Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking

Mom was rushed to the ER because she "fainted" while grocery shopping. What happened was her heart stopped beating and then started up again, several times. The grocery store personnel had to go out to the car to get my dad. He was reading a magazine, letting her do the "woman's work." UGH! She ended up being airflighted by helicopter to a cardiac hospital where they wanted to do a cardiac cath to see what was going on. Her kidneys weren't up to the amount of dye necessary to explore so they installed a pacemaker until they could try again on Monday. I went away for the weekend to visit a dear friend 175 miles away and called my dad while on the road, hoping to get a number at the hospital so I could talk with my mom. Had to leave a message since he didn't answer and he never called me back all weekend. Through sibling emails today, I was able to obtain a phone number and immediately called her to see how she was feeling. She said they put a stent into the main artery into her heart since it was blocked -- yeah, just a fainting spell mom -- and she was feeling much better in that department. But what was most impressive to her was her helicopter ride to the cardiac hospital! She loved it! She thought it was very exciting and would like to do it again, except she says, it's probably too expensive. That's what I like best about my mom -- she always finds something good in whatever is happening to her....takes a licking and keeps on ticking, now with a little help from some spare parts. I'm just glad she's still looking forward to adventures.

9 Years Old How Did That Happen?

I can't believe R is 9 years old today. It just isn't possible. I called to wish him a happy birthday even though we celebrated it early on Sunday. I was slightly crushed when he acted annoyed that he had to talk with me. Tore my heart out -- that's what he did!! After a few minutes talking with J, she handed the phone back to him and all of a sudden he was animated and telling me all about his new Lego sets and what we were going to do when I babysit him and K this weekend....phew! I thought I'd lost touch with him already and wasn't ready to let go of our closeness. I guess I just caught him at a bad moment.

1999 Saab 

In memory of my 1999 Saab

That dratted hailstorm on July 11 ruined so many vehicles; my Saab was one of them. The damage from the hail was more to repair than for the insurance company to total and offer me a settlement. Turns out NH has a stupid salvage law on the books that says if a person buys their car back with a salvage title on it, they have to have EVERYTHING repaired that is listed on the insurance estimate before they can put the car back on the road. So....if you have a loan on the car, and the amount of money you have to buy the car back with exceeds the amount they offer as a total loss, you are screwed! I have a loan of $6200 left; they want me to pay them $2400 to buy the car back and are only totaling it for $8100. After all that, I would STILL have to repair everything to drive the car again.....they estimated the repairs to be over $6500. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I loved my car, probably too much. Now, replacing it, I will make every effort not to love another car too much. Obviously there's no guarantee that the curse of hail won't rain down on us again and we'll have to go through all of this nuisance again. I loved my Saab. I waited so long to have one. I chose her carefully from about 50 Saabs that I researched and investigated. I only had her for a year and four months before the hail came along. She was such a pleasure to look at and to drive around in. She kept my butt warm in the winter and cool in the summer. She had such great pick up and traction control and kept me safely on the road even while I was lead-footing it. I felt SO safe inside her and confident that we operated as well together as any human/machine combination could. I have to let them take her away now because she is dented all over with lights broken. I still love her even though she has lost her beauty but it's time to say goodbye. I will miss her greatly and think of her fondly. I found a new Saab with almost as many bells and whistles as my old Saab. It is a year newer and cost me less money so in the long run, I guess I am better off. It's an automatic instead of a 5 speed so I compromised there. It doesn't have a 6 CD changer, just a plain old CD player, another compromise. But it has power everything like the old one, a sun/moon roof and leather seats with the woodgrain dashboard and almost as much pick up as the old one, and it's dark blue with tan leather interior...so no more complaining, just get on with life. I'll get the new car soon and recycle all the 95 Carfax reports I used for research before buying. Oh I think I need a new printer cartridge too!

Memorial Service

It's done. I finally managed to get myself together enough to have a memorial service for my son. Lots of tears but many smiles too, for the wonderful people that came and helped me to celebrate his life. J did a wonderful job putting together two collages of D throughout the years. The Pastor did a nice job with the sermon and getting the church all prepared for me. The video production was wrong at the beginning of the week, but after going down to the business myself on the Wednesday before and asking nicely for the owner to "redo" for me to include parts that were very important to J and I, it too turned out nicely, not exactly as I had envisioned, but since I don't quite have those technical skills, I settled for the next best thing. We had a butterfly release in the garden after the Pastor said some fitting words and we sent good wishes to D and symbolically set him free to move on to his next phase, whatever that may be. I thought it would be a point where I could think, ahh, it's over, now I can move on, but as happy as I am with how it turned out, I still find myself with tear filled eyes and wishing I could "do over" some things in the years before D left for Colorado. TIME, it's going to take time; I have to keep telling myself that. But I have to say, I felt so loved by the friends that traveled far to help me make the day a good one. Thank you my good friends and I hope D was looking down on us and approved of our celebration of him.

There's always one!

Strange neighbor. Everywhere we've been in the last 5 years we have had an oddball or two nearby. There was the Greek family of 3 who were 24 hr caretakers for an old man, all stuffed into a 1 1/2 bedroom apartment. We always heard fast rocking going on downstairs.....figured it was the old man probably tied into the rocker, rocking as fast as he could trying to escape. Then a crazy cat lady who preferred 165 cats to humans. She was always bringing home new toys or scratching posts for her feline friends. From her we moved onto a skinny little bleached blond prostitute up at all hours screaming for her cat "Buttercup" in between johns. Then there was "Woody" the woman abuser who liked to rev his crappy engine at 5 a.m. or 2 a.m, depending on when he was leaving or getting home. He was also good for cranking his ignition over and over and over again even though there was absolutely no sign that it was going to start. This time we have the strangest one. He seems to think he's a rock n roll star, or that is the impression he is trying to make. He plays the drums at any time (badly), day or night whenever the mood strikes him. He is always dressed in black; usually a black wrestling type top which shows all the gray hairs covering his chest, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. I've never seen him in anything but those cowboy boots so far. He calls J "Chief" or "Sport", thinks Daisy is "Spike" and acts afraid of her (GOOD) and talks to himself in very animated conversations. Oh yeah, he spray paints his scalp black to try to match his black dyed hair, or what's left of it. OMGod! He even went for a bike ride on Sunday with his cowboy boots on. I thought maybe he was taking himself to some sort of church but that wrestler top doesn't really belong in a church of any kind. He went by yesterday in a taxi (taxis pick him up just about every day for short runs where???) As he went by J and I he shouted out, "I'm your long lost brother Adam!" I looked up to see if J was still with me while I was planting some perennials. He had disappeared into the house.....oh YUCK! He's NO Brother of mine!!!!! He has a car with no license plates on it, no registration. He drives the car up to the mailbox area every day, including Sundays and holidays, checks his mailbox and then burns rubber back to his condo.....WTF?? I asked the property manager about him, hoping he was a leftover leaser before the place was converted to condos.....no such luck. Somehow this man, with no job, no visible means of support has bought a 2 BR condo here and we're stuck with him. However, the property manager did say that a state trooper has bought the condo next to this freak and will put a stop to the drumming and the driving. Phew! This guy definitely has issues; like maybe he needs a keeper or should be in a halfway house or in a psych ward. I'm not sure what, but I'm sure glad the state trooper is going to be around. My theory is that this guy has a rich dad, who is so through with dealing with him, he probably bought the condo for him with the agreement that he never darken his father's doorstep again or something like that. He's definitely burnt out from something!! Life sure is interesting.

Closing Date

It seems like forever to get to that day where you sign your life away. So many piles of paperwork just to get to closing date and then you sit and sign a huge pile of more paperwork in order to get the keys in hand and get started on making this place yours. When I look back now, I realize it's only been a short time since we first looked at this condo and decided we wanted to buy it, be closer to my grandkids and daughter. But it felt like FOREVER. Sitting on pins and needles each time some issue came up. We put in a bid on March 7 and our closing date is April 20; it's not really very long. I started taking deep breaths again after we got the signed commitment letter. Now I've got to live with boxes everywhere until moving day. It will be worth it. Finally, a place of our own. I'm so tired of moving around from place to place. Now we can settle down. We will put in new carpeting in the three bedrooms the day after closing. I want to put in new kitchen cabinets, IKEA here I come, but that will have to wait. So will the flooring that J is going to do for us in the kitchen and dining room. Those are projects that we will do over time. Oh, the bathrooms have this ugly yellow ceramic tile in them and we will live with them as long as we have to but J is going to have to redo them both with some nice ceramic tile that we will pick out -- I think within the year it will be replaced because I don't see me dealing with that yucky yellow for very long. And there's this very low toilet paper holder in the half bath downstairs that drives J nuts already. He can't wait to redo that one!! I just chuckle when I see it but it makes him crazy.

LEMONS

That's right. Hang in there.... Sometimes life hands you lemons, but then you can make lemonade. Of course, sometimes life pulls down your pants, runs a power sander across your naked butt, then pours lemon juice on your raw, abraded buttocks. In that case, a cool citrus drink wouldn't really help, but darn it...you've got to hang in there anyway!! my man gave this to me. It's soooo appropriate right now.

Fragile

I have always thought of myself as a strong, independent woman, but these days, I am feeling so fragile and helpless. I feel like I am walking a tightrope and life keeps trying to nudge me off the wire so I go crashing to the ground. It's very precarious and the tears come whenever they feel like it. I have no control over them. It's a scary situation when you are used to dealing with all sorts of crap life throws at you and overcoming the less than ideal situations you find yourself in. Kind of like a roller coaster, once you're locked in and headed down the track, you can't say, stop I want to get off, you have to continue through until the end. But this isn't a fun roller coaster ride. I don't wish this experience on anyone. I only hope I can last until the end and find my "land legs" again.