Porky blasting

SO, MONDAY morning I get up and get dressed for work.  Work in my situation can involve anything from getting called out in the field to inspect a sewer overflow, to meeting with members of the City Council or other government officials, or merely sitting in the office holding down my chair for eight hours, so as you can imagine, getting dressed appropriately is sometimes a dicey proposition.  Not too fancy, not too casual.  It's a hard line to straddle.  If I know I'm going out and about, I'm usually in jeans and a nice-ish couple of layers (think LL Bean), and I wear my trusty work boots (most comfy footwear in the world).  If I have a scheduled meeting, I'm in my blazer and a pair of slacks.  And once in a while, usually on the days I've designated "Uncasual Fridays", I'll slip back into one of my nice skirts or dresses, just to remind myself that I'm still a woman.  Never underestimate the power of a pair of heels to rule the world!!

So  Monday, thinking that it was going to be one of those hang-out-on-the-puter all day days, since it was in that awful tweener-week in the valley between two major holidays, when every SANE person has thought to put in for the week off and the place looks like a ghost town, I split the difference, threw on my jeans and a pair of loafers, figuring that confort reigned.  Alas, that is just tempting the fashion fates.

I had one sip from my cup of coffee and was settling comfortably into checking my work email favorite blog sites and filling out my timesheet seeing if there was a new Dilbert strip when the phone rang.  It was my maintenance supervisor, J.   J is my cohort in our maintenance office; while I handle the paperwork and the bureaucracy, J handles the day to day operation of our utility.  He's the one who schedules the street crews to plow snow, or lay deicer, or, as today, "other duties as assigned". 

"So, do you have the handheld GPS unit ready for the guys to come pick up?"

Say what??  I look over at the GPS unit, sitting on my desk.  It's charged and ready, but nobody's had the chance to play with it to make sure we knew how to use it since we purchased it this summer.  I knew we were going to need it in a few weeks, since we always go out to do outfall inspections in mid-January, so I've scheduled a time to tackle this chore next week.  "Today?"

"Yeah," J says.  "There's been no snow and things are slow up here, so I'm going to send the guys out on outfall inspections this morning.  They're going to be down in a few minutes to pick it up."

This sends me scrambling. I normally go with the guys and do all the paperwork and take annual photos, but my boots are still in my nice warm closet at home.  I have my coveralls, but with these fancy little loafers, I'd slide like a greased penguin down the frozen lakebanks that we have to scale to get to the outfalls.  I look forward to this inspection time, but this time I have to take a pass.  The guys come down to my office, and we muddle our way through figuring out the GPS unit.  I hand them the clipboard, teach them how to fill out the inspection forms, and send them on their way. 

In the afternoon, I get another call.  It's J again.  He's sending the guys back down to bring the GPS unit back.  Evidently one of them slipped and fell down a bank and hit a key on the way down, so they've rendered it useless, since nobody knew how to get back to the main menu.  Clearly we need to have more time to work with this piece of equipment. 

"By the way," J says "They didn't get very far.  There's a porky in the very first line.  D bent over to straighten the grate in front, and something hissed at him.  We're going to borrow the flush truck from the Sewer department tomorrow and go in and flush him out."

"I want to come!" I say immediately, sensing a fun and exciting adventure.  I make him promise to call me when they are on their way out.

TUESDAY

I get a call from J telling me they will be ready to meet on site at 1 p.m. after everyone gets back from lunch.  I suit up in my insulated coveralls and race out to the site, camera in hand.  When I get there, J and two of his crew are there, plus Daisy from the Sewer Department with the flush truck.  Daisy is the only woman in her department, and she's an absolute sweetie.  She gives me a grin and a shout hello as she drops her flush hose into the catch basin grate upstream of the outfall. 

For the unfamiliar, a catch basin is the storm grate you normally see at the curb on the street.  It takes runoff water from the streets and drains it via a pipe to wherever you want it to go.  In this case, this one goes under someone's yard and out to an outfall: an open ended pipe that discharges water into the lake. 

The pic to the left is the outfall to the lake.  This one has a 10" pipe and a concrete hood around the mouth that keeps the flow from eroding the bank where it comes out.  Typically these concrete hoods have a grate over them to keep debris and animals from getting into the pipe and blocking flow.  Here, the grate has been malfunctioning, allowing Mr. Porky to move in.  You can see porcupine poop all around the mouth of the structure.  They have an elongated scat pellet similar to a deer.  Looks like this guy has been here a while - this is the inspection pic from last winter's inspection, although he wasn't home when we looked at it last.

As the guys and I cluster around the outfall (but not too close!), D turns on her hose about a quarter of the way.  In this pic, I am standing uphill, so you can barely see the outfall hidden in the grass.  It's to the left of that rebar hoop.

We see the water beginning to come out of the hole, but after a few minutes, it becomes evident that it isn't sufficient to evict Mr. Porky.  J shouts up to Daisy to turn er up a notch.  

She turns the pressure up about halfway, and we begin to see porky butt, but this guy is holding on tight (how can he hold his breath that long??)  J tells her to turn it up again, full blast.

She cranks the pressure up all the way and finally he begins to emerge, the water pressure pushing him to the edge of the outfall.  The water is hitting him in the face and jetting upward, splashing out about fifteen feet into the lakebed below.  He wavers, clutches onto the concrete for dear life, and digs in.

After a few minutes of this, though, he's had it.  He lets go and backs away to catch his breath.  We've got him now.   The guys warn each other not to get too close, because we don't know what he'll do.  One of J's guys jumps in with the shovel and bangs on the concrete.  "Shoo!"  He tells the porky.  "Go on now!"

Mr. Porky has had enough of us.  He moves slowly off to the side a few feet and into the base of a nearby tree.  He is truly the most pathetic looking creature I've seen in my life.  He sits there absolutely soaked, looking back at us as if to say "I hate you guys..."  There's no menacing attack; he's sodden and shivering and miserable.     While Daisy shuts down the truck and comes down to join us, the guys work on getting the grate fixed and bolted back into place.  The porky sits in the crotch of the tree and watches us.  Both Daisy and I feel sorry for him, having to find a new place to live in the middle of the winter, and sopping wet to boot, but it can't be helped. 

While the guys work on their stuff, I sneak around on the lakebed and take a pic of Mr. Porky from the backside, where I can get a better shot.  He turns around to look at me after a while.  He or she is a pretty good sized beast - I hadn't realized they were actually that big.

Eventually he decides that we're too much trouble, shakes himself off, and begins to amble away down the lakeshore.  Standing on the lakebed, I get a few more good shots.  I am surprised by its nonchalance - it really doesn't seem much afraid of us, despite what we've just done.

As the guys gather up their shovels, the porky shuffles off into the underbrush.  At times like these I"m glad I don't speak porcupine, because I'm sure he was cussing us out all the way!

When I got back to the office, I read up on porcupines.  It turns out that they have great longevity, so the scat we have been finding for the last several years in this outfall was probably his/hers.  I hope it finds a new den quickly and is able to cover for the winter and recover from its dousing.  I feel bad about having to evict it from what was probably a really nice warm den, but when snowmelt occurs, the flooding upstream can be a big problem. 

It's not every day that we have exciting days at work, and it's not everyone that can say that they spent their day porky blasting!  Today it's back to tackling the foot high stack of paperwork that needs filing that I've been procrastinating all year long.  I'll be just waiting for the next call, when I can zip up my coveralls, hop into my truck, and jet off on another STORMWATER ADVENTURE!

12 Questions That Will Change Your Life

Will this quiz change my life?  Let's see.....

Original article, http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/articlerb.aspx?cp-documentid=22782071


1. How do I spend my alone time?

Alone time comes very seldom, so I cherish it and use it very selfishly on things that please me and make my soul smile.  You can nearly always find me in one of a few places:  on the laptop, writing, painting, or just drabbling.  Reading a book (preferably in the bathtub, or in my comfy chair, weenie curled up beside me, with a hot cup of great coffee).  Or catching up on one of the many little projects that I always have going (painting a room is one of my favorite occupations!).

2. Do I pay attention to what my body needs?

I like to think so, but I know it's not always true.  Sometimes it's more like "Yeah, body - I hear you, but I need to finish this right now."  I eat convenient, mostly, and not always well, and I will forgo sleep in the interest of completing something that I've started.  However, my body always tells me about it, usually in the form of a migraine, which stops me in my tracks and forces me to do the things I should have done all along.

An odd note on this one is my love/hate relationship with my partial hysterectomy ten years ago.  Yes, it's wonderful nice (and convenient!) not to have a period anymore.  No more week filled with inconveniences and migraines, no more messy and expensive supplies to buy.  But I find that being period-free is somehow lacking.  I don't have that week anymore - that week that my body whispers to me "Slow down.  Rest up.  Draw inward, and care for me". 

I miss the heaviness of my body during that week, that softness and fullness.  The physical reminder that my small cycle was part of some larger, more important cycle.  During that week I typically stayed in more, moved less, became introspective and moodier - a big old round gravid moon, silent and beneficent.  Even the cramping seemed to have purpose, as if in rehearsal for a grander event.  My period was the monthly test of the Emergency Broadcast System - "This is a test.  This is only a test.  If this had been an actual pregnancy, this test would have been followed by a baby." 

It was a week built not for the outside world, but only for me.  That week does not exist anymore.  I have no excuse.  It almost makes you long for a cold, just to take that sick day, to stay wrapped in comfort and warmth and feed your body the very best things and listen to the slow tick of the clock rather than the frenetic motion of the outside world.  I miss it.

3. To whom am I grateful?

I am grateful for B, for replacing the funhouse mirror that I have used all my life with the one he sees me in, where I am OK after all.  

I am grateful to my kids for making me live rather than just exist.  For challenging my viewpoints rather than just swallowing them.  They make me THINK, and clarify my worldview and all that I hold important.  Every important thing in the world that I have ever done I have done for them.

I am grateful to work for giving me the chance to prove that I could do what no woman before me here had done: succeed in the mens' arena, and shine.

I am grateful, more than any other thing in the world, to God, for this life and all that is in it.  Thanks for never giving up on me, ever, even when I was giving up on myself.  May I be worthy.

4. Do I compare my life to other people's?

Ugh.  Yeah.  (Who doesn't?)  Too much, I think.  I want to be like my friends, who have church families and scads of close friends, who seem to be gadding about everywhere all the time doing fun things together.  I want to go off on all the vacations I hear about all over my Facebook page, just once. 

I want to be like the "Safeway ladies", the ones always in front of me in the checkout lines, four inches taller, perfectly coiffed, looking like they stepped from the pages of Vogue or Town and Country as they do their shopping.  I wonder how they look so perfect all the time:  perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect clothes, perfect smiles.  I get my hair done and for a shining hour or two after the salon I look great.  The next day, the perfect haircut looks just like my own, with a few pieces standing every which way and the cowlick behind that flips out.  *sigh*  I wish I were comfortable in my own skin.  Of all the deadly sins, envy is my worst.

5. Do I spend money on things that speak to my soul?

Mostly I spend money on bills and necessities, but occasionally I buy something that speaks to my soul.  There were two chairs at the furniture store recently, mismatched but beautiful, deeply discounted because they were onesies.  Both were in that deep rich wood that I love so much, with gorgeous fabric seats and deeply tooled details (one with wrought metal accents).  I bought them and took them home, where they please me every time I look at them.  No, I didn't need them (although I needed a place for B to lay his clothes at night, there were other cheaper options), but they tie the room together and make me feel rich in spirit.  That alone was worth their price.

I painted a wall - one wall - yesterday that had the same effect.  Paint is not a necessity.  Paint is love.  I could not live in a world bereft of beauty, and I have a need to create it wherever I go.  I don't always have the money I'd like to do what I want, but I usually make it happen by finding a cheaper way.

6. What do I see when I look in the mirror each morning?
Just plain old me.  I actually have grown fond of this old face.  It's taken years and years, but I think I'm okay.  I love my eyes, even though they (and my nose) are my father's.  I see the high cheekbones and strong jawline of my mother, and the 'i-want' frown lines between my brows and the smile brackets that are my own.  I see that I'm twenty pounds too heavy and that the cellulite is aggravating, but the curves are still curvy and they light B's eyes.  I'm trying my best to see what he sees.  Slowly, it's working.

7. Have I figured out a way to handle the less-than-perfect relationships in my life?
I think so, but this is a very recent development.  I have decided to say "no" to the things that are toxic, and to set some boundaries.  More on that later.  It is an ongoing struggle, made easier because what is at home is so wonderful and so fulfilling that I no longer need the approval and opinions of these toxic people in order to survive.  Slowly, I am working to build those healthy walls so that what we have created is not threatened.

8. Do I have faith in something bigger than I am, whether it's God or some other spiritual form
Yes.  My only sorrow is that I can't seem to pull my spiritual life and my home life together as well as I would like.  And I wish I'd worked harder on bringing my kids up in a spiritual way.
 
9. What positive things do I bring to relationships with my husband, my kids, my friends?
I'm an organizer.  I always have the things everyone else forgets.  I think ahead.  And I never forget to say "I love you". 

I don't know what else.  It's hard to think of good things to say about yourself.  I always feel like "I just do what needs to be done."  Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

10. Is there a space in my home to do the things I love (paint, practice yoga, play cards with friends)?
I usually just find a space.  B has carved me out a corner of the office now where we can sit side by side as I work on the puter, where he can play Bejeweled and I can paint.  It's great.


11. How many hours a week do I spend on my computer, my TV, my BlackBerry?
Ouch.  A LOT.  But a lot of my 'me-time' is on the puter as well, as is my work. Does that count??

I text a lot, but that's the best way I have of keeping touch with my kids as they're off and running about.  I think it makes our relationship stronger. 

12. Do I feel older or younger than my years? How often do I feel good about being exactly the age I am?
The morning after we got the Wii I felt WAAAAAY older than my years!   LOL  But truly in many ways I feel much younger than my years.  I'll always be 20 in my head: somewhat naive, wondering, awestruck by life.  Somewhat off balance next to those supremely confident people like B, always a half step off.  I'm the stumbler, the fumbler, the bumbling bubbly redheaded bimbo.  B and I laugh at my misadventures all the time, and he calls me fondly "Lucy".  But I'm okay with that, because he loves me.  And more importantly, as I have come to understand very slowly and with no small degree of struggle, I love myself.

The best laid plans

WELL, SO MUCH for the concert idea.

We took the half day so that we could have some time to get there early and do some shopping.  Realistically, what that REALLY meant was that we came home early and took a NAP!  ;-)  One of those blessed, long deep ones, about an hour and a half of bliss.  It was hard to get up and go.

We set off about 2:30 and got out of town about 3, once we'd made a few stops.  It's an hour and a half drive to the big city from our little town, and we wanted to be able to stop at Costco and do some last minute shopping before the concert.  The tickets I bought were at the will-call window, and we wanted to leave enough time as well to be able to go through the line.  I had a really weird feeling in the pit of my stomach as we left town, but I wrote it off to the seafood dip from our buffet lunch earlier at work. 

The dashboard thermometer read 33 degrees when we headed out.  It was foggy, but not terribly bad.  The weather report said fog all the way, but we figured if it looked like it did at home, we were home free.  The miles passed, and gradually we became aware that the thermometer seemed to be moving along with the miles. 

31...30....29...  The tumbleweeds from last week's windstorm, blown up against the barb wire fences and the wheatfield circles, were glistening with hoarfrost.  Our attempts at chitchat seemed to close in as the fog did. 

28...27....  The fog got deeper the further we went.  Big semi trucks were slowing down.  The cars that passed us threw up no road spray.  It became apparent that the fog was freezing on the road instead.  My unease deepened, and I looked over at B.  He was intent on his driving, and he frowned.

"How much did you pay for those tickets?"  He said finally.  We were about an hour into a drive that should have taken us thirty minutes.  The turnoff to Highway 17 which marked the middle leg of the route was coming up in a few miles. 

"Not enought that I'd risk my life for them."  I said.  We looked up at the thermometer again.  "It's really been dropping."

"Holy crap..." he said, watching the numbers change.  "It was 29 a minute ago."  We watched it turn from 27 to 25. 

He took the turnoff, white knuckling as a braver soul in an SUV rode our rear down the off ramp.  Luckily, we were able to stop at the intersection at the bottom.  "I'll just go up to the next little town and see."  He said.

As we pressed on it just got thicker.  By the time he got close to town, you couldn't see much beyond the car.  We pulled off the road in a parking lot and sat to regroup.  The what-ifs loomed.  What if we didn't make it to the city?  What if we made it to the city, and then had to come home at midnight?  Did we really think it would be better at midnight?  And there was a long stretch of road ahead of us in a steep canyon to go. 

We looked at each other.  "Let's go home." 

I called the box office and found out what I knew - that the tickets were non-refundable.  The lady at the ticket counter said that the show was sold out, and that I could give them to someone who could come.  I told her no one in our town would want to make the same drive (especially this late) and to go ahead and make someone's day.  "Give them to someone who is looking for tickets."  I said.  I thought later that I should have told her "And tell them 'Merry Christmas'." 

Almost immediately when we turned around I felt better.  Something was telling us not to go.  We lost a hundred dollars, which was to be our joint Christmas present, but the way I look at it, I could have lost a lot more by insisting we make it to a silly concert.  I'm very, very happy that B feels comfortable enough to speak up out loud.  "I guess I'm just the chicken."  He joked, but for that I am very, very grateful.  Too many men would allow their pride and testosterone to press the issue, and to what end?  He is not a risk-taker.  He is a thinker, and for that I love him.

We came back to town and had a wonderful dinner out to celebrate instead.  Then we went home and put on our jammies and had a fire in the fireplace.  I think whatever it was bothered the girl too.  She was visibly relieved to see us home, even though she said if she were in our place she would have gone.  I told her "At my age, I've learned what's valuable and what isn't.  I no longer feel like I am bulletproof." 

Later that night as she was going to bed she said "I'm glad you came home.  I don't like it when you guys aren't here." 

I know what she means.  Yep, I'm a mother hen.  I don't feel whole unless we are all present and accounted for.  The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.  I can't think of a single thing in life- no concert, no event, no experience, no possession, that I would trade for one of my family members.  There will be other concerts.  I want to make sure we are there for them.

Christmas miracle

This is your Christmas miracle story for the day, but I have to keep it quiet. I had to tell someone, since I can't tell B yet.

Christmas is light this year, since we bought a house and had several unexpected things come up (B's daughter's wedding out of state, the girl's medical crisis). I was worried about it, and about bills that, while they were getting paid, weren't getting paid very fast.

This morning my HR guy came to see me.   He's one of those guys that you never want to see coming - it usually doesn't mean good news.  He had a rolled-up sheet of paper in his hand.  It looked like something official.  My pulse went up about twenty points as he came in and sat down.  "I have something I need to talk to you about." he said.   My mind raced.  Yesterday I had a migraine, and spent most of my work day with my overhead lights shut off and the monitors turned down low.  I figured he was here to talk to me either about the fact that my leave was perilously low, or that people thought I was gone since the office was dark.  I thought fast, meaning to tell him that I was here despite feeling miserable, and if anyone had complained about my lights being off and the office looking a bit unconventional, well, that's what it took to make sure I was able to be here working rather than home in bed.

"I heard you weren't feeling good yesterday."  he said.  "Want me to make you feel better?" 

I sat back in my chair, nonplussed.  He's never been my best friend, and I couldn't imagine why he would come to exchange pleasantries.  I watched him unroll the paper, and wondered why he was suddenly the one who looked uncomfortable. 

It turned out the story was this: 

Last April I got moved into my new postion at work. When you move into a new position, you have to go through a year of probation all over again, just as if you were a new hire, and you're at what they call "B step" for pay - which is a percentage of the full rate for the job. When your year of probation is up, your supervisor makes an evaluation, files a paper with HR indicating department approval, and you get moved up to "A step" - the full rate.  It's called 'getting the bump'. 

I'll back up.  This year has been SO busy and SO crazy between work and home that I did not even remember that April 13 was my anniversary date. Evidently neither did my supervisor, nor the HR guy, so no one put in for my bump. It was discovered on an end-of-the year audit (I suspect).  He was extremely apologetic, and not sure how it had happened, but made certain to assure me that it was remedied now - the paper in his hand was my official department approval notice - and that I would be getting my raise retroactively on the next check. 

Our next payday is Christmas Eve. On that payday, I get all of my bump differential retroactive to April 13 (about $1.06 per hour). 

GOD IS GOOD. And prayer works. Believe it.

I am SO overwhelmed right now. B and I will be going out tonight to the nearby 'big city' to see Mannheim Steamroller.  It's our joint Christmas present, and we've been looking forward to it for weeks - a night out just for us two. I think I'm going to tell him then.  I'm having a hard time believing it this morning. 

 

God bless all of you, my friends.  May your Christmas miracle be right around the corner, whatever it is that you've prayed for and needed badly. 

 

And the flip side

And because I feel like there's been so much gloom and doom in the last few months, here is the other side of the coin (because every coin has two):

I am thankful that my daughter has turned her life around in the past two years, from wandering aimlessly, partying, and blowing off school, to taking an incredible class load in her junior and senior years so that she could catch up and compete.  I am thankful that not only did she take several Advanced Placement classes, but she took the tests and passed with '5's - the highest grades possible - which means for every class and test it's five more credits of college that she doesn't have to take.  I am thankful that that will mean almost a year of college that she will be ahead when she goes.  I am thankful that she finally dropped the loser boyfriend that threatened to follow her to college (and run her life).  I am thankful for all her help around the house.  She is truly my right-hand-woman, and I trust her judgment in household matters as much as I trust my own.  I am thankful that she has become a good role model for her brother, and tries to help him out.

I am thankful that my son has become an incredible young man, all 6'2" of him!  (And I'm still trying to figure out where he came from - I am 5'3 and he can rest his chin on my head when I hug him.)  I am thankful for his hugs, which mean the world to me; those unselfconscious and spontaneous displays of affection.  I am thankful for the man he is becoming - his thoughtfulness and kindness, his loyalty and fearlessness.  I am thankful for his quick wit and intelligence, and the way he makes me laugh.  I am proud of the way he's thrown himself into his hobby - weightlifting - and the discipline and persistence he's shown in achieving his goals.  I am blessed by the knowledge that if ever someone in his family needed him, he would be there.

I am incredibly thankful that my kids have embraced B and accepted him, despite the way things began so awkwardly.  We are very blessed that most of the time this place does not feel like a *step* family, but just a family.  We laugh and chat over the dinner table, even if some of the conversation is NSFW!  I am thankful for the opportunity to have this beautiful home, and the way it's beginning to look not just as if we are squatting here but that we LIVE here, with all of our personalities shining through.  I am thankful for the damdogs too - the obnoxious, whiny, barky, bossy weenie, who thinks I gave birth to her and without whom I would have no replacement-baby to hold close to my heart (and no little head tucked sweetly  under my chin), and the Charlotte dog, who persistently packs my stinky ol slippers around the house with her (and sleeps with them in her bed!) so she can be close to me.

I have a car that runs, a great job with a secure future and good bennies, and a house in the nice section of town.  I am (mostly) healthy, and still have all of my immediate family, even if some of us are further away than others.  We have enough to eat, pay our bills, and still have a little bit of fun, even if vacations aren't on the radar. 

And I have the privelege of waking in the morning with my best friend beside me, softly breathing, with his leg thrown securely over mine, knowing that he will be there at the coffeepot, bringing me the paper and letting me read the funnies first.  He'll be there in the shower, to laugh at me when I drop the soap and to wash my back where I can't reach it.  He'll be there at work, to solve a problem or to give me a new perspective, and to eat lunch with.  He will be there at home, just in the next room, if I need him.  He will be there when I am hurting, when I am filled with joy, when I am frightened, when I am sad.  He will be here when the kids are flown. 

God willing, he will be here until the day I breathe the last.  That's all I can hope for, and all the more I wish - that our number of days fall close on the calendar.  I am a lucky woman, and I need to remember that.

Holiday blues, or something else?

I AM officially tired of Facebook.  I am tired of Lolcats.  I am tired of the newspaper, the TV, the little dog's incessant crying and the big dog's earnest neediness as she sits for hours staring at my face.  I am tired of kids who need picked up from their girlfriend's house at nine o'clock at night after I am warm and settled in my pj's because they were *absolutely certain* before they went that they had a ride home.  I am tired of the incessant ups and downs of work things, which seem to intrude on our home lives because they are too big for the work box.  I am tired of painting Christmas windows, which became a huge obligation to everyone in four different buildings after the first couple of fun little freebies I did just as a lark.  I am tired (and I feel OH so guilty for saying this) that B's daughter calls every single night for her evening chat just as we sit down to dinner, because she is at work and is bored. 

I am tired of my family, who disapproves of so many things that I do with my life and the way my children look.  I am tired of the skeletons who fall out of my closets at the most inopportune moments, just when I relax and try to draw a breath (and why does those skeletons always revolve around fathers, whether my own or my kids'?).  I am tired of my friends that jet off to Bermuda and the Bahamas and Hawaii and on cruises, just on a whim, when I can't afford to go on a simple camping trip.  I am tired of my capricious tummy, with its GERD and tempermentality.  I am tired of fighting with my boss to do the things that we both know need to get done, because he just doesn't want to be unpopular. 

I'm tired of being tired.  Of getting to bed so late at night that all we do is fall into it and out of sensibility, with not much conversation or cuddle.  Of the pain in our various joints that means we can only lie one way comfortably. 

I am tired of the Christmas pressure, and parties, and gifts, and command appearances with family.  Of expectations that are grander than my budget, and no reduction in the needs of daily life to compensate.  I am spread as thin as a sheet of rice paper, and I.......AM........TIRED.

B and I finally broke down tonight and talked about it, all this hubbub and chaos and crisis and whirl.  It's not good for him, and it's not good for us.  I told him that even when these kids are gone (and at 16 and 18, they are precious close to having their own lives separate from ours), we must have an *us* to rely on.  If we don't nurture our own relationship now, we can't expect it to support us later.  When we're going fifteen different directions at once, too often when we get a moment's peace it's down to him in the office, typing on the computer, and me in the living room, surfing Facebook.  Sure, we need some down time.  But there has to be some *us* time too.  In fact, there MUST be some us time.  I won't let us lose us in the commotion.

We are both feeling unmoored and adrift at this holiday season, one half step removed from the other half of our souls.  We are used to moving in tandem, and this disconnect is painful and confusing.  We must get back what we let slip.  The world will go on without us.

A - HOORAY - MEN, SISTER.

From Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project blog

Interview with Aunt Becky,” a/k/a Becky Sherrick Harks from Mommy Wants Vodka. 

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?

We've all been dealt some pretty crappy cards in life at one point or another. I am the product of two alcoholics, and my childhood was not exactly a Norman Rockwell painting, if you can imagine it. But we can all walk around with a big red VICTIM painted on our forehead, expecting people to tiptoe around our feelings and give us special dispensation for our VICTIM status, or we can dust ourselves off, accept that it sucked pretty hard and move on.

The people who have the VICTIM on their foreheads are the ones that I see that are in a cycle of unhappiness because they're always blaming other people. It's hard to get over, I know. I know.
We all have skeletons in our closets. We might as well pull them out and make 'em dance.

L....M....A....O

Ok, so you had to see the widget. That is too too funny. This house is firmly on Team Jacob, thanks to the girl. She did the midnight showing and said it was FAB.

We are both firmly in agreement that TL's ABS are fab. LOL But that just makes me feel like a pervert. I found the widget on someone else's blog today and couldn't resist.

Growing up

AS IF we didn't have enough to deal with in the past year, I had that crazy email from earlier this week.  Said email was from my biological father, from the rehab center/institiution he has been a patient in for the past several months.  Suffice to say that I have not had a lot of contact with him over the past forty years (I could count all of them all on one hand, and most have been less than satisfying and have involved either listening to his litany of all the reasons why the whole world is against him, or him asking to borrow money), and this communication was less than a welcome surprise.

I will say in my defense that I have made several attempts to reconcile and get to know him, but the more I get to know him, the less is there to respect.  I think he's a man with a lot of problems, and I'm sorry for that.  I hope he can get help.

I also know that he's a convicted criminal with a mandatory lifetime reporting requirement.  I know some parts of that story, and frankly, I do not wish to know the rest.

His email involved his desire to 'tell me the long story of his life and all the reasons'. 

I am nothing to this man but something he did as a Senior in High School, and a casual acquaintance with whom he's spent some conversation.  And we share some chromosomes.  I do not bear him any ill will.  I also do not owe him any absolution for what he has done to others.  As far as I am concerned, his crimes are not against me.

I had a chat with my counselor yesterday, because I did not know how to handle his request for a reply to his email.  He confirmed what I already know.  I have come a long, long way in the past few years.  My life is wonderful.  I could never have imagined how incredible this life could be.  My family is cohesive, strong and loving.  I am doing well at work.  I have the love and support of a wonderful man.  Why would I open this Pandora's box filled with worms, by choice?

The answer is, I wouldn't.

I deleted the email.  May God forgive me for not trying to reconcile again, but I am not strong enough to invite this toxicity, this madness, into our safe and secure little world.  This is our LIFE, and I will not allow anyone to harm it.

I am the mother I always wanted to have for myself.  I finally found the man who is the father I wish I'd had.  And my children are thriving in this family, this fertile soil.  I'm watching them grow; like beanstalks in the night it seems like they've gained feet and feet of progress overnight.  I feel like finally I have something to be proud of.  Will they carry dysfunction into their future lives and families, or will they continue the cycle-breaking that I have begun?  Only time will tell.

We are growing up.

No more blasts from the past

I GOT an email from someone yesterday and I'm still trying to make sense of it.  Just when we'd come through the long dark tunnel of our own drama, and were feeling somewhat solid.  B's daughter and her new husband visited last week, we had a nice short week filled with a lot of family and love, and a really nice big family dinner on Saturday night.  Our other daughter is finally doing better with her blood clots and has swung seamlessly back into school.  Things were feeling pretty darn good.

And then an email, uninvited, loaded.  Out of the blue.  Kicking the legs right out from under me.

It is going to take a lot of support and strength to face this one.  Thank God B understands, and does not love me any less for the insanity of my family.  I don't know how I'm going to cope with hearing from this person out of the blue, who seems to want to rehash some long and ugly miles of the past.  I have worked a long time to climb out of the mud and into the sunshine, and I am very proud (and very happy!) with where I am today.  I am so very blessed.

But Pandora has laid a rather large and stinky egg in my inbox, and I have to deal with it somehow.  The subject of the next few weeks of self-reflection and prayer will be what I do with it.  Do I answer?  Do I ignore it?  Do I have a Christian obligation to smile and let him dump a steaming load of self-pity and excuses on me in the name of family blood? 

Do I owe this man absolution?

Forever

On the front page this morning:

Surprising Signs You’ll Live to 100

From what you eat to how you live, it is the little things you do that add years to your life.

By Sandra Gordon

You're In a Drama-Free Marriage or Relationship

"Good interpersonal relationships act as a buffer against stress," says Micah Sadigh, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Cedar Crest College. Knowing you have people who support you keeps you healthy, mentally and physically. Chronic stress weakens the immune system and ages cells faster, ultimately shortening life span by 4 to 8 years, according to one study. Not just any person will do, however. "You need friends you can talk to without being judged or criticized," says Sadigh.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100247017&imageindex=1

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I had a dream last night.   

I was a young woman.  I was walking around the countryside, an apparent 'drifter', when I came upon a man working at the side of the road.  He seemed to be an average sort of man.  I could not see his face. 

He was methodically shoveling straw into a huge ditch.  I stopped to watch, drawn by his large yellow dog who was lying at the side of the ditch.  The friendly sort; I squatted to make his acquaintance and he licked my hand, which made the man smile. 

"What are you doing?"  I asked the man, and he proceeded to show me.  With careful hands he filled the ditch with straw, then let it fill with water, building a matrix.  As I watched him work and listened to the slow rhythms of his speech, I was hypnotized.  I felt suffused with a calm and a sense of grounding that I had never felt before. 

He continued to work on his project, and after a while I picked up a shovel to help out.  He guided my hands, showing me where to place each piece in order to build a strong base.  I placed the straw while he moved to another pile, beginning to shovel steaming asphalt hot mix into the trough.  It steamed and hissed when it hit the water, solidifying almost instantly.  Together, shovelful by shovelful, we filled the great gaping hole until it was gone, his diligence and care smoothing the surface until you could not see that a hole had ever existed there.  All the while the yellow dog lay contented on the grass, smiling at us.

I knew only that I must follow this man, to wherever he might travel next.  I lay down my shovel and turned to him to really see him.  His eyes met mine, and I was amazed; he was not plain, he was beautiful.  When he smiled, it was as if his whole face broke into radiant light, and I could not tear my eyes away from his. 

I reached out to touch his arm, marveling at how like his body was to mine, like an iteration of myself built only one size larger and stronger.  His skin was sunkissed, warm and fragrant.  Silently he lay me down in the long soft grass, while the sun shone down and idle clouds rippled across the sky.  When our bodies joined, I saw birds wheel slowly in the air, and then I closed my eyes and saw him, only him. 

I woke then, and he was awake, smiling at me in that way he has, the smile-lines around his beautiful blue eyes spread out like the rays of the sun.  He rolled me over into his arms, and I pressed my cheek close against the soft skin of his shoulder, breathing him.  It was right, it was secure, there were no holes.  I gave thanks, again I gave thanks.  I felt like the morning was endless, and that we could lie there in the warm covers, lie there in the warm grass, forever and ever. 

O, we will live forever.

The Chair

THIS week has been a week filled with lessons.  It's hard to take a moment to sit and put a thought on paper, because there has not been many moments to myself all week long.  I almost hate to waste one, as there is so many other things that need to be done.  Laundry is piling up, the counters are covered with dishes and mail, the cat's surgery got cancelled, and the carpet needs shampooed where the dog had fun drinking a leftover caramel frappucino.  Beginning Tuesday morning, our life as we knew it has been on hold. 

Friday, August 28:  Our daughter got a long-scheduled surgery to correct the bunion and stabilize her foot on the left side.  We did the left one so that she could still drive to school.  She wanted to wait till the end of summer, since she had a concert festival to attend in August and wanted to finish out her summer job.  This was to be the first of two, carefully scheduled.  The first in August, then eight weeks of recovery, then the second over Christmas vacation, after her brother got his driver's license and could drive.  That way she could have them both done and out of the way to get her off to college after graduation next summer.  Yes, it would be a pain to spend Senior Year in a cast, but better now than later.  And the pain in her feet would go away.

The surgery went well.  We had it done in the nearest large town, an hour and a half away, where the medical services are better.  We took her home in a splint, with several more appointments and checkups to go.  She had a lot of pain, but seemed to be recovering well.

Wednesday, September 2:  The first day of school.  She will not hear of staying home, so she went back to school on crutches.  We got the wheelchair she requested, but she soon found out that there was no room for it in our overcrowded high school hallways, nor in the classrooms.  She was doing great on the crutches, so little by little, overprotective Mom let her branch out a little bit.  She was still doing a good job keeping it elevated when she was home, in between running hither and thither as teenagers do. 

Thursday, September 10:  Back to the doctor's office for a recheck and the hard cast.  She was totally tickled to have the cast on, so that everyone can sign it.  Plus it was a lot more comfy than the splint, which had been rubbing.  Doc thought everything was looking great.  The incisions looked good, the alignment and correction looked great, everything was on track.  She was slated to keep the cast for at least 2-3 weeks, after which she'd be in the walking boot.  The next appointment was scheduled for the 30th.

Monday, September 21:  We got home from work and she was complaining of pain under the cast.   I asked if it was down in her foot (where the surgery was) and she said no, it was up in her calf, somewhere deep in the muscle.  She said it burned.  It was too late to call the doctor's office that night, so we went to bed and I made the call in the morning, first thing.

Tuesday, September 22:  The doctor's office wanted to see her pronto.  We got there, they cut the cast off, and could not see anything wrong.  He sent her over to the Vascular Lab for a doppler, just to make sure everything was okay. 

I sat with her during the ultrasound, and watched it on the screen as the tech talked us through it.  Up in her leg everything looked normal, but as he got to the painful spot, he took a lot more time looking.  I watched him take shots and type on the screen.  After about the fourth time he typed the notation "No flow", she and I looked at each other.  After that, things got moving pretty fast.  He called over to her foot doc and told him she had DVT - blood clots in her calf.  There are two veins at least that are totally occluded.  He sent us back over to her foot doc, and insisted on a wheelchair so that she would not jiggle her leg.  The foot doc, since circulatory issues are not his specialty, got on the phone to her regular doc, and we were on our way home. 

Halfway through the trip home the regular doc's nurse called with instructions.  They were calling in a prescription to the pharmacy.  If we were not able to do the medication, they were admitting her to the hospital for 3-5 days.  The medication, of course, was an injectible - absolute devastation to my daughter, who has an extreme phobia of needles.  Every sentence got worse and worse.  Shots of medication.  Twice a day.  For up to ten days.  In her stomach.  That someone at HOME would have to do. 

The first night was a nightmare.  I can't even recreate it.  Grandma (who is an LPN) came to give the shot, and by the end of the night, everyone was in tears.  I think we finally got through to the girl that if she did not get the shots, she could DIE.  We were all upset, angry, frustrated...you name it.

Wednesday, September 23:  We had an appt first thing in the morning with the regular doc.  The regular doc (who can be a tyrant) was really good this time.  She spent some time explaining the ramifications of this to B, the girl and I, and then told us she would be on the oral Coumadin for at least three months, which means that the second surgery is off, and that we would have to finish out the shots until her blood levels stabilized.  This includes bed rest (essentially) and no school for the next week.  She also broached the subject of how unusual it was for a 17 year old healthy teen to get clots, and that we would need to check for some genetic clotting disorder, in light of the fact that her grandma had also had clots.  The girl gets her second shot at the doctor's office, by the nurse, who teaches me how to do them.  This one leaves a bruise.

Next we are introduced to the new world of the Anticoagulation Clinic, where we will spend a lot of time over the next few weeks, checking her clotting factor and tweaking the medication.  I send B home, since this is a long appointment.  He looks awful, and needs to med up and have a nap.  At the A.C. they take a baseline blood level and teach us all about shots, diet and schedules.  They also set us up with Hematology, who will monitor things and try to get to the bottom of this.  We get an appointment with Hematology on Friday, right after our next visit to the A.C.

I do my very first subcutaneous injection on a human being Wednesday night.  The girl is relieved.  (She says I do the best ones.)  She will submit to the injections, so long as I do them and she can do them her way, which means her brother on one side holding her hand, and her head buried in B's shoulder.  I have done shots on the dogs and cats, but never on a human, and never would have wished to do one on my child.  I went through the first half year of nursing school, but dropped out in the injections unit, because I could not stomach the idea of causing pain to another human being.  This is a test of both of our strengths, and an unwilling lesson.  We are both growing and learning, though, my girl and I, and we will come out of this stronger for the tempering.  But oh how we hate it.

Thursday, September 24:  B and I go back to work, as I have very little leave time left.  I hate to leave her alone, but she has the cell phone.  My stomach is so irritated by the stress that I have nearly constant diarrhea, but I have to get back to work.  There are a lot of projects left half done.  B is way up on his meds, and is so strung out that his PD is terrible. 

This morning we looked at the foot and decided that it didn't look as good as we liked.  So at 10 a.m. I am off again, taking the girl back to the doctor's office, where we see a fill-in.  To top it all off, her brother is showing flu symptoms, and this morning she has a sore throat as well.  Not good.  The fill in doc thinks that everything is kosher, that we are simply seeing residual bruising, so we go back home. 

B is not convinced.  He has lost his mother to DVT and a pulmonary embolism.  His fear is palpable.  That evening while the girl has a visitor and is entertained, we cling together.  And together, for once, we pray.  I am filled with a strange calm.  Tuesday night I cried so hard I had a migraine all day Wednesday, while he held me.  Tonight, I hold him, stroking his hair and whispering "It is going to be all right." 

Through this whole nightmare week, we have learned a whole lot of things.


One of the largest lessons is that this little family is like a chair. There are four of us: B, me, the girl and the boy. It takes all four legs, of equal length and equal size, to make a chair. The strength of the chair comes from the fact that each leg is interconnected; each leg connects to every other leg. Two of us could not do this job alone, and three not very well. It takes all four. Our connections to each other, like interlocked hands, can hold a lot of weight without collapsing.

But above them all, tying them all together, is a seat. Without that binding four chair legs would just be a collection of sticks. Without God, we would be floundering in this sea of uncertainty, wobbling, unable to hold it together. Our faith and the grace of God is the glue that binds us. He holds this little family in His hand, especially when we are struggling.

Without each other, without God, the whole structure would fall over. It takes all the pieces to make a chair, and all of us to make this family.

This is what the girl posted Tuesday night, when it seemed darkest, on her Facebook page for everyone to see.  She wants to have it integrated into her tattoo, which was her deepest desire for her 18th birthday and will now have to be put off for some future time.

Psalm 23:4

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

The honeymoon phase

(This post is made from home, waiting for the doctor's office to open.)

IT'S finally fall up here in desert country.  The weather's unseasonably warm, but the sun slants just in that special way in the mornings and evenings (which is the only time I get to see it) that means autumn has arrived.  There is no better time of year. 

Fall for me has always been a season of renewal, of re-creation.  A time for cleaning house and preparing for the winter.  September and October herald canning jars, school supplies, and the crock pot.  The warm colors of fallen leaves, pumpkins and sunset warm the cockles of my heart, and I get excited over the first sightings of wooly mittens and scarves.  I always feel a stirring inside me during these months, as if the clock has finally ticked over and I have come out of my summer stupor.  That switch means a deep-seated craving for baking, planting, closet-cleaning (and its companion, wardrobe-rotating), and the bringing in and battening down of everything outside.  I am at my best in the fall.  I'm bi-seasonal: down in the hot months, when there's nothing to do but endure the heat and twiddle your thumbs and make mad dashes between the house and the yard to administer life-support to the gasping plant life; and up in the cool ones, when my creativity and drive and mood soar.  I have SAD in reverse.

Fall has always heralded some of the major changes in my life.  Two years ago, it meant that I made the greatest leap of faith I could have ever imagined.  My best friend in the world, whom I had watched writhing in so much emotional pain that I was afraid I would lose him before he was able to disengage from the situation he was in, finally made his break.  I was so proud of him. I had just made my own, after several years and several abortive attempts, and my little family was scarred from my own bad choices.  He looked at me and thought "I can", and amazingly enough, he could.  And in the course of one fateful fall evening, he stood on the edge of that big, dark chasm of uncertainty and made the jump.  And with my heart in my throat, knowing nothing else but that it felt very, very right, I said "Just come." 

And he did, with nothing but an overnight bag and a beat up car.  I opened the front door that night to the rest of my life.  We were battered and broken, scarred and not quite sure we were going to survive.  I didn't consult anyone else.  The kids didn't know him, and he didn't know them.  It was an uneasy situation for a while.  But from that very first night it was as if there had been a missing piece in our clockwork for a long time, enough to  make the machinery run out of time, and we had finally found it.  I did a dirty to my children by handling things the way I did, so suddenly, and for that I feel ashamed.  But I will never, ever, regret the decision.  What B brought to my house, and what we gave back to him, was sanity, acceptance, faith and love.  After those first couple of awkward months, what grew and blossomed here was far, far beyond anything I could ever have imagined.  I did not know families like this existed. 

I did not know a love like this existed.

It was awkward all the way around.  We had to handle it at home, with our extended families, and at work.  But after the initial whispers, they said "You all are so much happier, healthier.  It's amazing.."  B brought not only my little family back together, but brought us back to my own family, and introduced us to the vast and wonderful tribe that is his own. 

The guys at work teased B for a long time.  "Oh, you're just in the honeymoon phase,"  they would tease him.  "You'll be over it soon."  But two years later, we are still living the honeymoon.  There have been tears, there have been disagreements, there have been outside troubles.  But what we have found for sure is a concrete foundation, which we build stronger every day.  I watch the younger couples fight, tooth and nail, with hurtful words, and I think about how bad it was like that for me before (and for B, in his own 'before') and the contrast with how we disagree.  Maybe it's that we're older, and are coming to this thing with the value of years of experience on what does not work.  Maybe it's that we are tired of the drama, and unwilling to do that all over again.  Or maybe it's that we value this thing far too much to break it into pieces with words.  For what reason that I was granted this chance, I don't know.  I do know that God must be tired of hearing my thankfulness by now.  It must be getting repetitive. 

I do know that what we have is enduring.  This is no temporary thing, and time has not paled it.  Some mornings I awake to find him already woken, lying there on the pillow beside me, smiling at me.  I say "What a lucky girl I am!"  When I catch sight of him in the hallway at work, turning a corner, my heart still beats fast.  He says I still take his breath away.  The honeymoon phase isn't over.  If we are lucky, and work hard at it, it will never end.

Nobody puts B in the corner

WE had a good day yesterday; a good weekend, actually. It was slow and uneventful, and allowed us to catch up on life. The kids were gone Saturday night, and it was blessed to have some time between us that wasn't filled with noise and drama. We are broke this week, so there were no household projects, just the slow paced puttering of garage cleaning and laundry, broken only by a really great nap, where I fell asleep and dreamed and awoke (finally!) in no pain.

Yesterday we went to B's brother's place and picked up a box of honeycrisp apples fresh from the orchard where his brother works. We had an hour or so of visiting, and then came home filled with the wonderful scents and sounds of autumn.

On the way home, we turned a corner and found a wallet lying in the road. Scattered beyond it, blowing in the breeze, were bills and cards. We stopped and picked frantically until we had them all, dodging the sporadic traffic and feeling like criminals. When we'd picked them all up, we jumped back in the car and stared at each other incredulously. I counted the bills while he looked for ID. "There's over $120 here!" I said.

"That's nothing. There are four credit cards. This guy is going to be really upset when he finds out he's lost his wallet." B said. We sat there a moment while he surfed his iPhone looking for a phone number for the owner. "Well, duh!" He said after a moment. "The address is right on the driver's license! This guy lives just a mile up the road!"

So off we went to find him. A mile up the road a man was out in the front of his house, bent over changing the siphons in his ditch. B leaned out the window. "Are you Mr. X?"

The guy straightened up, obviously trying to place our stranger's faces. "Yes I am."

"Do you know where your wallet is?" B said. The expression on the guy's face as he patted his hip pocket reflexively and it dawned on him that it wasn't where he expected it was tragic. He looked at B as if he'd done a magic trick as B handed his wallet and belongings out the window of the car.

"I tried to pick up all the bills, but there was a breeze." I said. "I hope it's all there."

He was absolutely poleaxed, and very thankful. We left feeling pretty good. I was just glad we came by when we did, because right behind us on the road was a carload of kids who had stopped to pick up some spilled onions on the shoulder, and would have been along next. Who knows if the man would have recovered the wallet. He was missing his cell phone too, and we told him where we found things so he could go back to look. All in all, a pretty good (and very lucky) day.

When we got home the girl and I decided to make apple crisp, so she hopped up on the counter in the kitchen and put her cast up on a stool. While we peeled and measured, we watched "Dirty Dancing". It's always been a classic movie, but the loss of Patrick Swayze has made it even more poignant. We watched it through to the end (complete with prerequisite snifflies), and as my hands sliced apples, I thought about how strongly it resonated.

I have always been Baby, big nose, awkwardly clumsy, needy and never socially graceful. Even today, some days I get up and get ready for work and catch sight of myself in the mirror on the way out the door and think "Good heavens, who is that little girl playing dress-up?" I can buy the same clothes as the other women and shop at the same stores, and what looks polished and sophisticated on other women simply makes me look like a teenager at Halloween. I am missing, and always have been, that 'something' that makes me lack the elegance and poise that I crave. Baby, with her pushed out tummy and big frizzy hair, makes me think of the me that looks back at me from the mirror. Just like her, I am idealistic, optimistic, and want to save the world.

While I watched Patrick move across the dance floor as Johnny, I remembered that it must have been easy for him to make this film, having been a dancer prior to becoming an actor. You can tell it; it shows in his grace and in that lean, dancer's build. B is the same way. I saw the same curves and lean sinewy grace in Patrick that I see in B every day. B was a wrestler, but I think he must have been born with that build. He's grown older, and softer with age, but you can still read it in his movements; in the shapely calves and strong legs. PD has not been able to claim that from him. Even with the disease, he is still more graceful than I. Like Johnny, he has much more worldly knowledge, and life has left him discouraged and somewhat jaded. He's honest, faithful, and will fight for those he loves.

The change that Johnny brings about in Baby is huge, but equal to the change she brings about in him. They work in symbiosis, each potentiating the other's faith, confidence, and self-awareness. And that is what B and I have done for each other. I have no doubts but that we would not be where we are if we had not found each other. We have grown, together, as we have grown together.

It was hard to see that parallel last night in the movie, and then to see the reminder, flashed at the end of the film by ABC Family network, of condolences to the family and friends of Patrick Swayze on his loss. The disease that took Patrick was cruel, slow, and degrading. There comes a point where parallels are too painful to contemplate. I went to bed with two thoughts foremost in mind.

1. Nobody puts B in a corner.


2. This dance is not over yet.