So Many Things

Selma & Sal, the couple I met last Friday are still on my mind. We exchanged phone numbers, but the piece of paper was in my pants pocket when I washed them and the number - gone. Accident?
(My friend Dan T. would interject here "There are no accidents." Oh shut up and get out of my head.)

I have an idea of where they live, could go looking for them. But do I really want to do that? S & S could be a bit high maintenance me thinks. Is taking on someone else's parents something I'm willing to do? I barely want my own some days. (I KNOW. So freakin' selfish.)

Then I see Selma's eyes tear up as she tells me their daughter wants them to move in to assisted living sooner rather than later. Sal coming back from the car with three pens, "one of which might work." It took both of them to write the phone number.

They reminded me of Madeline Kahn and Mel Brooks in "High Anxiety" when they pretended to be an old married couple going through airport security:

THORNDYKE: If you're loud and annoying, psychologically,
people don't notice you.
Come on.
We can do it. Loud and annoying.
      
VICTORIA:  (ln Russian accent) I can't carry this no more.
      
THORNDYKE: (ln Russian accent) Celery? You had to buy
in San Francisco? You can't get it by the market near our house?    
  
VICTORIA: Excuse me, I bought the celery in case on the plane
they wanted to serve you a Bloody Mary.
      
THORNDYKE: A Bloody Mary? Well, I don't like the Bloody Mary
they serve on the plane. No sir. It's too burning.      
They don't even put tomato juice, they put snappy peppy. 
Murray Weintraub, remember him?
Morning, noon and night he drank the Bloody Marys
with the peppy snappy.  
You know where he is now? Dead from that.
      
VICTORIA: Murray Weintraub is not dead.
Murray Weintraub is alive.
     
THORNDYKE: No!
      
VICTORIA: Morris Turtletaub you're talking about. The one from
Great Neck who walks sideways like this.  (Muttering nonsensically)
      
THORNDYKE: No sir. Morris Turtletaub didn't walk like that.
Morris Turtletaub, to my memory, walked just like this.
(Muttering nonsensically)
      
A little irregular. Couldn't help himself. 

Trying to sort all this out in my head is hard enough without trying to write about it. Coherent is not my forte. I envy people who express themselves eloquently and succinctly.

What to do...

A Hard Decision

When I left Wynwood yesterday, a woman was deadheading the marigolds in the flower beds. She said to get some because that's where the seeds are. I did as I was told.

Their car was parked next to mine and we started talking. They live in an independent living facility now, but were looking into moving in because their daughter had uttered the words every parent dreads:

They're a burden.

Her perky and peppy husband is in the early stages of Alzheimer's; she has some health issues. If they move into Wynwood, they can be together for the time being (in a very small room), but eventually, as the disease progresses, he will have to move to a locked facility.

There's a fine line between being okay on your own and being unable to realize you need help. In 2004, I asked Mom to consider selling the house in FL and move in with me, but she wasn't ready to do that then. Four years later it was too late, she was beyond that.

This is the between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place that this couple finds themselves - not ready to move, but of course, they don't want to be a burden either.

Is there a middle ground?

Let's Have A Day

Here's a fairly new behavior: outside each room there's a small shelf and she's started displaying things on it; sometimes it's DVD's or knick knacks, other times it's framed photos or piles of folded clothes, yesterday it was perfume and lotion.

Knocked on her door, no answer. Mom was sleeping like the dead, so I used the twenty minutes or so before she woke to collect the jewelry she leaves laying around and go through her closet for too small clothes.
The TV was parked on VH1, (what is up with that?!), but I was afraid if I changed it, she'd wake up and discover my thievery.

She's cranky and disoriented for the first few minutes after waking up. Looks at me like I'm some sort of alien being she's never seen before, doesn't respond to questions.
Wanted to make her bed; that doesn't involve anything since she sleeps on top of the covers, but you have to work around the piles of clothes that line the perimeter. She has probably never slept under the covers the whole year she's been there. She was laying on a lighter and a pair of scissors. I pocketed the lighter when she was in the bathroom and threw it away.

We went to Rick's Diner at their new location next to the Post Office. Bigger, and slower, still working out the kinks. Mom proclaimed their sweet tea "tasted like everything". When we got in the car she said, "Let's have a day!" Okay.

Part of the day involved getting a safe deposit box for the jewelry I'd collected. She waited patiently while I filled out paperwork, etc., I didn't tell her what I put in there.

Then we went to Great Clips to get her hair washed, since it was dirty. That was right across from Target, so we continued our "day" there. A car alarm was going off as we walked across the parking lot and she said, "Someone must have died. They'll be prettier."

She is really attracted to costume jewelry, the bigger and more colorful, the better (note the large fake turquoise ring from the last Target visit).

Then we tried on hats:

(It looks like she's crying in the first picture, but she's laughing)

We circle the store and she spies watermelon, as she fondles a package of pre-cut slices she laughs her new weird fake sounding laugh, "Heh, heh, heh.". I take it she wants some. She wants strawberries too. I herd her towards the check-out.

When we get to the car, she wants to sit in the back seat for the ride home.

And that was our day.

Break It Down - Conclusion (hopefully)

So turns out one set of wires coming into my house from the transformer was loose. That's why only one leg of the circuit was going out. Loose because this giant lug nut holding them in place was "tempered" and could not be tightened anymore. Not good. Needed to be replaced.

Guess what? In the fair state of NC the power company (PC) does not own the meter base - you do. (the meter base encloses the wires and tempered lug nut that needs to be replaced. PC owns wires and actual meter, that's it.)



Guess what? The electrician has to pull a permit to work on it.
Guess what else? My home warranty program doesn't cover permits.

I'll spare you the details of the week's worth of phone calls it took to coordinate the power being turned off (forty eight hour notice please), and the electrician; the permit, thankfully, was arranged by the electrician.

Tuesday morning -
8:30 AM: the power's turned off.
11:30 AM: the electrician is finished. The inspector was there, asked me to call PC and he will also call to tell them to restore power.
11:35 AM: I call PC.
6:00 PM: I go home.

No [%*$@#% are-you-kidding-me?!] power.

It's 93 outside, 87 inside.
The cats are hanging around the cool slate slab of the fireplace hearth, too hot to eat.

I call PC, on phone for twenty seven minutes, twenty five of which is on hold while two different people check to "see what's going on". Second person comes back to phone and says, "I show your power being turned back on July 2."
Ah, no.

She amends that, says someone should be around to turn power by 9 PM.
It's about 6:30.
7:30 PM, PC shows up and in about twenty minutes, power is restored!

Home warranty fee - $60
Permit - $125
Air conditioning - priceless

Old Friends

Fawn wrote about the visit in her blog.








Mom always took an interest in our friends; some of my friends even called her independently of me. She was friends with my sister's ex-husband and my brother's ex-girlfriend. She always asked about them, "How's [fill in the blank]?" "Have you heard from ________ lately? How are they doing?"
But she probably didn't remember Fawn, even though Mom called her "another daughter" when she had her heart surgery in 1999.

Mom looked good, must have had her hair done that day, although she kept insisting she hadn't. She only had one shirt on, which was a plus; it was about 97. She was in a great mood. We were heading for Rick's Diner, then she saw Nantucket Grill, her steak place, and wanted to go there. After the filet mignon and three cups of mashed, she got a slice of coconut cake seeing as how it was free cake night.

She wanted ice cream to go with her cake, so we went to Harris Teeter (Fawn thought that was a hilarious name for a grocery store.). Mom was calling me (and Fawn) Mommy and laughing. She held both our hands as we crossed the parking lot.

Inside she started looking at magazines. I left Fawn in charge and went off to get the ice cream, when I came back Mom had collected a Pepsi and a Snickers bar.
On our way out we ran into Kathiey, which is always a treat. While we were chatting, Mom spotted fresh strawberries and toddled off towards them, so we cut our visit short to pay for the strawberries.

We sat on the front porch of Wynwood and while Mom ate her ice cream, Fawn and I took phone calls from from our friends Roy and Richard. Richard is one of my friends who used to call and talk to her.

She wouldn't know him from Adam now.

We Made It!

Fawn left Sunday morning, continuing on her fiftieth birthday journey. I'm happy to report that there was no introvert melt down on my part. YAY!

It helped that we've spent weeks together before, so she's had the heads up on the nose dive I can take when traveling or spending lots of time with someone. Not nose dive as in depressed, but going internal (translation for extroverts: quiet) because that's how we process information.

What comes to mind for me is a whale showing its flukes, meaning they're diving down deep and will be gone for awhile. I wish I had such a clear signal.


A few years ago, while spending five days with a friend I'd had zero contact with for the previous twenty five years, I had a massive melt down and employed a gesture so horrifyingly juvenile it astounds me to this day.

I flipped her off.

That's right. Flipped her off in a crowded food court. Awesome, huh? (Honestly, how second grade was that?!)

Note to self: This can be what happens when down time is not had.

I had not yet come to grips with my introvertedness and by the time I realized what was needed, the downward spiral had started and presto! it was too late.

Actually, it was rather effective at getting me alone time. But not in a good way. Go figure, the melt down and ensuing gesture damaged our friendship.

It also made me nervous about seeing people and/or traveling. "There's no telling what she'll do!" "Will resort to ten year old behavior!" "Able to irreparably damage friendships with a single finger!"

Extroverts don't usually have a clue about how much down time Innies need, sometimes even we don't (see above). We need to be alone and quiet to recharge our "batteries".(extroverts recharge by being WITH people)
We can be adaptable though. An hour reading at another table here, a few minutes alone in the morning/evening there; that time helps us be the charming friend you remember.

Google "how to travel with introverts" for some interesting articles.

Losing It

I just broke down and bought a GPS.

Dyscalculia, a cousin of the more well known dyslexia, is to blame for my directional issues. It relates more to math than reading. Some people experience problems with time, but that is lower on my list. Concepts, directions/left-right, numbers/math, games, athletic/dancing ability (as in lack thereof) and low latent inhibition are where it shows up for me.

Took Fawn to the Amtrak station in Raleigh this morning, had one hiccup getting there - Google Maps did NOT give a critical veer to the right, necessitating a stop at a restaurant for directions and a turn around.

The gas was this close to empty, my stomach was in a knot, I was afraid she'd miss her train and throw off her carefully planned schedule and...sheez. Thankfully (sort of) we are not in Europe and the train was a half hour late, so we would have been fine even if another turnaround had been on order.

On the way back, a one way street prevented me from going back the way I came, then I was really messed up. Got gas, asked for directions, got on 440, was actually going the right way, but thought I wasn't. Turned around, asked for directions again and got back on 440. I was two exits from where I needed to be the first time. Took over an hour to get back to 40.

I've had it with getting lost.




My current GPS.

Some Poems I Did Not Write

When I went the Women's Voices Choir "Sparks of Divinity" concert at Duke Chapel last month, there were two poems that they'd arranged (no habla music, not sure if that's the right term) into songs. I loved the imagery of both of them, only one of which I can find at the moment:


The Breeze at Dawn

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

- Rumi

Food, Glorious Food

Being raised in a conservative food household, meals were plain but plentiful.
You had your meat, salad (iceberg lettuce), canned vegetable (four or five heavily rotated - corn, peas, green beans, lima beans, butter beans), and potatoes - mashed.

Fresh vegetables were shown who was boss by being cooked for hours with slabs of pork fat.

Take that vitamins!


My father served as an unwitting foil to my mother's aversion to anything new. When I moved back home, I did some of the cooking, but only if the recipe first passed my mother's rigorous inspection. The veto usually was, "Oh dear, your father wouldn't like that."
But it was her all along. The non-trier. There was "the face", then,"I don't like that.", when she'd never tried it.

If she happened to be with me at the grocery store, she'd look in the cart, surveying the beets, zucchini, fresh garlic, jicama, kiwi, spinach, etc., then shake her head sadly.
"Honestly, I don't know where you came from. You know your father and I aren't eating any of that, right?"

She'd never had a nectarine or a fresh cherry in her life.
"Honey, of course I've had cherries.", she'd say, slightly exasperated. "There's a jar in the refrigerator right now."

Not that Dad was completely immune to the food weirdness.
He about had a heart attack in the garden one day when I took a green bean off the runner - and ATE IT! RAW! Then gave one TO MY CHILD!
You'd have thought I'd handed The Boy a running chainsaw, lighter fluid and matches, then told him to go play in the street.
Dad was this close to doing the Heimlich maneuver on both of us.

My mother's idea of worldly cuisine was spaghetti. In her defense, she did make award winning spaghetti sauce and everything in it came from their garden. No garlic or Parmesan cheese though ("Smells like baby vomit, how can you eat that?"). Later tacos were added to the repertoire.

We had potatoes just about every night. My job, night after night, was to peel them, mumbling under my breath, "Jeez, what are we, Irish or something!?"
When we did have the other white starch, (usually with stew), there were potatoes in the stew. There was no escaping the tuber. (I rarely eat potatoes anymore - unless they're fried)

My best friend in junior high and high school was from Guam. They had rice like we had potatoes and oh how I loved to eat at her house - heaven! Her father thought I was being polite about eating rice and always asked if I wanted bread and butter. (he thought all us Anglo Saxons did that) "You don't have to eat the rice. Really, you can have bread and butter. No need to be so polite." Oh heck no. Rice please!
Chicken adobo, octopus, soy sauce on roast turkey breast (yummy!), all manner of culinary excitement was eaten at her house. After school we would whip up what she called "Guamanian eggs" - cook diced bacon and onions, then pour in some eggs and scramble. Actually sounds pretty southern don't it?

My one rule for The Boy when it came to eating - he had to take one bite before saying he didn't like it.
That might have back fired though, 'cause he wanted his own order of escargot at five.



"Please, sir, I want some more."

Break It Down (continued)

Remember last month, exactly a month ago actually, my frig was on the fritz?
Turns out it wasn't the seventeen year old frig (chances are it will be soon though), but an electrical outage on one leg of the circuit.

An electrician came out, of course by that time the power was back on, checked all the outlets, even took the panel off the breaker box (there are some scary looking wires in there!) and checked the connections. Every little thing looked fine.

All is well - until yesterday; I came home and the frig was off again! Worked yesterday morning. I plugged it into the next outlet, which works.
And sure enough, like the electrician said, other things are off that I didn't notice last time, the microwave (previously the stove hood), the guest bathroom, part of the guest bedroom, and...HORROR of HORRORS...


the AIR CONDITIONER!!





Oh the humid humanity!

Didn't realize the programmable thermostat was on the circuit until I was going to bed (after a marathon of "The Wire" - TV worked) and thought it was a bit hot.

Thank God for ceiling fans!

The really odd thing is it being one day short of a month since it happened.

Duke Energy is going to check outside (they don't do inside).

I'll keep you posted. (I know you can't wait!)




I liked Merv the electrician so much I asked him to install a microwave over the stove, something I had been wanting for years. So I guess that was a win-win.

Finnbarr McCool

The other two have had their own posts, now it's Finn's turn.

My little Manx cat Finn is the NC native of the group; he was adopted from Independent Animal Rescue. I saw him in Petsmart and it was total adoration (on my part) at first sight. Because hello?, Siamese AND Manx - pretty much my two favorite cat breeds rolled into one. How could I resist?!
I'm pretty sure he's smarter than me and if he had opposable thumbs he would rule the world.

Finn McCool, or Fionn mac Cumhaill for all you speakers of Irish Gaelic out there, was a legendary Irish giant. Think Paul Bunyan but with women, swords, and killing. Oh, and dogs instead of oxen.

According to Bad Ass of the Week, Finn "...created the Isle of Man (from whence the Manx cat hails) by trying to hurl a giant chunk of Ireland at a guy who was pissing him off. Finn just didn't give a shit."

That's my Finn!

Finn probably thinks his full name is "Finn-stop-that-get-down-what-are-you-doing-get-out-of-that-what-are-you-into-now-oh-for-Pete's-sake-knock-it-off-how-are-you-going-to-get-down/out-from-there-aww-you're-so-cute".
Yea, he's like that.

Some of his other names are: Finney, Finney-Fin, Finney-Finners, Fins (I am nothing but original), Stinker Butt, Bunny Butt, Panda Butt, Barr (by Allison), Bratty Braterton, and Meep (from his meow, which sounds like "meeeeeeeee".) "Give me a meep" also means touch noses in my CCL world.

Finn is very helpful around the house: He dusts off the dining table (see above); sits on craft projects while I'm doing them; climbs the electrician's ladder to supervise, usually when the electrician is on the ladder; inspects any running water; gets behind the TV armoire to make sure all the wires are intact, of course; sticks his head up inside lamp shades to insure the bulbs are burning.

He even walks across the top of the mini blinds to make sure they're holding up okay.



He's also a very caring housemate: he makes sure Lillie and Oscar get their exercise by chasing and wrestling respectively. He checks my pillow softness by kneading it in the middle of the night, and kindly makes sure I'm breathing by putting his nose on my mouth.

He never met anyone he didn't like and he thinks everyone adores him. Maybe I should have more of that attitude!

Forgiveness

Just read this article and got goosebumps.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37707750/ns/world_news-europe/

Wow. Good on ya, Cameron.

Northern Ireland is [probably] where several relatives on both sides of my family came from. While there for three weeks in 1995, it felt like home. (I believe in what some Native Americans/American Indians call blood memories; pieces of memory passed down through our DNA. Not scientific at all. Don't care.)

Being a Libra, conflicts both personal and beyond are very disturbing to me, and I'm not a very political person. But this stuff in N.I. gets me going and when someone who's English apologizes to the Irish, well, that's huge in my book.

Granted, apologizing is not asking for forgiveness, but it's a start. Akin to the first step of fixing a problem is admitting there is a problem.

The former cardinal of Ireland, Cahal Daly, did ask for forgiveness.
"In January 1995, he made his own striking gesture to the cause of reconciliation between Britain and Ireland. Invited to become the first Irish Catholic Church leader to speak from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral since the Reformation, he used the occasion to ask the British people for forgiveness for the wrongs and hurts inflicted upon them by the Irish people." http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0101/breaking2.html

That is an amazing thing. See what he did there? So disarming. So humble. It made me want to meet him (and I did.).

I have a friend who says forgiveness is FOR-GIVING. It's a gift that can set people free. Really. I don't mean that in a churchy way.

Maybe what the world needs more of is not love, but forgiveness.

What Do You Want To Be?

I am so envious of people who KNOW what
they want to be when they "grow up".

The person who's known they were a doctor since they were five, or would implode if they couldn't horse trade, write, fight fires, sing, build rockets, teach, etc.


Something in my INFJ-ness makes me adore taking personality tests. The ones with easy questions like, "Would you rather go to a party or stay at home with the cats?"

It's the Luke-this-is-your-destiny type tests that are utterly unsatisfying to me.

Here's where they stump me: "Describe your perfect day." "What makes you happy?" W.T.F. Who can do that?!
I'll tell ya who - people who already know.

I like doing a lot of things in my perfect day. What the hell is happy? (The Scots blood rears its cynical plaid head.)

One thing I've noticed, once an accolade is received, I'm done. It doesn't have to be a Pulitzer; a simple honorable mention at the county fair will work. Poetry, photography, drawing - pfffttt, finished, fin, finito, the end.

There is nothing in me that will cause me anguish if I can't do it. (Other than breathing or walking around.) At the same time I really long for it.

Whatever it is.

Long Time Coming

Looking back much of it seems obvious. Ye old hindsight.

The phone calls asking me how to work her remote, or telling me she'd screwed up her cable TV - again.
The repeating of something she'd just told me.
The frantic calling and asking where I'd been because it had been so long since I'd talked to her, when in reality, it had been two days.
The personality changes, both subtle WTF? moments and bigger things, as in the dating of completely inappropriate men (a.k.a. married).

I urged her to get her meds checked, maybe some combo was not working. She said she would. She didn't.

All this happened after she had bypass surgery. She never had a heart attack - she did poorly on a stress test, but what non-exercising smoker wouldn't?

Instead of taking a different tack with her, like seriously working on her to stop smoking for one, her doctor encouraged a bypass. My mother, being from a generation that idolized the almighty doctor (unless he's telling her to quit smoking), just took the pill(s) or the surgery without question.

Recently I came across this article from a book that advocates a medicinal alternative to coronary surgery (pssst, "...there appears to be no advantage in terms of preventing heart attack or death by performing either angioplasty or bypass surgery.")
"...the true frequency of complications after bypass surgery such as stroke and loss of cognitive function is as high as 30%."
"Cognitive decline complicates early recovery from coronary artery bypass surgery and may be evident in as many as 75% of patients at the time of discharge from the hospital and a third of the patients after 6 months. These results confirm the relatively high prevalence and persistence of cognitive decline after coronary artery bypass surgery."

http://www.heartprotect.com/do-you-really-need-bypass-surgery.shtml

I totally believe this is what happened to my mom; for her, bypass surgery was completely unnecessary. She had just turned 64 - the memory loss was immediate, then came strokes and the very not well thought out decision to stop taking all her meds for over a year. Now, a mere ten years later at 74, she's living in a room and doesn't remember her life.

I'm not saying a bypass isn't the right thing to do - I AM NOT A DOCTOR. Surely it is the right thing to do sometimes.

What I am saying is this - don't be bullied or intimidated into a drastic medical procedure. Just because they do them every day doesn't mean it's not seriously major surgery. That could change your life.

Wait. Take a breath. Gather some research. Get an advocate to go with back with you.

Be well.

Some Serious Stuff

I just read an article on a gentleman in Australia who lives near an often used suicide spot and regularly talks people out of jumping.

This paragraph broke my heart:
"A smile cannot, of course, save everyone; the motivations behind suicide are too varied. But simple kindness can be surprisingly effective. Mental health professionals tell the story of a note left behind by a man who jumped off San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
If one person smiles at me on the way to the bridge, the man wrote, I will not jump."


Too often I am guilty of not paying attention to the people around me. I'm wrapped up in my own little vanities, my own sorrowful thoughts, have my own agenda for getting through the day.

I have a touch of the empath, but tune it out most all the time because there's too much, often painful, information flying around out there. It's like finding a station on the radio, many channels are just static, then bam, one starts coming in loud and clear.

Several years ago in Whole Foods, while preparing my coffee, I happened to glance over at an older woman sitting in the booth next to the coffee station. We looked at each other. When I say looked at each other, I mean - our souls touched for a second.

It's disconcertingly powerful when that happens. Almost like an electric shock.

Then God (yes) put the thought in my head to talk to her.

Actually - not just talk to her, to go over and hug her.

"What?! Are you kidding? No! Personal bubble, man! You of all people know how big mine is. Actually HUG her? You are asking too waaaay much of me pre-caffeine. I don't want to. I'm minding my own business here. I have to go to work. What if it's embarrassing? What if she starts crying? What if I start crying? NO." (so much for empathy!)

Yea, talking back to God, great idea. Just call me Peter. Good thing He likes me.

I looked at her again just to make sure and yep, same soul connect, same nudge from God. Then guess what I did?

I left.

Guess what else? I look for her every time I go in Whole Foods, still think about her all these years later and wonder what I had for her, what she had for me. Maybe a human touch, a kind word would have changed both our lives.
I'll never know.

I'm going to work on remembering that a smile (no personal bubble involved), just a smile, might save some one's life.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Editing

What's the deal on editing your posts?
Should one or shouldn't one?

Some people say no, it's out there, so leave it.

But I can't stop myself, especially if it's a cringe worthy typo like your/you're, their/there, or my personal favorite, its/it's.

Oh no, I cannot leave those hanging out there on the web. I also change pictures, re-arrange sentences, add things I've found lurking in a brain cell.

What say you fellow bloggers, to edit or not to edit?

(The picture has nothing to do with the post, but it makes me laugh.
Look, up in the sky, it's Super Lillie!)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

My friend Fawn is flying out for a 50th birthday trip around the country, visiting old (ha!) friends, including and starting with me. Yay!

Here's Fawn and I on a little trip we took to Northern Ireland back in 1995.

Apparently I did not get the memo on sunscreen and Ireland did not get the memo on supposed to rain all the time; together we made some sunburn. (Crap, I just realized I was still in my thirties in this picture.)

We went on this trip with three teenagers from the school she was running/heading/thought of/implemented. Long story for another time.

She said she's going to be blogging about her trip since she's a life coach and all about the relationships. Oh boy...I'd better be on my best behavior! :-)

http://fawngilmorekraut.wordpress.com/


photo credit: Carrie Anderson Carver

Oh Yeah

I have a new pottery BF.
His name is Noah, and I think we're getting married - that is, if Oscar Wilde (my cat) and Noah's wife approve.

After prompt writing yesterday, CP and I went to the 2nd Annual Nine Toes Pottery Sale. Ronan is an up and coming BF. A lot of his pottery has a Who-ville sort of vibe. Skulls or bugs are used often. Definitely quirky. Not for everyone.




Ronan's guest pottery was Noah (he has an excellent stamp, says the pottery stamp geek) and I bought this bowl here.

Now mind you, the picture from my cell phone camera does not in ANY WAY do justice to this bowl.

It is delicious. Full to the brim with fabulousness.

The Mom Diaries (updated)

Yeah, I know.


Over two weeks.


I suck.




She was out in the lobby again, wearing two tee shirts ("No I'm not.") with a belt. Dirty hair. Sweat pants.

Merde.

Mom snippets du jour: (my but I'm very French today. Mais oui.)

"It's hotter than hell out here." I suggested a change in attire before we left, but temperature chats don't register anymore.

"Leafy?" This is what she heard when I asked if she was sleepy.

"I'm trying to get my mouth in the right place." I have no idea.

"Ding." When she opened her to-go box of pie.

"There's a lot of that." Rain clouds

"It's calm in here." K&W cafeteria

"Your hair doesn't like you." After I mentioned my hair looked all crazy.

Prompt Writing Poem 6/12/2010

Prompt: Write about feeling trapped

My mother is five
trapped in the web of dementia
a small fly
blissfully unaware of the spider
in her head
encroaching, wrapping, muffling
her brain cells in silk

I too am trapped
first born short straw drawn
while the others go about their business
far away
Trapped by guilt and love and
responsibility
By blood and honor and
should
Trapped by right and trust and
more guilt
By worry and shame and
what if it were me


**************************************
You have fifteen minutes to write after given the prompt. This poem must have been lying in wait, because I was done in about five. This is the original:

My mother is five, trapped in the web of dementia, a small fly blissfully unaware of the spider in her head. Spreading, creeping, encroaching on brain cells daily.
I am trapped too, first born short straw drawn, while the other two go about their business far away.
Trapped by guilt and love and responsibility
By blood and honor and more guilt
Trapped by right and trust and should
By worry and shame
and what if it were me.

Me and My Shadow

This is Oscar Wilde, the cat who thinks he's a dog.

He may also think we're married.

He has to be in the same room as me. He sits at the window waiting for me to come home. He sits on the toilet waiting for me to get out of the shower. He sleeps next to me every night (sorry non-existent BF, you've already lost out to a feline). When I'm sick, he lays on my lap. If I go on vacation, he loses weight. If I'm on the couch, he's on the couch.

Oscar was adopted in Florida from the shelter. I was there with someone else who was getting a kitten and I saw him. He did all the right cat stuff; I couldn't stop thinking about him. When I went back to see if it really was true love, he came right to me and swatted at any other cat who came near me, so of course I caved.

The honeymoon was over pretty fast. I've had cats for years and I could not figure him out. He would go from purring to biting in a nanosecond. And I mean biting, puncture wounds, blood. He disemboweled my arm on more than one occasion. No warning, no ears back, no tail swishing, no growling.
Then he would lay down by me, put his paw on my leg, look up at me purring away. Try resisting that.

For months I walked around with a squirt bottle. Finally we came to some kind of understanding, I'm not sure what happened. Now nine years later, as long as I don't touch his hind feet or his stomach, it's the perfect marriage.

Hilarious

Pronunciation: \hi-ˈler-ē-əs, hī-\

Function: adjective

Etymology: irregular from Latin hilarus, hilaris cheerful, from Greek hilaros

Date: circa 1840

: marked by or causing hilarity : extremely funny

— hi·lar·i·ous·ly adverb

— hi·lar·i·ous·ness noun

So Taryn over at Inner Fat Girl said I was hilarious. God bless her.

I want it to be so, but then I read other blogs she has listed on her site like Amalah and And Then I Was A Mom and I think - man, I am so NOT hilarious.

I mean how hilarious can one be when you only have fifteen followers (side note: is fifteen the most stupidly spelled word ever or what?! Where's the "v" from five? WTH.)

Those women (including Taryn) are full of the hilariousness. Really. Check them out.

Have Your Cake

Is it just me or have cake shows taken over the Food Network? Wedding cakes, cupcakes, cake competitions. Not sure which is worse, Rachael Ray or cake overload.

Does anyone actually eat that fondant that's been touched by half the free world?

Seriously, I wouldn't eat it with your mouth.

When they start fondling the fondant, and they always do, I have to switch channels.
Ewww.

Epic Fail

I've been doing, well, more like trying, the No "S" Diet - no snacking, seconds, or sweets except on days that start with "S", which also include Special days: holidays, birthdays, vacation.

Three times a day you eat a healthy meal - what fits on a [regular sized] plate. Sounds great, easy even.

Guess what? Every frickin' day I screw up by doing at least one of the three no-no's.

Add to that not having cracked open a Jari Love DVD since October 2009 and not going to the gym since, oh I don't know, the Eisenhower Era, and there you have it.

Epic Fail.

The Tent Story

I love me some analytical types. They drive me crazy and I adore them, both.
Some of my best friends are analytical. And my previous very long term boyfriend.

You might be asking yourself, what is an analytical? There's a clue in the first four letters of the word. (Heh) These people are the information gatherers of the world. For them, there is no such thing as too much information. In fact, daring to suggest that all information on a particular subject may have been attained is a veritable act of betrayal akin to stabbing them in the heart.

The question they ask is "What". As in "What more can you tell me?" "What other information do you have?" "What are the specs on this product?" The information glass is NEVER, EVER full for them.

The only problem (well maybe not the only one) with being wired like that is making a decision is like the tenth circle of hell (I can only imagine.); it's hard to commit to most everything - marriage, a meal, a car, a paint color, a tent.

So the BF and I, we like the camping, and have decided to buy a tent.
We have a few requirements which I include here for your reading pleasure:

1.) He must be able to stand up in it. He's not that much taller than me, but a guy wants what he wants. No harm, no foul.
2.) It needs those pouches under the windows for glasses. This is my one request.
3.) It needs to sleep five. They say subtract one from the number it says it sleeps for comfort. There's three of us plus a friend for Shawnn. So a tent that says it sleeps five is great for four people. Math. It's complicated. (Why can't they just say it sleeps four comfortably?!)
4.) Needs to be compact so the cooler can go in the trunk instead of the back seat, making room for friend.
5.) We have a budget of $100.

Shawnn is spending the summer in NY with friends (very good friends), so we stop at our local outdoorsy place in Petaluma on our way to SFO.
Go upstairs, to what I like to think of as the camping dioramas, and there...
...is a navy blue Eureka dome tent, sleeps six, on sale for $99. BF can stand up it in, there are pouchy things under the windows. It is compact and lovely and perfect when folded in its tiny pouch. (But you and I both know it will never go back in the pouch that way ever again and will be bungee corded together and thrown in the trunk.)

Yay, can you believe it!? The first store we go to! It's perfect, right? Meets all the criteria, right? Let's get it! Wait, wait!...why are we leaving!?...

Because. We. Must. Gather. More. Information.

We take Shawnn to the airport, then hit several places in San Francisco. Nothing strikes his fancy. This is where I start asking, "Why don't we just get the Eureka in Petaluma? It was perfect. Why do we have to go to all these other places?!" (My question, being a supporting style, is why. This is the question, according to the BF, that there is no answer to and it drives him batty.)
We might even have gone to the big camping place on the way to Sacramento. I can't remember anymore. After the second place in SF, I lost interest because of being in an information overload induced coma and all.

We go to at least two other places in San Rafael. Mind you, this is pre-Internet, BG (before Goggle). We'd still be looking right now if those options had been available. It speaks to the superior gathering ability of the analytical type - he knew where all these places were - from a phone book!

Finally, in Novato, a good six hours later on the way back home, he spies something he likes.

Guess what? IDON'TCAREANYMORE! Get whatever you want.

At this point I hate camping. I hate tents. I hate shopping. I'm pretty sure I hate him a little bit.

He buys the tent. The tent with aluminum poles that have to be put together and take up a lot of room, instead of the bungee type poles that don't - like the Eureka tent.
The tent that does NOT have pouches under the windows, even though pictures on the box show them. The tent that never zips up correctly and always puckers, no matter what you do. The tent that takes up so much freaking room with its duffel bag carrying case that there is no room for Shawnn's friends to come camping with us. (This may have been BF's cunning plan all along.)

The tent he got when we broke up.

Then and Now

This is me (the glasses)...okay stop laughing. No seriously, stop...Judy and Tina (her sister, sitting) in 1968, Kodiak, Alaska.




This is us recreating our iconic pose thirty six (!!) years later, in Bellingham, WA.
Look Ma, better glasses!

One Ringy-Dingy

Who knows how many times a phone will ring before disconnecting?
Anyone?
Bueller?

Okay, I won't keep you in suspense any longer.

The answer is...thirty times.

This is another huge difference between Now Mom and Prior Mom. Prior Mom could not let the phone ring and would literally get out of the shower to answer it. She was so afraid she'd miss something. Now Mom doesn't answer the phone anymore. She doesn't connect (ha) the ringing with something she needs to do.

I don't think we ever watched a movie together in its entirety. It was always interrupted by a phone call and she could not let go it to voice mail. She'd then spend forty five minutes talking (yakking, as my dad put it) to whichever of her myriad friends/family members it happened it be. Used to piss me off actually - what am I, chopped liver!?

My sister called it her umbilical cord.

Mom was the hub of the wheel and without her we are unconnected, adrift. The rest of us are not that great in the communication department. My brother and I are like Dad, one or two word responses and done in about five minutes (I love texting, it's a God send). My sister will talk - if you can get her to answer the phone. My mom kept us abreast of each others news and in doing so, enabled us in our dysfunctional communication skills.

The cord has been cut.

Lady Gaga

I confess I've never listened to her music (on purpose anyway), nothing against her, I'm just a Stan Getz, Brazilian jazz kinda gal.

However, if she does have Lupus and she raises awareness for this disease like Michael J. Fox has for Parkinson's, then I will download all her stuff.
Right now.

May is Lupus Awareness Month

Samantha, May 2009
This is my wonderful, goofy, giggly, sweet niece Samantha during her treatment for Lupus. This included "...lots of lab work, doctors' appointments, ultrasounds, a kidney biopsy, IV therapy, and too much medicine."
Sam is not defined by this illness - even when she was undergoing treatment, she, encouraged by her parents and a wonderful teacher, still attended her dance recitals.






Samantha, May 2010
She still has Lupus, despite looking like her old self again.

She calls me Puma, I don't know why, but it's hilarious. Back in 2008, I was her best friend. She said so.

Since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, Aunt Puma's making a plug for a donation.

Please help find a cure for this disease.

http://www.firstgiving.com/samanthapatton

Break It Down

Monday I get in my little French Canadian Corolla, Blanche, (she was made in Quebec), turn the key and...
Zip.
Try again since I wasn't holding my mouth right, obviously.
Nada.
This time I open the glove box, punch on the map light and jiggle the shifter before trying again, because hello? that's procedure. (You know you do it too.)
Not a peep.

Out comes the trusty AAA card and they send over the cutest guy (Chad) to determine it is, in fact, the [original] seven year old battery. Which he replaces for $113 while I wait.
Folks, as I've said before - I am a closer. I hate gathering information and running around trying to figure out how to save $3. (Ask me about the tent story sometime) I called my favorite auto shop in Carrboro afterward, they quoted $159, so I felt vindicated in my decision.

Then last night I come home from a friend's graduation and open the frig for a glass of unwind wine - it's dark. I figure the light's burnt out, no biggie. This morning it's distinctly uncool in there. The stove hood light is out too, but the stove works, and so does the overhead kitchen light, so perhaps the breaker? Ah, no.

Ding dong, the frig is dead.

Home warranty and $60 will get it working again, I hope.

Guess I can finally get the Samsung frig I've been coveting for months.


Why does this stuff ALWAYS happen when you get the credit cards paid off?!

Motivation

Mom's like the gym for me, if one session is missed, it's hard to get back in the routine.
I do the "floppy dance" (any mother knows what that looks like) every week, like a kid who is being forced to do something they don't want to do.
What's my problem? It's not hard. It's usually fun, in some weird twisted way. I only do it once a week. It's not like she lives with me. It's just hard seeing my mother like that, week after week. After week. And it's just me. I know, I know. I am being a big fat sucky baby. At least I still have a mother. At least she's still fairly functional. And on and on. Believe me, I know the drill. It doesn't change a thing. I still do the floppy dance.

I finally hauled my lazy selfish ass over last night, after almost two weeks, (no, I didn't go over on Mother's Day.), and of course, it was just fine. I called first and she hung up on me, unknowingly I'm sure. I called back and the phone rang until the phone company decided that was enough and ended the call.

Lo and behold, she was sitting in the lobby/living room! With her fashion forward, belted, layered look (three shirts, blue, green, pink). She stood up and shook my hand, then put her hand on my leg and asked what that was for.

I swear I'm going to remember all the loopy stuff she says, but I can never can. There's too much. We're in line in the K&W Cafeteria and she asks where my hands are. "On the ends of my arms." "Where are yours?" "I don't know, but I have some." Alrighty then.

There's a cute baby at the next table, playing peekaboo and laughing. Mom proclaims it "wonderful". She is always walking up to small children and babies, it makes me nervous.
If she ever thinks that baby is ugly, she is going to say it. Out loud. To the mother.

I know this is a highlight of the entry for you all, so here's what she had for supper:
Ham, deviled eggs, potato salad, turnip greens, carrot & raisin salad and lemon meringue pie. I was cutting up her ham and she asked if I was doing it for the baby.
In a way, yes.
She was going to eat her deviled eggs with a spoon, then I had to go and say something like - just pick it up and eat it with your fingers. She put the spoon down and gave me such a look! Glared at me, then turned her head and looked off in the distance - for about thirty seconds, then she was back to normal.

Now I need to work on my motivation for next week.

Mother's Day

My mom loved getting cards. Birthdays, Christmas, Mother's Day, Columbus Day (just seeing if you were paying attention), she was the perfect Hallmark audience.
She would rather have received a card, the mushier the better, than most anything else - unless you were my father. Then you had better be presenting jewelry.

Every single card, not just the Christmas ones, would be hung on the wall by the front door for weeks, a proclamation of how much she was loved by her family and friends, then taken down and saved for posterity.
She kept a tally, "So-and-so didn't send me a card this year.", and would spend several days trying to divine what it meant in regard to their relationship. Were they sick, mad at her, or merely forgetful? Maybe she should call and see if they were okay.

Now cards are incomprehensible missives from strangers, merely glanced at, then stacked on dressers or floor and shuttled around to new hiding places every week.


So what exactly do you get someone who really doesn't know she's a mother anymore?

Layers

One of the hardest things about dementia is watching the things that always defined your loved one disappear.

Take writing for instance. My mother had the most beautiful handwriting, flowing old school script, not the half assed printing I call handwriting. Now, she can't even write her name.

Take grooming for another. My mother was always well dressed; she was an award winning seamstress and made many of her own clothes up into the Nineties. She dressed appropriately for her age, never, as the English say, as "mutton dressed as lamb" (love that!). She had a great sense of color and style and knew what suited her.

Last Saturday I pick her up for lunch and she has three shirts on, blue long sleeved tee over a light blue short sleeved tee over a black long sleeved tee. White pants. Two pearl necklaces. The top shirt was dirty. Get the heavy sigh when I point that out. I've learned to ignore those and press on. Removal of first tee shirt reveals the second shirt is also dirty. The third and final layer appears to be clean. I can't find the lightweight cardigan I brought over several weeks ago or her TV remote. Where do things go?! It's one room!

Her hair is clean, yay. Her toothbrush is on the coffee table, I throw that away (secret) and haul out the children's toothbrushes I bought (cunning plan - if she is five mentally, appeal to that age!) and get her to brush her teeth before we go.

We have breakfast at Rick's Diner. The Belgian waffle, bacon, and scrambled eggs is decided upon. She nicely refuses my offer to cut up her waffle and manages to divide it into fourths with a fork. Loses next step. Then picks it up and eats it like a sandwich. I pour syrup in a bowl for dipping. She likes that. I catch the woman at the next table looking at Mom like she's a loon. (She may be, but she's my loon.) I resist giving her the stink eye and just smile and shrug. Whatever lady.

Afterward, we head to Target for Diet Pepsi and make a sloooowwww circuit around the store. She gets a pair of linen walking shorts and a black tee shirt.

Wonder what she'll layer those with?

Lupus (updated)

Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). Chronic means that the signs and symptoms tend to last longer than six weeks and often for many years. In lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system, which is the part of the body that fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs ("foreign invaders," like the flu). Normally our immune system produces proteins called antibodies that protect the body from these invaders. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues ("auto" means "self") and creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue. These autoantibodies cause inflammation, pain, and damage in various parts of the body.
(Excerpt From Lupus Foundation of America http://www.lupus.org/newsite/index.html)



This is my niece Samantha, aka Sam, in 2008 - three months before being diagnosed with Lupus (the day before her seventh birthday).





This is my niece Sam, during her steroid treatment for Lupus.










Thankfully, she responded well to the steroid treatment and is off them, but it was a long year. She only takes Cellcept now (people who've had an organ transplant take it as well) and it seems the lupus is in remission.



She'll be doing the Lupus Walk in Milwaukee on June 12. http://www.firstgiving.com/samanthapatton

Hornet in the House!

You know about my mother's phobia of all things reptilian, here's mine: spheksophobia. I'll give you a moment to look that up...[Jeopardy theme song plays]...okay, done?

So the landscaper comes over Friday night and as we go down the front steps I notice something suspicious looking on the soffit - right by the front door.
"What is that?!", knowing full well what it was.
He replies, "You don't want to know. But maybe it's empty."

Now that's a bit like telling a woman in labor her contraction is almost over - she knows better.

Of course it was the beginning of a hornet's nest. I berate myself for not listening to my little inner voice and calling the bug man sooner. Ugh. And I have to go back in the house right past it! Double holy mother of pearl ugh.

Saturday, after fortifying myself with a german chocolate cupcake from A Southern Season (delicious by the way), I buy a can of 25% more, newer spray from Harris Teeter (because you cannot have enough of this) and head across the street to ask my neighbor if she's willing to do the deed since the bug man can't come until...MONDAY!!! It could be the size of a football field by then!!

Thank god she was willing to come over and save me. One hornet dies at the scene, another one flies off, which creeps me out. But I put it out of my mind and head off to Duke Chapel with friends for the "Sparks of Divinity" concert by the Women's Voices Choir. Beautiful setting and a great concert.

Back at home, I'm puttering around in my jammies, when I spy something on the living room floor. I move in to investigate.

HOLY CRAP.
It's.
A.
HORNET!

In my house.

(I actually have goosebumps remembering). HOW DID IT GET IN HERE?! HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN IN HERE?! Okay, don't panic - wait, TOO LATE!!
The cats are nonchalant, so maybe it's dead. Oscar helps me by swiping it with his paw as he walks past. Thanks Oscar! It rears up in this crazy ninja hornet move. NOOOOOO!!!

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgbucketneedabucket.
Find a bucket, gather some reserve of courage and throw the bucket over the hornet. Finn comes over to investigate...NO FINN DON'T TOUCH IT!! Don't move the bucket. (I'm hissing now. Can hornets hear?) Good kitty. Where's that piece of cardboard? Summon even more courage and slide cardboard under bucket. Part of one of its legs is poking out, which really interested Finn. Noooo...(dissolve into sobbing).
Now carry it outside, put it on the deck and run back inside. Obsess for several hours over how it got in (did it come in on ME?!), how long it's been in here, and if there are more. Freak out when two of the cats become very interested in the bottom of the floor lamp, but it was only a spider. I can deal with spiders.

I had the heebie-jeebies for hours. A piece of my hair fell out of the headband when I was washing my face and I screamed and jumped about a foot off the ground. I hate this part of spring in North Carolina.

And hell yes, the bucket is still on the deck.

No Sale

Today my house comes off the market.
Turns out my house is like the last woman a not-quite-out-of-the-closet guy goes out with before he decides he's really, for sure, no kidding...gay.

My house has helped many people decide what they REALLY want by being the "It's-cute-but..." house.
As in, "It's cute, but I want to be closer to Duke; it's so cute, but I need three bedrooms; it's cute but I'm worried about the road noise; it's cute but the yard's too small/too big"...and on and on ad nauseam. You are welcome people of Durham!

Come to think of it, my house is like me. "You're great, but..." and then off they go to prom (or relationship or marriage) with someone else.

Actually, I'm relieved and a bit excited. Getting prices on a screen porch and new [fiber cement] siding; thinking about a fireplace mantel and built-in's. Maybe new counter tops, since I only have about two inches of counter space it shouldn't be too expensive.
A landscaper's coming over this afternoon to give me a price on xeriscaping the yard; Julian's [realtor] coming with a bottle of wine and pulling up the sign.

Here's to "You're cute, but..." houses and women. We have to stick together apparently.
Sláinte!

Eleven Years Ago

My father died April 30, 1999.

He died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.

There is no cure.

He also lost a kidney to cancer (very probably caused by MM) and two thirds of one lung (most likely due to smoking non filtered cigarettes since he was twelve).

I miss him, but am glad he's not here to see what's happened to Mom. It would kill him.