click your heels together and repeat

Happy mother's day. We're not moving. The past week was an ordeal neither of us were prepared for. First of all, I had to clean my house. Not my best thing. I had to keep it clean every day, so strangers could wander through and judge my every decorating choice.Pretty soon, it seemed like I was cleaning their house.

We were effectively homeless, albeit with vehicles and money. We couldn't let the relators just show up during the day when the dogs were home but we weren't. So we had to show the house in the evening: come home from work, grab the dogs and leave, eat something somewhere, wait somewhere, and come home. All the while taking calls at work from other agents who wanted to show the property. I know we hear about a slow housing market, but this was not my experience. My phone rang off the hook, people went in and out, all evening long. Every evening.

So finally, the pretty house we made an offer on was no longer available and we looked at lesser models. It was like trying the most expensive bed first: you'll never buy the cheaper one. Will we move one day? Yes. Just not today. We need to squeeze a little more out of this place first, and be able to get further out of town.

So that's the story. But here's what I learned: I like old houses. Ranch houses are made of cardboard. Planting a Japanese maple by the door makes it a well landscaped home. Slapping a granite countertop over existing cabinets is a major upgrade. 20 year carpet wears out in 2. The beauty of paint is in the eye of the painter. And last of all: There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

We're goin' to the country, baby do you wanna go?

Or something like that.

We are in the process of putting our house on the market (close-in SE, bungalow, highly desirable neighborhood, wanna buy it and help us pay our realtor?) and moving toward Forest Grove, which I'd heard was crackland, but is actually a quiet little university town with a great coffee shop called Maggie's Buns. Now, I've had one of the classic cinnamon rolls and Kurt had a maple bacon roll, and as far as I'm concerned, Maggie has some damned nice buns. We found a bungalow in the historic district and I've had Bungalow Bill stuck in my head since.

So my city-life comes to an end. Or that's the plan. Tomorrow, our house goes live, according to the agent, and streams of people will throw money at us to take over where we left off. Today, Stanley Steamer will try to make it seem like it isn't actually a house that belongs to two stinky dogs.

And it will sell, or not. Either option is fine with me. But being basically lazy, I'd hang out here.

then there were two

My brother Doug died tonight. The storyteller, the basket weaver, the fisherman, the drunkard, the painter. That leaves one living relative in my immediate family. My sister. The women. It wasn't a contest. It isn't like we set out to live longer than our older brothers, but we did. Well, I guess it remains to be seen if we actually live longer. We are, after all, younger than them. To some it may not sound so serious, but I started out with a big family and we're down to two of us. My sister said it well: "He did pretty good for a Kinney," meaning, he lived a long life for a male in my family. His younger brothers preceded him by many years, as did our parents. His wife, Joyce, the first three letters of her name an apt description, survives, and two children, Pieper and James.

Ah well, death is no stranger to me. I am grateful to lay next to my husband tonight.

Doug. There are legends about him in Port Orford, and Brookings, and in the Applegate Valley. Now all my brothers are in heaven because I wish it.

Dante said, "the hottest circle of hell is reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

two grapefruit

There isn't much left when you peel a pink grapefruit and take the time to get all the white stuff off, so I eat two and dip each segment of perfectly peeled pink flesh in sugar. A delicacy, and something to do while watching Antiques Roadshow. My father peeled them that way. Its funny the stories that come down with time, what sticks, what doesn't.

I finished my book. The title is Life on Dry Land. I hope someone will publish it. Now, I have to write another one. I've already started six, and the pieces I've already written, the quilt scraps, I will stitch together at some point with words so clever and seams so invisible it will seem like it was always just one story.

Enough with the sewing metaphors. I just basted the sleeve of Molly's "neverending sweater" a once-beautiful but never completed, Irish cableknit fisherman's sweater. Mol sits in her chair -- not the one no longer occupied by Bill, her husband who just passed a few months ago -- she wouldn't sit in his chair. Anyway, she sits and knits and knits and now, she has asked me to put a dart in the sleeve. A dart, for the uninitiated, is a wedge of fabric "taken in" to make the garment more fitted. Typically, you see a dart in the shaping of a bodice, but this dart is in the sleeve. Seems Mol went on a few too many rows and one sleeve is wider than the other and it is easier to make the dart than to find a person with one very fat arm.

Such is my work.

I've ordered a Writer's Market, so I can begin the search for a publisher. People still do that. Vanity publishing is a possibility, but I'm not that anxious or motivated. Now, according to people who do this shit, I will be responsible for marketing and getting the word out about my book. So you read it here first. Buy my freakin' book. Thank you.

rain rain go away

Springtime in the northwest. But I would not trade a thousand rainy days for the drought of Southern Oregon, the interminable ninety-degree wasteland of July through October, dry grass fire danger water your garden twice a day heat stroke land of my half-life. Nope. I'll take the second half wet and green.

p t

Physical therapy is a crock of shit.

That being said, it may be helping. Ilsa/Ingrid/Ursula, the svedish sadist that tortures me twice a week, a large and accented vooman, seems to know her business. She sends me home with two or twenty new exercises every time, which she says, "You'll want to do three or four times a day." She's wrong about that. I don't ever want to do them again. I don't ever want to see her again.

My surgeon said that in six weeks, I'd wish I hadn't had the surgery. True enough. That's supposed to pass too.

dogland

This week my husband had a really good, but impossible, idea. We have dogs. Two dogs who eat and poop and entertain us. Each year we spend hundreds of dollars to restore the landscape they destroyed over the previous year. Each year we select another large section of our limited outdoor space to donate to shitland. Each year my husband accuses me of trying to keep them off the grass, favoring the outdoor ambiance over the animals well-being.

Perhaps.

But this year, he has had a change of heart. Either that, or I've finally worn him down. It's possible.

Our backyard is comprised of three sections: deck, stone inlay, and grass, in that order. Roughly 10x10 sections of each. So, to give you an accurate picture, it is a 10x30ft. space. I have, for years now, wished the deck was in the center of the yard. Today, my husband said, "I can just move it." To which I replied, "Can not." To which he replied, "Can too," and so on. There are few things in life more certain that my husband's actions once challenged. The deck was moved by noon.

Now, the dogs will have the area to the left of the backyard as their own private toilette, complete with cedar chips to help with the aroma. They will have less space than ever before, it will all be fenced with wood, and I will have a new outdoor decorating project.

My husband said, "Why does everything have to look nice when you're involved?" I answered, "It doesn't matter why. It only matters that you understand that it is true."

Bless him. He no longer argues that there is only one shade of white.

requiem for willi

Willi Hart died last week. He preceded me on the path, showed what lay ahead, even in death. He gave it all he had. It wasn't enough.

girlfriends

I just guided my best friend Loretta to an Arco station, then pointed her across the Ross Island Bridge and southward toward her home. My old home. The past three weeks, despite surgery, has been filled with moments of joy because of my girlfriends. They carried my purse, did the driving, put up with my whining, made me lunch, brought me treats, and otherwise spoiled me. Judith and Joan, who brought me a meeting, Kristi, who brought us dinner from Local Boys, Kristy gave me a sheet of tin for my studio and Kurt hammered it into place, JoAnne took me on a drive to the waterfalls, Athena brought chocolate, Vali took me to an encauastic show and dinner, and now Lorretta, have each contributed to my healing in ways much more important than the physical -- although the treats were much appreciated. There's just nothing like being with people who know you. I am blessed. Lorretta stayed two nights and I was able to show her around my neighborhood. I think she loved it. I'll make a city girl of her yet.

Today I am in so much pain. It seems to be getting worse instead of better. I suspect I am doing too much. Driving is very difficult. Painful. Sleep is impossible. I am taking less medication and hurting worse. This happens. It is the trajectory of recovery. Familiar. It goes like this: I think I am better, cut back the narcotics, and find out why I was taking them. Its a process. Of acceptance, of awareness, of honesty. This week I begin physical therapy. OH, did I say physical therapy? I meant torture.

Sunday is Cooky's 70th birthday party. I'm working on an encaustic piece for her. She likes blue moons. I'll see what I can do.

yreka gold heist

Happy Ground Hog's Day!! My husband is broken-hearted this morning. Somebody got to it before he did. The nugget in the middle of the photo, the pure 28 oz shoehorn nugget from Scott Bar, should have been his. He had planned something a bit more elaborate: a Mission Impossible swat team kind of operation, hovering helicopter, ropes and guns and such to avoid alarms and discovery. But wait! No alarms went off at all.

On Ground Hog's Eve, two guys hid in the bathroom with a sledgehammer and did a routine shopping mall smash and grab, and walked out the front door in the morning. The alarm on the case didn't even go off. And they walked away with 3 million dollars in pure gold. There are some crimes that deserve to be done. That gold has been sitting there for years, unguarded, in little more than a country store candy counter display case. What were they thinking?

Initially, I hoped they'd get away with it -- and the criminal part of me that lives on despite years of therapy, persistent as moss, really hopes they do -- but they'd likely melt down the nuggets to buy meth and I really really really hate the idea of losing the collection to that monster. I understand the indignant County officials who thought the collection was safe, because absent the meth epidemic and backyard stills, Yreka is a relatively safe place.

Etna, Scott Valley, Humbug, Callahan (where my son's father died) -- these are places that hold memory for me: the lovely drive down the hill into the long stretch of meadow that is Scott Valley, the impossibly steep grade coming out. I used to take my son down there to spend time with his dad but not in the winter, I'd never get him out. I remember the times when his dad would get pulled over, toss the car keys before getting carted off to jail, leaving my eleven year old son to find the keys and drive the Jeep home over unpaved roads grown men would avoid and spend three days eating canned food waiting for me to pick him up because there was no phone.

Ah, Marky. He's survived alot. This beats the previous record held by me for exciting things that happened on Ground Hog's Day.

  This is a photograph of the feathers of gold left when the quartz is removed by an acid process. This gold is in Carson City, another of my husband's imaginary conquests.

housebound

I have been sitting here, laying here, eating here, healing here, for a week. Day eight, my husband's day off, he asks if I'd like to go for a ride up to the waterfalls. The road from Troutdale to Multmomah Falls, is, to date, my favorite place on earth. I don't care the season, the weather, the time of day, I am nourished by the dense green ferns, layers of moss and lichen, light filtering through cedar trees to illuminate -- wait -- we're on the wrong road. Did he say "by the waterfalls?" What he should have said was, "I'm driving up to Cascade Locks to see if anybody's fishing. On the way we can pass Multmomah Falls going eighty mph and not even slow down. Wanna go?"

Am I complaining? I am, to no avail. I did want to get out of the house and this was out. But a trip down the freeway is not luxurious in the same way a winding adventure through fairyland would be. The healing powers just ain't there. Ah, well. I married a fisherman.

So, we get to Cascade Locks, home of the absurdly large, small soft-serv cone. Why do they leave the 'e' off of Serv? Is it clever? Does it contribute to the demise of the English language? I digress.

So, we roll down into the Marine Park (read: the fishing hole) to find two locals hanging out, one fishing, both drinking. Ralph is an Indian, Roy isn't. Duffy wanders over for the meet 'n greet. Next thing I know. Ralph is yelling. Apparently Duffy peed on his rubber boots. Which he was wearing. This was a great little conversation starter, as if the sturgeon pole and brownpaperbag wine sacks weren't.

"Good thing I wasn't goin' to a weddin' eh?" Ralph says.
"Duffy, you're not being very neighborly," I said. "I'm so sorry."
Roy laughs long and loud. We all laugh, start asking them about the wisdom of taking a drive out Hwy. 35 around Mt. Hood, road conditions, dead of winter, all that.
"Long as you do it before shade falls," Roy says.
My husband talks to them about fishing, the weather two weeks ago last time he was out there to fish.
"No electric that day," Ralph says, "all the way to White Salmon it was out. Them gas stations can't even pump us no damn gas. You know the only place you can stay warm?"
I shake my head.
"In the damn car. Good thing I had boat gas left. I had to stick it in the damn Jeep. Stuck there all day with the old lady. But we made it. We always do. That's how you know."
About the woman. You know about a woman if she can sit all day in the car, in the cold, staying warm on recycled boat gas. And wine. Don't forget the wine. High octane.
Duffy wanders overs to piss on Roy's boots this time. I swear he's never done this before.
"Shit," I yell, although not for encouragement or by way of suggestion.
"He who laughs first, laughs last," Ralph says.
Wise old Indian, that Ralph.

So we wander back to our truck, offering weak apologies. Ralph thanks us for making his day. Kurt tells them he'll be back tomorrow to actually fish.

Personally, I would not have told them this. I would come back, but hoped they'd forgotton the whole deal. Because honestly, this situation could have gone very differently. One more bottle of wine, one more forty-ouncer, and the story might have ended with Pictures at Eleven. What seems so silly at noon turns suddenly serious as daylight wanes, as the nice blonde lady with the fluffy little white dog who lets him piss on the locals ought to buy him a new pair of boots. How much? I'd ask, as my husband, who would certainly intervene, says, "we ain't buying this asshole new boots. They're rubber. He can stick them in the river and rinse them off if its such a big deal. Then, together, Roy and Ralph would rinse my husband in the mighty Columbia and use Duffy for sturgeon bait. They'd take Sid because he's a pitbull and guys like that think pitbulls are cool-they don't know Sid is a wussie dog. Then, Ralph's wife would show up and kick my ass. Her name would be Beverly and she'd be pathologically unhappy. Together, they'd tie me to the statue of Sacajawea (We refer to the statue as "Hot Sacajawea.") and before leaving, she would punch me in the shoulder just for pure meanness.

So we got away without a scratch, got an ice cream cone, and drove the long way home. It was good to get out of the house.

one handed

What is the sound of one hand typing?

i'll dispense with capitalization. now 20 hours post-op, the fun begins. for the curious, i had my left clavicle resected to reduce impingement of the acromium process. (they shortened my collar bone.) my husband made me comfortable all evening and just now made scrambled eggs for breakfast with blackberry jam on my toast without even asking.

duffy is sitting on my shoulder, pulling on my hair. sid is pacing because, heaven forbid, something has shifted in the zen of our home. he worries. duffy could care less. to him, i just can't get out of the way fast enough in case he notices a squirrel on the wires outside my bay window. i am sitting in his spot. in his way.

owwwwwwwwww. time for medication.

three word resolution

It is finally friday night and we are sitting in the living room of cabin #5, Happy Camp Hideway in Netarts, just like last year. New Year's in Netarts. It may be a bit soon to call it a tradition, but here we are, surrounded by the lapping waves of an inlet just south of Tillamook, two neon palm trees and a tattered Jolly Roger flag decorate the driftwood yard. The trees do not sway in the wind. I am happy to be anywhere but work. Anywhere. And I am very happy to be here. There's a silly ad on TV right now: Condense your new year's resolution to three words.


I'm thinking. That's two.

At work I've been doing the unthinkable: reading ghost stories to Alzheimer's patients. They love 'em. I found two books of Oregon ghost stories. We've read Jacksonville stories and Portland stories, stories of the Pittock Mansion and the old hotel in Baker City. Emmy lived in Baker for awhile. She has a tattoo on her upper arm. Like her, it is cloudy with age. It is a heart with a name in it --looks like it begins with a J. I asked if there was a story behind it. "Oh," she blushes, with a sweet Alabama twang, "Some boy or another, I s'pose." Only she says bo-way, all drawn out. "I was a little wild. I had five husbands, you know," she confides. I try not to raise my eyebrows, and she says, "Not at the same time, honey." And her smile fills in the blanks as her attention drifts. "I didn't pick so good," she admits. We both laugh. When I read the ghost stories, Emmy does the sound effects. "Woooooooo," in the pauses.

I have two couples living on the unit now. One is from Tillamook, just around the corner from where we are now. They met in the midwest during the Depression, in the Dust Bowl. "You don't know poverty," Tom says, shakes his head. I asked his wife how it was to clean the house. She said it was impossible, but she cleaned it every Saturday just the same. She told me grasshoppers ate the curtains right off the windows. I didn't understand. "There wasn't nothin' but dust to eat and millions of grasshoppers. The windows were black with them trying to get inside. They ate wood, anything. Your nose was always full of dirt. You got used to it." I guess I don't know poverty.

I take it back.

That's four.

Kurt spent yesterday netting crab for our New Year's Eve party of two. Nothing will ever taste as good. I don't know if its because you have to work so hard for the meat, then drag it though pools of melted fresh garlic butter. Mmmmm. We spent the day taking the long way home up through Cape Mears and Wheeler. I bought a cherry bark box in Wheeler where we had breakfast. Very pretty. Bought oysters and steamers in Garibaldi to make for dinner. I won't eat the oysters. Too ugly.

My shoulder is bad again. And again. Surgery on January 20th, followed by a month off work. Which will contribute more to healing? The knife or the absence from work I can't say.

Heal my body.

There. That's three. A bit ambitious if you know my body. And a direct ripoff of Louise Hay, but what good did it do her? All these health nuts and new age gurus, laying in the hospital dying of nothing.

all smiles

Merry Christmas from Duffy and Sid.

lemon verbena

I remember my untrained palette discerning the difference between the honey I suckled from a purple wildflower behind my house on Marsh Lane, and the sweetness at the base of field grass, chewed against the better judgment of my mother. "Those slivers will go through your blood stream and into your brain." She was great for death threats so far unrealized. She should have warned me about other things.

The smell of lemon verbena takes me home, back to the pastures of my childhood. I try to capture these smells with words and fail. I bought lemon verbena soap for the girls in hopes of sugarplums dancing in their heads, some memory other than the rags and black punk dreds of Portland street urchins who leave their warm homes in seach of meaning. Who camp in the dangerous cold and decay, who do not seem to benefit from our suffering, our rejection of all that we now protect. I lived in trees and hovels. I know poverty like the back of my hand. You can tell the difference between children who have lived in poverty, and those who see it as a alter-lifestyle. They wear better rags.

Ah well. It is Christmas Eve day. I haven't posted in ages... so long that Blogger changed my password for me. So Merry Christmas to all of you out there in blogland. I am warm in my home, surrounded by love and posessions. I love the facebook posts of people who say: you know you've grown up when the things you want for Christmas can't be bought." Fair warning: this encrypted message means you ain't gettin' squat. But it sounds good.

veterans and days

I've been neglecting these pages, forsaking my readers, and for what? An android. Truth be told, I've sold my soul to scrabble or something like it. Words with friends.

That's the only apology I offer.

But today, II.II.II, I was at my job where I go every day, living among the dying, letting it get to me in ways I never have so far, or not since the beginning when I "took it home with me" or, worried about work at home. This is not recommended in a careerpath in human care. It would be easier to think of it as "back when I gave a crap," but that would be untrue, and unfair to a life spent in the service of madness and old age. Back then -- say 1973-4-5 ish-- I hadn't yet learned how to give a crap and survive, how to show up, give that heartfelt percentage of between 75 and 120 % depending , in those days, on the quality of speed I was shooting and amount of whiskey it took to make me sleep with with someone I didn't love, and go home unscathed.

I'm not going to take the time to discuss the continuum of scathing. So.

But my family is one of veterans. My father was in Korea and WWII, one brother left his mind in a rice paddy in the demilitarized zone somewhere between north and south Viet Nam, one did his time in the Navy until he painted his CO's face with deck paint in a moment of frustration. Not his last.

So today, my workplace put on a big deal for veteran's day. I have a new boss and she's really American, and midwestern and nice, but she says "uff-da" alot, and plays the trumpet professionally and she's really good, but she plays patriotic music and wears red white and blue and it is really loud and so very American. And I'm American also, and consider myself patriotic, just more of the rust, creme and robin's egg variety.

So that's what was happening on the living side of the building. You'll remember, perhaps, that I'm in charge of the other side. That place where "those people go" and nobody ever comes back.
So one of my guys is FTD, in the words of his sweet loving daughter: "Fixin' to Die." And the family is doing the death watch thing. And they get it. They know they only get one shot at it. That dad's only gonna die once, and they're partying for him and around him, the way they think he would want. The daughter's not sleeping and is emotionally unstrung. Families, in this most intimate of settings, tell you things they wouldn't ordinarily tell you.

So this guy, this tiny little leftover of a great man, a Leiutenant-Colonel in the US Army, a decorated Veteran of WWII, Grand Marshall in every 4th of July parade in his little town, was dying. His daughter told me, "He's waiting for Veteran's day. 11 11 11." I gave her comment due respect. I don't know that much anymore and have no podium from which to argue. So, fine, I say. V day it is. People know things. But at that point on Monday morning, he didn't look like he had 24 left in him let alone five days.

So the guy who's speaking at the Veteran's Day Bash on the other side, a retired Army Chaplin, now a hospice chaplin, is giving out little flag pins to all of the vets. "So," my new boss asks, "do ya think Herbie would like the recognition?" I tell her sure. His family is up for it. You betcha.

The chaplin arrives, we give him the scoop about Herbie, and I escort him to the bedside where the party is still on, people still in thier jammies, beer cans and half empty gin bottles. Herb is covered with a red,white and blue quilt made by his mother. His mother. His Army uniform hangs where he can see it. The chaplin kneels down to honor Herbie with the little pin, and he says some really nice stuff. Then he asks the family if he can pray with Herbie. They say, "Sure. Go for it."

So he goes for it. He prays a pretty long prayer by my standards, then goes into the 23rd Psalm, which always gets me with the "valley of the shadow of death" part. In closing, he begins the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven.... and we all join him, and he says, "Amen."

And at the moment, at the instant the Chaplain said "Amen," Herbie opened his eyes, closed them, and released a long, last breath.

And that was that. What Herbie needed was a final salute to find his way through the portal.

why I stayed home this weekend

It all started innocently enough. Every year we empty the truck and head down to the Jacksonville yard sales. Always the same time of year, always the same plan. We spend friday night near town, wake up, hit the yard sales (see previous posts) have breakfast with friends and family at the Mustard Seed, and after it is all said and done, head up-river to have Bob's birthday dinner at his place. A five or six or seven year tradition, and given that he's seventy two or three, its been going on for some time.

This year, it didn't go off as planned.

The first thing that changed was that there was nowhere for us to stay.

One: My mother-in-law's daughter reserved the cabin for that weekend, the only weekend we always stay there. Pick one of fifty-two.

Two: Kurt's son decided to cook a pig in the ground for the birthday,

Three: and invite a billion people. Well, fifty. He is working to organize this, but my outlaws have no faith in David's ability to roast a pig in an imu without burning down the forest and the adjacent crop, so

Four: my husband is asked to get involved. He cannot say no to his father. So he goes online and finds out how to roast a pig, and shares this with Dave, who seems to have done the same thing. He's got a plan for getting the right kind of rocks (lava) and cornstalks instead of banana leaves, and a chef to help him with the cooking, and all the kids to bring different food for the luau. David isn't the problem. Neither is his grandfather. From my POV its his wife. No love lost there. So, as David is trying to get this thing together for his grandfather, she is running ahead of him mucking it up, telling people to bring different things, planning a big breakfast and a dinner the night before, but she'll have her daughter to help her out. Like martyr like dartyr.

Five: Johann says we can use his cabin. Johann builds huge temporary shelters for raves and for Burning Man and lives next door. But there are no cooking facilities and I can't find out if the dogs can stay there, so

Six: My husband says we'll just stay in the back of the pickup. Johann is a german hippie who usually has three or four naked young women hanging around.

Seven: The girls are going with us, (a happy thing) and David's best friend Cody is hitching a ride, but we have to wait for him to get off work until about six, which will put us there at eleven at night. He has AIDS, which is sad but fine with us, but bringing him around the clan is like bringing a vial of live ebola virus. He won't be welcome and we'll be the assholes who brought him.

So by Thursday night, here's how its looking to me: Its 100 degrees in the Rogue Valley, we have nowhere to stay except with Johann and the naked girls or in the back of our truck with two dogs, Nicole, Haley and Cody, which will be fine becasue my husband will be up all night either a.) building and guarding the bonfire, or b.) putting out a forest fire, or c.) explaining to the rangers who are taking us all to jail why we shouldn't be arrested for growing marijuana and burning down the forest, all the while we listen to Patricia cackle about why David should never have tried to roast a pig.

So, you may ask, what about the yard sales?

Well that's what I said.

So I stayed home.

labor

Today we went to yard sales and I bought this tea set. It is like Fiestaware, bright oranges and blues and greens and yellows, incomplete, but a little girl would never know that. I'm not sure why I bought it. We use these toys to teach women to be servile and domestic, both of which evade me still. I like to buy things and decorate my house, but I don't think that qualifies as domesticity. I still think I should have a maid to pick up after me. My husband would agree that I need it. I'm kind of like Pigpen only with Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel shit gathering at my feet. Ah, the curse of good taste and a steady job.

It is Labor Day tomorrow, and I may labor through it. Because there have been so many passings (Goodnight Rose, goodnight Charlie, Goodnight Willie) I am bracing for the unrelenting flood of new ones that press against the locked doors, seeking shelter from the storm that is Alzheimer's Disease.

reunionish

As fewer and fewer of my immediate clan remain above ground, family reunions become increasingly extended. It was good to see my first cousins, but I didn't know anyone else, and thank God for Vali, my treasured cousin. We, with our men, drove together and escaped together, and ate and talked and looked at a wonderful scrapbook of sweet memories from a time when the only way to preserve paper was in a scrap book, not digitized, not youtubed.

My aunt (of whom these children were born) was meticulous about every area of her life, her scrapbook a reflection of her genealogist-librarian mind. I will never be like that, and sometimes my personal unravelling is a source of unrest for me. We are the black sheep -- my immediates and I, but we are beloved -- there is never any doubt -- and as I spoke to one dying man who was hooked up to a power pack of some sort that was keeping him somewhat alive, our similarities and differences were in an odd balance. He hears that I am a writer. Yes, I admit. That's true. His family has a publishing company. Oh, my ears perk up, really? My husband whispers, this could be a good thing. I listen. The dying man says he is trained in theology and publishes theological books. Oh. Maybe his is not the publishing house for me. What kind of novel? he inevitably asks. Oh, darkish women's literary fiction. An autobiography? No, I tell him, although parts are emotionally true-ish. Ah. He knows what I mean. I wonder if he does. His face is gray and his feet are black. Whatever he knows, he needs to get it said and quick if anyone on this side of the veil is to hear it.

We ate burgers and potato salad and red velvet cake and went home, our names and photographs captured for ancestry.com and posterity. I guess photos are inaccessible as long as you are living. When a death date is entered, you become public domain.

Back at the office Rose is dying slowly. It is hard to explain to the living how hard it is to die, that dying is a process. Even you, my readers, will think I mean a spiritual process. I mean it is physical work. Something to attend to. Something to do. And your body knows just how to do this thing, this ending. It stops getting hungry and thirsty, it stops eating. If it is an indian back in the day it wanders away from the tribe where it can die unobstructed by the living and the loving. It is hard for families to stop feeding the dying. They think they are helping. But the person who is doing their level best to leave is sidetracked from the serious business of getting it over with, and made to digest another small container of yogurt or ensure, as though those small bites could somehow sidestep death. And they are so sweet, the dying are. They open little bird mouths and take another sip so as not to hurt anyone's feelings, making yet another detour on the way home. But we all make it home eventually.

Ah, life.