November 12

I didn't write yesterday, what else is new, but I did think about my father a great deal, what with it being Veterans' Day and all, and I watched something on PBS last night about some American airmen who were shot down over Borneo during World War II and were rescued by the indigenous people, very interesting. I thought I would write, but I didn't.

During third period this morning, I took myself from the library, and after a brief pit-stop, headed over to the office where I had to discuss some budget details. I turned the corner to pass through the big cafeteria, and saw that it was full of people, almost every table full. Now, this happens sometimes, for one reason or another, and I slowed down to see if I could figure out what the event was that was going on there. And I began to realize that at each table sat one or two very old men (at one table an old man and an old woman), and that they were talking to the kids seated around them. Most of the kids were listening politely; at some tables, the kids were fascinated, couldn't take their eyes off their guest speaker. All of the elderly visitors were wearing VFW caps or jackets or both. It was one of the most moving Veterans Day celebrations I've ever seen. I stood at the side, watching, for several minutes. At some tables, the kids were laughing at a funny story that had just been told, at some tables, I could see expressions of amazed understanding on their faces. The veterans, our heroes, were animated, fascinating. I wanted to go ovver to one of them, anyone of them, and thank them for what they'd done for us, but I couldn't bear to interrupt anyone, so I just watched. At one table, there was a man I knew, close to my age, who was a Vietnam vet, but most of them were from World War II, maybe a few from Korea. I thought of my father again; I could almost see him sitting at a table with kids and telling his stories. My kids or my sister's would have been so proud to have him come into school and do that, but no one thought of it then. Anyway, it was just a beautiful thing that I'm very happy to have seen.





watching L/O :: ENTRY #2134
READING: Slept Away by Julie Kraut

The Corners of My Mind

I almost made it through the whole day today before the filtering software kicked in, but no, at 2:10, I clicked on a news feed for Consumerist and I get the message that it was blocked due to "streaming media content." Funny, I had had about fifteen minutes free before I went to lunch, and I checked out lots of feeds, including from the Consumerist and from Digg ("personal webpages"), not to mention every blog/diary that posted an update.

A thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters for a thousand years might not come up with Hamlet, but they could probably come up with a close approximation of the infrastructure of my school district's computer network.

In the meantime, there's confirmed H1N1 (which my eye reads as "high-nigh") flu in the school, four kids, two of whom are already back in school. If this is such a big public health issue, why does it take two weeks to get the results of the tests?

++++++++++++++++

In other news, this is a commemorative week for me, so to speak, much on my mind. I didn't write about it the last few days because it's been gelling, so to speak. Here's what happened seven years ago this week, a week that began, like this one, with Memorial Day weekend.

On Sunday, my mother died. My sister, my niece and I were in the hospital with her, holding her hands.

Due to the holiday the next day, we planned the graveside service for Wednesday. In the meantime, there was Memorial Day, which kind of slipped past us that year, but it's a day that's always been something to me other than a Monday off from work. More on that in a minute.

My cousin arrived from Colorado on Tuesday; she was very close to both my parents, especially my mother.

The graveside service was short, well-attended for something that we really didn't advertise at all. My father took everyone out for lunch afterward. About an hour later, my cousin got a call from her son in San Francisco that his wife had gone into labor (at about 29 weeks) and they were going to the hospital. His mother made a call, changed her flight to Denver the next day to one to San Francisco that evening, and took off.

The next day, Thursday, was May 30. It was my father's 83rd birthday, and of course, we had no way of knowing that it was the last birthday he would have. Not long after we woke up that morning, my cousin called to say that she was the grandmother of boy-girl twins, very premature, born on my father's birthday.

Memorial Day, to me, is always May 30th, even though it isn't anymore. It's always Jack's birthday; there are always parades in his honor (which is what his father told him when he was a little boy and saw Civil War veterans still marching every year.) It was always a day about soldiers, and so it was always a day about Jack, even before he knew he would one day be a soldier, and for years after he was. I marched in many a Memorial Day parade as a Girl Scout, and later, with my own daughters, as a Girl Scout leader. I was always marching for him, for his birthday, and for all the others who fought for us and didn't come home.

It was a real circle of life week for us all here, and still is, every year. Now Shirl and Jack are both gone, and on Saturday, the beautiful, blond, perfect twins will be seven. There are more parades for more soldiers. We are not marching these days, but we remember them and honor them, and Jack and Shirl, too, always.



watching FRIENDS :: ENTRY #2053
READING: American Lion: Andrew Jackson by Jon Meacham

Check. Check.

I had a list of things to do today and I did all of them. You know how happy that makes me.

Even better, I forgot to write down some of the things I needed at Staples, so when I got there and picked up the one thing I was looking for, I went on a little Supermarket Sweep type excursion and just kept filling up my little basket. Even better than that, it's all stuff for school, which means I'll get reimbursed for all of it when I get into school on Monday.

Don't you just love shopping with other people's money?

I had a nice lunch visit with the Chum. I got there early so I killed some time in Bed Bath and Beyond next door and got myself a new pillow. I even tested it out when I got home, but never did fall asleep, just watched and/or listened to two L/O episodes.

Tuesday night's bad news was that the Hubs' car died on the Turnpike on his way back from teaching. He had to get it towed off the Turnpike and then towed by Triple A to our mechanic. Remember, this is my father's 1991 Oldsmobile Ciera, which only just turned a hundred thousand miles last week. The good news is that it's all fixed up, and for only a few hundred dollars. If this had been the make-or-break repair, I have no idea what we would have done, although with the Hubs working from home, sharing my car would have worked out pretty well for the short term.

Speaking of Jack, today is his yahrzeit, which means the anniversary of his death. (The true yahrzeit would be according to the Hebrew calendar, but I don't go there.) Six years. Still hard to get a grip on all the way.

I go for a mini-physical tomorrow, but the doctor's office sent me the results of my bloodwork already and it says that my liver is normal, so now I'm going to worry about that whole business even less that I already was, which is not at all. I'll get the results of the CAT scan when I see The Resnick on Monday, at which point I will tell him that barium is now on my list of things I do not ingest. My cholesterol is pretty good, too, 152. I don't know what any of the other stuff means.

I'm still awake -- my eyes have been much better -- so maybe I'll watch Heroes tonight. Or not.


FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1992
READING: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Wearing the Uniform

Rather than relate today's medical saga, I'm going to tell you a story that involves a bit of family history and what seems to be a family quirk. Let's begin.

These two people are my great-grandparents, my father's father's parents.



A couple of lookers, eh? Here's the thing: Rasel was Shlaime Baer's second wife, so he had I don't know how many children altogether, five of them with her. It seems she carried some intense DNA along from her own parents, because for a couple of generations, Rasel's siblings' female progeny, all looked like this:



Clearly, I'm talking about the large-jawed women in the back, not the pretty woman seated on the ground with the child. (She comes into the story later.)

The men, on the other hand, were all good looking, and not the same; for example, my grandfather Louie when he was about 19:



And my father Jack when he was about the same age:



At this point, you can almost see more of Jack's mother in him, the pretty lady in the other picture, above. Anyway, the weird thing is that the men in the family all aged into virtually the same face. This isn't a great picture, but here's Louie old:



And Jack:



(That's Wonderful Niece with him, btw, about ten years ago.) When I was a kid, I saw others of my grandfather's cousins who had virtually the same face as my father. (My grandfather was gone by this time, but I had seen many pictures.) Which was weird.

Okay. So, last week K and I went for lunch one day to a nearby IHOP and we sat in the booth and I could see that she was staring at someone who was sitting across from us but who was just a bit out of my range of vision. I leaned over and she whispered "There's a man there who looks just like Grandpa, but not as good looking." I casually turned and there he was, an elderly heavy set man with my father's hair and bushy eyebrows and the face shape so characteristic of Rasel's family. What he lacked were the distinctive clear blue eyes that they all had. He was close, maybe close enough to be a distant cousin, but not quite Jack.

Katie whispered again: "He's even wearing the uniform."

Ahh. The uniform.

As my father got older, he wore virtually the same thing every day. Now, I don't mean he wore literally the same clothes, because he was something of a hygiene freak, but like Monk, if you opened his closet, you would see multiple copies of the same thing hanging there. He wore black pants. He wore white button-down shirts, short-sleeved. (Unless it was a holiday or he was going out somewhere, in which case he wore a blue shirt, like in the picture above, or for extremely dressy occasions, a blue collared golf-type shirt, which looked like a tent.) I'm guessing he wore the uniform because he found clothes to wear that he was comfortable in, so he acquired multiples so he could wear it every day. The grandchildren, apparently, thought this was part of his quirky charm. Except ... uh ...

I do that too, as I've mentioned before, but I never thought of it this way until K said that the man in the restaurant was wearing Grandpa's uniform. K did mention earlier in the summer that perhaps I might want to ... vary my wardrobe a bit. The truth is, I don't. Maybe I will some day, but for now, I'm very happy. I wear jeans every day. I wear a t-shirt, preferably v-necked, or in the summer, a Land's End cotton tank top. Over that I wear a long-sleeved button down shirt, sleeves rolled up. In the summer, I wear a denim shirt, of which I have several. During the school year I dress up a bit and wear a plaid shirt, or stripes, or a nice solid, maybe even in pink. When I dress up, I wear a Chico's micro-suede shirt, and I don't roll up the sleeves. And furthermore ...

My sister does it, too, wears a uniform, although hers is different. She wears cotton-knit shorts, year round, often with a print cotton top and a denim shirt over that. She wears Birkenstocks. She carries a huge purse. I prefer to carry no purse, and put everything I need in my jeans pockets.

So I ask you, is there anything wrong with picking a uniform and sticking to it? I have my reasons, most of which involve my weight and various other body issues; my father probably wore what he wore because of his weight, too, I'd guess. I could pass on worse traits to my children, no? At least I don't have that giant jaw thing to hand over to them.


WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1812
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

And Then It Got Exciting

Last night, I wrote:

R is currently waiting at the airport for a flight to visit friends over the holiday, a flight which I checked online so I know it's delayed. Sucks to be her.

Well. Ahem.

So, shortly after that, she learned that her flight to Atlanta was going to be so delayed that she would never catch the connecting flight from Atlanta to Charleston. The helpful ticket agent said she should fly to Atlanta (whenever the delayed flight finally tookk off), sleep in the Atlanta airport all night, and get the next flight to Charleston in the morning. She told him no, she wanted to rebook the whole thing to go today (which is what I had suggested to her.) He said, But then you'd have to spend the night in the airport here! (Newark.) Uh ... no, she lives here. So the arrangements were made, at which point she discovered that the trains were already on a holiday schedule (i.e., not running to her town), so K and went to the airport and got her, and took her home. And brought her back to the airport this morning. As of this moment, the first flight went well, and she's on her way to Charleston.

The annoying thing about all this is that the friend she's going to visit is a very peculiar friend, and she was also going there to see a guy, but they've since broken it off, so she's basically going because she didn't want to lose the money for the plane ticket. When she called the friend and explained the situation with the flight delays, she was annoyed, because she and her husband are working today, and they were counting on R to babysit, and to wait for the cable guy.

See?

Anyway, we were treated to fireworks in various towns as we made our way back from the airport last night, and R, who flew down to visit the same people last July 3, says it's very cool to fly over this country on the evening of July 3, because as you look out the plane window, you keep seeing fireworks below you. Neat.

In the meantime, I have the Twilight Zone marathon on -- wouldn't be July 4 weekend without it -- but I had to change the channel when "The Hitchhiker" episode came on, because it still scares me. My big sister told me -- as big sisters will do -- that the hitchhiker lived under my bed, or, if he got tired of that, in my closet. For years after that, I slept in the very center of my bed, still as a soldier all night, with a series of dolls on either side of me. I dearly loved my dolls, but I kind of hoped that when the hitchhiker reached up to grab me, he would get one of them first by mistake, thus providing me with valuable escape time. I also slept every night for years with my closet and room doors wide open, and the blinds up and curtains open, so that light from the street would illuminate all corners. *sigh* She also didn't take me to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium, but that's a story for another day. But she does go to doctors with me and otherwise is the best sister in the world, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.

The New York City oldies station (WCBS-FM) is playing its entire playlist in alphabetical order this week. Unusual, and interesting, and sometimes surprising. Sadly, they are now a 60s-70s-80s station as opposed to their previous 50s-60s-70s, but okay. This afternoon I went through my iTunes and put together a similar huge list, although not as huge as theirs, I suppose, and if you take away Bon Jovi, there's not a whole lot of 80s. (And mine has Buddy Holly.) Anyway, it's a big list; it's amusing to see the songs arranged that way, and to see which songs I have more than one version of and I'm keeping there. Sometimes, more than one artist had a hit with the same song. So there's a bunch of those. I think I can listen to this mix for weeks before I get to the end of it.

I too love July 4, as many of you have said. We used to have a barbecue here at my house, but since my parents are gone and my sister's kids are dispersed and/or at their in-laws' beck and call, it's faded away. We loved it, though; I may have posted some pictures in the past. Anyway, I'll close out today with one of my favorites, circa 1991:


(My kids are the two smallest, nephew JJ is the biggest, and the other two are the twins, Wonderful Niece and Good Guy. And in the middle, pre-cancer Shirl, and Jack, who hated to have his picture taken, but loved his grandchildren above all.)


WATCHING THE TWILIGHT ZONE :: ENTRY #1798
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Oh, Might As Well ...

.. start writing in school. I haven't done that this week, I think. But I am now brain-fried, brain-dead, wiped out. I stayed up for Lost last night, and then, as anticipated, couldn't get to sleep until maybe 1.00. And I finished grading those projects just before lunch today. They were mostly not bad, but those kids who made the mistake about not spelling the town's name right -- there were three of them -- I just don't know. One of them spoke to me about it, but I hadn't even given their papers back yet, and he didn't know if I had graded his project yet. (I had graded it just about an hour before he came in.) Which means he knew the mistake was there. And this is the kid who checked it with me just before he handed it in. So I'm guessing he did it on purpose as a kind of test to see what I would do. I do not appreciate that.

I reached a last-straw kind of moment last night and decided that I will not bring my lunch anymore, or even have breakfast and coffee at home before I leave for work in the morning. Believe it or not, this leaves me a fair amount of down time, even though I get up around six and leave the house around seven. This morning, it gave me time to run by McDonald's on my way to school, get a breakfast burrito and eat it in the car, and then have coffee to bring into school with me. I also bought my lunch in school, which is going to take more thought to get right because all I had today was one slice of less than lovely pizza and a horrid salad.

.
.
.

Just took a break here; a kid was showing me his iPhone in great detail and ooooohhhhhh wantwantwantwantwant. But will not get, not at least for some time. I just got a new phone in January, so I'm not switching away from that until the contract expires, and anyway, I'm not doing it. Unless. I have a ticket for the PTA raffle next Wednesday and first prize is a $1000 gift certificate to the mall, which I would happily spend at the Apple Store and the Bare Escentuals Store, and have half leftover to split between the girls. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I won't hold my breath. Although I do think that a person who buys a $10 ticket to the PTA raffle every year for 32 years should eventually win, no?

So now I have a mere twenty minutes left in my workday, after which I will go home and kill an hour before going to visit the therapist at four. That gives me an hour to try to remember all the stuff I wanted to talk about yesterday. Who makes an appointment for a Friday afternoon?

And today, of course, would be the birthday of Jack, which I mentioned earlier in the week, which means my cousin's grandtwins are six today. Their mother has no interest in visiting the East Coast, so although I saw them when they were a year old (because I was in Colorado), I am unlikely to see them again. That first year, we got daily email bulletins from their father -- they had been born at about 29 weeks, I think -- and they were apparently the only adorable children ever born on earth, these days we get nothing except a printed picture at Christmas along with a tacky newsletter, which really, I thought the kids' dad, who writes them, was way beyond, especially considering that he writes for a living. But whatever. Did not mean to get into any sort of weird rant today.

Oh god, why are kids still taking books out? Do they not see the photocopier right over there? Any book checked out today will only have to be ruthlessly hunted down in two weeks when it is overdue, even though I'm telling each one of them that all of our books are due back next Friday. I can see how June is shaping up for me. At least they're not seniors.

And .... at the bell ....


WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1767

Yahrzeit

This is such a strange week now, Memorial Day weekend and the week that follows. It was always closed linked to my father, whose birthday was May 30, and who was told as a little boy by his own father that the parade every year was for him. (Aw.) He would tell us that he remembered seeing the Civil War veterans marching, all with white beards. (This would have been in the early 1920s.) Memorial Day was Jack's birthday.

Then it wasn't always, of course, when it became a Monday holiday. Six years ago, my mother died on Memorial Day Sunday, so to speak, the day before Memorial Day, which was today's date, May 26. Technically, then, this is not her yahrzeit because it's not the same day on the Hebrew calender, but I think she'd understand.

We couldn't have the funeral the next day, as is the custom, because it was Memorial Day and the gravediggers don't work holidays. And we needed a day for my cousin to fly in from Colorado, so we scheduled it for Wednesday, the 29th. Less than an hour after we got home from the funeral, my cousin got a call from her son that his wife was in early labor with their twins, so she flew right out to San Francisco to be with them.

The twins -- a boy and a girl -- were born just after midnight, on Jack's 83rd birthday, less than a week after my mother died. As if that wasn't excitement enough, that night was K's senior prom, which she only agreed to go to because it was really the last thing Shirl took interest in that last week of her life, and she had been very interested in all the details of the dress, the date, the shore trip for the next day. So there was a prom. A death, a double birth, a birthday that would turn out to be father's last, and a prom.

That's a lot to remember for one week.


WATCHING FRASIER :: ENTRY #1763

About the Tired. And All That.

As the empress suggests in her comments, The Tired is most likely due to the Crohn's, or to the medication for Crohn's, or a combination of the two. I don't think it's because of my night-time sleeping patterns, because let's face it, I've had insomnia since I was twelve, and I can't pin that on the Crohn's.

After school yesterday, I did a few errands. I picked up my glasses (which seem fine), went to Walgreen's (which was out of my size hearing aid batteries, and I beat it out of there when I saw someone I knew up one of the aisles and I didn't want to get bogged down in conversation), and to the supermarket. The walk through the supermarket is not exhausting in and of itself, because I'm hanging onto the cart for support, but it's always hot by the checkout -- I took my coat off -- and then walking out to the car with just my two bags, I thought "Oh. I'm a completely different person now."

Then I realized that this was not so much a huge revelation as it was a "here we go again." Despite what many of us think, that we are who we are and always have been, every so often we change into a whole other person, the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. (Which sounds so lovely, but trust me, my transformations are not as poetic.) I am not troubled by this transformation, I just hadn't gotten it in my head yet that here it was again. But even as I huffed and puffed my way to the car, I knew that this was different from "last time," which was, of course, after the brain surgery, but in my next thought I realized that I've undergone many other changes since then, since the brain surgery 16 years ago.

Of course we change naturally over time, puberty and all that crap, and no one will deny that being pregnant and giving birth changes your body. Even so, I think when my kids were little, I did not so much feel changed in who I was. I was still always in overdrive. I did everything I wanted or needed to do. I worked, I took care of the kids. I cooked what needed to be cooked, and cleaned what absolutely needed to be cleaned. I took care of everything. I was tired all the time, but never really tired enough to keep me from doing what I needed to do.

Brain surgery shifted my paradigm, so to speak. I was forced to be someone other than that get-everything-done person, at least for a period of time. People took care of me on a grand scale, and I had never really experienced that before. I liked to say that I learned that it was okay to let other people do that, and to let other people take care of things I had always done, but in truth, that was a short-lived lesson. As soon as I was able to, I went back to being who I was, but with modifications. I did regain some strength and stamina. I went back to managing multiple Girl Scout troops, to working long hours at school on extra-curricular activities, and on full-time with my kids. The real change in me after the brain surgery was that I became much more thoughtful about raising my children, and listening to what I said and didn't say to them, and learning not to sweat the small stuff with them. To pick my battles. Having brain surgery made me a much, much better mother, because I had been given a glimpse into an alternate world where I might not have continued to be their mother. Although on the whole, I would prefer not to have a hearing loss, I always think of the brain surgery as generally a positive thing that happened to me, not a negative. And now you know why.

Since then, I have been experiencing the Wonderful World of Menopause, which brings its own changes, most of them really annoying. Combined with the WWM are the natural changes that come with aging. When my menopause adventure began, I was 42, and had just taken a car trip to DisneyWorld with my kids and my sister and hers, and I had done all the driving, all the planning, all the managing. I was a freaking dynamo, and then all this other stuff started, and it was hard adjusting for a while, especially to the mood swings. But then things changed when my mother became ill, and Shirl Is Dying took over everything. Certainly the hardest period in my life. I did not adjust to well to all that, had constant stomach pain, and ultimately went to therapy, which helped a great deal. During this time, I developed high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and god knows what else, and I was in a continual state of overdrive. And it only really ended when Shirl died, which kicked off another whole cycle of change and adjustment and new-me-ness, which had barely gotten started before Jack died nine months later. I was an orphan. I learned to live my life as an orphan -- I know that sounds goofy and overdramatic -- but it was a change and had to be dealt with. When your parents are dead, you are the adult, and there is no escaping from that.

And there was a kind of free falling feeling. Overdrive was no longer my required mode of being. I no longer had to spend every day after work running to help my parents, or doing something for my kids. My parents were dead and both of my kids were away at college. Life took on a much easier, more pleasant pace. This was a very peaceful period in my life. I finished going to therapy. This period lasted two years, the two years that both kids were away. Then they came home, one and then the other, but still, things were okay because having adult daughters who are your friends is so cool. Yes, there are moments, and dishes in the sink, but time will take care of all that. I didn't need to be in overdrive, just drive, during this time. My time was my own and I could do what I wanted, sometimes with a buddy along.

And now. Overdrive is out of the question, of course. Drive would be nice, and if it's not there most of the time, well, hey.

At some point recently, maybe even before I got sick, I had an interesting series of thoughts. I have been married 30 years, we have lived in our house 20 years. I am 55. I will live another 20 years, or maybe 30. I'm likely to get to 75, unlikely to go past 85. It was the first time I thought of my lifespan as having a finite end. It was a little bit of a disturbing thought. The last 20 years -- or 30 -- went by so fast. What if all the years I have left go by the same way? I was starting to think of my life and what's left of it as being very short. And then I got so sick, and then I got my diagnosis.

The time ahead of me suddenly does not seem short. It seems okay. I don't know why knowing I have a chronic disease for the rest of my life changed that, but it did. (Although I still have to wonder about certain things fitting into that timespan ahead of me, like grandchildren and watching them grow up. Where the hell are my grandchildren already? My parents and grandparents both had grandchildren by the time they were 55!) When I am Tired, I just am; I can't do anything about it, so why should I despair that I can no longer function in overdrive as I once did? I'm not even supposed to be in overdrive anymore; I spent so much time taking care of every detail for the last 35 years that they're just all taken care of. I'm not quite as sharp as I've been, but I think that's also either the Crohn's or the meds, and that will come back when I've got things more under control medically. And I am not sweating small stuff. At. All. Why bother? Why care? Don't worry, be happy. You know?

So even when I'm Tired, I'm okay. Today after school I'm going to get my nails done, and then go home and get K and we will vote and then pick some stuff up for dinner. Sounds like just the right plan for me.

WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS :: ENTRY #1672

Keepin' On

So it's a day to day thing. I was up at 3 am this morning feeling not so great, but that's how it goes, so okay. This left me pretty tired most of the day, but at about 2.00, I suddenly felt just fine, so K took me on a short supermarket trip. I felt like I was in wonderland, and actually said aloud, with awe, "Hey! I'm in a supermarket!"

I got more phone calls and stuff done today, and got that TV picked up. It cost a little more than I wanted to pay, but hey. It took two guys in their 20s to get it out. So if the Hubs' manly pride and not being given the opportunity to do it himself is ruffled, screw it. It would have killed him, and then who would take me to the hospital when I need to go? When I thank him for doing stuff like that he shrugs and says "It's my job." Yeah, well, it's my job to look after him, too.

The hard job has been finding someone to donate all that food to, but someone who will come and pick it up. I think I've finally got it down to a local church, but the person who runs their food pantry wasn't in today and I have to call back on Monday. I called several places. But I know the church has an active group of volunteers; one is a retired custodian from my school and he would just do it if I called him, but I'll avoid that if I can; he's a little odd and slow, although very sweet. Hey, he's probably the guy they'll send to get it, but I'd rather not call him myself.

Another thing going on that's worth a mention is how my mother and and father in law have reacted to my whole illness. You may recall that I was miffed with them a few years back because neither of them ever said a word to me when my father died, which was very odd and hard for me to deal with. Well. Since I've been ill, they have called every single day, talking to the Hubs when I couldn't talk, but to me since I can. I am very touched by the sincerity of their feelings for me here (and have said so to them -- not that I'm moved by their sincerity, but that I'm so grateful for their daily calls and and concern.) It's really wonderful; it's a real parent-like behavior that I have frankly craved. I have been missing my parents terribly throughout this whole thing, the capable and strong parents they were before they became ill themselves. Truly, I was blessed to have them, and blessed to know it, too.

Okay, now I'm all misty, so I'll just post this and maybe have another bologna sandwich. I also picked up some soy-based pudding and cheese slices, and tofutti ice cream, so that can vary my diet a little.

Big day tomorrow.


WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS :: ENTRY #1658

Conspiracies, Sunday, and World War II

Okay, just so you know it isn't just me. Here.

So K and I are watching episode 4 of The War, which I've seen twice now, although I haven't seen 1 or 2 or most of 3, but it's not as if I can't follow the story, so it doesn't so much matter. It's really an excellent documentary series. Anyway, we just saw a segment that described the weeks following D-Day, and how the Allied troops were having trouble making progress because the countryside of Normandy was cut up into small fields by the hedgerows, which were difficult to get past, and how General Bradley decided that they had to push past the hedgerows and get to Saint-Lo, after which they would have a clearer landscape in which to pursue the German army and push towards Paris, and ultimately, Germany.

And I said to K, "And that's where Grandpa was." He had arrived in Normandy about a week after D-Day, since where he went he was accompanied by the big anti-aircraft guns, and they couldn't move those in until the beach-head was already established, but once he was there, he was part of the push eastward. I'm watching this show, and I see the veterans in their 80's being interviewed, and I think it's frankly a miracle that any of them came out of this alive.

The parts about the war in the Pacific are almost more horrific, as if there's any need to compare. One segment is about a family of American civilians who were living in the Philippines when the war started, and how they were gathered up and quartered in a hotel. Not too bad. I used to work with a man, now retired, who was about 9 and living in the Phillipines in 1941, and who watched the Japanese airfleet as they flew overhead to Pearl Harbor. He and his family were kept in a concentration camp for the duration of the war, a place where guards routinely beat women -- all foreign nationals and civilians, but not all Americans -- for minor infractions. He got out of the camp when he was 12, during which time he had not grown at all, due to the malnutrition.

Anyway, that was quite the tangent. I didn't write yesterday because I just didn't do anything worth writing about. I do feel okay; whatever that lightheadness was on Friday night was gone when I woke up Saturday morning. R came over today to do her laundry, and she and K and I went to Target, because it was Sunday, and that's what one does on a Sunday, and then to a mall near the Target. It was very busy and noisy at the mall, but I got a couple of sweaters at The Gap that were either mis-marked or mis-scanned, because it looked to me like about $52 worth of sweaters and I had a $10 coupon, and somehow it came out to $22.99. So I'm not complaining.

The weather has turned incredibly beautiful here, and is supposed to remain so for the week. Mid to upper 70's, no humidity, no rain. Feels so nice. But I am very tired; I feel like all the juice has been squeezed out of me. I'll be a real hoot to tote around DisneyWorld.

I'll be back.

WATCHING THE WAR :: ENTRY #1594

Hi.

Yeah. Um. So I feel tired and lazy and fat. I ate a lot for dinner; even though I snack all the time, I rarely eat a lot at one meal, and I feel like my tummy is growing outward before my eyes.

My day was not as busy as I had hoped, because those nasty little freshpeople are not coming in on their own for their ID cards as they should.

[Pause.]

An hour later ...

Anyway, so I've got to ask the principal to make an announcement that they'll be checking for freshmen ID cards next week. That ought to wake them up a little.

So I took a pause because K happened downstairs and somehow we got onto the topic of jewelry, and we decided to look through what I laughingly call "my jewelry box." You know, if you have an actual jewelery box -- and I've had those in the past -- it's like telling anyone who breaks in that here it is, all my valuable stuff is pre-packed for you in one convenient, portable storage case; bye! Anyway, I'm not good at conventional stuff like that. I have four big gray storage boxes, cardboard, stacked on top of each other on a file cabinet in the corner of my bedroom. My jewelry, so called, is in one of them in an assortment of trays. Getting to this box is like decoding a puzzle, what with all the stuff on top of it, which is fine because I rarely need to look at it. But it was fun.

I have very, very little in the way of good jewelry, which is also fine with me. I have a lot of the costume things my mother loved, although I also have a couple of very good pieces that were hers: her wedding band, which I wear every day, and an opal wedding band that she wore every day (which is why she gave me her original ring years and years ago.) I have Grandma Ida's engagement ring, which I wrote about recently and yes, I'm wearing it every day, and Grandma Sadie's diamond watch, which, how did a living human woman, especially one that heavy, have such a tiny wrist? I have my own engagement ring, very pretty but not terribly valuable. I think that's it. My jewelry box is filled with memory type things, mostly, and a variety of costume jewelry that I used to wear, and things that people have given me, either as gifts or as souvenirs brought back from travels. I like opals; R brought me opal earrings from Australia. She brought my mother an opal pendant, which I now have, too.

I have bracelets and things I wore as a child and as a teenager, and both a bracelet and a ring woven from leather strips that I bought from a street vendor in high school. Really, I never throw anything out. I have about a dozen cheap watches that don't work.

Ooh, and a really cool watch, that I set and wound, and I'll wear it on Saturday -- we're going to a wedding -- if it's still running. Have to remember to wind it every day; there's a flashback. It looks something like the watch on this page; the face is similar, although the style of the watch is a little different. When the watch is running, the two circles in the center rotate and create a kind of kaleidoscope. The red hands tell the time. How did I come by such a fancy shmancy device? In fact, I have two of them:

When I was about twelve, I think, my father knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, and he was offered some kind of deal on these really expensive watches. I remember that we all drove into the city on a Sunday -- stores were not open, even in New York City, on Sundays then, but this guy opened special for us *ahem* -- and my mother, my sister, and I each picked out a style that we liked. My mother got one with a square case surrounding the dials, which I now have in addition to the petite round one I picked out for me, like my sister's. I never knew what the deal was, but it seemed a little outside of the normal practice of business to me even then, if you get my drift, but since Jack was the most honest and moral man alive, I don't know.

I also don't know if the watch works, but if it does, I'll wear it. If I can figure out how to take a little movie of it running, I'll post it for you. It was very cool. Hey, it was the sixties.

Okay, time to post and go into my long-awaited food coma.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1583

Erev Yontef

On the eve of the holiday (which is what today's title means, "the eve of the holiday"), the proper greeting, I believe, is Le shana tova tikatevu, which means, "May only good be written for you this year." Of course, I'm telling you all this as if I have ever actually observed this holiday in my life, which I have not. Rosh Hashonah, along with Yom Kippur, on its way a week from Saturday, are the big-time religious observances, and therefore, got little notice in the house where I grew up. Jack and Shirl did not do religion, and even Grandpa Sam (Shirl's orthodox father) knew this, and so spent this holiday elsewhere, where he could go to services at the shul (synagogue.) The only holidays we covered chez Jack and Shirl were Chanukah, the present-giving event that's around Christmas, and Passover, the wonderful family/tradition event that was always held at our house but presided over by Grandpa Sam.

So what am I doing tomorrow? Waking up without an alarm, getting K's car re-inspected, taking a nice walk or two, and either getting my new car radio put in or making an appointment to get it done on Friday.

I got home from the dreaded Back to School Night around 9.30, at which point I was wired. I hadn't eaten dinner because I was too keyed up, and I went back to school at 5.30 anyway. Why keyed up? A variety of reasons, none of which were school-related, but I knew I had a lot of work to do, so I skipped dinner and went back early. The evening was not unpleasant, although by 9.00 I could have eaten the furniture. I came home, had a frozen pizza, and finally fell asleep around 11.30, only to wake up at 1.30, and then ... you know. I finally fell back to sleep around 5.00. My alarm rings at 5.40.

In the last three days, I have printed approximately 300 school I.D. cards for various people, and done nothing else whatsoever, since I didn't have a minute to spare. So remember, kids, get your education! See what fascinating work you can do when you have multiple graduate degrees?

One of the parents who stopped into the library last night looked around at the books in awe and asked if it cost anything for the kids to be able to take them home. I was not rude to her, and actually did not feel the need to be, because she was clearly from some country where the concept of a free lending library does not exist. She was delighted to hear that no, her child can borrow our books just by being a student at our school. All the parents who dropped by were lovely. I was particularly touched by a couple who were clearly from India, and who looked around admiringly at the new furnishings, posters on the wall, and so on, and who stopped dead when they saw the big poster I put up of Gandhi. They were actually moved, and expressed their gratitude and delight. To me, it was no big deal; you may recall the fun I had last winter picking out posters. But I think to them, it meant that their child had a place in this American school, too.

I'm going to investigate dinner -- I think I'll have it tonight -- and then ... no idea.

WATCHING REBA :: ENTRY #1578

Cars and Things

In answer to a couple of comments I got on the new car:

No, I will not need a stepstool to climb up into it! LOL. Anyway, I cannot stand to get in and out of a regular sedan; it feels like I'm crawling down into and then climbing up out of it. I like an SUV because you sit up straight and have a good view, and the Tracker is the smallest SUV there is, I think. So it's perfect for me.

How perfect? What would be my ideal car if I could get any car? Well, well, that's another story.

I would want to get some kind of hybrid, but, as per the previous paragraph, the only hybrids of the moment are sedans or big SUVs, and either way, they all cost way more than I would want to spend on a car.

I love to car shop as I drive along the road. I've been doing this forever, maybe everyone does. I remember thinking over 25 years ago while we were driving up to New Hampshire for vacation that what I needed was a van, but not a big one; why couldn't they make little vans? I remember also just loving the Jeep Wagoneer, the big boxy car that was kind of like an overgrown station wagon, in the way-early, pre-SUV days.

The other kind of car that I just adore is a small convertible sports car. This could not be more out of character for me, and I really only like the way they look. I would absolutely hate riding in any kind of convertible, or on a motorcycle. I can't stand the wind, or the noise, or even the smell of the other cars. Driving around these last couple of days in a car with its window stuck open is like torture. I never drive with the windows open.

I must have inherited this little quirk from my father. Jack's all-time favorite car was the 1957 Thunderbird.
This too must have been a looks-only kind of love, because he had very strict rules about what kind of car he would buy (aka, what kind of car we should buy.)

It had to be a sedan.
It could never ever be a convertible.
It couldn't be what they used to call a "hardtop." In other words, there had to be a post between the front and back windows to help hold up the roof.
It couldn't be a hatchback.
It couldn't be station wagon.

All of these rules, like almost everything else he did, were for safety. He assured us that if we were ever in an accident in a convertible or a hardtop, the car would turn over and we would be crushed by the unsupported roof, or certainly ejected from a car with no roof at all, or just squashed dead. It had to be a sedan because that was the kind of car that adults drive. It couldn't be a hatchback or a station wagon because they were too open, and anything you put in them could be seen, and was therefore an open invitation to thieves.

Yeah. But there was another thing. Every car he ever drove in my lifetime was a company car. He and his business partner, Murray, had started out just around the time I was born. It was just the two of them. At first, they bought a used Suburban -- not the monster SUV it is today -- so they could make deliveries, and if one of them needed it for something else, they took turns borrowing it. Within a couple of years, they each had their own personal cars, but owned by the business. Also by this time, Murray had contracted polio -- when I was about 6 months old, actually -- so Jack had to have a car with a big trunk, because he would be making all the deliveries. When he went car shopping, he brought a carton with him from his warehouse, the biggest size they used. If it fit in the trunk, he bought the car.

But by the early 80s, all the cars were downsized. The only car he could find that was big enough for him was the top of the line, super-sized Chevy station wagon.



And to his surprise, he loved it. Turns out it was the best car he ever had. It was huge, and it handled like a dream. He picked it up, I think, March 18, 1981, which was the day after R was born. A week later, he drove us home from the hospital in it. But ten years later, UPS was making all his deliveries, and he wanted to downsize, too. That's when he got the white Oldsmobile Ciera, the one that the Hubs drives now.

So, what's my dream car? Big enough so that I don't feel claustrophobic, high enough so that I can see over the other cars, not so big that I look like I'm trying to compensate for something. Not a sedan, I hate those. I like a hatchback, myself. I like a car with really good visibility. I'd also like a car that gets at least 50 miles to the gallon. Waiting for a hybrid that suits me.

My sister, btw, bought a Prius in March, but she almost never drives anymore, since her husband takes her everywhere. She's never put gas in it except to fill the tank on her way home from the dealership, and it still has less than 300 miles on it. Now that's a car.

WATCHING FRASIER :: ENTRY #1571

The End of an Era

Well, sort of. There's a Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel today, as there as been a TZ marathon on some channel for years and years now on July 4, Labor Day, and a variety of other holidays. Earlier, I happened to catch a moment of that creepy episode -- that narrows it down -- where there are four greedy relatives waiting for a wealthy old man to die, and he makes them wear masks and then their faces turn into the masks. Anyway, this one stands out for me because one of the mask-wearing relatives was played by a character actor named Milton Selzer.




Ah, Milton. I wrote about him once before. I never met him but I knew who he was my whole life because he was always on TV in something or other, and he had been one of my father's fraternity brothers at the University of New Hampshire in the late 1930s. For the last few years, each time I see him in something -- usually a TZ marathon -- I check him on imdb to see if he's still among us. I checked today for the first time in a long time -- probably since last Labor Day -- and I see that he is now gone. Seems like another link to Jack gone.


Otherwise, it's very overcast here today, not an outside day at all, not that I would be outside. Mostly, we've been watching a lot of the Back to the Futures that are on some channel or other all day. R landed safely in South Carolina before 11.00 this morning. I was just about to take a nap a little while ago when my cousin called from Colorado, so it was very nice to catch up with her. We don't talk often, but have always been close.

I've been reading this 8 Things About Yourself meme here, there, and everywhere, and I don't know if I can come up with 8 things you people don't already know about me. I may toss in one a day here or there, if I can think of anything. Not that I'm not random to begin with, but I guess that would be pretty random.

My back is still bothering me, which seems like a long time now, but then today feels like Sunday, which would make it a week, but it's only Wednesday.

Oh, okay, Random Fact #1:

boxx said something about a lot of her family members having birthdays on or near holidays. Now, one's definition of a holiday plays a role here, however:

1. Both of my mother's parents were born on different nights of Chanukah.
2. My father's mother's birthday was March 15, which was the original Income Tax Day. My father's father's birthday was July 4.
3. My father's oldest sister's birthday was January 20, Inauguration Day. Her husband's birthday was April 15, which is the current Income Tax Day.
   
4. My father's birthday was May 30, the original date of Memorial Day.
5. My mother's birthday was September 2, which was often Labor Day.
6. My cousin's birthday -- the one I was just speaking to -- is February 2, which is Ground Hog Day.
7. My sister was born on May 14, 1948, the day that Israel declared itself an independent nation and was recognized as such by the United States.
   
8. My grandfather's brother, Uncle Joe, had his birthday on October 12, which is Columbus Day. When my sister was born, Uncle Joe suggested to my parents that she be named "Palestine" in honor of the occasion of the day of her birth. She was not.
   
9. Uncle Joe and Aunt Sara were married on Christmas Day. My grandparents were married one week later, on New Year's Day.
10. My parents were married on Christmas Day.

I think that's it. No holiday for me. When I was a kid, I felt like the only one without a special birthday.

WATCHING OPRAH :: ENTRY #1515

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

I'm not fond of the dark, but I'm not afraid of it. Afraid of falling down while walking in the dark, perhaps, but that's another issue.

Everybody is afraid of something.

My best-known fear, and I mean known to everyone who knows me, is snakes. Or, serpents, as we like to call them euphemistically in this house, rather than speak their dreaded name. (My father refused to call them serpents, although my mother did and sister does, but more on him later.) This is a true, full-blown phobia, and although therapy helped a little, in fact, I'm quite comfortable with my fear I wasn't in therapy for that; I had bigger fish to fry. But we did touch on the subject, and the therapist asked, quite reasonably, what I thought would happen if I were confronted with a snake.

Easy question, easy answer. I would cease to exist. If I saw a snake serpent up close -- I can hardly even type those words -- my life would not continue. I would die. From fear, maybe, I don't know. The essence of a true phobia is that you connect it with your fear of death.

I am not afraid of, for example, spiders, although plenty of people are, including people to whom I have given birth, although I don't like spiders at all. Spiders have more of a serious ick factor than they do a fear-of-death factor. I don't like them, but if I see one I can pretty much swat it with a magazine or a shoe and be done with it. The vegan Hubs will gently carry them outside, and I think that's lovely. I do not care for uninvited living creatures of any sort to share my designated space. They gotta take what comes. It's a dog-eat-dog world. You get the picture.

The house I grew up in was much more spidery than this one, for which I am grateful. Not, I mean, that we had them there, but that we don't get them much here, and the ones here are more like baby spiders, which is a little more icky, actually. I always kind of got the impression that our spider situation back home was that there were lots of big trees near the house and touching it. Probably had nothing to do with it. We have fewer touching trees here, but the house is a good ten years older than the house I grew up in, so you'd think, more. More webs here, but I'm sure that's a housekeeping issue more than anything. Although we have an unfinished basement and attic, and everything back home was finished up, a split level with no room for expansion. Anyway, makes no difference.

Which is all to say that when I reached for my jammies last night, which I more or less tuck under my pillow every morning, a little baby spider crawled out across them. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ICKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK. Naturally I squashed the sucker, and then gathered up my things (and my pillowcase) and baked them in the dryer for an hour.

I don't like spiders although I don't fear them, but I have a horror of bugs or spiders crawling on me. This is one of the big reasons for me not being an outdoorsy sort of gal. That's their world, and I give it to them to have all for their own; I only need occasional safe passage through it.

When I was about four, we were away in the country for two weeks in the summer. (If you're reading closely, yes, it was the same week that the picture up there on the right of me and my mother was taken.) One afternoon, I sat with several little girls and a counselor under a tree. No idea what we were doing, but making those loop potholders seems a likely possibility. Then, all in a moment, there was a spider on me. It had dropped down out of the tree, and was maybe two or three inches across. I screamed. Everybody screamed. I screamed so loud that my knight in shining armor, who was playing baseball on a field about a hundred yards away, ran as fast as he could and swatted the thing off me. My knight was Philip, the son of our family friends, who was my big sister's age and who was the closest I ever had in life to a big brother.

So yeah, I don't like spiders on me, and not on my pajamas, either. And I ain't looking at no snakes, and no pictures of snakes, and no graven images of snakes. And my father, who dismissed my panic with those soothing words "Nobody likes them"? It wasn't until I was nearly 50 and he was over 80 that I found out that he, like me, really, really, really didn't like snakes. He just didn't let his fear carry him, because he was Mr. Stoic and could steel himself for anything, no matter how much he feared it. But it was nice to know that what I had thought was him belittling my fear wasn't actually that at all. He was trying to calm me, to put it into perspective for me. And, as it turned out, to convince himself.

watching Ocean's 11 :: entry # 1486

What? Memorial Day?

Have you ever had this experience, that you are exposed to some loud noise for a period of time, say, at a rock concert, and it leaves you somewhat deaf for some time after, maybe an hour or two?

Yeah. So I have to keep the hearing aids turned up so loud to get them to more or less work, that my ear is bombarded with noise and when I take them off, I'm even more deaf. I've got them off now for the rest of the day, and I'm hoping some of my natural hearing comes back, or else I'll be back on prednisone tomorrow morning.

The really loud noise I was exposed to via the turned-up hearing aids was a movie. K and I went to see Shrek, which we both enjoyed, although my hearing totally sucked and was not at all adjusted for going to the movies. Here's hoping that's something else they can work on and I don't have to spend the rest of my life wishing I could get closed captioning in a movie theatre. I rarely go to the movies now, but I'd like to keep my options open.

Memorial Day. Aside from the true meaning of the day, which I'm saving for another time, Memorial Day is interlinked to my father because he was born on May 30, which was the real date for Memorial Day for many, many years. When he was a little boy, his father told him the parade each year was for him. In his earliest memories -- he was born in 1919 -- he remembered seeing Civil War veterans, in their uniforms and with their long, white beards -- marching in the parade in his Massachusetts home town. Like every other village and hamlet in New England, there was a Civil War memorial on the town green. For some reason, I don't see those all over New Jersey, but I know I've seen them all over Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Anyway.

So the days feel off to me, the dates feel off. If Memorial Day isn't the 30th -- and I don't think it ever is anymore, is it? -- I get all mixed up.

But I do have to go to school tomorrow. That much I've got.

watching Roseanne :: entry #1478

Five Years + One Day

I posted twice yesterday, but I didn't make mention of the anniversary, which I didn't realize myself until late in the day because I really didn't know what the date was all day.

My mother, the lady in the picture just over there on the right, died five years ago yesterday. It was Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, so in that sense, it could be five years ago today. Clear as a bell, of course, every minute of it.

The Sibs and I talked about it briefly before, but we talk about our parents often, so nothing new. Like me, I think she has way more trouble getting beyond Jack's death, since Shirl's was so obviously coming for a long time. His decline was much more subtle. Anyway, enough of that. Let me just note that it is the anniversary of her death and move on. Wednesday -- the 30th -- would be his birthday, this year the 88th. So I'll freak out over that one on Wednesday.

In the meantime, yet another trip to R's this morning, this time to pick up cartons I was taking back or taking to recycling, which I did afterwards. It's about a 20-25 minute drive over there, and it's becoming second-nature. But it looks like I have a day off tomorrow, both from work and from R, since she's on her way at the moment to visit friends from the UK who are visiting briefly with family in Pennsylvania, about 2 hours away, and she's staying with them overnight and until late tomorrow. So she gets a break from all the unpacking and settling in, too, although really, she's made tremendous progress.

Meanwhile, K and I did the food shopping, and I got the bills paid, and although I have more laundry to do -- some of it R's, what a surprise -- I'm actually pretty caught up on that, too. Tomorrow K and I are hoping to go see the Shrek movie. I haven't heard great things about it, but you know I rarely go to the movies in a theatre, and we've gone to the last two Shreks together, so we're completing the set. I'm sure I won't see another movie until the Harry comes out in July.

Have a good holiday weekend, all.

watching Wings on DVD :: entry #1477

Where's That Baby Book?

You know how you record the milestones of your child's life in her baby book?

Today was K's first day in front of a classroom. They called her late last night to sub at the high school today, and she went. I swear I wanted to take a picture of her "first day of teaching" outfit. (She looked adorable, I might say, and not 17, which is the goal when you're a first-day substitute who's 5'2" and slight.)

I did see her a few times during the day, and all seemed to be going well. The amazing thing is that when she left the high school at 2.45, she had to zip over to her job in the Giant Jeans Conglomerate, where she's working today from 3 to 8. So, a 12 hour day for her.

Both my children have a very good work ethic. Jack would be incredibly proud.

So, minutes after I finished my list last night, Boo began to poop here, there, and everywhere. The perfect end to the perfect day. And I cannot use my washer and dryer until the plumber tells me it's okay, since they were sitting in an inch or so of water. That would be the plumber who was supposed to come today at 3 but didn't because other people have no heat or hot water and all we have is a leaky sink. They swear they're coming tomorrow. Please.

I did use the pump I got yesterday to get rid of as much water as I could from the laundry area, so I guess it's going to dry. Even so, I have all kinds of stuff on the machines that I saved from sitting in puddles, so it'll be a logistical puzzle whenever it happens, unless the floor is completely dry and I can put that stuff back down on it again.

Here's what I really want: a team of strong men to take everything out of my basement, clean it all up, and then put stuff back neatly, on shelves, with nothing at all resting on the floor except the rubber-coated bottoms of the shelf uprights. Perhaps that's too specific. Honestly, I would call someone from the local paper, but I wouldn't even know what to look for or whom to call. And there are plenty of people in town way worse off than we are, so whoever it is that does this is going to be booked up with more important problems.

I actually did one little something for myself before. After I'd re-scheduled the plumber and then taken Q to get her claws clipped -- she was walking on tippy-toe -- I went to Barnes and Noble and got two Kurt Vonnegut novels that I've never read: Slapstick and Galapagos. Slapstick was his first one I didn't read, if that makes sense, and I know that Galapagos is one of R's favorites. I may start after dinner, which is happening in five minutes, if I'm not distracted by some shiny object.


watching Still Standing :: entry #1434

Through the Years

[copied from dland]

So, yesterday, the Sibs and I were waiting for the ridiculous ceremony to begin, and she was bored -- she's a bored-a-phobic, and I had suggested she not bring her knitting to the courthouse; it was a little too Madame Defarge for me -- and I told her I had all kinds of little video things on my iPod and she wanted to see what I had, so I pulled it out, and before I could stop myself, I showed her this:

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

I posted it here before, when I made it, but I hadn't shown it to lots of people because I thought it might be hard for them to see. K saw it because it was on my screen here in the family room, but I guess I didn't send it to anyone else. The Sibs in particular can have issues when it comes to Jack and Shirl, and I guess when I made it, I thought it would be a hard time for her. But yesterday, she saw it, and was moved, as am I when I see it again. It's the pictures of course, and also the song.

As we were waiting for it to come on, she looked puzzled, like she didn't hear anything on the headphones, and I said, "It's that Kenny Rogers song, you know," and she said "Kenny Rogers song? You mean the one that mommy loved?"

Excuse me?

It's a funny thing, you know, that we're sisters and we both spent so much time with our parents, and still, there are things that I know and things that she knows and they don't always overlap. This must happen in every family or circle of people, I would think. Anyway, even before my parents died, when I first heard that song "Through the Years," it made me think of them. They had their issues, god knows, but still. They were married for 58 years. They stuck it out. What I didn't know was that my mother also totally thought that song was them. It's as if it became "their song", like they needed a new one at that point. (No idea what their original "their song" was, but I'm thinking Doris Day singing with a big band kind of thing. My mother was also very fond of "Sentimental Journey," so maybe it was that.)

Anyway, I'm somehow very psyched that I thought this song was so very "them" and Shirl did too, without my even knowing.

The Sibs said she loved the movie, but it made her sad. I said it made me happy. But I was listening to the song in the car before, and I realized that it makes me happy and said at the same time. I talked to her, and she said it was the same.

Sometimes it feels like one or both of them -- Shirl and Jack -- is right here, listening and knowing. I can just hear Jack's reaction to that one: "Uh! That's foolish." because he was an atheist and did not believe in an afterlife of any kind. (A note on that: for years he would describe himself as an agnostic, but decided after age 80 that no, he was sure now, and therefore an atheist.) But Shirl, I know, would buy it for real. So as far as I'm concerned, she's right here somewhere. Maybe if I'm a good girl, she'll come and talk to me in a dream soon, or more likely, call me on the phone in a dream, which has happened a few times before. Best dreams ever, being with and talking to someone you love who's gone in real-life.

So that's where I am at the moment. Feeling the good stuff.


WATCHING no idea :: ENTRY #1314

Jack

[copied from dland]

Jack died this morning. He had a heart condition for over 20 years, and a whole host of other ailments, as befit his 83 years. Even so, my first reactionwas, and still is, surprise.

I had planned to write so much about him, and even started another diary for it, just about him. I wanted to get more of his stories before I got going onit, but now I'll have to go on memories. That's okay, too.

He told me once that in all his life, he'd never had a dream in which he wasn't a little boy, playing marbles or riding his scooter. He never dreamed of anything in his life after the war, never dreamed of Shirl or my sister or me or even the grandchildren. It must have been some way that his subconscious mind protected him from remembering and dreaming about the war and all he saw there.

The how and why of today is pretty strange, I guess; that's a story for another time, too. I was in the car with K, driving back home (we were about an hour away when my sister called on the cell phone to tell me), and so we had that time to talk. Mostly, we talked about where he is now. Pretty funny, since he himself was an agnostic, and didn't believe in any kind of afterlife at all, although I seem to. So we were picturing him in all the possible places in heaven he could be.

He could be a chubby ten-year old, playing baseball in the schoolyard next to his house in small-town New England. He played badly, he said, but he always played. Or he could be at the Y, learning to swim. He might even be at Fenway Park. A neighbor boy, a few years older, would take him on the train to see the Red Sox play.

He could be in high school. He was handsome, and a little bit of a flirt, and a good student, although not as good as either of his older sisters. He was an officer in the Cadet Corps, and hung out with all the cool kids, even though he was Jewish and nobody else was.

He might be in college, the first in his family to go. He had a very good time in college. He was an officer in his fraternity, where he learned to drink beer, although he never liked it.

He might even be in the army, although he wouldn't be in the Huertgen Forest, the worst combat he saw. Maybe it would be when he got to see Paris, or Brussels. He would be laughing with George Johnson, his best buddy.

I think he's spending some of his heaven time with Shirl, who died last May. But he's not seeing her that way, sick for years and sucking all the life and energy out of him. He's with the Shirl he first knew during the war, when they met and then married. In Jack's heaven, Shirl is still bright and sweet and really built.

He's not 75 pounds overweight, or bald. It's not hard for him to walk, or remember. He's still a hunk.

His children are little girls, his business is just starting out. He goes into the office every morning and talks over last night's ball game with his partner, Murray. Murray died two years ago, so I know that Jack is spending some of his time with Murray. They were partners for over 45 years.

He bought his house in the suburbs, and bought into the American dream he helped save in World War II. This is my favorite picture of Jack and Shirl ever, in the backyard. He might be mowing the lawn there, or burning the leaves. No, he's shoveling the snow. It seems like he was always shoveling snow.

It's most likely that he's someplace with his grandchildren. He loved them best of all.

He hated having his picture taken (so he won't be doing that), but there was nothing AT ALL that was better for him than his grandchildren. So he might be playing with them on the floor, all of them babies together, or at the July 4th barbecue, or at Thanksgiving.

He won't be wearing a tie, because he didn't like that at all. He only got dressed up for weddings and such, like this one, where he posed with both grandsons. He did not smile for the camera.

At least, until later in the evening. He was, after all, sitting at a table surrounded by all the people he loved. Two daughters with husbands, and five grandchildren. And of course, Shirl.

Where is Jack in heaven? He is playing ball, and having milk and cookies at his mother's kitchen table, and at a school dance, and drinking with his fraternity brothers, and walking hand in hand with Shirl all around Manhattan before he went to war, and talking football with Murray, and buying a house, and teaching me to read or tell time, and playing with his grandbabies, and giving rolls of quarters to his grandchildren, and sitting with them at the Thanksgiving little table because he didn't want to sit apart from them, and telling stories about all of it to all of us, and even letting his youngest grandchild take this picture of him for her photography class because she asked him to.

Now he's in heaven. Now he's dreaming about us.


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