Miz S

I live. I breathe. I just don't blog.

Here we are at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  Moving in with his dad has not caused a divorce. But I cannot tell a lie. We are both a little on the touchy side these days.

Here's what's been going on my life:

• School started, and I moved to my new school. Picture my usual angst, plus the added tension of a new work environment. I love my new school and my new teammates, but goddamn I miss my posse at NHE. It's hard to be without them. Once or twice I have actually cried because I miss them so much. It took me 4 weeks to remember how to get to music, art, and the technology lab in my new building. Not to mention remembering where the staff restrooms are located.  And I still feel like I have to be careful in my team meetings and remember not to say stuff like, "Fuckin'-A! We're going to ignore that, right?"  or "Fuckity-fuck that's a can of crazy!" or, my favorite, "Damn. That kid is such a little fucker."  Maybe I should just look at this as an opportunity to clean up my language and be more professional overall. 

• Pffft. Like that could happen.

• My new class of first-graders is really sweet. They are much like the kids at my old school. ESOL, FARMS, Low SES, high mobility. There is the usual range of behavior and personality:  wriggly, angelic, exuberant, lethargic, affectionate, defiant. There are the usual family issues, too. Some really sad stuff.

• We are still living with my father-in-law. He is doing well and has even gained a little weight.

• Edgar Allen Poo was euthanized in September. He was 15 and a half, completely blind, and peeing all over the house. He wasn't my dog, you understand. He belonged to my mother-in-law. But he adopted me after she died, and it was hard to take him for that final ride in the car. Jesus Christ I'm sick of euthanizing pets. I want another dog, desperately. But we have to wait until we can figure out how to take care of it during the day, because my FIL really can't handle it.

• My mother is cheerful almost all the time and always happy to see us. She lives in her own house with her wonderful caregiver and her caregiver's little boy. Her health is absolutely fantastic, aside from the Alzheimer's.

• Sophie and Emma are both fine and are both working on their wedding plans.

This is an awfully shallow recap, I know. But I feel like I can't just jump right in yet. It's been so long.

I miss my blog.

Annual Beach Vacation #mypredictablelife

Our rental house in Southern Shores, NC.

This is our first beach vacation without my mother-in-law. You may recall that she died only a month after we returned from the Outer Banks last summer.  We wondered if it would feel strange to be here without her energy and humor, but it's not.

Not really.

Well, maybe a lot.

In any case, we are at the beach.

Edgar Allen Poo is with us, of course.  At home he sleeps with my father-in-law, but here at the beach house he is sharing a bed with Josh and me. The first night we were here, I reached down to tenderly pat him before I fell asleep and was rewarded with a sharp nip to my hand. I'm suing, of course. Edgar's defense attorney pointed out that he has arthritis and is tender in certain areas, but my lawyer countered with, "Well, April had much WORSE arthritis and never ever EVER nipped anyone in her entire life. GOD!" 

I will let you know how it turns out.

Oh, and fyi, in case you wanted to know how the doggie diapers are working, they're NOT. So now we're just taking Edgar outside every 30 minutes or so to try and prevent accidents. With mixed results, I might add.

Sophie and Edgar. She's a huge help with him, fyi. He's a damned pain in the ass.

When I am not catering to Edgar's every need, cavorting in the ocean with my family, or eating something delicious that #1 Future Son-in-Law Paul has prepared, I am usually getting my ass kicked playing Boggle with Emma and Nathanial.

I think my score in this game was 27. Nate's was probably around 90-something and Emma likely topped 130. Brats, both of them.

Emma encouraged me to download the Scramble app to my phone, which I did, and now I am obsessively playing Scramble and getting my ass kicked there, too. Any minute now I will uninstall it in a huff and reclaim my life.

We had some excitement last night when #2 Future Son-in-Law Nate, who was gallantly helping my niece and her girlfriend get the coals going on the grill, stepped on some stones that had been super-heated by the charcoal chimney and sustained serious burns on the sole of his foot.

IT WAS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY AND I LIVE FOR THAT SHIT!!!

I may have gotten a little bit hand-flappy, I'm not sure.

I know the basic first aid for burns, which is immersion in cold water for at least 15 minutes. But I was certan this was a 2nd degree burn (large blotchy white areas, blisters forming quickly, foot swelling).  Small 2nd degree burns can be treated at home, but this was 2/3 of the sole of his foot. A little hand-flapping followed by some swift Internet research revealed that this injury required professional medical care.

Josh and Emma took him over to the urgent care center where they inspected, bandaged, and prescribed. He came home looking pale and in a lot of pain, but seemed to relax when the pain meds began to work their magic. He has to go back in this afternoon to have the blisters cleaned and scrutinized.

Oh, and may I just say? Nate was cheerful and uncomplaining throughout it all. Apologetic even, for causing such a fuss. I love that boy!

More developments as they occur.

Josh and Nate goofing for the camera in the waiting room. Picture courtesy of Emma.

Clever, naughty, diapered Edgar.

Do you guys remember my late mother-in-law's poodle, Edgar Allen Poo? Clever, naughty Edgar?

Edgar is still super playful and has picked me as his special favorite. Here he is being excited because I came home one evening.

Edgar has earned advanced degrees in dog obedience but is decidedly disobedient when it suits his purposes. He will nip at people who bother him, he is an incorrigible beggar, and he once chased our cat around our house with obvious malevolent intent. Poor Pushkin, who had never been chased by a dog, was considerably shook up and stayed under the bed for a full day. (Imagine Pushkin's horror a few years later when we moved into Edgar Allen Poo's house.)

 

2 summers ago, he bit my sister-in-law's finger HARD, and there was some controversy about whether it was Edgar's fault or SIL's fault. We are still reviewing the videotape to try and reach a settlement agreement.

But that was all years ago. Edgar is 15 now, almost completely blind, and more or less compliant. He chased Pushkin a few times after we moved in here last October, but it was obviously a huge effort and not worth his time. They coexist peacefully now.

But lo, how the mighty have fallen.

Edgar was just diagnosed with kidney disease and high blood pressure. He is on 2 different medications and a special diet. And, best of all, he gets to wear doggie diapers inside because he no longer has full contol of his bladder.

Doggie diapers are the funniest thing ever.

Edgar standing guard at the front door, barking at dogs passing by.

Honestly, when he wore the diapers for the first time yesterday I followed him around for like an hour taking pictures and squealing.

2 questions:

1. Why didn't we ever do this with Rosie? Rosie was an inveterate sneak-urinator, and we were never able to completely house-train her. (The poor little lamb. May she rest in peace forever-n-ever Amen.)

2. Why is an old dog in diapers SO ADORABLE whereas an old dude in diapers is just sad? We need to change our mindset, people. That way it will be easier for us when the inevitable arrives.  We'll be all, "Cool! Dad's wearing diapers! He looks so cute! Dad! Turn around so I can take a picture of your adorable diapered bottom!" etc.

That's all I got for right now. Remember, I'm super out-of-practice with this blogging thing. I have to go do my algebra homework now. 3 more days of class AUGGGHH!

Oh, and here is a video of Edgar Allen Poo dancing with my late mother-in-law. I swear to God, it is really cute. You should watch it. If my mother-in-law were here she would make you watch it.

 

 

 

Solve for x? I got your x for you right here.

Please notice that I always write my answer in pink.

I signed up to take a math class for teachers this summer. It was billed as a class for elementary teachers to review algebra concepts and learn new teaching strategies to take back into the classroom in August. NOT TRUE. LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE. It is a full-on algebra class where we are covering 2 semesters of algebra content in 8 days.

Thank goodness I'm a genius otherwise it might be hard learning a YEAR'S worth of algebra in EIGHT FREAKING DAYS.

I'm kidding. I'm not a genius. Honestly, I'm not even that smart. But I'm SUPAH SEX-AY!

Ha. No.

Let x stand for the number of instructional days in a school year. Let 8 stand for the eight days I have to live through this class. X/8 = 22.  When I solve for x I find that we are covering 22 days of instruction per day of the stupid class.

When do you suppose I last laid eyes on an algebra book? Let x stand for how old I was in 8th grade. Let y stand for my age now. Let's see, y-x = many, many years.

I'm exaggerating just a little. After all, I did take math in college when I was getting my teaching degree and that was only about 15 years ago. But you get my point.

I don't have a math phobia or anything. Math is alright. I'm just not very fast at it. I painstakingly copy down the equation, carefully subtract and divide to isolate some goddamned variable or another, make sure I don't forget to flip that inequality symbol when I divide by a negative number (ha, just learned that yesterday), and always, ALWAYS check my work.

I am the slowest person in the class.  I haaaaaaate being the slowest person in the class.

Dudes, I have to present a lesson on polynomials next week. Polynomials. From the Greek, "poly," meaning "many" and "nomials" meaning "pains in my ass."

Why, God? Why did they lie to me? I thought I would be playing with math manipulatives all week and creating math games for my little first graders. Instead I'm finding the slope and the y-intercept and the absolute value and God only knows what else. And I'm doing it all at a snail's pace. 

Adding insult to injury, when I was looking at my school district's website for lesson plans and such, I found a flipchart created by a teacher and generously uploaded to the website so that we can all use it to review counting and at the same time expose our English language learners to an idiom about counting SHEEPS. AUUUUGHH!!

For the love of God. How will the children learn to speak English properly if the teachers are unclear on the concept?

I feel super defensive when I hear people say that teachers are "dumb," but JESUS, teachers are dumb.  Oh, and check it out. I just found another mistake when I was glaring at the picture. See if you can find it.

I weep for our youth.

Wouldn't it be funny if there were some glaring spelling or grammar error in this post that would cause my myriad* fans to mock me in the comments section?

*SAT vocabulary word, fyi.

Seriously? It's been 2 months since I updated? That is disgraceful.

My new bike.

It's not that I'm bored and have nothing to say.  I'm just so out of the habit of blogging now that I can't seem to make myself sit down and do it.

Let's see if I can condense the last couple of months into something readable.

• School is over for the year YO BITCHES I ONLY WORK TEN MONTHS OUT OF TWELVE. And yet, I felt wistful about saying goodbye to my class. They were such sweethearts, this bunch, and at the same time such a drain because, Jesus, the neediness. No matter how hard I worked, there was no way to fill the holes in some of these kids' lives.

• Josh and I drove to Niagara Falls to see Nik Wallenda cross them on a wire. It was awesome! We watched the event from the comfort of an air-conditioned bar with a big screen TV, and I suppose we could have done that just as easily from home but hey, ROAD TRIP!! AUNT CRAZY!! Plus, long-time readers know that I am more than a little obsessed with Niagara Falls.

• In September I will be teaching first grade at a different school, a wonderful school, a school that has me really excited about teaching again. My old school, you see, is broken, and I hesitate to say anything more than that.  I was resigned to teaching there again next year because I just couldn't muster the energy to put together a resume and go on job interviews. But a good friend of mine emailed me and said something along the lines of "There's a big beautiful world of teaching out there. Don't be afraid to put your toe in the water." So I mustered my courage and went on the interview and knocked the ball out of the park, if I do say so myself. Go me!

• Jane came to town! I love me some Jane. She is little and cute and a very sympathetic listener. I was super chatty and quite possibly over-caffeinated. We had drinks and went out to dinner and she kept lording it over me with her private sector job perks. "Oh, let me. I'll just comp this," she would say airily. "Here, I'll pay for parking. I can comp this."  And I was all, "GOD! That is so unfair! Lowly public servants like me have to buy pencils for our classrooms!"  In the interest of full disclosure, I will confess that while driving Jane to and fro I made a super illegal turn right in front of a DC cop who immediately pulled us over and asked to see my *ahem* expired drivers license. I guess he didn't look too closely--he sort of squinted at it with a disgusted expression on his face and then sent us on our way with a stern warning to obey traffic laws.

• Our bikes got stolen out of my father-in-law's garage when we were in Portugal way back in April. And you guys, I LOVED MY BIKE. Lesson learned. We live in the city now. Don't keep shit that you are fond of in a garage that doesn't have a reinforced steel door.  The silver lining is that now I have a BRAND NEW SHINY BIKE that is waaaaaay better than my old bike. I think I'm gonna call her "Christine". I think I will become obsessed with her and I will develop a sinister attitude and bad things will happen to people who try to come between Christine and me. I'm just speculating.

• We had a big storm and lots of damage and power outages in the middle of an unpleasant heat wave. Here at our place we lost power for 4 days, but I know lots of people who suffered for 7 or 8 days. It sucked. Except it wasn't really THAT bad because we have a generator with enough power to run the TV, the fridge, some lights, and a window a/c. I worried that some desperate soul would come and steal my precious generator and I considered staying up all night with a gun to protect it. Except I don't have a gun. Stupid gun control laws. You watch, I'm going to start getting reeeealy crazy about the coming apocalypse and the need to prepare.

• I'm not even kidding.

• My mom is doing well. I want to do a separate post about her.

 

I miss you guys. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Last Saturday.

I had fun with Josh last Saturday.

Side note: We don't get nearly enough time together these days. We just don't.  Basically, on most days we communicate with grunts and text messages. Or we like each other's status on Facebook.

Kidding. We're not Facebook friends.

Wait, maybe we are.

Last Saturday I made a date to go visit the Holly Bible Boy, the small brother of one of my all-time favorite kids.  His family has moved twice in the last couple of years and I lost track of them after the 2nd move, which happened to coincide with the period of time when my father was in and out of the hospital. I just didn't have any energy left over to be looking out for my little buddy, much as I love him and his many siblings. I let it all slide.

A few weeks ago a former co-worker of mine ran into the mom and a couple of the siblings at a school way far away in a different part of my school district. She recognized them, got the mom's cell number, and emailed me with the information.

So, last Saturday Josh and I went out to visit them. Josh didn't really want to go with me--he's scared of little kids, maybe because I have told him too many war stories from work. I don't know. In the end he did come though. We hung out in a park with 3 of the 6 kids. My Holly Bible Boy is 12 now, wears his hair long, and tried very hard to convince us to let him drive our minivan. His older brother is 14 and didn't come because on Saturdays he works as a helper with his uncle in a automotive repair shop. The little sister and one of the little brothers came, though.

The three of them walked a mile or more on a warm, humid morning to meet us at the park.

Christ, I would have picked them up if they had told me.

We sat in the grass and talked and then watched them play for awhile. The little one mentioned a couple of times that he was thirsty and maybe we should drive to the Safeway, casting significant looks at Josh and me and was firmly shushed by his older brother and sister.

These kids kill me.

We took them up to the store to get drinks and then drove them to their home. They are living with their mom in the basement of their grandparents' house. They have bikes, and a safe place to ride them. There are kids to play with up and down the street.

You guys, it's out in the country. Or at least, in a semi-rural-ish part of suburban Montgomery County. There is a tiny farm at the end of the street they live in, and the owner lets them pat the horses. It smells good outside.

It is such a huge improvement in their living situation. From nasty, gang-ridden Langley Park, which eats kids like them up and spits them out, to a modest rambler on a quiet street in Cloverly, Maryland.

I went inside to say hello to the mom who asked me if I could help her find a job. Pretty sure I can't, but I said I would keep my eyes open. Then we watched the kids ride their bikes up and down the street for a few minutes.

When we drove away Josh said, "You know, those kids aren't too bad."

I hope this is the beginning of easier times for my little friends, but we all know that a family living on the edge like that can go under in a heartbeat.

Josh and I spent the rest of the day together. We drove up to Sugarloaf Mountain, ate lunch at a restaurant, hiked half-heartedly (maybe shouldn't have had that wine with lunch), and then went to see The Avengers.

It was a good day.

It's a teacher thing.

Have you ever been to a recycling plant? I don't recommend it, unless you enjoy the overwhelming stench of rotten food. We took our first-graders there last week as part of the science/social studies curriculum. There is an observation deck above the sorting/shredding/squishing area where the kids had a bird's-eye-view of the process, and they adored the noise and the conveyor belts and the magnets.

Seriously, I don't know how anyone works there. Worst job ever. Go to college, kids.

My parent chaperones pressed tissues to their noses and looked pleadingly at me, while I nodded sympathetically and made retching motions to indicate that I too was on the verge of vomiting. Strangely, most of the kids didn't seem to mind too much. They were too busy being excited. Either that or they are deficient in their sense of smell.

X. and T. were tired on the way home and zonked out completely.

Speaking of zonking out completely, the a/c in our building will not be turned on until May 14, and it has been uncomfortably warm, by which I mean FUCKIN' CRAZY HOT in my classroom. I am one of the unlucky teachers on the east side of the building where the sun pours in the big windows and turns the rooms into saunas. On Friday, the outside temp was 89 or something stupid like that, and the temp in my classroom was 87 for most of the day.

The children were sweaty and glassy-eyed and had hardly the strength to fuss about it, poor little things.

I planned to leave work immediately and go home to apply cold compresses to my forehead, but then I thought I would just clean off my reading table, copy some of the work for next week, and then reorganize the math games. And, oh, move a bookcase.

This is shit that HAS to get done, people, if I am to retain my sanity. It's a teacher thing. You may or may not understand.

Eventually I noticed that I felt a tad woozy and had a raging headache, so I went home, lay down on my bed at 7:30, and zonked out for 12 full hours.

Poor Josh was deprived of my delightful Friday evening companionship, but I made it up to him the next day by spending every single minute with him.

I Went To Portugal.

So much has happened in the 6 weeks since I last updated.

I went to Portugal on my spring break, for one thing. I feel all apologetic about it for some reason, like I have to explain how it all came about or how it didn't cost that much money (which would be an outright fabrication) or how I'm not one of these people who jets off to Europe all the time.

I AM A COMMONER, LIKE YOU.

A commoner who just happened to spend 8 days in Portugal recently.

Portugal rocks, y'all. Cancel that trip to Disneyland. Go to Portugal. I got a bed and breakfast for you in Lisbon that you will never want to leave. You will fall a little bit in love with tall, beautiful Pilar, the young receptionista. Her boss, Francisco, will sit with you in the morning for coffee and ask you about your family and tell you about his, and how he grew up in an apartment building that contained all his aunts, uncles, and cousins along with his own parents and siblings. And you will want to talk to him all day.

My sister Sarah and I thought we would die from the cuteness of laundry hanging from every window in Portugal. NO ONE in Portugal has their own washer and dryer, y'all.

(Please pause and feel spoiled. I did.)

We saw a lot of...stuff. True confession: I don't give a shit about castles, museums, or statues.

Here is what I liked:

The old men at the cafe tables, each one leaning in to hear the other, nodding and laughing. 

The young waiters and waitresses, fluent in 2 or 3 languages.

The huge and immaculately tended community gardens on the outskirts of Lisbon and in all the small towns.

The couple on the subway with the toddler, cooing and singing songs to her in Portugese.

The tiny little grocery stores tucked into every block, where you could buy absolutely anything you needed.

Sitting at a table on a narrow winding street, drinking sangria.

Good Friday in Évora, where the entire town gathered at the church at around 10pm and lit candles for a somber parade. 

And so much more. I would go back there in a heartbeat.

My sister and her husband. You guys wouldn't even believe how much we walked in Lisbon. The proportion of walking time to sitting around at a cafe table drinking sangria time was totally skewed in the wrong direction. My brother-in-law is a stern taskmaster when it comes to exploring a city.

In the small town of Comporta I was overcome with delight by the storks that were nesting everywhere.

Storks! STORKS!

Josh at the Moorish castle ruins in Sintra. He's the assistant manager of the worrrrrld!

A rather glum-looking lad, playing his accordion. Awfully young to be doing this, in my opinion. His father or grandfather was doing the same thing just down the street so I guess it's a family business?  I gave him some euros and asked politely if I could take his picture, but he just didn't seem too happy about the whole arrangement. There were many people like this in Lisbon, doing some kind of entertainment for tourists.

Ah. Disaffected youth. Gotta love 'em.

We arrived home on Easter Sunday and work started for me on Tuesday. Since then I have been up, down, sideways, and occasionally in a fetal position. But I can say, cautiously, that I think I am feeling a little better, a little less bruised by the events of the past 9 months. A little less fearful of what lies ahead.

Thanks, as always, for your kind comments, emails, and prayers. There are days where they have made all the difference to me.

How is Mom doing? And some pictures.

One of my mother's old friends came with her son to the funeral and to the post-funeral gathering. Her son brought a book that my mother sent to him on the occasion of his birth more than 50 years ago in an African country (the Congo, actually. Can you imagine giving birth to your first child in the FUCKING CONGO in 1958??)  where the father was serving as a diplomat. Here you see my mother, a little confused, reading the inscription that she wrote so many years ago.

As well as can be expected for an 86-year-old woman with Alzheimer's experiencing severe cognitive decline, I guess.  She is devastated, grief-stricken, confused. Her tangled brain has trouble processing what happened.

Mom's bewilderment about my father's sudden death is made worse by the fact that she doesn't remember that he had serious health problems during the last 2 years of his life.  As far as Mom knows, he was perfectly healthy up until the day he went into the hospital and then dead less than 48 hours later.  She thinks that a simple germ felled him, something that could have been fixed with proper care and the right medicine. "If only Mother had been here," she laments, thinking back to the childhood pneumonia that almost killed her in the days before antibiotics, and how my grandmother pulled her through it with nothing but aspirin and bed rest.

A quiet afternoon the day after the funeral, looking at her college yearbook. 

My siblings and I were shocked as well, because Dad had been in a sort of holding pattern for awhile with no recent hospitalizations, no falls, no UTIs or pneumonias in the last 8 or 9 months--perhaps a testament to the vigilance of Pam, Samelia, and Eleni, the caregivers. But we haven't forgotten all the close calls and how much he suffered during some of those previous hospitalizations. We are grateful that it happened so quickly and that we didn't have to make any really tough decisions about life-sustaining procedures.

Someone is with Mom all the time, of course. A caregiver during the day, one of us on several weekday afternoons/evenings, and one of us on the weekend days. She is sad when we are not there.

She misses him so much, you guys.

My impossibly slim and naturally still-blonde sister Sarah organized a pansy-planting activity last weekend. It's hard to see her behind the handrail, what with the impossibly-slim thing.

Ok fine, I'll show you a picture of her where you can see her. Can you believe she's 52 years old?   I used to be that skinny. DAMN YOU, O THOU LACK OF SELF CONTROL.

The caregivers, who all loved my father,  are grieving, too.  Samelia said to me once, "He is my father now, too."   (All the more poignant because her father died when she was a teenager, killed in the Liberian Civil War.) Pam and Samelia were in the hospital room with us when he died. Pam, Samelia, and Eleni all came to his funeral and wept.

That kills me. I love them so much for what they have done for our family, and I can't believe how lucky we have been. I heard dire warnings from so many people about locking up valuables, sloppy care, etc. Our experience has been the complete opposite.

I have so much more to tell you.  Thank you for listening/reading. Sorry I haven't replied to the all the comments, but I have read them all, of course, often more than once.  I have even quoted a few of them (I'm always embarrassed to say, "This person who comments on my blog said...."  Instead, I say, "This friend of mine said....")  

I really do consider you friends, even the people I have never met in person. Thank you for all your support.

Josh, Sophie, me, Emma. Check out Emma's cool vintage dress -- worn by my mother back in the 1950s.

Emma, Paul (Sophie's fiance), and Sophie. Random picture of the kids goofing on each other, but you can see more of Emma's dress here. It had a low back which is really pretty too.

The Villainous Funeral Guy.

Oh, Funeral Guy. You tried so hard.

The funeral is over, so there's that. 

Oh, also? I'm such an ass. I really am.  But a public declaration of this fact will not prevent me from being an ass on any future occasion.

The day after my father died, my sister Julie and I went to a funeral home to make arrangements. Our family had already decided on cremation with interment of the ashes at a later date. But there were still a lot of arrangements that had to be made because there would be a funeral Mass at my parents' church and the ashes had to be in the church during the funeral Mass, which meant we needed to rent a ceremonial casket, blah blah blah.

Julie was all mature and friendly, but business-like,  with Funeral Guy. I was all cynical and suspicious and "Hell no, we don't need that crap!" We sat at a highly polished table in a tastefully decorated room and Funeral Guy quickly learned to avoid eye contact with me, what with the eye-rolling and glaring.

At one point, I had to call my brother to ask a question about how many death certificates we would need to order. I told my brother that Funeral Guy was asking about how many bank accounts our dad had (because you need separate death certs for all the financial institutions). And my brother, who also has a streak of The Suspicion, said loudly, "He wants to know about the bank accounts? Very clever. FUCK THAT. Tell him we need 20 death certificates."

I put down my phone, laughing helplessly and saying, "That was the funniest thing I've heard all day. Um. My brother says we need 20." 

And then whispered to Julie, "Do you think he could hear that?"

"Definitely yes."

Julie might have been getting annoyed with me at this point, but I hope she doesn't hold it against me. She has a very forgiving nature.

Later we had to go into the showroom to pick out the urn. Julie and I instantly agreed on the plainest and least expensive urn.

Funeral Guy sighed and said, "Well, if that's what you want."

Really, Funeral Guy? REALLY?

Honestly, I have nothing against morticians or funeral directors.  It's a business, I understand that.  A sales business.  I suppose there are plenty of people who don't mind spending $10,000 on  the casket that will cradle their loved one for eternity, or $800 for a brass urn to hold ashes.  But there are other people who think that is foolish. I resented Funeral Guy's effort to shame us into buying the more expensive urn for the ashes. I think a good salesperson reads his clients and then does his best to meet their needs without betraying disappointment at their cheap-ass selections. Especially in a sales business that concerns such  emotionally charged circumstances.

Later, I nixed Funeral Guy's suggestion that he would handle placing the death notice in the paper (for a fee).

"There's no mystery about the death notice," I snapped. "We'll do that."

Funeral Guy tried to sell us a guest book sign-in, which included pages to keep track of who had sent flowers or cooked meals to make thank you notes easier.  

"We'll take care of that," said I, crisply.

Of course, we totally forgot about the guest book and now we have no fucking idea who was at the funeral. Our list of people who sent flowers or meals is on at least 3 separate pieces of paper on the dining room table at my mother's house. I predict those lists will be accidentally thrown away any minute now. I kinda wish we had bought Funeral Guy's guest book.

Later, when I complained about Funeral Guy, Julie said mildly, "Yes. He's the villain here."

And I realized what an ass I am. 

Then again, anger IS one of the stages of grief, right? It comes right before the eating stage of grief, which is where I am now.  Wouldn't it be great if there were an exercise and healthy eating stage of grief?

Next time, I promise I will be mature and will try to employ a filter before I speak. I will try not to roll my eyes when the Funeral Guy speaks. I might even forgo sneakily taking pictures and then writing a blog post about him. But I can't promise that I won't laugh my ass off when my brother says, "FUCK THAT" for the whole room to hear.

Next Entry: How my mom is doing.

Sorrow A Hundredfold.

My father reading to the 7 youngest grandchildren, probably around 1994.

Last Thursday, I stopped by my parents' house after work and hung out for a bit. My brother and my niece were there. My oldest nephew was in and out.  Hilarity abounded.

On Saturday, my sister Julie went to my parents' house and fixed lunch for them. My father ate like a trencherman.

On Sunday (which now seems like a thousand years ago), my sister Sarah and I met there at noon to fix lunch, hang out, and cook an extra meal for dinner that the aide could serve to them later. 

My father didn't come to the table because he felt nauseated. It's not like him to refuse food. 

So we took him to the emergency room. He was admitted to the hospital with a bowel obstruction.

That evening, he was transferred to the ICU because of difficulty breathing. He spiked a fever.

Do you see where this is going?

The doctors asked us, "If it becomes necessary to intubate him, do you want us to?"

Wait. SHIT. What?

We said, "Yes."

Late in the afternoon on Monday the doctors told us that Dad had developed severe sepsis, and the situation was grave. We told them that we did not want intubation, chest compressions, or any extraordinary measures.

A priest came and gave him the last rites. I watched my father make a wavering, loopy sign of the cross. This killed me dead.

They began to try and keep him comfortable with morphine, and after that he was sort of out of it.

On Tuesday morning, the family assembled. When we were all there, the nurse turned off the medications that were maintaining his heartbeat. He died about 3 or 4 minutes later.

It was 48 hours from his first symptom to his dying breath, and for that I am thankful.

But, goddamn.

In Which I Explain Several Times That This Is Not a Piece of Cake.

This picture of my friend Ellen and me has nothing to do with the post. It was taken today on the Billy Goat Trail in Great Falls, and I post it here to prove that I am getting out and doing things and not wallowing in self-pity. Also, it gives me the opportunity to publicly declare my love for Ellen.

Josh and I have been living with my 91 year old father-in-law, Aaron, for 4 months now.

Why?

Because my mother-in-law died, and we thought we could help fill the void or at least make sure that he's eating real food.

Aaron thinks we are living with him to save money. That was basically the only way we could convince him to let us move in.

When people ask how it's going, or say, "Wow, that must be really hard," we always say, "Nah, it's not that hard. We like it. Blah blah blah Positive Sunshine-y Phrases."

Because we don't want to be all, "Yeah, it was really hard to pack up our entire life and put it in storage and move in to someone else's house, which has hideous window treatments and furniture that makes me shudder,  yeah it kind of sucks sometimes and we really really really miss our old life. But we're so selfless and wonderful we did it anyway. Commence with the praise."

We don't want to be Negative Nellies. Plus, it was our choice.

But just between you and me?

It's not exactly a  piece of cake.

It's harder for Josh than for me, I think, maybe because Aaron feels free to be cranky with Josh but will maintain a certain level of decorum with me.

I don't know how to explain the difficult parts of living with a grieving 91-year-old man. I suppose you can figure it out. He's lonely, even when we're here. And he's set in his ways and can't figure out  why, for example, we would have the audacity to leave our mail on the desk in the living room for 2 days at a time. ("That mail could be important! You need to read it to see what it's about! Take it upstairs and do something with it!" Subtext = What the hell is wrong with you people??)

He is fond of saying to us, "I don't understand how you people operate!"  This is usually uttered after he asks Josh what we are having for dinner that night and Josh says, "I don't know. I guess one of us will pick up stuff for a stirfry on the way home."  Which was how we always did things before. Casually. We have learned that we need to post a menu for the week ahead to avoid the "I don't understand how you people operate."

He doesn't have a social life because his friends are all dead.

His world revolved around 1 person, and we are a poor substitute for her.

Josh has to cope with his dad by himself a lot, without my comforting presence, because I am over at my own parents' house checking in on them.

We retreat upstairs at night to watch TV in our own room, partly because we can't stand to watch the news for 2 hours straight (which is what Aaron does), and partly because we need to cocoon together a little bit and try to hold on to the way things were.

We're not sorry that we moved in. It was the right thing to do. And Aaron is sweet most of the time. I love him.

But it's not a piece of a cake. In case anyone thought it was.

Personal blogs are SO 2007.

A Valentine's Day card from a special friend of mine.

10:30am Saturday February 18

If I manage to sit here long enough to write an entry and hit "publish", this will be the 3rd entry for February, which is pathetic, OBV, but is triple my January output.

A few weeks ago on Facebook, a friend of mine posted something she had overheard: "Personal blogs are so 2007."  I hadn't really thought about that before, partly because I have no goddamned time for blogging or blog-reading these days, but there definitely are a plethora of niche-blogs out there.

(I said "plethora", but I really wanted to say, "a metric-fucking-ton". I am trying to swear less. Not sure why.)

For example, every first-grade teacher and her brother appear to have a classroom-related blog, where they cheerily discuss anchor charts and 100th Day of School lessons and ideas for how to communicate with parents. They use the word "cute" a lot. I peruse these blogs from time to time. I'm not gonna lie--sometimes I find it hard not to roll my eyes, what with the "cute" clip art themes, and the cheesy bulletin board ideas (First Grade is 'Beary' Exciting! AUGGHH KILL ME NOW).

Then again, I occasionally get good ideas from these blogs. In fact, just 5 minutes ago when I looked at a couple of them to see if I could find something to make fun of, I ended up downloading some pictures to put in my Ideas file. (Which I can almost guarantee I will never use, because once my ideas are in a file, whether it is a paper file or a computer file, they cease to exist because I can't see them. This is one of my organizational issues, which I wish somebody could solve for me. Pinterest, right?)

I guess where I was going with this whole thing about the niche blogs is that I think from time to time about writing a teacher blog, or even an elder-care blog, since that is what my life revolves around these days. The problem with that is:

a) The swearing and general inappropriateness that would no doubt permeate any teacher or eldercare blog I would write. ("OMG Why are my students' parents are so fucking stupid?"  or, "If my mother does [insert crazy thing] one more time imma have to get Mr. Suffocation Pillow out of the closet!") I'd end up getting fired from my job or reported to some state agency or both.

b) I'd have to  commit to writing more so that I could propel myself to Internet stardom and get one of those damn book deals. Sheeeeeit. Publishers were handing those things out like candy for awhile. Have I missed that window? I'm just not sure I can manage my time well enough to generate the number of posts I would need to pull in an audience.

Back to real life. As far as personal blog vs niche blog, I have to say I am a big fan of the personal blog, in general. I'm nosy. I'm interested. I like reading about people's lives and seeing how things change over time. I guess it's not a surprise that my favorite reading genre is the personal memoir.

My blog will no doubt continue as it has for a long time: a mish-mosh of whatever is going on in my life, but hopefully more often than I have posted for the past year or so. I really want to reconnect with my Internet buddies. I miss all y'all muthafuckas.

I mean, I miss you guys.

Off for a walk now, then over to my parents' house to squire them to church UGH and make dinner for them.

A Tale of Two Daughters.

Emma and Sophie, back in the day.

First things first: I'm not going to call my daughters by their fake internet names anymore.  6 years ago, when I first started blogging, I decided to give them pseudonyms because, I don't know, I just did. I guess I thought some psycho might see a photo of them and develop an unhealthy fixation and stalk them? I mean, they ARE adorable.

But we can move on from that, I think.  Sasha is Sophie and Evangeline is Emmaline (Emma for short). To help you with the transition, I will refer to them by both names for this post. Sophie/Sasha and Emma/Evangeline.

Also, do you know this? Sophie/Sasha and Emma/Evangeline live together. With their boyfriends and 4 cats.

Wait. It's up to 5 cats because Sophie/Sasha took in a stray on a cold January night.

And they all get along together. The humans AND the cats. Weird, huh?

I already told you all that Emma/Evangeline got engaged, remember? Let me just fill you in on a few details that you might enjoy.

Just before Christmas, Emma/Evangeline took her boyfriend Nate out of town to a bed & breakfast on Maryland's Eastern Shore to celebrate the end of another semester of grad school. She brought along a hundred dollar bottle of scotch (for courage I must assume) and a Mad Lib which told the story of their relationship. Embedded in the Mad Lib was a marriage proposal.

HOW FUCKIN' MODERN AND ADORABLE IS THAT??

(Emma/Evangeline is all about being bold and manly, unless it involves asking a store employee where to find the light bulbs or something, in which case she would prefer to wander up and down the aisles humming to herself, and then come out to the car and say, "They don't have any light bulbs.")

After her successful marriage proposal, the little vixen took Nate out to help her pick out an engagement ring. And then, NO ONE TOLD US ANYTHING ABOUT IT. FOR WEEKS.

Those little bastards.

Fast forward to 2 weekends ago:

Paul (Sophie/Sasha's boyfriend) came over to see Josh about a computer problem. I wasn't home. Paul was here for a couple of hours, and right before he left...HE ASKED JOSH FOR PERMISSION TO PROPOSE TO SOPHIE/SASHA!!

HOW FUCKIN' OLD-FASHIONED AND ADORABLE IS THAT??

Josh got all teary and emotional. I wonder if that was awkward for Paul, ha ha.

Paul took Sophie/Sasha out to dinner that night and did the whole nine yards, down on bended knee, with a beautiful ring that belonged to his great-aunt.

We are deliriously happy around here. These are exceptional young men, both of them, and we love them so much.

No weddings until 2013. June for Emma/Evangeline and probably September for Sophie/Sasha.

This is kind of a rushed entry, there is a ton more stuff I would like to tell you. So much going on right now. Sad stuff, but lots and lots of happy stuff too.

Gotta do some work for a class I am taking. STUPID CLASSES FOR TEACHERS JUST MORE SHIT I GOTTA DO AAARRGH

xoxoxoxoxoxox

I finally left that diner.

We got back from Florida, what, 3 weeks ago? God, I am an undependable blogger. But I bet you guys have all been pinning shit on Pinterest and didn't even notice. (WTF, btw? ANOTHER internet trend that I have to keep up with? NOOOOOOOO!)

Here is my Florida report, with special love to my favorite Florida Cracker:

I don't like South Florida. First, the traffic is ridiculous. Second, if you travel 2 blocks inland from the cute beach area it's all just an unattractive sprawl. You could be in any overbuilt, underplanned metropolitan area. Still, we had fun visiting our friend Reggie and staying in his cool, mid-century condo, overlooking the beach.  Life is rough, right?

Sunset on the beach in Ft Lauderdale.

We spent a day at Shark Valley in Everglades National Park. We rented bikes and rode a 15 mile loop, which took forever because I kept gasping appreciatively and stopping to take pictures, most of which sucked, but that won't stop me from putting them up here.

Hanging out, catching some rays.

I am in love with the Everglades. I had no idea it would be so beautiful, so ethereal.  I pictured a dark swamp, not acres upon acres of graceful, swaying grass, with flocks of birds rising up and circling in a blue sky above us.  

But it made me sad to see the Everglades and fall in love with it and to read about the fragility of the environment and the devastating effect of development at its fringes (particularly the  demands for water from South Florida). Its future existence is by no means assured. What an incalculable loss that will be.

And then I got all indignant every time we passed houses with lawns or a golf course. XERISCAPE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE.

I am doing the Everglades and the native Floridians a favor and NOT retiring to Florida to play golf. You're welcome!

It's a little hard to see the baby alligators in the grass with their momma. She was HUGE, by the way. I was unable to get a better shot because I was very busy maintaining a respectful distance.

 

 

 

This was up on a lookout tower thing-y. It doesn't do the scenery justice. My hand is strategically placed on Josh's tshirt to hide the sweaty blotches.

There is other news to tell you about, wonderful news, but I will save that for tomorrow, or a month from now. Whichever.