Speak Too Soon. Invite the Jinx.

I spoke of giving up blogging in my last post because I wonder what good it is doing me any more and what I could possibly have left to say that might interest anyone. It’s not as though I, or my life, is all that interesting. But just when I thought I didn’t need the cathartic outlet that is my blog at its essence, my sister-in-law shows up at our home - four days later than she originally planned and with intentions of staying for a week. Did I mention she dragged - literally - her seventeen and thirteen year old children with her? No? Well, she did.

I like Shannon. I do. She can carry on quite the conversation and is very polite (aka Canadian), but she is in her seventh year of widowhood and stuck beyond even the most generous standards of grieving. Many of our conversations have centered around grief even when they started out about something else. Being problem solvers, both Rob and I have countered her at every turn with solutions to her fixed position - which she claims to not be happy with by the way - but for every solution, she remains attached to the problem like velcro. It’s exhausting in a way that reminds me of my time on the widow board.

Today, I escaped to the gym and then after lunch (did I mention they sleep til lunch?) I absconded with Katy to the library and to shop for groceries. In my absence, she decided to drag the teens to the mega-mall that is about a 45 minute drive from here. Upon my return with my raccoon-eyed child (teens make noise that intrigues and keeps five year olds up way past bedtime), Rob assures me that we will never have company over the holidays ever again and while I am being mollified, his sister calls to let him know her car has died. The night she arrived, she told us that the vehicle had been leaking anti-freeze for some time but she just took care of this by constantly refilling it. So, the anti-freeze was gone and the car wouldn’t start. Rob bundled up and went to fetch them and tow the car back. It was 8:30 by the time we had supper. Katy was beyond tired and nephew and niece were still wearing the stunned looks that I imagine overtook them when they realized that coercing their mom to take them home before the weekend wasn’t in the cards anymore.

My sister-in-law has taken to her bed. Our guest bed. I haven’t seen her at all. Rob says she does this.

It was easy to deal with widows who refused to help themselves when they were on the other side of the ethernet. I hit the ignore button. Now I have one in my basement. God help me.

Serendipity

Rob and I watched the John Cusak movie, Serendity, the other night. It was notable for several reasons. First, it’s the first time we have been able to watch a dvd in the living room for well over a month. Second, it re-introduced me to the term serendipity. And finally it reminded me of being cubed about this time last winter.

Of late our movie watching has been confined to Rob’s computer screen as we lay cuddled up for the night in our bed - a very nice way to view a flick by the way that I highly recommend to those pressed for time and behind on their list of must-sees. We always check out the previews after a movie is over, and it is here that we have found a treasure trove of films that have proved interesting to very enjoyable views. Serendipity came to us off The Shipping News ( a good film but by warned - it’s about a widower). Rob and I are both Cusack fans, and this film looked entertaining, and death-free, and seemed vaguely familiar with it’s destiny theme of love/soul mates (though I don’t technically believe in soul mates as defined in the Holy Writ of the Widowed). It was wonderful to back back on our uber-uncomfortable sofa in a living room now free of Christmas now that the rapidly denuding pine was cozy in the snow of our front, and our decorations were packed away for our Christmas’s yet to come. I usually drape my legs over Rob’s lap, and he will absently rub my feet and calves. I love our time together regardless, but time in the dark that is intimate and yet not has such a glow.

Serendipity is a word coined from a Persian folk-tale about three princes who made fortunate discoveries that they were wise enough to recognize as such while they were questing for things entirely different. The word appears first in a letter from Horace Ordpole the 4th Earl of Orford to his friend, Horace Mann (not the American educator). In his use of his term, the Earl put heavy emphasis on the idea of being wise. In some ways it reminds me of the cliche - God helps those who help themselves. In the film, the characters discuss receiving signs from the universe that are meant to guide a person to their destiny or soul mate. The characters, like many people I know, take black and white positions on the idea of fate and destiny. Either our lives are completely scripted or we are free will all the way and the masters/authors of our own fates. No one, not surprisingly, takes the middle ground or contemplates the idea that perhaps our lives our a mixture, though the sales clerk, played by Eugene Levy, wades in with “What if it’s a random, godless universe where nothing makes sense at all?” Despite that, I am one who buys completely into the theory because much of the calmer and contented aspects/times of my life coincide with me following the roadmap of signs that the universe sprinkles on/near/around me constantly and of which I am usually only half-aware even when I am paying attention.

Rob and I are a serendipitous pairing. I am not sure if it is because our losses that we are more in tune with occurrences that a great many simply shrug off as random, or don’t notice at all, or if our new insight is part of our destinies too. I know that people who have experienced tragedy buck violently at the notion that all things happen for a reason, but nowhere is it written that the events that will make up our lives will be happy ones or ones that we would agree with if given a vote on it now. That some people experience more “bad” than “good” is a purely subjective, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I have this feeling that nothing happens in our lives without our permission, or tacit agreement, somewhere in the past. I really do think that I knew what was coming long before it did for reasons that I won’t go into fully now (except to say that more than once in my early life I seemed to know I would be a young widow - for example my Barbies were all war widows with children despite the fact I had G.I. Joes to mate them with). I am not certain why I agreed to the life I have lived so far, but I am pretty certain I did and perhaps in the next life I will remember why.

This particular dvd featured out takes and we always watch the special features because we can check out other movies or the soundtrack this way. Many of the movies we end up requesting from the library (we rarely go to the video store) come from the trailers on dvd’s , and we often check out soundtracks this way as well. All of the out takes were deleted scenes from the film. One of the scenes has the two love interests getting to know each other while the girl is “cubing” the young man. Cubing is one of those psychological personality tests which works as follows:

You are in a desert and you see a cube.
1) How big is the cube? 
    What is its color? What do you think about that color? 
    How far away is it from you? 
    Is it transparent?  Can you see what is inside? 
    How big is the cube compared to the desert?  What is the ratio?
2) There is a ladder. 
    Is the ladder leaning on the cube? 
    What is the color of the ladder?  What is it made of? 
    What impression does it give you? 
    What is the distance between the cube and the ladder?
3) There is a horse. 
    What is the distance between the cube and the horse? 
    What is the color of the house? 
     

I took a cube test similar to this one just over a year ago. Basically my cube was the size of a suitcase lying flat on the ground and was made of crystal or glass and it was transparent. The ladder was one of those aluminum extension ones and it was lying flat on the ground too and away from me. The horse was a stallion, black with a white mane and it was wandering in the distance. So, the cube represents me. I was flattened, fragile and my emotional state was obvious. The ladder was the people in my life. Aluminum isn’t the strongest of metals, it is light-weight and the fact that it was lying flat and away from me represented the fact that I wasn’t being well-supported in my life. The horse represented my lover. Black is an obvious one. He was dead. And not nearby. Cubing is one of those things you can only do once without prejudicing the outcome.

At the end of the film, the characters have followed all of fates clues back to each other and are celebrating the serendipitous moment at Bloomingdales where they met years ago. I remarked to Rob that it would be difficult for us to go back to the place where we met - the YWBB - because it is an Internet message board. He reminded me that he had saved the entire thread before he unregistered and had his posting history there erased. I had gone him one better when I left there and you would be hard pressed to find any evidence I was ever there at all. I suggested that we could return to Idaho Falls and he suggested we stroll along the frozen banks of the river that runs through a park in the town. Ironically, though we have pictures of some much of our time together, we haven’t a single picture from that weekend. Too much serendipity that weekend and I don’t think it can be captured on film anyway.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

My widowed sister-in-law is here for the week with her two teenagers and we have had a couple of lengthy conversations about widowhood. Two themes emerged in respect to myself. First of all there is the ever annoying comments on my inner strength and determination which render me “amazing” and which I will never really understand I’m afraid. I am not special or amazing though I will concede on strong with the caveat that I see it as my dislike of giving in - I am a more stubborn person than anything else. Then there came the observation that my grief critics are critical because of this tough persona I have. This came during a point in the discussion this morning when I was talking about Will’s mother, extended family and friends. I conceded the point because I had to. It’s completely true that I do not like to admit total strangers into my emotional circle. And I don’t consider blogging to be a portal either. I have friends and good ones who read this blog and comment - some more than others, but the majority of people who read (and it’s not a sizable audience) do so without much interest in me as a person and without commenting. I read few blogs where I don’t comment at least occasionally, even if I don’t a warm and fuzzy relationship with the writer but I have come to regard other people’s lives and struggles as merely different from my own and not a direct reflection on who they are as people necessarily.

But getting back to ghosts. I find that each time I talk/write about my struggles and the residual baggage (as my sister-in-law terms it) that I feel like I have unloaded some and walked away from it. In some respects this as dangerous as leaving bags unattended in a airport because you don’t know who will find it and what the reaction will be or if you have left something of importance behind.

I have been thinking for a while now that perhaps it is time to walk away from blogging. I keep at it because I like writing but don’t know if this is the most productive use of my time and because it is a way for friends to keep up with my life and I have been horrid in the past for keeping in touch, so blogging you might say is my lazy answer to that. Still, it is stealing time away from real writing that needs to be done, and when I say “needs”, I mean I have a stories in my head screaming to be written. It’s funny how conversations can trigger all sorts of seemingly random reactions but this wasn’t isn’t that random at all. This blog, though it is mainly about my journey of the past nine months has me tied a bit to tightly to events that preceded it and it’s time to move farther away. Blogging is not a forward moving thing for me anymore.

The Far Horizon where the Sidewalk Ends

A widow I don’t know personally, Alicia, but whose blog I follow wrote a piece today on the need people have to keep their heads down after a tragedy and simply put one foot in front of another for a while. I can’t say that I have ever felt that way myself. When they told me that Will was going to die and that the process could take years, I fixed my eye on the far horizon and seldom let it out of my sight because I wouldn’t have made it otherwise. If I had ducked my head and concentrated on my immediate circumstances only - watching my husband die - I wouldn’t have had the strength to do what needed to be done day after day or to plan for those events I knew where coming and had no one but me to do them. It wasn’t enough to know there was a horizon - a future. I needed to think about it and dream about it. Alicia’s sidewalk imagery reminded me of a poetry book that my sixth-graders of long ago loved so much

Where the Sidewalk Ends
 
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Shel Silverstein

But that’s not me. Measured and slow. It’s never been me. I am more like the line Yoda uses in his argument with Ben Kenobi about whether or not Luke should be formally trained as a Jedi.

This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph.

That’s me. Although I am more grounded in my present that I have been at any time of my life, I am still thinking about tomorrow, whether it’s next week or months or years from now. And I don’t see it as a bad thing or a running away thing. It’s just me. One of the many quirks that make me up and set me apart. Not far apart though. I am not the only one who looks forward to her future with anticipation, wondering how much of it I can actively shape and how much I will just have to accept (and if I can manage to muster up the grace to do so).

It’s not that I don’t feel there is a place for sidewalks or just breathing in and out. Sometimes it’s better to take the beaten path (or the poured one), but your toes will always be on the end of your feet. The horizon changes, especially when you aren’t watching it.

Bearing Witness

My widow friend, Andrea, in Texas recently posted a quote from a movie that sums up better than I have ever been able to what it is that goes missing from our lives when we lose our spouses.

”We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'."

Shall We Dance, 2004

I had never really thought about it in just that way. Funny how sometimes just what you need to know or see or do will arrive via a movie or the daily horoscope in the daily newspaper. A song will come on the radio and something that a moment before was an insurmountable problem or an inscrutable dilemma melts away into clarity.

I have been puzzling in my head how to best remember Will on the second anniversary of his death this coming January 23rd and was not satisfied with any of the ideas I was coming up with thus far. I started a memorial page for him on FaceBook but realize now that this was not something that many people who knew him would ever see as I am the only uber-geek of the bunch. None of his friends or family would have much use for a social networking internet site. Try as I might, I have never been able to capture him in words to my own satisfaction though I have written about him, I have never painted his picture with a thousand words.

I’d thought about a memorial in the Des Moines paper where we lived, but again, no one who knew him would see it. Sadly, few of them read or keep abreast of the world outside the bubbles they live in. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. His best friend going back to childhood called my parents house the other day to find out my number because he and his family would be back in the Des Moines area for Christmas and wanted to drop a present by for Katy. He must have called the old number and discovered it was disconnected and thought we’d moved or something. I don’t know what he thought when my mother gave him my new cell with a funny area code but he called it and left a message. I gave it a bit of thought before returning the call. It was apparent he didn’t know I’d remarried and moved out of the country. I suppose this was mostly my fault for not calling to tell him last spring, but he’d pretty much dropped out of our lives after Will died. I heard from him once the May after when he called wanting to know where Will was buried. There was no “how are you?” “how is Katy?” just asked for the location and I haven’t heard from him since. I did see his wife and mother-in-law last Christmas. She called and asked if I could stop by to pick up a gift for Katy, which we did. During our little visit, I learned that Doug wasn’t handling Will’s death well at all and at the time couldn’t bear to talk about him. He kept the ball cap and the pool cue of Will’s I had given him hanging in the cab of his truck and no one was allowed to touch either. I felt at the time I heard this, and still do, that this was really no excuse for avoiding me or Katy, who is his goddaughter. Will wouldn’t have done that if the situation was reversed. I was/am a bit tired of his family and friends laying claim to grief for my husband as though it was some kind of contest.

I didn’t get a hold of Doug. I called him but his voice mail picked up. I gave the abbreviated version of the past year and haven’t heard back. I guess that tells me what I need to know.

Sometimes I feel that no one knew Will at all until I came along. His family. His friends. If it weren’t for me, who would bear witness to him in a true sense? I still haven’t figured out how best to do this however, but I have not quite another month to think on it. I think though that the way I have lived and moved forward, building a future is a best testament to him so far.

My Child

I knew before she was even born that my daughter was going to be difficult. Some might say that the fact that she is challenging is a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy, but I don’t. She was stubborn and defiant and determined, and I could feel that in her long before I even knew what she looked like. Her personality was so strong it just radiated through me. And she has done nothing to dissuade me from this stance even once in the last five years.

Sometimes I wish, as much as I love her, that she was like other people’s children. You know, the children who are sweet and easy-going. The one’s that sleep through the night from month one and were never bothered by tags in their clothing or socks that weren’t put on just right. These children were perfect angels in public regardless of the circumstances, went to bed on time without struggles every night by 7 even though they took three hour naps every afternoon. They weren’t messy at the table and didn’t mark every inch of the living room with toys. Never grumpy or sassy, they were just joyful sources of pride that validated the great parenting they were receiving. Katy never slept more than a few hours at a time when she was a baby and the situation hasn’t improved much in the ensuing years. Tags, creases, long sleeves, fabric, just being dressed in general can still send her into a tizzy. At one time she did go to bed early but she has never willing napped - ever. She is the messiest eater and like a tomcat she claims space with her markings - toys. Toys are everywhere. She is grumpy in the morning (just like her dad which is ironic since she never knew him as a well man) and she is as sassy as I am, which I don’t find the humor in as often as I should. All in all, I feel like a pretty crappy parent about half the time.

This morning’s attack of grumpiness and the tantrum/tears that ensued when she was sent to her room is a direct result of Christmas hyper-stimulation and sleep-deprivation, but it doesn’t make it easier to deal with or make me feel better. When I finally went up to check on her (Rob went initially until it was time for him to go to work) she tried to play the grief card on me and blame her tantrum on being “sad about Daddy Will being dead”. I really hate when she does that because she knows what she is doing and I will not allow her to grow up to be one of those people who blames ever misfortune or just a bad day on past grief. She is too little to know that it hurts me when she does this, but she does know it generates sympathy and in the past as allowed her to have her way. It’s hard to know however when she is truly grieving or just playing the card.

I told Rob that I understood why my own mom hated Christmas vacation more than she hated summer vacation.

Six Months

Rob and I have been married for six months as of today. And I know I write about him and our relationship quite a bit. And that I am probably boring everyone with my ramblings, but I feel that people don’t take the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate their marriages enough. We get so caught up in the minutia of life that even though we love and appreciate our partners, we don’t take the few minutes to show it or shout it to the world. So here is my shout out to my Rob.

I love you, baby! Happy Anniversary.

Illegal Immigrants: The New Underclass

Fears that America will be damaged or neutered or whatever by large numbers of immigrants who don't share "our values" as a country and have no wish to do so is not a new thing. According to the article Rise of a New Underclass by Ellis Cose, we have been down this road before and it proved untrue.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/81598

Part of our problem today however stems from the fact that there doesn't seem to be consensus on what it means to be a citizen of the United States. What makes us Americans? There are probably as many answers as there are American citizens, and while many of these definitions are likely quite similar, it make might sense to focus the immigration debate on exactly what we mean when we talk about assimilation beyond a common spoken language. We Americans have this odd sense of freedom that often seems to be something that we want for ourselves and those like us and would like to curtail in others who are "not us" so to speak. And here lies our problem. We welcome those who come and submit to the "American Dream" but anyone who wishes to retain aspects of themselves that don't fit within the narrow span allowed, or who wish to redefine the dream, are deemed undesirable.

Illegal immigration gets all the attention, but what we have is an overall immigration problem within which illegally entering our country is but a symptom - albeit a large one. And it really all starts with identity. But is it one we all share? And if not, where are the overlaps? How can we expect immigrants to assimilate if we can't answer that question with a united voice?

Merry Christmas

We have trained Katy so well about not coming to wake us up too early on non-school days that she sat in her bed until 8AM before finally coming to get us up. I feel a bit bad about that as it was Christmas morning after all and I had heard her moving about for a while. She waited patiently while we threw on robes and Rob went to get his camera (because nearly every step of our lives are documented these days) and then she sat on my lap and unwrapped her gifts. I think she was pleased with her haul. She is sitting in the living room right now playing Barbie’s with her oldest sister, Farron and watching cartoons - Looney Toons from the sound of it. I can hear Rob and Jordan talking about his Texas job offer as they do dishes in the kitchen. I am still in my pajamas and blogging. What a geek I am, but I can’t seem to not write daily anymore even if it’s just blogging.

Rob gave me two writer’s markets books last evening. I am itching to sit and thumb through them and see what is possible and what might be interesting to try. I was thinking about those books and him as I was making pancakes earlier and feeling so very lucky to be with a man who gets this writing part of me on this level.

My Lululemon yoga pants are on the bed upstairs calling to me. I am going to start classes after the New Year. But I should shower and get ready for dinner at Auntie Dianne’s (Farron and Jordan's aunt on their mom’s side). We are all going and I hope our highly strung Cat doesn’t go off on the dog, Loki, or the little kitten, Pandora, while we are gone. Cat has bitten both Rob and I since last evening. She is definitely not cool with idea of sharing her house or her people.

I talked with my mother and father earlier. My mom related the latest horror story involving my brother who lives on the West coast. He took the train down to San Francisco to spend Christmas with his girlfriend and to see his two daughters. He was supposed to catch a bus from the station but something happened to either the bus or his money. His version is that the bus didn’t arrive and he gave all his money away to homeless people in the spirit of the season. I am thinking, knowing him, that it didn’t quite happen this way, but whatever. Suffice to say, he had a tantrum which miraculously didn’t get him arrested but the couple of beers and the idiotic idea of walking to his girlfriend’s via the Golden Gate Bridge - did. Four hours is what I think he spent locked up this time. One day I am going to get a call telling me he is dead, I think, because this odd swings of mood and perception he has always had are becoming more exaggerated and dangerous as he ages.

My father was still in bed, at close to noon, when I talked with him. He had pneumonia a week or so ago and his cough is still alarming to hear. Someone else I fear will be the subject of a phone call sooner rather than later.

But it has been a good day despite these bits of family news from the states. I hope that everyone else is having as good a day as I am.

Merry Christmas once again!

Us

This time last year I had known Rob for about ten days. He introduced himself to me via a PM (private message) on the YWBB (young widows bulletin board) in response to my response to one of his posts. He had posted about his daughter, Jordan, commenting on his teenage like behavior and I had replied, jokingly offering to be his evil twin as we seemed to share many of the same behaviors. His reply message to me was entitled, Hey there Evil Twin. Our hailing each other as twins proved more prescient than either of us could have known at the time. He offered an ear via email despite the fact that he’d recently had a bad experience with another person on the board. Someone who had contacted him, and he misunderstood the true intent behind this woman’s reaching out to him. Despite that he reached out in friendship to me anyway. He had been reading my posts, sensing that we had much in common and also they occasionally made him laugh.

We began writing to each other off the board on December 18th which was just short of a week later. We nearly stopped communicating a few days after that when he told me I reminded him of a character from the Chuck Palahnuik novel, Fight Club, and I googled the character only to discover she was a support group junkie and a nymphomaniac. I was more than taken aback, and he was profusely apologetic, and persistent, and we continued writing. Now Rob tells me that his initial impression of me, based on my posting on the YWBB, was way off, but I have since watched Fight Club and I can see way I reminded him of Marla Singer. He remarked the other day that “last time this year I was on the verge of fucking things up” and I had nearly forgotten all about it. Later that evening I went back and reread the letters from that week and the week of January 1st. I was at a low point then, and I remember how much I looked forward to hearing from him, reading his emails. They weren’t necessarily grief-related, and they certainly weren’t romantic or even leading to that way. They were just the kind of emails you would send to and receive from a new friend. Full of information about daily goings on and sharing interests and interesting things. They are long letters. I have plans to print them out someday and bind them for posterity - whoever that might end up being.

A year ago tonight, Rob was in Vancouver with the girls and Katy and I were just getting back home from Christmas Eve dinner with friends who are like family. Tonight, I cooked a Chinese feast and we were all together. I don’t think I could have imagined this back then. Even though I knew I would someday met someone and know love and marriage again, and even though I thought I would be lucky to find someone just like my new friend, Rob, I don’t think I was quite ready to imagine it was Rob. Or he me. But we were closer than we knew.

Merry Christmas to all my friends out there.

Weekend Before Christmas

It’s now late in the afternoon on the day before Christmas Eve, a mere 24 hours before the festivities begin in earnest, and only 4 presents are wrapped. Most of the groceries are purchased, but I haven’t looked up any recipes I need to prepare this faux Chinese dinner that Rob and I thought would be a good idea. The basement and Katy’s room is in complete disarray because Rob’s sister and her children are coming to visit and we needed to make room to put up the extra full-size bed downstairs and pull out the trundle in Katy’s room, not to mention the fact that both Farron and Jordan - and at least one additional cat and a large dog - will be staying over tomorrow night. Why do we feel compelled to begin huge projects on the eve of holidays or family visits? Is there some sort of compulsion that drives us? We probably are tormenting ourselves for naught. Shannon, my sister-in-law, hasn’t even given us an arrival date yet. Perhaps she will call from the road? She’s a widow too, which explains much to those of us “in the know”.

Yesterday we ventured over to the mega-mall to finish up our shopping. Next year we are vowing to start in September and do it all on line, but this Christmas we did the bulk out and about with the rest of humanity - literally it seemed. We made remarkable time. In and out in 90 minutes and found a spot to park in the lot to boot.

Last night was a Christmas party at friend’s of Rob’s, Dan and Heidi, whose oldest babysits for Katy. It was strange to do the holiday party thing again. Deja vu and not. I didn’t know a soul aside from Dan and his girls. Katy played upstairs with the other kids and I spent a bit of time chatting with a very young medical resident until I happened to mention our odd blended family and circumstances. I forget that I shouldn’t speak so casually about dead spouses because most people who know me even a little don’t know how to react, so forget about people I have only just met. She did find Rob and I to say good-bye when she and her husband left which I will take to mean I didn’t completely scare her off. At some point, as the kitchen filled up and spilled into the living room area Rob and I just cuddled up a bit on the sofa near the wood burning stove, watching the other guests get hammered. It was nice to have another wall-flower to hang with. At parties past, Will was always engaged with some person or other when he wasn’t manning the grill (yeah, even at the winter holiday parties) and he would always nag at me to mingle and not depend on him so much for company. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t know people and I did interact but I also hung back and watched - because that is who I am. It’s still who I am even though I am far less ill at ease in a room full of strangers than I have ever been in my life. As I told the young resident during our conversation, I have been surrounded by strangers, more or less, for the last six months. I did recognize a few of the women in attendance - from the gym and dance too, I think. I wasn’t keen on getting to close. I am leery of making friends with people when they are drinking heavily. You just never know how close they are at the moment to who they really are or not.

Today was our usual Sunday of a long breakfast, followed by tearing up the house and then public skating. Skating is starting to be a family ritual. Even when it feels like a chore or interruption in the day, it is nice to get the heart pumping and feel the chill of the ice seep up from your toes. We had tea, hot chocolate and cookies when we got home. Another ritual. That’s what it’s all about in the end. Family and friends and the rituals that hold us together.

When are you running for President?

I have been doing quite a bit of political blogging and commenting on others’ blogs at the Des Moines Register this past week or so. So much that my husband asked me tonight if I was planning to run for office myself. I told him I would be running for election right after I started to glow with the ethereal light of the chosen and asked him if he had noticed me lighting up the room at night with spiritual incandescence. He said no, but he had noticed that I fart in my sleep and offered to bring a lighter to bed.

My husband would make the perfect first husband however. He has a quiet presence of authority and is just apathetic enough to put to rest the fears of my fellow Americans who might worry that the United States would end up a mere puppet government in thrall to our empire building northern neighbors. I can assure you all that I am my own woman. Independent in thought and action (but I don’t clean litter boxes - that’s man’s work).

I am highly suspicious of those who seek the presidency too eagerly and am not at all surprised when their hypocrisy or true natures are exposed. Take for example the Republican, Ron Paul. He has been enjoying quite the cult-like build-up of late. His campaign raised something like $6 million over a short time period recently. But, interestingly and yet not surprisingly, about $500 of this money came from a known hate group. When called on this, the Paul organization went into a spin cycle that was as impressive as it was sad. Impressive because it was classic rationalization and sad because it seemed so effortless. So much for being different. I ran across a video on the Newsweek site which featured a Drake College student waxing rhapsodic about how wonderful and well-respected a guy Rudi Giuliani, of all people, is. It was especially ironic when you remember that he has children in college who dislike him enough to join Facebook groups supporting other presidential candidates.

Wouldn’t it be nice if real human beings ran for the presidency? People who realize that it’s just a job, albeit one with a great address, awesome health coverage and your own really cool jet so you can avoid the TSA entirely. I even bet when you’re president you don’t have to take your shoes off or check your shampoo at baggage. It is a job. I wonder if anyone remembers that? Seems odd that such an important position can be attained with vaguely detailed goals by people that many of us wouldn’t want to know personally.

I suppose though that someone has to want to be president just like someone has to clean rooms at Holiday Inn Express, chop up cow, pig carcasses for IBP, and roam from farm to farm during harvests, dragging their families behind them. Dirty work that most Americans won’t do. We leave it up to those without better options, leaving us free to up-size, accessorize and accumulate. I guess I should be ashamed that I don’t feel the tingly glow-worm of democracy pushing me to run for office.

No Crying in Presidential Campaigns! Unless you need to prove your Warmth

So, Mitt Romney stepped up to the plate and shed a tear or two for the team because if you want to be the president of this country (the U.S. not Canada - they don't have a president and I don't have space to explain what they do up here), you have to be warm, likable (there's that word again) and fuzzy. You have to prove that on top on of that intellectual core that is aflame with great policies destined to change the very essence of America is the next door neighbor of our dreams. Not the unemployed 40 something guy with man-boobs in the cut-off shirt and gym shorts who sits in his garage smoking and ogling the stay at home mom's as they go about their momming. Not him. But the great person who always has a smile and a greeting and comes out in -30degree weather to help you shovel off that oversize drive you have to accommodate the two vehicles you can't park inside due to the overflow of stuff. That person. It boggles the mind at times, but the fact is that only human beings through whom the milk of human kindness flows by the quart need apply for the the presidency. Competent. Smart. Experienced. That may get you in the door with your app, but if you can't smooze, ya lose.

Hillary Clinton knows this - now (though Bill surely knew it before and I wonder why he didn't share that with her) as she hustles about on her "If You Knew Hillary" tour of Iowa. She spent so much time playing the man's game that she forgot a small but significant part of the game was being ingratiating and radiating a holy healing light that provides warmth to all. Interestingly MSNBC ran a short article today about a recent study that found that while male bosses were not expected to be overly caring and could be forgiven for not reading their employees moods/minds, women bosses were cut no such slack.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22343419/

So, for not being a mind-reader, Hillary was sent back to go - almost - without collecting the 200 warm and fuzzy points and made to parade her inner self for the next two weeks.

Mitt Romney on the other hand just does what men in the public eye do when they want to prove they have a heart - somewhere. He cried. Because crying is womanly and proves that a man is in touch with that side of himself. Right?

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/NEWS/712200403

Frankly, now that he has the Tancredo endorsement, Mitt may be squeezing out droplets at every turn because Tancredo is not exactly a warm breeze on a summer evening.

I think the real issue is why warmth is an issue at all. Clinton and Romney may or may not convince the non-believers they are sincere and are wasting a lot of time that might be better spent showing the voters some of their stands on issues of real consequence.

Sexism in the City

I mentioned that I am blogging on a newspaper site in my old home of Des Moines. I try to be topical which it being Iowa and an election year means I do a fair amount of writing about issues and candidates. I have post a few of the things I have written for that site here. Two of those pieces being about sexism. My latest piece on the DM Register site is about an article I found on MSNBC about the difficulty Hillary Clinton is having in Iowa with wooing women voters. The article goes on to explain that aside from Mississippi, Iowa is the only state to have never elected a female governor or senator. In my assessment, I agreed with much of what was written implying that Iowa is a very traditional on gender roles despite the fact that more women work outside the home in Iowa than just about anywhere else in the U.S. and that it is so entrenched an attitude that even the women by into it. And this isn’t a new issue for me. I have been annoyed with the gender thing in my home state since I was a kid and couldn’t play summer little league baseball or join the Boy Scouts (because they actually camped and did cool outdoor stuff as opposed to the cooking and sewing the Girl Scouts had to do).

My latest efforts got my blog noticed and I received a flurry of responses - from guys - telling me I was full of shit (and those were the nice replies). So, I am wondering readers, my few and loyal, am I off base with the gender thing? Is the world, or at least the west, truly a gender-blind utopia - because it feels not so much different to me now than when I was growing up.

Any thoughts on sexism?

The Continuing Quest to Pee

It’s been away since I have discussed the state of facilities here in Canada though it occurs to me that I am perhaps being unfair in labeling the whole of the country a no-pee zone. It could be just an Alberta problem. For a province with a boom economy and a building streak that has buried an entire canola field under a slew of condos and houses in the Fort since I have moved up here, not much is being done to address the lack of public washrooms.

Americans are spoiled. I will admit that right up front. There are very, very few places one to go to that are not adequately equipped with restrooms. The need for elimination is sometimes covered to the point of overkill. Although I hadn’t thought of this before just now, it could be that Americans really are as incontinent as the dearth of commercials for ? would seem to imply. Or it could be that Canadians are just the camels of the continent in terms of bladder capacity. Rob’s girls assure him that the human bladder can only hold a litre of liquid. Rob doesn’t believe that as he was complimented not long ago in public restroom in Iowa on his capacity, but in retrospect that could be just evidence for my theory that Americans need to pee a lot. That could be a Pavol’s dog thing however. American’s have a lot of easy restroom access leading them to pee at whim which and thus retraining their bladders into wimpiness whereas Canadians often can’t find a public toilet and have mammoth capacity for storage and patience to wait as a result. Nah, Canadians just pee outside when they can’t find any place indoors. And believe me, that is the norm in public places.

Today, I was picking up photo reprints at the London Drug in Sherwood Park. It has exactly one washroom. Unisex. And you have to track down the guy who works in Electronics to get the key to open it. He is rarely behind the counter. When I asked for the key today, he informed me that someone was using the washroom. I went and waited by the door. Knocked. Waited. Jingled the doorknob. Heard noise faintly from inside. Waited some more. And finally in desperation I walked quickly back to my vehicle and headed over to the Safeway only to find that they too had one unisex washroom for the entire store. Fortunately it was not in use or this tale would have an embarrassing, for me, ending.

I am in awe of Canadians. There ability to forgo peeing when out in public spaces in something to admire and possibly even strive to emulate. I am not sure at all how to train myself out of the need to pee. I have tried not taking in liquid when I need to travel or be away from home in general. I end up with cracked lips and a bad headache however. One thing that still puzzles me though is why when there are so few of them to clean anyway are washrooms here always so dirty?

Reading posts at the YWBB

I still read the widow board sometimes. Thankfully the time I spend there is less and less. I just don’t have the time really and frankly, when I do read it either depresses or infuriates me.

Two things of late that I have noticed there that are eating at me for some reason. The first is the tendency of older board members to condone mean-spirited behavior from some of the members while scolding new members for objecting when they are the victims of this behavior. The prevailing attitude of the powers that are at the YWBB has always been that grief is the great “get out of jail free-card” and that a widowed person in particular can say or do just about any awful thing the want because it is part of the “grief work” and “leaning into the pain” as opposed, I guess, to dealing with reality and behaving like a normal person in spite of the fact that life has dealt you some painfully bad cards. In my opinion, based on what I have read, people who let themselves by driven by their grief are the people who never seem to regain a solid footing in the world.

There is one person in particular who uses the board’s private message system to send what amounts to hate mail to other, usually newer, members of the board. It is Internet bullying of the adult variety and it is tolerated and even condoned at the YWBB. Rob got a message from this person that implied hateful things about him and his late wife. He posted it along with his feelings that the PM’s (private messages) should not be a forum for expressing disapproval or offering advice to people who were nothing more than strangers to you. He was sounded chastised by the older members who felt that PM’s should also stay private even if the message was a harassing one. It is this kind of things that allows abusers to get away with victimizing people, but many at the YWBB are so blind to anyone’s needs but their own - they can’t see that. This person is harassing another woman right now who is bravely taking it public and is, naturally, being made the villain for doing so. Isn’t that always the case? Victims being re-victimized when they speak out? I feel badly for her, but not badly enough to register to defend her. I am not interested in being that kind of good samaritan anymore. It does sadden me a little to see people I know and like supporting the harasser though. I don’t think she deserves it. Sometimes I get the feeling that she may not even be who she claims to be and that much of what she writes is creative rather than factual.

The second thing that bothers me is an anonymous poster who claims to be recently remarried and her new husband, a widower, has cheated on her already. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. Perhaps because there were many marriages in and around the time Rob and I married and I knew some of the people’s stories and it saddens me to think that any of these couples could be experiencing such trouble already. Partly too because I wonder if anyone wonders if that is me posting. Rob wondered that too when he pointed the post out to me. It doesn’t matter what anyone at the YWBB thinks. But for a handful, they are strangers. It is just a sad post though Rob doesn’t have the same impression. He thinks there is something fishy about it. I guess it doesn’t matter and it is another sign that I need to curtail even the little bit of surfing I do there. If I am not posting, which I can’t as I am not registered, there is no reason to read.

Jennifer Love-Hewitt is Fat and Clinton won't be President

The current cover of People features a bikini-clad television actress with the protesting title "I am not Fat!" And she isn't, not by even the most twisted standards of beauty that have infiltrated our society and handed it new weapons with which to re-enslave women. Ms. Love-Hewitt is a size two, and I mention this only because I know someone will dispute her claim of a healthy weight (and me) and ask. It's sad really that 40 some odd years into (or after depending on your point of view) the women's movement, women in the United States are still objects. Which is why Clinton won't win the Iowa Democratic caucuses or be president. Because she is a woman and women in this country - like most of the rest of the world - are still just the sum of their pretty, or not so parts. Intelligence. Experience. Ability. None of this matters when the easiest way to put a woman back in her place, or at least remind her she is out of it, is to criticize her femininity via her appearance, martial status or commitment to her children.

While it is true that we are allowed to be as naked as we wanna be in the visual self-expression of how far we have come baby, answer me this - how is the fact that we are judged by our appearance and size and "femininity" any different than the Islamic obsession with covering women up? Or the French and Russian governments extolling their female citizens to patriotism via their birth canals? It's two sides of the same coin, and the coin of the realm is keeping women in their place as second-class and objectified-  with our complicity at times it seems because we don't help ourselves at all by playing into whatever the status quo may be. In western cultures women parrot the line that we are free because we can be blatantly sexual and can control our bodies, and chose to marry or not, parent or play working girl - all the while starving ourselves and fueling a beauty industry out of control, and reading Cosmo for man-snaring tips. Our pop culture thrives on female parts - in music and films that depict females and their sexuality as dirty and disposable. Beauty magazines that sell self-improvement in the form of diets and exercise programs. Fashion that is designed to accentuate beauty and expose those who are not.

In places like say, Saudi Arabia, women will tell you they don't mind being seond-tier, covering up and not being able to drive is fine because they appreciate being protected by their males and the society these males have created for them. The China and the India are dangerously unbalancing their gender ratios by scanning their unborn fetuses and aborting girls because sons are better for a family - at least until they are of marriageable age and their are no daughters for them to marry. French women are bearing children in the name of nationalism and unaware of that the racist sentiments that are slowly tearing at the seams of their country is the likely cause their governments are praising them for their efforts. But telling yourself you are in charge of your choices is not the same as being in charge. When there are no options to chose from but the ones carefully pre-selected and laid in front of you by others - how free are you?

So, what does this have to do with Hillary Clinton, you ask most patiently. Just that she represents what women are not supposed to know about or think about becoming. She is educated and articulate and didn't get where she is by conforming to the rules as they are written for women. She may have chosen the well-beaten path here and there, who doesn't? For example, remember her changing hairstyles back in the early days of her husband's presidency when her looks were being constantly criticized in the press - which by the way is one of the ways the media works for the system that wants all women to know that love and respect are reserved for the pretty and the closed-mouthed. Sen. Clinton plays politics the way the boys do and she isn't supposed to even want to play in the first place. John Irving called this being "sexually suspect" in his novel, The World According to Garp. Women who live their lives against the current. The current fashions. The current standards of beauty as dictated to us. The current standards of womanhood. 
The Register endorsed Sen. Clinton. It's unlikely to do her any more good than Ms. Love-Hewitt revealing her dress size. A woman is not likely to be the president of this country. Our sexism is embedded in our genes so deep that we don't even recognize it. We built our country upon the idea that all men, not women too, were created equal and never changed our minds. And don't think that our founding fathers didn't know what they were saying. John Adams wife Abigail railed at him for excluding women. Just as they knew they were in the wrong about slavery (Jefferson referred to it as "holding a wolf by the ears"), they knew what they were doing when they wrote "men".

I am not a Clinton supporter. I haven't even begun to make up my mind about the presidential field. It's a little early in the race and future presidents should be put to the test and made to show their stuff and stamina. Nobody has done that yet. But, the Catholic school girl in me can't abide those who will use the belittling tactics of the old parish priests when confronted with women who won't sit down, or shut up or just go away. It may be a man's world, but as someone pointed out to me recently they aren't the majority. We are. And perhaps it's time we decide where are places should be.

Sexism: The NY Times thinks Girls are too dumb to run a Newspaper

The New York Times ran a piece on the Des Moines Register stating that the paper’s endorsement is seen as a great prize among candidates running for president. The article also pointed out that for the first time, the top three editorial spots at the Register are occupied by women and wondered if this wouldn’t give Hillary Clinton an unfair advantage because as we all know, women mindlessly vote for their own kind regardless of qualifications and the issues.

What an infuriating piece of crap! Nothing raises my blood pressure more than sexist thinking like this. The fact that most men wouldn’t vote for a woman unless she was in a wet t-shirt contest rarely gets talked about, but when a woman actually runs for public office and manages to overcome the mean girl backlash and draws other female supporters, this is seen as some kind of herd mentality response. Men never seem to think that anything they think, do or say is influenced by their gender though there is a mount everest worth of reasons to believe that they are even more hormonally driven than their sisters, but anything under the sun a woman does is probably a result of PMS if she isn’t currently on the rag.

Although I don’t believe the Des Moines Register is a great newspaper (because it’s rather light on news beyond central Iowa and it allows the city’s elite to use it as though it were a high school publication), I am going to go out on a limb and guess that a person doesn’t get to be one of the top three there unless they have proven themselves in their field. Interestingly, though women are often accused of being tokens when they achieve positions like these, the truth is that women are usually held to much higher standards than the men who wind up in similar positions.

The Times should really be careful when it accuses others of bias. Aside from the ads, there isn’t a neutral thing printed in it ever, and I imagine that the East Coast ignorance about the Midwest played a role in the sexist conclusions that Mr. Zeleny, the piece’s author, came to write. Iowans are particularly plagued with Grant Wood images being superimposed over our lives and realities to the point where I don’t know if anyone out East even realizes that the majority of the state’s population lives in urban settings and that we have to organize field trips for our students to take them to farms so they know that milk comes from a cow and not from the AE plant on E. University. Shame on him still however, and shame on any who persist in the antiquated belief that when men vote for men it’s a result of thoughtful deliberation of the issues and facts whereas women only vote for the candidates based on their shared gender or because they have good personalities. Men are just as capable of casting their votes away as mindlessly as anyone and mindless voting is a result of just being stupid which is an equal gender opportunity judging from the NY Times piece.

The Christmas Letter

We used to get one of those Christmas chain letters from one of Will’s uncle’s family every year. I didn’t get one last year, but then they forgot to invite Katy and I to the extended family Christmas dinner until the afternoon before they held it too. I didn’t miss the letter. It was one of those impossibly irritating laundry lists of self-wonder and inner rapture that could make a Nobel Laureate feel inadequate and socially awkward. Will’s cousins were (possibly still are - I wouldn’t know) paragons of just about everything, and his aunt and uncle more pious and less humble about it then they should be. I asked Will if he ever felt as though all that bragging was a backhanded insult and he confessed that he never read the whole letter but merely hung up the card it arrived in. Which makes me wonder, even now, what the purpose of these letters are? I have never written one but Rob and I have pondered, mostly without producing anything definite other than perhaps we should go easy on the mention of death as it’s not a very Christmassy thing - more of an Easter thing really - and consider alternate versions for those people who don’t know how the whole extended family things works for us blendeds. I just want to write something simple. Something that won’t trigger anyone’s gag reflex and yet still manages to convey a sense of our year. But, of course, it’s only been six months officially. I don’t think new couples gush about their courtships in holiday letters, right?

Frankly, I don’t know what the purpose of the holiday letter is, and it will be a “holiday” letter because even if it were written, printed, stuffed, stamped, addressed and sitting in the post office this very minute - no one would see it before the new year at the earliest. Perhaps it should be a coming attractions? What we are looking forward to in the new year.

Dear Family and Friends,
As this new year begins, exciting changes await our family as we organize for our move to Texas.......

Okay, yeah, this sounds suspiciously like what a recap might only substitute “Canada” for “Texas”.

What’s wrong with a card? Snow and fauna? Or Santa and elves? Or a picture. Lisa and John sent us a picture postcard of the two of them in front of, actually to the side of, a really big rock. In Australia. I think. But still, way more interesting than any holiday letter because I would rather see them somewhere as opposed to reading about them somewhere, if that makes sense.

How about a collage? Pictures from all the big event of the year (minus everything to do with death, of course)? And now we are into the unwieldily and project-like which means no one would get their greeting until February at the earliest and I don’t think these kinds of things can double as Valentine’s unless they are to your mother.

Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to write these kinds of things. Odd that a blogger schooled in the practice of self-revelation can’t brag and sicken her family and friends except online, but possibly the truth. So, I guess I will consider the blog in its entirety my holiday letter to you all. And to all now, a goodnight.

I Hate the Dentist

Actually my new dentist is a very nice woman who is much more proactive than the two young guys who took over the practice of my previous dentist when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and subsequently died just a short time after Will did. She was very happy to explain the things she proposed for my near life-long struggle with my gums. The hygienist who cleaned my teeth - I can live without ever even running into to him again. It took all my self-control not to hurt him. Some people are born without the touch to be a hygienist and he is one of them.

No great dental report for Kate or me. She has a tiny cavity that has to be pasted over or something. It won’t need freezing. She is a terrible brusher and now I have proof to hang over her head that I would rather not have, but what can you do. I have ever receding gums and the dentist wants to fill in some places to prevent bone loss, of which I have a tiny bit in the back. I guess I can live with this dour report but it is less than I had hoped for and oddly takes me back to my teens when nothing I did seemed to prevent cavities and lectures about my inadequacy. God do I hate those trips down memory lane.

Oh well, nothing to be done but the obvious.

Snow Days and Stomach Flu

Have you ever woken in the middle of the night for what seemed like no apparent reason only to discover that the vague feeling of unease that tickled your consciousness away from your dreams was more than a headlight driven shadow or the cat prowling? I had one of those night. It began with the a start. One minute I was sleeping, dreaming about needing to be somewhere and not being blessed with nocturnal OnStar and the next I was having a conversation with Rob, who was clearly still asleep. After ascertaining that it was indeed safe to ignore his nonsensical interest in our open window, I had no sooner closed my eyes when Katy was at the side of the bed announcing to no one in particular that she needed to puke. Can any utterance get a parent out of bed faster?

Kate made it to the top of the landing with me still battling the armholes of my robe when I had the first tell-tale gags followed closely by retching. When I arrived on the scene she was done - for the moment - and the cat was eyeing the small piles of barely digested pizza like it was manna from heaven. That was 3:30 A.M. and aside from about an hour and a half between 6 and 8 A.M., I didn’t get back to sleep until close to 11 A.M. by which time Katy had finished emptying the contains of her tummy throughly and Rob had called in sick with not so vague tummy rumblings himself. (My poor but wonderful husband did all the clean-up by the way from mopping up the floor to emptying and rinsing the waste-baskets.)

The day itself turned out to be snowy and blowy and a good day all around for not venturing out. I napped til late afternoon and awoke to find both my patients as I had left them, watching videos and sipping liquids and having pretzels. I am not sure the last part qualifies as light fare for troubled tummies but as long as it isn’t coming back up - it’ll do.

Unfortunately, Katy will miss her winter concert performance tonight. She was to be the jingle bells and stand in the front row. Luckily the kindergartners had given the same performance yesterday for the grades 1 through 3 and she still has her ballet performance on Saturday afternoon.

Not exactly the way you want to spend the day after a great birthday but I’ll take it anyway. Home with my loveys who are now on the mend and thankful that my own bout with this on Sunday means that perhaps we have jumped this winter hurdle and can look forward to a healthy, happy Christmas.

My Birthday

I was born at 7:36 A.M. forty-four years ago today. That - is a long time ago my friends, and yet if you asked me if I feel old or to define “old”, I don’t know if I could. Sure I recently berated a poster on my DM-Register blog about the delusional tendencies we “boomers” have about age and how that relates to us (not at all if you were wondering), but 44 is a considerable number of years. I don’t feel wiser though I am a bit creakier of joint and stiff of muscle at times. I have gray hairs (I may have mentioned this before) and I have wrinkles (of which I am not fond but I deal).

The celebration of me and my birth has gone through changes since that first birthday, a bittersweet day for the 17 year old who bore me and gave me up, I am sure. Over the course of my childhood it was duly noted by my immediate family and some extended with just three parties ever been held in my honor - my 1st birthday, my fifth and my thirteenth. I would not have another birthday party until my 37th. Will, my late husband, gathered our friends for a dinner celebration out at a new restaurant in Cumming, which is no longer there and where he is now buried. Throughout my teens and twenties my birthday was a hit and miss affair. During my college years it always fell during finals and no one could be coaxed away from books and notes for even the tiniest party. Once I was teaching, I might sometimes be feted by a class or a group of coworkers but the day was by and large just another day. I haven’t celebrated my birthday with my mom since high school, but I do remember one year in college when she actually got my gift and card to me on the very day of my birthday. The book was a fictionalized biography of Henry the VIII by Margaret George. Mom inscribed it even and I still have it. It’s sitting on the bookshelves in our living-room. Will always made a big deal of my birthday because he loved me and because he knew how much I still resented the birthday slights of the past when I had gotten combo birthday/xmas gifts and usually neither one was very nice. It made me wonder if anyone I knew had any idea at all of who I really was.

Today, Rob surprised me at lunch with a carrot cake (it’s the only kind I can eat without getting sick) and presents from Katy that he had picked out for her to give me. Books. Ken Follett’s World Without End which I had requested from the library about a month ago already and was still 43rd in the queue. I also got Helen Humphrey's The Frozen Thames which is a collection of short stories whose setting is the River Thames during those times it has frozen over - something it doesn’t do anymore. Rob is getting me a rebounder which he thought was an odd thing for me to want for my birthday but that’s me. I received three phone calls. One from my friends Meg in Iowa and then a call each from my parents. There were birthday greetings and wishes on my Facebook wall as well today from friends and my two wonderful step-daughters. And I have to say, that 44 is suiting me but that’s not a surprise. Age in general has always seemed a better fit than youth did.

Happy Birthday Ann!

In recognition of your birthday, my dear. I hope that everything goes your way on your special day today.

Love You Always,
Rob

Leona, my Mother-In-Law

I’m probably not going to be telling you anything about Leona that you don’t already know. But I thought I might share a few of my memories of Leona with you.

For those of you who may not know me or perhaps don’t recognize me, my name is Rob. I am Leona’s son-in-law. I was married to Leona’s youngest daughter Shelley for just over 25 years until we lost her a year ago August.

When I first met Leona she was just a few years younger than I am now. That was when I first started dating Shelley. Leona was a bit dubious about me at first. After all, I was relatively new to the area. She didn’t know me and she didn’t know my family. And, if you might recall, she had a fairly low opinion of men in general at that time. At least, that’s how I remember it. Fraser was the exception, of course.

But, she allowed me to keep coming around. I hope it was because she thought her daughter had good judgement, but I’ll never know now, will I?

In those early days, Shelley and I spent a lot of time out at the Grant farm. We were pretty poor in those days and we could always be assured of a good meal at Leona and Fraser’s. I can remember many, many games of aggravation. Often played late into the night. Always “one more game” or “time for the rubber”. I’m sure most of you know the game, but for those that don’t it’s a game played with cards, a special board and marbles. It’s a game for four; two teams of two. And it’s almost always women versus the men. Now, I’m not saying that men are necessarily more skilled at the game than women, but it seemed like more often than not the men were victorious. Well, at least that’s the way I remember it when Fraser and I squared off with Shelley and Leona. That we men won a lot never sat well with Leona. Her dark eyes would be flashing and her sharp tongue would be lashing. Fraser and I would just sit back and smile. No point in riling her further. I remember getting the cold shoulder from Shelley on occasion after these matches and I imagine Fraser received similar treatment as well.

If you’ve ever been out to the Grant farm, then you’ll know that the kitchen and dining are one big room; the first room you come into once you’re through the porch. And the kitchen was Leona’s domain. She was an excellent cook and loved to feed a crowd. Shelley often joked about how Leona would get up to start clearing the table from one meal and, before we’d even had a chance to push ourselves away from the table, was asking us what we wanted for the next meal. I ate myself into agony at Leona’s table on more than one occasion I can tell you. I will certainly miss those home made buns, the lefthsa, crum ca-ca and the myriad of other dishes – simple or fancy – that Leona would whip up.

As I said, eventually Shelley and I married and I became part of the family. And somewhere in there, Leona found out that I was somewhat handy. It wasn’t long before I was being greeted at each visit with a list of things that needed fixing or building. I was always happy to help out with these assignments – even though the lists got longer as our visits became less frequent when we moved farther and farther away from here. I didn’t mind because the reward was always the smile and look of pure pleasure on her face when I had completed some repair or built something new. It was the least I could do in exchange for the meals she always put on for us.

Leona was already a grandmother by the time I entered the picture. Cory was a toddler and Keli arrived not long after Shelley and I started dating. Mine and Shelley’s two daughters, Farron and Jordan, were Leona’s next two grandkids. And did she adore her grandkids. We were fortunate in living fairly nearby as the kids grew up so they could visit and get to know their grandma as they did. Close life-long relationships were formed. Leona loved her grandkids; there wasn’t really anything she wouldn’t do for them. I know my own two girls have many, many fond memories of the times they spent at Grandma’s farm.

I’ve already talked about Leona’s prowess in the kitchen. Of course, being a farmer’s wife, she knew well what was needed when the men were working in the fields. And she never let them down, often times delivering food to the guys in the field when there wasn’t time to stop and come in to the house. And being a hostess didn’t stop there. It didn’t seem to matter what time of day or night a friend or a neighbour dropped by. Leona was always willing to feed you. And, if it was the middle of the night, she was willing to get up and have a drink or two with you as well.

Leona loved to have fun. You can see it in some of the pictures here on the slideshow. She laughed from deep in her belly. Head thrown back, guffawing out loud. I am sure there are many of you here who have seen this first hand, whether it was out camping, or down at the Rio Grande sports, at the Legion, at a dance, in a camp or in her own kitchen.

I remember the time she and Joyce came to visit us while we lived in Kansas. For a weekend, we all went over to Branson, Missouri to see a show (it was a Patsy Cline impersonator) and spend a day at Silver Dollar City. You wouldn’t believe the things those two old grandma’s did, the rides they went on. But they had a blast. And, of course, what trip to the US would be complete without some shopping? Leona, apparently, liked shoes. And she bought a lot of them. I don’t remember exactly what transpired as these two old grandma’s attempted to bring their booty back into Canada. But I wouldn’t have wanted to be the Canada Customs agent who decided to turn their van inside out just to make sure they weren’t smuggling whatever. I well remember those flashing eyes and sharp tongue!

She was quite the gal.

But there were some sad times too. I shall never forget that when Shelley and I needed help – when Shelley needed care – Leona was one of the first to arrive at our house. To do what she could. I can not even imagine what it must be like to lose a child and I hope I never have to find out. But, Leona was there. And when we lost Shelley, she was comforting me, supporting me. I won’t – can’t - ever forget that.

So, in closing these reveries of mine, I would just like to say that we could all learn something from Leona’s life. The things that were important to her – family, good friends, good food, good fun – these are simple things and I think that Leona helped show me that these are the most important things in life. Maybe it’s a little something that she can show you too.

Really Old

If 32 is old than I am on the verge of becoming Abraham's wife when I turn 44 next week. I say this because I just finished reading a blog piece by reallyexcited at the Des Moines Register, where I also blog (as anniegirl1138) these days though it is more topical stuff. He was lamenting his loss of youth (and hedge-like eyebrows, I think). I understand what he means about gauging one's own mortality by measuring it against the relative youth, or lack thereof, of others. As a firmly planted in middle-aged woman, I am painfully, at times, aware of the fact that I am considered "day old" or worse in terms of my appearance. When I am not being assaulted every other page of Oprah the magazine by remedies for my sagging skin and paunching belly, I am running across article after article in the life sections of the Globe and Mirror or the Daily Journal advising me on the proper attire for someone "my age".

I shouldn't wear my hair long. Nothing gives off more of a desperate odour than a woman who doesn't crop her locks with the birth of her first child. A symbolic shearing to remind her (as if everything else that pregnancy and nursing do to the body isn't enough) that she is not a girl anymore. Tight clothing is out. Form-fitting is permissible, but only if a woman maintains a form that won't offend with rolls and curves and less than perky boobs.
Personally, I don't think anyone is truly ever old. On the inside anyway. I still marvel at the fact I held down a job for twenty years and no one questioned my ability to do so even once (to my face and that I know of). I've owned two pieces of property in my own right. And I drive. Right out in the traffic with everyone else. Funny but this last is the thing that most signifies the beginning of the end in terms of youth for me. The day the state of Iowa, in all its wisdom (and it's way older than I am) deemed my old enough to drive. I was telling my younger step-daughter not long ago that I still sometimes am as amazed that I can drive a car as I was on the very first day my father let me take the car out on my own.

Nothing tips the scales irredeemably into "old" as becoming a parent.I remember the first weeks as a mother to my now five year old and wondering how it could be that I was being allowed to raise her. I wasn't grown-up enough yet. Surely someone would notice any time and come and take her away. Give her to some grown-up woman who didn't still walk the Barbie aisle at Target with longing. Someone who cut her hair short just in anticipation of motherhood and took notes during the birthing classes. Someone who didn't forget her just learning to speak in sentences baby was in the backseat while she was listening to Eminem (though to my credit I did quit when she began requesting the "stand-up song").

It's an eye of the beholder thing like nearly everything else. I have never longed for my teens (and my recent 25th high school reunion reminded me again why) or my twenties. I was smooth and grey-less and my knees didn't creak like the stairs, but I wasn't nearly as strong or confident or happy with myself. Why go back? Why even think about it? Life is meant to be lived in a forward progression with each birthday finding us a wee bit closer to the enlightenment or at least the wisdom to recognize who we truly are behind the wrinkles that block our morning views.

"I'll be old until I die" is what I think reallyexcited said, but the reality is that you will be old when you think you are and how near or far that is from your ending days is up to you. 

Shelley's Mother

I met my husband’s mother-in-law for the first time in August. She had just had a Carotid Endarterectomy, the procedure to remove fatty plaque from neck arteries. She been having trouble speaking and her doctors came to the conclusion she’d had a stroke. My own dad had the same procedure in the fall of 2005 after a serious of TIA’s left him unable to use his left leg or speak clearly. The day we met she was obviously very tired and in pain, but she was very kind and welcoming to me and to my daughter. I can’t even begin to imagine what she was feeling, seeing me with Rob, but I am sure that it hurt - though she really didn’t let it show in my presence. At the time my thoughts were that Shelley had to have been an even more amazing person than I had originally suspected to have family who were so willing, and able, to put their own grief aside for Rob’s happiness. And I still think that to a degree though since meeting more of her extended family I have modified my thoughts a bit because hers seems like one of those families for whom closeness is a natural and a good thing. Not that they don’t have their moments, like all families do, but what I have seen and learned leads me to believe they are a pretty great group overall.

The last time I saw Leona was in September when the family gathered at her brother Raymond’s farm for the scattering of his ashes and for the internment of some of Shelley’s ashes under the tree in the front yard where she and Rob were married. Again, it had to have been an extremely tough day for her. And again she was wonderful. I am not sure I could have risen to meet such circumstances so well. Indeed I am sometimes very humbled by the grace and generosity with which my husband’s late wife’s family has demonstrated.

Not long ago, it was discovered that Leona had not had a stroke but was suffering from ALS and that the form of the illness that afflicted her was one of the aggressive types. Rob and the girls went up north yesterday to see her in the hospital because she had taken a turn for the worse over the last week and it was unlikely she would survive to see them at the Christmas visit that had been planned.

I didn’t go along, though I wanted desperately to do so. It is hard enough to be away from Rob under ordinary circumstances and much more so when I know that he needs me. And though I don’t push myself on either of the girls, because I am not their mother, it doesn’t keep me from worrying about them or hurting for them. But I had to make Katy the priority and stay behind. We agreed that she couldn’t be subject to another death from a close up perspective at this point in her life.

Rob called me this morning very early. He hadn’t been to bed. I had last heard from him a bit after midnight when he and the girls were leaving the hospital to head out to the farm to get some sleep. His tone made my arms ache to be around him. I could feel how much he needed to be supported through his voice. He told me that Leona’s laboured breathing was stirring up memories of Shelley’s last hours and I knew what he meant without further explanation. It takes very little to bring those last hours and minutes of Will’s to my mind. He told me that they had no sooner gotten to the farm then they were called back to the hospital because Leona had died. All I could do was tell him I was sorry and listen to him talk a bit. The only other thing would have been to take him in my arms and I wasn’t there to do that. He gave me the number he could be reached at and promised he was going to go straight to bed to sleep. For how long I don’t know and worry that it won’t be long enough. My husband is a rock that too many people lean on, me included and I worry.

Leona is with her daughter now, hopefully enjoying their reunion, and her suffering is over. But, like most people, I don’t understand why this has happened or timing of it. Fairness is once again called into question and I wonder if there is even such a thing or did humans simply make the concept up to express their frustration with the ways and whimsy of this universe?