Miz S

Carpe The Hell Out Of The Diem.

This post is not about my new dog, Jack.

Sometimes, when I am on my way over to see my mother, my stomach feels queasy with anxiety because I start playing the worry tape in my brain: How long can this go on? What if the caregivers quit? What will it be like later on when she can’t walk, can’t talk? What if her money runs out?

Then I speak to myself firmly: No. Stop it. Everything is fine right now. We’re luckier than most. Don’t borrow trouble. Take 10 slow breaths. There you go.

But, how long can this go on? What if the caregivers quit?

And so on.

And yet, when I arrive at the house and see my mother, it’s impossible to feel queasy and worried. Most of the time, she is cheerful and excited about every little thing.

The lawn is filled with weeds that happen to be blooming? Mom is thrilled. “Look at those sweet flowers! They weren’t here yesterday! We can grow anything in this soil!”

We go to the hardware store to buy a tool? Mom becomes giddy with excitement. “This place has everything! There is nowhere else in town where you can buy this!”

We go to the Tastee Diner for lunch? Her enthusiasm knows no bounds. “This place has the best eggs in town! And they are open all night! You never know who you will see in here!”

She carpes the hell out of every diem.

And I feel happy, because she is happy.

But underneath there is a layer of poignancy, a sharp awareness that this gift she now has of living exactly in the moment comes at a terrible cost. Her once brilliant brain, now slowly being strangled by Alzheimer’s Disease, struggles to understand the simplest routines. It invents scenarios to explain where she is and why her husband is not there. Sometimes it leads her to believe she is a young girl engaged to my nephew, or her cat is starving to death, or the caregivers are stealing her money, or her small daughters have disappeared and why won’t someone help her find them?

So, while living in the moment sometimes means being thrilled there are dandelions in the lawn, it can also mean being caught up in terrible grief about an imagined tragedy.

I don’t know how to wrap this up. I’m not even sure why I started writing it, except that Swistle wrote a post this morning that made me think about my mother.

Meh. I’ll see if I can wrap it up tomorrow. Right now I need to go take my…wait for it…NEW DOG for a walk.

 

Mom is on a journey.

Mom, in a contemplative mood.

When I stopped in at my mother’s house a few nights ago, she was very busy in her bedroom trying to pack things up because she thought she was on a train. My nephew, who is one of Mom’s caregivers, had been unable to distract her or convince her she was home. 

In this scenario, the train ride was over and “the men” were coming to remove all her belongings.  Mom was shuffling around with her arms full of random objects trying to figure out where to put them. Thus, I found myself making room in my late father’s underwear drawer for a large and dusty framed picture and some balls of yarn.  My mother was pleased with that solution but then cast her eyes upon the wooden wall alcove that holds a lovely carved statue of the Virgin Mary.

I rolled my eyes. “Ma, we can just put that here on the dresser. We don’t need to pack it right now. Let’s go into the dining room and have a cup of tea.”

Mom eyed me reproachfully. Then, using my childhood nickname, she said, “Oh Mee-el. You know I would be brokenhearted if anything happened to this.”

The "Oh, Mee-el" killed me dead.

And so I dutifully secured the Virgin Mary in her wooden stand using rubber bands (my mother’s suggestion) and carefully packed her into the bottom drawer of the dining room sideboard, covering her with the old table linens so that all I could see were her sympathetic, saintly eyes gazing up at me through the stained and tattered remnants of an ancient tablecloth. My mother supervised, as she always has.

Later, Benjamin fixed dinner while Mom and I enjoyed a cup of tea together (after she wisely stashed some silver spoons in her purse, lest "the men" lose them when they arrived to help her disembark). At some point, the train delusion seemed to fix itself. She expressed her surprise that I had known what time she was getting in and had known where to pick her up.

"But how did you know?" she asked me. "How on earth did you know where to find me?"

I searched my brain for the right response, the answer that wouldn't let on that she was lost in Alzheimer's World.

"Um." And then it came to me. "I checked the train schedule, of course!" I answered triumphantly.

"Of course!" she laughed.

And all was well in Alzheimer's World.

Pianissimo

Arya napping on Josh.

Christmas felt funny/odd this year. Emma and Nate are in Kentucky visiting Nate's mom, so we had already planned that we would do Christmas present-opening when they return this weekend. But we (Josh and I) didn't really have any other plan for Christmas morning.

That's not entirely true. We picked up my mom and brought her over to Sophie and Paul's house to see the Christmas tree and eat french toast. Mom was enchanted with their new dog, June, and gave dog-handling advice non-stop the entire visit.

But I was feeling fussy, to be perfectly honest. I couldn't wait to take Mom back home and just not have to DEAL. She was super disconnected from reality and, just, I don't know...I was fussy.

When we finally got back to our own house, there wasn't really anything to do. No new sweaters to wear or new books to read. No mess to clean up. I suppose we could have worked on the household budget or cleaned out the closets or caught up on the laundry. Or gone for a walk or volunteered in a homeless shelter or, I don't know, picked up trash in the park? Taken down the Christmas decorations?

Instead, I took a long nap with Pushkin. Later, we went to our friends' house for dinner, which is usually a boisterous affair with lots of drinking and debauchery but even that was low-key.

I need to plan better for next year. I guess we need to create new traditions.

I know I sound a little Debby Downer-ish. Sorry about that. I'm just a little off right now. 

I Love My Class So Much You Don't Even Know.

On the last day of school in December, the children in my class came bearing gifts.  Well, a couple of them did. There was a pair of slippers from J, which I wore all morning to his great delight.  SA, who is the sweetest child ever placed on God’s green earth, was practically stuttering with delight when he presented to me a snow globe Nativity scene with a windup key on the bottom.  “Look! Turn it! It plays music! And it snows!”

Those were the only parent-organized presents that I received.  This school community isn’t exactly rolling in money, which is probably the understatement of the year, and honestly I would hate for the parents to spend money on a gift for me.  Still, I did feel lucky and happy and rich all day on Friday.

Little JB wore a sparkly purple dress and tap shoes.  Click clack click clack, all day long, and so pleased with herself, she was.  It made me smile even though we were awfully noisy in the hallway.  CT, a tough, manly little 6 year old who nonetheless wept hysterically almost every day for the first few weeks of school, made me a card that proclaimed, “Miss Sivrman is a nis techr and the bast techr and I like her as a frend.”  IG, with whom I am often stern because MY GOD the chattering and the running backwards in the classroom, slipped his hand companionably into mine as we walked to lunch and said, “School is fun!” Colleagues handed out candy canes to students and hummed in the hallways and talked cheerfully about holiday plans. The principal, who is just so nice I could weep, sent out a sincere email to the staff thanking us for our hard work.  

At the very end of the day, some of my students were finishing up decorating the little journals that I had given them. Others were cleaning cubbies and packing up. And funny, bad BL with the fat tummy and the propensity for winding up in the principal’s office rather more often than he should, began hugging his friends and crooning, “Happy Holidays! Happy Christmas! I will miss you!”

And soon all the first graders in the room were hugging each other. And then—I swear I am not making this up—they joined hands in a circle and started singing “Jingle Bells.”

And that just killed me dead. From now on, I will be obliged to communicate from the spirit world.

Decompressing.

Fatty-fat Catty-cat

Josh and I are not taking a vacation this summer, what with one thing and another. This is much harder on him than on me, since I get 2 months off every year, and fiddling around inside my VERY OWN house this past month has been like heaven and very relaxing.

Not that he's complaining at all, but you know, it's healthy to get away from the workaday world to decompress now and then. We are taking a mini-vacation this weekend and driving up to Shepherdstown, West Virginia. It is only for a day/night, but we like driving places and walking around little towns and stuff like that. We were planning on bringing either kayaks or bikes, but it's going to be rainy and the water is too low for kayaks so I guess we'll just, I don't know, EAT.

The process of settling back into the house has been delightful. Buying new bedding for the guest room. Arranging my spices just so.  Yard work. Arranging freshly sharpened pencils on my desk.

Sometimes I just sigh happily. And at least once every day I say to Josh, "OMG I LOVE BEING HOME."

Josh's father is doing okay on his own, I guess. He goes over to Alix's (Josh's sister) for dinner once a week, and he comes over here sometimes, and Josh and Alix both go over there to socialize or to help with something in the house. He still refuses to move or get help in. He feels well right now, so he doesn't think he needs anyone. Stubborn old dude, I'll tell you what.

Oh, you guys. I am getting killed by spam in my comments. Fucking KILLED.  I don't want to do the verification code thing, but I may have to. In the meantime I have enabled comment moderation so that I can at least catch the spam before it gets published in my comments. 

That's all for right now. I must go pack for my 24 hour vacation. I'm thinking underwear, a toothbrush, and an extra t-shirt.

Talk to you soon.

Home.

So. Here we are. We moved home.

You know what? Let's do this in the contrived form of an imaginary interviewer asking me questions, because it's all so hard to explain, and, God, I'm exhausted at the very thought of writing a blog post.

 

Q. You moved home? Where have you been living if you weren't at home?

A. We moved to my father-in-law's house in Washington DC  in October of 2011, shortly after my mother-in-law passed away from lung cancer.  (Which sucked, fyi.)  My father-in-law is in his nineties and needs a little help.

 

Q. Did you like living in DC?

A. Meh. It was okay. It was only 15 minutes from our house in Maryland, so it's not like it was culture shock or anything.  It was inconvenient that we had to hide our cars all the time because the police gave us tickets for not getting DC plates. It's hard to find a good hiding place for three tons of metal.  On the flip side, we liked being right across from Rock Creek Park.

 

Q. What was it like living with a 90-something-year-old Jewish man?

A. Equal parts hilarious, depressing, and really fucking annoying. We missed our own house so much. And we missed our life. You feel me?

 

Q. So why did you move there in the first place? You must have known it would be hard. Are you and Josh the kind of people who don't think things through?

A. Possibly. And we were reeling from the death of Josh's mother, who was the heart of the family.  My father-in-law's doctor spoke to us and said, "He can't be alone. He'll die. He won't eat. He can't be alone." So we were all, "WAAAAAH! WE'LL MOVE IN! WAAAAH!" 

Is that what you meant by not thinking things through? 

 

Q. Yes, that's what I meant. Hang on a sec. I am perusing your archives.  I just read this entry.

And in that entry, you said, "We are here for the duration. A year? 6 months? 5 years? It doesn't matter."   

But here you are moving out after a measly 20 months! ARE YOU QUITTERS?

A.  Evidently.  Here's the thing: We had no idea it would be so hard. We underestimated the toll it would take on us. We fought a lot. I cried a lot. We both gained weight. I went to work early and stayed late. (Which is nothing new but I think I took it to the next level.)  In short, we were miserable about 50% of the time.

 

Q. Yeah, but don't you feel kind of like an asshole, anyway? 

A. Definitely. Because we thought we could do it.  We wanted to do it. We wanted to be unselfish, good people who take care of their elders.  As it turns out, we are very ordinary people and slightly self-centered. Just like everyone else. It was HAAAAARD. Oh, and did I mention that during this same time period my father died and one of my kids got married? And I changed schools? Hmmm?

 

Q. Oh, I see. You're a big whiner, too.

A.  Shut it.

 

Q. What will your father-in-law do now? 

A. Continue being a stubborn old man. He has known for 3 months that we were moving out on July 1st. Josh and his sister have taken him to visit assisted living communities and had many conversations (high-decibel) about what should happen next. He won't (or can't) make a decision and rejects all sensible alternatives. It's frustrating, as many of you know. We (Josh, his sister, me) will continue to make sure that he eats by having him over for dinner. Josh's sister takes him to doctor appointments. We'll help him as much as we can. But at the end of the day we will be able to go home to our own house.  

This elder care business is hard, y'all.

Okay. That's all I have for right now. But if you need me, I'll be here in my little yellow house, artfully arranging my coffee cups in any damn cabinet I want.   

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.

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.