Jaci Dawn

Javan turned two last week. He is my second-oldest grandchild and the middle sibling of his family. Javan (or “Javes”) is an old-soul sort of child, rather solemn with smiles reserved for the most special moments and people in his short life. He is placed between a very bossy and meticulous older brother and a jovial little brother. Javan, like his grandmother, is not only a middle child but is an HSP.

My daughter planned a birthday party around Javan’s particular needs : something low-key, a few very close friends and family. Then it rained and the friends had other things to do, so it ended up being just family. Perfect for Javan.

He was so funny. It hasn’t been so many months since we attended his older brother’s birthday party with all the  surprises and gifts. Javes’ party was even more low-key with fewer presents, but when you are two years old, you aren’t competing with the previous birthdays and everything is wonderful. It’s all about the gifts, paper and bows.

So Grandma thought. It was really about the Matchbox™ cars. Someone gave Sam & Arwen about 20 cars in boxes and they wrapped them up for Javan.

You really can’t tell from the photo, but he’s sitting atop all of those cars. He tucked them between his legs and under himself before proudly declaring in his plaintive little-boy voice, “All mine.” It’s a sentiment only a second child could feel. The sudden understanding that these were his and not shared toys.

He didn’t much care about the blanket in the bag. The cars were his and his alone. All mine.

The party carried over into today. Father’s Day, 2011. I was pointedly ignoring the date. Sam & Arwen had a wedding to attend. What better way to ignore the date than to babysit the two oldest grandsons?

At Grandma’s House, Javan got a plastic shovel-hoe-rake set that was nearly identical to Zephan’s 2nd birthday present from Grandma & Poppa. No need to worry about labeling: Zephan memorized the color coding immediately. Z’s shovel is green, the rake red and the hoe blue. Javan’s are red, blue and red.

There comes a time in every grandmother’s life when you have to see if the dogs are really, truly *safe* with your grandbabies. I still wouldn’t leave the boys out side alone with the dogs, but the dogs were exceptionally well-behaved today. The dogs are keepers.

I’m torn between whether this is teamwork or supervisor work on the part of Zephan. Probably the latter.

To the amusement of everyone, Murphy took exception to the “popcorn” popper.

In all, it was a good day.

We walked to the park, even. I didn’t take my camera. Zephan talked the entire way. He walked on the curb like Poppa. The pair of them were so funny!

It was a good day from my perspective. I don’t know how Don felt about it: he’s the Dad.

That wraps up my sappy posts for this past week. Upcoming: a Bigfoot Encounter.

I had this plan: get all the unpleasant stuff done before July 1, 2011. Then I could just start 2011 all over at the half-way mark. It was a beautiful plan (and I still may do it).

Today I contacted the urologist and scheduled surgery to remove that 5mm kidney stone out of my body. It’s a day surgery (out-patient). June 23, High Noon.

(I love that song: Tex Ritter. Love that movie, too. Yay Gary Cooper! And Grace Kelly!)

Seriously: surgery is at noon.

That will be the last item on my hit list for the first six months of 2011.

The last item, so I thought.

There was this tick, you see. And a conversation. And a struggle with a tick remover tool, said tick, and a jar of rubbing alcohol. The tick remover and the rubbing alcohol won (although my husband said the amount I used was over-kill. I wanted the sucker VERY dead).

And life resumed as normal: Don was banned to the shower and his clothes went straight into the washing machine. After identifying the tick as a deer tick and making certain its head was intact on it’s pickled little body, I foolishly flushed it.

Foolishly because when I came home tonight, Don asked me to look at his elbow again. And this is what it looks like:

Damn.

He has opted to wait until tomorrow morning to go see a doctor. He won’t go to the ER for the tick bite. Right now, it is just swollen and stiff, no other symptoms. Everything I’ve read gives me the impression he can afford to wait but a number of my friends are urging me to over-rule him. Right. Like I have much chance of doing that.

If he gets flu-like symptoms between now and tomorrow morning, I’ll haul his behind to the ER. I’m really not trying to ignore the seriousness of the situation, but you can’t haul a full-grown adult male off to see a doctor without his express permission (or if he is too disabled to fight you).

Now, about that 2011 Do Over… Maybe I should start by bonking Don on the head and dragging him off to the ER? ;P

It is late evening on a Friday night and I am feeling like I need some public accountability. I have projects I need to complete and if I don’t list them somewhere, they will fall into oblivion and never ever get finished.

If I list them here, they will be public. They will still never, ever get finished but they will be on public record that I intended to do them.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

OUCH.

#1. I have a book I need to return to my friend, Marci. It has been in the envelope to mail since February. It is in a drawer at work. All I have to do it take it to the front desk and order a UPS pick-up. I pay later. How hard is that? It is June 10 and the package is still in the drawer at work, addresses and sealed. I think I even put a note in it to Marci dated sometime last February.

#2. I have a postcard to mail to my friend, Mary in the UK. I’ve only had it ready to mail for three weeks. It just needs postage. I never go to the Post Office since they closed the little one inside our independent grocer. They closed the grocery store, too: they are building a Safeway. But I digress. i need to put extra postage on the postcard and mail it to my dear friend, Mary. She’s been to Istanbul and back and I haven’t mailed the postcard.

#3. I need to have a yard sale. WE need to have a yard sale but I can’t just go and sell Don’s stuff without his permission. I need him on board with a yard sale, especially when I start hauling his junk down the stairs to sell. I am arbitrarily setting a date for this yard sale: either the third or fourth weekend in July. No Later. I work well with deadlines.

#4. I need to write several letters and thank-yous. I need my cousin Steve’s mailing address. Steve gave me an incredibly special gift that I want to acknowledge. I’ve only met Steve a couple times in my life but he made the drive up to Ely for my dad’s service and he brought me a painting that I have drooled over (but couldn’t afford) for years just because I told him how much I liked it. You can’t get much sweeter than my cousin. I wish I had known him better as we grew up, but that didn’t happen. I want to make sure we do get to know each other as senior citizens. I don’t have a photo of the painting and it is in storage in Reno, but if you go to Steve’s website you can see it. It reminds me of Levi when he was 12 (not the scenery, which is Tucson, but the bike & the tricks & the hairdo of the boy on the bike). It’s a beautiful painting.

#5. I need to write a will. My dad had a will. He made a trust and we circumvented probate because of it. Don and I need to make a will and set up a trust account for our children with specific instructions. As hard as the past few weeks have been (and harder on my brother, who is chief executor), it would have been horrid if we had to deal with probate. As much junk as Don and  I have, it seems fair that we should set up a trust and let our kids know our wishes ahead of time.

If you don’t have a trust or a will, get it done. Precious things will go to the wrong heir. Probate will freeze the accounts. What is already a miserable time for your children will become a nightmare.

Even with a will and a trust, we’re dealing with a nightmare. Or Terry is.

#6. I promised to send something handmade to several people earlier this year. I have two items done and I need to figure out a way to ship the items. I also need to finish the other three items and ship them. One is just a loaf of home-made bread that I need to bake for a kid, but I need to do it.

#7. I need to have that darn kidney stone blasted out of my kidney. I am actually working on this one! I had an x-ray done on Wednesday. the doctor’s office was supposed to call me but I think I will have to call them on Monday. I know the doctor wants to get this done, too: he called me. But his office staff sometimes drags their feet. I’m learning how this works. It’s day surgery & I’m not too worried about it. I just want this to be a part of my past as soon as possible.

I want to start July 1, 2011 with a clean slate: NEW half-way through the year. The first half has been way too much and I want to bury it.

#7. I am giving away or selling part of our vast library. Yes, I am parting with BOOKS. In order to do that I am making an inventory list of the books we currently own so we can sit and read the list while debating the merits of keeping it in our library. What Oregon City Public Library’s book store will not accept will go to Goodwill. I hate to part with books but it MUST BE DONE. I have a huge library of children’s books that needs to be divided between grands. I have books coming from my dad’s estate to replace all the ones I am purging.

I need to read a lot more books.

And that is just the beginning.

So what am I doing tomorrow? Weeding out three more flower beds. I need to get ahead of the weeds, too. And trim up the rhodies. And build the dog run.

We also have to have the roof de-mossed. Fortunately, someone else gets to do that and after a week of taking bids on the job, I scheduled a company to come in and do it for $300. The other bids were around $800. Huge disparity in price: two companies took into consideration the Cape Cod style roof and height of the house (1 story with a loft=2 stories in their minds) and the first company said simply, “small house” – which it is). While I did my homework, I am still amazed at the price disparity and crossing my fingers that I will be pleased with the results.

That’s it. That is enough. I’m tired thinking about it.

ttfn

June 7, 1980 to June 7, 2011.

I had a rough day yesterday. I understand it is simply a process of grieving and I will have more days like yesterday than I care to contemplate.

It was our 31st Wedding Anniversary and I should have had a wonderful day. But I kept remembering the man who walked me down the “aisle” (figuratively speaking as it was an outdoor wedding with no aisle or formal seating). I can still remember the papery touch of the skin on his hands and the frail feel of his stooped shoulders as age wore him down.

It bothered me a lot that I cannot remember the feel of my mother’s skin, but I do remember the feel of my little sister’s as I braided her hair one day after Mom died.

I remember my mom’s eyes under the influence of morphine as she tried to tell us all good-bye and that she loved us (she could no longer speak or hold a pen to write).

Those kinds of thoughts haunted me all day yesterday.

But evening finally came. Don took me out to our favorite little pub, The Highland Stillhouse. Of course, I then sat and thought about how often I dreamed of taking my dad down to the Stillhouse when he next came to visit: he would have loved the pub! And they played a string of Celtic bands: Dad’s favorite music was Celtic (although he leaned more to The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makkem, and Noel McLoughlin).

I had the Prawns with gruyere cheese and mushrooms. Don had steak (medium rare), glazed carrots and French Fries. Rather, he was supposed to have the fries: the cook made an error and gave him mashed potatoes.

He pointed out the error nicely and within minutes we had a side of fries presented to us by the cook, personally.

We ordered ale but the ale we wanted ran out: they gave us half a pint for free because that was all there was of that ale.

We had a delicious dinner, quiet conversation and superb service (as always). The service is one of the reasons we like the Stillhouse so much: but they also offer live music on Sundays and Thursdays.

After dinner, we settled down for a short “Jesse Stone” movie (Tom Selleck) together.

Sometime during the evening, I quit thinking about the people I’ve lost and moved back into the present with the people I still have and love. That’s the way of grief.

Here’s to many more years of marriage: sláinte!

The first thing I was struck with when I went home was the sense that Dad was not there. It wasn’t the empty feeling of losing him that I experienced, but the goose-bumpy-ghost-haunting lack of feeling: he was not there. He wasn’t haunting the house. Little shreds of his being were not hiding in the atmosphere. A palpable sense of someone who used to live there did not hang in the air. Dad was gone. Long gone.

We leave behind the memories but even those have no lasting effect on the atmosphere when the living soul is removed. Memories are held in the heart and in the dreams, a long and faulty video tape that runs in our heads when we close our eyes.

I felt only a vague sense of trespassing as we sorted through the contents of dressers, the basement, the two sheds, the garage and more. Sometimes a treasure presented itself (when I get everything home from Reno there will be more to share). Mostly, however, the dry sense that no one was watching, no one could protest and no one lived in those halls settled on us. In short, there was no sense at all except that of our memories.

I feel like I should write something profound. But like the ghost that did not haunt the house, the words that need to form are not there.

I am home. Life goes on. Dad’s birthday is on Saturday and that will be the first hurdle of grief beyond the tangible stuff of things left behind. I need to write my own will, have a yard sale to get rid of my own clutter (and make room for the new clutter coming in), work on genealogy and write thank-you notes, and I really really need to weed out my prayer garden this weekend. I need to have that stupid kidney stone removed.

Harvey and I need to go for a long walk here at home.

What did we leave behind? The memories? Terry and I grew up in a different house: the folks bought the house Dad died in after we left home. The memories were in the little memorabilia, not in the house or the yard.

We left behind walls stained with nicotine and tar. We left ugly wall paper and strange marbled linoleum on the floor in the kitchen. Dust in the crevices of the carpet and black widow spiders hunkered down in dark corners of the basement. We left mud dauber nests in the sheds. Old rocks embedded in the dirt. A set of Time-Life self help books. An old Winchester on the wall over the unused fireplace. Cordwood in the hearth and in the box outside under the picnic table. A moldy coffee pot. Mom’s treasured pyrex cooking set.

We left furniture, drawings, knick-knacks, dishes, tools, trunks. We left behind our nephew’s dead cars and broken bicycles, bags of trash and unrecycled recycles. We left behind a thirty-something nephew and a 13 year old niece. We left all of Chrystal’s inheritance because she thinks she will pack it all up here and move back to Nevada by September. We left behind the old green cinder-block house and the ugly indoor-outdoor carpet in the sun room.

We left behind so very much and yet we took our memories.

(OK, the last photo is real. It’s my dad’s political soap box. My favorite side of the soap box. He ran for Nevada State Senate – and lost. My mom drew her feet on the top of the box. What can I say??)

Until later…

I love Nevada.

Just a little over two weeks ago I was loading up my car for one of those bitter-sweet trips to my home state that always leave me exhausted and hurting. In 2000, I swore I never wanted to fly to Nevada again because it seemed like every time I got onto an airplane headed to the Silver State, it was to attend a funeral. Of course that was the year I rode in the MD-80, in the tail section with no windows, just a few months after the terrible crash over the Pacific Ocean. I’m not saying that weighed on my thought process: I was too choked up over losing my sister to care what airplane I was flying in or if I had a window seat.

This year I chose to drive to Ely. By myself. Well, maybe not by myself. The thought of making a 13+ hour drive alone was not very comforting. My husband suggested I take Harvey along. My niece/youngest daughter asked if she could come. then she asked if her boyfriend could come. I liked that last suggestion: someone else could pump gas for me. I haven’t pumped gas since 1978 when I worked in a gas station for 2 weeks.

I chose to take the fastest route down: I-84 east out of Portland to Twin Falls and then US Hwy 93 south through Jackpot and Wells to Ely (13 hours 54 minutes). Since I had Harvey with me, I wouldn’t be able to spend the night in LaGrande with family: they all have big dogs of their own and no room for mine, too! I did an online search for pet-friendly motels on Tuesday and came up with several in the Ontario area. Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – I did not make my reservations then. I made them on Wednesday after I knew that Chrystal’s boyfriend was definitely coming with us. By then my choices had narrowed considerably and I chose one at random: the Ontario Inn.

Thursday morning we loaded up and headed out. We stopped in LaGrande to visit my mother-in-law for an hour. It was hard to leave but I had reservations and a lot of miles to go.

I had some serious reservations when I pulled into the Ontario Inn. It’s one of those old-fashioned brick facade motels in old town Ontario. Maybe 10 rooms? I couldn’t see how it could be dog friendly but… I got out and confirmed my reservation, found out I had magically parked in front of the room we were to be in. The dog yard was “out back”. Harvey cost me an additional $5.

The room was great! Clean, quiet, roomy. The bathroom was huge.

The back yard was even bigger: what a hidden treasure!

Harvey definitely liked that yard!

We met people who stay at the Ontario Inn every year. They told us how they discovered it by accident – like I did – and how the great service has kept them coming back. If you’re ever in need of a pet-friendly motel in Ontario, I think we discovered the hidden gem.

Poor Harvey gets car sick. When we left Ontario the next morning, I decided to try turning his kennel to face the front of the rig instead of the back so he could get air-flow. He still resisted getting into the kennel after potty breaks, but he did somewhat better.

AJ fell asleep almost as soon as the car was in motion. Somehow I think I know what his mom did to get him to sleep as a baby: she put him in a car seat and drove around the block! Sadly, he missed some of the wildlife he wanted to see as we crossed into Idaho and faster speed limits. (I may love Oregon’s full service gas stations but tell me WHY we have to have a speed limit that is ten miles under any adjoining state? As soon as we crossed the Snake River, I pressed on the gas pedal and thought “Thank God: now we can make some real time!!” Oregon has stupid speed limits.)

AJ wanted his mom to know he really made it to Idaho. Sadly, I failed to get the distant blue mountains into this photo from the rest area near Mountain Home. Sorry AJ!

I do not like to drive into Twin Falls. In point of fact, I cannot remember when I last was in Twin Falls. I have this “thing” whereby we have to take the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway whenever we head to Ely. Maybe it is just that I want to get off of the freeway. Maybe it is a memory I have of my dad taking us through the Snake River canyon here. Whatever reason it is, when we reached Bliss we turned off of the freeway to take the scenic byway. And AJ stayed awake for the short drive to Filer.

In Buhl, I pointed out that we purchased Murphy there. Murphy is an Idaho dog. I am an Idaho girl. Chrystal and AJ immediately noticed the resemblance of the country to that of Napoleon Dynamite. I just laughed.

We stopped in Filer to top off my gas tank. It was then that I learned AJ had never pumped gas before. So much for my brilliant idea of bringing him along to pump gas for me! HAHA! After I showed him how to lock the gas pump he did fine. He just didn’t know that one little thing. He happily pumped my gas all through Nevada and California, content in the knowledge that the pump would turn off by itself when the tank was full. He just never did get the knack of rounding it up to an even number and I paid a few bills of $00.01 on my debit card (except for the time in California when I was the one who rounded the price up to an even number. Sorry AJ, but I actually pumped gas for a living once…)

AJ slept off and on while we headed south on 93. That was good: I learned later that he does not like to be in a car passing on a narrow 2-lane highway and I passed a couple semis going south. He woke up somewhere out of Wells and asked: “There aren’t really any wild horses are there?”

Uh. Yeah. So Chrystal and I entertained him with our political views of the BLM and wild horses. (Helps that my high school friend, Arla, has such a great website. Thank you Arla! And sorry we did not have time to come out to Cherry Creek to see you…)

Chrystal assured AJ that jackalopes are real, too. Can you believe that he was skeptical??

The drive from Jackpot to Ely was shorter than I remembered. Maybe it was all the memories: my first beer with my dad at the bar in Currie: I was 18 and home from college for Christmas. Dad met me in Wells and we drove south on 93 home. We stopped in Currie and he asked me what I wanted to drink. I knew he was testing me: did I drink? I was underage but heck – I decided to try ordering a beer. The bartender didn’t even question me and my dad quietly paid for the beer. It was the best Oly ever.

Then we were in Ely.

I left the kids at the house with Chrystal’s older brother, John, and went out to dinner with my brother. He chose the Silver State Restaurant which is currently owned by friends of his. I highly recommend the Silver State and will blog more about it. Besides, an old high school classmate of mine is the owner with his wife. It doesn’t get better than that.

It snowed overnight. Yay for Nevada (snow covered) in May…

Thursday of last week we finally started to load up the meager treasures we were taking home.  I decided to start here and work backward through what has been the worst two weeks of my life so far.

Sorting through your parents’ estate is morbid, tiring, sad, stressful, and agonizing. Add to that the drama of people who think they are entitled to more and the process becomes even more tiresome. I wasn’t getting enough sleep on top of it all.

We filled two thirds of the trailer with our cumulative “treasures”: memories are more important than the “things”. There were moments when we snapped at each other, but in the long run my brother and I both know we are all we have left of our core family. Yes, there are two more generations in the wings but of the first five, there remains only my brother and myself. We need to lean on each other more than ever now (and I will add this: our Uncle Mike is the last of his generation. How much harder this was on him than it was on us!).

We pulled out of Ely in the early evening.

I put 16 miles on the odometer when everything came to a screeching halt: Terry’s big truck lost all oil pressure! Fortunately, I decided to follow him rather than go on ahead and we were able to turn around and make a late run into Ely for a quart of 15-40 oil. At our 4th stop we found the oil, purchased two quarts and returned to where Terry waited.

The tarp shredded before we reached Eureka. We nearly lost a roll of bubble wrap off the back of the trailer. Some cardboard backing did jump ship. At every stop, Chrystal’s boyfriend jumped out of the car and hurried forward to help Terry out. AJ was a true godsend and a willing pair of hands. So it was that when we stopped just east of Austin Summit in the moonless, cloudless desert night and AJ saw the Milky Way for the first time unobstructed by light pollution that we took time to allow him to stare into the stars through binoculars. The pure joy that young man felt was infectious!

There were several stops as we took breaks for the dogs, adjusted tie-downs, checked dresser drawers and generally made sure we were both still awake enough to drive. We gassed in Fallon. When we pulled out of the gas station and headed to I-80, I realized I was past being able to drive and I resorted to tail-gating the trailer. I simply followed tail lights and hoped I could keep it on the road without over-correcting or dozing off. I made AJ talk about anything that came to mind because his talking kept me awake.

We made Reno by 3:00am. We were in bed by 4. Harvey was the only one of us who was not exhausted beyond thinking and he was just disoriented, car-sick, and frightened of another new place. He finally settled down to sleep but was up by 9.

Terry & I unloaded the trailer in Reno with the help of cousins. We let AJ sleep in (he chastised us for it later). There’s another trip looming in my future: a trip to Reno to pick up all my books.

Saturday morning I was up early. The weather report had snow in the mountain passes by 11am and I wanted to be over the Siskiyous by then. Well, truth be told, I wanted to make an 11 hour drive and be home. No more motels or delays: I wanted to get on down the road.

If you “google” Reno to Portland, the first route that comes up takes you north through Alturas and Klamath Falls and over the Cascades to Cottage Grove. Don’t do it if weather will be dicey or you are in a hurry: the fastest route is slightly longer. I already knew what the roads look like between K Falls and Cottage Grove: two lane with passing lanes, slower speeds and the possibility the pass was still closed. A rule of thumb in the West is to take the roads most traveled, not the fastest or shortest routes. I just toss that in because so many people rely on GPS to get them from here to there without really knowing what or where they are going to be driving.

I took 395 north into Susanville. I hate that drive. It’s great on the Nevada side but California dropped the ball on their side. It’s a 2-lane highway with occasional passing lanes on the California side: not enough passing lanes, heavy traffic and large trucks, dips and curves. I wanted to be up that stretch of highway before Memorial Day traffic became heavy and I was stuck behind some camper.

Gas in California was $0.30 higher than Nevada or Oregon. You have to pump your own and you get no service. I will never vote for self serve as long as California remains higher in price than Oregon. I’m just saying that because it was cheaper in Idaho and about the same in Nevada and I had to pump my own. California takes the cake for gas prices.

We had snow flurries over the Cascades. We took CA44 to CA89 to I-5 around Mount Shasta which we could not see for the low clouds. I kept us at 5 miles over the speed limit which seemed safe enough as CHP was out in force and I saw them pulling over anyone doing 10 miles over. We climbed, we dropped, we wound through some beautiful country. Morel hunters were out in force in the charred remains of last year’s forest fires. We had more snow flurries as we pushed north on I-5 over the Siskiyous, passing big rigs and slow campers.

My heart soared as we crossed the state line.

We bought gas in Medford. I don’t care what anyone else says: when the station attendant offered to 1)pump my gas for me 2) check the oil and 3) wash the windshield, I knew I was home and I was happy. The service at the Chevron Station in Medford is beyond service. Those men working the pumps were cheerful, fast, and sweet. Did I mention I hate self-serve? HAHAHA. The gas was also less than $0.30 a gallon over California’s self-serve. <ahem>

On this last leg of the trip, we decided to let Harvey just ride on the seat. He did get a little car-sick, but he did so much better on the seat than he did in his car kennel. He got in and out of the car without protest.

We hit a wall of water just north of Lebanon that slowed everyone around us down to 60mph. The woman who was passing me at 75 dropped to 60mph so fast that I am certain she hydro-planed. I think the only reason I didn’t was because of the weight in my car. We all moved over to the right-hand lane and let the idiots pass us until we hit dry pavement again: then the other driver jacked it up to 75 again and I sped up to 70. Yes, I could have gone faster but OHP was out in force and I’d already passed several rigs pulled over for speeding. Last thing I needed was a ticket!

Interestingly, the only idiots I saw on the road were in Salem. That was where I got the people trying to pass me on the right and flipping me off because I was going faster than the right-hand lane but slower than the left-hand lane. Welcome to Oregon: home of idiots behind wheels. It was in part because of the increasing traffic as we neared Portland and the jerks behind wheels doing stupid things that I took the Aurora exit. It was also because I knew that I could cut the drive by 8 miles and ten minutes. I was headed HOME.

I dropped the kids off before I came home. No one was here when I arrived and I unloaded by myself. Then I sat in a lawn chair and cried.

I did call Terry to let him know I was home safe, but mostly I just sat in the lawn chair and cried.

Terry better not die on me anytime soon or I will kill him. End of story.