Temporarily Assigned to Planet Earth

Lost it. I lost it. Again. I can't take this--I can't deal with this. My mother. I invited her to come and live with me back in March, because she was having serious health issues and getting the run-around from doctors. She's 88-years-old and she was living alone in Prescott, Arizona, where she and my father had lived for more than forty years until his death. He died on May 1, 2006: a date I'll always remember because it was my son's 21st birthday. Shoot me for thinking: just like my father to steal the thunder.

My mother was living alone and declining, mentally, and she needed hip replacement surgery that was denied her because of a bad aortic valve. She was really suffering from the pain in her hip, and if the requirement for being a minimally qualified decent human being is that one cannot simply sit back and watch another suffer without doing something about it, then I passed. I could not stand what she was going through--I had to do something. So I invited her to move to Virginia to live with me and start over here with new doctors.

Medically it has been a success, so far: she had open heart surgery on May 13th and made quite a remarkable recovery. She was cleared for hip replacement on July 26th and is scheduled to go under the knife on August 15th--next Monday, six days from now. We are six days away from hip replacement; six days from the holy grail.

If the requirement for attaining the next level of human achievement is that "something about it" be done with patience and grace, I fail. I will forever be a minimally qualified human. I can't deal with my mother's cognitive decline; I can't deal with it. I've never been driven nuts the way I've been driven nuts by my mother. I've never gotten so angry before. I keep thinking: she can't POSSIBLY not understand this--she's faking, he's manipulating, she's not trying, she doesn't WANT to understand.

It's been a hard day, and yesterday was a hard day too.

I guess; may this year be better than the past two. It's not gotten off to an auspicious start.

The dog seems strangely depressed today. He's lying in his crate while I'm cooking in the kitchen; he's not begging me for food. I think he knows. He knows that the joy of preparing my traditional ham dinner is overshadowed this year by the fact that tomorrow is yet another Goodbye Day. My son is moving out tomorrow, after having lived at home for the past 5 months. He graduated from law school in May and moved home after he took the bar exam at the end of July.

As of the summer of 2009, neither he nor I expected him to ever live at home again. That was before he graduated in the face of the Great Recession and like many of his classmates, had no job lined up. He spent all of his 3rd year of law school, the past summer, and three of the past five months applying for jobs as far away as Alaska. Finally, in October, he got a job offer from a law firm in Fairfax, Virginia, twenty miles from home. He learned he'd passed the bar on October 21st and he started working the following Monday.

So he's going to rent part of the house a friend of his bought a while back --a part that doesn't include the kitchen-- which is two miles from his office. Hence, yet another Goodbye Day. How many have there been since the first, when he moved into a dorm at UVA in August of 2003? I know I've said it before but I'll say it again: the first was by far the worst. The house felt too empty, too quiet. I felt hollow, as though I'd never have anyone to talk to again. I didn't even have the dog, back then. And yet, he was home for Christmas and again for the summer of 2004. And so the cycle began. Seven years of back home, back to school, here and there a summer in Beijing, a semester in Tokyo, then back home, back to school, back home again.

While the first Goodbye day had an illusory feeling of permanence, this one has an illusory feeling of "just another moving day". This should be the last; I don't expect my son to ever live at home again, nor does he expect to. He's 25, his education is complete, he's employed and dipping his toes into the icy, shark-infested waters of financial independence. Let me know how that works out for ya, as they say. He doesn't want to start dating until he has his own place, so Move, I say, Move before I change the locks.

Since August of 2003 I've been an "empty nest mom", and yet it's been this "here again, gone again" thing. After five months of having him home again, I can't remember what my life feels like when he's gone. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

The longest day of the year, my favorite day. I'm a long days person--give me light.

Just because.

I have it on good authority (WikiAnswers) that the Autumnal Equinox is at 5pm on September 22nd this year. I love this time of year--there's still plenty of light when I get home from work, and it's cool enough to enjoy walking the dog. The leaves will start to turn color soon. It's time to harvest the wine grapes and the apples.

I haven't posted much here since I joined Facebook in February. It's fun over there; I get feedback. When I post there, I know all of the people who'll read what I write, and I know at least a few will respond.

But I miss this place. Facebook is a step up from Twitter, but not a very big step. Although there are no limits on the size of entries, the feel of an ongoing conversation doesn't lend itself to lengthy posts. It's mostly one liners--at most a short paragraph. And it's not the place for introspection.

So this morning, here I am back on the blog. An hour from now my son Michael will toss his suitcase and backpack in the trunk of my car and I'll drive him to the airport. I'll pull up to the curb in front of Air Canada; I won't turn off the engine or get out. I'll pop the trunk, and Michael will get out, get his stuff out of the trunk, and immediately walk away, turning back toward the car just enough to wave goodbye.

At 2 am tomorrow morning, my time, he'll arrive at Narida International Airport in Japan, where it'll be 3 pm. Maybe I'll be asleep; maybe I'll look at the clock and try to imagine what he's seeing and feeling. He'll be in a strange place where he can neither speak the language (beyond disk one of Rosetta Stone) nor read the signs. He'll have to find his way to Tokyo, to an apartment management office, pick up keys, and find his way to the apartment he reserved a month ago. He'll have to find a grocery store and everything else one needs to get by. Soon he'll have to find Waseda University and the law school there.

And I won't be there help him, and I wouldn't be much help if I were. It's tough, for a parent. It's not the first time, though, nor the hardest. It never gets easy but it does get easier, and this time, Michael has bought a new camera and created a blog, and I'm looking forward to reading it very much.

The fruit of my labors, so far: just the squash--I didn't grow the garlic. The garlic is in the picture to give an indication of the size of this itty-bitty butternut squash, which was the first to succeed in my small patch. There are a few others still on the vines--larger and more traditionally shaped than this one.

Not the play, the Solstice. Gather herbs tonight.

Deja vu, a rerun of last year, when I visited my mother after her hip replacement surgery. The surgery was redone (dang) back in February, and here I am again. My mother's house is still immaculate, and her penmanship still puts mine to shame.

Prescott, Arizona is a nice change from Alexandria, Virginia. Out of the dense green sauna, into the dry, low mountains of central Arizona. I enjoy the local wildlife. Quail are abundant here, as are geckos --my mother calls them Geicos, a triumph of advertising.

This afternoon we'll rent Marley and Me, the first but not the last dog movie we'll watch while I'm here. I saw it myself recently, but I'll enjoy watching it again because Marley could be my dog. Saint looks just like him: a 100lb field lab, exact same color, same face. And although my dog has outgrown some of the bad behavior--as a puppy he chewed furniture, rugs, shoes, and the woodwork--he still has Marley's energy level. Saint is a graduate of Olde Towne School for Dogs, but he's still a handful, and only real dog lovers can be called upon to feed him when I'm away.

I'm sitting in the airport in Salt Lake City, of all places, my flight to Idaho Falls delayed by two hours. I'm sitting in a bar called Finnigan's, and I can't help but wonder how many bars there are called Finnigan's.

On the flight here from San Francisco I read this poem by S.P. Somtow, in "Armorica", the 2nd book in the Riverrun Trilogy. I offer it to my son.

At the End of the Forest

And so, at last, I left the darkling wood.
I came to the cave where I had left my mother,
The hearth I loved, the bed in which I'd dreamed
Of these adventures.

I came upon my kinfolk
As they supped, telling old tales to warm their nights.
I said, "Mother, I have returned, with gifts
And stories, conquests, jewels, and a bride;
I have slain man and dragon; I have ravished
Maiden and crone; I have lived dangerously,
Stooped, beastlike to drink water from the stream,
And quaffed celestial manna from gold goblets."
My mother said, "My son, take out the trash."

"But, but," I said, "what of my lurid tales,
My battles and my witty conversations
With saucy knights, my exploits the bedroom?"
"Yes, yes, my dear, but first, go wash your hands,
Or you may not sit down to sup with company."

Only that night, when I lay down to sleep,
Did she consent to hear my tales of woe,
Of joy, of passion, courage, and survival;
And then she wept full sore, because the son
She loved had been through so much suffering.
Then she did kiss me gently on the cheek
And say, "The places you have been, the conflicts,
The fierce encounters, and the nights of passion,
These places all are marked upon a map;
The map is called The Human Journey.

"So,
Although, my son, you have traversed the world,
And conquered love and death, and grown from child
To man, there is another thing to learn:
Your journey is the journey all men make,
An exploration of the human soul;
And I am still your mother.

"Let me kiss you,
And tomorrow I will bake you a fresh loaf
Give you a new condom and clean clothes,
And you shall venture forth again.

"The journey
Is forever."

The weather has been so beautiful this weekend that despite exhausting myself with ivy pulling yesterday -- yes, I did buy the Cherry Garcia -- I couldn't resist picking up some herbs and seeds and doing some planting today. I needed new work gloves, and broke my vow never to buy women's work gloves again. Village Hardware never has men's gloves in size small, and the work seems so much harder if the gloves are too big. I looked again for a strong pair of women's gloves. They did have one style in heavy leather, but they only had size large. The best pair they had in my size was made out of white leather. White. White work gloves. Is this a joke? What kind of work do they think women do in leather work gloves? Prune the roses? I bought them anyway.

So, I planted some herbs in a couple of large pots outside my front door, and I planted some winter squash seeds alongside the house. Now I have things I must remember to water, but I'm better in the garden than I am in the kitchen -- I have a houseplant that I've had for 17 years -- so I'm optimistic that I'll have herbs right outside the door all summer, and a nice crop of butternut squash at summer's end.

If the universe rewards hard work, I'm going to kick back with my glass of wine and wait for the goods to roll in on freight cars. If no freight cars arrive by tomorrow morning I'll go to Safeway and buy myself a large container of Cherry Garcia. I pulled, raked, and bagged ivy for six hours today. I'm exhausted. I wore out a brand new pair of work gloves--the first and last time I'll ever buy women's work gloves--bah. It hurts to make a fist. The rest of me feels okay since the Advil kicked in. If you knew my place, you would actually notice the change. I didn't finish what I started, but I made good progress.

I cooked for myself tonight, which is something I frequently feel inspired to do and usually regret. I made an Indian dish--Aloo Ghobi. I've made this dish maybe a dozen times, and I've burned it every single time. When it comes to cooking I have attention deficit disorder: if I think I can wait five minutes before stirring something again I sit down with the laptop and twenty minutes later (if I'm lucky) I remember I have something on the stove. I can reliably make pasta and soup and that's about it. Oh, and toast--I can make toast, too. Which is apparently proof that I have sufficient skills to survive. My mother is still in the rest home following her second hip replacement surgery. She's getting occupational therapy, and recently had to demonstrate that she could make toast. If you knew my mother, you'd laugh as hard as I did. If, that is to say, you knew her history regarding toast. My mother has no more patience with cooking than I have.

Yesterday was the spring equinox, celebrated as Ostara, or Eostre. Yesterday was a day of balance; today light won out over darkness. It's all about fertility--color eggs and hide them.

Must. Post. I told a friend and reader that I'd post yesterday, after he emailed asking what was up with the blog. Then I didn't--sorry Lee! It's not that I don't have anything to say. It's just hard to get started again after neglecting it for so long. Here are a bunch of entries that I could have posted recently:

Hurray for Daylight Savings Time.
I love Daylight Savings; I love long evenings. Going on DST every year feels like coming out of a dark tunnel. I feel like I have a life when I come home from work and there are still hours of daylight left. I play outside with the dog every evening, I sit on the porch.

The Devil's Chore.
I spent a couple of hours pulling ivy yesterday. English ivy has metastasized in my yard--it's everywhere. Pulling it out is backbreaking work. Bend, pull, bend, pull, bend, pull, pull, pull so hard that when it gives way I stagger backward. Then bend, pull some more. I filled four large lawn bags and if you don't know where to look you wouldn't know I'd done anything.

Deja vu all over again
Those of you who have been reading this blog for at least a year will know that this time last year I was in Prescott, Arizona, staying with my mother, who had just had hip surgery. Sometime within the next few weeks I'll be going back out there for the same reason. Same surgery, same hip. The joint became infected. They had to go back in, take out the prosthetics, clean it out, and put in new prosthetics. Poor woman! I don't know when, exactly, I'll be going. My mother is in a "rest home" (a lower level of care than is provided in a "nursing home", apparently) getting physical therapy. I'll go out there when they send her home. So, I'll be spending another couple of weeks sitting with my laptop, watching DVDs of movies about brave dogs finding their way back home. The only cool thing about this whole episode? The place she's in right now, the therapy she's getting, they call it "rehab". I get a kick out of telling my son "Grandma's back in rehab."

Ugh--remodeling
I'm having some long-postponed work done on the house. I'm not talking about adding an addition or a gourmet kitchen or a marble bath here; I'm talking about pulling out 18-year-old carpet in the basement family room, and the vinyl tile under it, and the asbestos tile under that, sealing a drain in the floor (!?) properly, and putting in a "floating" engineered hardwood floor. The basement has never flooded, but before I had the backyard graded a couple of years ago the carpet became wet several times during heavy rains. And then we got a puppy, and, well, you get the picture. It was downright unhealthy. The basement is really more of a "downstairs" than a basement, since the house is on a slight hill and you walk out from the basement into the garage. The downstairs family room is where the TV and computer are, so it's where we spend most of our time.

Remodeling, cont.
And, at the same time, I'm finally getting the kitchen remodeled. The main portion of this house was built in 1950, when houses were divided into small rooms. This house had a small square kitchen and a small square dining room. At some point, probably in 1965 when an addition was built that added a new living room and dining area, the wall between the kitchen and the old dining room was taken out (mostly). The two rooms still had separate flooring (more 18-year-old carpet in the dining room), and in no way looked like one "big" kitchen. Now it will. It's not a major remodel--all the appliances will stay where they are, but the floor and cabinets will be new.

Formica makes some nice-looking laminate countertops
Let this forever be remembered as the Formica economy, as opposed to the granite economy of the past decade. Which brings me to...

Retirement? What's that?
*sigh* Back in March of 2000 it looked like I'd be able to retire by the time I was 60. Today, I have less than half the retirement savings I had then, not bothering to account for inflation, even, and I'm nine years closer to 60. Today, I can't foresee a time when I'll be able to retire. There are things I want to do: meditation retreats, volunteer tourism, riding camels in the desert, and so on. I decided this year that I'd have to find a way to do it all while I'm still employed, which means saving up the leave that I accrue at a rate of 24 days a year. The company I work for doesn't have sick leave or family leave or any of that--we get "comprehensive leave" which is supposed to cover it all. So 24 days may sound like a lot but it doesn't feel like much; I mostly use it up a day at a time for this and that. I made a New Year's resolution to save up leave until I had a month, then I'd go to Africa and volunteer at one of these places. Then my mother had hip surgery again. I have 11 days of leave accrued right now, and I'll spend 10 days of it with her. So it goes.

I am so on top of things this year. I mailed packages in time for them to arrive by Christmas. I've finished my Christmas shopping and wrapping. And I sent out Christmas cards a full four days before Christmas. I even wrote a short Christmas letter again this year, and printed it on Christmas stationery.

I despised Christmas letters until I started writing them myself a few years after my husband died. I was prompted by the thought that there were a few people, my husband's former colleagues, who might be interested in knowing that Michael and I are doing okay. I realized last year that I was sending cards to some of them long before receiving cards from them. I was getting cards in mid-January, which can mean that they hadn't planned to keep me on their list, but felt obligated to respond after hearing from me.

Assuming they were genuinely concerned right after my husband died (three weeks before Christmas, 1999), enough years have gone by for my son to have graduated from high school, then college, so there is no longer any need for concern; no need to keep the memory of the whole tragic episode alive. And yet... any widow can probably tell you that at the funeral, there's this sort of reception line, like a wedding but not. Everyone comes and hugs you and says "If there's anything I can do, let me know."

It's just words. I mean seriously, do you think I could have called one of my husband's colleagues and said hey, I need someone to mow my lawn, how about it? If you do ask someone for help or advice, the answer boils down to "Pay for it." A dozen people told me to hire an attorney (including the friend who is an attorney, who wouldn't answer my tax-related questions himself), which I eventually did. But having said it, having said "If there's anything I can do..." placed a burden on the conscience, I suppose, that they will carry until I lift it.

So I cut back the list this year. I sent a whopping ten cards: six to relatives, three to friends, and one to the only colleague of my husband's whose card, and letter, arrive well before Christmas every year. The rest of them--the ones I dropped off the list--may well feel a tiny weight lifted from their shoulders when they realize they haven't heard from me this year.

Holly, bayberries, mistletoe, evergreens, wreaths, yule logs, these are just a few of the symbols of Yule, also known as Feill Fionnain. The colors of Yule are red and green, for fire and rebirth. Tonight is the longest night; light many candles. The days begin to grow longer tomorrow, huzzah.

Atrios mentioned this map on the New York Times website. Click on "voting shifts" to see which counties voted more democratic and which more republican compared to past elections. The most interesting comparison is with 2004, and I'm sure Atrios was looking at this map when he said "the geographic concentration is pretty fascinating." Almost the entire country is blue (disregard McCain's own state of Arizona) with the exception of what Atrios called the "conservative belt". I doubt if conservative economic or foreign policy has anything to do with it: it's mostly Appalacia and the Ozarks. It's puzzling, though, that so many Gulf Coast counties were redder this time around. Did Katrina drive the democratic population out, leaving the republicans who lived on higher ground behind?

We shall overcome.