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

I Slaved Over a Hot Stove!

For at least an hour and a half!

Yes, it's true; I prepared animal flesh, using heat and various other ingredients. I also prepared a few vegetables, those among the few I can eat. Everything is neatly packed up and frozen and marked so that I can pull out all the parts of a meal I need, and even not eat the same thing every day.

Then we ordered pizza for dinner. It's possible that I don't have this exactly down pat yet.

(When I was a kid, my mother would ask me every single day what I wanted for dinner the next day. I absolutely hated this; why was it my job to decide what dinner would be? As a result, I now give dinner minimal thought. Usually around 5:00, K or I will say to each other, What do you feel like eating tonight? I am the anti-Shirl. And she probably asked me because I was a picky eater, and she preferred to make something that I would actually eat.)

When I talked to R last night, she insisted that the registration was in the car, so I looked again this morning, and it was. It was not in the little registration holder, where it was supposed to be; she had just shoved it under the pile of everything else in her glove compartment, still in the envelope it came in. So I'm taking it in tomorrow. That'll be one less thing to worry about. And I even remembered to register my car and the Hubs' online today, and took care of K's tuition bill. I am so accomplished today!

And now I'm going to collapse, thank you, and either start a new book or play solitaire for hours and hours. It could go either way.

WATCHING PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES :: ENTRY #1829
SUMMER BOOK #5: Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert

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

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

Finally Friday

No luck yet on the hearing aid. I thought there was an outside chance that it was at school, but no. Turns out it's not covered by homeowner's insurance, what a bummer. (I needed to put it on a separate policy for jewelry and other personal items.) The audiologist's office is closed today, so I'll keep looking at home.

I tore apart the couch. It has a slipcover on it, so the thing couldn't have fallen too deep, but I pulled the slipcover out and checked all over. I moved the couch away from the wall in case it fell behind. I moved the coffee table. And now I'll get to do it all all over again tomorrow, because the damn thing has to be somewhere. (My biggest fear -- I don't think I mentioned this yesterday -- is that it was tangled in my clothes somehow before I knew it was gone and fell off at a bad moment and got flushed down the toilet. Coulda happened.)

In other news, my offspring are safely arrived in Paris. Their flight from the US was delayed and so they missed their connecting flight from Amsterdam to Paris, and then the flight they were re-scheduled on was delayed. So, a long day and night for them. Hey, it's good to be young. But they texted me from each airport, and again from the hotel. What good girls.

And I slept. No more of this nonsense of staying awake all night in case the FAA calls. They're fine.

And here's a thought: about a hundred years ago, my grandmothers gathered up their belongings, made their journeys by train to some seaport and then got on boats, and weeks later arrived in the United States. At some point after that, they made their way to where they had relatives living, and took up residence, at which point they wrote letters -- that took weeks to arrive -- to let their mothers know that they were still alive and had safely completed their adventures. And my kids texted me, from Amsterdam and Paris, and I texted them back, and all is well. It's amazing, isn't it?

I must dash home at lunchtime today to change, because I suddenly have a wake to go to after school. One of the people I have lunch with a couple days a week lost her ill and elderly mother yesterday; the wake is today and the funeral tomorrow. Seems everything is happening very fast, but that may be because of Palm Sunday and Holy Week fast approaching. We had all assumed the wake would be tomorrow, so it never occurred to me to dress for it today. But I'd much rather go right from school that go tonight, since I'm not that familiar with the area where the funeral home is.

Pausing for now. More later.


Later.

I did go to the wake, which was mostly family, of course, but from school it was very math-department heavy, since the teacher whose mother died is a math teacher. I think I was the only non-math person there, at least at that time, although I know the Other Chai, who goes to every wake, would have certainly gone, but she's on an out-of-town field trip and won't be back until tonight. I digress. There was another woman there, another math teacher but one who retired last year, and as it turns out, her mother died last week. Now, this retired woman is herself in her mid-sixties and has seven or eight grandchildren, and she was, up until last week, still taking care of her mother. I know this is very hard for both of them, but I had the opportunity to pass a bit of advice onto this second person as we talked in the parking lot afterward, and boy, did it bring stuff back to me. Even so, I was okay until about a half hour later, when I was walking down some random supermarket aisle and I suddenly got choked up. But not in a bad way, really; it made me smile to think of my mother at that point. But I can't help but wonder when, if ever, it gets easier.

So now I'm home, and for three days, since I'm staying home Monday to have my house cleaned. The tidying up has begun; I'll be doing it in bits and pieces all weekend, I guess. Not to mention that I will be taking apart the entire family room tomorrow morning to look for that damn hearing aid again.

Okay, gotta go change over a couple of loads of wash.


WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS :: ENTRY #1701

Well, This Is Different

Just a short entry, I'm having a bit of a crisis here. I was very, very tired when I came home from work, so I lay down on the couch to take a nap. I had my phone at hand, and my cell phone, and about an hour later, I woke up when the phone rang; it was the girls checking in from the airport, all is well, their flight takes off in an hour or two. All good.

But when I went to sleep I was wearing two hearing aids. I woke up wearing one. The other one is gone.

How can this be possible? I don't remember taking it off to sleep; maybe I took it off in my sleep. And put it where? I have looked everywhere. I even moved the couch in case it fell off onto the floor and somehow scooted under the couch. But I don't think so.

Maybe I wasn't wearing both when I got home, although I think I'd remember if I took it off when I was awake. And they're too tight to just fall out.

I keep looking in the same places over and over, because it has to be somewhere, right? This is definitely the time for my mother to look down upon me kindly, because I tended to find things I was looking for when I was talking to her on the phone. Maybe I should just start talking to her and see what turns up. Shirl? Shirl? Can you hear me now?

Oy vey. I wonder if this is covered by homeowner's insurance, or if I have some kind of really incredible warranty on these things. I haven't even had them for a year yet. It's like they're cursed.

WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS :: ENTRY #1700

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

TGIF

So, I just keep rolling along. Once again, it seems I got a ridiculous amount of stuff done after school today, which must makes me wonder why the living room is still a mess. More on that later.

The phone rings about 9 this morning -- at school -- and it's R, so naturally, my heart sinks because I anticipate crisis. No, she's just waiting for her train and calls to tell me that all is well, the cat let her sleep all night, and like that. So that's nice. Then the phone rings again around 10, and it's K, so my toes clench, but she's calling to tell me that she feels much better today, is going to campus and to do a few errands.

And I'm thinking. My mother used to call me every single morning at work (and five or six times a day, most days), whether because she was also co-dependent or OCD (which she was), or both, I don't know. She called with such regularity -- 8.30 every morning -- that when the phone rang at 8.30, the kids in the library would say "Mrs. Chai! It's your mother!" Ahem. Yes. Anyway, so the girls called this morning, and my first thought was, Oh, is this a regular thing now? And what did I have ... five years of my gut not tying itself into knots when the phone rang in the morning? Ah, well. Truth is, I had a sudden severe wave of missing my mother very much the other day, so I guess you gotta take the good with the bad. As annoying as her calls could be -- the phone also rang every afternoon as soon as I got home and sat down on the toilet -- there's very little I wouldn't give for one of those calls right now. So if the girls call, they call. Let's hope they always do.

The living room. We use our living room for very little, except to pass through to the rest of the house when we come in, and to let stuff sit on the chairs until we need it for something. And there are lots of chairs that we've acquired in there in recent years, so it's kind of like a doctor's waiting room that never has any patients. Anyway, I said something to the Hubs before about just moving out one chair and putting the Christmas tree in its space, not in front of the window where we usually put it, but easier than re-arranging everything. He steps into the living room, studies it for a minute, and goes back to cooking his dinner. "What?" I said. He goes back again, looks at the living room, and comes back into the kitchen. And says "Why don't we just put the tree in the middle of the room?"

Well. How gloriously ridiculous. We will only be using the room to decorate the tree and to open the presents. It won't be in anyone's way, really. No cats to knock it down anymore. It'll look pretty damn funny, but still good from outside, still viewable through the picture window. And we'll see all the ornaments, not just the ones on the "good" side. Damned if we're not going to do it. The girls will probably not be amused, but hey, when they buy a house they can put their Christmas trees wherever they want. I'll get a picture for you all, if I can.

And tomorrow night, I have some sort of party to attend with the Hubs' work people. Oh joy. This will do wonders for my social anxiety. And since I don't think jeans are in order, I'll have to go out in the morning and try to get something suitable to wear. You'd think I would have thought of this before today. And shoes. With me, it always ends up with the shoes.


WATCHING L & O :: ENTRY #1642

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

Obladi

I have been Simpsonized.

I am terribly amused by this picture. Not only does it kind of look like me, it looks a lot like my mother. In fact, it looks more like her than like me, although the hair is more me than her. But Simpsons, as a rule, have no chins to speak of, and Shirl had just a wee bit of a receding chin, whereas I have just a regular one. But I think it's a funny picture anyway; I may add it to my page permanently somewhere.

Other than a visit to the chiropractor this morning -- and let me tell you, he is one strange individual -- I've done very little today. Oh, I did do the exercise video in the morning, so that was good. It was damn hot outside today; my sister and I were going to do an errand together in the afternoon but it was just too hot to be out and about.

Not enjoying my reading so much today; I think I'll give up on this one. It's a biography of Ingrid Bergman, which is interesting in and of itself, but this is not so well written, just a list of anecdotes and quotations, really. The biography of Cary Grant I read last year was really fascinating, with a lot of insight into what made him tick. So far, this is just boring, and I really like Ingrid Bergman. I'll have to see what's next on the stack of books.

Nothing else to report. I have Bobby to watch from Blockbuster, which I'd like to get to this weekend. Generally I seem to keep them forever. I finally started to watch Borat the other day, but within ten minutes I had no patience for it. I could see it was going to be the same joke again and again and again. And if a stranger came up to me on the streets of New York to kiss me hello -- although I noticed they didn't show him approaching any women -- I would have dropped dead on the spot, and if I survived that, you can be sure I would never venture into the city again as long as I lived. I guess I identified more with his victims that with his character. Sent that sucker right back.

Got my car serviced today and all it needed was an oil change and that basic stuff. 124,800+ miles. I'm holding onto it until I go over a bump one day and all the pieces parts start to fall off, like in a cartoon. Although I may not have much longer to wait.

WATCHING SVU :: ENTRY #1543

Things

Last night, the Hubs was making his dinner in the kitchen and I heard a hearty "SHIT!" which could mean anything, so I hesitantly asked "What happened?" and he came to the doorway between the family room and kitchen holding up a 1 cup Pyrex measuring cup in one hand and its handle in the other. I said "Well, we've had it for 30 years. I guess a replacement is due." So now I'm thinking: what else do we have that's been here -- well, with us, if not in this physical location -- for 30 years?

Let's see. My parents gave us a set of Farberware pots and pans as our engagement gift. Still there, still using them every day. (Well ... I don't use them every day, but someone does.) I still have several pieces of Tupperware from the first year we were married because that stuff pretty much lasts forever, and if it doesn't, they're supposed to replace it. Unless you microwave the old stuff, which we have, so that warranty's pretty much voided. But the bowls are still good anyway.

I've got the brandy snifters, or whatever they are, that Edith gave us as an engagement gift, because really, what house is complete without such things?



(and as you can see, they're still in the carton in which I tried unsuccessfully to unload them at numerous garage sales over the years.)

When we got married, we bought two things: a good Sony TV, and a queen-sized bed. Both gone, both replaced, although the bed only a few years ago. All the rest of our furniture was hand-me-down, mostly from my 92 year old Uncle Joe (Edith's father, btw), who had recently passed away. All that's gone now, too.

I have a step-stool that an elderly neighbor gave me once, around the time I was engaged, probably Depression-era. Funny what you keep and still use.



The good dishes are still around, somewhere, but never used. I never got silver, and I liked the crystal we got, although it wasn't expensive; that's somewhere, too.

I have LOTS of stuff older than 30 years, of course, but those things came to us later, long after we were married, like my parents' furniture, and their piano and stuff.

Today I decided that, life being short and all, I would try to see if I could make this a part of my regular daily wardrobe:


It was my grandmother's, although my mother had it re-set somewhere in the seventies. (Or let us say that Shirl convinced her mother, who was still among the living at that time, to have it re-set. I don't think grandma particularly cared, though; she wasn't going to wear it anymore.) I've never been the kind of person who could get away with wearing a diamond ring every day, although lots and lots of people I know do that. My own engagement ring is an antique, not especially valuable but very pretty, but a bit too fragile for everyday wear, so I've never really gotten into the habit. Anyway, as long as I'm talking about old stuff, here's the story of grandma's ring.

When she and grandpa got married, which was New Year's Day, 1916, they were two immigrants who still lived with one relative or another, worked hard in the glove factories in upstate New York, and who, let me tell you, had no money for diamond rings, let alone anything else. They worked hard, had a baby a year later (Uncle Sol), moved to New York City (but never the Lower East Side, only the Bronx), had another baby (Shirl) and, what else? Worked hard. I've written before about Grandpa Sam's saintlike character and miserable business sense. He was never more than a worker, albeit a skilled one when the glove business was good (he was a cutter), but it wasn't always. Ida was an incredible household manager, and did a little of this, a little of that, to bring in extra money. Sometimes she took in foster children, not through the state or city, but to help out someone out who needed to park a kid someplace for a while and pay for his upkeep. When her own kids were grown, she would go work as what you might call a mother's helper, to stay at someone's home when they'd just had a baby and help out for a couple of weeks.

But once her children were grown and the Depression was over, she made the extra money to buy extra things, since Sam's work was stable, and one of the things she wanted was a diamond engagement ring. So she worked, and she saved the money, and she bought it for herself, I believe in 1946, for ... funny. She bought it for her 30th anniversary. I hadn't even made the connection until just this minute.

So I think I should wear it now. Feels right.

WATCHING THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #1541

Oooooh.

I just did a facial mask thingy and my skin feels all tight and tingly and, I have to tell you, a little strange. I feel like I need to keep slathering moisturizer on until I fall asleep, which, as you all know, could be sometime on Tuesday. Ah well. I'm just glad that I got the free sample at Sephora. The Sibs bought the whole set so she could do it once a week. I hope she's got stronger skin than I have.

Otherwise, a quiet Saturday. I did go to Old Navy with the girls, and got a few things, which is more than I'm sure I needed, but you know how it goes. And I just really tidied up my desk, to the point of actual *gasp* dusting, and even re-arranging the bits of information I keep under my clear desk-blotter. This, I suppose, was prompted by the gift I received today from my first-born: her business card. Oh yes, a business card from a major, real non-profit business, and her name, and the title "Project Manager." So that's very cool.

The only other event of my day was that it's Bare Escentuals day on QVC, three shows, so I'm having fun with that. Although I did not order a single thing today. (But I pre-ordered the big item of the day a couple of weeks ago, so I already have it.) I said to my sister last week that if my mother came back and saw us as we are now -- me, especially, I think -- she'd say "Yes, I have daughters. And who the hell are you?" But in a good way. All this make-up and hair stuff, and getting my nails done, she'd be thrilled to pieces.

I haven't been mentioning the hearing aids, probably to avoid drawing the attention of the evil eye, but they seem to be working pretty well. That problem that I had before, where they would suddenly change into a sort-of muted mode for no reason, does not seem to be there. If it is there, it's much, much better and not interfering with my life. I do try re-setting them once a day or so to see if that whole thing is going on, and I really can't tell, so I guess they're okay. For the most part, I put them in in the morning and don't think about them all day (unless I'm in a crowd or a car and I choose to change the program), and that's what you really want out of your hearing aids: they're supposed to integrate into your life as if you don't need to know they're there. So I guess I'm happy with them, but you can see that I'm not quite willing to commit yet to being 100% with them. I'm giving it another week. And I need to go to the movies to see how they work there. Either tomorrow early afternoon, or maybe one night this week.

I need more moisturizer.

watching Law and Order SVU :: entry #1498

Hey, a Meme!

But first, a bit of an entry.

Ever have one of these moments?

I just decided to put some tea tree oil on my scalp, like a scalp treatment, because the itching is driving me crazy. So you gotta wet your hair, put the stuff on, massage it in, and then cover your head with something for awhile to keep the heat in. I put on a cheap shower cap I picked up for doing this. And I tucked it up behind my ears so I could put my glasses on, and then turned to face the bathroom mirror and then said out loud

"Boy, do I look like my mother!"

I kinda don't think I do, but I guess I do. And she did this kind of scalp thing all the time, did Shirl. She never said anything about itchy scalp or allergies, but she had fine, limp hair -- thanks, Mom -- and she was always trying to do something to build it up. She actually had a heat cap; you would put whatever the conditioner was on your hair and then put this thing on, snap the chin strap, and plug it in. To an electrical outlet. And sit where ever it was you had to sit for an hour or so until it was done. Boy, did we get good laughs off of that. She looked like Captain Video.

Anyway, more of a something here tomorrow; I got this meme from Fi, who posted it yesterday.

1. How old were you when you first went to the movie theatre? What movie did you see? The earliest movie I remember seeing is Around the World in 80 Days, which came out in 1956, according to imdb.com, but I think I saw it a year later, when I was four. In fact, if you look over at the picture of me with my mother, I saw it that same week. We were away on vacation in the country for two weeks, we went to see the movie, and when we got back to our hotel I had a fever of about 104, and was sick for half the time we were away. Which is why they wouldn't let me go swimming while I recuperated, and why my mother is wearing a bathing suit but I'm wearing clothes.


2. How old were you when you had your first child(ren)? I was 28 when R was born, 31 when K was born.


3. How old were you when you had your first real kiss? That was October 30, 1969, so I was 16+. We had taken a school trip to Washington DC for the day -- yes, a long trip for one day -- and Marc Weiss sat next to me on the bus on the way home and kissed me.


4. How old were you when you went on your first roller coaster ride? Where was it? I'll let you know.


5. When did you get your first cell phone? When the Sibs and I decided to drive to Florida with just the two of us and four children, having a cell phone seemed like the wise thing to do. You can read about the trip here. It was summer, 1993.


6. How old were you when you got your first car? I drove cars that my parents owned but that were given to me for my use, one car for a few months when I was 18 -- it was mine until the insurance expired -- and then my mother's old car so I could commute to college; I had that one from the age of 20 until the Hubs and I bought our first car, in 1977.


7. How old were you when you started your first job? What was it? I worked in a neighborhood fabric/sewing store when I was 16.


8. What was your first alcoholic beverage? I'm not much of a drinker, but I wasn't deprived of it, even as a kid. I had to drink some of that vile sweet kosher wine every year at Passover, after all. My mother was a scotch drinker, when she drank, straight, and once I asked her if I could have a sip and she said "Sure, go ahead" and I thought I was gonna die. I was maybe 10? I got a little drunk once in high school; my first real drunk was during my freshman year in college. It did not inspire me to repeat the experience, and I've never gotten sick drunk since then, although I've been very, very happy drunk here and there. It's not an activity that generally appeals to me. Thanks, mom.


9. Where did you buy your first house? Why, right here. We still live in the first house we bought, right here in Bizarro Town where the Hubs and I grew up. I thought we'd been here 20 years, but I realized the other day that this coming November will be 22.


10. When did you start your first blog? October 17, 2002, at dland.

watching Still Standing :: entry #1482

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

Who's Harold?

[copied from dland]

First, a note to the empress, since it seems we cannot comment to each other anymore. Last time I tried to comment to you, I got a message that I was a poopy butt, or a poopy head or something poop related. Didn't know until now that you couldn't comment me, either. No clue there on my part.

I was a bit cranky when I got home and so was K, it seemed, so I avoided her and went to ShopRite, and now she's fine, although we're both very tired due to bad sleeping last night. Yes, I spoke too soon about getting three good nights' sleep in a row. Last night, after trying unsuccessfully to sleep on the couch -- at one point, Boo came into the room and stood next to the couch and the smell woke me up -- I put on the headphones and the go-to-sleep music and it did not block out the sound of the Hubs' snoring and teeth grinding. Ever wonder why sometimes older couples no longer sleep in the same bed? Yeah, I don't wonder so much anymore. Either that or I'll get the whole bed to myself when I kill him in his sleep one night.

.
.
.

Half hour later. Okay, maybe I won't kill him. I just got an email from his blackberry -- he's at a seminar tonight -- that says "Blast from the past. I was just chatting with Harold Rubenstein." Who, you may ask, is Harold Rubenstein?

Folks, this is one of my all-time favorite Good Shirl stories. Here goes.

Back in the day, I went to graduate school full time at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and I lived in a dorm on campus. The Hubs -- at that time, The Boyfriend -- lived at home here in Bizarro Town with his parents and commuted to Rutgers Law School in Newark, Newark being about halfway between New Brunswick and B.T. Shortly after he started, he became friendly with a guy named Harold Rubenstein, who, it so happened, went to the law school but lived on campus in New Brunswick because he was some kind of dorm counselor. So he would be in class with the Hubs during the day and sometimes have dinner with me in the dining hall. Very nice, outgoing guy.

So the Hubs was coming to visit me one weekend, and Shirl casually asked where he would be staying and I said "Oh, with Harold," and I explained who Harold was. She was okay with that, but of course, he never stayed with Harold at all.

Harold did not come to our wedding for some reason, but shortly after we were married, we were having a little party one evening (when I still did such things) and I was telling Shirl about the planning and such, and she asked who was invited. I named this person and that and I said "And Harold." And she said "Harold? Who's Harold?"

I said "You remember, the Hubs' friend from law school who lived on campus near me. Harold."

And her eyes got huge and she said "YOU MEAN HE'S REAL???"

So yes, folks, in some ways my mother was a Totally Cool Mom. She had her moments, but you gotta love a mom like that, eh?


WATCHING REBA :: ENTRY #1343

What Time Is It, Anyway?

[copied from dland]

I have no idea. The one thing I can tell you is that I have got one bad smelling cat here -- what have we been feeding him? -- and I just realized that I can't take him to the groomers until I remember to take him for his rabies shot. Eeuw. He needs a bath a week, but he sure ain't getting it from me.

Sorry, brain fart. It's hard to ignore a stinky cat.

In other news, or actual news, as the case may be, R had a good first day at work at her new job. She said she was only in her own department briefly, as she spent most of the day in various orientation sessions, but her department did throw a little welcome party for her with donuts and such. So it looks like very nice people she's working with, and she has a cool official email address and the like. She is working, btw, for a big television station in New York. Very excellent.

As for the moment, they've started showing Enterprise on the SciFi channel, and since it's the only Star Trek series I never stuck with, I thought I'd give it a shot. The second episode just started, and I'm already bored. Maybe because I watched this far when it was first on, I don't know. I love Star Trek, and always liked Scott Bakula (big Quantum Leap fan as well), but this series just never grabbed me. It's going to be on for three hours every Monday night, I think. Let's see how far I get. For now, I'm thinking I'd rather watch Supernanny at 9:00.

Here's something you don't hear often from me: I've been sleeping very well the last few nights. I still wake up every two to three hours, but I've had no trouble falling asleep or getting back to sleep or even sleeping later in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. Funny, I tried that new program that generates music-tracks-to-fall-asleep-to for that nap on Saturday, but I haven't even had a chance to use it since then since I've just been sleeping like a regular human being. Maybe I should buy sleep aids more often.

Speaking of not knowing what time it is, it just occurred to me that the cat groomer, who is in a nearby PetSmart, is still open since it's not even 9:00 yet, and I called and made an appointment for Monday. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and public schools are generally closed, as they ought to be, and as all public offices are, but my school district does not close. Why? Seriously, god only knows. Is it because they think there aren't "enough" African-American kids in the district? That appears to be the reason, which makes it more inappropriate. It may not be; we don't close for Columbus Day either and we certainly have a hefty population of Italian-Americans, but Columbus Day is not the same level of holiday as MLK Day. Banks and post offices do not close for Columbus as they do for Dr. King. Anyway, what my school district is doing is having a half-day for kids and an in-service afternoon for staff. Gag.Me.With.A.Spoon. So I'm getting a haircut at 1:00, and now, so is smelly Boo. An efficient use of a day, I believe. Which also means I've got to get him to the vet one day after school this week for that shot.

Speaking of days off, we have a four-day period for midterms at the end of the month, which means half-days for the kids, and I'm going to take one of those afternoons off and go see my new doctor for the first visit, for a physical. (And going to get my new driver's license before that.) It's so long since I've been to a new internist that the last time, I had no chronic ailments of any kind. Now, I don't even know where to start. I'm afraid if I give her my medical history and start reeling things off, she'll run screaming from the room. ("So, doctor, I had this brain tumor, and genetics say that I'm an excellent candidate for a heart attack or a stroke or maybe breast cancer, and by the way, I spend half my day in the bathroom. Anything you can do for me?") I'd run if I could.

Hey, I wore the socks that R made me for Christmas today!

See what I mean about my foot being round?

Okay, it doesn't look so round, but that's actually the ribbing and the seams in the sock. I was going to take a picture of my newly pedi-ed feet, just for boxx, but after a whole day on them and by lamp-light, they don't look so lovely anymore! Looked a bit too much like Shirl's feet, and let me tell you, that woman had some heinous feet. (My feet are really nothing at all like hers, which were a long-standing - heh - family joke. I do, however, have her double-chin and no ass. Ah, there's those pesky genetics again.)

I have no idea whatsoever as to what's happening on Enterprise except that Scott Bakula is still cute, I still don't like the Vulcan, and all the other characters are interchangeable. I never watched Voyager to the end, either; I liked it a lot, but when that Seven character took over the show, I bailed. Could not stand her. Can't watch Jeri Ryan in anything else, either. So that's my bit of personal Star Trek trivia for the day.

Well, at least I'm getting better at writing a lot about nothing.


WATCHING ENTERPRISE :: ENTRY #1342

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

With Remote Firmly in Hand

[copied from dland]

**In 16 days I will be 50 years old**

I admit it: I am the keeper of the remote control in this house.

I know this is generally considered a male thing, but since my Husband likes to think of himself as anti-technology, he prides himself on never touching the remote. He doesn't like it when I keep flipping though the channels either, but since we rarely watch TV in the same room, it doesn't matter. I watch by myself and I keep a firm finger on the remote. I have no attention span anymore, and I can't stand to watch commercials.

So a few weeks ago, I was flipping around and I came across Touched By an Angel, a rerun. I rarely watch the show because I rarely watch hour long shows, but I have seen it from time to time. Here's the scene that caught my attention:

A young man (the young doctor on Dick Van Dyke's doctor show) seems to be clearing away the possessions of his deceased wealthy father, and he asks the butler, an older man, if he too has lost both his parents. The butler assures him that both his parents are long gone. And the young man asks "Do you get over it?" meaning the loss of one's parents. And the butler says, "Oh no, sir, you never get over it. But you get past it."

I was driving around yesterday morning, running last minute errands for Christmas eve, when I began to feel something I can only describe as a heavy heart. So what is it exactly about Shirl dying that I still need to get past?

The last 8 years, not to mince words, sucked. I felt miserable for her -- she was the one dying -- but she made life miserable for everyone around her. Not intentionally, I like to hope, but she was not above manipulation and guilt to get people to do things for her, not even before. Sister and I made a pact that, once she was gone, we would not glorify her in our memories in death. We would want to remember everything, bad along with the good, and not sugarcoat honest feelings.

Yet I miss her - what is it that I miss? She drove me crazy, no question.

Maybe I miss my childhood, not unlike the way my daughter at 18 is now confronting that her childhood is over. Maybe this is the struggle that never ends: growing up. Getting past all of it.

The adventure continues.

ENTRY #34