Munchkin Mom

Ashes to Ashes

2011-10-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

Today we scattered EG's ashes. We waited until now because Nita announced that this would be the month. I set the date with a minister friend of my sister's, who came to do the simple ceremony.

Last spring, I stood at my kitchen sink and looked out over the far back yard, and I thought, "I'd like to see yellow out there." The morning he died, EG and I again discussed our wishes for our remains. I had always wanted to be scattered out in the "far back" with our pets from over the years, and he had recently decided he wanted to be out there, too. He said, "This is home."

Earlier in the afternoon, my sister came, and in the rain, we planted fifteen forsythia, and we put in over fifty Prince Alfred daffodil bulbs. I should see some yellow out there this spring, and the plants should gradually spread. I would like to put a garden in the entire quarter acre, doing it gradually, over time, with maybe a bench so I can go and sit with him and the dogs and cats and rabbits. I might as well get used to being out there.

The scattering ceremony was nicer and easier than I expected. The girls each did a reading. I had put ashes in seven paper cups, so each person distributed part of him. Once I spread my cup, I knew this was right. I took the rest of the ashes and tossed them high, watching them soar, and knew then that he was soaring, too.

Mary Library

2011-10-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

My mother, even though she didn't finish high school, was a well-read person. She loved books and loved learning. I remember her teaching me to read before I went to school, and she passed her love for books down to me.

Mom wanted to be around kids, so when we were in school, she got a part-time job in the school cafeteria, and went back to earn her General Equivalency Diploma at night. Math was her greatest challenge, and I vividly remember standing in the kitchen, holding the phone, and listening to her share her pride with me that she had passed her test and earned her diploma so many years after leaving high school. She had actually called from a payphone rather than wait to get home to tell us, and she told me she wasn't sure while she was taking the test if she had passed that math part.

I think this was a great lesson for a young person, witnessing someone face a subject which was difficult and work at it.

Mom had a plan. She applied for, interviewed for, and got a job as a teacher's aide at another school in the system, eventually working her way back to the school in our neighborhood. Then the library aide position opened up, and she applied for that; much to her delight, she was hired.

The library was pretty sad when Mom took over. Some of the books which were on the shelves had last been checked out by me, and I was by then in my later years of high school. The room was plain and dreary. Mom had book sales and fund raisers, Buying new shelving and carpeting the space. She added to the collection, replacing John F. Kennedy's Profiles of Courage with books on dinosaurs and monsters, replacing the dusty collections of poems by Joyce Kilmer with Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak. He theory was that, if you could get kids to read, they would discover how wonderful it was and gradually move on to the more serious stuff, but few kids would willingly start with the droner books. Those she culled mercilessly, giving them away to rummage sales or wherever else she could send them.

While in art class in high school, my sister made a huge paper mache stork-like bird wearing crew socks and red tennis shoes. Mom took the bird to school, christened him "Word Bird," and hung him over the dictionary. Every week, she would hang a new word around Word Bird's neck, and open the dictionary to that page, and the kids would read the definition and learn to use a dictionary.

Mom's eye doctor had her trifocals special made so she could comfortably read the numbers on the books to shelve them. Her days were spent doing what she loved, working around children and books. My sister said, "She hated Fridays and loved Monday mornings." She was useful and energized and enjoyed every aspect of her job.

Dad retired, and mom would most likely still be in her library if it hadn't been for the attempt to computerize her. She retired after ten happy years, and the library was dedicated in her honor, with a plaque on the wall outside in the hall. When Mom passed away, we requested memorials be made to the school library, the place where she was most happy.

In the past year, the library was moved to a new space in the new addition to the school; it is a big room with lots of light, laminate flooring, and a computer lab. Mom would have been delighted. The current librarian (my mother would approve of her, to be sure) held on to the memorial money to use in the new space.

Last night, the school had an open house in honor of its fiftieth anniversary. It was a nice celebration. My sister and I received a special invitation from the current school librarian to view the items which were selected from Mom's memorial. There is now a welcoming corner with a pretty red and blue rug and red and blue beanbag chairs, a place for kids to relax and enjoy books. There are some new books. On the table there, was a sign describing where these items came from; Mrs. K described my mom as a "past librarian." In reality, Mom's job title was "library aide," as she did not have the paper credentials to be a librarian. However, in her heart, she was a librarian, and we appreciated her being referred to that way.

At the entrance to the library is a big rug which reads, "Welcome to our library." I like the use of "our," as Mom will always be a part of the library. But even more important, I like that a little part of Mom will be welcoming all those children to her wonderful world of books. She would be pleased.

TMI and the Single Girl

2011-10-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, I was at the dentist's office with Kiki, and a woman who knows someone I know was there, and she asked me about dating again. Let me be clear: she did not ask me out; she simply mentioned that I would have to think about dating again.

Let me be even more clear: I would rather tear my own leg off and beat myself in the head with it. A lot. First of all, two months is a bit soon for that. Second, the guys who are my age are interested in women in their thirties, and the guys who are ten years older are also interested in women in their thirties. I guess I would have to start cruising the retirement centers to meet someone.

I have too much to process and attend to, so there is no way I want the drama and emotional chaos attached to dating right now.

I was on a widow website tonight, and there was a post by a woman advertising her book which chronicled her love (and love life) with her husband, and then addressed how she met her physical needs once he as gone. Whoa. We are talking waaayyyy too much information, here, not to mention the sheer creepiness of reading soft porn about someone who is dead. The worst part,though, was that the writing was grammatically incorrect and choppy and could have used some serious editorial intervention.

Perhaps the editor could have tossed it into the dumpster.

It was just a thought.

It Makes Me Wonder

2011-10-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

One thing about the physical symptoms of grief is that they make you wonder if it's grief or if you're getting sick.

Or maybe you're getting sick because of grief.

I have been waking in the night and crying. I think now that it is for two reasons. First, Rocky's court issues are more or less resolved, so my energy is not devoted to worrying about the worst possible outcome. Oh, and the neighbors involved in all this are gone on a vacation, so we have some peace; I didn't realize how invasive their presence really is. But mainly my renewed grief is because this weekend we will be scattering EG's ashes out back where he wanted them, with the buried pets.

It is where I want to be put, too.

The Catholic church (or a representative in the form of a priest), informed me EG needed to be placed in one place on consecrated ground. Consequently, I found a Methodist minister who will come out and bless the ground--and I can justify him being in one place by pointing out that he is in the back quarter-acre here and not scattered throughout the neighborhood or in Lake Erie (although I could argue that Lake Erie is one place).

We will plant 15 forsythia and put in over 50 daffodils to naturalize, and we have already planted some black-eyed Susans around the pine trees out there. I have some daylilies, and I will add yellow sunflowers, which he liked, too. When I look out my kitchen window, I will see yellow, and I will put a bench out there, with some solar lighting, so I can go out there and sit.

However, it is cold comfort compared to having the real thing.

Benadryl or Not, Here I Come

2011-10-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Last night, I took a Benadryl, and Harry woke me at 3:30 a.m. to be let out. Of course, I didn't get to sleep again right away, so when 5:20 and the alarm came around, I had a difficult time waking up. I finally turned the light on and forced myself to a sitting position, hoping that would propel me into the day.

Unfortunately, the propulsion was too low level to leave the gravitational pull of the bed. I mentally orbited there all day, all during work, vetting an injured chicken, cooking food, and driving the taxi and all else that I did.

Weekend

2011-10-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I ran Rocky over to the fire station--he was volunteering at the fundraising lunch booth for the fire department's craft fair. Then I took Kii to get her temps, ran to the store for milk, and took cider and donuts to my sisters for a visit. Or, rather, we visited, and the cider and donuts were refreshments.

On the way home, my lovely neighbor behind me called and asked if he could come over and weed whack my side of the fence at the back of his property. I, of course, said yes. When he showed up, he said he wanted to mow back there, too, and he would just use my tractor. However, we discovered that the tire on the mower had popped its seal, most likely by me smooshing into it with the bumper of the car. So, my sweet neighbor started to remove the tire, but it was stuck. I had to run kids to music lessons, so I left him there in the garage with a two-by-four and a rubber mallet, and drove off.

It turns out that he took the tire home, which is about a half mile, as he has to go by the road. Then he finagled a new seal and blew the tire up with his compressor, brought it back, put it back on the tractor, and then proceeded to, ahem, "test it out" by mowing most of the acre of lawn. He then weed whacked while I finished mowing, including every tree, flower bed, and fence on the place. The yard looks gorgeous.

While I was at the music lessons, Kiki's violin teacher told me her instrument was too big for her, and that she needed a three-quarters size violin. I priced them and nearly fainted. However, the owner of the music store (which is where EG worked), gave me a deal on the rental, extending their advertised special out indefinitely for us.

Today Nita went with her friend and his family to a fall festival, and the older two and I went on the fall foliage tour here in the county, which had been a tradition with their dad and me for the past twenty years. It was hard, as I missed their dad today and felt lonely despite the kindnesses I had experienced, and to add to the bittersweet mood, we toured the County Home, where my mother had worked before she married my father. I had never been there until today. I was pensive as we walked to the door, focusing on keeping my feelings under control. Rocky poked me several times with his finger. "Mom," he said, and nodded toward an older man in a very small pair of curve-hugging flesh-toned shorts, reclined on his stomach on the lawn, apparently sunbathing.

I stopped dead and stared, not certain what I was seeing. "Waughk," I finally croaked out. Rocky, pleased with himself at getting this reaction, smirked and said, "Well, at least he isn't on his back." I shuddered. At that point, Kiki lost it and literally choked on her own laughter. Once we were safely back in the car, the two of them hooted with laughter at my reaction to Shorts Man.

Tonight I took the kids out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. The food was mediocre, but we all sat in the booth and talked comfortably with one another, and I felt less lonely. I realized that I really do like my children, and I think they like me, too.

Milestone number two

2011-10-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today Kiki passed the written test for her temporary learner's driver's license.

Another thing her daddy missed witnessing.

He is only away

2011-10-07T03:12:00.000-07:00

One of my least favorite expressions about grief is "he is only away."

Yeah, like in another dimension? This is supposed to give me comfort? Apparently, this maudlin expression was written by some sap who didn't have a clue about loss.

Kiki has been struggling the most with the loss. She alternates between screaming and being hateful and lecturing all of us in the nicey-nice, insincere tone of voice used by my neighbor who professes to be Christian but lied outright to my face. Three times.

Anyway, either mode is accompanied by incessant, head pounding chatter.

Last night, she exploded again just as I was leaving for yoga with her staying home to be in charge. I told the younger two that I would take Kiki with me, but if they did ANYTHING they weren't supposed to do, I would leave there alone with them the next time she was like this.

They were amazingly good.

While we were in the car, once Kiki stopped shrieking at me, I had a revelation. "You have been in denial about Dad being dead, haven't you," I asked.

She told me she had been telling herself that he was just away on a long trip, and he would be coming home eventually. We talked about how that was harmful, and she cried and cried. I told her about how she had to move through the grief, no matter how much it hurt, but that she could control the rate and intensity. This morning, she woke up bleary eyed and puffy faced, but I think she feels more hopeful about her journey.

Feral

2011-10-06T03:19:00.000-07:00

According to the experts, I am doing everything right, I have the right perspective, and I have found outlets for this grief.

However, it is like a feral creature, apparently domesticated, but still skulking around the house. Instead of it learning to live in the presence of humans, we have learned to live with it.

I know it can't kill me, but it has left scars. Right now, though, I fear for my children.

One sleeps a lot, staying where it is safe and denying the creature is out there; one talks incessantly to keep the creature at bay; and one becomes aggressive out of defense.

Everyone is still vigilant about the next attack.

Um, now that you mention it...

2011-10-05T04:05:00.000-07:00

Now I am getting the thoughtless comments.

A friend called me and complained about her husband for twenty minutes. After she had wound down, I said, "To put things in perspective, I am sitting in the parking lot of the funeral home; I have just finished making a payment on EG's cremation."

Oh.

The woman who talks incessantly about her husband found out that I sleep in the same room and in the same bed EG and I shared. "Oh," she said, "I don't think I could do that after all that has happened. I'd have to find somewhere different to sleep."

Like where? The dog's bed? The neighbors' house? Some other man? Seriously?

The door

2011-10-04T19:11:00.001-07:00

Rocky's grief counselor gave him an assignment last week to take a picture of a doorway.

I kind of like the message of a door, opening to another place or dimension, one where we can find those we have lost.

Tonight, I was washing my face, when one of the bunnies started banging around in his cage. From where I was, the noise was exactly like EG unlocking the door at the end of the day, coming home. It was about the time he would normally be coming home, too. Harry must have agreed, as his ears pricked up, and he trotted toward the sound. For just the slightest portion of a nanosecond, I believed it really was EG coming through that door, and all this had just never happened. I was not alone to take care of the house and the kids, Rocky's situation with the neighbors and court never happened, and it would all be as it was.

But of course the feeling passed. Harry started sniffing the floor, the rabbits started moving around again, and I started brushing my teeth. Maybe, just maybe though, the door had opened to another dimension.

Grief plunge

2011-10-04T03:16:00.000-07:00

For me, grieving is like I am one of those cartoon characters who went off a cliff.

First, I padded the air with my feet, thinking I was going to be fine and this was all a bad dream. When I realized that I really was going to have to plunge to the ground below, I began grabbing at branches, rocks, large blades of grass, whatever I could get.

I periodically can find a branch which will hold me for a while, and while it gives me respite from the terrifying plunge I am taking, it also delays the inevitable. Sometimes people will reach out to me, too, and I grasp their hands, relieved to feel safe or protected but also loathe to wear them out or, worse yet, pull them down with me. Of course, they don't want to take that plunge either, so they pull away. While it is understandable, I feel deserted and less safe.

So I bounce from rock to rock, becoming more battered as I continue down to the inevitable. I am getting used to the wounds, but they still happen.

The New Normal

2011-10-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

I love words, love crafting them into sentences and thoughts, making people think or laugh.

However, some words or expressions simply annoy me. For example, this weekend, Kiki was babbling, which she does when she has something on her mind which she is processing or trying to suppress. We were in the store, and she was looking at snowpants. She kept talking about the snowpants, and I tuned her out, but the word snowpants kept drilling itself into my subconscious. It went like this, "Blah blah blah blah snowpants. Blah snowpants blah blah blah blah, and snowpants blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, snowpants blah. Blah, snowpants, blah, blah, and blah." I said, "If you say snowpants one more time, I think I will cry." Of course, she didn't hear me.

Nita turned to her and said, "Say snowpants."

"Snowpants," Kiki said. "Blah blah blah blah blah."

I pretended to sob, much to Nita's amusement.

When it comes to annoying expressions, "we are praying for you" can have a double intent. Some people, graciously, have told me that in an effort to make me stronger by having God really paying attention to my situation. Please let me add that I have been demanding so much from God lately that perhaps praying for those whom I have shoved to the intervention sidelines might be better for those who are praying. What annoys me about the "we are praying for you" statement is when it is used in an effort to make a person see the errors of their ways. My neighbor, one evening, told me, "My entire family prays for you every night." Visions of cult-like behavior notwithstanding, I think I dumbfounded her by saying, "Thank you. We can use all the prayers we can get."

I then added, "We pray for you every night, too." She was offended. I think that she would have been more offended to know that we didn't pray FOR her, but instead prayed ABOUT her--more specifically, that she would move away. I figured while I will likely have double penance for double lying about prayer, it was totally worth it.

And, before I leave this subject, let me add that, in my opinion, the most gracious way to handle this is to simply pray for people and not advertise it.

Anyway, my latest detested expression is "the new normal." Around here, with adopted kids and their issues, my parent's sequential battles with Alzheimer's, and my brother-in-law's grace-filled fight with a terminal illness and subsequent death, there was never any "old normal." We have had an ever-evolving normal. And I am tired of adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. It would be really sad but also a relief if this "new normal" stayed consistent, but somehow I have the feeling that we're not done here.

Hard to be around me

2011-10-02T04:33:00.001-07:00

I imagine it is hard to be around me.

Some people feel like they need to tiptoe, probably, for saying the wrong thing and causing me pain.

Some people feel like they need to be kind, to make sure I'm okay, to say the right thing to make me feel better. (News flash--there is no right thing to make me feel better. It's okay. It's not your job to take care of that pain for me.)

Some people don't want to be around me because this makes them aware of the potential for their own pain.

Some people don't want to be around pain because they just want nothing to do with it. (That would be my choice right now, too.)

Sometimes this loss seems so unreal. I think that I'm going to wake up and it will be a bad dream, and I'll tell EG all about it, and he'll commiserate and maybe comment that he feels like I'm trying to kill him off and get up and let the dogs out and make me coffee like he used to do.

Yesterday was a hard day. First, it was so incredibly dreary. Then, it rained, just a steady, dumping, ground saturating rain so insistent that I never let the chickens out into their run. Nita had spent the night with a friend, Rocky was hiding out in his room, Kiki did homework, and I made 20 pounds of apples (which had been unsprayed and therefored needed to be trimmed) into a big pot of applesauce. We ran over to music lessons, I stopped for dog food and groceries, and then I came home to thoroughly clean the refrigerator and prepare a big spaghetti dinner, complete with meatballs.

Just as I was preparing to serve, Rocky, who was pretty droopy, showed up and parked himself at the table, waiting to be served. I said, OH, NO, and sent him to feed the dogs. This became a ten-minute production of the Frantic Barking Dog Chorus while Rocky blundered around with the container while looking for food bowls. He then spilled five pounds of dog food all over the kitchen, including into the refrigerator and freezer. I had him clean counters, wipe the stove, and sweep up the food on the floor and pick through it to remove the floor debris. Meanwhile, Kiki "accidentally" glanced into Nita's purse to discover a lip gloss which the two girls proceeded to argue belonged to each of them. Kiki started screaming, slamming kitchen chairs, and flinging her textbooks. I sent her to bed without supper. That left Nita and Rocky and I with the spaghetti dinner. I told Nita that she needed to return the lip gloss and apologize, and she backtalked me, so off she went, too. Rocky started to gobble his food, noodles flapping on his chin; I guess he figured the odds were against him. In five minutes, he left the table, putting a food covered plate into the fresh dishwater and not asking to be excused. Kiki reappeared, saying that she needed a Pamprin (I wisely refrained from suggesting she take the rest of the bottle) and muttered about her sister until I told her to stop and go upstairs. She voiced her opinion of my parenting (sotto voce, but, from what I could/was supposed to glean from her comments, apparently she has the meanest, least understanding mom of anyone she knows and she hates me) and stormed back to her room, where she did a forte reprise of the past few minutes. I changed the dishwater, cleaned the kitchen while drinking a glass of wine, and mopped the floor. It was then 7:30, and everyone was in bed, asleep.

Or so I thought. I fed the rabbits, got them and the dogs water, cleaned the bathroom, and then went into my room, and finally started to relax. About nine, Kiki, who doesn't know how to turn a doorknob, began prowling around upstairs, opening and closing the closet, her bedroom, and bathroom doors. Repeatedly. I hollered at her to settle, and she came down and reported to me that she was missing six of the candy bars which she was selling for orchestra and had hidden in her drawer. After a loud dissertation about how there was a thief in this house, and my cross examination of her sister, Kiki explained her bookkeeping system, which was so convoluted that I finally just told her that she had to suck it up and pay the missing funds, as who could tell how much she should have had. Of course, that went over well and she graciously acquiesced and apologized. Not.

When Rocky came home from the hospital, his psychiatrist gave him a prognosis of "fair." My sister pointed out that "fair" would be a pretty accurate diagnosis for most teens, as many parents consider killing them. I would say after last night, that the prognosis for all of us would be fair.

A Primal Wound

2011-10-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

Having raised other mothers' kids, I understand the primal wound of being ripped from the one who carried you, to know that this person didn't/couldn't love you enough to care for herself and/or you well enough that you could stay, and to realize that you weren't really, truly loved or protected because of the mother's issues--in fact, sometimes mothers chose themselves or their boyfriends over a child.

To know that your "real" mother wasn't your real mother after all is an awful way to start a life.

This wound is more subtle than what we experienced here this summer. It seems funny to look at EG's sudden death in the past, but that is where it is slowly sliding. What the kids and I (and EG) had happen was so sudden, so intense, that it left us raw.

And we reacted to that trauma. There's the word I wanted--trauma. I never realized how that shock, that trauma, could affect people. However, time and space are giving me a little perspective, so I can see where I was.

Nash is a funny dog. He has a thing for chairs and prefers to sit in them over the sofa or floor or even a bed. He sits in lawn chairs, folding chairs, even kitchen chairs. When he was a pup, he loved to sit in one of the Adirondack chairs in the back yard. One afternoon, he got his paw stuck between the slats of the chair and screamed. I went to rescue him, and he bit me, operating from that place of pain and sheer terror at what had suddenly happened to him. I took a bath towel, put it over his head, and pulled his foot loose. He shook for the rest of the day and cried in his sleep that night. The next week, he avoided the chair.

This morning, I woke up to the realization that I have been in that place of terror and pain. I was worried about our finances, and I was terrified about raising these kids alone: would I have enough time, resources, and wisdom to get them to adulthood. I also didn't want to go on without my partner--after having the richness of his companionship, support, love, and protection, I had a huge, gaping wound in me. Like Nash, I was coming from a place of fear and agony.

People mean well, but those who have not experienced this primal wound cannot understand the mental state of someone who has. Even though I have had this experience, I cannot speak for others who have lost their spouse, as each situation is different. What I can do is realize that I can't relate and not try. Even our priest doesn't get it--I went to him for guidance about an insipid letter which was sent to my children, and he said, "That's the one thing about mail. You can throw it away." He didn't understand that I wanted these people to know that they were behaving thoughtlessly and that they shouldn't do it again to anyone and to tell them that they did not have all the answers where they were in their safe lives, intact marriage, safe kids.

In fact, they had no clue that there were questions. I have come to the conclusion that these people have so removed themselves from the possibility that this might happen to them that they can't even begin to entertain how they might feel or react.

What impresses me are the people who do understand. I have a co-worker who is a very, very nice woman. I am training her for her new job, and this woman talks incessantly about her husband. Initially, it hurt, but I have become numb to it. Thursday, a male co-worker, who is single and not even thirty yet, mentioned to me that he noticed that this woman does this. He said, "I want to say to her, 'Hey! She's just lost her own husband. Don't you think talking about your husband all the time might hurt her?'" I told him that I wanted to say something, too, but I didn't want this woman to apologize for two hours. It was easier to shut down emotionally and get through it. I did add that I was so touched and impressed: this man accepts he doesn't have any answers, knows he doesn't know all the questions, and is willing to see the pain someone else is feeling.

That can't be easy. I can see that now.

A Glimmer of Hope

2011-09-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, sometimes, there is a glimmer of hope in even the worst situations.

My neighbor, she who made our lives miserable when we were trying to cope after EG's death, sent a letter to the court asking that Rocky not be prosecuted. That would have been a nice gesture, if only she had let it stop at that. Unfortunately, she editorialized for about 250 words in the middle of the letter about how they still didn't know Rocky's intent, how they were still so traumatized about what happened that the children wouldn't sleep in their rooms, and how Rocky still hadn't apologized.

(There's a story there, as the neighbor called me up, told me I was to bring Rocky over to their house so he could sit down with them and explain what had happened and then apologize. She and her family would offer him their forgiveness, and then "there are some things he needs to be told." Right after that, when I reminded her that Rocky had lost four of the six adults in his life over the last five years, she informed me that "this type of loss is normal in adolescents." Let's just say I was unpleasant, but one of my employees, who had been scheduled for an evaluation that day but had been rescheduled, commented that she was delighted that her appointment had been changed.)

Anyway, we have court on Monday, so I drove to the psych hospital and asked for copies of Rocky's admission and discharge documents. There, on page 3 of the discharge summary, the doctor commented that my neighbor was exhibiting "irrational behavior," and it was "causing him to be concerned for his safety." Plus, (and this is where I was trying to think of something just this side of self-sacrifice to show how grateful I was), the doctor added that the neighbor had called the facility to speak with the doctor about her concerns, which he added was "certainly inappropriate."

And the best part is that this document has future treatment recommendations, so it will most likely be admitted into evidence. Including page 3.

This whole time, I have tried to take the high road and be gracious and try to understand how this woman's own issues were affecting her behavior. However, I was frustrated at how she had made herself the victim and center of all the controversy, portraying herself as a sympathetic character to the neighbors, the court, and all who would entertain her drama. Today, though, I have documentation from a professional as to how erratic this woman can be, including his own experience with her. Hallelujah. Maybe what goes around eventually will come around.

And when I told Rocky, he smiled for the first time in weeks.

Suspenders and a Belt

2011-09-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

My uncle used to wear suspenders and an belt; my sister commented that he was a "safety man."

Since EG had lost weight, his jeans had a tendency to slip down too far. The belt was going with them, so he moved on to suspenders. However, he still wore a belt with shorts. The belt he wore most commonly was made of thick, soft leather, and it had a simple buckle which made its own distinctive sound when he put it on or took it off. I heard that sound at least twice a day.

I always teased him about wearing suspenders and Chuck Taylor All-Stars, but at least he didn't wear suspenders and a belt.

The other night, I was sorting through the hamper, and I found the shorts he had worn before he went out to mow, with the belt still attached. The belt made that familiar sound, and it was like a stab to the chest. I put the belt and shorts back into the hamper.

For the next couple of weeks, I would go through the dirty clothes and hear the sound of the belt, not wanting to make a commitment about one more thing of his, so leaving the belt there in the hamper still attached to the shorts. Finally, I took the belt out of the loops and washed the shorts.

I don't want to get rid of the belt, as the sound is such a familiar one, one which I heard morning and evening, but I can't bear to keep it around, either. The same with the suspenders. They were such a part of him, yet it hurts too much to know they are still around.

Were you thinking?

2011-09-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today we got a letter from a couple who attend our church. The couple wanted the children to know some things about Dads and God. They told the children "God was so pleased with what EG had accomplished in his life and with his family that dad could serve Him better and serve you better by being with Him in heaven, and more over (sic) deserved to be with Him."

Really? So their point is God felt EG deserved being in Heaven so much that He was going to take EG in a violent manner while the kids were there? A benevolent God couldn't find a kinder, gentler way to take someone to their eternal reward?

I have issues with the fact that this is a couple, part of an intact family, who is delivering platitudes to a no longer intact family. I have issues with the husband deciding he could speak for EG (who is probably banging around in that plastic box on my closet shelf), based on how much they had in common because they were both dads. And I have issues with them telling the children that their dad would be their guardian angel, then telling the children that their son's grandfather was his guardian angel, but they suspected that Grandpa was distracted at times playing cards or bowling up there because periodically their son will run into things. Oh, that's comforting--Dad will watch over you unless he has something fun to do.

I read the letter to Nita, in all her eleven-going-on-thirty wisdom. She leveled her gaze at me. "Were they thinking when they wrote this," she asked. Um.

So, I wrote a long, angry letter to this couple. I cried out of anger. I went to the church and talked to the priest, who said, "You can throw it away--that's the joy of mail."

I realized then that I didn't want to let it go. These people needed to pay for their sanctimonious, we-have-all-the-answers attitude. They needed to be told that they weren't so wonderful.

But I needed to take the high road. So I sent a short letter stating, "While I am sure that you had the best intentions when you sent your letter, but I will not be sharing it with the children. Please continue to pray for them if you feel the need, but do not try to contact them again."

Let them wonder.

Black-eyed Susans

2011-09-25T04:43:00.001-07:00

My sister called me yesterday and told me she had some plants for me, and asked if she should bring them over. I told her yes and invited her to stay for soup and muffins for supper.

We have a near back yard here, which is about sixty or seventy feet, then a middle back, and then a bit of a crest and the "far back" slopes gently downhill. Last spring, long before anything had started blooming, I decided I wanted to put forsythia in the far back. The tree outside the kitchen sink window usually covers much of the view, but in early spring when there are no leaves, I look out at a dull, brown vista, so I decided some early blooming yellow would make me feel hopeful.

EG wanted his ashes scattered here at home, so we decided to put them in the "far back." I then made up my mind that we would supplement the forsythia with some daffodils, which my sister suggested letting naturalize. The yellow flower project expanded to include some day lilies and some black-eyed Susans. My sister was thinning hers yesterday; thus, the arrival of our first plants.

I thought putting the flowers under one of the trees out there would be nice. Eventually they could choke out the buckthorn which grows under there by default, and I would have less to trim under the trees. We dug the wet earth, and then I tenderly tucked the plants into the soil.

Then we discussed other plans for the planting, and I mentioned that the one apple tree back there was slowly dying, mostly due to the deer. I said it was going to have to go in the future. My sister started to rock the tree, and next thing we knew, we were ripping it out of the ground, leaving one large root intact. Rocky, intrigued by all that "girl power," apparently, ran back to us, and we sent him for a series of tools. Pretty soon, he was providing muscle power, and the tree was out. Rocky and my sister sawed parts of the tree off to provide manageable portions, and we dragged them off into the wood stack EG had started in the weeds.

Then, since we were on a roll, my sister took a shovel and smacked the tenderly placed black-eyed Susans into the ground. "Now their roots will take," she explained. "They're pretty hardy."

This morning, I reflected on two things. First, there is a certain irony in these plants being called "black-eyed Susans." And second, I guess we're pretty hardy, too.

2011-09-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

I have been to a couple widow/widower websites in the past few weeks. First, let me point out that I have issues with the term "widow," as it brings to mind some wizened, old, dried up crone or someone like Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies. Or, perhaps, someone like Grandma Mazur in the Stephanie Plum novels.

Now that I think about it, it is rather depressing to be closer to Grandma Mazur than the young bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum.

Anyway, when I go to these boards, I feel deeply sad. Not for me, but for some of the people who post on there. I read posts which say, "It has been one year, three months, six days, five hours, twenty-two minutes and four seconds since he left me." Imagine wanting to know that, let alone having the time to figure out where to get that information. I also read posts by people who report that it has been nearly a year, and they just want to curl up in a ball and stay in bed all day.

My sister pointed out to me that we were fortunate that we were at the age where our bladders didn't allow us to sleep in too late each day, and once we were vertical, the dogs would ask to have their bladders attended to, and by then, we were moving anyway, so why not just get on with it and get the kids up and off to school and go to work.

I have more non-crying days than crying days lately. I have turned that corner. I miss him, his touch, the companionship, his conversation, his support. I am sad sometimes at what we will miss. However, the pain is not so searing as it was, even a week ago, and I know I can go on. In fact, the one thing I can do is keep on going, and I know now I can handle whatever happens. I may not want to handle it, but I can.

So I will.

Acknowledgements

2011-09-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

Today I finished the thank you notes from the funeral and calling hours. Under the stack of envelopes and little notes was a card which provided etiquette guidelines for writing these notes. Why the card was on the bottom is beyond me, as I found it AFTER I was finished with the notes.

One of the first points on the card was that the thank you notes should be written and sent within two weeks of the funeral. Seriously? Find nice paper with matching envelopes, buy stamps, locate addresses (or at least be cognizant of the fact that the addresses should be in the guest book), compose complete, coherent sentences, and remember to mail the things, within two weeks of the funeral?

Two weeks after the funeral, I was still doing things like walking out of Walgreens to find that I had parked the van eight feet from the curb, with the back end hanging out in traffic. Or I start supper and heat the green beans and make the mashed potatoes, only to discover that I had forgotten to cook the chicken.

So, the thank you notes are done, but they aren't timely. However, I wrote clear messages, addressed the envelopes, remembered the stamps, and actually took the notes to the post office, so I would think that should count for something.

Frustration

2011-09-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

Right now I hate everybody. I'm not weepy or sad, nor do I have PMS.

I just hate everyone.

What kind of God would trust me so much with these three hormone-riddled teens, two of whom are special needs, let alone turn them loose on me when they are grieving at the same time I am.

Once I bought a plaque with a saying by Mother Theresa: "I know God won't give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."

If Mother Theresa were still alive, I would most likely hop a plan to Calcutta, risk leprosy, be detained because I had no luggage and an immediate return ticket, take transportation to Mother Theresa's convent, and smack the living snot out of her. Hard. Then I would come home and burn the plaque.

So don't feel bad if I am angry with you--I'm angry with Mother Theresa and God, too.

You're in good company.

The kindness of strangers

2011-09-20T16:47:00.001-07:00

What has amazed and touched me through this grief journey was the kindness of strangers. One woman who goes to my sister's church made us a meal, including lunchbox treats for the kids. Nita's teachers, Kiki's friends from church group, the kids' music teachers, former girl scout friends, and some of my former employees showed up at the calling hours. And we received sympathy cards and notes from our vet, the bank, the orthodontist, the pharmacy at the corner, and the "girls" (as they called themselves) who cut our hair. My friend Kevin sent a Honeybaked Ham. People brought meals, including the wife of our handyman, neighbors, Kiki's confirmation sponsor, and one dear friend of mine who made a breakfast casserole.

However, one woman apparently read the obituaries and then sent a form letter stating that her church's Bible study could provide me with the answers I've been seeking. (I didn't know that churches answered "What the Hell?" I was offended, as the obituary clearly stated that EG was a man of strong faith and that there was going to be a funeral Mass. However, this woman apparently believed that the Jehovah's Witnesses had the corner on healing.

After a while, once the shock of the whole situation had mostly subsided, I wrote back to this misguided woman, telling her that I understood that she most likely saw this as a mission, but she didn't know where people were in their grief, and she might cause more pain with her letter-writing campaign. I ended the letter by telling her that I was going to have a Mass said for her soul. I figure that she would most likely be somewhat taken aback at that, and maybe it would help her related to how others might feel.

The Mall

2011-09-19T14:20:00.001-07:00

Saturday, Nita had a party at a mall, with every guest getting a gift card so she could shop, followed by cookies and then a movie at the mall theater.

I drove her there, and I waited with her for the other guests to arrive. I remembered EG and I going to the mall one night on a "date," and both of us wondering what all those other couples were doing there, walking around. Probably the same thing we were: just getting out of the house.

Unfortunately, those other couples were again walking around the mall, holding hands, looking happy, and chatting with one another. Yet another gut punch.

Then on Sunday, we went to church early because the two younger kids were serving. For some reason, every kid participating in CYO was in attendance, along with the cheerleaders, coaches, and parents. I sat by myself, and I was okay until the man in front of me put his arm around his wife's shoulders, a simple gesture EG used to make every church service. I started to cry. I asked for so little, yet I was blessed with so much, and for whatever reason, it was taken away. And I had no chance to prepare.

Someone said, "It is all part of God's plan." I don't agree with that. What God would play such a cruel prank on my sister and me after the onslaught of our parents' Alzheimer's disease taking first one and then the other?

It happened. I may never know why. And again I am challenged to rise up and meet my remaining days with grace. So I will.

And, in case this is some part of a great karmic plan, so there.

Forty days and forty nights

2011-09-18T02:55:00.000-07:00

It has been six weeks since EG died, and I spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness of grief, with pain so raw that I struggled to get through the days, let alone function with any semblance of "normal." I felt like that scene in Alien--shock and grief were a monster which burst from my vital organs and took over my entire life.

The photographer at graduation last weekend took a shot of me standing against a wall, waiting for the processional, having a quiet moment after getting my students prepared to process in to the ceremony. My features looked like they were all huddled together in the middle of my face, trying to stay safe. I thought I looked pretty good, but the effects of the stress are there.

After the family drama Friday night, with all its attendant backlash here, I was surprised that I felt different on Saturday. The rawness was gone. I was still sad, especially when I went to the mall to drop Nita off for a birthday party and saw couples holding hands and spending time together or when I started up the VW and drove it to keep it running, but it was like a turned a corner in my grieving. My perspective had shifted somehow.

However, I doubt that alien grief has gotten very far. There's the potential for a sequel, I am sure. But for now, I will enjoy the relative peace.

The upstairs bathroom

2011-09-17T05:03:00.000-07:00

We have a half bathroom upstairs in this house; since the girls' rooms are up there, they used that bathroom, and EG and Rocky and I used the one downstairs.

However, everyone has moved into the downstairs bathroom now. It wasn't bad enough that I had to share with two males--now I have the girls and all their accessories and lotions and hair stuff and accoutrements of femaleness in my bathroom, and meanwhile the cats are enjoying their own personal salle de bains up there. And all I do is clean up after everyone, constantly tidying and wiping and scrubbing and picking up glasses with soaking retainers.

I have always been someone who tried to be nice, thinking that everyone had some pain or issue in their life which caused them to hurt and perhaps explained their behavior. Even with my neighbor, she who is self-centered, judgmental, and just plain obnoxious, I have tried to be fair and pleasant. However, when neighbor told me that "this type of loss is pretty normal for adolescents," something in me snapped, and I told her off so thoroughly and so directly that an employee who was sitting in my office waiting for a review asked if we could reschedule for another time.

Last night, I got an email from a family member who told me that she was hurt that Kiki had asked another family member to not text or call. This person had never been in our lives, through his own choice, and then had been here for the funeral and was so difficult, needy, self-centered, dramatic, and just plain weird and was burning up Kiki's prized cell phone use to meet his own needs; so, she asked for some space. I responded nicely, omitting the parts about Family Member making a scene at the funeral, running out not once, but twice, draping over the box with the ashes and sobbing, and never shutting up, not for two seconds, using Dude or Man every other word, and just generally sucking all the air and energy out of the room. I didn't mention how he made himself the center of attention at the calling hours, to the point where other family members were monitoring him to make sure he stayed appropriate and wondering if he was on something. I also did not mention that I sat in a restaurant with this person, who talked manically about inappropriate things in front of the kids, and popped Xanax just to get through the meal, thinking that it was sad that a bad situation was being made worse by someone focusing on their own needs and not on the kids who had lost not only their dad, but a sense of safety and innocence in one hour on a Saturday afternoon.

I simply said we were all fragile right now, and I was sorry if she could not respect that.

I realized I really didn't care if these people severed the relationship--in fact, it would make our lives so much more pleasant and serene if they did go away, or at least operate from a distance. Kind of like the upstairs bathroom situation--some space would be nice.

A little piece of me, a little piece of you

2011-09-16T06:28:00.000-07:00

We donated EG's organs at the time of his death. It was what he wanted.

However, I didn't consider the outcome. We got a letter from Lifebanc, telling us how the harvested parts of him would be used. Kiki said, "I found that comforting." I had more of a mixed reaction--glad that someone else could benefit, but frustrated that we had to do this because of a loss.

Kiki said, "It's like there will be little bits of Daddy in other people."

Now that parts of him are still going to be walking around on this planet, I find that I look at everyone differently, as EG could be a part of anyone right now. I am more patient, let people pull out in front of me, even if I don't have to, hold doors even if it means a few more seconds of delay, speak kindly to someone who appears to be annoyed or overwhelmed.

It seems the least I can do.

Not in bed yet

2011-09-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

It is 9:24, and I am still up, sitting in the kitchen and drinking a glass of water. This is highly remarkable. Not for the water, which I tend to drink quite often, but for the scheduling.

For the past five weeks, I have been in bed no later than 9:00, and I wake up at 3:00 a.m., fire up the computer, and watch Law and Order reruns on Netflix. EG and I used to call the program "Law and Snorer," as we invariably went to sleep before the end, waking up to the news and heading to bed, having no resolution to the show. I'm watching the episodes again because they can still lull me to sleep. Who would think that murder, sodomy, molestation, and the like would be so restful.

For several seasons, we would have a discussion whenever the show would come on the air with a rerun.

Person A: We've seen this.

Person B: But did we finish it?

Person A: Yes. This is the one where the killer ended up being __________ and so the police _______________.

Person B: But did we see the courtroom part?

Person A: I guess not.

Then, we would watch the show. Sometimes we would finish it, and sometimes we would fall asleep again.

So, I watch Law and Snorer reruns. However, this time, I can finish the program at a later date, so there is no doubt that I'm not missing the outcome.

The Face of Grief

2011-09-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

A quiet, well dressed widow in a serene sanctuary, sniffing delicately into a handkerchief. Um, not.

I somehow thought grief was a quiet, private, delicate suffering. When my dearest friend Bob died, I was prepared for it, so I quietly, most likely numbly, turned inward and processed his passing. Every spring for the next five years, I would be sad around the time of his birthday, but I could function. When my parents died, we were so ready for them to go, that their deaths were a relief--we had pre-grieved for each of them.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for this time. Around here, grieving operates with a lot of barking, name-calling ("You tyrant!" "I am not a tyrant. MO-omm! She called me a tyrant! What is a tyrant, anyway?"), chores which need to be done, bills which need to be paid, homework that needs to be supervised, and the eternal, endless mounds of dog hair. Grief is not quiet and serene--in fact, it is like one of those violent juvenile offenders who just happened to move in to our house. We certainly would never have given permission for Grief to appear here, let alone stay. Yet here Grief is, and along with Grief come some of his friends, Anger, Depression, and Overwhelming Sadness. They steal our belongings, putting them places we never would have; they disrupt our normal flow of operation; they take up a lot of room and make big messes.

And I don't see them leaving any time soon.

How, exactly, do we move on from something like this? How do we incorporate our new reality of that loss? I know, I know, everyone says time will heal us. But I don't want this new reality.

EG and I always teased the kids about how, when we were little old people, we would take turns living with each of them, driving a tiny little car to church at speeds never reaching over 25 miles per hour, and then going to one of the "all you can eat" buffets for Sunday lunch. We'd hold hands and dote on one another with the tenderness sometimes seen in those gray-haired, frail couples.

We were, first and foremost, a married couple. Sometimes you see married people who are actually "married singles," who have their own lives and are married out of convenience or inertia. There are also the married couples who are Mom and Dad first, who don't know what to do when the kids move out. Getting to the "married couple" point took years of work and commitment on both our parts. And now that investment is gone, and I am a single parent of three kids, and in seven years Nita will move on to college, and I will be alone.

I wonder if Grief will still be living here with me.

Yoga for Grief Relief

2011-09-09T02:59:00.001-07:00

I have always been interested in yoga, maybe because I am not, nor have I ever been an athlete, but I like and need to work my body. I carry my tension on my shoulders, in my neck, in my lower back and upper back, and my digestion will act up, too. However, every time I tried to meditate, I would go to sleep. In the past, I have tried periodic yoga tapes specified "for beginners," but inevitably, the teacher will get to a point where he or she will say something like, "Take your leg and put it up over your head . . ." and I will shut down. I figure if I had been meant to put my leg over my head, it would have been attached at my ears.

When I had Rocky at the therapist, I discovered a flyer for "Yoga for Grief Relief," offered through a local hospital. I figure that most people don't have a lot of grief until later in life, so maybe I was safe from the "leg over the head" part. Yesterday I called, and there were still openings, so I signed up.

It turns out there were plenty of openings--I was the only person to show up. The instructor was wonderful, keeping the class light and chatting quietly, so I wasn't intimidated by any overwhelming karmic seriousness. At one point, I started to cry, and she said, "Let out any sounds which your body wants to make." Since I had been resisting the the sounds my body wanted to make that were not a) socially appropriate, and b) not good for an enclosed, dark room, I switched to laughter.

Afterward, I was tired, but not exhausted. I slept well last night without the use of sleep aids for the first time in a long, long time. In fact, I may go back to bed after I put the kids on the bus.

A sign of hope

2011-09-08T03:23:00.000-07:00

Last night, at the end of a long and exhausting day, I slogged out to the chicken coop to put the birds to bed. There, on the floor as I opened the door to go into the house, laying there like a gift, was our first egg. Although it was small and misshapen somewhat, it was like a sign of hope. Something which we knew was coming, which we anticipated, was quietly left for us to discover at the end of a dark day.

Now we need to get the hens to use the nest boxes.

Wednesday's Child Is Full of Woe

2011-09-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

Today was dreary, rainy, and cold. I had the pleasure of training my replacement for part of my job (the part that was originally someone else's, but which I took over for a few months)--I think she will do well, and she is an extraordinarily kind and pleasant woman.

Unfortunately, she talked about her husband incessantly. My husband tells me, my husband says, my husband is my greatest support, my husband wants me to...my husband and I got a second honeymoon to Aruba, my husband, my husband, my husband.

I was not in the right place today to hear about someone else's husband being so great. I think I am looping in selfish right now, and I know that this lady would NEVER have said anything which she thought might have upset me. However, after four hours, I wanted to look at this sweet lady with the nice husband who is so proud of her and scream, "Shut. Up. About. Your. HUSBAND. AL. READ. Y!"

Then, to add to my already bad attitude, I read an essay by a woman who talked about how, in the first year of widowhood, she thought she was in so much pain, but then the fog lifted, and she experienced real pain. Goody. Something to look forward to, by golly.

To cope, I cried, making up for yesterday's tear-free hours, bawling and blubbering, and sobbing until my ears are now clogged up. I took Rocky to the grief counselor, and Nita and I walked around this lovely little prayer garden at the facility, and I read the bricks etched with remembrances of lost loved ones. And I realized--I am sick of loss. My sister said that there is a reason we don't watch Survivor--we appear to be living it. Hey, stay tuned--our little group is huddled here on the island, waiting to see who is next. I never wanted to enter this contest in the first place, but here I am, live and in color.

So, I guess I will have to play the game with finesse.

A first

2011-09-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

Today I made it through my first full day without crying.

Rainy Days and Sundays

2011-09-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Carpenters, I believe, had a song which contained a line about, "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."

For me, it has become rainy Sundays.

One week after EG died, a Sunday morning about midnight, there was a knock at my door. I hadn't been sleeping, so I was awake, reading, or at least pretending to read.

When I asked who it was, my neighbor asked me, "Can you come out here, please?" I opened the door to find him in the front yard, Rocky next to him, and a handgun in Neighbor's hand.

Neighbor informed me that Rocky had been in his daughter's bedroom, and sure enough, our ladder was leaning against their house, the top of the ladder about six or eight feet below the window. I asked if daughter was hurt, and her dad said no. Rocky said, "Mom, I can explain."

I looked over at his bedroom window, which had been disassembled to allow him to get out, with a contraption made of tae kwon do belts to assist him back into the house. I went Mom-ballistic, telling him that I doubted any explanation could be sufficient for that and telling him to get that ladder and put it away and we would Talk About This Later.

Neighbor said, "No. Leave the ladder there."

He called the police, and I called my sister. Rocky went to the porch and sat down, and after telling me he had been going out his window to walk for hours to get tired enough to sleep and had really been sleeping maybe 2 hours a night, and that he got confused about which house was ours, and that he had been afraid of hurting himself, I decided that, no matter what else happened, he needed to go to the hospital for a psych evaluation. Then Rocky went into what I can only describe as a near-catatonic state.

The police officer asked me if Rocky took drugs. I explained that, given his birth mom's history, I doubted it, but my sister and I tossed his room anyway. Over the years, I have gotten skilled at room tossing, but generally it was candy or snacks I was looking for, not drugs. We checked the alcohol cupboard. Blessedly, we found nothing. The police officer then asked my sister if she thought Rocky was faking. She said no, she doubted it.

Gradually, the police were more gentle with us as they learned what had transpired the previous weekend. However, they asked Rocky to make a statement, which he said he could not do at that time, and they Mirandized him. One week to the day after I lose my husband, I am standing there listening to my son being read his rights.

I rode in the ambulance with the same EMTs as the previous week as Rocky was taken to the same ER where his father had been. Several of the nurses came up and spoke to me, remembering us from the prior Saturday and offering comfort. Eventually, a very calm, benign, warm physician's assistant came in to speak to Rocky, basically empathizing with him and giving him permission to feel so horrible and out of control. Within minutes of his visit, Rocky fell asleep and stayed out for four hours.

Early Sunday morning, in a cold rain, Rocky was transported to an adolescent psychiatric hospital. Of course, the ambulance broke down at the central interchange in Cleveland, and Rocky had to be shifted from one vehicle to another. Of course.

I made it home about noon on Sunday, and my sister told the girls to let me sleep a bit. It dumped rain all day, eventually flooding the back yard and overflowing the gutters. I got up in the early afternoon and heated some pasta someone had made, and the girls and I watched Bedtime for Bonzo, staring at the black and white movie rather than the shades of gray outside. I commented yesterday to Nita that this particular day was the worst day of my life. She said it was the second worst of hers--the worst was the day her daddy died. I realized then that I had the gift of the Saturday morning with her dad, running errands, doing mundane things, and discussing how happy we were with one another and our life together.

Yesterday was another gray rainy Sunday. We were going to go to the movies, but at $7.50 for matinee pricing, we decided that wasn't going to happen when we have Netflix here at home. So Rocky watched The Invisible Man and Dracula, Nita had a friend over, and Kiki did homework, while I cleaned up a little and read some of The Help. At the supper table, my strong-willed Nita brought up the scene where the victim succumbed to Dracula, even bending her head to expose her neck for him to bite. That led to a discussion about whether Dracula had such hypnotic powers to draw his victims in or whether these women were simply simpering ninnies.

After a debate about what we would watch that evening, I declared a moratorium on TV, as there was nothing on smarter than any of us. So, the kids sat around and bickered, and I intervened for a couple hours. We were all tremendously relieved when eight o'clock rolled around and we were able to head off to bed without making it look like we were sick.

So, I need to determine just what we can do on the long gray Sunday afternoons which are coming up this winter, something to distract us from the beckoning depression which would be all to easy to succumb to, much like the intense, unblinking stare from Dracula mesmerizes his victims.

Clothing

2011-09-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today I cleaned out EG's dresser and closet. I bagged up the clothes in some wonderful paper bags we got the last time we went to the natural foods markets, and I put them in the car and drove them to Goodwill.

No one came out to the loading area despite me driving over the ding-ding cable several times, so I put all those bags on the dock and drove off without them. It was symbolic somehow, leaving his things behind, the sport coats, the ties, his jeans which never were the right length. The suit he wore when we got married. All were setting there on the concrete as I, weeping, went on to the next thing on my to-do list.

In less than a month, I have gone from being content and really rather happy, to someone who is in huge, banging pain all the time. And most likely, who could BE a huge, banging pain as well. What amazes me is how thoughtless people are: the woman who called and then complained about her husband's lack of consideration for over thirty minutes, the people who call me up and say, "I am worried about you--you aren't yourself." And there are those who keep mentioning that they want to DO something. It seems counter-intuitive to me, verbalizing how they want to lessen my burden and "help," but meanwhile, the pressure becomes a burden in itself.

I am not myself--part of me is gone, and the other part is in shock. I know that this is the new reality and I have to live in it. Everyone has to move on with their lives: we cannot freeze ourselves here in this sadness. Otherwise, I am no different than the clothes on the loading dock, being left behind while life moves on to the next thing.

Good Thing You're Strong

2011-09-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

I swear, if one more person points out to me how strong I am, I will run shrieking into the woods and live with the deer, at least those who weren't scared off by my display of irritation. Yesterday, the guidance counselor at Rocky's school said, "Let me hug you. You are so STRONG."

I don't want to be strong. I want my best friend, my partner, my husband back here. I want this bad dream to be over, and things to go back to how they were. I want someone here to reassure me, to listen to me, to help me through the rough spots.

What do you do when your greatest source of support leaves you?

I don't want to raise these kids alone, but I must. I don't want to figure out how to get the tractor running again, to fix the ice maker, to pay bills online, to sleep alone, to do it all well enough. I don't want to face every day with chores, responsibilities, and duties and not have my own personal needs met.

I don't want to be strong, but what other choice is there? To be a blubbering mess day in and day out, hanging on people and sobbing out my misery? To stay in bed all day? To curl up in a fetal position and moan?

Not that these don't sound like viable options.

No..... I. Must. Go. On. One foot in front of the other, one more hour, one more mile, one more day. One more thing. And I have to remember this is my life, and I can spend the time I have left a slobbering mess, lying in my bedroom and staring at the ceiling, or I can get out there and do something.

I haven't even gotten out of bed this morning yet, but I hear Nita in the kitchen, most likely thinking about eggs for breakfast, Harry the dog is going to need to go outside, the chickens need to be let out of the house, and for my own sake, I need to see what this day will bring.

Open house

2011-09-01T04:20:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first of many firsts. This time, I left the kids at home to go to Kiki's high school open house. I ran into people who had just heard (and who always ask, "Was it sudden?"), which creates the push-pull in me of giving them information vs. not talking about it yet again. I ran into people who hadn't heard and would say things like, "How's EG?" Um, dead? (Which, of course, leads to "was it sudden?") Most likely fine, but I can't say for sure? Oh, about the same as the past three weeks?

Of course, they could ask where he was, and I could honestly say, "Home." I wouldn't need to add that he was in my closet, or that he hadn't come out of the closet for two weeks now.

My sister and I ascribe to a black sense of humor, believing that laughing at something takes away the power and fear associated with it. We laughed during my parents' issues with Alzheimer's disease, and while some people were rather horrified, I think, it helped us cope when my mother announced that she was pregnant and that the baby was racially mixed (I noted to the staff that Lifetime might not be the best choice for a dementia wing).

My friend N's mother makes the absolute best potato salad on the planet. However, like most great cooks, she doesn't measure but prepares food more by instinct. For years, we have all tried replicating the recipe, which we could never get in writing. When N came home for the funeral, she had her mother walk her through the preparation so she could bring the potato salad for a meal. Afterward, N backtracked and measured all the containers and cooking spoons used in preparation to get accurate levels for the ingredients. Between sessions at the calling hours, people sat down for a meal and, as usual, raved about the potato salad. N announced that she finally had obtained the recipe, which is akin to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. I said, "Well, we always said someone would most likely have to die to get this recipe, and poor EG was the one who had to take one for the team."

Fortunately, the people who were there got it and were not horrified.

However, right now, I am not in a place where I can laugh, where even jokes won't reduce the awfulness of what happened. I know I need to move on, that my life will pass me by if I wallow in this grief, and that EG would never, ever, ever want me to curl up in a ball and stay there. However, I need to be careful that I find that balance between grief inertia and completely ignoring my own needs.

Pressure cooker

2011-08-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am like a pressure cooker of grief. I can go along, hour by hour, minute by minute, and attend to the minutiae, but suddenly the pressure is too great, and I will weep for fifteen seconds or so. Then, back to our new version of normal.

My sister has pointed out to me that, after one of these outbursts, I will announce, "I'm all right." She did add that I don't have to be all right, and why would I be?

Yesterday, no one was all right. I spent the entire afternoon and early evening talking to each of the kids individually. Rocky still has his grief buried so very deep that he is alternately running away from it or picking on his sisters to make them visibly hurt. He keeps insisting he is fine.

Kiki finally melted down in geometry class yesterday, much to the distress of her teacher, who couldn't figure out how to help her and eventually sent her to the guidance counselor's office to depressurize. Kiki informed me that she later returned to the guidance office to tell them, "I'm all right."

Nita, on the other hand, is the most honest of all of us. She's angry, and by golly, we all know about it and have experienced her wrath. She's not all right, she wonders if she will ever be all right, and someone is going to pay for this Hell she is being put through.

Last night, I went to the nearby Borders store to use up a couple of gift cards and do some Christmas shopping, not to mention give everyone some space. I found all kinds of things which made me think, "Oh, EG would like that." So much he won't get to do and see here with us. So, who's going to pay for this Hell?

Cartoon person

2011-08-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

I am like one of those cartoon people, the ones who are in human form but who have a huge hole in their torsos, openings so large that we all can see through them to the other side.

EG's passing made that hole in me, but I can't see through it to the other side where he has gone. I can function quite well, despite the hole, I think, except for periodic brain lapses. I drive, I pay bills, I grocery shop, I go to work, I cook meals.

I need to be here, but I want to be there where he is. Or, more accurately, I want him back with us. I want my boring little banal life, with the slightly messy house, constant lawn chores, fighting kids, and dog hair, and I want him to be here to share in all its mundane glory and not have left me to face it all alone.

Quince

2011-08-28T18:08:00.001-07:00

Today was the day Kiki's dad had set up for her fifteen year blessing, the marking of her transition from childhood to adult womanhood. We had agreed that this would not be the full blown quinceanara of the Mexican culture, but a blessing at Mass, followed by a family dinner.

She chose to go through with the simple blessing this morning, despite her loss less than a month ago, and instead of her father, she asked her cousin to walk her up the aisle. I felt her father's presence during the Mass, and his pride and pleasure at this event. And I cried that he wasn't there in person for us, to be a part of this rite of passage, the first of many for which he will not be physically present.

One step

2011-08-28T03:59:00.000-07:00

In one and a half hours, I lost my best friend, my partner in parenting, my great love, my support, my greatest fan, and my lover and companion. All gone in one day. The person who knows me best. The one who loves me unconditionally. I appear like I am handling things well, but every once in a while, I will suddenly get the sucker punch remembrance that he is gone, and my reaction is, "Oh, my god!" Then I experience the "now what?," the panic, the great unfairness of it all once again. Over and over again.

Yesterday I took the kids to the science center because, first, they needed a distraction, and second, the membership was expiring at the end of the month. Each of the kids is handling it differently, Kiki apparently the best, but I wonder if she simply appears to be doing better than the rest of us. Rocky hasn't begun to verbalize this whole thing, and Nita has regressed a little, and is a little less fearless. She is like I am in that she will be blindsided and then cry a bit, and she is cranky, but at least she is showing some reaction.

Anyway, on the way to the science center, we were on the expressway, and I suddenly, for a brief instant, thought I could simply go into the path of a truck and end it for all of us. However, good sense (or at least social expectations) prevailed, and I recollected that we had purchased one of the highest safety ratings vehicles (a lot of good it did EG), and I realized that I could fail in my intent and survive but lose my children, too, and probably end up incarcerated and a paraplegic with no van left to adapt for hand controls. Or, worse yet, become one of those poster children for women driven over the edge (pardon the pun) by the hormonal roller coaster of menopause.

People ask, "How are you doing," but I don't know if they REALLY want to know, to listen to me rail about how much I hate this and how unfair it is, to hear about the pain and loss, or if they really care that I am having trouble breathing, thinking, eating, and making decisions. If it weren't for the kids and their schedules, and the dogs with their immediate needs, I don't know if I could or more accurately, would want to, function.

But I do.

Shortly after EG died, my sister gave me a ring which she purchased for herself. It is a simple silver band, but the shape is a mobius, so the ring draws attention to itself both from the wearer and the observer. The ring has the quote, "A journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step." And so, every day, sometimes every hour or every minute, I take one more step on the journey.

I have only two cheeks

2011-08-22T02:41:00.000-07:00

The story of Rocky's breakdown started with him not sleeping. He then was bailing out of his window to walk up and down the street to make himself tired. Eventually, after a week of this and sleeping about two hours a night, he was so exhausted that, when he came up to the house to climb in his bedroom window, he got our house confused with the neighbors' house. Yes, the handgun people. So, then, since he thought his contraption to get back in the window was missing, he went to get the ladder next to the garage and propped it against the neighbor's house. Since the ladder was closer to the second floor, he managed to maneuver to their upper level, which happened to be their fourteen year old daughter's bedroom window. He reportedly went in, but he went right back out again.

Thinking about this objectively, I think that, if he really did get in, he realized he was in the wrong place and went back out right away. However, the woman next door, who has made it perfectly clear in person, via phone call, and by letter complaints that she doesn't want us there, and since we aren't complying with her wish that we would move, would give me parenting and life directives, has gone off the deep end. I do understand her fears--after all, her husband works every third night, and she is alone in the house with her kids. However, what I don't understand is her continuing hatred.

This woman called me on Thursday and told me there were some things she needed to feel safe. She obviously had gotten my cell phone number from the police report, and I was on the road. When I told her Rocky was scheduled to come home Friday, she about flipped. Trying to take the high road, I asked her what I could do to help her feel safe. I offered to move him to the basement, with one access, and put an alarm on the door. That wasn't enough, I guess, as she called the principal, had her daughter's schedule changed so there was no chance of passing Rocky in the halls, requested that Rocky be let out of class at a time to ensure this won't happen, have Rocky sit at a specific place at the lunch table, and wants a different bus to pick up her daughter. I offered to have Rocky sit up front with his sister, to get off first, and to have Kiki walk the kids home. So now Rocky is ostracized.

I tried to explain to her that his reaction was caused by his grief, and Neighbor, who studied social work in college and who is apparently an expert on mental health issues (in others, as she cannot recognize her own neuroses), said, "This is beyone normal grief." Some day, I would like to check in with her to determine what exactly "normal grief" is. She also refused to acknowledge that Rocky was confused about the houses by lack of sleep, saying, "That's kind of a far stretch." I tell you what, Lady, try sleeping two hours a night, for a week and tell me how you function.

The capper was that I got a call from the psychiatric hospital where Rocky was staying. Neighbor called there to talk to the staff about some concerns she had about him coming home. The therapist said, "She is overstepping some boundaries." Of course, they refused to talk with her. The scary part? Neighbor works in a medical office and should be able to understand privacy laws.

So, after five years, I am done with her. I think she'd only be happy if we'd move away, burn the house down, and cover the property with pesticide so nothing will ever flourish here again. I do understand that this death has most likely brought up issues from her past, and Rocky's alleged invasion has made her aware of how vulnerable she (and the rest of us) just might be. But I am taking care of me now. If there are concerns, she can have her husband bring them over. I have tried to work with her, I have constantly apologized, and I have offered to make restitution for real and imagined offenses. However, she operates under the "no thanks, I am going to be mad" approach to us living here. She professes to be a Christian, but I see absolutely nothing in her behavior which resembles the Jesus Christ I know.

I have only two cheeks, and since she has so little respect, understanding, and regard for anyone other than herself, I have decided she is toxic, and frankly, I am tired of letting her poison my life.

So, now, she doesn't exist. I will talk with her husband, who is trying to be kind and work with us. I will be pleasant to her children. But she can stay over there and fester in her own venom. Shoot, she can put up razor wire and searchlights, for all I care to try to keep us out. She'll have to let me know how that works out for her, but she'll have to do it by mail, as I don't want any more interaction with her.

Numb week

2011-08-18T03:25:00.000-07:00

My tax person, whom I have known most of my life because she and her family went to the same church I attended as a child, lost her husband suddenly when her boys were relatively young.

She told me last week, "This is numb week. Next week will be paperwork week."

Okay, this week is also numb week for me, most likely because Rocky had a breakdown and had to be hospitalized over the weekend, so I still haven't really faced my sadness. About eight last night, I noticed my legs were shaky, I felt weak, and I was having serious anxiety issues. I started to think I was having a heart attack, too.

Then, of course, I couldn't get to sleep last night, and at five thirty this morning, Penny alerted to something, so I got up and turned on the outside lights, most likely to only ward off the doe and her fawns who had come up to the house to graze on my grandmother's hostas.

Today I have a few hours of work, another funeral, Nita's open house at school. What I really want to do is to crawl into bed and just curl up in the fetal position. My sister said, "Luckily, we are at an age where our bladders demand attention in the morning, and by the time we take care of that, we are already up." Between that and the dogs' bladders, and the chickens needing to be let out, I have some momentum at the start of each day.

How long it lasts will be another story.

Aftermath

2011-08-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

In the time after the death, most people have been kind and thoughtful. Rocky had a meltdown of sorts and has been hospitalized, and the girls and I are more or less huddled together like survivors in a horror movie.

I belong to a board of parents of children who have experienced trauma, and one of the moms there posted, saying that she could only partially understand my loss and then offering a series of platitudes, "God doesn't close a door but he opens a window", "everything works out the way God/the universe has it planned", and the absolute worst, "don't sweat the small stuff." She told me to take time for myself and that I should attempt to heal.

I read the post out loud to Nita, who at 11, asked, "Is she an idiot?" Um...

The next day, my sister sent me the following, which she found on the website www.widownet.org. I wish I knew the author so I could give credit.
This is intended for the people around you. Read it when you are ready. It is off of the Widownet bulletin board. I don't know who author is.

To My Friend

I have lost the one I love, the one I cherish. My lover, my best friend, my whole life.
Either you have stumbled across this because you want to find out how to help me,
or I have given this to you.

How I am Feeling
• I am numb. I am in shock. I am emotionally exhausted.
• I am in pain. A horrible, gut-wrenching, intense, unimaginable, and indescribable pain.
• My mind is totally occupied with processing my loss. I am trying to understand what has
happened. I am attempting to make sense of it all. I am trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
• I can't sleep. I want to sleep all day. I am physically exhausted.
• I can't eat. I can't stop eating.
• I can't be bothered cooking. I can't be bothered cleaning. I don't want to go shopping.
• Everything is overwhelming. Small tasks are overwhelming. Small details are overwhelming.
I just don't want to know about it right now.
• Nothing sticks in my mind. I walk out the door without my keys. I forget what I was going to do.
I forget everything except that my love has gone.
• I am going through tidal waves of emotion. One minute I might be laughing, the next I may be
in tears.
• Sometimes I want to talk. Sometimes I need to be alone. Sometimes I need silent company.
Sometimes I need all of these things in the space of 5 minutes.
• Some days I just want to curl up in bed and do nothing. Some days I will keep myself totally
occupied in an attempt to escape.
• Sometimes I will be intense. Sometimes I will be irrational. Sometimes I will be snappy, and
often I will be totally lost in myself.
• Often I may not have a clue as to what I want, but it only takes a moment for me to realize
what I don't want.
• I am hypersensitive and will often be offended by things you say to try and make me feel better.
• I want to wail. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to just sit.
• I have no choice how I react. This is coming from deep inside me and intelligence and self
control have no effect. It comes from the basal self.
• Sometimes it so hard for me to respond to phone calls or letters or emails, but I truly appreciate
that you are doing it, so please don't stop just because I don't respond.
• I will not be fully-functional at work for a long time. In fact, I may never work with the same
intensity again as my perspectives of what is important and what isn't has been changed permanently.
• I still want to laugh. I need to laugh. I may suddenly go quiet mid-laugh, when hit by a sudden
reminder, but I desperately need to continue to laugh.

Emotional Things You Can Do
• Let me talk about him/her. I want to talk about our love. I want to tell you how we met, our last
days, and everything in between. I want to show you his/her picture, tell you how wonderful (s)he was.
• Let me cry. Your acceptance that I need to cry and your permission to allow me to is one of the
best gifts you can give me. Hand me a tissue, and do your best to sit quietly and let me cry.
• Once you have allowed me to open up or cry, please don't change the subject or try to stop me.
I know you feel uncomfortable that I am in pain. Don't. Changing the subject, trying to stop me
crying just makes me hold everything inside, and eats away at me.
• Tell me all your stories of when my love was sweet, courageous, rotten or funny. I need to hear
everything about him/her. If you don't know many, find out some from those who are too scared to
approach me now.
• Let me try to tell you what is going on inside me. I won't succeed, but I need to try. You don't have
to do anything. Just allowing me to do it, and allowing me to feel what I need to feel means so much.
• It is really hard for me to tell other people about my loss. I'm working full time to deal with my
emotions. Trying to deal with someone else's reaction or discomfort is the last thing I need, so if
someone needs to know it would be good if you could explain it to them.

What Not To Do
• Don't tell me you understand how I feel, or that you can imagine the pain I am going through,
unless you have lost the love of your life. Trust me, you can't. If I can't, and I am going through it,
trust me, you can't – your mind will just not let you voluntarily imagine this much pain.
• Don't try to compare my loss to the loss of a parent, or a friend, or an acquaintance or pet, it's
not the same. I understand that all of these things are painful, but it is not the same.
• Don't ask how I'm doing unless you really want to know. I am assuming that as you know, and
as you have asked, you truly want to know.
• Don't try to save me from my feelings or make me feel better. I know you can't bear to see me
in so much pain, but I need to go through all of these feelings whether I want to or not.
• Once you have "given me permission" to talk or cry, please don't try and distract me with small
talk. I know it makes you feel better if I appear happy, but my pain is ever-present and it makes
me feel like you don't care.
• Don't tell me everything will be okay.
• Don't tell me "(s)he's always with you".
• Don't tell me "(s)he's no longer in pain".
• Don't tell me "(s)he's looking down on you from heaven".
• Don't tell me "you're lucky that you had such love, some people don't".
• Don't tell me "(s)he's in a better place".
• Don't however be surprised however if I say these things…
• Don't ever tell me "you must be strong". If ever there's a time I should be permitted to be weak,
this is it. What's more, if I only "need to talk" to you once every few weeks, chances are I have
been strong and right now I really need you to understand that I am exhausted and need help.
• Whatever you do don't tell me "If I were you I'd…." Until you are in the same situation, you
have absolutely no idea what you will do. Your logical brain has absolutely no control.
• Never try telling me "life goes on", or "(s)he wouldn't want you to cry", or "God will never give
you more than you can handle" or any other meaningless platitudes.
• Don't try to solve my "problem". Unless you can bring him/her back, it can't be "solved".
• Don't feel the need to fill in silences. I know the silences are hard for you, but if you can accept
them, you are helping me immensely.
• Please don't try and help me find "closure", or tell me I need to find "closure". Closure is an
obscene word for me right now, as is "moving on"/"move on".

Practical Things You Can Do
I understand that a lot of you find it hard to cope with my emotional pain. Hate to see me
hurting so. If you can't help me emotionally, you can help me practically.
• Don't ask me what you can do to help. I have no idea, I am overwhelmed.
• Bring me some meals that I can just put in the microwave.
• Find out what sort of bread, milk, toilet paper, etc I use and bring me them to me. I have
no idea I need them until I run out, so don't bother asking me if I need anything.
• If you are an organized person offer to manage my bills. Collect the bills as they come in
and let me know when they need to be paid, and make sure I do. Time has no meaning for me
right now. It's only when the cut-off notices come that I realize I need to do something.
• Get copies of photos I don't have from family and friends and put them in an album for me.
It will be one of the most precious gifts you could give me.

Practical Things I Need To Do
• I need to surround myself with beauty.
• Sit in the sun and just soak it up.
• Enjoy nature. Look at the majesty of mountains, and enjoy the miracle of a blade of grass.
• Have a massage.
• Write in a journal.
• Cry when I need to. Tears are a release.
• Not make any big decisions for a while. A big enough life change has already taken place.

Remember
• Grief is an emotional injury that requires time to heal. Not a week, not a month, not even a year,
it takes as long as it takes. It is similar to major physical injury. You may not be able to see the
wounds on the inside, but they are there.
• Real-life is nothing like TV.
• I will not "get over it" - I will learn to live with my loss and incorporate the lessons into my life.
• I will get better over time, but I will never forget him/her. The pain ebbs and flows, but never
goes completely.

Seriously? What the hell?

2011-08-11T06:08:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, while teaching the younger two kids to use the new mower, EG collapsed. I thought he had heat exhaustion and called the rescue squad. They raced him to the hospital, where he died of a heart attack. He was 46.

We had spent the previous day at the fair, and he had gone with me to run errands that morning. Then he had been in the yard with the kids, teaching them to use the self-propelled mower. It was normal day, and that morning, we had been talking about how things were starting to settle down over the past year and how we were just starting to enjoy life again.

Then everything became upside down again.

A friend of mine came over and said that, when she meets God, she is going to say, "Now that we have dealt with my sins and shortcomings, I have a few questions and a few things I'd like to address."

But for now, my only question is "Seriously? What the hell?"

Not a pullet

2011-07-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

Years ago, EG and I went camping. This was BC, before children, as taking a fifteen year old away from her electrical hair appliances and technology is punishment, both for her and for the rest of us who have to hear the editorializing. Throw in a bug-phobic fourteen year old boy who needs to justify his fears ("It's a wolf spider! It's the size of my hand!" Dude, only if your hand is the same size as Barbie's ex-boyfriend Ken's), and tent camping is not going to happen.

Anyway, we were in a crowded state park, and the place was also occupied by really rather tame skunks who swaggered around like Hell's Angels doing security at a rock concert. One of my favorite pastimes was watching the skunk go in to the restroom. When a man would go in, knowing I was nearby, he would be relatively discreet in his approach. However, the exit, while almost immediate, was quite speedy and frantic. It was the high point of the evening's entertainment. After we went to bed on the first night, some campers pulled in. There were at least ten of them, and they spoke only in Spanish. One was on crutches. They piled out of a huge old Crown Victoria and another car, and they set up camp. Pretty soon, the smells of carnitas, cumin, peppers, and onions wafted through the campground. The skunks, thinking Mexican sounded (or smelled) quite tasty, now that you mentioned it, arrived post-haste, and the biggest one parked himself under the Crown Vic.

The campers, by now enjoying their meal, noticed Pepe LePew. They started discussing his presence, using the word "perro." The guy with the crutch was attempting to chase the critter out from under the car, telling his friends that the perro was not cooperating, and deliberately stabbing at it with the pointy end of his durable medical equipment. I thought he was either very dumb or very urban, and I wondered what accident had caused him to have the crutch in the first place. Perhaps a bear attack? EG became distressed, as we had just brought our sleeping bags back from the laundromat, where we washed and dried them after the previous night's downpour. However, he could not think of the word for "skunk" in Spanish, and he didn't want to say something like "stinky kitty" or "small animal armed with napalm." So, instead, he shouted, in Spanish, "Not a dog! Not a dog!"

So, "not a dog" has become our catch phrase for a situation where someone is misinformed and doing something stupid.

Which leads me to my chickens. I bought alleged pullets from the breeder, who said his son knew how to sex chicks. Six pullets came home, but Junior has demonstrated a remarkable fifty percent accuracy. I called the breeder, and he said he'd give me replacement pullets to take the place of the mistake birds. Take a look at the picture below. I have one thing to say: Not a pullet.

Logistic regression

2011-07-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

I have decided to analyze the data for the dissertation by using logistic regression. Usually, when I mention that, people's eyes roll up in their heads, their eyelids flutter, and they appear to be hearing a high-pitched shriek, akin to that only heard by dogs.

Basically, this is defined as the pattern of dots on a graph. For example, if height increases, chances are weight will increase in a child (this is not always true for people as they age, but I digress). If the researcher charts the height and weight of each child but putting a dot on a graph, and examines how closely the dots follow a straight uphill line, this is regression analysis. Logistic regression means that one of the factors on the graph is a yes/no, which is similar to the height/weight.

If people express an interest in the process, and I try to explain it, they tend to edge away from me.

I have to admit, I don't get the full theoretic framework of the analysis process. I thought I'd look on Wikipedia to see if this information would be dumbed down enough for me to grasp the deeper aspects. This is what Wikipedia said:

Logistic regression analyzes binomially distributed data of the form where the numbers of Bernoulli trials ni are known and the probabilities of success pi are unknown. An example of this distribution is the fraction of seeds (pi) that germinate after ni are planted.

The model proposes for each trial i there is a set of explanatory variables that might inform the final probability. These explanatory variables can be thought of as being in a k-dimensional vector Xi and the model then takes the form

...and it gets worse from there. Seriously? How did the Bernoulli effect get in there? Isn't that the explanation of flight, where air goes over a curved wing at a different rate than it goes under, causing lift? Is this a way of telling me to stop obsessing and go on faith?

If I can't trust Wikipedia to make this simple, who can I trust?

I did bring home a basic statistics text from work, and it is helping. However, at what point do I just throw in the proverbial towel and view this process like I do air travel: I have a good basic understanding of the Bernoulli effect, but I don't need to know much in order to take my journey.

Makes sense to me

2011-07-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

I was talking to the older two kids today about when my mother and father bought this house we live in now. My mother and father were looking for a larger house, and the people who lived in this house were looking for a smaller house, so the two families traded homes. For years, I thought this was the way things were done, sort of a residential dating service, if you will.

This reminded me of another perception I had, one about the underground railroad. A house near here had a marker, chained off, which described the property as a former stop on the underground railroad. I somehow determined that there was some form of long-distance subway which existed prior to the Civil War, one which was secret except to a few whites and everyone affiliated with the slave communities.

Which leads me to ponder just how much now I think I understand, how much makes sense to me, but I really, truly don't get.

The dissertation

2011-07-06T06:25:00.001-07:00

I got curious today as to why the document produced as a culmination of the doctoral studies is called a "dissertation."

According to m-w.com, a dissertation is an "extended usually written treatment of a subject."

Seriously? The lack of comma usage notwithstanding, that is an extreme understatement. Where is the information about blood, sweat, toil, and tears? What about overwhelming exhaustion? Burnout?

I got an email from one of my classmates in the Ph.D. program. She was wondering if she should take a term off. It turns out that several people have decided the same thing. They are all overwhelmed.

I feel the same, but doggone it, I am going to finish this, and my timeline is for the end of the year. I want it over with, but I also want to finish this once and for all. Yes, I am exhausted--no, weary. Yes, I cry every other day or so because I am so tired and frustrated. No, I don't have a whole lot of fun, and I have a huge stack of books which I will be reading after I finish up. Every day is pretty much a blur. I hear about women who work and come home to relax and be with their families, and I think, "What am I, nuts?"

I remember when I was in middle school. My mother had never finished high school, and she decided that she was going back for her equivalency diploma. For months, she drove to Cleveland (which I know was a bit nerve-wracking for her), and she studied for the test at home. The night she took the test, she called from a pay phone to tell me she had passed and she was bringing ice cream home to celebrate. She was proud of her accomplishments and her ability to persevere.

I guess that event drives me to finish this degree. So here I go. I'm off to open the revisions my advisor made to my chapters.

Onward.

Martha Polo

2011-06-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

Somehow female chickens just suggest old-fashioned names. I mean what someone tactlessly referred to as "old lady" names: Bessie, Agnes, and Harriet, for example.

Our girls are named Edith (she just looked like an Edith), Nona, Lois, and Gladys. This is the bird who will stand and stare you in the eye and deliver a squawking monologue. She somehow named herself--EG calls our nosy, pushy neighbor "Gladys Kravitz," and the bird seems to have much the same personality. She even will run to the door of the coop and spy on us to see just what we are up to.

Anyway, one of the girls is always industriously scratching, looking for bugs, pecking at new things, and busily investigating in a wonderful chicken way. She aslo doesn't kowtow to Dr. M, the rooster. I named her Martha, or rather, she named herself, after the biblical Martha, who didn't take time to sit at the feet of Jesus, but instead did all the work and then complained about it.

I tend to be a bit of a Martha myself.

What I have started doing lately is letting the chickens out of their run if I am home and out in the yard. Martha has discovered the joys of the garden and all its insects, so that is always her first destination, and lately she has graciously refused all attempts to get her to return to the run when it is time. This morning, Martha the Explorer zipped out of the run as soon as I opened the gate and took off into the garden. Apparently, she was in the mood for breakfast out, followed by some aerobics for the both of us as I attempted to chase her back inside.

I guess I can't really blame her.

Chuckita

2011-06-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

Last night Nita, who hadn't taken her medication for hyperactivity yet again, was playing with her baby doll, which had been excavated when Nita and her dad cleaned her room. Let me add that half my dishes were in there, along with much of my knitting yarn, two pairs of scissors, some rocks, many many food wrappers, and an abundance of schoolwork, only some of which belonged to the owner of the room.

Anyway, Rocky bumped the baby doll, and Nita insisted that Rocky apologize to the doll. Rocky refused, saying that it was only a doll. Nita was in a snit, accusing Rocky of child abuse and told Rocky that the doll was going to come downstairs in the night and get even. Rocky stated this was not possible, but I mentioned Chucky, describing Chucky's midnight roving and mayhem.

Rocky told me this morning he didn't go to sleep until after three this morning, but he said it was because his chin itched and had nothing to do with the threat of the baby doll coming down for him.

Whippet Thin

2011-06-24T04:34:00.000-07:00

I just read an article describing Cameron Diaz in this manner. Please note: This is a term which will never be used to describe me. I am not nor ever will be a sight hound: whippet, greyhound, Saluki. Nope. I am not lean, by any stretch of the imagination. I will not run long distances, unless I am chased by a bear, and let me add that, at some point, I will determine that the fate at the jaws of Ursa has to be much better than all that exertion.

I have been sitting here, trying to determine what breed of dog I would be. I am definitely not a poodle. I would hate to think that I was a bulldog. Not that bowlegged and don't have an underbite. Not a Saint Bernard. I am more compact. Puggle? No, don't think so. Not quite so appealing. What I would like to be is a Collie, all blonde hair and gorgeous face. Or maybe a golden retriever, but I am not that happy all the time. I guess I am a chocolate Lab, much like my beloved Harry here, stocky and stubby, lover of food, and athletic only when necessary, making his own rules about fetch. In fact, we say he is not a Labrador Retriever, but a Labrador Taker-Awayer.

I have finally made a career decision

2011-06-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

It is kind of ironic after all the construction I have done lately, but I have finally chosen a career.

I want to blow things up. As in those people who come in, set the explosives, and then cause a building to implode. As in destroy. Planned destruction.

Let's face it...if I goof and the building doesn't blow up exactly right, I can say, "Hey, you were blowing it up ANYWAY." Talk about a good margin of error. And right now I could use some margin of error.

While it may not be as rewarding as a wrecking ball, but I think using demolition charges might be rewarding enough.

Pics of peeps and their coop

2011-06-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally finished the bulk of the coop. I still have to bury the hardware cloth around the building, but the perimeter is finished. I need to stain the guillotine door. I need to build a little ladder for the girls and Dr. M to get inside. And I need to figure out a lock and latch for the gate. I need to finish laying the floor and build a divider indoors. But for now, the gang can go in and out, and I know they are relatively safe when we are not home.

Here are a couple of the chickens. That is Dr. M, the rooster, in the foreground, and my favorite hen, Martha, with him. Martha is named biblically--she is the one who is eternally working, scratching, digging, and who doesn't sit at the master's feet. In fact, this Martha more or less keeps the master in line. In the background are Edith's chubby chicken thighs. I don't know, but these hens (actually, they are still pullets), because of their appearance, call for old fashioned names. So far, we have Gladys (she talks a lot), Edith, and Martha. The two new girls we picked up yesterday don't have names yet. More on them later.

Gender Identity Issues

2011-06-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

Wow. I've been gone a long time--nearly a month.

I have been putting up a six-foot fence and configuring a chicken fortress for the girls. I'll post pictures soon--it is a good thing that chickens are not architecturally critical. If you consider that I could use a hammer, pliers, and screwdriver, and knew the difference between a flat head and Phillips screwdriver, and that was all, it is pretty remarkable that the fence is up.

And has stayed up so far.

Second, I have been writing the dissertation, which is a difficult task. I can respect that; if writing this thing was easy, there would be more Ph.D.s out there.

And, finally, three of the pullets are not girls after all, but are boys. So, we will keep one, but the other two have to go back to the breeded. Of course, we named them. One of the boys, Ollie, appears to have Houdini blood in him. That chicken will be inside the chicken tractor one second and outside it the next, with no feather out of place.

I'll miss him, but as much as he gets out, he would most likely be hurt or lost, so better I lose him to someone else's dinner plate than to lost him to a raccoon's midnight cravings for extra crispy.

I am special

2011-05-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

This morning, a little after nine on a Sunday morning, the land line rang. Since the land line is usually for one of the kids, I have adopted a somewhat "now what?" attitude when it rings outside of normal kid hours.

The caller was a recorded female voice which identified herself rather chirpily as Lisa, and informed me in gleeful, compelling tones which would make any pep rally participant proud, "Thank you for participating in our recent survey, and we wanted to tell you that you are ABOVE AVERAGE."

Well, first of all, if we did participate in a survey, it was not at all a serious response, as we are known to answer the phone on telemarketers and then call the rest of the family into the room while we have some fun. Our most recent sport has been with some telemarketing company overseas which has irritated us at all hours with their calls.

"Hello?" we will say.

"Hello," the caller will reply in a thick accent and then take off at warp speed to get the spiel in before he or she is interrupted. "This is Elvira, and I am calling for General Electric Mortgage Corporation, andwearepleasedtoinformyouthat youhavebeenchosentoparticpateinasurveyabout . . . ." Pausing for a quick breath, the caller asks the first question.

We pause, timing it exactly right. "Hello?"

"Hello," the caller is caught off guard, but only for a moment. "This is Elvira, and I am calling for General Electric Mortgage Corporation, andwearepleasedtoinformyouthatyouhavebeenchosentoparticpateinasurveyabout . . . ." Again, the first question.

"Hello?" we say again.

This is the part where we find out just how well trained the caller is. A well-trained and compliant telemarketer will follow the script, NO MATTER WHAT, launching into a spiel for the third time. A free thinker, and perhaps candidate for management training, will say, "Hello?"

"Hello?"

"Can you hear me?" the caller will ask. "Hello!" we will reply, as if we did hear.

Off again with the script. This next part now requires flawless timing. We wait for several beats, and then say, rather tentatively, "Hello?"

One of several things will happen at this point. The caller, wimpy in nature, will hang up on us. The caller who has more moxie will get the supervisor, which allows us to ramp up our performance. And the third type of caller will start discussing our bad connection, and reason for the phone issue (or our mental health issue) with co-workers nearby.

That is when we jump in again. "Hello!" we will say. "Hello?" Jolted back to reality, the caller will say, "Can you hear me?"

"Yes! Hello!" And off they go, racing through the entire spiel. Of course, when the first question comes up, they should see what will come next, but they rarely do.

Anyway, the only reason I can think of that we were chosen for "above average" status was that we outsmarted the call center employee and supervisor. However, Lisa encouraged me to press 1 to talk to a human and get a $100 WalMart gift card or 3 to be removed. While I was tempted to press 1, I opted for 3 instead.

Mother's Day Debriefing

2011-05-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

The one thing I asked for this past Mother's Day was that A) no one would fight and B) that I would not, for just once in my life, not have to nag or threaten anyone into doing their chores.

And, just like that horse I always wanted so desperately as a kid, I didn't get my wish. In fact, Nita got sent to bed without supper for her horrible attitude, and no chores got done until I announced that only those who did their chores would eat the evening meal, which I prepared, as the dog ended up eating the lunch which Kiki made and then left unattended on the table as she wandered away. At least the dog hit paydirt on Mother's Day.

So, next year, I will ask for what I truly NEED--everyone to go away for the day. I need time to remember that I was someone before I was the cook, cleaner, laundress, mediator, and disciplinarian of dogs and kids. I need to find that still place inside me, the room which I close off and protect from all the day-to-day chaos. And I need to go to my still place and reflect on the choices I made that got me to the place where I am. It will be only then that I will be able to welcome them back and be glad that I am the mother they honor on only one day in May.

Thought for the day

2011-05-01T16:53:00.001-07:00

Someone recently said, "I can't remember a time when I wasn't at least a little bit tired."

I concur.

Growing

2011-04-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

The girls are growing. Now we have half-grown birds in a dog crate in the basement. While the girls are still small enough to all fit in there, the face remains that we have half-grown CHICKENS in our basement.

The other day, I was on craigslist, and I saw a piece of furniture called a "chicken hutch." Apparently, this item allows the homemaker to keep a chicken in the house. And it also provides storage.

For what it's worth, I bypassed on the hutch. After a month of chickens in the basement, I am ready for the girls to move out to their new digs.

Should I blow or should I go?

2011-04-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

Nita has entered her annual spring allergy phase. This is always a tense time for me, as she does not like to blow her nose.

Today I was, ahem, discussing this issue with her, and I informed her that she was going to end up in the emergency room if she didn't start blowing her nose. She replied, "But I like going there--they give me popsicles."

I looked sharply at her. She laughed, pleased at her joke, and went off to dramatically blow her nose.

Nita was the one who was evaluated by the school and given an IQ of below 70. For her to joke is such a blessing, as joking requires an awareness of what is absurd, which requires an awareness of what is "normal." That, of course, requires a certain mental acuity.

While I never had any doubt that Nita had mental acuity, the school psychologist apparently did. (Of course, I suspected at the time that the school psychologist lacked a certain mental acuity and I also suspect that Nita noticed that lack in the psychologist herself, which is why she refused to do the evaluation to her best ability.) Anyway, Nita is funny, both intentionally and unintentionally.

Her latest foible was in the car. We were driving past some businesses, including a post office, a nursing home, a restaurant, a Tastee-Freeze, and Jardine's Funeral Home. Nita asked, "Mom, why don't we ever buy furniture there?"

"Where," I asked.

"Back there," she replied. "At the furniture store."

"What furniture store?"

"The one with the J."

"Jardine's?" I asked. She replied yes. "Honey, Jardine's is a funeral home."

"Oh," she said. "It is?" And after a second, she added. "I guess we wouldn't want the type of furniture they sold there."

Peeps

2011-03-27T09:25:00.001-07:00

I cannot believe I haven't posted here in nearly two months. I have been attending to adding a second department to my supervision at work (suffice it to say that the new department lost their supervisor because of indiscrepancies in management, and there is now a situation where those who were not supervised are now supervised). The kids are having a lot of musical performances and school activities. I have been trying to write on the dissertation. I have been cleaning the house and trying to get things organized. And, we got chickens.

I have wanted chickens for a long time, and once I decided on the breed (Buckeyes, a heritage breed developed in Ohio), I searched for a person who bred the birds. Last weekend, after some preparation of EG's old music studio, we brought the babies home. Six girls--allegedly. From what I understand, chickens can be sexed at hatching, and then when they start to feather. There is a video on youtube which will show you how--please note that I did not avail myself of this opportunity yet.

Anyway, we already exist in zones in this house. The cats live upstairs with the girls (which, now that I think about it, may explain their apparent neuroses). The dogs live on the main level, except for Nash, who exists only in the eastern half. He is constantly tied because he is convinced that we have an infestation of cats which he could remedy in one assault. The cats come down at night while Nash is locked in the boy's room and Penny is crated. The rabbits live in the living room, and Nash is crated while we are out of the house because of his apparent interest in removing them from the house.

Of course, the Mom in me became concerned about the peeps being out behind the garage in the barn, so I opted to bring them to the basement. So we have a third tier in the animal kingdom--chick zone, aka "The Basement." Now everyone who goes downstairs has to remember to shut the door so the cats (if they get past Nash) don't get to the peeps.

I am enjoying watching the peeps--Buckeyes feather fast, apparently, as the girls already have wing feathers and are growing tail feathers. They have personality and are entertaining to watch and are remarkably low maintenance. However, as they grow, I can see that they will have to go out to the barn. For their sake as well as mine.

Decorator Icing

2011-02-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Recently, most likely as a stalling tactic to prevent me from doing work on the dissertation and avoidance of the hideousness of network television, I have started reading cooking blogs.

I visit one blog, written by a young woman who is apparently a lovely person who adores cooking--the blog intro has heart shaped cookies with the name of the blog emblazoned on them in decorator's frosting. The effect is quite charming, and I am impressed that anyone would, first, have the inclination to do such a thing and, second, be willing to spend the time. I guess that I am the type of person who gets in bed every night and grimly thinks, "Okay, one more day closer to death: exactly what did I accomplish today that was worthwhile?" Not to be cranky, but putting "Menopausal Mom" in icing on cookies would not make the top ten, not to mention the top 100 million, things I would want to have accomplished that day. Decorator icing is just that--something which is of little substance and is not intended to last.

Not that I mean to criticize. Nope, I won't go there. I do, after all, read the blog. And much like someone once said, I read the recipes and think, "Well, that's not going to happen." I do like to cook, but I don't see spending an inordinate amount of time on a meal which will be inhaled in ten minutes and will be referred to generically as "chicken" by Nita. I mean, when I'm gone, is anyone going to say, "Wow, could she bake." Or, worse, "What a great little housekeeper." Pardon me, but what a way to be remembered. I would rather have someone say something like, "Wow, was she fun." Especially if the someone was a twenty-something male, but I again digress. Where was I? Oh, yes. . . Anyway, I figure the house will be here long after I'm gone, so let someone else clean it then. I, on the other hand, would prefer to be someone who made a difference on the world, someone who brought about change, who showed kindness, who helped others, and who raised children who would carry on the tradition.

Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Over there on the right is a photo of my Pet Partner, Bob the Bunny. Bob and I have been visiting hospice patients for a couple years now.

I have recently found out from Bob's Facebook page that this is The Year of the Rabbit. Bob would think it was about time, as this is the first Year of the Rabbit in his short lifetime. From what I understand, this year is supposed to be quiet after the "ferocious" Year of the Tiger.

Well, so far, if this is quiet, I would hate to see ferocious.

Groundhog Day

2011-02-02T12:20:00.001-08:00

I simply cannot believe that the last time I blogged, it was Christmas. The last six weeks or so have been a blur--someone at work quit, and I took over her responsibilities, including a fractured department. The kids need to be run here and there. It has been The Money Pit with the rental house. Nita was scheduled to go on a four-day campout with her class, so we had all the attendant leaving home drama, only to have the trip postponed; then we had leaving home drama intensified, as if Nita got better at it with practice. EG's car died on the way to work. One of the bunnies had to have surgery. And I have been trying to hold on by my fingernails.

One good thing happened during all this. For the last twelve years or so, Rocky has lied, more or less on general principles, but mostly to get out of trouble. The discussion then becomes long, involved, convoluted, and frustrating for both of us, as he tries to remember what he has said, and I try to trip him up. He always gets punished twice for lying if I can catch him up and get him to admit to lying, which is usually. Last week, I sat him down and asked him something, and I said, as usual, "Now think about whether you want to lie or tell the truth." For whatever reason, he decided to tell the truth straight out. I don't know who was more dumfounded--me, or him. However, I simply said, "Okay. Your punishment is yada yada yada." He said, "Wow. That was a whole lot easier than lying."

I looked for the aurora borealis or angels singing over the house. The next time he got in trouble for doing something wrong, he said, "I should have lied."

I guess we haven't made that much progress.

So here it is February already. We have our own resident groundhog here, by the name of Crusty, as he doesn't back down from a meeting with any of us. With the weather we have been having, I am sure poor ol' Crusty wasn't able to reach his egress to check for his shadow this morning. Consequently, I have no clue if we are going to have six more weeks of this. Hopefully not.

CSI: Christmas Scene Investigator

2010-12-25T07:21:00.000-08:00

We had a peaceful Christmas morning, with a nut roll for breakfast, and our simple gifts to one another. EG gave me a copy of The Big Sleep, as I had mentioned I had never seen it and I love film noir. My cousins Ida and Sara gave Rocky The Book of Gross Stuff. Kiki gave Nita the exact Barbie doll she wanted. Kiki got the digital camera she asked for. And Rocky gave me a gift which made me laugh--bunny slippers.

For those of you who know me and our situation, you know that I have told Rocky from the gitgo that, if I had to go to the school for any disciplinary reasons, I was going in hair curlers, my bathrobe, and bunny slippers. Whenever Rocky starts acting goofy, his social studies teacher has mentioned to him, "I am looking forward to seeing your mom's bunny slippers." For Rocky to see the humor in the situation and give me bunny slippers as a gift tells me just how far he has come in his healing.

On a different note, we have been finding blood spatter on the hall and kitchen walls all week. Initially, I found myself thinking we had some kind of Amityville horror thing going on, as I was scrubbing the walls three or four times a day. I spent two days studying the direction of the blood spatter, the quantity, and the frequency, as well as what was going on during the time we found the spatter. We keep Nash tied in that area, so we next suspected that he was the culprit. So after the gift-giving this morning, I gave Nash a thorough vet exam, starting with cavity swabs, checking his ears, and checking his teeth. Nothing, except the realization that he needs a dental cleaning and Nash's dismay at this turn of events on a family holiday--can't blame the guy for that. As EG held on to his collar, Nash flipped over on his back, and EG rubbed his tummy. It was then that I realized that there was a wound on the very tip of his tail (I am, of course, referring to Nash and not EG), so when he wagged, he whacked the tail on the walls.

So I shaved the area, medicated the wound, and then taped the last three inches of the tail. Kiki said, "Nashie looks like "scorpion dog." And he does.

Peace on Earth

2010-12-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

For years, Christmas was a time of desperation and despair. Rocky came to us at two, a product of the foster care system, with issues which are difficult for "normal" families to contemplate. The time between Halloween and New Year's eve were always stressful and chaotic for him, and consequently for us, apparently an anniversary time for him. His acting out included urination throughout the house, manic behavior, manipulation, constant battles for control, breaking all his own gifts within hours of unwrapping them, stealing other family members' gifts, including breaking some of them, too, and knee-jerk lying. We tried what we could to help him through it, eventually, though, giving up in despair and suffering it out as best we could. Since his memories of the time before us were pre-verbal, we may never know for sure what happened to him to cause that reaction every year during the holidays. I talked to him earlier this week about the previous years, and he gave me some insight about his thoughts and feelings during those earlier times, a pretty tough job for a kid who could earn a scholarship to the Gary Cooper School of Communication.

This year, a year in which he has shot up tremendously in height and has broadened through the shoulders, a year in which his voiced deepened, apparently overnight, he has grown into peace, too. He focused on others as he planned and bought Christmas gifts for the whole family, me included for the first time this year, and is now waiting excitedly for Wednesday's family "wrap party" to wrap them all.

What he doesn't realize is that he gave me my gift early this year--creating little chaos, gaining perspective, and even teasing me back about his dirty socks. He gave me peace in the house and hope that he will be able to experience joy every holiday season.

All I Want For Christmas

2010-12-05T04:06:00.000-08:00

I have finally decided what I want for Christmas this year, something which I will find useful, something that will give me pleasure, and something which I can use for home and work.

No chia pets this year. No thanks to a clapper. Never mind crockpots, foot massagers, facial steamers, or convection ovens. This year, I want a taser.

First, I am getting to be an age where my children can outrun me. Imagine someone smarting off and then darting toward the door. I can let them run outside, then pull the taser, and "Whaugghk!" Stopping power at a distance. Not only is the little booger immobilized, he or she is compliant. At least until next time. And since I will be needing time to familiarize myself with my gift, misbehavior won't bother me as much: if the kids comply, I get peace. If they don't, I get target practice.

Second, just having this device will persuade others to give me what I want. I'm sorry? You can't remember to in your weekly report on time? Maybe I can persuade you (waving the device). No? Fine. (BzzzZZZZZZzzzt.) What's that? Why, certainly you may turn everything in early for the rest of your life. No problem. But only if you really want to. . . . No, I don't have a receipt, but the store's website says you will give me a gift card if I don't have a receipt. Oh, I see...THIS store's policy is that no one gets a refund ever. Perhaps you can make an exception? Hmmmm???? No? (BzzzZZZZZZAARRttt.) Ah, I thought so. Thanks so much. No, cash is fine. While I can't understand you right now, I'll assume that is an apology for your snotty attitude with me previously. Now, just let me pull these little prong thingies out of your tattoo there and I'll be on my way.

I have been looking online, comparison shopping if you will. Here's an interesting fact: tasers come in designer colors, and one site is having a special holiday inventory reduction sale.

So, for those of you who have that hard-to-buy-for person on your shopping list, there you go. Tasers for everyone. It might be the first step toward world peace.

Mayhem

2010-12-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Friday morning, we got up to find that the phone lines were down. It was apparently the jack in the basement that was defective, causing the lines to cut out. Then we had no internet. Then the dryer door would not shut--I called EG on his way to work to enlighten him as to the chaos and share the joy.

Unfortunately for poor Rocky, he got in the car in the midst of my stress and asked, "Why is my window open?" I blew a gasket, thinking it was one more thing which was going wrong.

After most of the morning was spent fussing with the phone, talking to our phone company (at least our phone company's computer), checking various things, and listening to EG swear at the dryer, we ran out to the store for a new phone jack. I was in an old hoodie and jeans, my hair clean but air dryed and not styled, and the only concession to make-up a swipe of mascara.

As we were racing through the store, I saw the new wife of someone I know, someone who is a professional and financially well off. His wife's hair was long and sleek, the ends waved perfectly, her make-up magazine perfect; she was wearing a lovely suede coat, perfect fitting jeans, and Ugg boots. She was pushing her cart, the contents neatly arranged, gracefully through the store. We weaved around her and dashed through the cash register, then back out to the parking lot.

I was musing about this woman, who stayed home to take care of her new husband and her children, a woman who apparently had time while they were at work and school to dress nicely and do her hair and make-up before running out to do a little Christmas shopping; she cared for her new husband, living in their gorgeous house, making a home for him. I told EG how her husband told me he had introduced her to the opera and classical music. I asked EG, as I mushed my cluttery mini-van back home to install a new phone jack, if he would be interested in having a wife whose focus would be to make a lovely and serene home for him, someone for whom he could be a Henry Higgins, someone whom he could tutor in the finer things in life. He said, "No. What could I talk to her about?"

I guess listening to him cuss at an appliance is a small price to pay for that attitude.

We'll Blame Danny

2010-12-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

Kiki came home from school one day to report that two of her classmates were talking on the back of the bus, plotting some kind of mischief. One said to the other, "Remember, no matter what happens, we blame Danny."

Unfortunately, Danny has now moved into my house. When something happens, someone says, "Danny did it"; no matter how hard I try, I have yet to catch the little miscreant. Danny stashed a half-eaten granola bar behind the basement freezer, Danny dirtied the back door, Danny ate the leftover chicken and rice casserole I had earmarked for supper the other night.

I wish he'd move out.

Yeehah Holiday

2010-11-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

This year, for the first time in years, I cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving. We had decided to have a bird, and EG gave the go ahead to take out a second mortgage on the house and purchase an all natural, free-range bird.

The turkey, when done, was gorgeous, perfectly golden brown, a triumph of poultry preparation. Martha Stewart would have been impressed--Kiki even took a picture. It looked just like turkey in the the Normal, um, Norman Rockwell painting.

My nephew and his delightful girlfriend joined us, and my two cousins called after the meal, asking to stop by, and of course we welcomed them, as we don't see them often enough. We played catch up about all the relatives, including the cousin who had moved in with his girlfriend--and her husband. And then there was the other cousin whose girlfriend violated parole and spent the holiday incarcerated, but she wasn't alone, as her sister-in-law and her friend were also there. When another family member took the girlfriend's children to their biological father's house for their family's meal, the father was waiting for them in the driveway so he could take them on a run to the drive-thru with his brothers. The unthinkable had happened: they had run out of beer.

Nephew's girlfriend impressed me. She did not leap out of her chair and run screaming out of the house, nor did she become any less gracious as the visit progressed. I guess later, though, my nephew clarified the whole thing for her. "That branch of the family," he told her, "has their own two hour special episode of Cops."

Well, let's just say they aren't very Norman Rockwell.

Is it just me?

2010-10-23T07:10:00.001-07:00

Or does anyone else have days like this?

This morning I got up at 6:45, which is sleeping in to the point of decadence. We let the dogs out, made coffee, and got up my son, who is 13. He hasn't been doing his math homework this week, so we parked him at the kitchen table wtih his algebra book and told him he had to do 12 problems before breakfast. He stared at his reflection in the window for 20 minutes, apparently having discussions with girls in his head, judging by his side glances and smiles. Kiki, who is 14, got up and staggered to the table, making herself a bowl of cereal. Rocky whizzed through the math problems and asked, "Can I eat now?" I looked at the problems. All were incorrect--apparently, he wrote just anything so he could be done. I sent him back to the book. He stared at his reflection some more.

Kiki brought the squirt bottle which we use to chase the cats off the counter to me and said, "It has a leak." I said, "Empty it into the sink and throw it away." She put it on the counter, where is oozed all over the newspapers stacked there, sticking them to the countertop. Rocky brought the book to me. He had retraced all the original incorrect answers. I threw the paper out, gave him a fresh sheet, and sent him back to the table, where he dug his pencil into the cover of his math book.

The dog saw the cat, chased him under the sofa, got her shoulders wedged behind a sofa leg, and yapped stupidly. Nita took the now empty squirt bottle, refilled it, squirted the cat so he went upstairs, untangled the dog, and set the bottle in the middle of the kitchen table, where it leaked all over the wood top, soaked my cell phone, and dripped onto the floor. Rocky sat there and clinically watched the water soak his math paper, never saying a word. He then carved some answers into the soggy paper. The dog lapped the water off the floor. I told Rocky, "Get me a towel." He ran around until he found a roll of paper towels which the dog had shredded sometime during the night, gathered up the little pieces, and flung them all over the table. "A towel," I repeated. "A TOWEL!" He handed me my phone. "Your cell phone????"

"Go in the bathroom and get a towel," I said slowly, through clenched teeth. Rocky opened the door. The dog ran in and drank out of the toilet. "Yuk," so said, and chased the dog back out, shutting the door, so grossed out that he, of course, didn't bring a towel. Kiki said, "You forgot the towel."

"What?" Rocky asked. Nita interjected, "You forgot the towel. Are you a dummy?"

"Don't call each other 'dummy'," I said.

Rocky said, "Mind your own business."

Nita started sobbing. "Leave me alone. Everyone hates me; I want a new family."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Kiki said. "I don't see why you're talking about this now. We haven't liked you for a long time." Nita wailed dramatically. I sent both girls to sit at the table.

I found a towel on my own, mopped up the mess and sat back down to cold coffee. Rocky handed me the math paper and said, "I got them all right this time, but the paper is wet, so you can't tell."

"Nice try," I told him. I took a huge gulp of the cold coffee. Nita watched me. I had a second gulp.

Nita said, "The dog drank out of your cup when you were cleaning up the table." Ack. I turned around to find Penny standing at my shoulder, wagging happily, apparently thinking the next step would be a trip to Starbucks. "Take her out and tie her so I don't kill her, please," I said to Kiki.

"Why me," she hollered. "I didn't ask to be the oldest. You just had me to take care of the younger two. And you got the dog to torture me. It's not fair. Slavery is illegal, you know."

I said, "That's right. Once we had the other two, we went back and had you so you could take care of them." She missed the sarcasm and dragged the dog out the door, sniffing about the injustice of our employment system here, muttering about socialism and Lenin. Once outside, the dog changed her mind and raced to come back in, knocking Kiki into the wall of the porch. "Penny, you idiot," Kiki shrieked.

By then, I had been up for 45 minutes. Is it just me? Do the rest of you have nice serene lives like I imagine and somehow my coping skills are horribly limited? In the crapshoot of life, did I get the more challenging children and pets? Anybody?

Grief revisited

2010-09-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

The anniversary of the 9/11 incident has brought up a lot of thoughts in my mind and forced me to reflect once again on grief. This historical incident happened well before our personal issues of Alzheimer's, dementia, and cancer, a time when the kids were healing and settling in to a routine, when we had friends and support in place. Then the proverbial rug was yanked out from under us.

Despite the stressors we had, I know that our situation was not as bad as some people have experienced. I am constantly humbled by those who deal with what would apparently be insurmountable grief: for example, the accident which caused this family to lose two children, and the life of a third teenager to be affected forever.

The mother of these two lost children has exhibited a tremendous amount of grace during this crisis. What she experienced is practically incomprehensible to me. Pick any day, any school morning, with its stresses, its chaos, and its assumption of normalcy, and then throw in a world-shattering event of huge loss and add in having to make decisions with great immediacy, such as donating your child's organs. How does anyone recover from something like this?

My children are getting to the age where I will let them play outside unsupervised, where I will leave them at the bus stop without obsessing if they will be safe. This perception of safety is simply that--a perception, an illusion. At any time things can change forever.

Just two beers, officer

2010-09-05T06:11:00.000-07:00

I have a kid who lies. The joke here (if you care to call it a joke) is that the way to tell if he is lying is to check to see if his lips are moving.

No offense to the men out there, but 13 year old boys are a world unto themselves, full of illogic, preoccupation, and basic stupidity, as well as twice the grocery bill of any other member of the family. Add to that the knee-jerk lying, the lack of thought processing, and general dopiness, and I find it hard to cope. However, the lying is the worst thing--I don't know if it is related to the attachment disorder, a residual effect left over from the trauma, or general teenage defiance.

I mean, last week Kiki asked if she and her friend could go to the library after school. The high school, rec center, library, and middle school, along with the two athletic fields and performing arts center, are all in a complex, so I gave her permission to walk to the library after school to do her homework, talk to her friends, or check out the boys. Twenty minutes after she arrived at the library, Kiki called and told me she was going over to visit at the junior high school. Since she had told me she was going, I gave her permission; I had suspected that was part of the plan since the beginning. Plus, I figured lugging her textbooks, violin case, and gym bag a quarter mile to the junior high and back to the library (I wasn't about to change the pickup point, after all) in ninety-two degree heat would be an outcome which might provide a better lesson than calling her out on her plot.

It was. However, I did point out that I didn't appreciate subterfuge.

The subterfuge is normal teenage stuff. What I don't get is the situation where I will look over because I hear slurping, see the dog licking Rocky's hand, and say, "Stop letting the dog lick you. How many times do I have to tell you to not let the dog lick you!"

Rocky yanks his hand away and says, "I'm not letting the dog lick me."

So, is it splitting hairs, as he at that very second is no longer letting the dog lick him? I say, "You were." Then we have the "No, I wasn't." At which point, I will look at him and say, "I had just two beers, officer." He gets it. Yet he still denies everything.

Then I have a choice--I need to decide if he is lying to get out of trouble (and incidentally thinking that THIS TIME I will be stupid enough to believe him) or is he lying because he honestly was skating around the rings of Saturn and didn't know the dog was licking him. Usually, I will have him tell me, working through which would be the lesser of the two evils, as each will have its own consequences.

Someday, someday he will tell me the truth. And the sad part is, I probably won't believe him.

Fall

2010-09-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

I love autumn. As much as I like summer, I enjoy fall more. Summer is great: lots of places to go, swimming, picnics, parties, grilled food, lack of school constraints. However, fall gives me a sense of relief, getting cozy and preparing for the winter, burrowing in if you will.

Today it feels like fall--cool temperature, cloudy skies, breezes. Today I feel the urge to make chili, to watch high school football, and shop for pumpkins.

Finally

2010-09-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

This morning, about 5:45, I opened my email to find that I had passed the doctoral competency exam. Hallelujah. Now on to the dissertation.

Tamale on the Steps

2010-09-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to work, did a new student orientation, went to a three-hour meeting, did a new employee orientation, ran home, got Nita, dropped her off at drum lessons with an admonishment to wait for her dad after the lesson, and then ran to Kiki's two high school open house.

Then I came home, ran the dishwasher, threw a load of clothes in the dryer, packed lunches, signed homework and assignment books, put the three kids to bed, and fed the dogs while EG fed the cats. He said to me, coming down from the upstairs where the girls and cats live, "Why is there a tamale on the steps?"

Of course, I assumed I was tired and had heard him wrong. But, there in his hand, was a corn-husked wrapped tamale.

Do I really want to know?

Fresh from drowning

2010-08-20T04:12:00.000-07:00

I have been working since early July on my comprehensive exams for my Ph.D. This test consisted of three written papers, each on a multi-tiered topic related to my area of interest. I turned in fifty-nine pages this week, and now I wait.

I have to say, I wish to never go through this again. Imagine being in college, and having one research paper determine whether you will be permitted to go on for the diploma. And having three kids and all their activities, a full time job, and a house to run. I spent the last six weeks pretty much glued to this computer, researching, writing, and editing. I made choices as to what I could and should address, and other things went to the side for later. I researched while cooking supper, and I proofread while waiting in the car to pick up a kid. I ran interference between fighting kids and misbehaving dogs, and kept having to redirect my attention back to what I was doing.

But it is done, and I feel as if I have my life back. I know that things were bad before, like when my mother was dying and I was working and taking classes, but somehow this was even more intense, maybe because it was designed to be that way.

So now I wait. And if I have to rewrite a part of this project, then this time the kids will be in school and I will be off work for a week.

Speaking of sports

2010-06-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

I am married to the Howard Cosell of lawn care.

Our neighbor can take a simple mow/trim of a little less than an acre and stretch it over three or four days. EG usually does the entire yard in a morning, even when you factor in the screeching at Rocky, who chronically stares off into space instead of applying the clippers to the grass edging.

However, much like the Superbowl, every mow is accompanied by the hyped build-up and debriefing afterward. About two days before, EG will start obsessing about the weather--what's the weather going to be the next couple of days? "I need to mow. You know I only mow once a week, not like SOME PEOPLE. And I need to fit it in between rainstorms." And so on. As his chosen D-day approaches, he will tell me three or four times, "I am going to mow tomorrow. I mow only once a week, and this will have to be the day. It might rain" (or be hot or be cold or perhaps a monsoon is in the future) "so I'd better do it tomorrow." This repeats, much like the commercials for SB, every twenty minutes to an hour for the twelve hours preceding the big event.

On the big morning, I get, "At eight o'clock, I am going to mow. I need to get it done." Again, repeated at irritating intervals. Then he marshalls his troops, poor scatterbrained and distractable Rocky, and off they go, EG running his tractor and yelling at Rocky to "get that stick" over the din. "Over there. No, not that one. Now, why did you drop it again? You will have to pick that one up anyway. Yes, that one. Now put it in the pile. NO, NOT THAT PILE!" Some commentary is Spanish follows, with Rocky running a zig zag pattern in the yard, not quite sure what to do, as he doesn't interpret a lot of the words. Luckily. However, he has most likely discovered they may be useful in the future away from Mom's ears.

Let me add at this point that I hate the sound of the mower. It is loud and distracting and drones on and on, especially for three days a week next door. Add to that the yelling and periodic clunk as the mower hits a dirt clod, and the anticipation of what might happen, and my nerves are fried.

With the big mow, we have third time, not half time. EG will come in and report the status of the front yard as it is finished and then the near back and then the far back. If there is little to report, he will reinforce the fact that he mows only once a week, perhaps bringing in a color commentator in the form of Rocky, who is usually a bit wild-eyed at this point. Him, too.

Then, of course, we have the debriefing after the event. EG will come in and report on the status of the field--what was wet, dry, bumpy, debris on the field, the fumbles made by Rocky, and the overall outcome of this particular event. And we get to do it all over again, but only once a week.

Is this the party to whom I am speaking?

2010-06-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

I went to the beauty school not too long ago to get a pedicure. The woman who was next to me was nicely dressed, and when the students left the two of us alone to soak, the lady said, "Hi."

"Hi," I replied.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Fine, and how are you?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm getting a pedicure."

"Oh," I said, not just a little confused. Why else would she be soaking her feet? "So am I."

"What did you say?" she replied. "The lady next to me keeps talking and I can't hear you."

It was then that I realized that she was on her Bluetooth. I don't know which one of us should feel stupid.

Grief

2010-06-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

After spending the day at grief camp yesterday, I have been thinking about grief. Last Friday was the anniversary of my brother-in-law's death, and the kids were acting out all day. I took them to the movies, I took them to the craft store, and finally I suggested taking them to the grave. We watered his flowers and talked a bit about him, and then came home. The kids were sad, but they had faced that grief.

Grief camp gives a safe place for kids to acknowledge, discuss, and confront their losses. I sat yesterday and watched their faces, some sad, some calm. I watched one boy who had cut up a bit sit down with the rabbit, run his fingers through Bob's fur, and go to a far away place in his head. At times my losses seem too huge for me, and I am an adult--the losses I experienced are expected. These kids have been blindsided by grief.

Kiki has talked to the school counselor about her losses, and she feels at ease about the deaths most days. Nita is younger and developmentally on target, and we aren't sure where Rocky is developmentally, so it is like playing Whack-a-mole to deal with his emotions.

I have been thinking about previous generations, people who lost children or siblings much more regularly than we did, back when losses were expected. I don't know if it was because death was so much more a part of life, that it wasn't sanitized, that they didn't invest so much in their relationships, or that society dealt with it differently. I find that people ask me at work "what is wrong with you" because I am not functioning up to my previous performance level, and I am told that I need to "snap out of it." Could it be, because our grandparents had smaller, closer communities, that people understood better?

A Camping We Will Go

2010-06-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

This week, Bob and I are going to grief camp. For those of you who have just joined us, Bob is my pet partner--he is certifed by Delta Society to do pet visits in a variety of facilities, but the bulk of our volunteer work is done through hospice. This week, hospice is sponsoring a grief camp for kids, and Bob and I were invited.

I doubt that we will be doing many of the activities with the kids, like hiking, crafts, or art therapy, but I will transport Bob to the camp, and he will do his thing, and I once again will sit by and marvel at his wonderful ability to do what he does best.

Home Arsenal

2010-06-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

Recently, in the Cleveland paper, there was a report of a woman whose house was invaded by a robber in the middle of the night. This sixty-eight year old lady was not intimidated by the robber, who apparently decided to teach her some respect and slapped her. This caused her son to then take offense at the robber's own lack of respect for his mother, so first he and then his sons jumped the robber, then took his shotgun, and shot him to death with his own weapon.

If this is the true story, I find it difficult to feel too sorry for the robber.

I was impressed that, given what must have been chaotic circumstances, the man and his boys could use an unfamiliar weapon. I do understand that guns are important to those of the testosterone gender. The neighbor boys have BB guns and Airsoft rifles and handguns, but EG, who served in Central America in the Marines, refuses to have toy guns in the house, as guns are not toys. I know how to shoot, figuring out a long time ago that, while it is not something which I choose to do on a regular basis, I should know how to handle a weapon.

When I was single, my two roommates and I lived in a neighborhood where the big claim to fame was that the area had its own rapist--that and the guy who walked around in the middle of the streets with a guitar, convinced he was Elvis Presley. My one roommate, who had been raised around guns, and I discussed having a shotgun in the house, but we determined that our other roommate, who was jumpy, might possibly shoot herself in the foot or worse yet, one of us, in an attempt at protecting herself, so we invested in good locks and lighting instead. (Eventually the rapist was caught--by then I was married and lived on another street, and he turned out to be my neighbor. Only me.)

Anyway, with three large dogs in the house, I don't think too much about the need for firepower, unless it is to use on the dogs themselves. Nash wants to eat the bunnies and cats who are masquerading as pets in the house, and Penny and Harry are more interested in the trash or Kleenex boxes. We have found that the "home and garden sprayer" (i.e., "squirt bottle") works on Nash and Harry when it comes to discipline, whereas Penny views this as a drink dispenser, delightedly lapping the the same stream of water which sends the boys scurrying to another room, tails tucked between their legs.

Penny, on the other hand, requires a remote trainer, which emits a loud, eardrum piercing shriek that derails her actions--and incidentally, the actions of anyone within a 500 yard radius. Despite repeated requests, no one gives a verbal correction before activating the remote trainer, causing me to stop whatever I am doing as well, up to and including having a regular heartrate.

So, thinking back over the past few weeks, I guess I get the feisty attitude of the lady homeowner. I sure do pity whoever breaks into this house. All we would have to do would be continue business as usual, and the poor soul would be running, screaming, into the woods after less than an hour.

The Tiring of the Screw

2010-06-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a humdinger of a week and a half. First, I had two projects due last weekend, so I was focused on those at the end of last week. Then, Monday, summer break began. We had signed the kids up for summer school, but the enrollment wasn't adequate, so there was no diversion in their future. I assigned extra chores and called the kids that evening from work and warned them that I was on my way home, and the house had darn well better be picked up.

Later, I realized I needed to be clearer what "picked up" means.

Tuesday, I called from work to redefine "picked up" to three children, only to interrupt the Tuesday version of the Friday Night Fights. Nita couldn't wait to tell me that Kiki had pinched her, her pompous little report accompanied by Kiki's shrieking diatribe about Nita's inadequacies as a sister and as a human being.

When I got home, we had a family meeting. I outlined who was in charge, what the expectations were, and what the consequences were for infractions, a summer break procedures manual, if you will. EG came home from work and announced that he, or rather his car, had a low tire. He discovered a screw in the tire, and so after a lengthy debate about Wednesday's scheduling, off we went to the tire store. We came home, picked up the house to our standards, and fell into bed. I woke up in the night, twice, with panic attacks.

Wednesday morning about six thirty, we finally got around to opening the mail, which included a letter from the school system. It turned out that there were enough kids for summer school. After a couple of minutes, EG said to me, "What's the date?"

"The ninth?"

"Uh, summer school starts TODAY."

What followed was a child's worst nightmare, and I am embarrassed to admit, something which gave me a great deal of pleasure. EG stood up, threw open the kids' bedroom doors, and barked, "Get up! You've got summer school and IT STARTS TODAY!" The wails which followed did my heart good, and I smiled as the little darlings complained as they stumbled out the door.

Prescription for Insanity

2010-06-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

Take three kids, two of whom are hormonal females and one with severe attentional issues.
Add two working parents.
Add three labs, two cats, and two bunnies; throw in a house which is never quite clean and a quick-growing lawn.
Mix liberally with various stages of laundry cycles.
Sprinkle with music lessons, track, and girl scouts.
Top off with a dissertation and let ferment.

Dogs in cars

2010-05-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Friday I took the kids to an upscale food market to buy some of the natural and organic foods we have been serving. It was in the eighties and sunny, about two thirty in the afternoon.

When we were walking into the store, the kids noticed a little dog. In a car. A black car. In the sun. With the windows rolled up tight. Another lady stopped, aghast at the sight. I wrote down the license number, and then I called the police. The other lady went into the store to have the owners paged.

After about ten minutes, the owners came out, and immediately the one guy started in on me. He was flamboyantly effeminate, which just added to how ludicrous the situation became. "Oh, my god. You have got to be kidding me. The dog is fine, his breed was bred in the desert, and he can handle the heat while we are in the store." (Actually, that breed originated in the mountains, bonehead.) "We'll be in there no more than a half an hour, and he will be just fine." He got more and more aggressive, screaming that "you people" (which, incidentally, is one of my trigger expressions) needed to get a life, that we were up his a**, and so on. The kids were frightened and went to the car. Nita, who wants to be a judge, said, "I took my shoe off, so if he went after you, I could have hit him."

Mr. Dog Owner went on to tell me in a nearly hysterical tone of voice that the poor dog (who was at this point not anywhere in sight in the car) needed attention, and that is why they took him to the store.

During his diatribe, I just stared at him with a blank expression on my face, as wasn't about to argue with him, nor was I going to back down, as that is apparently what he wanted. Then he said to me, "Are you going to say anything, or are you going to stand there like some kind of retard?" At this point, his friend tittered.

"Come along, children," I said. We started down through the parking lot, where I was met by a man who said, "Are you okay?" I told him the guys (who at this point were standing in front of the store staring to make sure I didn't bust out his car window, I guess--don't think it didn't occur to me) did not intimdate me. "Well," the other guy said, "I didn't like the way he was treating you."

I said, "It takes a big man to assault a woman with kids, you know?" What I didn't realize was that my hero had also called the police and used his cell phone to videotape the whole incident while standing by in case I needed help. I got in the car after thanking the man and drove to the other end of the parking lot, where I called the police again and told them the owner had been called to the car and refused to do anything about the dog and in fact had been confrontational. About a minute later, an officer showed up, and I directed him to the car. By the time he arrived, the dog had been shut in the car for at least twenty-five minutes.

I called EG and described the situation to him. He laughed hysterically, imagining the Seinfeld episode with the armoire, so he was no help.

On the way home, the kids and I shut the windows and turned off the air at a traffic light. One minute after we started, they were uncomfortable; three minutes, and they were complaining. Nita, my pragmatist, was the most annoyed, but suggested a practical solution. "Since the dog needed attention," she said, "maybe one of the guys should have stayed in the car with him with the windows all rolled up."

Kiki replied, "But it would be too hot."

"Exactly," Nita said in a satisfied manner. Maybe she should become a judge.

2010-05-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

I have a suds return washing machine, one of a dying breed, which saves suds into a laundry tub and then returns them for use again. I do a variation on the cycle, letting the sudsy wash water drain out and then plugging the tub and saving the rinse water for the next cycle's wash.

This, of course, requires some monitoring, but with the ancient septic system we have and the cost of water, I find it to be a minor inconvenience.

Tonight I worked on schoolwork and then did some chores, filling the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, and then going off to the basement to do a load of laundry. EG came downstairs to discover me folding a load of clothes from the dryer while the washer was spinning. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Okay, this was one of those "duh" moments, but I refrained from making a smart remark and replied, "Laundry."

But it went on. "Why?" he asked. Hmm, let's see . . . getting a foot massage from some really attractive guy who is hiding under the washer? Preparing to exit for a date with George Clooney, using the secret exit which the dogs have always suspected I had down here, judging by their reaction when I go downstairs?

So I replied, "We need clean clothes."

"We do?" he asked.

At that time, I decided to forget it.

Baldy

2010-05-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

I have 55 mile an hour hair. Every morning I wash my hair, comb it, and let it dry on the way to work, usually in warmer weather being tousled by the wind in the open windows.

Then I forget it for the rest of the day, usually not even combing it unless I think about it.

Nita's got a coarse hair, quite kinky, and we have relaxed it for four or five years now, first having it done professionally by my friend Lisa, and then by me or another friend. Let's just say that Nita's hair has been a real learning experience for me--I find the work required to be irritating, plus she is tender-headed, so she shrieks whenever I try to do anything. We managed to keep it longer, but it broke off at the place where Lisa stopped and I started working on it, and it required an inordinate amount of work to maintain, which was complicated by Nita's delusion that she had straight, fine, blonde hair which didn't require special attention. Last night, I cut the dead ends off, and after some discussion with Nita, trimmed off ends so it was even with the breakage point.

It looked really awful, so today I took her to the beauty shop. An hour with the clippers later, Nita now has a short, natural Afro, about an inch and a half long. Of course, since she is slender and leggy, people think she is a boy--never mind the budding body, floral tee shirt, and pink head bands I got her.

So now Nita announced that she is bald and is not going to school until her hair grows out in four or five years.

Web Search

2010-05-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

Rocky's media teacher gave him a worksheet to do in class; it contained some questions of not-so-general knowledge: Where was the first atom bomb dropped? What jazz musician was nicknamed "Bird?" Who was the first African-American woman astronaut?

Apparently, Rocky was looping around the rings of Saturn on the day the search engine directions were covered. He would type in the terms, then read the brief blurb for the first result to pop up, and then answer the question as quickly as possible.

Consequently, today I found out that Hair Strumm was the U. S. president who ordered the atom bomb to be dropped on Nag's Head, Hiawatha was a Mohawk chef, and Rudyard Kipling wrote the famous poem about him, and Freddie Hendrickson was the famous jazz musician who was known as Birp.

Somehow, I think the objectives were not reached on this assignment.

Zoinks

2010-05-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

I go through spells where it seems like I climb out of bed, drink a cup of coffee, and then the day hits me full force, and next thing I know, I am taking my pills and flopping back into bed, only to start the whole thing all over again fifteen minutes later.

Things have been so hectic with my own courses, work, graduation, and the kids' activities (what is it with the schools: suddenly they go, HEY! we didn't give these kids enough activities all year, so let's hit them with every concert, meeting, or evening event we can think of!) Last week was one of those: come home from work, conduct an inquisition to find out who tore the curtain rod out of the wall, cook supper, drop Nita off at the church for the crowning of Mary, drive ten miles to drop Rocky off at the school for his band concert, meanwhile EG picked up Kiki and took her to choir, then back for Nita, then a quick dash to the grocery store, then back for Rocky. I would have gone to his concert, but he didn't bring home the paper (the thoughtless band teacher put it on pink paper and offended his masculine sensibilities) and informed me of the concert the day of the event. All this after working eight hours and commuting an additional two.

Sometimes I feel like I am going to pass myself driving down the road.

Mapping out my life

2010-05-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

This morning, I sat down and synchronized household, personal, and work calendars through the end of June. I realized I have a week off of work and school at the same time. One whole week, I thought, so I started listing all the things which need to be done.

It won't be enough time.

So, I scheduled a nap in every day and left the rest blank for now.

A Persuasive Learner

2010-05-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

I had Nita to the doctor the other night in an effort to head off the inevitable allergies leading to a sinus infection, and something must have come up with another patient. Even though we were the last appointment of the day, we didn't expect the doctor to be over an hour late; as a result of the delay, I was stuck in a room with Nita and nothing for her to do. We went through her addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts, spelling words, and various other games I could think of.

During the course of our conversation, Nita, who by then was up past her bedtime, announced to me, "I have to count on my fingers--I'm a persuasive learner." I, of course, hooted at her rather pompous delivery, not to mention the malapropism. "Well, I am," she said. "I don't learn by seeing, and I don't learn by hearing. I learn by doing. So, I'm a persuasive learner."

I filled her in on how she was a kinesthetic learner, like I was, but when I actually thought about it, I realized she probably is a persuasive learner.

Come on now, ladies

2010-05-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

What I don't understand is some women. Last night, we were at Kiki's confirmation. It was supposed to be a holy celebration, but the two women behind me YAPPED incessantly through the whole thing about the most mundane and idiotic things, which I was forced to overhear. I wanted to turn around and ask, "Why do you think anyone cares about this, and why can't you JUST SHUT UP?"

However, I didn't. What bothers me is that these are the same women who are raising children who will be our future adults and leaders. Will they think it is okay to discuss the new flavor of tic tacs in a loud tone of voice during the presidential inauguration? Or that it is not only acceptable, but expected, to debate the pros and cons of light and dark corn syrup during a funeral?

Then, of course, these same women are walking out of the church and instead of pausing to allow people to take pictures, they shove their children to proceed into the photo shoot, despite it being off to the side--maybe because they are still talking and not paying attention, but come on now. Then, instead of apologizing, they reward the other individuals with a superior, tight smile as they sweep by. Or through--while the people who are taking the picture wait patiently. And these are the same women who go through a doorway and then immediately stop dead to have a conversation, causing those behind them to have to go on either side of the meet and greet session, as no one is moving out of the way.

So, what causes this? Are they self-involved? Thoughtless? So pampered that they are in the mindset that they can do no wrong? Or are they just plain stupid? I understand wanting to have social contact--with school and work and the kids, I don't have much time for friends, and I get lonely, too.

What embarrasses me for my gender is that my children are more socially aware and better behaved than these so-called adults. So, ladies, here is your wake up call. I won't confront you in public, as Emily Post would say that pointing out your lack of manners demonstrates my own poor social graces. You need to pay attention: a discreetly cleared throat while you are babbling about the shower stall liner or a pointed stare after you did a five-minute monologue about grocery shopping without inhaling more than once means you need to pay attention--there are other people around you. If that doesn't work, maybe I'll just mail you a copy of Emily Post's book. Or present it in person when I whack you over the head with it instead.

Thar she blows--NOT

2010-04-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

It has been hectic here--Rocky suspended from school and playing catch up. Nita being outed as the school cafeteria's best customer, buying breakfast and snacks with money she'd swiped from my purse and her savings, work being a little nuts, resulting in something hurtful happening, and now Nita is in her spring allergy season. For several years, I spent every Mother's Day in the emergency room with her.

The big problem I have with her now is she hates to blow her nose, so she ends up with a sinus infection, invariably, which then leads to a trip to the doctor. I have had to leverage her into nose blowing by threatening to keep her home from school. So, tonight, after a long day at work and longer afternoon and evening at home, I am taking her to the doctor again, this time in a proactive approach to the annual celebration.

Top Chef, my eye

2010-04-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

I have decided that I want to stop cooking.

It all started about a year ago when I started buying more and more "natural" and organic products, finally arriving at our current state of about 90 percent organic eating. I no longer eat wheat or rye, and I am trying to go low glycemic, which cuts out anything much in the way of carbs: bread, grains, snacks, and fruits. I also try to eat very little meat and am weaning the rest of the family off of that as well.

Which leaves us rather limited.

This week on Monday we had spaghetti with marinara sauce, Tuesday sandwiches, Wednesday veggie hot dogs, Thursday vegetarian chili, and Friday macaroni and cheese with soy bacon bits on top. Saturday night, I didn't care what we ate, not to mention IF we ate, and neither did EG.

Rocky commented, "I thought we were going to stop eating meat. We still have meat all the time." Huh?

I had taken the dog to the vet, and we were discussing how it was simple to do weight control by increasing or decreasing the amount of food which we fed our pets. He said, "I have always said there should be 'husband chow.'" I laughed at the time, but now that I think about it, this is a valid point.

I think what is happening with us here is that our bodies are finally regulating themselves, as we aren't indulging in the refined sugars and flours. Or it could be that we are just getting older, in that dreaded age range when it doesn't really matter if we eat or not.

I was at a funeral meal last weekend, and a cousin, who is diabetic, had two overflowing huge plates of dessert--one would have been sufficient for all five of us here, with leftovers, and we are big fans of dessert. Anyway, the cousin said, "A friend of mine said you can have a cheat day once a week." Uh, I think this may have gotten lost in translation, as I half ate a lemon tart, which is my favorite, and considered it a cheat. I refuse to get sanctimonious about this, though, as I could stand to lose weight myself. And if I continue not cooking, I will certainly do so.

Global Positioning

2010-04-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

I will be driving to Chicago this coming week, so I bought a GPS. We had used my sister's the other week when she and I and my cousin drove out to see my aunt. We were amused by the GPS's pronunciation of landmarks and road names, which are rather unusual out there: Vermilion, Berlin (pronounced BURR-lin), and Gore Orphanage Road. "Turn right," the administrative assistant-type GPS voice told us, "at Gororororororphange Road." We laughed outselves silly.

The next week, after my niece played with the GPS, we had Mary Poppins guiding us to the national cemetery. I was half afraid she'd start singing about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

It is not any secret to anyone who knows me that have the absolute worst sense of direction when it comes to north, south, east, or west. Sometimes I can do street names, but in the county seat, these get me a bit cornfuzzled, with Broadway and Bradway, routes which jog north-east-north-west, and the worst, overlapping street names. One evening, I found myself at the corner of North East Street and East North Street. Of course I couldn't tell what street was which, so I didn't know which way to turn. I would have asked for directions, but the thought of someone telling me to go west on North East Street gave me an eye twitch.

EG will give me directions, saying things like, "You'll go north," omitting the street, and my eyes will roll up into my head and my ears will ring.

However, I can drive by landmarks--tell me to go left at the Dairy Queen and right at the house with the blue shutters, and I am there. My uncle's wife was notorious for giving really abstract directions, telling people to turn at the herd of cows, or drive until the person saw the farmer standing in his driveway with a broom in his hand. For what it's worth, no one ever got lost when she gave directions. As an adult, I now suspect it was because they used a map or asked someone else.

Anyway, last week we drove to my aunt's funeral, and I printed directions off mapquest. They were fine, except the route addresses counted up, then went from five digits suddenly to three digits as we hit a small town, decreasing as we continued. "This isn't right," I said to EG. "Well," he told me, "we're going west." I called my sister on her cell. "Did you pass Gororororphanage Road?" she asked. Not yet. "Then keep going," she said. Not bad advice in any number of situations.

Cell phone

2010-04-08T03:45:00.000-07:00

I had to be dragged, pretty much kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. While I love my computer, and my laptop is used pretty much all day at work and much of the evening, what with school and connecting with people with special needs kids and my yahoo group, I couldn't see any possible reason for a cell phone. My kids were little, so they were with me or their dad when they weren't at school. I was either at work or on my way home to them if I wasn't with them.

So, when EG proposed we get him a cell phone for work, I agreed, but I saw absolutely no sense in having one of them for my own use. I didn't want to be that accessible. However, he pointed out the convenience of being available in case anything happened to my mom or dad when I was at PTO meetings, lessons, or sports events, especially since my father was in the nursing home, so I agreed. I had a rather "pinched between the thumb and forefinger and held out away from the body" approach to the thing, carrying it with me but always a bit leery when it rang. When my mother went into the assisted living facility, my sister and I got free mobile to mobile long distance, and it was then I learned how wonderful the cell phone could be. I wasn't spending money on long distance calls, but keeping in touch with her daily, a luxury which became a necessity when her husband was ill and when my mother finally made the decision to move on from this earthly life.

So, while I have a phone with internet capabilities, the ability to text, I do not use any of those function. My cell phone calls out and receives calls, and that is enough. For now. However, I can see where things are headed, as Kiki is pushing to have a cell phone so she can text her friends. When I pointed out to her that a) we don't have texting and b) she never calls people, so who would she text, she called me mean. Not mean--just still dragging my feet with this technology stuff.

Start me up

2010-04-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

I got home last night, and when I went down the hall, I smelled something which I couldn't identify right away.

I let the dogs out, and then I checked Nita, who had run a fever all day. She spent most of the afternoon on the sofa, sleeping with her cat.

When EG was helping me bring the dogs in, he opened Rocky's door and said, "What do I smell? What is that?" Rocky said, "I had the window open."

I went in and said, "Why is it smoky in here?"

"My window was open."

"But it isn't smoky outside." Rocky then started to get stressed. We moved his dresser to find the remnants of a small fire, which had fortunately burned itself out before catching the house on fire. He finally admitted to the fire when we found matches and burned newspaper in there, too.

So now he's back on blackout. It never ends with the bad choices, does it? Tomorrow I will talk to him about using words to express anger.

Lakeview

2010-04-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we buried my mother's sister; she was the youngest, and the last of her generation. My sister is the youngest of our generation, with me a close second. A cousin of ours told my sister yesterday, "Well, that's the last of the generation. Now it's our turn. You're the youngest, so you'll watch all of us die off."

Hey, nothing like giving us something to look forward to there, Miss Mary Sunshine.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again--I do not like Easter. I guess it is just a church holiday, and it should be celebrated with grace. Somehow, it seems to me, we have lost the meaning in all the cellophane wrapped baskets, jelly beans, marshmallow peeps, spring clothes, and ham dinners. EG likes Easter, sees it as a special day, but it just depresses me; so I try to make an effort at making it nice.

Luckily, today was unseasonably warm and sunny, too, so we went for a ride. We ended up at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, the burial place of famous Ohioans, and a horticultural wonder, including a hillside full of naturalized daffodils. Tucked in near the Cleveland Clinic, the art museum, and Case Western Reserve University, this cemetery is a wonder of nature, lovely in its respect for the natural, acorns littering the graves, wildflowers sprouting up, and trees blooming around the graves. We walked and looked at the old and new tombstones and the flowering trees and plants, and felt at peace in this lovely place.

Albatross

2010-04-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

I am thinking about the poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which the sailor is forced to wear the albatross around his neck because the seaman killed the bird of good omen and then the ship was becalmed.

Rocky was not expelled from school, but I believe it was mostly because the school would have to provide an alternate education for him because he has an IEP (Individual Education Plan).

However, his punishment has quickly become OUR punishment, the albatross about our necks, as his dad and I now have "the boy" around all the time, a bored boy who "forgets" he is on restriction. Keeping him occupied is exhausting, and it is limiting to not do fun things, like go out to lunch together, as he will have to participate as well. Plus, this continues all next week and into the week after.

In the poem, Coleridge said, "There passed a weary time." You got that right, Sam.

Hearing

2010-03-29T05:47:00.001-07:00

Today is Rocky's hearing. We were talking to him this morning about what to expect, and what he should say, and he came up with yet another explanation about what happened.

Finally, I had him make up a cheat sheet about what he told each person involved, so he could keep track of that was said. It turns out he lied to us up until this morning, even when we told him we wanted the truth.

I asked him if he really wanted my support. He said yes. I asked him if he thought the best way to get it was to lie and keep pushing me away. He started to cry.

Three minutes later, I asked him a question, and again he lied.

I give up.