos of my nose from space. You'd be able to see the pores.
Hubby has never heard of "photograph albums." When I ask him to print me a picture he's taken, he hands me 8x10s. The usual dozen years of laughing, crying, arguing, screaming, and tearing my hair out, have finally worn one edge of him down enough that if I ask for a print, he'll give me a 4x6 - printed smack in the center of an 8x10 page.
Hubby takes amazing pictures - not that anyone would ever know. He never prints them. Oh well, to be sure, he prints some. But the main reason nobody ever sees the pictures he takes, is that he lets the camera name them.
So I go to the big drive where the pictures are kept, and am presented, within the "Photo" folder, with a series of dated folders. Year, month, and day the pictures were downloaded from his camera onto the computer. Click on any folder, and you get a list of each picture:
DSCN2107.NEF
DSCN2108.NEF
DSCN2109.NEF
DSCN2110.NEF
Get the picture? (Pun intended.)
Even this could be manageable, were it not for the fact that Hubby is an incredibly PROLIFIC photographer! When he finds and interesting subject, say, a grouping of six or more daddy-long-legs having an orgy on our house wall, he takes about 100 pictures.When we went camping with friends this summer, Hubby took 800 pictures! And he saves each and every one. No deleting in-camera. (That's what I do. I look at it, say I like it, I keep it. I don't like it, I dump it. There and then.)
When I download pictures to the computer, I already know I want each and every one of them. Oh, and they're a "normal" size, meaning they'll print at high res as a 4x6, so they can be printed on high quality paper, trimmed, and put in a photo album.
Where I can enjoy sitting with a cup of hot cocoa on my lap and a child curled up beside me and talk about the memories those pictures evoke.
But I digress. There I was today, and I managed to make it from 2003 to 2006 in not too bad time.
But then I hit the wall. Not a single photo had been changed from the NEF format to a JPG. That means, for those of you whose first language is English, 15 minutes from clicking on "open" to seeing the f&#*g picture. Then I drop the resolution, save a copy, and go back to the large drive and delete the original.
There are ten folders of photos from 2006 on. All I'm looking for are pictures of the pets, right now. Any shots I'd like printed, whether they are pets or children, I rename into human language, like "Dog at xmas". THAT, I can understand. And I can say to Hubby "go to this folder and print anything with a human name to it. As a FOUR BY SIX, dear, remember?"
Well, now I'm stuck waiting for Hubby to go on the computer and print the fifteen pictures I managed to get through tonight, and to go through the next ten folders and change NEF to JPEG so I could open them and see what they are before - you guessed it - the second coming of christ.
Or the breaking point of my blood pressure.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
To Do, or not To Do
(Warning: this particular rant could be hazardous)
So I struggled out of bed, put the coffee on, had a glass of juice, put an English muffin in the toaster, then turned to empty the dishwasher while waiting for the muffin to toast.
The dishwasher had not been run last night.
"There's only 4 plates in it," Hubby protested.
I pulled out the bottom rack. "Four plates, two cereal bowls, a cutting board, two large pots, and the cutlery tray is half-full." I pulled out the top tray. "No fewer than sixteen glasses and mugs," I said.
"I'm going to put the morning's dishes in and run it now," he complained. Yes of course, because you're actually supposed to be going to work...
I know many otherwise sane people who do not use their "conveniences" to their full advantage. To them, a dishwasher is a holding tank for every plate they own, and they won't use the thing until it's so full they actually have things that won't fit in it, which they then wash happily by hand, all the while proving their own short-sighted theory that a dishwasher can't wash everything. Others have left it so long to run the machine, they have to dump water into it to prime the pump, because it's dried out. People, people!
I have no difficulty with the theory of hand-washing dishes, but let's get real here. Nobody in THIS house is going to wash a plate, a glass, or even a knife, unless they cannot find one single available clean one, or even a reasonable substitute. People's Exhibit A: the Mason jars being used as drinking glasses. I actually did recently give a 15-minute class on "How to properly wash and dry a glass if you can't find a clean one." Yeah, good luck with that! I noticed the day after that a ziplock baggie had been used as a sippie-sack. "Uncooperative" does not even BEGIN to describe life here!
I lived with a German family shortly after I left my first husband, and learned a whole lot about good housekeeping habits during the three or four months I was there. They had four children, aged 8, 3, 2 and 2. Yes, twins. Along I came, with my 2 year old in tow. That made three children in the house still in diapers at the time. My friend B worked miracles in her kitchen, but she especially got through to me about the dishwasher.
"Vot gutt is it to have the thing sit there, not vashing dishes?" she asked me in her low voice. "I use my dishwasher. Every meal, just like vashing the dishes after every meal used to be done by hand. Odervise, you go to cook dinner, and a chopping block is still dirty, und you haff to take it out and vash it by hand. With six mouths to feed, I don't haff time to stop and do anything. So the dishes get vashed, each meal, every meal, und even more ven I'm baking!"
When it comes to cleaning, the rule has ALWAYS and WILL ALWAYS be: DO IT NOW, STUPID!
"Oh, it uses too much water," the timorous non-users complain. Hello, it comes with this little button on it that says "small load." And guess what? Today's dishwashers use way less water anyway. Plus, they kill germs much better than a half-hearted swipe with a slightly greasy and cold dishcloth that's been sitting wet on the counter for god-knows-how-many-days! And you want to talk about drying dishes with a linen tea-towel? Hey, I've done my time church basement dinners! It's fun, there, because everybody pitches in and all the towels are clean.
Here, you go to pick up a tea-towel and you stick your hand into last night's spaghetti sauce, because some twit of a teenager doesn't know the difference between a dishcloth and a tea towel......grrrrrrr DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!!
Okay people listen up: You spill something, wipe it off, rinse the cloth till it's clean, hang it up so it can dry out and not become a growth factory.
You eat a meal, rinse and load your dishwasher and RUN the damned thing! Your dishwasher cannot get your dishes clean if you let stuff dry on them. And if you're stupid enough to actually wash your dishes before loading you dishwasher so you can wait to run it, and meanwhile have to take out half the stuff that's in it so you can wash it by hand becuase you need to use the item before the second-coming-of-Christ.......!
I do not like having to search for my utensils or pots for a meal I'm making only to find it's been sitting in the sink for three days with stuff piled on it that's gone "off" because somebody THINKS there isn't enough to make it worth while to run the dishwasher! It it ALWAYS worthwhile to run the dishwasher. Think of the savings in alimony payments alone!
Next week: the hideous truth about laundry.
So I struggled out of bed, put the coffee on, had a glass of juice, put an English muffin in the toaster, then turned to empty the dishwasher while waiting for the muffin to toast.
The dishwasher had not been run last night.
"There's only 4 plates in it," Hubby protested.
I pulled out the bottom rack. "Four plates, two cereal bowls, a cutting board, two large pots, and the cutlery tray is half-full." I pulled out the top tray. "No fewer than sixteen glasses and mugs," I said.
"I'm going to put the morning's dishes in and run it now," he complained. Yes of course, because you're actually supposed to be going to work...
I know many otherwise sane people who do not use their "conveniences" to their full advantage. To them, a dishwasher is a holding tank for every plate they own, and they won't use the thing until it's so full they actually have things that won't fit in it, which they then wash happily by hand, all the while proving their own short-sighted theory that a dishwasher can't wash everything. Others have left it so long to run the machine, they have to dump water into it to prime the pump, because it's dried out. People, people!
I have no difficulty with the theory of hand-washing dishes, but let's get real here. Nobody in THIS house is going to wash a plate, a glass, or even a knife, unless they cannot find one single available clean one, or even a reasonable substitute. People's Exhibit A: the Mason jars being used as drinking glasses. I actually did recently give a 15-minute class on "How to properly wash and dry a glass if you can't find a clean one." Yeah, good luck with that! I noticed the day after that a ziplock baggie had been used as a sippie-sack. "Uncooperative" does not even BEGIN to describe life here!
I lived with a German family shortly after I left my first husband, and learned a whole lot about good housekeeping habits during the three or four months I was there. They had four children, aged 8, 3, 2 and 2. Yes, twins. Along I came, with my 2 year old in tow. That made three children in the house still in diapers at the time. My friend B worked miracles in her kitchen, but she especially got through to me about the dishwasher.
"Vot gutt is it to have the thing sit there, not vashing dishes?" she asked me in her low voice. "I use my dishwasher. Every meal, just like vashing the dishes after every meal used to be done by hand. Odervise, you go to cook dinner, and a chopping block is still dirty, und you haff to take it out and vash it by hand. With six mouths to feed, I don't haff time to stop and do anything. So the dishes get vashed, each meal, every meal, und even more ven I'm baking!"
When it comes to cleaning, the rule has ALWAYS and WILL ALWAYS be: DO IT NOW, STUPID!
"Oh, it uses too much water," the timorous non-users complain. Hello, it comes with this little button on it that says "small load." And guess what? Today's dishwashers use way less water anyway. Plus, they kill germs much better than a half-hearted swipe with a slightly greasy and cold dishcloth that's been sitting wet on the counter for god-knows-how-many-days! And you want to talk about drying dishes with a linen tea-towel? Hey, I've done my time church basement dinners! It's fun, there, because everybody pitches in and all the towels are clean.
Here, you go to pick up a tea-towel and you stick your hand into last night's spaghetti sauce, because some twit of a teenager doesn't know the difference between a dishcloth and a tea towel......grrrrrrr DON'T GET ME STARTED!!!!!
Okay people listen up: You spill something, wipe it off, rinse the cloth till it's clean, hang it up so it can dry out and not become a growth factory.
You eat a meal, rinse and load your dishwasher and RUN the damned thing! Your dishwasher cannot get your dishes clean if you let stuff dry on them. And if you're stupid enough to actually wash your dishes before loading you dishwasher so you can wait to run it, and meanwhile have to take out half the stuff that's in it so you can wash it by hand becuase you need to use the item before the second-coming-of-Christ.......!
I do not like having to search for my utensils or pots for a meal I'm making only to find it's been sitting in the sink for three days with stuff piled on it that's gone "off" because somebody THINKS there isn't enough to make it worth while to run the dishwasher! It it ALWAYS worthwhile to run the dishwasher. Think of the savings in alimony payments alone!
Next week: the hideous truth about laundry.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Tail between legs
I have had my surgery, and I am shocked to say, it was a humbling experience.
This was a (close your eyes and ears, underaged readers!) vaginal hysterectomy.
Or, in Hubby's words, "They took your squeaker out!"
When I still could not find anything funny by Saturday morning, Daughter said, "Oh Mommy - did they remove your sense of humor while they were in there?"
It turns out that modern medicine still has not solved the pain problem. And because of that, I experienced a series of events which, had I known about in advance... well...
... I might not have been quite so determined to have the operation.
Now, I can hear the shocked exclamations from here. "What! The opinionated -itch, nearly admitting to a mistake!"
Well, I still don't like any of the alternatives I had been offered to this surgery. I already take armloads of pills, so pills to reduce bleeding still don't seem like a great invention to me. And the underlying problem was anemia, anyway, so once the "bag" was filled up, making it come out slower didn't seem to be productive. IUDs were also offered, and I've never been fond of foreign objects piercing my tender bits.
So, to me, the surgery seemed the best choice. What worried me was how they were going to handle my pain.
I am very sensitive to pain. And I don't suffer quietly. In this case I wasn't making it up - my doc came by and said he wasn't a bit surprised I should have lots of pain, because the uterus was much larger than expected and, in his words, "I had to move everything around in there in order to get it out." It was also prolapsed, meaning folded in on itself, meaning just one more difficulty. The doc could easily have switched to a traditional cesearean, but stuck with the plan because of the length of the recovery time.
So far, so good. This was only the morning after. I'm happy pushing my button for my pain-killer, which sure seemed to beat waiting for somebody to get around to giving me pills. And about halfway through the second day, my pain was still so intense the decision was made to increase my dosage. I felt almost immediate relief.
But I also began to feel nausea.
Hmm, that's a toughie. I find it difficult to sleep through either symptom. In the end, I decided pain was the worse of the two evils and poked that button every time I found myself conscious.
Then came day 3. The nurses were adamant I had to get out of bed, I had to lose the cathether, I had to start walking.
No more button. Pills. Oh, joy. My throat's already scraped and I'm severely naseous. Sure, give me a bunch of foul-tasting pills to cram down my sore throat on an empty stomach.
So, of course, I brought them all back up, along with all the liquids I'd managed to keep down.
This was the worst day. I was soon suffering withdrawl symptoms: mine were sweats, chills, and headache. The nurses kept taking my temperature and assuring me nothing was wrong. Oh yeah? So why can't I keep a teaspoon of water down, then?
Hubby managed to twice change my bedding before they found out what he was up to. Yes, I had sweated right through everything, and so I was now cold. Didn't matter what the thermometer said - I was cold, because I was wet. And as soon as Hubby went home, I stayed that way. I do believe it was the longest night of my life. I couldn't cough because it upset my tummy. Couldn't sip any liquids, couldn't hold any meds down, couldn't walk because I was freezing. I woke up shivering every fifteen minutes and counted the hours till daylight.
Fortunately for me, the worst was over. By the time the nurses arrived, I was sitting up, smiling broadly, asking when the doctor would arrive to send me home. "Oh, you want to go home," they laughed. D'uh.
Hubby bought me a REAL tea, which helped me get my pills down, even though I was still experienceing violent burps. He brought me my shower gel and scrubbed my back for me, which improved the air quality in the hospital immensely.
And once, while he was off the hallway to make an inquiry, a woman whose bed was in the next room came in to talk to me. She said it sounded so good to hear me laugh this morning, because for two days all she'd heard was me crying and vomiting. And so she was very very happy for me that I'd be able to go home.
Ouch. I seriously do not suffer in silence. I began to wonder if the whole ward had heard me in my angst.
Well, the doc came and sure enough I finally escaped. Though, if you've ever tried to get into a hospital, let me tell you, getting out is much, much more difficult. I had no fewer than five conversations with different nurses asking when I'd be discharged, over the course of four hours.
But home I got, and this is where the tail truly went between the legs.
I seriously do not think I would have made it through without Hubby's presence and big, warm hands. He couldn't do much, and we both knew it, but he came, and sat by me, bored out of his gourd, I am sure, and just held me and teased me and tried to quiet me.
And even last night, at home - riding out the night in a post-op situation, one really understands just how small, how fragile we are. Like, seriously, my leg was KILLING me - and I began to consider that I might in fact already have a blood clot in the leg, which just might kill me before morning. That the world might go on completely without me being able to watch my Daughter and Stepkids and see what became of their lives. That my dog and cat would be left to mourn their mommy, and the world wouldn't take a blind bit of notice. That I had so few quilts to leave behind as a record of my existence. That I might not be there in Hubby's moment of need, when they start taking things out of him... And all because I'd been bull-headed enough to insist on the surgical option.
So now, I think I get it. Surgery is always an extreme answer. It is definintely NOT Star Trek out there and yes, the pain is unbelievable. And yes, my lazy lifestyle can kill me. In the blink of an eye.
This was a (close your eyes and ears, underaged readers!) vaginal hysterectomy.
Or, in Hubby's words, "They took your squeaker out!"
When I still could not find anything funny by Saturday morning, Daughter said, "Oh Mommy - did they remove your sense of humor while they were in there?"
It turns out that modern medicine still has not solved the pain problem. And because of that, I experienced a series of events which, had I known about in advance... well...
... I might not have been quite so determined to have the operation.
Now, I can hear the shocked exclamations from here. "What! The opinionated -itch, nearly admitting to a mistake!"
Well, I still don't like any of the alternatives I had been offered to this surgery. I already take armloads of pills, so pills to reduce bleeding still don't seem like a great invention to me. And the underlying problem was anemia, anyway, so once the "bag" was filled up, making it come out slower didn't seem to be productive. IUDs were also offered, and I've never been fond of foreign objects piercing my tender bits.
So, to me, the surgery seemed the best choice. What worried me was how they were going to handle my pain.
I am very sensitive to pain. And I don't suffer quietly. In this case I wasn't making it up - my doc came by and said he wasn't a bit surprised I should have lots of pain, because the uterus was much larger than expected and, in his words, "I had to move everything around in there in order to get it out." It was also prolapsed, meaning folded in on itself, meaning just one more difficulty. The doc could easily have switched to a traditional cesearean, but stuck with the plan because of the length of the recovery time.
So far, so good. This was only the morning after. I'm happy pushing my button for my pain-killer, which sure seemed to beat waiting for somebody to get around to giving me pills. And about halfway through the second day, my pain was still so intense the decision was made to increase my dosage. I felt almost immediate relief.
But I also began to feel nausea.
Hmm, that's a toughie. I find it difficult to sleep through either symptom. In the end, I decided pain was the worse of the two evils and poked that button every time I found myself conscious.
Then came day 3. The nurses were adamant I had to get out of bed, I had to lose the cathether, I had to start walking.
No more button. Pills. Oh, joy. My throat's already scraped and I'm severely naseous. Sure, give me a bunch of foul-tasting pills to cram down my sore throat on an empty stomach.
So, of course, I brought them all back up, along with all the liquids I'd managed to keep down.
This was the worst day. I was soon suffering withdrawl symptoms: mine were sweats, chills, and headache. The nurses kept taking my temperature and assuring me nothing was wrong. Oh yeah? So why can't I keep a teaspoon of water down, then?
Hubby managed to twice change my bedding before they found out what he was up to. Yes, I had sweated right through everything, and so I was now cold. Didn't matter what the thermometer said - I was cold, because I was wet. And as soon as Hubby went home, I stayed that way. I do believe it was the longest night of my life. I couldn't cough because it upset my tummy. Couldn't sip any liquids, couldn't hold any meds down, couldn't walk because I was freezing. I woke up shivering every fifteen minutes and counted the hours till daylight.
Fortunately for me, the worst was over. By the time the nurses arrived, I was sitting up, smiling broadly, asking when the doctor would arrive to send me home. "Oh, you want to go home," they laughed. D'uh.
Hubby bought me a REAL tea, which helped me get my pills down, even though I was still experienceing violent burps. He brought me my shower gel and scrubbed my back for me, which improved the air quality in the hospital immensely.
And once, while he was off the hallway to make an inquiry, a woman whose bed was in the next room came in to talk to me. She said it sounded so good to hear me laugh this morning, because for two days all she'd heard was me crying and vomiting. And so she was very very happy for me that I'd be able to go home.
Ouch. I seriously do not suffer in silence. I began to wonder if the whole ward had heard me in my angst.
Well, the doc came and sure enough I finally escaped. Though, if you've ever tried to get into a hospital, let me tell you, getting out is much, much more difficult. I had no fewer than five conversations with different nurses asking when I'd be discharged, over the course of four hours.
But home I got, and this is where the tail truly went between the legs.
I seriously do not think I would have made it through without Hubby's presence and big, warm hands. He couldn't do much, and we both knew it, but he came, and sat by me, bored out of his gourd, I am sure, and just held me and teased me and tried to quiet me.
And even last night, at home - riding out the night in a post-op situation, one really understands just how small, how fragile we are. Like, seriously, my leg was KILLING me - and I began to consider that I might in fact already have a blood clot in the leg, which just might kill me before morning. That the world might go on completely without me being able to watch my Daughter and Stepkids and see what became of their lives. That my dog and cat would be left to mourn their mommy, and the world wouldn't take a blind bit of notice. That I had so few quilts to leave behind as a record of my existence. That I might not be there in Hubby's moment of need, when they start taking things out of him... And all because I'd been bull-headed enough to insist on the surgical option.
So now, I think I get it. Surgery is always an extreme answer. It is definintely NOT Star Trek out there and yes, the pain is unbelievable. And yes, my lazy lifestyle can kill me. In the blink of an eye.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
It was the morning after the night before.
(Note: to younger readers who haven't ever over-indulged themselves (yet) on too much turkey, too much food, too much dessert, and W A A A Y too much wine, the preceeding phrase accurately describes the state of mind about eight hours after such carousing has finished, and long before the room has stopped spinning.)
The early morning greyness was disturbed by a tiny electronic signal, coming from Hubby's cell phone.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
The brain acknowledges the signal, but the body finds it unnecessary to do anything. It's just an electronic imitation of a quiet, tinkling bell, tiny, coming from very far away. The peaceful snoring continues without a hiccup.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
sleep sleep sleep
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
Heavy sigh from Hubby, who needs to pee and is hungry already. He fumbles for his glasses, picks up the phone, and plods wearily off to the kitchen to eat his cereal. Every few minutes the Deedle-dee-BOOP! is repeated. Finally, all goes quiet. Hubby later informs me he had removed the batteries from the phone and re-inserted them.
Hubby returns to his warm bed with a thud and a cuddle, and sinks blissfully back into oblivion, tummy full, electronic voice stopped, all's well with the world...
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
It can't be....
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
I say "why don't you just turn the whole phone off and deal with it later when you're more awake, dear?"
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
Hubby sighs again, picks up the phone and his glasses, and tries to poke at the tiny buttons while lying on his back.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
poke poke poke
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
Hubby sighs and pushes the covers away and sits on the edge of the bed.
poke poke poke
poke poke poke
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
poke poke.....
Silence.
Grinning, Hubby puts down the phone and the glasses and snuggles under the covers once again, and says (in a voice that indicates he is VERY pleased with himself) "got it! I turned the alarm to silent!"
Half chuckling, he rolls over.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!, accompanied by a loud buzzing as the phone dances across the bedside table.
At this point I begin to laugh, since it's obvious we are not going to get back to sleep.
"It's happening, dear!" I say in my teasing voice.
"What's that?" Grumpy. poke poke poke.
Deedle-dee-BOOP! v i b r a t e
"We're getting old, dear. Past it. Yes, even you, the GREAT ELECTRONICS GUY are getting old, losing your touch!"
Deedle-dee-BOOP! v i b r a t e
"The day will come, my love," I continue, "when we will both be forced to ask our children to fix our alarms, our clocks, our gps, all our electronic devices for us. When our sight will be too dim, our hearing gone, out fingers too fat, and our memories too short to remember all the little things we have to do to work all this stuff!"
Deedle-dee-BOOP! v i b r a t e
I'm giggling.
In the especial tone of voice Hubby uses when addressing the unfortunate masses who require his magic touch, his steady head, his unfathomed depth of knowledge of all things electronic, the tone of voice that makes everyone who hears it painfully aware of just how far down the evolutionary ladder Hubby thinks they are currently located, Hubby replies, "I don't think so."
And, right on cue - couldn't have scripted it for a sitcom any better -
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
It happens to everyone, you know! And nobody ever expects it!
(Note: to younger readers who haven't ever over-indulged themselves (yet) on too much turkey, too much food, too much dessert, and W A A A Y too much wine, the preceeding phrase accurately describes the state of mind about eight hours after such carousing has finished, and long before the room has stopped spinning.)
The early morning greyness was disturbed by a tiny electronic signal, coming from Hubby's cell phone.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
The brain acknowledges the signal, but the body finds it unnecessary to do anything. It's just an electronic imitation of a quiet, tinkling bell, tiny, coming from very far away. The peaceful snoring continues without a hiccup.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
sleep sleep sleep
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
Heavy sigh from Hubby, who needs to pee and is hungry already. He fumbles for his glasses, picks up the phone, and plods wearily off to the kitchen to eat his cereal. Every few minutes the Deedle-dee-BOOP! is repeated. Finally, all goes quiet. Hubby later informs me he had removed the batteries from the phone and re-inserted them.
Hubby returns to his warm bed with a thud and a cuddle, and sinks blissfully back into oblivion, tummy full, electronic voice stopped, all's well with the world...
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
It can't be....
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
I say "why don't you just turn the whole phone off and deal with it later when you're more awake, dear?"
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
Hubby sighs again, picks up the phone and his glasses, and tries to poke at the tiny buttons while lying on his back.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
poke poke poke
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
Hubby sighs and pushes the covers away and sits on the edge of the bed.
poke poke poke
poke poke poke
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
poke poke.....
Silence.
Grinning, Hubby puts down the phone and the glasses and snuggles under the covers once again, and says (in a voice that indicates he is VERY pleased with himself) "got it! I turned the alarm to silent!"
Half chuckling, he rolls over.
Deedle-dee-BOOP!, accompanied by a loud buzzing as the phone dances across the bedside table.
At this point I begin to laugh, since it's obvious we are not going to get back to sleep.
"It's happening, dear!" I say in my teasing voice.
"What's that?" Grumpy. poke poke poke.
Deedle-dee-BOOP! v i b r a t e
"We're getting old, dear. Past it. Yes, even you, the GREAT ELECTRONICS GUY are getting old, losing your touch!"
Deedle-dee-BOOP! v i b r a t e
"The day will come, my love," I continue, "when we will both be forced to ask our children to fix our alarms, our clocks, our gps, all our electronic devices for us. When our sight will be too dim, our hearing gone, out fingers too fat, and our memories too short to remember all the little things we have to do to work all this stuff!"
Deedle-dee-BOOP! v i b r a t e
I'm giggling.
In the especial tone of voice Hubby uses when addressing the unfortunate masses who require his magic touch, his steady head, his unfathomed depth of knowledge of all things electronic, the tone of voice that makes everyone who hears it painfully aware of just how far down the evolutionary ladder Hubby thinks they are currently located, Hubby replies, "I don't think so."
And, right on cue - couldn't have scripted it for a sitcom any better -
Deedle-dee-BOOP!
It happens to everyone, you know! And nobody ever expects it!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Beginning of the End...
Last year, when Hubby had a health problem sufficient to send him to the hospital and be kept overnight, my Beautiful Daughter was quite upset when she arrived at Emergency to hold our hands.
"Well, it's S C A R Y !" she exclaimed.
Hubby and I just looked at her. I tried to be gentle as I explained to her that she should start steeling herself against these occurrences.
"We're over 50," I said. "This sort of thing is only going to happen with more frequency. Right now, all they take is a little bit of blood. But in the years to come, they'll take lots of stuff! They'll be giving us tests that are more and more involved. Eventually, they'll begin harvesting organs, maybe even transplanting sections of us from one place to another. One day, so much of us will have been removed that we won't be coming home again. So, better not to wear yourself out emotionally on this occasion, dearie. You've got YEARS of this sort of thing coming!"
Daughter did not find this thought very comforting at all, and said so. Hubby and I shrugged.
We've had elderly parents. Heck, I lived with my Grandparents. Once someone reaches sixty, every time they go to the hospital, they start worrying that it'll be their final visit, as if they can hear the funerary bells tolling already! In the case of my Grandparents, they took about twenty-five years to reach that point, even though they worried about it all the time. In fact, for the last three years of their lives, every time they so much as sneezed, they expressed the fear that the END was upon them.
So I got kind of ... jaded? ... about hospital visits, about the potential for losing loved ones. Having been mostly reared by said Grandparents, I've pretty well figured out that when the grim reaper does finally turn up, it'll be a relief, if only from all the worrying...
I'm not exactly BLASE about death, but I do accept it as being a natural part of life. Don't get me wrong - I MOURN. My mother passed away last year, but I've been mourning the loss of my relationship with her for years. Started when I was 5 years old, in fact, when family moved me away from her - they call it kidnapping nowadays. I've spent most of my life missing my mother.
I still mourn for pets that died 30 years ago or more. I mourn my first marriage. I mourn events that didn't even happen to me, or even to anyone I know! I got mourning nailed.
But death, for me, holds no particular menace. I don't believe there's anything after, you see. So it makes me determined to enjoy life now. To spend as much time as I can with those I love now. I'm holding nothing back, and I hope I never will. Hospitals hold no particular horrors for me, I actually see them as nice, safe places to be when we're sick. And I love hospital food... Okay, yes, I am an oddball...
And on the 16th of this month I'm having a hysterectomy. At last, I'll be free of that particular nasty scourge! I'm rejoicing over this particular removal. Don't know if I'll be as happy the next time they go to take out one of my bits... who knows what will break down first.
Stephen Leackock, in "How to Live to be 200" talks about people who have "the health habit." He describes their frantic exercise regimes, their fanatical diets, their refusal to be content. Sound familiar?
"And after all their fuss," he sums up, "they presently incur some simple old-fashioned illness and die like anybody else."
Well, I could have avoided this particular surgery, but the other options don't appeal to me at all. In the years to come, I may actually miss whatever they're going to lift out of me. But I know that, barring accidents, I've got quite a few years left in me, so I refuse to worry about the road ahead, or even the sudden stop at the end of it.
Not dead yet! Better luck next time....
"Well, it's S C A R Y !" she exclaimed.
Hubby and I just looked at her. I tried to be gentle as I explained to her that she should start steeling herself against these occurrences.
"We're over 50," I said. "This sort of thing is only going to happen with more frequency. Right now, all they take is a little bit of blood. But in the years to come, they'll take lots of stuff! They'll be giving us tests that are more and more involved. Eventually, they'll begin harvesting organs, maybe even transplanting sections of us from one place to another. One day, so much of us will have been removed that we won't be coming home again. So, better not to wear yourself out emotionally on this occasion, dearie. You've got YEARS of this sort of thing coming!"
Daughter did not find this thought very comforting at all, and said so. Hubby and I shrugged.
We've had elderly parents. Heck, I lived with my Grandparents. Once someone reaches sixty, every time they go to the hospital, they start worrying that it'll be their final visit, as if they can hear the funerary bells tolling already! In the case of my Grandparents, they took about twenty-five years to reach that point, even though they worried about it all the time. In fact, for the last three years of their lives, every time they so much as sneezed, they expressed the fear that the END was upon them.
So I got kind of ... jaded? ... about hospital visits, about the potential for losing loved ones. Having been mostly reared by said Grandparents, I've pretty well figured out that when the grim reaper does finally turn up, it'll be a relief, if only from all the worrying...
I'm not exactly BLASE about death, but I do accept it as being a natural part of life. Don't get me wrong - I MOURN. My mother passed away last year, but I've been mourning the loss of my relationship with her for years. Started when I was 5 years old, in fact, when family moved me away from her - they call it kidnapping nowadays. I've spent most of my life missing my mother.
I still mourn for pets that died 30 years ago or more. I mourn my first marriage. I mourn events that didn't even happen to me, or even to anyone I know! I got mourning nailed.
But death, for me, holds no particular menace. I don't believe there's anything after, you see. So it makes me determined to enjoy life now. To spend as much time as I can with those I love now. I'm holding nothing back, and I hope I never will. Hospitals hold no particular horrors for me, I actually see them as nice, safe places to be when we're sick. And I love hospital food... Okay, yes, I am an oddball...
And on the 16th of this month I'm having a hysterectomy. At last, I'll be free of that particular nasty scourge! I'm rejoicing over this particular removal. Don't know if I'll be as happy the next time they go to take out one of my bits... who knows what will break down first.
Stephen Leackock, in "How to Live to be 200" talks about people who have "the health habit." He describes their frantic exercise regimes, their fanatical diets, their refusal to be content. Sound familiar?
"And after all their fuss," he sums up, "they presently incur some simple old-fashioned illness and die like anybody else."
Well, I could have avoided this particular surgery, but the other options don't appeal to me at all. In the years to come, I may actually miss whatever they're going to lift out of me. But I know that, barring accidents, I've got quite a few years left in me, so I refuse to worry about the road ahead, or even the sudden stop at the end of it.
Not dead yet! Better luck next time....
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A Bacterium of a Different Color...
I used to tell Hubby off for buying that antibacterial soap for the dishes.
"We're sterilizing ourselves to death!" I'd exclaim, regurgitating the latest fad to hit the airwaves.
"We use too many antibiotics - we ARE biotics!" I'd rant, well-versed in the lingo. "Use too much of this stuff and eventually we'll get mutated superbugs, and penicillin will no longer work, and we'll have people dying in the streets! Our super-clean fetish will kill us! Just use soap! Plain old soap!"
Hubby would ignore me and buy all the antibacterial stuff he could carry.
Antibacterial hand wash (alcohol, and if you're lucky, a bit of glycerin so your skin doesn't fall off in a week). Antibacterial soak for your clothing. (Just wash the shit!) Antibacterial tile spray (chlorine bleach). Antibacterial countertop wipes. (Moist towelettes with alcohol).
Lemon juice and baking soda and vinegar could do all this stuff for us, but we'd have to rinse out the cloth, rather than throw it away so we can worry about our garbage/landfull crisis.... but I digress.
I was up on the ladder today, washing the ceiling fan. I'd just rinsed the cloth and put a drop of Hubby's antibacterial soap and some lemon juice on it, and, back atop the ladder I was rubbing away, when it hit me....
All those people with these super-clean environments, all those scientists who are worried about us growing a new generation of superbugs...
None of these people have ever seen MY HOUSE.
Hubby now has permission to buy as much antibacterial crap as he wishes.
What was I thinking?!
"We're sterilizing ourselves to death!" I'd exclaim, regurgitating the latest fad to hit the airwaves.
"We use too many antibiotics - we ARE biotics!" I'd rant, well-versed in the lingo. "Use too much of this stuff and eventually we'll get mutated superbugs, and penicillin will no longer work, and we'll have people dying in the streets! Our super-clean fetish will kill us! Just use soap! Plain old soap!"
Hubby would ignore me and buy all the antibacterial stuff he could carry.
Antibacterial hand wash (alcohol, and if you're lucky, a bit of glycerin so your skin doesn't fall off in a week). Antibacterial soak for your clothing. (Just wash the shit!) Antibacterial tile spray (chlorine bleach). Antibacterial countertop wipes. (Moist towelettes with alcohol).
Lemon juice and baking soda and vinegar could do all this stuff for us, but we'd have to rinse out the cloth, rather than throw it away so we can worry about our garbage/landfull crisis.... but I digress.
I was up on the ladder today, washing the ceiling fan. I'd just rinsed the cloth and put a drop of Hubby's antibacterial soap and some lemon juice on it, and, back atop the ladder I was rubbing away, when it hit me....
All those people with these super-clean environments, all those scientists who are worried about us growing a new generation of superbugs...
None of these people have ever seen MY HOUSE.
Hubby now has permission to buy as much antibacterial crap as he wishes.
What was I thinking?!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
K A - B O O M ! ! !
What was that?
That was the sound of me shooting myself in the foot.
Why do they let me talk to people? Here at work? The boss is on the phone,his boss is bringing people around for an unscheduled tour... I've been in this scenario before, and it's not pretty.
I start off just answering the questions. But sooner or later, as I develop a rapport with the visitors, I'm gonna make a crack. Crack a joke.
Like just now, when someone said they like my LOL CAT picture, and I said, I've gots lots, I love humor, and the Academic Dean said, tongue-in-cheek, "We don't allow humor here!" And I zinged back with a quick, "No, you don't!"
Ka-BOOM.
Ouch. Why do they let me talk to people?
It's not an "if". It's a "when." When am I going to say something stupid, and how bad will it be?
And it's not even like I didn't have any warning. This morning the first small explosions began when I walked to the front door, and saw that Stepson not only had spent the night sleeping on the livingroom couch, but had enjoyed two cans of root beer there, as evidenced by the empty tins and glass sitting on the floor.
Stepson has terrible personal habits. He regularly stuffs the remains of whatever he's been munching on into the glass he'd been drinking from. He lets the glass fall over, spilling whatever was in it, or breaking during the fall. No amount of yelling to this date has been able to persuade him to A) bring his used cans and glasses to the kitchen, or B) put them on a tabletop as opposed to the floor, or C) sleep in his bed.
The good thing about this particular overnight on the couch was that Stepdaughter had put a sheet down, she slept on the same couch the night before (since her bedroom was undergoing renovations), and so this time the couch did not become encrusted with the sweat, slime and dirt that Stepson carries on his unwashed skin. (Did I mention he has terrible personal habits?)
Well, I went from zero to ballistic in 1 second flat. The rant restarted moments later when I had to step over his underpants on the floor of the bathroom. A few choice words to Hubby to the effect that he HAD TO SAY SOMETHING to his son... then the drive into work. People standing at a bus stop. One young woman with an expression of severe unpleasantness on her face - "Hey honey - wonder why you can't land a MAN with a CAR so you don't have to take the BUS to work? TRY SMILING." Fortunately, I used my "inside voice." Then the well-dressed woman crossing the street at the crosswalk. Hubby will stop for pedestrians at a crosswalk - though if they're not at a crosswalk he considers them fair game, like bowling pins...
Anyway, nobody was stopping for this woman, but Hubby did, and she crossed then, but still kept an unpleasant expression on her face. Hubby's window was open and it wasn't long till my voice sailed after her, "Would it kill you to SMILE???" Oops. Outside Voice.
Days like this, when things start with some transgression by filthy Stepson, never go well. The Outside Voice eventually wins.
But it's often not pretty.
That was the sound of me shooting myself in the foot.
Why do they let me talk to people? Here at work? The boss is on the phone,his boss is bringing people around for an unscheduled tour... I've been in this scenario before, and it's not pretty.
I start off just answering the questions. But sooner or later, as I develop a rapport with the visitors, I'm gonna make a crack. Crack a joke.
Like just now, when someone said they like my LOL CAT picture, and I said, I've gots lots, I love humor, and the Academic Dean said, tongue-in-cheek, "We don't allow humor here!" And I zinged back with a quick, "No, you don't!"
Ka-BOOM.
Ouch. Why do they let me talk to people?
It's not an "if". It's a "when." When am I going to say something stupid, and how bad will it be?
And it's not even like I didn't have any warning. This morning the first small explosions began when I walked to the front door, and saw that Stepson not only had spent the night sleeping on the livingroom couch, but had enjoyed two cans of root beer there, as evidenced by the empty tins and glass sitting on the floor.
Stepson has terrible personal habits. He regularly stuffs the remains of whatever he's been munching on into the glass he'd been drinking from. He lets the glass fall over, spilling whatever was in it, or breaking during the fall. No amount of yelling to this date has been able to persuade him to A) bring his used cans and glasses to the kitchen, or B) put them on a tabletop as opposed to the floor, or C) sleep in his bed.
The good thing about this particular overnight on the couch was that Stepdaughter had put a sheet down, she slept on the same couch the night before (since her bedroom was undergoing renovations), and so this time the couch did not become encrusted with the sweat, slime and dirt that Stepson carries on his unwashed skin. (Did I mention he has terrible personal habits?)
Well, I went from zero to ballistic in 1 second flat. The rant restarted moments later when I had to step over his underpants on the floor of the bathroom. A few choice words to Hubby to the effect that he HAD TO SAY SOMETHING to his son... then the drive into work. People standing at a bus stop. One young woman with an expression of severe unpleasantness on her face - "Hey honey - wonder why you can't land a MAN with a CAR so you don't have to take the BUS to work? TRY SMILING." Fortunately, I used my "inside voice." Then the well-dressed woman crossing the street at the crosswalk. Hubby will stop for pedestrians at a crosswalk - though if they're not at a crosswalk he considers them fair game, like bowling pins...
Anyway, nobody was stopping for this woman, but Hubby did, and she crossed then, but still kept an unpleasant expression on her face. Hubby's window was open and it wasn't long till my voice sailed after her, "Would it kill you to SMILE???" Oops. Outside Voice.
Days like this, when things start with some transgression by filthy Stepson, never go well. The Outside Voice eventually wins.
But it's often not pretty.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Itsy-Bitsy Bang...
Well, once again the voices predicting destruction and doom were proven wrong.
Not that anyone is really surprised.
I'm speaking of that thing they turned on this morning - the 17-mile long particle accelerator somewhere under the alps, or someplace in Europe. The doomsayers wasted no time rolling out the end of the world sandwich boards, predicting the creation of a slew of teensy-weensy black holes that would join together and annihiliate us all by the end of the day. Others decided that all these particles banging together would create a monster explosion by lunchtime and blow us all up.
No such luck. Afraid we'll all still have to get out of bed tomorrow and go to work.
Better luck next time.
Lemme tell you, all you religious fanatics and grade-8-science-class-dropouts: the TRUTH is, the only black holes are IN YOUR BRAINS.
Or what passes for your brains.
Throughout human history, every single time anyone has had an idea, has wanted to try something out, the forces of ignorance and fear have united in a superstitious chorus of "No No No! Leave well enough alone! Don't learn to use fire - someone will get burned! Don't build tall buildings, they'll fall on us! Don't ride a horse, it will trample us! Don't use electricity, it'll give us all cancer! Don't sail out of sight of land - you'll fall off the earth! Don't go into space, up the mountain, under the ocean, or even around the block... Don't make medical advances - it's terrifying! All the things that can go wrong! No, we'll be content to sit in the dark shivering, dying in childbirth, starving, huddled together for warmth in our cave of ignorance, praying to whatever god or gods we think we have to appease, rather than get off our collective butts and LEARN something...."
These fearmongers have been with us forever - human beings are an incredibly superstitious species. And by and large, they're not a problem. Not till somebody gives them a microphone, space in the paper, time on the evening news, or they reproduce to the point where there are actually more of these idiots than there is of sensible, normal, sane people.
One has only to watch a teenager attempt to make Kraft dinner to realize how fragile a thing knowledge and scientific understanding is. How unlimited the scope of human ignorance is. How close to disaster we really live, should we fail to teach our children that knowledge and learning are GOOD for them.
The particle accelerator started up somewhere in Europe this morning while the rest of the would slept like a baby. As it should have. Hello, you idiots out there, the particles they are accelerating are REALLY REALLY SMALL! News flash - it wouldn't rock your bottle of Coke, much less your world.
Today, the world is just as safe, and just as scary, as it was yesterday. As it will be tomorrow. There are no monsters except human monsters. No devils but human devils. No angels but human angels. No gods but human gods.
There may or may not have been a big bang. There probably won't be an armageddon, an ending to the universe, no matter how scared people are or how noisy they get. There may or may not be limits to the universe and our understanding of it.
Unfortunately for us all, there is no limit to human stupidity.
Not that anyone is really surprised.
I'm speaking of that thing they turned on this morning - the 17-mile long particle accelerator somewhere under the alps, or someplace in Europe. The doomsayers wasted no time rolling out the end of the world sandwich boards, predicting the creation of a slew of teensy-weensy black holes that would join together and annihiliate us all by the end of the day. Others decided that all these particles banging together would create a monster explosion by lunchtime and blow us all up.
No such luck. Afraid we'll all still have to get out of bed tomorrow and go to work.
Better luck next time.
Lemme tell you, all you religious fanatics and grade-8-science-class-dropouts: the TRUTH is, the only black holes are IN YOUR BRAINS.
Or what passes for your brains.
Throughout human history, every single time anyone has had an idea, has wanted to try something out, the forces of ignorance and fear have united in a superstitious chorus of "No No No! Leave well enough alone! Don't learn to use fire - someone will get burned! Don't build tall buildings, they'll fall on us! Don't ride a horse, it will trample us! Don't use electricity, it'll give us all cancer! Don't sail out of sight of land - you'll fall off the earth! Don't go into space, up the mountain, under the ocean, or even around the block... Don't make medical advances - it's terrifying! All the things that can go wrong! No, we'll be content to sit in the dark shivering, dying in childbirth, starving, huddled together for warmth in our cave of ignorance, praying to whatever god or gods we think we have to appease, rather than get off our collective butts and LEARN something...."
These fearmongers have been with us forever - human beings are an incredibly superstitious species. And by and large, they're not a problem. Not till somebody gives them a microphone, space in the paper, time on the evening news, or they reproduce to the point where there are actually more of these idiots than there is of sensible, normal, sane people.
One has only to watch a teenager attempt to make Kraft dinner to realize how fragile a thing knowledge and scientific understanding is. How unlimited the scope of human ignorance is. How close to disaster we really live, should we fail to teach our children that knowledge and learning are GOOD for them.
The particle accelerator started up somewhere in Europe this morning while the rest of the would slept like a baby. As it should have. Hello, you idiots out there, the particles they are accelerating are REALLY REALLY SMALL! News flash - it wouldn't rock your bottle of Coke, much less your world.
Today, the world is just as safe, and just as scary, as it was yesterday. As it will be tomorrow. There are no monsters except human monsters. No devils but human devils. No angels but human angels. No gods but human gods.
There may or may not have been a big bang. There probably won't be an armageddon, an ending to the universe, no matter how scared people are or how noisy they get. There may or may not be limits to the universe and our understanding of it.
Unfortunately for us all, there is no limit to human stupidity.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Home Entertainment Device
It's so q u i e t ! Ssh!
We are the proud owners of a new (for us) used dishwasher. And our ears are thanking us. Over and over. And Over.
The old one had served us well. Twenty years, approximately, it had noisily ground out its labour with only the occasional glitch. Through teenagers who refused to scrape dishes or rinse chocolate-drink-encrusted goo from the bottom of their glasses. Who left their bacon and eggs on their plates, well-hidden beneath beds, beneath couches, beneath laundry... So hardened even the dog couldn't find them anymore.
I've pulled out more hair from that motor than I have from my hairbrush. The little plastic square closers for bread bags. Chicken bones. Beads from necklaces. Elastic bands. Grapefruit seeds. Pieces of meat. Whole miniature carrots. Broken glass. Dental retainers. (Don't ask.)
And at least fifteen DOZEN of those triangular clippings from milk bags. See, they cut 'em off, and put them - get this - ON TOP of the garbage can. Then they pile the dishes on top of that. Then they grab the dishes and plop them into the dishwasher without a glance. And the little plastic clippings which had stuck to the bottom of the plates swirl around, rub over the dishes, get stuck in the sprayers, sink to the bottom, get stuck in the filter, and eventually, the motor.
Hubby has dutifully performed lifesaving surgery on the old dishwasher at least a dozen times in its life. Stuff stuck in the sprayers. Timer stuck. Rotation stopped by a build-up of hair and plastic milk bag clippings. He really thought it was a goner, that time, but a thorough clean and scrape of the motor gave it four more years of life.
A while ago, some Very Dear Friends bought themselves a new dishwasher, and asked us if we'd like to buy their old one, which is only about five years old. It merited serious consideration. Their model was quiet, for one thing. And it had a grinder section to deal with the things teenagers don't scrape off their plates.
Hubby and I kept each other awake nights discussing the pros and cons. The old adage "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know." Wondering if dishwashers are like cars, in need of expensive repairs from age three to age six. Theorizing that if we did switch, the new one would be sure to break down on us, simply because it never had for its previous owners.
Hmm. Add to that the fact that the previous owners are... are .... well, let's use the word "fastidious." A lot more than we are. (I use the term "we" collectively here: I must insist that I'm absolutely fastidious about what I put in my dishwasher! My family uses another term that is not so polite.) Given this family's tendencies, we worried that we'd soon make an end to it. Push it past the realm of "the call of duty."
Well, earlier this week, the old dishwasher gave us a new sound, and I snapped. "That's it," I said, "I'm emailing them. We can pay 'em on the 15th."
"Ask him if they've dropped the price first," hollered Hubby from the living room. "Ha ha," I said.
So this weekend it took place. The old dishwasher is now sitting at the curb, awaiting rescue. Somebody gonna get a good deal on it, for sure! Maybe get three or more years out of it - provided they can figure out what's making that grinding noise...
And this evening, as Hubby and I scoured the rooms looking for items to put into the new dishwasher, Stepdaughter couldn't stand it any more and started to make fun of us.
"Is this what passes for entertainment for you two?" she laughed. "My god, you guys are pathetic!
Hubby and I each countered with a similar list of truths about our lives, mostly to the effect that yes, this is what buying a house and having kids will do to you. Don't do it if you want to have a life!
I stood in front of it, owner's manual in hand, trying in VAIN to hear it fill, wrapt in utter adoration and thankfulness.
Thank you SO MUCH, Very Dear Friends! If not actual peace of mind, you have given us peace and quiet!
We are the proud owners of a new (for us) used dishwasher. And our ears are thanking us. Over and over. And Over.
The old one had served us well. Twenty years, approximately, it had noisily ground out its labour with only the occasional glitch. Through teenagers who refused to scrape dishes or rinse chocolate-drink-encrusted goo from the bottom of their glasses. Who left their bacon and eggs on their plates, well-hidden beneath beds, beneath couches, beneath laundry... So hardened even the dog couldn't find them anymore.
I've pulled out more hair from that motor than I have from my hairbrush. The little plastic square closers for bread bags. Chicken bones. Beads from necklaces. Elastic bands. Grapefruit seeds. Pieces of meat. Whole miniature carrots. Broken glass. Dental retainers. (Don't ask.)
And at least fifteen DOZEN of those triangular clippings from milk bags. See, they cut 'em off, and put them - get this - ON TOP of the garbage can. Then they pile the dishes on top of that. Then they grab the dishes and plop them into the dishwasher without a glance. And the little plastic clippings which had stuck to the bottom of the plates swirl around, rub over the dishes, get stuck in the sprayers, sink to the bottom, get stuck in the filter, and eventually, the motor.
Hubby has dutifully performed lifesaving surgery on the old dishwasher at least a dozen times in its life. Stuff stuck in the sprayers. Timer stuck. Rotation stopped by a build-up of hair and plastic milk bag clippings. He really thought it was a goner, that time, but a thorough clean and scrape of the motor gave it four more years of life.
A while ago, some Very Dear Friends bought themselves a new dishwasher, and asked us if we'd like to buy their old one, which is only about five years old. It merited serious consideration. Their model was quiet, for one thing. And it had a grinder section to deal with the things teenagers don't scrape off their plates.
Hubby and I kept each other awake nights discussing the pros and cons. The old adage "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know." Wondering if dishwashers are like cars, in need of expensive repairs from age three to age six. Theorizing that if we did switch, the new one would be sure to break down on us, simply because it never had for its previous owners.
Hmm. Add to that the fact that the previous owners are... are .... well, let's use the word "fastidious." A lot more than we are. (I use the term "we" collectively here: I must insist that I'm absolutely fastidious about what I put in my dishwasher! My family uses another term that is not so polite.) Given this family's tendencies, we worried that we'd soon make an end to it. Push it past the realm of "the call of duty."
Well, earlier this week, the old dishwasher gave us a new sound, and I snapped. "That's it," I said, "I'm emailing them. We can pay 'em on the 15th."
"Ask him if they've dropped the price first," hollered Hubby from the living room. "Ha ha," I said.
So this weekend it took place. The old dishwasher is now sitting at the curb, awaiting rescue. Somebody gonna get a good deal on it, for sure! Maybe get three or more years out of it - provided they can figure out what's making that grinding noise...
And this evening, as Hubby and I scoured the rooms looking for items to put into the new dishwasher, Stepdaughter couldn't stand it any more and started to make fun of us.
"Is this what passes for entertainment for you two?" she laughed. "My god, you guys are pathetic!
Hubby and I each countered with a similar list of truths about our lives, mostly to the effect that yes, this is what buying a house and having kids will do to you. Don't do it if you want to have a life!
I stood in front of it, owner's manual in hand, trying in VAIN to hear it fill, wrapt in utter adoration and thankfulness.
Thank you SO MUCH, Very Dear Friends! If not actual peace of mind, you have given us peace and quiet!
Monday, September 1, 2008
The 24-Hour LIVE Science-Fiction Channel
A few years ago, when Hubby and I were visiting my Dad and Stepmom in Louisiana, I was surfing the channels on his tv, desperately looking for Star Trek.
Dad and Stepmom are in the Bible Belt, see, and they've blocked most of their satellite channels due to "offensive" material. (The discussion of WHY my Dad has a satellite at all is for another blog.)
Anyway, while flicking madly up and down through 17 satellites, I complained to Dad, "Doncha have any other science-fiction channels on this thing, Pop?"
Daddy thought about it for a minute, then said, "Well, I think there's one other."
"So? What is it?" I asked.
"CNN," he said flatly.
Oh brother, I thought, he's really losing it.
In the ensuing years I've had opportunity to quote Dad on this one. But the last straw came this morning.
Like many people in North America, we've been watching the updates on Hurricane Gustav as it slams the Louisiana coastline a few feet from where Katrina blew the coastline away a mere three years ago. We watched in horror as Katrina flooded New Orleans, and we said to ourselves that they shouldn't attempt to rebuild it, that they should let it go. Because with the climate changes that are coming, all we can expect is more of the same, and much worse. We watched as hundreds of thousands of (black) people went without the necessities of life, as various levels of government constipation made a desperate situation worse. We couldn't believe we were watching live tv from North America, home of the brave, technological masters of the universe, etc etc etc.
This was our backyard, and it stank.
Mother Nature was giving us a whuppin', and with it a serious warning.
Which of course, nobody in office takes seriously...
We watched over the last three years as people languished in trailers, or worse. As various sets of engineers played with the equivalent of meccano sets and lego to rebuild levies - to 20th-century standards. About a hundred feet short of what will be needed this century... for the storms that are yet to come...
Well, along comes Gustav. At first we were content to hear about it's imminent arrival on CBC radio. Then we made sure to listen to the segment on the evening news - on CBC.
This morning, Hubby popped on CNN.
OMG.
OMFG!
The water is "over-topping" the newly rebuilt levees. Down there, over to the left, where the camera can barely see it, the water is pouring over the levee like a waterfall.
OMG.
They show reporters leaning all to port as Gustav approaches, clinging to lamp posts and clutching their microphones, tethered by life lines as if in space-walk.
They show reporters leaning to starboard as the eye has passed. The water is over-topping the levee. Down to the left there, where the camera can barely see, it's basically a waterfall over the levee.
They switch to a map of Louisiana with the red-hot image of swirling Gustav superimposed.
OMG, my Dad lives right THERE!
"There," says Hubby. "Isn't that where your Dad lives?"
We decide to phone, or try to. They must be drowning. Lafayette, where some of my Stepsisters and their families live, has been evacuated now as Gustav roars down on it. Ten minutes to go....
"Hello?" my Dad says at the other end of the phone. His tone is calm, almost bored.
"Well?" I say. "You getting wet now?"
"No."
"What!?" I exclaim. "It isn't raining there?"
"Well, we had one or two drops," he says. "It's stopped for now, but I'm hoping we'll get some more in a little while. Maybe in an hour or so we'll finally see some rain."
(Dad, it seems, lives in the equivalent of the Sahara Desert of Louisiana. I keep telling him to open a B&B for hurricane season, but can't convince him he'd make lots of money putting up people who are temporarily displaced.)
I said, "The tv has the pictures of the storm..." and Daddy finishes my sentence.
"Yeah," he says. "Over the whole state. Right over us, in fact. We've got it on right now." In the background, I hear people laughing.
"How many you got with you now," I ask. Stepmom has a large family, who all live closer to the coast than she and Dad do, who all come to stay with her and Dad when they're given evacuation orders.
"About... ten... no, twelve," Dad says calmly. They have twelve people staying with them for the duration of Gustav.
"What do you do when the plumbing backs up," I ask.
"Well, by that time there won't be any electricity," Dad says calmly. "So it won't matter."
I decide I don't want to be enlightened on that point.
"Do you have a generator?" I ask.
"Oh yeah. It's sitting out front. We started it up yesterday, just to be sure."
Okay, so they actually DO think about things. Not rely SOLELY on the Lord's providence. (No pun intended.)
"We'll get some rain for sure," Dad says. "But I doubt very much we'll get any wind."
"So you haven't boarded anything up?"
"Aw no. There's no need for that," says Dad.
On the tv screen, reporters are leaning to starboard and pointing at the levee. The map of Gustav superimposed on Louisiana continues to twirl angrily, right on top of where my Dad lives. The crawler at the bottom lists details of mighty forces being massed to save people from the peril. My Dad calls out to ask what Stepmom's blood pressure is.
"135 over 80" he says. "That's good."
I think Dad was right. CNN is a science-fiction channel.
Dad and Stepmom are in the Bible Belt, see, and they've blocked most of their satellite channels due to "offensive" material. (The discussion of WHY my Dad has a satellite at all is for another blog.)
Anyway, while flicking madly up and down through 17 satellites, I complained to Dad, "Doncha have any other science-fiction channels on this thing, Pop?"
Daddy thought about it for a minute, then said, "Well, I think there's one other."
"So? What is it?" I asked.
"CNN," he said flatly.
Oh brother, I thought, he's really losing it.
In the ensuing years I've had opportunity to quote Dad on this one. But the last straw came this morning.
Like many people in North America, we've been watching the updates on Hurricane Gustav as it slams the Louisiana coastline a few feet from where Katrina blew the coastline away a mere three years ago. We watched in horror as Katrina flooded New Orleans, and we said to ourselves that they shouldn't attempt to rebuild it, that they should let it go. Because with the climate changes that are coming, all we can expect is more of the same, and much worse. We watched as hundreds of thousands of (black) people went without the necessities of life, as various levels of government constipation made a desperate situation worse. We couldn't believe we were watching live tv from North America, home of the brave, technological masters of the universe, etc etc etc.
This was our backyard, and it stank.
Mother Nature was giving us a whuppin', and with it a serious warning.
Which of course, nobody in office takes seriously...
We watched over the last three years as people languished in trailers, or worse. As various sets of engineers played with the equivalent of meccano sets and lego to rebuild levies - to 20th-century standards. About a hundred feet short of what will be needed this century... for the storms that are yet to come...
Well, along comes Gustav. At first we were content to hear about it's imminent arrival on CBC radio. Then we made sure to listen to the segment on the evening news - on CBC.
This morning, Hubby popped on CNN.
OMG.
OMFG!
The water is "over-topping" the newly rebuilt levees. Down there, over to the left, where the camera can barely see it, the water is pouring over the levee like a waterfall.
OMG.
They show reporters leaning all to port as Gustav approaches, clinging to lamp posts and clutching their microphones, tethered by life lines as if in space-walk.
They show reporters leaning to starboard as the eye has passed. The water is over-topping the levee. Down to the left there, where the camera can barely see, it's basically a waterfall over the levee.
They switch to a map of Louisiana with the red-hot image of swirling Gustav superimposed.
OMG, my Dad lives right THERE!
"There," says Hubby. "Isn't that where your Dad lives?"
We decide to phone, or try to. They must be drowning. Lafayette, where some of my Stepsisters and their families live, has been evacuated now as Gustav roars down on it. Ten minutes to go....
"Hello?" my Dad says at the other end of the phone. His tone is calm, almost bored.
"Well?" I say. "You getting wet now?"
"No."
"What!?" I exclaim. "It isn't raining there?"
"Well, we had one or two drops," he says. "It's stopped for now, but I'm hoping we'll get some more in a little while. Maybe in an hour or so we'll finally see some rain."
(Dad, it seems, lives in the equivalent of the Sahara Desert of Louisiana. I keep telling him to open a B&B for hurricane season, but can't convince him he'd make lots of money putting up people who are temporarily displaced.)
I said, "The tv has the pictures of the storm..." and Daddy finishes my sentence.
"Yeah," he says. "Over the whole state. Right over us, in fact. We've got it on right now." In the background, I hear people laughing.
"How many you got with you now," I ask. Stepmom has a large family, who all live closer to the coast than she and Dad do, who all come to stay with her and Dad when they're given evacuation orders.
"About... ten... no, twelve," Dad says calmly. They have twelve people staying with them for the duration of Gustav.
"What do you do when the plumbing backs up," I ask.
"Well, by that time there won't be any electricity," Dad says calmly. "So it won't matter."
I decide I don't want to be enlightened on that point.
"Do you have a generator?" I ask.
"Oh yeah. It's sitting out front. We started it up yesterday, just to be sure."
Okay, so they actually DO think about things. Not rely SOLELY on the Lord's providence. (No pun intended.)
"We'll get some rain for sure," Dad says. "But I doubt very much we'll get any wind."
"So you haven't boarded anything up?"
"Aw no. There's no need for that," says Dad.
On the tv screen, reporters are leaning to starboard and pointing at the levee. The map of Gustav superimposed on Louisiana continues to twirl angrily, right on top of where my Dad lives. The crawler at the bottom lists details of mighty forces being massed to save people from the peril. My Dad calls out to ask what Stepmom's blood pressure is.
"135 over 80" he says. "That's good."
I think Dad was right. CNN is a science-fiction channel.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
On losing a puddy-tat...
In approximately 14 hours, the vet will come to my home and put my little kitty "to sleep."
She's not actually a kitten, we just call her that, to differentiate her from our older cat. In fact, she's only six years old - but she has cancer.
The symptoms appeared last February, when we all thought she had a cold. Back and forth to the vet several times to change meds, to get an x-ray, to get directed to the vet college in St. Hyacinthe. There they did a biopsy and gave us the bad news in April. For around six thousand dollars, we could have dragged her to Guelph for radiation and extended her little life by two months. For a couple more, we could have gone for weekly chemo visits to St Hyacinth. But there was no doubt about the end of the road - it was terminal, point finale.
So, not being wealthy, we decided to watch her carefully for signs of pain, and let her just live out her little life her own way with no further disturbances.
"And how do we tell if she's in pain?" we asked the vet. "Well, they sleep a lot," came the answer. "And the appetite goes down."
Wow. At the risk of being funny, how the hell does one tell if a cat is sleeping a lot!?
(Actually, we did notice a difference in the past few weeks, so it is possible to tell.)
As for appetite, she's never eaten so much. However, she weighs about the same now as when she was eight weeks old.
The tumor is growing in her head, right behind her nose, which is why everybody thought she had a cold. Her breathing sounded at first asthmatic, then full-blown stuffed. Lately, we've been calling her "Cat Vader."
She can't lie down and breathe at the same time, so her sleep hasn't been the best, and neither has ours, since her breathing is quite loud.
And about a month ago, she started saying goodbye, I am convinced. She'd come sit on us at odd times and dunt her sweet face against us. She'd walk out on the street to do the same for the neighbours, and for other cats she was friendly with. She came to a bridge game with me, climbed up on the table, and dunted us all for fifteen minutes. She's been dunting the dog and the other cat, who both look depressed - they've figured out she isn't long for this world and are already in mourning.
But she ate, wanted out, and bounded across the yard, chasing bugs, jumping up the tree, rolling around on the ground. Thoroughly enjoying every minute of her little life.
And that's been her trademark all along. This little sweetie put her heart and soul into every single minute of her life. When she slept, she slept with all her heart, purring away. When she played, she knew no limits to fun and adventure. And she loved fully, completely. She'd walk with us no matter where we were going. Passers-by would stand and gawk, amazed that a cat would follow us so cheerfully.
She'd jump from the tree to the roof and back - once she was sure we were watching. She'd go up and down any ladder she saw - coming down face-first. She'd squeak softly if we patted her when she was sleeping. And she had the sweetest, tiniest little voice. She was always talking - "Squeaky" came to be her nickname - half-purr, half-voice. And she absolutely loved being outside.
Well, I could go on and on... but the time has come to put an end to her suffering. The tumor has distorted her facial bones, making her nose wider and crooked. And we're pretty sure she isn't seeing out of one eye. She carefully moves her head from side to side before going forward, and she startles easily if approached from that side. She's also starting to gag. So, all things considered, it really is "time".
I watch her sleep at night, or what passes for sleep at this stage for her. Her little head gets lower and lower, but at a certain point she wakes up because she can't breathe in that position. I know that it will be a great relief for her to finally be able to lower her head tomorrow and sleep at last.
I've asked her to visit me in my dreams. My other cats also visit me that way from time to time. I'm glad the vet will come here, to her home, so she can pass away without a traumatic car ride to an animal hospital that smells like god knows what to a cat! I'm even more glad that I'll know her end - so many cats go away from their homes when they sense the end is near, and the distraught family never knows what became of them. She'll be here, calm and loved and patted and held right to the end. And Hubby has made a wooden box to hold her remains, which will be buried here in her favourite garden. I'll be able to sit by her grave and chat with her or weep for her any time.
Am I nuts? Who can say. Everybody who loves animals knows how I feel, losing this precious, wonderful little character. Not everybody is as attached to cats the way I am... I know I'm odd...
But in a way, mourning her loss isn't only about her. I've been mourning a lot of things since hearing the diagnosis.
Last year about this time, my mother passed away. Far too young. And I hardly knew her, knew only bits and pieces of her life, since I wasn't raised by her (no fault of hers). We connected very deeply, in certain ways, but sadly, my mother's home was never really my home. We both wished it was, but the fact is, I grew up in a different home. One I hated for a good deal of my life, one I live in now.
So I've been mourning the loss of my childhood, the loss of connection with my mom, and my mother's early death, while my pussy-cat has been gasping for breath each night.
I've been mourning the mistakes of my first marriage, misunderstandings with my Daughter, problems with my second marriage. Problems with my Stepkids. Friends moved away who chose not to keep in touch. Growing old before I figured out how to be young. Years lost to a mood disorder that ruined many relationships before I got help. My Stepmother, who had a bad stroke this year, who I don't think will be around much longer. My dad, growing old, getting "funny." Well, funnier, anyway - I come by my oddness honestly!
My beautiful Auntie who died last year, my neighbour and friend who is getting on in years and making her home ready to sell. It's coming. Not yet, but one day. Maybe even soon. We never know how long we'll have, or what quality our lives will have.
Mourning my lack of connection to so many of the people I love. So much so, that I have to wonder if some of them even know that I love them!
It's a lot to put on a little cat, I know! Well, her approaching demise has simply brought to mind all these wounds, all these aches, all the losses I've ever suffered.
And reminded me of all the joys I still have. In the middle of all this pain, I can hear my mother's voice clearer in my mind than I ever heard it while she was alive. Now there is no limit to her understanding of my life, no distance between us. Hubby and I are more in love than ever before. I have wonderful, loving friends. I'm settling down at work, I'm getting to be a fairly good quilter. Daughter seems to be finding her way. Stepkids are growing. We're starting to think about retiring. About the end of the debts. About some peace to come.
And for my sweet little "Titty-Kitty", some peace, some rest from the constant struggle for breath, tomorrow. And, I hope, many, many sweet dreams to come.
She's not actually a kitten, we just call her that, to differentiate her from our older cat. In fact, she's only six years old - but she has cancer.
The symptoms appeared last February, when we all thought she had a cold. Back and forth to the vet several times to change meds, to get an x-ray, to get directed to the vet college in St. Hyacinthe. There they did a biopsy and gave us the bad news in April. For around six thousand dollars, we could have dragged her to Guelph for radiation and extended her little life by two months. For a couple more, we could have gone for weekly chemo visits to St Hyacinth. But there was no doubt about the end of the road - it was terminal, point finale.
So, not being wealthy, we decided to watch her carefully for signs of pain, and let her just live out her little life her own way with no further disturbances.
"And how do we tell if she's in pain?" we asked the vet. "Well, they sleep a lot," came the answer. "And the appetite goes down."
Wow. At the risk of being funny, how the hell does one tell if a cat is sleeping a lot!?
(Actually, we did notice a difference in the past few weeks, so it is possible to tell.)
As for appetite, she's never eaten so much. However, she weighs about the same now as when she was eight weeks old.
The tumor is growing in her head, right behind her nose, which is why everybody thought she had a cold. Her breathing sounded at first asthmatic, then full-blown stuffed. Lately, we've been calling her "Cat Vader."
She can't lie down and breathe at the same time, so her sleep hasn't been the best, and neither has ours, since her breathing is quite loud.
And about a month ago, she started saying goodbye, I am convinced. She'd come sit on us at odd times and dunt her sweet face against us. She'd walk out on the street to do the same for the neighbours, and for other cats she was friendly with. She came to a bridge game with me, climbed up on the table, and dunted us all for fifteen minutes. She's been dunting the dog and the other cat, who both look depressed - they've figured out she isn't long for this world and are already in mourning.
But she ate, wanted out, and bounded across the yard, chasing bugs, jumping up the tree, rolling around on the ground. Thoroughly enjoying every minute of her little life.
And that's been her trademark all along. This little sweetie put her heart and soul into every single minute of her life. When she slept, she slept with all her heart, purring away. When she played, she knew no limits to fun and adventure. And she loved fully, completely. She'd walk with us no matter where we were going. Passers-by would stand and gawk, amazed that a cat would follow us so cheerfully.
She'd jump from the tree to the roof and back - once she was sure we were watching. She'd go up and down any ladder she saw - coming down face-first. She'd squeak softly if we patted her when she was sleeping. And she had the sweetest, tiniest little voice. She was always talking - "Squeaky" came to be her nickname - half-purr, half-voice. And she absolutely loved being outside.
Well, I could go on and on... but the time has come to put an end to her suffering. The tumor has distorted her facial bones, making her nose wider and crooked. And we're pretty sure she isn't seeing out of one eye. She carefully moves her head from side to side before going forward, and she startles easily if approached from that side. She's also starting to gag. So, all things considered, it really is "time".
I watch her sleep at night, or what passes for sleep at this stage for her. Her little head gets lower and lower, but at a certain point she wakes up because she can't breathe in that position. I know that it will be a great relief for her to finally be able to lower her head tomorrow and sleep at last.
I've asked her to visit me in my dreams. My other cats also visit me that way from time to time. I'm glad the vet will come here, to her home, so she can pass away without a traumatic car ride to an animal hospital that smells like god knows what to a cat! I'm even more glad that I'll know her end - so many cats go away from their homes when they sense the end is near, and the distraught family never knows what became of them. She'll be here, calm and loved and patted and held right to the end. And Hubby has made a wooden box to hold her remains, which will be buried here in her favourite garden. I'll be able to sit by her grave and chat with her or weep for her any time.
Am I nuts? Who can say. Everybody who loves animals knows how I feel, losing this precious, wonderful little character. Not everybody is as attached to cats the way I am... I know I'm odd...
But in a way, mourning her loss isn't only about her. I've been mourning a lot of things since hearing the diagnosis.
Last year about this time, my mother passed away. Far too young. And I hardly knew her, knew only bits and pieces of her life, since I wasn't raised by her (no fault of hers). We connected very deeply, in certain ways, but sadly, my mother's home was never really my home. We both wished it was, but the fact is, I grew up in a different home. One I hated for a good deal of my life, one I live in now.
So I've been mourning the loss of my childhood, the loss of connection with my mom, and my mother's early death, while my pussy-cat has been gasping for breath each night.
I've been mourning the mistakes of my first marriage, misunderstandings with my Daughter, problems with my second marriage. Problems with my Stepkids. Friends moved away who chose not to keep in touch. Growing old before I figured out how to be young. Years lost to a mood disorder that ruined many relationships before I got help. My Stepmother, who had a bad stroke this year, who I don't think will be around much longer. My dad, growing old, getting "funny." Well, funnier, anyway - I come by my oddness honestly!
My beautiful Auntie who died last year, my neighbour and friend who is getting on in years and making her home ready to sell. It's coming. Not yet, but one day. Maybe even soon. We never know how long we'll have, or what quality our lives will have.
Mourning my lack of connection to so many of the people I love. So much so, that I have to wonder if some of them even know that I love them!
It's a lot to put on a little cat, I know! Well, her approaching demise has simply brought to mind all these wounds, all these aches, all the losses I've ever suffered.
And reminded me of all the joys I still have. In the middle of all this pain, I can hear my mother's voice clearer in my mind than I ever heard it while she was alive. Now there is no limit to her understanding of my life, no distance between us. Hubby and I are more in love than ever before. I have wonderful, loving friends. I'm settling down at work, I'm getting to be a fairly good quilter. Daughter seems to be finding her way. Stepkids are growing. We're starting to think about retiring. About the end of the debts. About some peace to come.
And for my sweet little "Titty-Kitty", some peace, some rest from the constant struggle for breath, tomorrow. And, I hope, many, many sweet dreams to come.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Whimsy
Who's that pretty puppy dog,
Lyin' on the front steps like a log,
Lickin' her whizzer all the livelong day?
All she does is bark and eat
Then she goes to sleep sleep sleep -
But she's our pet and we love her anyway!
(sing to the tune of "here comes Peter Cottontail")
I can write stuff like this in under three minutes. I remember, line for line, poetry I learned when I was in grade school. Silly sayings from my Grandpa. I can recite a LOT of Monty Python by heart, complete with different voices for different characters. Same for episodes of Star Trek, ANY generation, movies I liked, books I've read, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers.... If you're playing Trivial Pursuit with me and you don't think I'm right about a line, tread carefully!
Ask me how many birthday cards I sent out on time this year?
None.
Ask me how much quilting I've been able to finish while on vacation?
None.
Ask me if I've vaccuumed yet.
You don't want to know.
I'm blogging now - not the blog that makes money, but this one, just for fun. I've stopped making a set of placemats to do this.
I'd rather engage in nonsense than do ANYTHING. Even if what I was doing was fun.
If it's whimsical and useless, I got it nailed.
Lyin' on the front steps like a log,
Lickin' her whizzer all the livelong day?
All she does is bark and eat
Then she goes to sleep sleep sleep -
But she's our pet and we love her anyway!
(sing to the tune of "here comes Peter Cottontail")
I can write stuff like this in under three minutes. I remember, line for line, poetry I learned when I was in grade school. Silly sayings from my Grandpa. I can recite a LOT of Monty Python by heart, complete with different voices for different characters. Same for episodes of Star Trek, ANY generation, movies I liked, books I've read, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers.... If you're playing Trivial Pursuit with me and you don't think I'm right about a line, tread carefully!
Ask me how many birthday cards I sent out on time this year?
None.
Ask me how much quilting I've been able to finish while on vacation?
None.
Ask me if I've vaccuumed yet.
You don't want to know.
I'm blogging now - not the blog that makes money, but this one, just for fun. I've stopped making a set of placemats to do this.
I'd rather engage in nonsense than do ANYTHING. Even if what I was doing was fun.
If it's whimsical and useless, I got it nailed.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
I dreamt my whole house was clean...
Ay me! What an idyllic sight it was, too! No dust, no pet hair, no stray bits of thread, no bits of foodstuffs left on the counter, gleaming floors, fresh-smelling linens, nothing in the laundry baskets... S I G H . . . .
Well, it's something to shoot for, as opposed to shooting myself about!
My Pal lent me a book called Getting Things Done. Today I have followed its precepts, and already, at 11:43 am, I've done and accomplished more than I have been doing in entire days, lately! So something works.
I'm about to do something to the sewing room - not quite sure what, but I have to define that goal right after finishing this blog. If I don't define what it is I want to accomplish (besides the whole house being in perfect order - unattainable) then I won't know when I'm done! But already I have a sense of peace, sitting here, knowing that I'm going to accomplish something today. As opposed to my usual frame of mind - a vague sense of panic that swirls around me no matter where I'm looking because it's all too much!
I've worked out recently that the utter chaos in my home is a big reason people seldom come to see me. And since I love visitors, I'm going to fix that, somehow. Because I want my friends to feel comfortable when they're here.
As I walked the dog and cat this morning, I passed a neighbour who was rinsing out her garbage bins. "Yuck," she said to me. "We'd been away a few weeks, and the...DEATH! inside these things!"
I laughed and said, "to me, it's not so much the dead stuff as the living things, like the maggots!"
She replied, "Well, that's what I meant, but I didn't want to talk about them. I guess I'm obsessive" she finished with a laugh.
"Oh, I don't think so at all!" I replied. "I firmly believe garbage buckets should be washed and rinsed each and every time there's a spill!" She nodded, then I added, "...not that I actually DO that, I just BELIEVE in it!"
We both laughed.
And then I realized it - I BELIEVE.
I BELIEVE my house should be CLEAN. Free of dust, pet hair, stains, junk, mess.... It should be pristine! That's the house I BELIEVE in!
And I believe that when I die, I'm going to go to a better place: a mansion, just for me.
And it'll be sparkling! From basement to attic, my home will be clean, fresh, airy and bright!
Something to hope for!
Well, it's something to shoot for, as opposed to shooting myself about!
My Pal lent me a book called Getting Things Done. Today I have followed its precepts, and already, at 11:43 am, I've done and accomplished more than I have been doing in entire days, lately! So something works.
I'm about to do something to the sewing room - not quite sure what, but I have to define that goal right after finishing this blog. If I don't define what it is I want to accomplish (besides the whole house being in perfect order - unattainable) then I won't know when I'm done! But already I have a sense of peace, sitting here, knowing that I'm going to accomplish something today. As opposed to my usual frame of mind - a vague sense of panic that swirls around me no matter where I'm looking because it's all too much!
I've worked out recently that the utter chaos in my home is a big reason people seldom come to see me. And since I love visitors, I'm going to fix that, somehow. Because I want my friends to feel comfortable when they're here.
As I walked the dog and cat this morning, I passed a neighbour who was rinsing out her garbage bins. "Yuck," she said to me. "We'd been away a few weeks, and the...DEATH! inside these things!"
I laughed and said, "to me, it's not so much the dead stuff as the living things, like the maggots!"
She replied, "Well, that's what I meant, but I didn't want to talk about them. I guess I'm obsessive" she finished with a laugh.
"Oh, I don't think so at all!" I replied. "I firmly believe garbage buckets should be washed and rinsed each and every time there's a spill!" She nodded, then I added, "...not that I actually DO that, I just BELIEVE in it!"
We both laughed.
And then I realized it - I BELIEVE.
I BELIEVE my house should be CLEAN. Free of dust, pet hair, stains, junk, mess.... It should be pristine! That's the house I BELIEVE in!
And I believe that when I die, I'm going to go to a better place: a mansion, just for me.
And it'll be sparkling! From basement to attic, my home will be clean, fresh, airy and bright!
Something to hope for!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Way We Was
Mild food poisoning.
That's what I came home from our camping trip with, it turns out. I thought I was dying, I thought I had a kidney stone, but no, it was a simple case of mild food poisoning.
Food poisoning is considered a mild case, BTW, when it doesn't kill you. It only FEELS like it's gonna kill you, but a day or two later - Surprise! - you're still alive, ready to suffer through some more of this thing they call "life".
As I rise from my sickbed and survey what awaits me in "life" today, I see every room in the house stuffed with sandy remnants of our camping trip. Hubby was WONDERFUL. He got the car unpacked, got the cooler contents into the fridge, and got me tylenol, cranberry juice, pillows and the heating pad. All before heading off for work.
Day 1 at home: I lay on the couch and alternately slept and groaned. Teetered off into town for physiotherapy, where the therapist, a cutie-pie several decades younger than me, told me off for not having gone to see the doctor. I did manage to quietly point out to her that when one suffers from fibromyalgia, as do I, that one does not run to see the doctor at every new pain, because we basically are in pain every day. The doctors just look at you like you're nuts and say come back in a week if it's still bad.
Day2 at home. I'm in less pain, on the couch with coffee and heating pad, screwing up my moral courage to the point where I can empty and deal with the contents of one bag. Then it's off to two medical appointments this afternoon.
I'm using this quiet time to reflect on this past week's camping experience.
I see sunny skies and huge campfires. People who all like each other singing and joking around the campfire. Teasing each other. Floating on the lake for hours. Getting stung by two wasps while picking up firewood. Eating a whole container of Ben 'n' Jerry's ice cream. Drinking - and I don't mean water! Trying to play Taboo! with a pal who insisted on playing for both teams, helping his opponents and throwing his teammates off the scent with his sarcastic comments while we were trying to guess the words. Beautiful Daughter, after being teased by Handsome Boyfriend about not wanting to walk through muck, pointing to herself and saying "Hello - Girl!?" Helping Beautiful Daughter prepare for an audition by reading the script out loud to her in many different accents: Southern States, Paki, J.A.P.....
Watching the two Teenage Girls paddle the canoe off into the lake. Seeing a crane fly into the lily pads. Teensy downy-headed ducklings, whiffling softly to their mother. Sleeping ducks, with heads turned backwards and tucked deep into their feathers. Loons. Lilies opening to the sun. Lilies closing at dusk. A catfish swimming around my feet. The flip-flop fiasco: Friend M attempting to walk to our site from hers, getting both flip-flops sucked off her feet by the deep sand, and only one popping up. The search for the missing flip-flop that must have buried it forever. Her husband wading into the water after she asked him to help her find it, saying "Darling, show me this lake...."
The thunderstorm, one boom rolling over top of another with no break, sometimes five or six rolling over each other, a constant roaring for an hour before the rain came...
Watching Beautiful Daughter and Handsome Boyfriend take stones and axes to the ground around the tents, trying to dig a canal so they wouldn't float away overnight...
Handsome Boyfriend spending three hours chopping wood and kindling for his big bonfire, setting it up carefully. The rain coming just before he was ready to strike the match. All of us running out to cover it with tinfoil and hold a big umbrella over it so all his hard work wouldn't be wasted. His surprise that we all cared. Him jumping over the fire - twice - and the flames were at least four feet high.
Watching Hubby paddle quietly away by himself in the canoe at dusk - something he's waited four years to do.
Getting stuck covered in soap in the shower because I'd been camping for so many years there that I didn't read the sign telling me it now gave water only in increments of 50¢, instead of single quarters. The cleaning staff lady giving up on my wailing and going to get me a second quarter so I could rinse off. Me, frustrated at the situation and myself, cussing under my breath and complaining "and they WONDER why I hate coming to shower here!"
The bullfrog that lived under the roots of a tree on our lot. The little "rubber-band" frogs out in the lilies - they really do sound like the twang of a rubber band, proof positive, I used to say, that god has a sense of humor.
The Dog, swimming to get a stick. Swimming to get a frisbee. Swimming to get a water bottle. Swimming, looking slightly lost, just for the sake of swimming. Looking lost, because it had never occurred to her that she could swim without having to retrieve something! Rolling in the sand after a good shake, lying and baking herself in the sun, as tired and happy as a dog could be. Ready to go to bed at eight pm, frustrated with all of us sitting for hours around the fire. Following me to the bathroom, right into my stall, because no one had noticed she was off her leash. Jumping for joy when she saw Stepdaughter and Daughter and Friends. Jumping for joy, for no particular reason. Sleeping for two full days after coming home. "Dead dog," is our description.
But alas, my trip was also full of pain. This campground never dries out, and fibromyalgia really gets going in a nice, damp environment. New pain in the lower back, so bad I couldn't straighten up, couldn't lift myself, much less a finger, to help with anything.
Being filled with despair at the total chaos in our campsite, wishing I had come with the Friends instead of myself, since THEY were neat and organized!
Nobody wanted to believe me, but my camping days are over. I simply can't bend down any more, to pick things up, to set up the fire or stoke it, to enter or leave the tent. I may not be that old, but I'm that broken. My knees, my back, my legs - they're living on social security at this point.
It are a fact: I've done my tenting time. I need to move on now, to renting a cottage or something where I don't have to bend double to go through a door. Something where being disorganized doesn't spell disaster. Something that comes with air conditioning, a firm mattress, and a washer and dryer.
I will cherish in memory all my days the fun of this, my last, camping trip. That was the way we was.
That's what I came home from our camping trip with, it turns out. I thought I was dying, I thought I had a kidney stone, but no, it was a simple case of mild food poisoning.
Food poisoning is considered a mild case, BTW, when it doesn't kill you. It only FEELS like it's gonna kill you, but a day or two later - Surprise! - you're still alive, ready to suffer through some more of this thing they call "life".
As I rise from my sickbed and survey what awaits me in "life" today, I see every room in the house stuffed with sandy remnants of our camping trip. Hubby was WONDERFUL. He got the car unpacked, got the cooler contents into the fridge, and got me tylenol, cranberry juice, pillows and the heating pad. All before heading off for work.
Day 1 at home: I lay on the couch and alternately slept and groaned. Teetered off into town for physiotherapy, where the therapist, a cutie-pie several decades younger than me, told me off for not having gone to see the doctor. I did manage to quietly point out to her that when one suffers from fibromyalgia, as do I, that one does not run to see the doctor at every new pain, because we basically are in pain every day. The doctors just look at you like you're nuts and say come back in a week if it's still bad.
Day2 at home. I'm in less pain, on the couch with coffee and heating pad, screwing up my moral courage to the point where I can empty and deal with the contents of one bag. Then it's off to two medical appointments this afternoon.
I'm using this quiet time to reflect on this past week's camping experience.
I see sunny skies and huge campfires. People who all like each other singing and joking around the campfire. Teasing each other. Floating on the lake for hours. Getting stung by two wasps while picking up firewood. Eating a whole container of Ben 'n' Jerry's ice cream. Drinking - and I don't mean water! Trying to play Taboo! with a pal who insisted on playing for both teams, helping his opponents and throwing his teammates off the scent with his sarcastic comments while we were trying to guess the words. Beautiful Daughter, after being teased by Handsome Boyfriend about not wanting to walk through muck, pointing to herself and saying "Hello - Girl!?" Helping Beautiful Daughter prepare for an audition by reading the script out loud to her in many different accents: Southern States, Paki, J.A.P.....
Watching the two Teenage Girls paddle the canoe off into the lake. Seeing a crane fly into the lily pads. Teensy downy-headed ducklings, whiffling softly to their mother. Sleeping ducks, with heads turned backwards and tucked deep into their feathers. Loons. Lilies opening to the sun. Lilies closing at dusk. A catfish swimming around my feet. The flip-flop fiasco: Friend M attempting to walk to our site from hers, getting both flip-flops sucked off her feet by the deep sand, and only one popping up. The search for the missing flip-flop that must have buried it forever. Her husband wading into the water after she asked him to help her find it, saying "Darling, show me this lake...."
The thunderstorm, one boom rolling over top of another with no break, sometimes five or six rolling over each other, a constant roaring for an hour before the rain came...
Watching Beautiful Daughter and Handsome Boyfriend take stones and axes to the ground around the tents, trying to dig a canal so they wouldn't float away overnight...
Handsome Boyfriend spending three hours chopping wood and kindling for his big bonfire, setting it up carefully. The rain coming just before he was ready to strike the match. All of us running out to cover it with tinfoil and hold a big umbrella over it so all his hard work wouldn't be wasted. His surprise that we all cared. Him jumping over the fire - twice - and the flames were at least four feet high.
Watching Hubby paddle quietly away by himself in the canoe at dusk - something he's waited four years to do.
Getting stuck covered in soap in the shower because I'd been camping for so many years there that I didn't read the sign telling me it now gave water only in increments of 50¢, instead of single quarters. The cleaning staff lady giving up on my wailing and going to get me a second quarter so I could rinse off. Me, frustrated at the situation and myself, cussing under my breath and complaining "and they WONDER why I hate coming to shower here!"
The bullfrog that lived under the roots of a tree on our lot. The little "rubber-band" frogs out in the lilies - they really do sound like the twang of a rubber band, proof positive, I used to say, that god has a sense of humor.
The Dog, swimming to get a stick. Swimming to get a frisbee. Swimming to get a water bottle. Swimming, looking slightly lost, just for the sake of swimming. Looking lost, because it had never occurred to her that she could swim without having to retrieve something! Rolling in the sand after a good shake, lying and baking herself in the sun, as tired and happy as a dog could be. Ready to go to bed at eight pm, frustrated with all of us sitting for hours around the fire. Following me to the bathroom, right into my stall, because no one had noticed she was off her leash. Jumping for joy when she saw Stepdaughter and Daughter and Friends. Jumping for joy, for no particular reason. Sleeping for two full days after coming home. "Dead dog," is our description.
But alas, my trip was also full of pain. This campground never dries out, and fibromyalgia really gets going in a nice, damp environment. New pain in the lower back, so bad I couldn't straighten up, couldn't lift myself, much less a finger, to help with anything.
Being filled with despair at the total chaos in our campsite, wishing I had come with the Friends instead of myself, since THEY were neat and organized!
Nobody wanted to believe me, but my camping days are over. I simply can't bend down any more, to pick things up, to set up the fire or stoke it, to enter or leave the tent. I may not be that old, but I'm that broken. My knees, my back, my legs - they're living on social security at this point.
It are a fact: I've done my tenting time. I need to move on now, to renting a cottage or something where I don't have to bend double to go through a door. Something where being disorganized doesn't spell disaster. Something that comes with air conditioning, a firm mattress, and a washer and dryer.
I will cherish in memory all my days the fun of this, my last, camping trip. That was the way we was.
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