This is the Life That Is

I'm Gonna Miss This Place...

I was fortunate today to attend a memorial service at work for a man who died unexpectedly last week.  He was an “individual”, not a staff member.  He had lived in the insti*tution since childhood, and was in his 40’s when he died.  He had Down Syndrome, and chances are, had he been born recently, he would have been raised at home, attended public schools, and maybe had a job someplace in the larger community.

It is not typical for a memorial service to be held when a resident (or “individual”) passes away.  Jerry was a Marcel Marceau of a man, small, pale skinned, non-verbal, mouth usually open, tongue out.  Wouldn’t normally stand out in a facility brimming with severely disabled folks.  The woman behind the service, his workshop manager for many years, loved him dearly.

A memorial table had been brought together, featuring a few photos of Jerry from recent years, a couple of foam balls, a Frisbee, a poem, a plant.  Staff filed by and smiled, a couple of staff hugged.  Jerry’s peers carried on as usual; one man smiling and shouting “he died, he died’, although only familiar listeners could understand him. A tiny lady repeated, “buy me a soda” in a high squeaky voice.  A former ball-playing companion stood against the far wall twirling a fabric strip torn from a shirt.  Another lady walked back and forth, kicking the chair and getting stuck in routine until staff interrupted her.

Several staff stood up and said a few brief words about how Jerry would be missed, how much they liked him.  Wistful memories of him slapping women’s butts, dunking his head in the toilet, and eating up the attention given him in the annual fashion show were shared.  A tiny lady with a tinier head stood up in imitation of staff, uttered a few incomprehensible sounds accompanied by finger shaking, and sat down.

Several individuals kept their eyes fixed on the bowls of pretzels and cheese balls waiting at the rear of the room.   All told, everyone “behaved” remarkably well.  Staff served everyone plates of snacks.  No one stormed the food table.

I was again reminded of what a fine group of people I work with, how every life is valued by someone, and some lives are valued by many.  And not necessarily the ones that you expect.  Jerry’s family took care of his physical remains, and likely will have their own memorial.  But at our place, his adopted family held a very fitting tribute.

The Wicked, Creepy Plant Must Die!

Some time ago, my boss brought a plant to work called a "Mother of Millions".  Perhaps you've seen one.  It bears "babies" on the edges of its jagged, succulent leaves, which fall off and start new plants.  Cute, as babies.  As adults, creepy as hell.  This week, I noticed that the darned things had grown to about 3' tall, had snaked in between the wire mesh shelves, and were leaving their spawn
in my other plants' pots.  Suddenly occurred to me that I didn't have to live with this...plants were not necessarily a LIFETIME COMMITMENT.  So I took a knife and cut them out of the shelves, hacked them up further out of spite and simmering loathing (and Amy, I suggest that you do the same, while you still can).  Note the aerial roots on
stem of this monster.  These plants are built to propagate.  I'm almost afraid to try and compost them.  Think KUDZU...

In Other News...got 6 inches of rain last Thursday night.  My garden is a rice paddy, the gourd vines have seriously grown at least 2 feet.  And why
is it that the squash you don't know what to do with, or can't identify, always seem too grow the
fastest?

Honey the Dog has a torn cruciate ligament in her right hind knee.  She is 11 years old and I'm not sure that her slightly decreased running speed is worth $1500 for surgery, or that she'd tolerate the "decreased activity level" to recover.

Larry the Bird has discovered the cursor on my
laptop screen, but to his credit, quickly grew bored trying to catch it.  He's
also learned to say "hello" when the phone rings.

Read about this guy in the Washington Post the other day.  Sad and desperate, but hopeful and has  a plan, anyway.

I decided that Chamele gets far too little exposure on my blog, so here she is, mid-cricket.

Last night I threw the house into darkness while installing ceramic tile in the kitchen.  Seems I nudged a light switch against its metal housing.  Luckily there is a PhD with multiple security clearances and a multi-meter in the house...

And a lawn mower in the garage.  So I'd best get busy.  I thought there was something interesting to report here, but darned if I can think of it...

Our NEXT House...

During the past couple of years, my husband's answer to many things has been, "Our NEXT house will have _______".  Until recently, this was mostly an academic exercise, a harmless dream.  Now, with land purchased and a foot in both worlds but somehow also in neither, it is more a reality.

I work from this end, arranging services to get the present house in a condition to sell.  He works on the other end, coordinating designers and builders and money.

I ignore favorite activities (except the garden, which will not tolerate ignoring, especially after the THUNDER STORM (!!) that is going on RIGHT NOW) in favor of preparing for the future.  The stained glass, the gourds, the reading all beckon, but are dismissed in favor of ceramic tiling, wallpapering, etc.

Many years ago, we moved to a house for what I assumed would be a brief time.  I reluctantly decided against planting grapes and other future-oriented plants, since we would not be there to enjoy them. The second summer,  I decided that  it was not risking much, and planted a grape vine and an apple tree.  The fourth summer, we had grapes and the fifth, a few apples, on up to the 11th summer...

Now, I sometimes wonder if we are putting our lives on hold recklessly.  What if we don't live long enough to see our "Next House"?  What if other disaster strikes and we cannot enjoy it, and yet have put off the present in anticipation of future gain?

I need to find a way to keep a foot firmly planted in this world, since it is the one I have.  I need to let go of the feeling of anxiousness, the feeling that I can't live in the moment because I am too busy living in the future, or worrying that I am not doing enough in the now.

But mostly, I need to go to sleep while it is still raining really hard...

Loose Ends

Here are two pictures/graphics/whatever that have been on my desktop for ages, waiting for something, I don't know what.  Anyway, in the interest of sharing them before purging them, I am posting them below:
The dog reminds me of someone.  It's the eyes...

Back Home Again

...four days later than planned and not a moment too soon.  The cat box and the laundry had reached critical mass, and the plants were dying.

The trip home was uneventful, compared with recent life.  After a stop at Walmart for Tylenol, and 2 big $1 bars of Wal-Mart Belgium Milk Chocolate (get 'em while you can), we were on the road.  Larry talked and whistled and beeped to various songs (he has his preferences, we noticed) that Kat*ie and I played from our iPods.

After a coffee/rest stop an hour along, I broke off a piece of chocolate to eat later, apparently putting it on my lap (in the foil) with a map and my cell phone.

Two hours later, another rest stop beckoned (another McDonald's--sorry, but I like the coffee).  Removing the cell phone and map from my lap, I realized that the chocolate bar had melted all over the phone AND my lovely loud pink and red sun dress.  We sat in the car, cracking up at the ludicrousness of it all.   I think Ka*tie planned it all as a way of eliminating the dress that she was embarrassed to be seen with me in.

I sat in the car, LICKING my phone and sucking the chocolate out of the opening for the charger, until need won out over pride and I joined Kat*ie in the McDonald's. Taking the empty cup from the last stop with me, I strode purposefully  toward the rest room hoping that no one would notice the gobs of chocolate on the front of my dress.  Emboldened, I took the cup to the counter and asked for a refill.

Ka*tie and I met back in the car, and as I turned the car to head out of the parking lot, the yogurt cup of Muhlenbergia (tall, ornamental grass) sprouts in water, which Kat*ie had moved to the DASHBOARD, tipped and dumped all over me.  Refreshing.

So, after less than six hours on the road (including construction traffic around DC), Larry was returned to his big cage in the kitchen, and real life resumed.  Life is a Carnival (sometimes).  Larry liked that song.

P.S. The Washington Post has just started carrying the Su Doku puzzle!  Why do I always seem to be on the cutting edge?  First scooters, then gourds...and now...Su Doku.  I guess NPR gets some credit on this one...

Larry's Excellent Adventure Pt. 2

Today marks only a week since we took off from home--no--it must be two weeks--?

Larry finally got to fly, all the way to the Horace Somebody Airport in Chapel Hill!  What a neat little airport, with tiny airport charm.  And, just like where I work, it is continually threatened with closure.  Unlike where I work, there was no prom, no limos, just a $50/day KIA tiny little no-power-anything rental car.

Which is where a couple of people who have no reason to be as nice to us as they have been come in, AGAIN.  This time, in addition to the letting us stay in their home, while we talked with people about building a house, they let us borrow their character-abundant automobile.

And around about this time, Mz. Smlph informed me that she is having major dental work done via "Sedition Dentistry"in nearby Raleigh a few days after we had planned to return home.

And then our unexplainedly good friends offered to not only put her up, too, but to drive her to/from the dentist, since she is "not to be trusted", let alone drive, for 24 hours after the sedition.

Which is when I suddenly woke up and thought, wait a minute!  I should be doing this stuff!  After all, I AM Mz. Smlph' mama.

But MEANWHILE. Last Sunday we saw a poster for a theremin contest, to be held that night in campus town, at a place called "The Cave".  I will suffice by saying that it was without much doubt the weirdest way I have ever spent an evening.  Jason, the owner/founder of Thereminworld.com
was there, along with the emcee, an interesting man named "Hoppy", and a small coven of thereminists.  If you don't know what a theremin is, look it up, or be happy knowing that it is an electronic instrument that is played without physical contact and makes very strange, creepy noises.

I have chalked that experience up as one of those "this will become part of who I am" things.  I am so happy that we went, even if the place reeked of smoke.

Then there was the job interview that I arrived at frantic and sweaty, wearing pretty unprofessional clothes, with Larry in the back seat of the '85 Volvo...

And then the trip to Roc*ky Mou*nt, in the poor ol' Volvo, to join Mz. Smlph in her Habitat for Humanity effort.  Another character builder, when the wiper blade detatched itself in the driving rain and rode
back and forth for miles sideways on the windshield.  Arrived safe and sound, tho, and Larry got to meet Mz. Smlph's roommate,
TGRE.

The H for H experience was everything Ka*tie had said it would be, really nice father-figure southern guys AND the opportunity to learn how to hang vinyl siding.

I don't generally have premonitions, but I had a bad one about the car as I started it for the drive back to Raleigh and Chapel
The Triangle.  Windows down, not too hot, I turned around and noticed that Larry's feathers were being strongly ruffeled in the breeze.  Had also noticed that the windshield wipers, AND the radio, didn't work at all.

Pulled over at a "Kangaroo" Station (yup, that is really a place) in Nashville, NC, to roll up the windows, assess Larry's condition, and get a cup of coffee.  And that is when I became a blight upon our friends, if I wasn't already.  The Volvo wouldn't start (BUT the radio and windshield wipers did).  One of three kindly strangers assessed the situation quickly (starter burned out) but said it would take an electrical person to fix it.

Enter AAA and Hale's Towing.  The Volvo rode in style for over 70 miles, and I met a 37 year old one time farmer with 3 boys, the oldest of whom had just broken his collar bone in 3 places.  The driver had hardly slept for the past few days, staying up with his son, but maneuvered the gigantic flat-bed truck down narrow streets, backing it up between a fence and parked cars with inches to spare.        Larry went for his first tow-truck ride and then waited patiently for our beleagered
host to pick us up at the Volvo repair place in Durham.

Today dawned at 6 am, when Kat*ie (aka M.S.) and I drove to the land of no memories.

When I arrived 5 hours later at the dentist, to "fetch" her, poor Ka*tie was sitting, blank-faced and teetering, blood caked on her lips and teeth, on the dentist's chair.   6 hours later, I am re-re-repeating the story of what transpired in that place, as best as I can understand it.  It reminds me of when Kat*ie and A*my were little, and they wanted me to tell them over and OVER about something they had done...

I "carried" (NC speak) Mz. S home in her own car, after strapping her in, and called ahead for back-up from, you guessed it, one of the most gracious people I have ever met. He literally, almost, carried her down the steps of his home to a waiting bed.  A quart of blue jello later, the Tylenol PM has kicked in, she is happy, pain-free, and about to go back to sleep...

It's been a week.  I'm glad that I lived it.

Some Time Between Appointment is a Dangerous Thing

(Had a few free minutes yesterday between 'important meetings' at work...)

For several years now, I have used this visual imagery to help me cope with changes in life and I've found it so effective I've even suggested it to others.

The idea is that when something new enters your life, like a child, or a job,  it is initially very disorganizing and disruptive.    It feels so chaotic, like life will never be the same.          

But, eventually, an equilibrium is reached, and life
assumes a "new normal".  It's hard to remember what it
used to be like.

Why then, does this process not work in reverse?  I guess my real question is how can a person do just fine, for their whole lives, without something (or someone), and then have such a hard time later when it is gone?

(and why should something that looks as simple as this post be SO difficult to pull off???)

HAPPY FLAG DAY

Now They've Hit Me Where it Hurts

If there was ANY doubt that we are under a fascist regime, it was removed with the publication of this piece (this link won't take you directly--you'll have to type in "Public Broadcasting Targeted By House") on the front page of the Washington Post this morning.  The "elimination within two years of all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting" is being billed NOT as a political move (!!??) but as merely "making choices among worthy government programs".  It is not a surprise, given the recent rumblings and insertion of conservative oversight to NPR.  It is also not a surprise that our present government would strive to cut off probably the best known and most utilized source of unbiased (and therefore threatening) information.

I know that IQ is very questionable in validity, and is supposedly a fixed number, but I would swear that mine has increased by 20 points since I discovered public radio.  I have learned more, become a more interesting and rounded person.  My peers sometimes question how I am aware of such a variety of subjects--and I admit, it feels like cheating--to learn in such a painless, enjoyable manner.

I guess that my political fervor has dropped lately--due more to a feeling of utter hope and helplessness than anything else.  The publication of this piece has revived my determination to do what I can, which will begin with writing letters to elected officials.

I know this is just another in a series of actions that are systematically destroying the environment, our relations with the rest of the world, and the health and well-being of the "smaller people" of this country (i.e. just about every average person).  But if they have their way, soon we will no longer have a ready means of knowing what is going down, so that it can be protested.  I am truly in fear of the future.

Simply Amazing

If anyone missed hearing "This American Life" on NPR this weekend, please, do yourself a favor and listen to it on line (go to archives) or download it onto an iPod or whatever for later listening from Audible for $3.  My only hope is that this broadcast doesn't hasten the death of NPR at the hands of our government.  Especially the second half of the show--just very thought provoking and no holds barred.