starlight and rose petals

In an Alzheimer's unit, Valentine's Day is never quite whole. Half of the lovers are dead, the others don't know it. In total, I had five couples to celebrate -- well, six, but one couple wasn't speaking to each other because she has persistent beliefs about his infidelity and a nasty temper. Who can say what is true? And one couple is just friends, but friends count. When you're ninety, it all counts. 

So we planned a party, a starlight party, with red globe centerpieces, scatttered rose petals and Hershey's kisses from the dollar store. I found plastic champagne flutes for the sparkling cider. The chef made a beautiful dinner: broccoli soup, puff pastry, pork loin, pasta and squash. For dessert, a four layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and strawberries cut so the heart shape was evident. Sweet. 

But here's the thing. (You knew something was coming. You, my faithful readers, you know everything is never really okay in the merry ol' land of Oz.)

So Pansy, she was dying. Not right in the middle of the party or anything, but dying just the same. She'd been trying to make a ladylike exit since the Thursday before, but her daughter, a nice nice woman, unfortunately the tiniest bit impaired by her mother's slight case of OCD. By the time I got her mom, she couldn't remember the O part. Growing up she had polished the bottoms of her child's white shoes every morning with white shoe polish. That kind of OCD. Untreated. Lifelong. So the daughter, having the final word, needed to say some things. Lots of things, for a really long time. So Pansy, captive little blue-tinted lady by this time, stayed to listen long after she was ready to be onto her next thing.

In another room another of my little people had been on his way out, was taken to the hospital for repairs, and was set to return the next day. 

The party was set to begin at 5:00. Dinner time. Everybody was dressed up, spouses wheeling their ways to the table, single long-stemmed red roses given to the wives by the husbands. Oh -- I told one of my guys that his wife was sitting next to him. He said, "Don't threaten me." I told him I had a rose for him to give to her. He asked, "Are there any thorns on it?" Anyway, there we were, all red and pink and romantic. 

Pansy's daughter, who had been calling me all day, asking for guarantees, like families do: "If I wait until 3:00 to come can you guarantee she'll still be alive when I get there?" 

Uh, no. No crystal ball here.

"I see (she lied), well, how far is she since I was there? How's she doing?"

She's doing fine.  

"She's doing FINE??!!?? Oh my God, she's better?"

No. By fine, I mean she's dying just fine. She's coming right along. She's about half as alive as she was the last time you called. She's dying at about exactly the same rate. Slow. (I didn't really say all of that.)  

So the daughter shows up about an hour before dinner and Pansy is still hanging on. and on. and on. I ask her please to sing or talk quietly. This means, if it makes your mother jump, its probably too loud. I whisper these instructions. To make a point. Its hard work dying and one must honor the process. 

 -- Really, if someone you love is dying, or someone you have unfinished business with, suck it up and wait until after they're gone. If you couldn't figure it out while they were alive, don't lay it at their poor little lavender feet at the bitter end. Not fair. 

So finally, we are ready. At 4:45 the food arrives. Drumroll... You know what happens, right?

At 4:45 Pansy dies. ("I think she's gone. Do you think she's gone?") 

At 5:00 we begin to serve dinner. 

At 5:15, Charlie rolls in from the hospital on a stretcher.

Crap.

Now, there are things that must be done. So, between courses, we do them. Personal things. All the while, having a romantic dinner, and escorting the mortician around the back door, closing the fire doors so we don't have to wheel Pansy's corpse through the rose petals and chocolate truffles. 

Charlie, of course, thinks the party is a welcome home for him. 

   

  
 

dresser

I realized late last night that a newish dresser would solve many if not all of my organizational problems. I considered buying new, but the WWII officer's chest I've been using for 35 years is and has been so unattractive that it seemed selfish to spend much to replace something that, while homely, is fully functional. .I also considered shopping the many vintage shops in SE Portland, but their idea of retro is that slick, blonde, danish-modern, Jetson kock-off crap that is the stuff of my impoverished childhood. Instead, I fired up my computer: craigslist.

There were more than seven pages, at 100 dressers per page. As I cruised the offerings, I narrowed my choices and developed a plan. This is the beauty of craigslist: you see so much shit you end up galvanizing your choices. I realized, for instance, I needed a highboy (rather than lowboy), with as many drawers as possible. If I had nine drawers, I could have a whole drawer just for black turtlenecks. Oh, and it would need to be more or less in the arts & crafts style, preferably a darker stain. And real wood. No chipboard. There was so much to consider. And the drawers needed to work flawlessly. Nothing I hate worse than sticky drawers. Well, that's a lie. There are many things, but not at the same time. If I'm hating something and I pull out a drawer and it sticks, I hate the drawer more.

I'm stunned at the items for sale, the sheer number of dreadful things: long, low, mediterranean-esque sets with carved fake-wood moldings; shiny black disco-era dressers with chrome swans for pulls. Sexy; Lots of white french provencial sets, aged with brown or gold or avocado green, swirled around spindled accents.

After about twelve hours I found just what I wanted. Of course I did. two hundred bucks. So we drove out to Tualitin and picked it up. It wasn't easy or fast. And it had one tiny little problem: a history of bug infestation. Not like bedbugs, but some kind of floridian powder beetles that chew through lead to get to wood, apparently. This scared my husband. Nothing scares me. I live my life on the principle that: I've never chewed up your dresser ergo you'll never chew up mine. This works for robbery too. The fact that I used to be a robber doesn't count. My rules.

Anyhow -- We did a thorough inspection (It's pretty, let's buy it) and humped it out to the truck, home, up and into my dressing room. A place for everything and everything in its place. Amy fucking Vanderbilt.

The next morning, my darling husband says, "What if the bugs aren't gone? What if she lied?" Well, I just don't operate on those fear-based, people-are-inherently-bad, beliefs. I stroll happily through life, surprised at the mayhem of the human race. So we drive back out to Tualitin and get the actual jar of poison that killed the alleged bugs. I say alleged because I didn't see any. There is the smallest, ever so unnoticeable bit of damage across two thirds of the entire top of the dresser, but that's what dresser scarves are for, right?

My husband's fears were only allayed when he looked up the dresser online and found that it sold retail for 3 thousand dollars. It may chew down our old wood house, but he does love a bargain. He says the sale price compared to the original price supports the argument that she is lying about the bugs. I say it supports the argument that she is nice.

bullets

My husband has been out buying bullets. Rather, trying to buy bullets. There aren't many to be found in the post-Sandyhook-hysteria. Not even in a liberal oasis like Portland. Its a redneck Easter egg hunt, four-wheel drivers filling the lots of Bi-mart just as it opens, waiting at the door, rushing the counters. We may look like Liberals, but we're country folk at heart. Even with limits, boxes of .22 shells sell out in minutes.

Why am I writing about this? It's Sunday morning and I slept way in. My husband went fishing and I slept and slept, having circus-bizarre dreams, finally to awaken to an empty house. Ahhh. I could be doing so many other things. Laundry, dishes, bad things.

So I said to him as he left the seventh store in search of ammunition, "Just how many rounds you think you're gonna get off before the army that is marching down Clinton Street gets you?"

But for him, it is just not liking to be told what to do. Or not do. There is no army marching down our street shooting citizens. We just aren't that interesting. But it does raise those questions, doesn't it? What is freedom? I won't try to answer that, but I do question the political debate that focuses soley on guns and again and again turns a blind eye to mental illness.

Since Reagan de-institutionalized the mentally ill (whenever that was -- don't ask me about dates, I wasn't paying attention during the entire Reagan administration) -- the "rights" of the mentally ill have, in my opinion, created a false reality that behavior can be predicted with mimimal oversite and the assumption of appropriate use of medication. This paradigm works well for insurance companies that don't want to pay for care/housing, or long term treatment, or diagnosing of the breadth of the problem. Associations like NAMI, persuasive organizations that advocate for the rights of the mentally ill, have a great argument, but faulty at its core. You can't fix a broken brain with a broken brain.

 Its not that I would return to the days of trepanning, but it is, I'm sure, far more costly to deal with the mental health crisis than to go after the guns. All that being said, it is only one facet of gun violence: what about black men shooting black men? It's a great solution for white men, so we won't look too closely at that.

Anyway, happy Sunday. I'm gonna heat up my wax and paint.

french toast

I have been living on Medifast and pumpkin seeds for a long time, and the last few days I've been cruising the well-merchandized deli sections of Freddy's and Safeway and best of all, New Seasons -- so pretty-- hunting for the perfect bad food to satisfy my endless craving. I've tried to be good with whole grain cookies; bad with maple bars, ridiculous with a whole lemon pie from Safeway that may have been sugar free. Nasty. But finally, finally, I found it: satisfaction is sourdough french toast at the Cup and Saucer restaurant on Hawthorne. Cooked just for me, with maple syrup and raspberry jam and butter.

Portland girls walk by the window in the cold of morning, whims of blue-black ink scrawled across skin white as canvas, wrapped around and around sun-starved necks and upper arms, anemic little girls with permanent opinions that will not fade when their minds change, and change they will.

part II: christmas letter

I couldn't get it all down on paper afterall. Not in one swoop.

I made Christmas hats for the girls. I slaved away and learned by trial and error how to sew with fake fur. And in traditional judybluesky style, I didn't start easy: I used fake llama fur, long and twisty. Its funny, not really, when you go to these sewing stores to buy this shit and ask the twelve year old at the counter at Fabric Depot, " is there anything special I need to know about cutting this stuff out?" "Naw," she says, perky in her red christmas vest that I'm sure she made out of felt scraps collected for free from the cutting room floor. "Just cut it out and  sew it up. You can grade one of the seams to make it lay flat." I decided to make my task even more difficult and line them with velvet, so went out to the Milwaukee store (Mill End) where the clerks are older even than me, for some washable velvet. (I only have silk-velvet. Poor me.) I asked the same question of her  "Oh, yes! Have you never worked with this fabric?? Well, then you need to cut it out like this and sew it like that and blah blah blah..." I learned so much in two minutes. It made the job somewhat more manageable, although I learned much the hard way - -my way.

I made my own pattern: a pointy hooded hat with attached scarf. My girls, tiny little things, look like abominable snow-pixies with them on. This year was the first year they felt like my kids. It is our 9th year together, and finally we are almost comfortable as a family.

Medifast update: I've lost 58 pounds. I gained back three during the holidays with some permitted leniency. On the trip south, Nicole and I decided on a Christmas menu that would fulfill the carbohydrate void I've been experiencing since July third: a Mexican CarbFiesta menu, with green chicken enchiladas, tamales from Canby Asparagus Farms and refried beans, with hot carrots, greenbeans for color, eggnog and all that. The morning before, I OD'd on Christmas cookies: cutout and frosted thinly with powdered sugar glaze and a hint of lemon zest in both cookie and glaze. yummmmmmmmmmmmm. But the way I ate them: in secret and as though it was a contest, made me realize that my eating habits, while in limbo, remain untreated, and when the medifast food ends, which it should eventually, I will surely regain the hard-lost poundage.

So I signed up to learn Tai Chi, a taoist class that meets once a week for 4 months. My goal is to learn the form and practice it at home when I'm done. It has always interested me, and with my various painful joints, it seems the better choice between tai chi and yoga. Yoga intimidates me. Well, not yoga, but the tiny women who carry their little mats down Clinton street and disappear into the studio that is all draped with velvet with Bahktishop scrolled in white across the windows.Turns out bahkti-style yoga is about love, and the group is about loving Bahkti and the place is about love first and not really about exercise for health,which is fine, which is what I say when it is not fine with me. The Tai Chi class is more health-based with the religious association secondary. I may need an influx of religion, but that's another post for another day.So happy new year plans include movement.

Two posts in two days. Wow. Just like olden times.

the traditional christmas letter

I have many things to discuss and I don't know if I'll get to it all. None of it matters, Still, I'd like to get it down on paper. Paper. Have you seen the new Paperwhite Kindle? We already have paper books. Now, behold: an electronic device with a screen that looks like paper, is as easy to read as paper, no glare, just like a book. Oh wait. We already have that.

Anyway, I haven't updated my fan base for months and apologize to you both. It's been an interesting time. Let's see.... Since Halloween I've been actively pursing my habit of pumpkin seeds. I've purchased or found eight pumpkins, seeded them, and consumed all of the seeds. My lips look like I've had botox and my sodioum level is through the roof. I've also purchased many packages of pumpkin seeds only to re-bake them myself with olive oil and sea salt. I can't get a thing done at work or at home. My car is full of seeds, the housekeeper at work is mad at me for having to vaccuum six times a day. At home, well, let's just say it is an effective hand to mouth distraction.

To tree or not to tree? Being Martha Stewart is hard sometimes. I usually wind up spending at least sixty bucks on a beautiful Grand or Noble Fir, perfectly shaped, to go in our perfect bay window. Sometimes I just pull out the Charlie Brown replica and leave it at that.
This year, husband says, "There's a lot out in Hillsboro and every tree is 15$."
"I'll hate them," I assure him. "I'd rather have no tree than an ugly one."
"Let's just see," he says.
"Fine."
So off we go on a holiday mission, to replace our Christmas lights with LEDs and to find the perfect cheap tree. I'm sure it can't be done. The first lot we visit has a small spray painted sign, ALL TREES $15. I roll my eyes and get out of the truck. Before me stands a lot full of perfect 8-foot Nobles. "Really?" I ask. They don't speak any English. They just smile and nod. Kurt loads up the tree and gives him 17 bucks. I am put in my place. I'll never live it down.  

 Mid-December we made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Southlands. We didn't know what was in store from hubby's side of the family since he had effectively started WWIII with his clan in July by being the first in twenty-some-odd years to tell his most recent in a long and notorious line of step-mothers to shut the fuck up.I have to admit, I'm on his side in this one. So, with the step-monster-in-law in check, we had a decent visit, but didn't stay over like usual. The beautiful little cabin we used to stay in has deteriorated into rat piss and decay, so we stayed with Rita, my mother-outlaw, my son's grandmother. Things are never awkward with her. I envy her social skills. She is the best person I know. Really.

So there we were, basking in the glow of the Blessed Season, playing UpWords instead of Scrabble, which completely taxed my never-agile left brain, when my husband shouted from the basement: "JUDY!!!!!" When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,.... I ran to the stairs to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below. "Duffy's got skunked!" my sweetie howled into the once-pleasant early dark of winter. "He's through the fence." Crap. True to form, my little West Highland White Terror saw the skunk waddling across the backyard and bolted after it like the ratter he was born to be. Apparently, the skunk's escape was stalled by the hogwire fencing and it turned in self defense, spraying Duffy full in the face--in the mouth and in the right eye and all down his right side. By the time I arrived, Duffy was across the fence, choking and gagging, rubbing his face in the dirt and pine needles, trying to get away from himself. Nicole, bless her, jumped the fence to rescue him. Not considering the ramifications of handling a freshly skunked dog, she handed him to me across the fence and I received him and hugged him and cuddled him, and too late, smelled him. Aarrgghh.

Jane, my sister-outlaw, for lack of tomato juice, brought around a bottle of spray and wash and a water-tight garden cart, and out there in the cold and dark, I bathed my poor little dog. He looked at me with his little coal black westie eyes, wondering at this fresh torture, never once considering the consequences of his actions, I'm certain. Once the first layer of oil was scrubbed, we moved inside and bathed him again with peroxide and dish soap. He stunk all the way home where he has been twice-bathed with tomato juice and he still stinks.. Even Rita, bless her, will probably not welcome Duffy back for a repeat holiday visit.

So, back home, I received a letter in the mail that it is time for Duffy's annual exam. Now, it won't surprise you that I barely attend to my own health concerns, let alone that of my dog's. But give the recent skunk contact, I thought it prudent to check things out, rabies and all. As we stood in the exam room, Duffy high up on a steel table, quivering-- me keeping him from jumping -- the vet came in. A nice young woman, serious about dog-health. As she got close, she inspected his teeth and I said, "Sorry about the smell. He got skunked last week." She was immediately embarrassed that she hadn't identified the smell. A country vet would have known right away. Either that or she'd assume Duffy had a bag of good weed stashed nearby. Anyway, she asked about the skunking and I told her about the bathing and that he had some bumps from soaps and stuff -- his skin is sensitive. She found one larger bump and I told her I'd just pulled a tick off him while we were in the office.

Good God. You'd think I'd told her he was on fire.
"Where is this tick?"
"In the garbage. It was just a regular old tick."
"How big was it?Was it engorged? When do you think it embedded?"
The questions were urgent. She was very excited. I wondered if she'd ever even really seen a tick. Me, I've pulled about a million of them off animals and a few from humans. This one was small and I got him out easily, smashed him and put him in the trash, like you do. But the city-vet was pretty agitated about the whole thing.
"Even 'regular old ticks' carry lyme's disease and rocky mountain spotted fever." She mocked.
I didn't like that very much."Right," I said. "I'll keep an eye on him."
After a litany of related symptoms to watch for, she launched into a dissertation on the need for proper dental care. A sales pitch, really. "He'd have to be sedated, of course," she claimed, handing me an estimate for $1009.00.
"This won't be happening," I admitted. I'm sure. A grand to take my dog to the dentist? Really?

Okay. So that's the Duffy update. What a fun dog he is.

Merry Christmas.

long weekend

Almost. I spent Friday driving a patient to a psychiatric hospital, but other than that, work free. The paucity of mental health services for the elderly is stunning. Back in the day, when I worked a different job that was pretty much the same only without the death factor, we used to marvel at what we could do if we lived in the metro area, where all things medical are possible. Wrong. So, by the time there was a bed open, I wasn't about to pass it up because of transportation problems. They wouldn't admit her if she couldn't walk in under her own steam, and she's nuts, so, if she was on her way through the doors with a stranger, and the door says: TUALITY CENTER FOR GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY, she's no dummy. She'd have turned and bolted. I opened the door before she got to it, shielded the words, did a quick Halley's Comet diversionary tactic, and we were in.

Wait. She was in. Let's be clear about that. She. Not WE.

So she's in and I can rest for a minute.

Thanksgiving was fine. Real food, consumed in about twenty minutes.Mother in law hostessed with her ailing sister, who fell in her bathtub. "It has nothing to do with my age." she said before I even said anything. I swear, its that old Angel of Death thing. They see me coming a mile away. "She's coming for me." I can see this thought bubbling slowly to the brimming sludge that is what's left of their little grey minds. "She knows." It would be awful, I'll concede this much.

So its back on Medifast one day later, and I don't really care about food so much anymore. The dinner was okay, and anti-climactic, and I'm just aware of the focus I've placed on food for far too long. I remember Alan McLean, one of my very first nursing home patients, who, after a career in the CIA, had his mind scrubbed and was left with little else but a love of black pepper and a fixation for  Casablanca and  Joan Collins, who he had allegedly had a one-nighter with in his heyday. He was known to say, "I eat to live, not live to eat." Well, good for you, Alan. Good for you. Me too.

A movie review: we went to see Lincoln, and I loved the politics, the tragic silliness that remains today, the gamesmanship. I think James Spader should get best supporting actor for his role as an early lobbyist. Hysterical. But DDLewis, wow. Loved his voice, the frail, gentle Lincoln rang unexpectedly true.

Our new Dyson is sucking the carpet off the floor, quietly, as I type.

black friday

That sounds so negative. Kurt is at Costco now, purchasing a new vacuum cleaner for our happy home. A condition of marriage was that I never receive household appliances for gifts, so this is a non-gift -- a necessity - a Dyson power sucking pet hair eliminating monster. Sid's hair is a cross between a porcupine quill and  a corkscrew. Once embedded, it is there to stay. He rode in my car once. Once. And his hair is still there despite magic pet gloves and car wash power vacuums. His hair, not Duffy's. Not my darling Duffy's.

I ate regular food yesterday. I've lost 55 lbs so far, and am not fat anymore. I've always been fat. Always. I feel fragile and light and strange and cold. It is difficult to keep up with psychologically and I know why I've always managed to put the weight back on. Such a warm coat in the winter months. Such a reliable layer between me and everyone else who is not me. I am exposed and I understand vulnerability like never before. I am without armor.

My wax is on upstairs and I am producing items for sale. Do your christmas ordering now. I'm taking special orders. I'm usually kidding. Not now.

wax on

Another Saturday on Clinton Street. Duffy sits at my shoulder keeping an eye out for squirrels and wayward neighborhood cats who perch just beyond his reach, chirping and mewling, taunting, taunting.

This blog has become a maudlin account of death and doom. I need to find another topic. Another job.

one more

Charles never seemed old, but he turned 91 last week. He referred to himself as Charles Lorenzo Eduardo -- although he was that rural Oregonian shade of white that could never believe we have a black president. He died just now, they tell me. He paced the hallowed halls, looking for his car, a can of paint, the army, all the misplaced parts of his life he just couldn't hang onto -- or let go of. What will I look for? Cling to? We are what we do. I am a sofa. I am a keyboard. I am wax and housework and a frying pan over a hot stove. I am the sidewalk in front of my house that takes me to coffee. It is pouring down rain, finally, in Portland. I'm heading upstairs to turn on my wax. Therapy.

out loud

Pansy is dying. I've lost 52 pounds to date. People look at me funny, like they want to say something but are afraid, at my advanced age, that I'm dying too, or that something has gone seriously wrong. I'm not. It hasn't. I feel really good -- just ask my knees. We, the body parts, are happy with each other and the brain right now. It feels something like the opposite of cognitive dissonance. It might be contentment. I wouldn't know. The war, while not over by a long shot, is momentarily at rest. The brain is finding fault, however, with the legs: too thin, the ass -- gone. the gut, still not perfect, although the belly button that was inserted by dear Dr. Young, my plastic surgeon of days gone by, is nice again and my tits are still here.

I've claimed to have lost 50 pounds in the past, but I don't think it was true. I'd meant to be telling the truth, but I think it was wishful speaking. Find something that weights fifty pounds. Right now. Now try to lift it. Go. I'll wait here...... Freaking heavy, right? I've lost that much weight. No wonder I was so tired all the time. For now, I see myself quite differently. But, pessimist that I am, it all feels pretty mercurial. Dreamlike. Temporary. I'm fifty-fucking-nine years old and I have at long last lost the post-baby fat from my 35 year old son. It is frightening to say out loud, but there, I've said it. Its in the blog so must be true.

I don't know what to wear. I've been a long time fan of Flax clothing, plain linen tent-like garments, expensive and expansive, elastic "waists" held up by invisible suspenders over layers of extra me. Now that there is less extra me, I'm not sure what my style is. I may like simple things. Still prefer black. Still want to be invisible. Thankfully, I lived and shopped in denial most of my adult life, so already had bin upon bin of small clothing that kind of fits what is left of me. But even those clothes are a bit baggy. I hope I'm not complaining. I have boxes and boxes of leftover clothes. I got rid of what I hope not to wear again, but I didn't get rid of all of it. There's too much and this isn't my first rodeo.

So if you read this and need some 1-2x clothes, I'm your gal. Think black and white and menopause beige.

Well, that's it for now. I had to write this post eventually. I was kind of holding my breath. I should take a bunch of pictures now before it goes away.

what's in a name

Hellen has one foot in the homeland. "Two L's." Hellen was a big round beloved woman, a preacher's wife who loved a good deal. Her daughters, each equally well-heeled, came in the evenings, their most recent bargain in hand: a pair of Nine West shoes for three dollars, a silk scarf embellished with roses, just fifty cents at a yard sale. They whirled into their mother's little room waving the treasure and announcing the price. Hellen would smile with crinkled eyes, nodding from the bottomless well of her heart with a sweet, "Hey girlie, where you been?"

Now she's not so round as she once was and her crinkled eyes are closed. There are no sweet words carried to her children on her eternally hopeful breath. She will be gone before daybreak.

There are too many to take her place. A crooked line forms just outside my door, and they bang with gnarled fists to come inside, in full-retreat from the darkness that envelops them and steals their thoughts, pushes them down and breaks their bones.

Recently, though, as Hellen and Edna and Elsie and Myrtle have passed, they are quickly replaced by Janice and Eileen and Barbara and Susan. I greet them with uneasy familiarity, these younger women with names like mine.

I marched in the Alzheimer's walk. The Walk to End Alzheimer's. It won't end, though. You know that, right? But we march and we raise money and we pretend there is hope. But there isn't. Not like that. What hope there is lives in the workers I train, and others like me, who teach the young ones to carry the sick on their backs to the end of their lives.What works is not Aricept or Exelon Patches. It is kindness and understanding, clean hands,strong backs and open hearts.

I raised some money for the Alzheimer's Association and my name was put into a drawing. I won first prize. I won a 50 inch plasma TV. Kurt says we can put it in the neighbor's house across the street and watch it from here. I've never really won anything before. Its too big for me.

Addendum: this morning Harriett is gone. I planted hundreds of spring bulbs today in her honor. 

evening

The house is quiet, my husband playing his guitar on the front porch. Both dogs lay panting from a run in the park, and with their breathlessness offer a rhythm for my typing. I could meditate to it if I could meditate.

I wonder what my life will be like in five years when I am sixty four. The Beatles made it seem so far away, but I am just around the corner from being an old woman. I can feel it in my knees, my step, my intolerance of celebrity. In the way I view the pale sky; a sky I know I will never see again -- not in just this same way. Where I live now, I have to walk three blocks to get a good look at the evening sky. I used to stand on my deck with the whole of the sky sprawled before me, unaware that there would ever come a time that I would want for a view.

One night the Aurora Borealis dipped down into my backyard, swags of scarlet and purple light. I remember my neighbors pouring out into the street like marbles from a bag, some of them calling it the end of the world. “And the sixth seal was broken and read, ‘The moon became as blood.’ It is the end of days.” Voices either keening or drunk, it was hard to tell. I remembered my mother just then, how she would have quoted the same scriptures, how she would have feared for our souls. For some of our souls. For mine. 

more camping stories

 So we're finally home, back with the running water and electricity.

Wait. I had all that in the trailer. Here it is, My sweet little Aladdin, nestled in the shadow of the Wallowa Mountains, on Wallowa Lake. Staged perfectly by my showoff husband for maximum effect. We'd made reservations at this crappy RV place in Enterprise, Log House RV Park, certain there'd be no room at the campground so close to Labor Day Weekend. But there was. We hurried back to Enterprise where I begged for a refund and got it. I'm a pretty good beggar. At Wallowa Lake there is a tram that takes you 3500 feet straight up the mountain. The view was spectacular. I kept pointing this out to my husband as he clung to the pole in the middle of our tiny, metal gondola, knuckles white as a trout's belly, until he opened his eyes briefly and said, "You enjoy the fucking view. I'm hanging on to this pole," as though his grip would somehow protect us as we plummeted 3500 feet to our death. Once at the top of the mountain we had to walk to see the view. I was pissed. "I didn't come to exercise," I said. "I just wanted to watch." But he made me walk to the edge of the world. Actually the edge of the EagleCap Wilderness. Home of the Imnaha Wolf Pack -- more about that later -- and drank perfect clean water from a spring gurgling out of an iron cistern in the middle of nowhere. Well, clearly it was somewhere, but it was remote.

Speaking of remote. My xfamilyinlaw has had a piece of property way way up in the Wallowas since the sixties. It is a forty acre plot of mountaintop, an elk pack-camp, where my son's grandfather led pack teams to hunt elk each fall until his death. I don't think I understood my inlaws until, in 1987, I drove to the property to pick up my son after a long summer visit with his grandparents. I knew they were country people, pioneering types. I got that. But they told me: drive to Joseph, take a left and keep going. I remember I borrowed Vivian's little Escort station wagon, and when I turned off the Imnhaha Highway onto 4inch-minus rock and bounced straight uphill for nine miles, I began to understand their comittment to a certain pace of life. I finally arrived at camp with a punctured gas tank and stood among a forest of sugar pines and a hand-made lodge with four hunting cabins that are still there today.

So we drove up there to see Julie. She is so tough. She is living up there, "fixing the place up" in her words: re-chinking the cabins, cleaning out thirty years of rat shit and neglect since her father's passing. She is turning it into more than it was. People will still come to hunt game, but she is making a place for wounded warriors to heal.

"You like to help people," she said. "You can help me." I think I don't so much like to help people as it is my default means of support. She likes it, really. She has that kind spirit in her.

So we had a good visit. Her closest neighbor, a trail runner, was out for a morning run, and noticed the Imnaha wolf pack running alongside her, she on a trail, the wolves a few trees in. She bought a gun. Julie says, "I just carry my iPod in a bucket and turn it up really loud."  A bear left claw marks on her screen door. Okay.

So, we left Julie and went west. Way west. And found these guys and ate them all up. The end.

recant

I'm a whiner. Sue me. I un-posted my complaint. Then reposted it.

A social worker asked me, "If you worked in obstetrics, would you get sick of babies being born?" I just said yes. First, to be difficult, second, to appear right.

But it isn't the same thing. I didn't want to point that out to her because she was busy helping me. But I'm sick and tired of helping and helpers.

camping world

I like to think of myself as a country girl. I am. I am a girl from a country-ish place. Talent. Jacksonville. Ruch. The Outer Banks of Medford, Oregon. I've lived in log cabins, carried my own water, split wood for heat and for money. I know what a rick of wood is, and what it used to cost. But I like camping in parks. I like the running water and hot showers, the noise of other families trying to make music around the campfire at least once a year, kids learning how to play again: hopscotch, jumprope, the you're-it, if-you-don't-quit-it-I'm-not-playing-with-you-anymore, kind of games. I miss my son as a young boy, catching crawdads in the creek while I kicked heroin in the tent. ah. memory lane.

We have been on the road for a week, and I just wanted to take a moment to discuss campgrounds. Not the ones with the white trash ambiance, close enough to Leavenworth to service the townies, as though the meth lab just used up its two weeks and pulled up stakes: this was Tumwater Camp, a dry and crusted patch of firestarter nestled along a sweet little stream, dribbling past, unaware of the company it keeps. The Wenatchee River, I'll admit, is a fantastic river and maybe it was just too late in the year, but there was nobody else there hardly except for the people for whom camping is not a happy little vacation option, and that is scary to me. I'm not afraid of bears, I'm afraid of people. Maybe it was just too close to Leavenworth to make camping seem viable. Leavenworth looks like winter at summer's end. Scalloped rooflines, alpine trees and rocky mountainsides naked without their blanket of white. With shopkeepers that just can't let go of the inaccurate notion that everybody loves Christmas stuff. Like those yard sales with special areas for Christmas items such as melting faded pine tree candles, over-used silver garland and ceramic Mr&Mrs Claus with calico clothing. All of the tourists just seemed to be waiting for the snow and Christmas lights so a visit to the Nutcracker Museum would make at least some sense.

I love Wallowa Lake Campground. I love Birch Bay Campground. I love Beverly Beach. This is where the nice people camp. I have become, while I was not looking, a nice person. I have matching towels for camping. I know I should hate these places of rules and regulations and sale firewood and paved pathways, but they comfort me. The idea of roughing it no longer appeals to me. There. I've said it. That is not to say that all people who rough camp are not nice. I am just nicer.

Sid hates camping. He has no hair, bugs bother him, he isn't at home where he feels safe and knows what to expect. He'd rather stay in the trailer than roam around like an animal, calling into question whether or not he is really a dog. His skin breaks out, he shakes and stares at us, and the very mention of the word "home" is the only thing that makes him wag his tail.

I'm exaggerating.

Then there's Duffy. In the unbridled out of doors, he becomes even more dog-like and obnoxious, if that's possible. He waits at the window of the trailer and growls, stalking chipmunks. He plans his escape. He never forgets. As soon as he has an opportunity, he bolts, scrambling up a tree he has no hope of climbing. If he had any idea how impossible his hopes and dreams really are, he'd commit suicide. On a long hit list, Duffy's top two disgusting events while camping, are: 1.) Pissing down Kurt's leg and filling his shoe with dog urine, which is not all that rare for Duffy. (See previous posts.) He seems to equate the human leg with a fire hydrant or tree. It is upright, afterall. Besides, Kurt was standing on his leash to keep him from running off first thing in the morning. I know, I rationalize. And 2.) Drumroll.......... Rolling in human shit. Now, as profoundly disgusting as this is and was, do I blame Duffy? Or do I blame the bottom-feeder who crapped in the campsite? Well, Duffy was closest, so he got a pretty cold bath, me gagging through the whole thing.

We did bring him home with us though. 

Pansy Tulip Rose

Its been a long couple of weeks or years or something. I'm losing track of time, of people, of meaning. This is the litany of the dead.

In East Germany, Tulip's father carved a merry-go-round horse of ice and pulled it with the cow for his children to ride, but the Russians showed up and her family had to flee over the frozen river with all they could carry in a wagon. She was so hungry she ate mud. She finally made it to the states, but even with Alzheimer's, she couldn't forget the Russian soldiers and secured her door with gnarled fingers -- twisting and untwisting the lock day and night.

"I'm tired," Pansy said. "I don't want to live any more," in her sheer, Parkinsonian whisper. "You're a good girl," she said to me as we talked about her dying, her wish to be relieved from what her body, her life, had become. That I did not intervene, did not push food, water, medicine or hope, was my gift to her. It is the best I can do in the yawning gap between life and not life.

I went to Tulip's funeral and cried all the way to Damascus and Boring and back. For all of them. For all of them to come.

I'm tired.

river

Today we went to the Molalla River. I know that may sound like a normal day, but living in the city, it is no longer a part of my day to day life to head up the Applegate and hang out. I hardly knew what to do, what to pack. Around here, there are parks, no dogs allowed. There are scenic theme parks like Multnomah Falls, and the sheer numbers of people, the queuing strategies: stand in this line, follow this rope, stay on this side, it is hardly relaxing. The Molalla isn't like that. Nobody really cares what you do, and from the general absence of litter and unpleasant behavior on the hottest weekend in years, it seems to be a pretty much self-regulating place. Kurt couldn't exactly remember where the place was, but between him and gps, we found our way. Nicole came along. Out of practice, we didn't bring chairs, but had the dog's sleeping bag that we keep in the back of the truck. We are so accustomed to the "no dogs" mentality, we left the boys home. They would have had a great time, and will when we go again.

The water was warmish, not bathwater, but it took no getting used to, and there was enough current to make me swim. I wore a bathing suit for the first time in years. It felt so good to be in real water with rocks between my toes and sun on my face. I lived in and on rivers my whole life. I am a river girl. I don't like lakes, don't trust the sludge on the bottom not to conceal glass. A flowing river is a self-cleansing organism. The swimming hole was deep, with smooth rocks on the far side to lay out on another day.

T

iowa

Benny died. He told us he was going to. On Thursday morning he woke up and said, "I don't want any more medicine. I'm ready to die. I just want to do God's will. Do you think its God's will?" I told him I thought he had a pretty good line on God, that he and God would work it out. As for the medicine, that was okay. "Just for the pain." So he laid down to die.

By Monday, he opened his eyes and said, "Is this heaven?" I had the almost overwhelming urge to say, "No, this is Iowa," but didn't. Instead, I told him it wasn't quite, but that he had one foot over the threshold. I sat beside his bed and read the 139th Psalm from his tattered bible. "...if I take the wings of the morning and  dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there...."

Ben knew poverty like the back of his hand. He told stories of the Dust Bowl and couldn't forget it, couldn't forget the starving grasshoppers blackening the light as they gathered at the windows like pestilence, eating the curtains, the wooden sash. He couldn't forget the war and didn't tell those stories. Them that say do not know, them that know do not say. He loved soup and hash browns and his wife, who just passed last month. After she died, there was a family reunion to live for -- in Iowa, actually, which would have made it all the more confusing and unfair had I taken the self-indulgent opportunity to quote Field of Dreams in his time of transcendence. So he made it to the reunion, bought a cowboy hat in Iowa, came home and died in the arms of his beloved family.

the bee whisperer

So there we were, napping on the deck....


Let me back up.

The morning began, as mornings will, damned early. 4:00 am. My husband is the only person on earth who sets the alarm for 3:30 and wakes up ten minutes early. So off went went to Seaside for sunrise clamming. Its not like you can sneak up on them. The 1.6 minus tide determined our schedule. I didn't get a full limit for various reasons: my foot, my shoulder, sneaky clams. I think we got 20 between us. It was work, the clams small, not worth keeping. But the rule is that you have to keep them if you catch them. If you dig for a clam and it is tiny, you're not supposed to put it back, but I have my own ethic about this. It is not in line with the great State of Oregon's Fish and Game Regulations, but it works for me and I haven't yet been caught. This is my rule: If I harm the clam in any way, that is, if I feel even a tiny little crunch, I keep it. If I don't, I just slide the little baby right back in the hole he came from, cover him up and act like I lost the clam I was digging for. It's called "high grading" and you can get a big fine, but I think its bad to take all the baby clams. So there's my rationale.

Occasionally I would look up from my hunting and realize how beautiful the beach is at sunrise. 

We were home by ten-thirty, threw the clams in the sink and both of us headed to our favorite spots for a deserved nap. At about two p.m., Kurt calls me from my slumber and says, "You have to see this!!!"

I rubbed my eyes resentfully, wandered out to the back yard and looked where he pointed: up. A giant swarm of honey bees was collecting on a laurel branch about 20 feet above our deck. The forming cluster looked to be about 8" in diameter and 18" long, solid bees, with many many many bees still coming, swarming around it.

Neither of us are particularly afraid of bees, but we have heard of colony collapse and urban beekeeping as a local hobby, so we wanted to get the bees somewhere safe. Internet to the rescue. We located Ruhl Beekeeping after making one call to a guy listed under "swarm removal" who said 20 feet was higher than he wanted to go. So we called Elliott somebody, or somebody Elliott, on Ruhl's list, and he came right over on the 4th of July. A woman named Kit came with him. She has a hive over on Belmont and her queen just failed, or died, and she needed a new swarm. Elliott had a homemade bee vacuum cleaner that sucked the swarm and its queen right out of the tree and into a hive box. Apparently, where the queen goes, so go the bees. Elliott said it was a viable swarm.

This is what else we learned:

Bee 101 by Elliott

Honey bees are not native to north America. Indians call them "white man's flies."
Eventually, in a hive, another queen will be made or born and she takes half the bees and leaves, thus creating another colony. This is likely what had just happened.

So, we saved the bees on the 4th of July and gave Elliott and Kit each a jar of the new strawberry jam I made last weekend with berries from Silverton. If you want some, call me. I can't eat it right now. Or ever. But I'm not thinking of it that way.

Day two of Medifast: The food is Soylent Green. Just in case you're keeping up.