05.29.08
sickle and twisted
Mowing is not my friend. We live on an acre but half of it is forest and untouched and the other half is our house, my gardens and a patch of lawn. Actually ‘lawn’ is a bit of a misnomer, if it were not for dandelions we’d have no ‘lawn’ at all. We have discussed clearing the other part of our land and developing it into something a little nicer than trees and shrubberies but then we recall how much work goes into the rest of the yard and we take a big gulp of reality and smack each other upside the head (picture the Three Stooges minus Larry) and wonder what the fuck we were thinking. That part of our yard can become (remain?) a complete jungle for all I care. I will just treat it like I do the dust inside the house, close my eyes and pretend it isn’t there. Denial is a beautiful thing.
As if the mowing was not bad enough I also raked, planted, weeded and built yet another garden, this one for my zucchini and my cukes. This is the fifth garden I created this year. Most of them are fairly small but it takes a lot of work to get them put together at all. Where we live there is only a light sprinkling of dust over the rocks, there is no soil, just enough dirt to grow weeds. I have to make my own dirt. I mix the topsoil we bought (which is little more than clay) with peat moss, sand, sawdust and compost to formulate something that does not resemble concrete once it’s wetted. Sometimes shit grows in it, sometimes it says “fuck you”.
Dirt clogged lungs, black snot and everything tasting like grass…and not the devil weed smokable kind. There was not a part of my bod that wasn’t screaming ‘mutiny!’ and all night my hand was the only part of me that got any sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like it was a baseball glove, swollen and without feeling. It took me half an hour to work the feeling back into my digits and still the damn thing would get all pins and needly on me and fall back asleep before I could. My ankle was all fucky too after spending several hours trudging around the yard pushing the heavy mower. It was aching and sore and no amount of ice (or frozen peas) or drugs were taking the pain away. Naturally my husband informed me today that I had been doing it wrong, apparently the machine is self propelled and nobody told me how to work that fucking fabulous feature so I was operating the mower under extreme duress and unnecessary physical exertion. Fuckers.
I was doing His Highness a favor, the more yard work I do, the less he has to do. I was being all altruistic and shit…well sort of. I want to go to the lake tonight for the weekend (he’ll go to work from there in the morning and come back out after his shift) and he was whining that there is too much to do around here to split early. My selfless motives are really not so selfless. Surprise! I suppose the pain is karmic justice for the pseudo altruism.
I decided I had better go see Dr. Kink. That’s not really his name but he does get me into some pretty funky positions before he mounts me. Dr. Kink is a pretty small dude and I find it funny that most of the people he treats are nearly twice his size yet he manipulates them fairly effortlessly. He is a good chiropractor…not one of the quacks who set you up for fourteen consecutive appointments and all kinds of shoe inserts and shit…but he never makes eye contact. It was my old boss who pointed it out to me so now I watch for it. The doc is talkative and friendly and he remembers everything I tell him but he never looks me in the eye, and it’s not just me, it’s all of his patients. If I didn’t know better I would guess that he is blind but since I see him cycling to work every morning I highly doubt that is the case. Trixie gets pissed off that he won’t look her in the eyes so she moves into wherever he is looking so that he has to look at her. Really I don’t give a shit if the man has intimacy issues, fuck I wouldn’t care if he wanted to wear women’s panties and a baby bonnet while he serviced me as long as he makes my pains go away.
I was out from stem to stern, asshole to breakfast, neck to ankles. He says he is seeing this sort of spinal misalignment a lot this week. We had such a long (lethargic) winter and such a late spring that now that the warm weather is finally here we are in a hurry to get our yards and gardens together so that they might look pretty and produce something before it snows again. He told me that many people have strained and put things out because they are working muscles that haven’t been used in nearly a year and they are doing too much all at once. Between the clearing at the lake and all of the lawn (dandelion) and garden work I have done here I could attest to that of which he spake…or something like that. For a paltry $40 he snapped me back into place like I was Lego askew. Now I just want to sleep…perchance to dream…of pretty homesteads, productive produce, lakeside retreating and a hand that does not need more sleep than I do.
her-ben dictionary (entry #1)
waxcident
[waks•id•ent] noun definition 1. An unfortunate incident that happens when one is not careful when applying wax and ripping out hair. word origin In an attempt to save some time I cut a corner and used Trixie’s wax instead of my sugar to remove the excess hair from my eyebrows. The first one was perfect and perhaps I got a bit cocky with the second because when I ripped off the strip so went the middle half of my eyebrow. use in a sentence Due to an unfortunate waxcident I now have to pencil in my eyebrow until it grows back.05.26.08
getting down with opp
We were a little late getting to the first OPP (old people party), it was a surprise…not that we were late, I think that was expected. The organizers knew that we had two events to attend that day so we’d not be arriving before the grand entrance. We call her Aunty Dill because she makes the best pickles ever and despite her not being related by blood she has always been (and always will be) “Aunty” to me.
Del became part of the family when my mom was just a tot. She was friends with my grandparents and eventually she and her husband bought the house across the alley from my maternal clan. My grandparents birthed four daughters, Del and Harold had three sons and though the girls were all older, the seven kids were pretty much raised together. Del is one of the most sincere, genuine, patient and real people I know, she has lived a giving life but so much of her own has been taken away. Her middle son was killed in a logging accident when he was in his mid twenties, a few years later her husband Harold died of a heart attack and not long after that her eldest son sat up in bed clutched his chest and died as well. So much tragedy. Finally several years later she met Dan and it seemed like Del was getting another chance at happiness. They were true soul mates, they had all of the same interests and they simply adored each other and truly enjoyed every minute they had together. Both Del and Dan had shitty first marriages, Harold was a drunk and a bit lecherous and Dan’s ex had been screwing around on him for years. It was almost as though they appreciated each other even more after what they had been through on the first go ‘round. I am not sure if Del exhaled or if she waited for the other shoe to drop…I hope for at least a moment she exhaled and believed that all of her misfortune and tragedies were finally behind her.
Dan got cancer, he died a month before their twelfth wedding anniversary. She was understandably devastated. Her world had been right for such a short time and suddenly her joy was ripped from her. She has since met someone else but they both know that Dan was the real love of her life and he can never be replaced.
My mom wanted to name me after Del and while I am glad that my name does not rhyme with a female body part (thank you Seinfeld) I would have been proud to share the moniker of this woman who I respect, love and admire so much. At seventy years of age and despite all of her pain and loss she still has an amazing outlook and a heart with more capacity for love than anyone I have ever known.
The garden soiree (sounds better than BBQ) began in the afternoon, there were about fifty people and although I recognized most of them there were few that I knew very well. When the murderer arrived I was incensed. How dare that child killer show his face, he should be in jail. He is Del’s nephew and while driving home drunk one night he rear ended a car carrying a family of five. He killed one of the children inside and wounded the other two. This was the second time the drunken manslaughterer had struck and had our justice system done it’s duty the first time that second family would not be mourning such a senseless loss. I was absolutely infuriated that he is not only free to roam until his trial but also that he is STILL DRIVING!!! Naturally the cocksucker had a beer in his hand the entire time and acted as though he had not a care in the world. I wanted to express my disgust but it was not the time or the place so I just had a few drinks of my own and avoided him until it was time to go to OPP#2.
My mother-in-law Katy has been living with Sal for nearly two decades. Sal has six children of his own and while they have never made any real effort to include us or my MIL he has always treated us all like his own family. To my son he has always been ‘Uncle Sal’ but really he is as much a grandfather and certainly the only paternal grandfather my boy has ever known. I absolutely adore Sal, he is now officially an octogenarian but the man is still razor sharp and an authority on farming, gardening, politics, Italy, history and the way all things should be. I have the best conversations with this man and despite my usual discomfort with old people I love to be around him. He is stubborn and pig headed and more than a bit of a chauvinist but he knows it and he understands my sense of humour and can take a ribbing as well as he gives it.
Katy asked my boy to prepare a short speech/birthday greeting for Sal to be read at the party. I rolled my eyes…because that is what I do. The kid is busy, he doesn’t have time for this stuff right now. Apparently I have mother issues even with mother-in-laws. I do love my MIL but she can be kind of old-fashioned sometimes, not that that is always a bad thing but she tends to take it too far. She used to make us ‘call in’ to visit her relatives when we were traveling because she knew they’d want to see us and it was the ‘right’ thing to do. After the second time we had to explain to the person in the doorway who we were and that we were not Jehovas Witnesses or trying to sell them something my husband put his foot down and said no more unannounced visits.
My boy is more scientist than writer so he asked for my help in preparing his speech. He wrote a quick draft and I edited it and added some extra sentiment and anecdotes, still managing to keep it short and sweet but without the “I regret to inform you that I will not be attending this evening”. He gets that odd inappropriate formality from his dad who once telephoned someone and said “I am calling on behalf of myself.”
Guido, the emcee, read the note aloud and I watched Sal with tears in my eyes knowing how much this meant to him and how much he means to my kid. It was a lovely moment and I forgave my MIL for being a pain in the ass.
Sal’s family always raves about his dead wife Lori. They talk about her like she was not only the quintessential mother and wife but an all-around saint. It has always annoyed me that Katy has been the mother-figure in that family for twenty years and still they completely overlook her and take her for granted. They only pay attention to her when they need her help or a babysitter. Katy is the type to just accept her role and not make waves so it has been easy for them to take advantage of her. While he was addressing the crowd Guido went into his spiel about what a wonderful mother he had and what a perfect wife she had been to his father and just as I was about to suck back another glass of wine so that nobody could see my eyes rolling back into my head he said something I didn’t expect. For the first time in twenty years a member of Sal’s family finally recognized my MIL for the companion she has been to him. The entire place lit up with applause. Katy is not the type of woman who does anything for accolades, in fact she is one of the few true christians I know, but even she was touched by the recognition. It was about time.
I drank the rest of the bottle of wine at our table (I am not much of a wino, it usually gives me a headache but this was homemade and really good…really really good) and by that time I was completely uninterested in the spaghetti and meatball dinner telling my husband maybe I’d act like an ass in front of his peeps for a change. About the time I threatened to start dancing on the tables and singing along to “That’s Amore!” his highness said it was time to say our goodbye’s and head to the lake. I’m not sure if he was afraid that I would embarrass him or if he just wanted to take advantage of my dwindling inhibitions. He stole an unopened bottle of the lovely vino for me from the cooler as we exited the building so I am assuming it was the latter.
05.21.08
home sweet away from home
We went to the lake for the long weekend and since we’ve been home we’ve been busy getting the yard and house work done so we can go back next weekend. I am sot sure what the rush is, there is no water out there, the weather is turning crappy again and the road is too rough to haul the old trailer away so we can’t start on the cabin yet. Still, it’s good to be out there. I built a new garden there this weekend and planted a bunch of flowers that hopefully the chippers will find distasteful. I feed them tons of peanuts, maybe it’s too much protein and they need the greenery after as roughage. I wonder if I spiked the nuts with Metamucil or some other such laxative type substance if they would leave my plants alone. I did cover the new garden with chicken wire but I am pretty sure if the critters want in they will find a way.
This begs the question…why is it called chicken wire? I am pretty sure the holes need not be so small to restrain fowl of any sort. Or is it chicken as in fearful that the wire is named for? As in you need the chicken wire to protect you from the birds. Or maybe it is the wire itself that is afraid. Run away, run away chicken wire!!
I’m tired…obviously. We built a raspberry garden when we got home and I am well drugged because I twisted my ankle hiking in flip flops through the barren moonscape that will be my lake in about six weeks. The hike was not intentional or I would have worn proper footwear…maybe. We were going for a walk and went a little further and a little further until…bam…we were way far away from home and had to walk back…really fucking far back. Through sandy, silty, rocky and muddy hills and valleys we trudged in the heat. I believe it was the sandy portion of the slogging that sent my foot in one direction and the rest of me in another. I hobbled back to camp and iced it and took some anti-inflamatories to keep the swelling and pain to a minimum.
This leads me to my next question. Why is it that a closed baggie holds in all contents without incident when you’re awake but the minute you fall asleep with said baggie it manages to leak the melted ice all over the bed?? I felt like I pissed myself…from the ankle. I don’t like sleeping in the wet spot…any wet spot!
On the way out to the (un)lake we saw six bear poops on the road. This makes me wonder why we always see ursine shit a la road but we never actually see a bear shitting on the road. It makes me wonder if maybe they are like monkeys and they toss their feces at the passersby. The image is hilarious to me, a gaggle of Yogi’s hiding out in the bush waiting for a car like mischievous teenagers with snowballs ready to strike their next unsuspecting victim. I see them laughing their fuzzy asses off as they hit their target with their tourist, rodent and berry laden turds.
The photos below…if this works…are from the weekend. The bear is a pretty young black about two years old. We stopped the truck so I could take his picture and he almost looked as if he was posing for me. He wasn’t fifteen feet from the pick-up when I snapped this shot, completely unafraid of us he looks like he is scratching his ass on the tree. While I think they are totally cute and I love that they are unafraid of us I also know that they won’t be afraid of the bear hunters either so once I took his photo I hollered and honked the horn to chase him away. And yes, that is snow. There is still a fair bit of it in some spots.
The next shot is a stump that will be submerged once the water levels come up. When they flooded the valley to turn it into the reservoir they cut down all of the trees but the stumps remain. Some of them have become floaters and apparently people will pay huge cash for them as yard decor or horse scratching posts. They do make for some pretty spectacular driftwood but I kind of like this creepy crawly look, like they might just walk away…or attack. “Go get ‘em stumpy!”
The last shot is taken from the creek where we get our water…which runneth over at this point with warm weather and spring runoff. I love this view, it’s so beautiful up there even when the lake is little more than a river winding through the valley. Even in bleak brown and beige desolation it is stunning to me.
05.13.08
update v 2.0
Fuck fuck fuckety fucker!
I had a whole update post and my computer farted and froze up so in the resetting I lost the entire post. I know, it’s my fault for not saving beforehand but this old dog is not very proficient at new tricks…or thinking ahead obviously.
I’ll never recall the entire post so I am doing the point form short version instead.
-Harry’s sister Caren is finally out of the woods (or ‘out of the water’ as Trixie puts it). They are unsure how much neurological damage was done by the meningitis but they do know that she will have a very long recovery and it may take years for her to be back to normal…if ever. Harry came back home yesterday, he is tired and emotional but he is grateful that his sister is alive.
-The cops arrived at my husband’s work the other night. No, they weren’t looking for his highness…this time. They were looking for the bear murderers. The cockknockers cut the paws off the poor ursine after they killed it and before they hung it off the bridge. I was disgusted that they would not only kill the animal but also that they would mutilate it as well before stringing it up as a spectacle. Despicable. While I would love to see the book thrown at them…and have them beaten with it…I doubt that will happen. All three of the boys are in their early twenties so at least they are not protected under the juvenile offenders act. I doubt however that the little bastards will get much more than a slap on the wrist, sadly the penalties for such brutality are still fairly mild.
-We took a drive out to the lake the weekend before last to see if we could get out there. We made it across to our island where we were greeted by two feet of snow. We had to trek through it…naturally I was wearing flip flops…to get to our place where we had a picnic and relished the fact that soon we’d be able to camp again. We returned this past Saturday to do some brushing and clearing while the trees are leafless and it’s easier to move through the shrubberies. We want to have the land prepped so that once the road is graded we can get the old trailer hauled out and start building our cabin. It’s exciting to know that it will finally happen this year and it gives us both something to look forward to…a shitload of work! We’ve got two OPP’s (old people parties) to go to on Saturday, my aunt is turning 70 and the man that lives with Heiny’s mom is turning 80 so we’ll put in an appearance at both soirees and then we’re off to the (un) lake (there is no water there at the moment) for the rest of the long weekend.
-Now that our snow is gone and the weather is finally feeling springy I have been cleaning out my gardens and prepping them to plant. I have most of my flowers in and in the next couple days my neighbor is coming down to turn my veggie garden with his tractor. I could do it by hand but they are adding manure and fertilizer for me so they offered to mix it all in too. I love having helpful neighbors. I have also decided to put more gardens in my back yard. We had considered planting grass in that area but I decided that I’d rather weed than (make my husband) mow so I am going to build (er, have my husband build) some box gardens for strawberries, asparagus, onions, garlic etc. My uberhelpful neighbor has also offered me some thornless raspberry canes and I have found a sunny spot to build (er, have my husband build) another garden just for them.
-My husband did not get the job in the city and while I was getting excited at the prospect of moving I am now kind of relieved he didn’t get hired. I have plans and things to look forward to here and while I would have dealt with it had it happened, I know now that I just wasn’t ready to give this place and my summer plans up. Meant to be? I think so. Either way it is what it is so on we go.
I am pretty sure the lost post was more exciting…yeah, the other post was fantastic.
05.08.08
talk of the town
They say nothing ever happens in a small town but when it does the local nail salon is the place to find out the details. The word at the (rumour) mill where my husband works spreads faster than a three dollar hooker as well so between us we are always up on the latest gossip. Usually the stories are idle chatter, who’s cheating who, who is whose baby daddy and what recent afflictions have been diagnosed. For the most part I don’t buy into it and keep my nose out of other people’s privates…unless they are paying me to be there. Sometimes however the tales are bigger than this town and to that prattling I pay attention.
I was heading out the door to go to work this morning and my husband got up (he’s on late shift so he sleeps in) to see me out and flash me his boobies as I pull out of the driveway…turnabout is fair. He told me he had some stuff to tell me. I rolled my eyes as he usually tells me shit I don’t need to know…like about his poop or what the temperature is…or what the temperature of his poop is.
“Four things.” he paused in what I can only assume was an attempt at building anticipation.
“Some chick OD’d yesterday.” he began.
He didn’t know her name but our first client this morning…and in fact every client today knew the girl and the details of her death. Some thought she killed herself, one heard that she died mid-party and nobody did anything to help her, another heard that her mother found her dead on the floor and yet another claimed she heard the mother killed her. What we do know is that it was an overdose of crack and that she was only 25 years old. She left behind a three year old son whose father (also an addict) was killed in a car accident a little over a year ago. The details are irrelevant, the outcome itself is tragic.
“Someone has been putting used hypodermic needles in the handles of gas pumps so when you fuel up your car you get stuck with aids.” Heiny continued his revelations.
“Here?”
“Yes, here.”
“Here in this town???”
“Yes, here!”
I found this a little hard to believe but two of my clients had also heard the warning, one said that there have been ten people infected in Canada. When I got home I checked it out on the internet…the great and powerful all-knowing Google and it appears it was a hoax. One of those stupid emails forwarded to everyone and their blog and believed by every(gullible)one who passed it on.
“Someone has been offering kids pop rocks that are really strawberry flavored meth.”
I totally thought this was bullshit. Trixie said they sent notes home from both elementary schools warning parents to reiterate what they have been told at school…don’t take candy from strangers?! Apparently some guy…it’s always ‘some guy’ has been hanging around the schools and skate park offering his ‘pop rocks’ to kids. If anyone has actually accepted (their parents should be beaten for not drilling into their heads to never take anything from strangers) or taken the drug we’ve not heard about it but there are flyers all over town warning people to be ware. I still think this is bullshit. First of all who would find that shit funny, secondly what meth dealer or addict for that matter would waste their drug of choice on children and thirdly people don’t really push drugs on little kids, not in the real world, sure it would be easy to get a kid addicted but they can’t afford to keep buying so it’s not really creating a demand…or at least not a lucrative one. Still it pisses me off that people start this shit and create panic in the masses…or the few in the case of this hamlet.
“Someone killed a black bear and hung it over the side of the bridge.”
Somehow I knew this one was sick enough to be true. Sure enough it was all over the news today. The brief goes a little something like this…
*places and names have been changed to protect the innocent places and names.
By Associated Press
British Columbia (AP) – A dead bear has been found hanging from a pedestrian bridge.
RCMP officer Dudley Doright of the Rocky Mountain detachment says that surveillance videotape showed three men stringing up the bear early Monday, shortly after midnight.
Dudley says an area resident found the animal and called a conservation officer who told him to cut down the bear and let it float away down the Kicking Horse River.
As a result, authorities don’t know how the bear died before it was strung up.
<they aren’t assuming it wasn’t self inflicted?>
Police have asked that those who participated in the bear hanging come forward.
I just have to say to start by mentioning that the AP press release was terrible. I edited a bit and I was going to re-write it completely but I think it is kind of funny this way…subject matter aside. It’s worded badly, there were commas where there shouldn’t have been and they had the location of the town on the wrong side of the Rockies and seriously, like the three culprits are going to read this and suddenly come down with an attack of conscience and come clean. I don’t fucking think so, not even if the police had said please with sugar and a big hairy cherry on top.
As for this act itself, despicable is the first word that comes to mind. People are afraid of bears, I get that. I even understand when someone feels threatened enough by a black bear (which incidentally are more dangerous and less afraid of humans than Grizzlies) that they feel they must kill it in defense of their family, property, pets, livestock or person. I don’t like it but I get it. If we all did our part to ensure that there was no food for the bears in town (keeping garbage locked up, not leaving fruit on trees etc.) they would move on to where they could find other sources. People are stupid though and they forget that we are infringing on their territory, the bears are just doing what they have always done in a place where they have always done it. That’s why it’s called ‘nature’.
Due to cutbacks a few years ago our local conservation officer was removed from this area and the nearest substitute is two hours away…and obviously not the most useful tool in the shed telling whoever found the bear to cut it down and let it float down the river. In the old days when an unwelcome four-legger appeared in ones space one would call the CO who would have the critter trapped and relocated to a safer, more remote, less inhabited area. Now however we are pretty much left to our own defenses. We can call the police but their options are limited, they tend to just shoot the animal. Most people either try to shoo the beasties away or kill them themselves. It’s a very sad situation.
There is a Bear Aware lady here but I think she is insane and her methods only make her seem madder. She puts big stickers on people’s garbage cans if they put them out for the truck too early. If you get three stickers she gives you a fine…which really she is not authorized to do. She has gone so far as to put people’s garbage back in their garages or yards if she deems they have placed it by the curb prematurely. She drives a station wagon with a big “Bear Aware” sign on the door and she patrols the streets and alleys, day and night looking for infractions and trespassing wherever and whenever she chooses. I am sure her motives are honorable but her methods make a mockery of something that should be taken more seriously. People won’t take “Bear Aware” seriously if the woman in charge is a whack job fanatic self proclaimed bear aware enforcer (like the love child of Yogi and Nick Nolte…with stickers) instead of the educator that she should be.
Now as for the three wads who committed this heinous act I would like to see them hung from the same bridge by their nads and poked with very sharp sticks. It is one thing to deem it necessary to kill an animal that is perceived as a threat, it is quite another to drag it to a public place and hang it like some kind of fucked up pinata. What was the purpose of this? A prank? Shock value? A warning to other ursine? They were just being assholes.
The good thing about a town this size is that it is fairly easy to round up the usual suspects and figure out who dunnit. The shitty thing is that they’ll likely get little more than a slap on the wrist anyway. Where the fuck are those psycho pricks from PETA when they could really be useful?!
I can’t wait to tell my husband that his source steered him wrong on at least two counts though I am sure that by tomorrow we’ll hear new versions of all of these stories…and probably a few new ones as well. Sadly that’s just the way it is in a small town. Apparently that is our nature.
05.07.08
perspective
One day is running into another at the moment. I’m getting confused as to where I am in the week and my appointment calendar is saving me from thinking every day is Sunday. How lovely would it be if every day was Sunday…not so much for the churchgoers though, you’d REALLY have to like church. I’m not sure why my internal calendar is all fucked up…it just is. I’m feeling off, not sick really, just off. I’m kinda crabby, my knees are achy and I haven’t been sleeping. Hmm, maybe it’s PMS. I really need to start tracking these bad days to see if there is a pattern. It might have something to do with our current (constant?) state of limbo. We haven’t heard anything about the job yet, I’m guessing he didn’t get it. Now we have to decide whether or not we want to keep trying to find something in the city or if we should stick it out here. Speaking of sticking out, I have a sore thumb, it’s swollen and feels bruised at the knuckle. Not sure what I did to it but it hurts like a motherfucker and of course it would have to be my right thumb…the important one…the wrestling/hitchhiking digit. I may need a splint…and crutches…and drugs.
About the time I think things are seriously sucking for me something worse happens to someone else. Last Saturday at 8pm Cousin Trixie’s husband Harry got a phone call. His eldest sister Caren had gone in to emergency twice only to be told she simply had the flu and be sent home, untested and untreated both times. When she started seizing they finally took her seriously. After a lot of tests they discovered that she has spinal meningitis. Scary shit. Apparently she had a cold sore, a herpe, that instead of bursting outward ruptured inward making its way to her spinal column and settling in her brain. By the time she was admitted they feared it was already too late. Her headache had become excruciating, the pressure in her brain increasing to the point that it drove her eyeballs nearly out of her head. At one point they found her trying to push her eyes back into their sockets, screaming that the pain was unbearable and she wanted to die. They suggested calling the family.
Harry left home at 3am to catch a flight at 7am, his mom left at roughly the same time from Nova Scotia and the two of them met in Toronto. They rented a car and drove up to where the two sisters live, hoping and praying that Caren would still be alive when they arrived. As they donned the sterile gowns Peggy warned them that Caren was not looking herself and that they should brace themselves. Peg said that despite the warning the shocked expressions on their faces were right out of a horror movie. Harry held tightly to his mother as she nearly collapsed at the sight of her eldest daughter. As if the nine tubes running in and out of her were not enough her face was nearly unrecognizably swollen and misshapen. Her left eye and the left side of her mouth were drooping as though she had had a stroke and her normally peachy complexion was now grey.
“Hey sis, your little bun is here.” Harry tried to coax her awake at the urging of the nurse.
“Harry.” she mumbled, her eyes fluttering.
He thought she was in pain as her hands flailed toward her face. As she fell back asleep he realized that she had been trying to wipe away her tears. It was the first time she had been awake in two days.
Caren is only 49 years old. Her husband, children, siblings and mother have been taking round the clock shifts sitting with her. Hoping. They say that it will be another three or four days before they know if she’ll live. Even if she does survive she is looking at at least three more weeks in the hospital and depending on the damage to her brain she may never recover fully.
My shit feels pretty small right now.
I’m not one for prayer but as long as there is anything positive in me I will be sending that energy her way.
05.03.08
hear with me
It was the summer of 1984 and there was no Big Brother despite what the Orwellian novel predicted, I did have two little brothers though and thankfully they spent my formative (wild?!) years at the lake with my parents. As a teen I was far from the lake-lover that I am now, in fact I hated the place. For all the reasons I love it now I couldn’t stand it as a kid. No phones, no TV, no people (no boys in particular), it was boring, nothing to do but hang out and read and adding to my distaste was the fact that my parents and brothers were there. I was way too cool to spend my summers with those people. My dad worked at the lake so he was out there from May to December every year and my mom spent as much time as she could with him when the boys were not in school. In the summer months she would come to town once a week or so just for groceries and to do laundry. Since I was old enough to work and ‘trustworthy’ enough to be left alone it meant I had my own place for the better part of two months a year… and a whole lot of weekends beyond that. Thankfully that house can’t talk or I’d be in huge shit… or jail. Those stories are for a different post, this one goes in another direction.
It was a few weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday. I knew my mom was due to come home so I was madly cleaning the house after the most recent soiree. I had gotten very good at removing all evidence and getting the place spotless before her returns home and my friends were very good about respecting my place and ensuring it not be destructed. Only twice did mom ever suspect that something sinister was afoot while she was out of town, the first time was when she found a beer cap in her shoe and the second was when she came home unexpectedly and found me and my boyfriend asleep on the couch, my friend and another guy in my bed and a third guy crashed in a chair. The funny thing about that incident was that all three guys shared the same first name. It made the introductions less awkward but I still had some explaining to do and had to promise that we weren’t doing anything bad. Of course I swore we weren’t.
It was 10:00 am and I had just taken the garbage out when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and said “Hello.”
Nothing.
I was about to hang up when I heard music. I listened closer and realized it was REO Speedwagon. I said “hello” a few more times and when I got no response I hung up.
The next morning at the same time the phone rang again. I answered it and once more heard an REO Speedwagon song. This time I waited the tune out to see what came next. It was another of their hits. I kind of laughed it off and hung up thinking one of my friends was fucking with me.
This carried on for almost a week. Same time every day, same REO (Hi Infidelity) album and nobody speaking to me. Finally I decided to hang on the line to see if my telephone disc (tape) jockey would finally speak. After the ‘a’ side of the cassette ended I asked “Are you ever going to talk to me?”
There was a pause on the other end as I heard the click of the tape player door opening and finally he spoke.
“Maybe.”
I could tell he was smiling…if he had asked me if I was in the house alone I would have seriously shit my pants.
“Who is this?”
“Nobody.”
“Well Nobody, why are you calling me every day playing me REO songs?”
“Do you like them?”
“Sure, but I have my own copy.”
He laughed.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“Who are you?”
“You have the advantage here, you called me remember, you know who I am.” This was of course long before caller ID and even before *69.
“I guess I do.”
We chatted for a while that day but he refused to give me any information as to his identity. I thought it was odd but I was pretty sure that I’d not hear from him again. I was wrong.
The next morning the phone rang at the same time and when I picked it up I was not surprised to hear the same song playing. Whoever this guy was he was going to keep on loving me. This time he spoke right away.
“Good morning Brenda.”
This whole thing really should have freaked me out, I had a stalker before stalking was a felony but I was pretty sure this guy was harmless.
Every day he would call me and every day we talked a little longer. We chatted about music, movies, TV, people at school and just stuff. We laughed a lot and I completely enjoyed his company. By this time he admitted that he knew me from school but he still would not tell me who he was. Finally about a month after the first call I devised a plan to figure out who my teleromeo was. I worked family into the conversation and discovered that he had a sister the same age as me and since I had already discovered that he had his driver’s license I knew he was older than me. I dug out my yearbook and tried to cross reference my class with the two ahead of me but that wasn’t narrowing things down enough so I started talking about my family. I told him what my dad did and he volunteered that his dad worked at the mill. 90% of the dads in town worked there at that time so that was no help. “Does your mom work too?” I queried innocently.
“Yeah, she cooks at the Hilltop.”
He blew it and he didn’t even realize it.
As soon as I hung up with him that day I called my girlfriend Glenna who’s sister happened to waitress at that very restaurant. She got me the information I was looking for.
The next morning at 10am on the dot my phone rang as it had for nearly six weeks. I picked up and listened for the obligatory Speedwagon song. I recall it being “In Your Letter” that day. I am not sure why I remember that specifically but I do.
“Good morning Gary.” I was grinning as I said it.
He hung up.
The next morning I watched the clock waiting for the ring but it didn’t come. He never called me again.
I was disappointed, I regretted telling him I knew his name and I missed his calls. This stranger and I had become friends… or so I thought… and yet the moment I discovered his identity he disappeared. I could have called him but I was not that kind of girl.
A few days later school started, I would see him in the hall but he wouldn’t even look at me so I decided he was just messing with me and I let it go.
It was nearly a year later that a bunch of us went to a house party we heard about through the grapevine. We didn’t need cell phones back then, we had no problem spreading the important info the low tech way. AC/DC Back in Black was blaring as we walked into the crowded kitchen I saw him and was immediately panic-stricken. I wanted to leave. I was a self conscious teen who felt like a fool for opening up to a stranger on the phone and I was mortified that he and his friends might be laughing at me behind my back. Some things don’t change much, I still worry about that shit.
I couldn’t just turn around and walk out so I took a detour into the living room hoping he hadn’t seen me. There on the wall was a photo of Gary in a cap and gown from his graduation the month before. FUCK! Of all the houses in all of this town why did I have to stumble into this one?
I felt sick. I wanted to bolt but the exits were blocked. I grabbed Glenna and pulled her toward the door trying to fight the crowd but we knew everyone there so making a hasty departure was impossible with friends stopping us to chat every few feet. Hell’s Bells was playing on the stereo and it stopped mid-song. I never thought much of it until the new tape began to play. Hi Infidelity, REO Speedwagon. I felt my face flush as my eyes darted around the living room in search of the Hi Fi. There he was. Gary gave me a little smirk and walked toward me. This was the first time we ever spoke in person.
“Hey Brenda, how are ya?”
My face was eighteen shades of purple.
“Good thanks, you?”
“I’m good.”
“This is your house?” Obviously I was the queen of small talk…and this conversation was right out of a John Hughes movie.
“Nothing gets by you.” he grinned pointing at the giant photo of himself on the wall above us. “You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
I followed him into the kitchen and he opened a bottle and handed it to me.
“Thanks.”
“You ever play ‘give one take one’?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well it’s time you did.”
He pulled an extra chair up to the table next to his spot and ushered me into it and told the dealer to deal me in. Give one take one is a very simple card based drinking game. Everyone is dealt five cards which are turned face up on the table. The dealer turns over a card and says ‘give one’ at which point anyone with that card gives a shot to whoever they want. With the next card flip the dealer says ‘take one’ whereby anyone with that card must have a shot. Then the dealer flips again for ‘give two’ and then ‘take two’ until the deck is gone or everyone is loaded…or both.
We had a great time that night, we partied until nearly dawn and Gary was at my side the entire time. It was an odd connection, I liked him and I knew he liked me but somehow I also knew that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Nobody (besides my friend Glenna) knew of our phone relationship and none of us spoke of it. Maybe it was because we knew if others were aware of it it might taint it or embarrass us somehow. Maybe he would have felt silly if his friends knew he was calling up strange girls and playing music for them and I certainly would have felt lonely and pathetic for listening and playing along.
One week later Gary was killed in a car accident. It was a terrible tragedy and I was saddened deeply by his death. He had too much life in him to die so young. My heart broke for his family, his mom was devastated and I don’t think she ever fully recovered. I’ll never know why Gary chose to call me that first day and I’ll never know why he chose to play the songs he did or if anything would have ever become of our relationship. What I do know is that we would have become great friends and that REO will always remind me of him, that summer and those hours on the phone and those songs will always make me smile.
tmi
The rules:Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment on their blog and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to come back and read your blog for the whole story.
tagged by bloo
1. I eat most things from a bowl except for soup, ice cream and cereal which I eat from a cup.
2. I would rather go to the dentist than go grocery shopping.
3. Old people freak me out.
4. I want to live in Europe someday…I think Tuscany would be ideal.
5. I do not feel like I am living up to my potential…not even close.
6. Most of my clothes are black.
7. My bum is itchy.
8. There are two deer standing in my back yard right now…I don’t think their bums are itchy.
i tag: whoever wants to play.
