We are a little nervous about leaving the kids for our week's vacation. Not because they won't be fine, because they will be, but because their attachment issues make it difficult.
DS seems very strongly attached to us, and his insecure, reactive attachment seems to be becoming more secure as time passes. He trusts that we will be there, he trusts that we love him. We feel that *zing* of attachment, and know that it's working. But he still gets anxious at times, and clingy, and needs that assurance that Mom & Dad aren't going anywhere. He is the first one at the door when I get home, sometimes coming out to the garage to greet me, even if I've only been gone for 1/2 hr. It's great that he's happy to see me, but we did have to institute a "Mom gets to take her shoes/coat off first" rule so I could make it in the door.
DD seems very loosely attached to us, and we to her. It feels as if she goes through the motions of attachment, because she knows those are the steps she is supposed to take. Not in such a way that she is being purposely fake in order to manipulate us. It is just lacking something... something on which I've never been able to put my finger. (I know, awkward sentence, but my grammar-loving grandmother would kill me for dangling a preposition) (if she hadn't died 3 1/2 years ago, that is). It's as if we could drop her off at a different house tomorrow, and within a week we would be a distant memory. I know, it's a defense mechanism, combined with those missing FASD connections, combined with the sum total of all our frustrations with her on a daily basis that have made it hard for us to attach as we should.
While we are away, we fear two things: 1) DS will get nervous and anxious about our being gone, and his anger issues will come back to haunt us, as they have during past separations, and 2) DD will pull every trick in the book while we're away, start stealing again (just when we're in a lull), and start calling the respite parents "Mom & Dad." Since it is their previous foster parents who are doing respite, that makes it more likely that she will slip into a new family role. Last time we took a trip like this, she refused to come to the phone when we called and told the respite parents (a different couple) that she didn't believe it was us on the phone (a flat out lie, but she couldn't be persuaded to give it up because she liked the drama). Oh, and she started screaming some made-up story about how she was put in a cage by the police when she was taken away from birth mom just because birth mom was poor (at 28 mo., so of course her memory is crystal clear).
Now, three years later, we're hoping it will go smoothly. More maturity (hah!), more experience, more understanding that Mom & Dad are definitely coming back. But to help them while we are gone, I am going to create something I'm calling a "claiming journal" for each of them.
I have purchased your basic journal for each of them, and am going to put in a little note from DH and me, some pictures of us with the kids, some extended family pictures, even pics of the pets, and some phrases and nick-names we use with the kids. Of course, all the pictures we've taken have the kids in it, but not us, so I told DH he needs to cooperate while I take some pics of him with the kids. (yes, I'll take some of me, too. I hate being in pictures.). Maybe I'll include Linda's pictures of DH helping the juggler this fall, too!
Then, after I give them to the kids, I will tell them that they can have us add phrases to it any time they like - things they hear us say, catch phrases we use as a family, inside jokes, etc. But this will just be for family, not for friends/respite parents/teachers. (DD will break this rule anyway, and end up scribbling on some of the pages, but at least I will have told her.)
I got this from an idea DD's therapist, who showed me an article on how to help attachment disordered kids get a sense of belonging. I've modified it somewhat, but I'm hoping it will work. DS will benefit from having something he can hold and keep when he misses us. DD will benefit by being reminded that we are still her family, even when we are not physically present. And we will benefit from the exercise of reminding ourselves to claim our children, even when frustrations make that difficult. My intention is that this not be a "life book," but just a pictorial and verbal record of the ties we have built, and continue to build, as a family.
Now, if I can just squeeze this in along with all the other projects between now and our trip, I'll be just fine!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Aruba, Jamaica, oooh I Wanna Take Ya....
This song has been going through my mind non-stop for the past couple of weeks because.....
We're going on a cruise! It's our 10th anniversary, and we wanted to do something special, just the two of us. (And my answer to all those people (in non-blogger land) who have asked me if we're taking the kids... Are You NUTS!!!)
We leave in 30 days for Puerto Rico, then board a ship for Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten & St. Thomas. DH and I can hardly wait!
We've found respite for DD & DS, with their first foster parents. Those FP's are looking forward to getting to know them 5 yrs later, and to seeing how much they've changed. People are actually excited about watching my kids for a week+. Go figure!
The time can't pass quickly enough for me, but in the interim, we need to finish a book report (for DD, due the week before we leave), an art project (for DS, due the day after we get back), and a Science Fair project (for DD, due the day after we get back). Squeeze in 2 respite weekends for JJ, packing, writing a "how to" manual for the kids, etc., and the time will be very full.
But worth it.... oh, so worth it!!!
We're going on a cruise! It's our 10th anniversary, and we wanted to do something special, just the two of us. (And my answer to all those people (in non-blogger land) who have asked me if we're taking the kids... Are You NUTS!!!)
We leave in 30 days for Puerto Rico, then board a ship for Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten & St. Thomas. DH and I can hardly wait!
We've found respite for DD & DS, with their first foster parents. Those FP's are looking forward to getting to know them 5 yrs later, and to seeing how much they've changed. People are actually excited about watching my kids for a week+. Go figure!
The time can't pass quickly enough for me, but in the interim, we need to finish a book report (for DD, due the week before we leave), an art project (for DS, due the day after we get back), and a Science Fair project (for DD, due the day after we get back). Squeeze in 2 respite weekends for JJ, packing, writing a "how to" manual for the kids, etc., and the time will be very full.
But worth it.... oh, so worth it!!!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Digging In and Digging Out
OK - now that the in-laws have left, and I have a few more quiet moments, it's back to our regularly scheduled blog....
It was hard to know where to start as we cleaned out Mom's house. It was basically a question of, "reach out your hand, grab something, and decide whether to toss or keep." Some was obviously in the toss category - the old papers and magazines, food wrappers and miscellaneous post-it notes, unidentifiable ex-food of the I-don't-really-want-to-know-what-that-is variety. Others in the keep category - electronics, books, videos, keepsakes. But it was the in-between category that drove us nuts. Books which were slightly torn or dampened, miscellaneous papers which might be needed for the upcoming legal issues, random notes my Mom left on every scrap of paper (a variety of unidentified numbers & names, none connected, but any one possibly important) - all these were items which needed to be considered.
My SIL decided to dig her way to the kitchen. On her way she discovered lots of empty alcohol bottles (we hadn't know my mom was an alcoholic - that was a new fun fact we discovered in this process), a variety of books, and in the entrance to the kitchen, several bags with milk jugs and eggs which had never made it to the refrigerator (because Mom couldn't reach it). Some of the milk had actually solidified.
My brother was in charge of electronics, so he sat in Mom's chair and sorted through various things we brought him. Later, he helped DH start down the hallway to see what the back rooms held. Unfortunately, the kitties had used this as their secondary (tertiary? tetratiary? pentatiary?) litterbox, and it was disgusting. They had to shovel up the carpet in the hallway, wearing gloves, it was so bad. If I hadn't know it before, I knew then that I had married the right man. No other guy I had dated in my past would have loved me enough to shovel cat poop out of my mother's house. Nobody!
I worked my way toward the fireplace, then decided to see what wonders the deck held. You see, we had noticed that the deck was full of packages, boxes, and horse tack. I had realized that some of the boxes appeared unopened, and I wanted to know what was in there. Not to mention saving them from the predicted rainstorm.
Most of the boxes were Mom's e-bay purchases. She had bought so many things on e-bay that she couldn't fit them inside the house. She also had several of those Property of the US Post Office white plastic bins full of unopened mail - all of which needed to be sorted piece by piece, looking for important tax and other legal information. Underneath those were several boxes containing books and videos. Of course, this is California. In January. When it rains. And is cold (relatively). So there I am, standing in the rain and the dark, sorting through a year's worth of e-bay packages, mail, horse tack, books and miscellaneous other items.
That's where we made some of the most interesting discoveries. First, I found the Uzbekistan pants. What, you ask, are the Uzbekistan pants? Well, one of the first packages I opened was small - about the size of a Kleenex box -and soft sided. I could tell it had been outside in the rain for a while, as the brown wrapping paper was soaked through and faded. The only thing still legible on the outside was the country of origin - Uzbekistan. Inside, however, the sender had had the foresight to double wrap the item in a plastic bag, so although the outer wrap was disintegrating, the item was intact. I pulled out the most unbelievable pair of pants you have ever seen. Now, my mom was a large woman - 6+ ft. tall, and extremely... um... "full-figured" Picture the largest pair of pants you have seen, only make them royal purple. And velvet. And embroidered. With gold trim on the cuffs. Oh, and add some jingly things. I can't even begin to find the right words. I promise, before the week is out, I will post a picture of the pants. I have kept them, as my own personal memento of one of the most unusual items we found. I think I want to frame them (but DH won't let me).
The other interesting item did not generate nearly so much laughter. In one of the crates of mail, we found the foreclosure notices for the house. Up to that point, all LL could tell us was that something was going on with the house, but he didn't know the details. This letter gave us the amount due, and the deadline for sale of the house. We found this letter around the 6th of January. The sheriff's sale was scheduled for the 16th. Eventually, we located a dozen notices, dating back several months, informing her of the foreclosure. She hadn't opened a single one. And she'd never told her husband.
The crates were full of junk mail, but they were also packed with bill after bill, late notice after late notice, collection letter after collection letter. Rather than deal with these problems, Mom had simply not brought them into the house. Out of sight, out of mind, right? This way she also could avoid telling her husband (LL) about what was going on, since he never went outside (health issues - I'll get into that later). In a way, I can understand - it made me depressed reading these over and over, and it wasn't even my problem. How much more depressing was it for her, as she watched everything spiral out of control, and felt powerless to stop it? I spent hours sorting through all this paperwork, and would end each evening panicking, depressed, worrying that I, too, had forgotten to pay my bills, sucked into the vortex of her devastating situation.
Within a couple of days, I was able to contact the mortgage lender on the forms. It wasn't a large bank, it was an individual investor. He had no business giving Mom a loan with her credit history, but he had to have known she would default, and that he would then get the house, which per the market in that area should have been worth 800K to 1M (pre-real-estate bust). But at least working with a private individual, we had a chance to negotiate. He gave us a 2 week extension so we could work out what we were going to do, where we stood financially (broke), and just have a breather to think.
And so began my fun as the executrix of the estate(s). LL was still suicidal, but he promised to stick around long enough to sign whatever papers were needed to give me power of attorney and make me executrix (I love that word... maybe because it sounds so much like "dominatrix". Hate the job (which I've done 4 times now), but love the word!) I contacted our lawyer out there to draw up legal documents, found a notary and had LL sign them (and no, we couldn't purposefully delay just to keep him from suiciding - he nixed that right away). I worked with the mortgage lender to find out what would be needed to pull the property out of foreclosure. I sorted through boxes and boxes and boxes of paperwork, searching for title information (to houses, the 4 cars in the driveway, the two horse trailers, anything!), tax information, horse information, debt information, and anything which might possibly come back to bite us. We found house paperwork hidden in the lining of the back of Mom's chair. We found titles to cars stuck inside old books and stacks of paper. Most of the bills were unopened (and wet... fun!). We never did figure out the horses.
At least, when you're spending hours and hours with family, stuck inside and doing nothing but sorting things (a half-brained activity at best), interesting things can happen....
It was hard to know where to start as we cleaned out Mom's house. It was basically a question of, "reach out your hand, grab something, and decide whether to toss or keep." Some was obviously in the toss category - the old papers and magazines, food wrappers and miscellaneous post-it notes, unidentifiable ex-food of the I-don't-really-want-to-know-what-that-is variety. Others in the keep category - electronics, books, videos, keepsakes. But it was the in-between category that drove us nuts. Books which were slightly torn or dampened, miscellaneous papers which might be needed for the upcoming legal issues, random notes my Mom left on every scrap of paper (a variety of unidentified numbers & names, none connected, but any one possibly important) - all these were items which needed to be considered.
My SIL decided to dig her way to the kitchen. On her way she discovered lots of empty alcohol bottles (we hadn't know my mom was an alcoholic - that was a new fun fact we discovered in this process), a variety of books, and in the entrance to the kitchen, several bags with milk jugs and eggs which had never made it to the refrigerator (because Mom couldn't reach it). Some of the milk had actually solidified.
My brother was in charge of electronics, so he sat in Mom's chair and sorted through various things we brought him. Later, he helped DH start down the hallway to see what the back rooms held. Unfortunately, the kitties had used this as their secondary (tertiary? tetratiary? pentatiary?) litterbox, and it was disgusting. They had to shovel up the carpet in the hallway, wearing gloves, it was so bad. If I hadn't know it before, I knew then that I had married the right man. No other guy I had dated in my past would have loved me enough to shovel cat poop out of my mother's house. Nobody!
I worked my way toward the fireplace, then decided to see what wonders the deck held. You see, we had noticed that the deck was full of packages, boxes, and horse tack. I had realized that some of the boxes appeared unopened, and I wanted to know what was in there. Not to mention saving them from the predicted rainstorm.
Most of the boxes were Mom's e-bay purchases. She had bought so many things on e-bay that she couldn't fit them inside the house. She also had several of those Property of the US Post Office white plastic bins full of unopened mail - all of which needed to be sorted piece by piece, looking for important tax and other legal information. Underneath those were several boxes containing books and videos. Of course, this is California. In January. When it rains. And is cold (relatively). So there I am, standing in the rain and the dark, sorting through a year's worth of e-bay packages, mail, horse tack, books and miscellaneous other items.
That's where we made some of the most interesting discoveries. First, I found the Uzbekistan pants. What, you ask, are the Uzbekistan pants? Well, one of the first packages I opened was small - about the size of a Kleenex box -and soft sided. I could tell it had been outside in the rain for a while, as the brown wrapping paper was soaked through and faded. The only thing still legible on the outside was the country of origin - Uzbekistan. Inside, however, the sender had had the foresight to double wrap the item in a plastic bag, so although the outer wrap was disintegrating, the item was intact. I pulled out the most unbelievable pair of pants you have ever seen. Now, my mom was a large woman - 6+ ft. tall, and extremely... um... "full-figured" Picture the largest pair of pants you have seen, only make them royal purple. And velvet. And embroidered. With gold trim on the cuffs. Oh, and add some jingly things. I can't even begin to find the right words. I promise, before the week is out, I will post a picture of the pants. I have kept them, as my own personal memento of one of the most unusual items we found. I think I want to frame them (but DH won't let me).
The other interesting item did not generate nearly so much laughter. In one of the crates of mail, we found the foreclosure notices for the house. Up to that point, all LL could tell us was that something was going on with the house, but he didn't know the details. This letter gave us the amount due, and the deadline for sale of the house. We found this letter around the 6th of January. The sheriff's sale was scheduled for the 16th. Eventually, we located a dozen notices, dating back several months, informing her of the foreclosure. She hadn't opened a single one. And she'd never told her husband.
The crates were full of junk mail, but they were also packed with bill after bill, late notice after late notice, collection letter after collection letter. Rather than deal with these problems, Mom had simply not brought them into the house. Out of sight, out of mind, right? This way she also could avoid telling her husband (LL) about what was going on, since he never went outside (health issues - I'll get into that later). In a way, I can understand - it made me depressed reading these over and over, and it wasn't even my problem. How much more depressing was it for her, as she watched everything spiral out of control, and felt powerless to stop it? I spent hours sorting through all this paperwork, and would end each evening panicking, depressed, worrying that I, too, had forgotten to pay my bills, sucked into the vortex of her devastating situation.
Within a couple of days, I was able to contact the mortgage lender on the forms. It wasn't a large bank, it was an individual investor. He had no business giving Mom a loan with her credit history, but he had to have known she would default, and that he would then get the house, which per the market in that area should have been worth 800K to 1M (pre-real-estate bust). But at least working with a private individual, we had a chance to negotiate. He gave us a 2 week extension so we could work out what we were going to do, where we stood financially (broke), and just have a breather to think.
And so began my fun as the executrix of the estate(s). LL was still suicidal, but he promised to stick around long enough to sign whatever papers were needed to give me power of attorney and make me executrix (I love that word... maybe because it sounds so much like "dominatrix". Hate the job (which I've done 4 times now), but love the word!) I contacted our lawyer out there to draw up legal documents, found a notary and had LL sign them (and no, we couldn't purposefully delay just to keep him from suiciding - he nixed that right away). I worked with the mortgage lender to find out what would be needed to pull the property out of foreclosure. I sorted through boxes and boxes and boxes of paperwork, searching for title information (to houses, the 4 cars in the driveway, the two horse trailers, anything!), tax information, horse information, debt information, and anything which might possibly come back to bite us. We found house paperwork hidden in the lining of the back of Mom's chair. We found titles to cars stuck inside old books and stacks of paper. Most of the bills were unopened (and wet... fun!). We never did figure out the horses.
At least, when you're spending hours and hours with family, stuck inside and doing nothing but sorting things (a half-brained activity at best), interesting things can happen....
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Mom on Strike
I am on homework strike.
I am getting sick and tired of DD coming home at the end of the day with nothing done. She is completely wasting her in-class study hall, then comes home and putzes and putzes all night, until once again it is 9PM and the assignments aren't done. If that was the best she could do, I'd be more tolerant, but I know she can do better - when there is something she wants as a goal, like an event she can only attend if homework is complete. Then she can get things done. Apparently, not driving Mom crazy is not sufficient motivation (or, conversely, driving Mom crazy is a great reason for not doing the work).
One day, last week, she had almost 2 hrs of homework time at school, and finished all of 6 math problems (one of her strongest subjects). This was after swearing up and down that she would focus on getting her math done during study hall that day. So I said enough is enough and went on homework strike last week - no homework help, period. And by the end of the week, she improved. She insisted she would do better this week, because she didn't like Mom's homework strike.
So, today, the first day back at school, she pulled the same thing. By her own admission, she spent her study time chatting with friends and organizing her desk. So her therapy appointment tonight was focused on making better choices. And once she was home, she putzed away, and then proceeded to throw a fit and snap a ruler in half instead of completing her book report. So again, enough is enough. I sent her to bed immediately, and told her that she would have to take the incomplete. Much howling and hollering ensued, but I am standing my ground. I have told the teacher to give her the incomplete, and told DD that I expect to see the form to sign tomorrow evening.
I have also told her that homework help closes at 8:15 from now on, and by 8:45 her head will hit the pillow. If she wishes to avoid future incompletes, she will make different choices.
DS is suffering from this, too, as he would like to have some time with Mom in the evening, but I'm spending all my time policing her homework. If he hangs out near me, all her work stops as she focuses on him instead. And DD needs fun time, too.
I know, I'm the meanest mom in the world. But I am an exasperated mean mom, and I AM DONE!!!!
I am getting sick and tired of DD coming home at the end of the day with nothing done. She is completely wasting her in-class study hall, then comes home and putzes and putzes all night, until once again it is 9PM and the assignments aren't done. If that was the best she could do, I'd be more tolerant, but I know she can do better - when there is something she wants as a goal, like an event she can only attend if homework is complete. Then she can get things done. Apparently, not driving Mom crazy is not sufficient motivation (or, conversely, driving Mom crazy is a great reason for not doing the work).
One day, last week, she had almost 2 hrs of homework time at school, and finished all of 6 math problems (one of her strongest subjects). This was after swearing up and down that she would focus on getting her math done during study hall that day. So I said enough is enough and went on homework strike last week - no homework help, period. And by the end of the week, she improved. She insisted she would do better this week, because she didn't like Mom's homework strike.
So, today, the first day back at school, she pulled the same thing. By her own admission, she spent her study time chatting with friends and organizing her desk. So her therapy appointment tonight was focused on making better choices. And once she was home, she putzed away, and then proceeded to throw a fit and snap a ruler in half instead of completing her book report. So again, enough is enough. I sent her to bed immediately, and told her that she would have to take the incomplete. Much howling and hollering ensued, but I am standing my ground. I have told the teacher to give her the incomplete, and told DD that I expect to see the form to sign tomorrow evening.
I have also told her that homework help closes at 8:15 from now on, and by 8:45 her head will hit the pillow. If she wishes to avoid future incompletes, she will make different choices.
DS is suffering from this, too, as he would like to have some time with Mom in the evening, but I'm spending all my time policing her homework. If he hangs out near me, all her work stops as she focuses on him instead. And DD needs fun time, too.
I know, I'm the meanest mom in the world. But I am an exasperated mean mom, and I AM DONE!!!!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Whiners
Getting ready for church this morning, I turned on the news while putzing about the room. The Today show was on, and all the hosts standing outside were bundled up like eskimos (albeit very fashionable eskimos) and complaining about how cold it was.
I was curious - knowing our Friday weather system was probably hitting them about now, I wondered to what depths their temps had sunk to cause such complaining.
According to their temperature map, they are at 28 right now! And headed up to 37 later today.
Really!?! You guys think that's cold? We were 60 degrees colder than that on Friday morning. We think 37 is a tropical heat wave!
Whiners.
I was curious - knowing our Friday weather system was probably hitting them about now, I wondered to what depths their temps had sunk to cause such complaining.
According to their temperature map, they are at 28 right now! And headed up to 37 later today.
Really!?! You guys think that's cold? We were 60 degrees colder than that on Friday morning. We think 37 is a tropical heat wave!
Whiners.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Cozy at Home
Well, school was called for the day, due to cold. I found that out last night at 9:30, while on my way home from a business dinner. Called my boss, let him know I'd be working from home today, and he was fine with that. I have to miss the boring meeting this morning, and the fun of driving out in the -22 weather, though. Darn.
It's odd - our school didn't close yesterday, but half the state did (or had late start). Today, the schools that didn't close yesterday, did. And the ones which were closed yesterday are open or late start today. Can't figure that out, since we all live in the same state and suffer the same cold (some more than others), but I'll enjoy my nice warm home office today.
This works out well, too, because my in-laws are arriving this evening and I really haven't had time to prepare due to business meetings all week. This gives me a chance to multitask, and put the kids to work. After all, they can clean bathrooms on a Friday just as easily as on a Saturday. They are doing well - playing quietly on the computer, crocheting, reading... Hopefully this will continue and we'll have a nice quite day. And I'll get more done here than I probably would in the office anyway!
It's odd - our school didn't close yesterday, but half the state did (or had late start). Today, the schools that didn't close yesterday, did. And the ones which were closed yesterday are open or late start today. Can't figure that out, since we all live in the same state and suffer the same cold (some more than others), but I'll enjoy my nice warm home office today.
This works out well, too, because my in-laws are arriving this evening and I really haven't had time to prepare due to business meetings all week. This gives me a chance to multitask, and put the kids to work. After all, they can clean bathrooms on a Friday just as easily as on a Saturday. They are doing well - playing quietly on the computer, crocheting, reading... Hopefully this will continue and we'll have a nice quite day. And I'll get more done here than I probably would in the office anyway!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Parrot Fondling
OK... never thought I'd use that for a post title, but maybe it will increase readership!
Apparently, there needs to be some clarification on my previous post.
Contrary to what DH thought when he read in my post about my Mom's efforts to get Lola to lay an egg, Mom did not do this for her personal gratification. She did this because she'd read it was possible in a book, and wanted to see if she could pull it off (so to speak).
No, honey, my Mom did not get her "kicks" from parrot fondling. Ewww....
Apparently, there needs to be some clarification on my previous post.
Contrary to what DH thought when he read in my post about my Mom's efforts to get Lola to lay an egg, Mom did not do this for her personal gratification. She did this because she'd read it was possible in a book, and wanted to see if she could pull it off (so to speak).
No, honey, my Mom did not get her "kicks" from parrot fondling. Ewww....
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Menagerie
Remember back in high school, when you studied Shakespeare? Remember talking about each character's fatal flaw - that one thing that made them most vulerable, and eventually led to their downfall? For Othello, it was his jealousy; for Hamlet, his indecision.
For my mother, it was horses.
I mentioned previously that my mother hoarded not only stuff, but animals. We've never been sure why, but I think it was a combination of her love of horses, and her inability to "let go" of the fact that Grandma (her mother) got rid of her old ceramic horse collection. Mom truly had a very caring heart, and she had a particular soft spot for animals, but she had no sense of "reality" about them. At various times, she has owned: horses, dogs, cats, fish, sharks, cockatiels, macaws, pot-bellied pigs (my nieces got mites after those were brought for a visit), chinchillas, a hedgehog, and goats (including an earlier trio named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, and our buddy Carl). Most of them simultaneously. And these are just the ones I actually know about.
At the time of her death, she owned 3 indoor cats, 3 outdoor cats, one blue & gold macaw, one cashmere goat, and lots and lots of horses. The cats were sweet. We found homes for the inside ones (TW & family adopted one, and EV gave the other two to a friend). The outside ones may still be there to this day - they were friendly enough to pet, but skittish. We didn't trust the local humane society not to euthanize them. Fortunately, Bolinas is the type of town where if you let it be known there are some stray cats who need periodic food, someone will make sure it gets there, so we let them be.
Carl, the cashmere goat, was friendly, but useless. She'd purchased him as part of a plan (she always had a plan), to harvest his wool to spin the old-fashioned way. She planned to use an old family heirloom spinning wheel for the task. Unfortunately years ago, someone in our family had committed the unconsionable crime (in Mom's eyes) of donating the spinning wheel to a museum in the midwest (near me). She periodically asked me to use my connections with local family members to locate said museum and request that the spinning wheel be returned to the family so she could have it. Strangely enough, I never got around to that. Carl ended up being given to a neighbor, in payment for a perceived debt. (I don't think it was really owed, but he figured he would convince us unsuspecting, gullible kids to pay him. I asked him to detail the charges in writing, but oddly enough nothing ever materialized.)
Lola, the macaw, was an interesting case. When we headed out to the house for the first time, my SIL told me she wanted nothing to do with the bird. She hated that da(rn) bird and its squawking. Guess whom the bird loved the most? DH was similar - wanted the bird to stay far away. Guess the bird's second favorite person, and the only man she's ever liked? To the rest of us, Lola was vaguely tolerant, but mostly short-tempered. She could talk, and picked up pieces of what she heard - several times we heard Mom's telephone mannerisms ("Uh-huh... uh-huh..," "AAANYway"), and even Mom's laugh.
Shortly after our arrival, there was some excitement - Lola had wandered off her perch and into the bathroom and tub. There she commenced squawking, so SIL went to investigate. There, in the bottom of the tub, was an egg. Lola had laid an egg! How was this possible, one might ask, when Lola had no access to males of her species. Well, says my stepfather, it is possible to encourage the bird to lay an egg by.. ahem.. "stimulating" it in the proper area by hand on a regular basis. Which is what Mom had been doing prior to her death. So we were the lucky witnesses of the results of Mom's.... parrot fondling. Lola moved in with TW and SIL (and their two kids, and their roommate, and their three cats, and their dog, and their fish, and their lizard), but no additional eggs have been forthcoming, despite my selflessly encouraging my SIL to perform the necessary ritual.
Thank goodness the fish/shark tank was empty, or we'd have been tasked with finding a home for Jaws, too.
By far, her softest spot was for horses. Mom's fascination with them began back in high school, and in her stuff I found a beautiful project she had made around that time about horses and her time working at a dude ranch. She had owned them as long as I could remember. I learned to ride young, and even competed in some shows while we lived with Mom and LL. I like horses, still do, and take pride in the fact that I relate well with "horse people," thanks to Mom. It takes a certain personality type to boss around something so much larger than you are, and the folks I've met around stables have generally been salt-of-the-earth types.
But for her, it wasn't sufficient to own one or two horses for pleasure. When I was younger, she only owned 2 or 3. But over time, that number increased. A lot of the details are spotty for me, partially because we lived with her only sporadically, and partially because she was never honest about what she owned. She would never admit she owned them - she'd say she was watching them "for a friend," or only sponsoring them, or deny ownership altogether. She didn't want the news getting back to Grandma, who disapproved of the money that flowed away into horses.
Moving to Bolinas made it easier - they had just enough land to put up a small paddock and shelter. And she didn't have to admit how many she had. Whenever Grandma would hear she had another horse (never did figure out how she got that information, when Mom wouldn't talk to her), Grandma would sigh and complain about it. I eventually lost track of how many passed through her possession. One time, she'd be taking care of appaloosa's. The next, she was raising Shires, a large horse similar to a Clydesdale, which could carry her large frame. Later, she was "rescuing" wild horses. And no matter how many she had, several were always explained away as being "watched for a friend."
See, it wouldn't have been quite so bad if she could have afforded the horses, but she really couldn't. She would spend all her money on hay, alfalfa, boarding fees, etc., then not have enough for the phone bill... or the car repairs... or food... or gas money... or.... At some point in life, most of us learn priorities - needs first, luxuries second, right? That never quite clicked with her, and the horses came first, no matter what.
Unfortunately, even putting their needs first didn't guarantee she could care for them. I had hints of it when I was younger, but after Mom's death I found confirming newspaper clippings dating back to my teens, showing how horses had been removed from her care due to neglect and starvation. I know there were hints of it again when I was in college, again after I graduated, and finally, the summer before her death. Her story was always the same. She was being targeted by the humane society; they saw a situation without checking with her and misinterpreted it; they came during the rainy season and that's why the paddock was muddy; the person boarding the horse for her was not taking proper care of it; someone was trying to force her to lose her horses, and so they set her up; it was a rescued horse, battling worms, and that's why it was so skinny; it had gotten into some brambles, and that was why it had infected wounds on its side; it had been left unattended for a few minutes, and that was how it had gotten tangled up in its lead while tied up. So many excuses. Once, and it would have been believable. But time, after time, after time, she lost horses to the humane society. And once she thought they weren't looking, she bought more.
I read some of the letters she wrote about the situation - to lawyers, to editorial columns, to friends. They are intelligent, logical, and well-reasoned. She outlines perfectly logical explanations for every situation. There is no good reason for me to think she would knowingly mistreat these animals, and she certainly had the intelligence to know better. But yet it is too much to ask that in all these accusations, I should believe she was the innocent one.
At the time of her death, we believe that she owned 12 horses, based on notes and scribbles. Based on e-mails, she was in negotiation to buy at least 2 more. We only found half of them. Two had been confiscated recently by the humane society; 2 were being boarded about 3 hrs. away by someone who loved them (Mom was way past due on the board - we traded the horses for the bill); 1 was in the East Bay, near my brother & family, since technically it was my nieces' horse (board was somewhat current, and we found a better home for that one); 1 was being paid for by automatic withdrawal from Mom's overdrawn checking account, with checks going to a Colorado address, but the woman ignored all e-mails and phone calls (fine, whatever... like I need the headache of trying to sell a horse in Colorado!); someone e-mailed me 8 mo. after Mom died and tried to tell me that we owed her for board on another horse, but I basically ignored her (She had known about Mom's death when it happened, yet waited 8 mo. to contact us? Yeah, I'll put a rush on that check...). We heard rumors that others were in Oregon, and scattered around the state of CA. We never did find those.
So, why have horses you never see? Why have horses you board in states several hours away from you? I believe she thought she was rescuing them. Saving them. And she didn't want her husband and family to know how many she truly had. She thought she was hiding them from her husband, but while LL might not have known the details, he knew she had bought them. Isn't that one of the signs of addiction? "Do you hide your (alcohol/drug/horse) consumption, so that family and friends won't know when you (drink/do drugs/buy another horse)?" "Do you tell yourself and others that you can, 'Stop any time'?" "Do you spend money on (alcohol/drugs/horses) instead of on the essentials?"
And this is where her flaw truly became fatal. The summer preceding her death, the humane society had taken two horses into custody due to severe neglect. She had a choice - she could accept the charges, spend 3 days in jail, and be done with it. Or she could fight the charges. To fight required $50,000 in legal fees, up front. She had already spent 1 day in jail - two more and she would have been clear. But she hired some scheister instead. Unfortunately she had no money, so she went to her brother and gave up the one thing that would have given her financial security in the future. She did the one thing I had told her never to do without letting me know first, because I knew she'd get bilked. She sold him her half of Grandma's $800K house. She signed it away to him, free and clear, for $50K to give the lawyer. By the time of her death, the lawyer had done maybe 50 hrs. of work on the case, yet the fee was non-refundable.
Because she had given up her share of the house, she did not have the money to keep up payments on the $250K mortgage she'd taken on her own home (to replace the $20K one almost paid off - Grrr... don't get me started...) Because she didn't keep up the payments, the house went into foreclosure. She died on January 2. Foreclosure sale was scheduled for January 16. We didn't find this out until after her death, and LL knew something was up, but did not know the details. She had hid them from him.
LL believes Mom purposely stopped taking her anti-clotting medications a few days before her death, knowing that would cause a fatal embolism. Her last call to me was on Christmas Day, which she concluded by telling me, "I'm so proud of you, and I always have been."
I think he was right.
For my mother, it was horses.
I mentioned previously that my mother hoarded not only stuff, but animals. We've never been sure why, but I think it was a combination of her love of horses, and her inability to "let go" of the fact that Grandma (her mother) got rid of her old ceramic horse collection. Mom truly had a very caring heart, and she had a particular soft spot for animals, but she had no sense of "reality" about them. At various times, she has owned: horses, dogs, cats, fish, sharks, cockatiels, macaws, pot-bellied pigs (my nieces got mites after those were brought for a visit), chinchillas, a hedgehog, and goats (including an earlier trio named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, and our buddy Carl). Most of them simultaneously. And these are just the ones I actually know about.
At the time of her death, she owned 3 indoor cats, 3 outdoor cats, one blue & gold macaw, one cashmere goat, and lots and lots of horses. The cats were sweet. We found homes for the inside ones (TW & family adopted one, and EV gave the other two to a friend). The outside ones may still be there to this day - they were friendly enough to pet, but skittish. We didn't trust the local humane society not to euthanize them. Fortunately, Bolinas is the type of town where if you let it be known there are some stray cats who need periodic food, someone will make sure it gets there, so we let them be.
Carl, the cashmere goat, was friendly, but useless. She'd purchased him as part of a plan (she always had a plan), to harvest his wool to spin the old-fashioned way. She planned to use an old family heirloom spinning wheel for the task. Unfortunately years ago, someone in our family had committed the unconsionable crime (in Mom's eyes) of donating the spinning wheel to a museum in the midwest (near me). She periodically asked me to use my connections with local family members to locate said museum and request that the spinning wheel be returned to the family so she could have it. Strangely enough, I never got around to that. Carl ended up being given to a neighbor, in payment for a perceived debt. (I don't think it was really owed, but he figured he would convince us unsuspecting, gullible kids to pay him. I asked him to detail the charges in writing, but oddly enough nothing ever materialized.)
Lola, the macaw, was an interesting case. When we headed out to the house for the first time, my SIL told me she wanted nothing to do with the bird. She hated that da(rn) bird and its squawking. Guess whom the bird loved the most? DH was similar - wanted the bird to stay far away. Guess the bird's second favorite person, and the only man she's ever liked? To the rest of us, Lola was vaguely tolerant, but mostly short-tempered. She could talk, and picked up pieces of what she heard - several times we heard Mom's telephone mannerisms ("Uh-huh... uh-huh..," "AAANYway"), and even Mom's laugh.
Shortly after our arrival, there was some excitement - Lola had wandered off her perch and into the bathroom and tub. There she commenced squawking, so SIL went to investigate. There, in the bottom of the tub, was an egg. Lola had laid an egg! How was this possible, one might ask, when Lola had no access to males of her species. Well, says my stepfather, it is possible to encourage the bird to lay an egg by.. ahem.. "stimulating" it in the proper area by hand on a regular basis. Which is what Mom had been doing prior to her death. So we were the lucky witnesses of the results of Mom's.... parrot fondling. Lola moved in with TW and SIL (and their two kids, and their roommate, and their three cats, and their dog, and their fish, and their lizard), but no additional eggs have been forthcoming, despite my selflessly encouraging my SIL to perform the necessary ritual.
Thank goodness the fish/shark tank was empty, or we'd have been tasked with finding a home for Jaws, too.
By far, her softest spot was for horses. Mom's fascination with them began back in high school, and in her stuff I found a beautiful project she had made around that time about horses and her time working at a dude ranch. She had owned them as long as I could remember. I learned to ride young, and even competed in some shows while we lived with Mom and LL. I like horses, still do, and take pride in the fact that I relate well with "horse people," thanks to Mom. It takes a certain personality type to boss around something so much larger than you are, and the folks I've met around stables have generally been salt-of-the-earth types.
But for her, it wasn't sufficient to own one or two horses for pleasure. When I was younger, she only owned 2 or 3. But over time, that number increased. A lot of the details are spotty for me, partially because we lived with her only sporadically, and partially because she was never honest about what she owned. She would never admit she owned them - she'd say she was watching them "for a friend," or only sponsoring them, or deny ownership altogether. She didn't want the news getting back to Grandma, who disapproved of the money that flowed away into horses.
Moving to Bolinas made it easier - they had just enough land to put up a small paddock and shelter. And she didn't have to admit how many she had. Whenever Grandma would hear she had another horse (never did figure out how she got that information, when Mom wouldn't talk to her), Grandma would sigh and complain about it. I eventually lost track of how many passed through her possession. One time, she'd be taking care of appaloosa's. The next, she was raising Shires, a large horse similar to a Clydesdale, which could carry her large frame. Later, she was "rescuing" wild horses. And no matter how many she had, several were always explained away as being "watched for a friend."
See, it wouldn't have been quite so bad if she could have afforded the horses, but she really couldn't. She would spend all her money on hay, alfalfa, boarding fees, etc., then not have enough for the phone bill... or the car repairs... or food... or gas money... or.... At some point in life, most of us learn priorities - needs first, luxuries second, right? That never quite clicked with her, and the horses came first, no matter what.
Unfortunately, even putting their needs first didn't guarantee she could care for them. I had hints of it when I was younger, but after Mom's death I found confirming newspaper clippings dating back to my teens, showing how horses had been removed from her care due to neglect and starvation. I know there were hints of it again when I was in college, again after I graduated, and finally, the summer before her death. Her story was always the same. She was being targeted by the humane society; they saw a situation without checking with her and misinterpreted it; they came during the rainy season and that's why the paddock was muddy; the person boarding the horse for her was not taking proper care of it; someone was trying to force her to lose her horses, and so they set her up; it was a rescued horse, battling worms, and that's why it was so skinny; it had gotten into some brambles, and that was why it had infected wounds on its side; it had been left unattended for a few minutes, and that was how it had gotten tangled up in its lead while tied up. So many excuses. Once, and it would have been believable. But time, after time, after time, she lost horses to the humane society. And once she thought they weren't looking, she bought more.
I read some of the letters she wrote about the situation - to lawyers, to editorial columns, to friends. They are intelligent, logical, and well-reasoned. She outlines perfectly logical explanations for every situation. There is no good reason for me to think she would knowingly mistreat these animals, and she certainly had the intelligence to know better. But yet it is too much to ask that in all these accusations, I should believe she was the innocent one.
At the time of her death, we believe that she owned 12 horses, based on notes and scribbles. Based on e-mails, she was in negotiation to buy at least 2 more. We only found half of them. Two had been confiscated recently by the humane society; 2 were being boarded about 3 hrs. away by someone who loved them (Mom was way past due on the board - we traded the horses for the bill); 1 was in the East Bay, near my brother & family, since technically it was my nieces' horse (board was somewhat current, and we found a better home for that one); 1 was being paid for by automatic withdrawal from Mom's overdrawn checking account, with checks going to a Colorado address, but the woman ignored all e-mails and phone calls (fine, whatever... like I need the headache of trying to sell a horse in Colorado!); someone e-mailed me 8 mo. after Mom died and tried to tell me that we owed her for board on another horse, but I basically ignored her (She had known about Mom's death when it happened, yet waited 8 mo. to contact us? Yeah, I'll put a rush on that check...). We heard rumors that others were in Oregon, and scattered around the state of CA. We never did find those.
So, why have horses you never see? Why have horses you board in states several hours away from you? I believe she thought she was rescuing them. Saving them. And she didn't want her husband and family to know how many she truly had. She thought she was hiding them from her husband, but while LL might not have known the details, he knew she had bought them. Isn't that one of the signs of addiction? "Do you hide your (alcohol/drug/horse) consumption, so that family and friends won't know when you (drink/do drugs/buy another horse)?" "Do you tell yourself and others that you can, 'Stop any time'?" "Do you spend money on (alcohol/drugs/horses) instead of on the essentials?"
And this is where her flaw truly became fatal. The summer preceding her death, the humane society had taken two horses into custody due to severe neglect. She had a choice - she could accept the charges, spend 3 days in jail, and be done with it. Or she could fight the charges. To fight required $50,000 in legal fees, up front. She had already spent 1 day in jail - two more and she would have been clear. But she hired some scheister instead. Unfortunately she had no money, so she went to her brother and gave up the one thing that would have given her financial security in the future. She did the one thing I had told her never to do without letting me know first, because I knew she'd get bilked. She sold him her half of Grandma's $800K house. She signed it away to him, free and clear, for $50K to give the lawyer. By the time of her death, the lawyer had done maybe 50 hrs. of work on the case, yet the fee was non-refundable.
Because she had given up her share of the house, she did not have the money to keep up payments on the $250K mortgage she'd taken on her own home (to replace the $20K one almost paid off - Grrr... don't get me started...) Because she didn't keep up the payments, the house went into foreclosure. She died on January 2. Foreclosure sale was scheduled for January 16. We didn't find this out until after her death, and LL knew something was up, but did not know the details. She had hid them from him.
LL believes Mom purposely stopped taking her anti-clotting medications a few days before her death, knowing that would cause a fatal embolism. Her last call to me was on Christmas Day, which she concluded by telling me, "I'm so proud of you, and I always have been."
I think he was right.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Backup Plan
This morning in the car, DD announced, "Alissa said I can be the backup plan." Alissa is one of the leaders at PK, where the kids go on their day off. DD typically starts in the middle of the story, and we have to figure out the beginning and end.
I asked what she meant. "I can be the back up plan if Megan (another leader) can't make it."
Oh, you mean if she needs help as a leader you can help out?
"No, as the maid of honor at her wedding. If Megan can't make it, I can be her backup plan!"
So I had to gently explain that Alissa was just kidding, and she should not expect an urgent call to fill in as Maid of Honor. She took it well, but you could tell it was a bit of a letdown.
Sigh... such is life with a literal thinker.
I asked what she meant. "I can be the back up plan if Megan (another leader) can't make it."
Oh, you mean if she needs help as a leader you can help out?
"No, as the maid of honor at her wedding. If Megan can't make it, I can be her backup plan!"
So I had to gently explain that Alissa was just kidding, and she should not expect an urgent call to fill in as Maid of Honor. She took it well, but you could tell it was a bit of a letdown.
Sigh... such is life with a literal thinker.
Ferris Wheel
Yeah. right."The author compares something to a Ferris wheel. Have you experienced that feeling? What does the author mean when he compares August to the top of a Ferris Wheel. How is the connection of the characters like the Ferris wheel? What things does the author describe as the hub and why? Think of a situation in your life that has a similar feeling, and draw pictures representing that on the Ferris wheel."
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Why One Question Takes 45 Minutes
Every afternoon I check the teacher's webpage to find out what I'm in for with homework. Every night I try to convince myself it shouldn't be too bad. Math lesson - DD can do this easily. Social Studies - same deal. Religion worksheets - generally not bad, ditto with English grammar questions. Interview paragraph - did that last night (though it turns out there needs to be more added, and DD left the notes at school). Memory work - Done! That leaves 2 questions about the current book (Tuck Everlasting) and a Ferris Wheel drawing & questions (not sure what that is supposed to be, but we'll figure it out) A fairly full list, but no single item seems like it will be terribly daunting.
Arrive home - Math, Social Studies and Religion are done, and English questions are being started. Once that's done, all that's left is the 2 book questions and the Ferris Wheel (?). Easy peasy?
Well - first nobody can work more slowly on English than DD. Only 14 problems, short answer, identifying the direct/indirect objects. And that takes 45 minutes. Then I remind her that she needs to double check her math, as she has missed a lot of problems lately due to "silly" mistakes, even though the work comes very easily to her. (I always tell them that if they truly didn't "get" the math, I would not be as concerned with those mistakes, but it's a shame to get a 'D' because you forgot the units, or miscopied the answer and left out a digit, or skipped a problem altogether) So she glances at the first page and flips it, claiming she's checked it already (Right... in less than 30 seconds you double-checked 20 problems... hmmm....). OK, I need to sit there to ensure she actually checks. She did all the work, but will only pretend if I'm not sitting there. Good thing she did - she found 8 out of 30 which were wrong due to easy mistakes.
OK, now on to the questions. I have read the same section of the book, since I cannot rely on her reporting of it. Question #1 takes us 20 minutes - it's a question which asks her opinion, and that throws her. She wants there to be a "right" answer, and there just isn't one for this one, and she fusses, and pouts, and howls that she doesn't know, but we finally get something reasonable. More concrete than the teacher was probably expecting, but it works.
Quick up for a shower, as bedtime is in 15 minutes, and there's still one question and the Ferris Wheel. Pushed her through the shower process, and got her downstairs. Now I have 3 choices: 1) wait until the morning, and try my luck on getting to work on time, 2) skip it, and have her get an incomplete (which will add to tomorrow's work load), or 3) plug on tonight and hopefully get it done quickly.
The question was, "Describe a place you have been that is powerful. Use lots of descriptive language. What do you see? How does the place feel?" Great....
First - pick a place. DD suggests Wyoming, where we took a family trip last year and I think, "Great! Lots of powerful stuff in Wyoming!" I asked her to narrow it down, since describing all of Wyoming would be asking a bit much. "Mt. Rushmore" Ok, that's not in Wyoming, and not quite what they're looking for. What else did we see in Wyoming? "The wedding?" We need a place, not an event. Where did we go for the wedding? "Jackson" OK, but what was behind the wedding? "The hotel" How about behind you in the Christmas picture? "The bride & groom" Sigh... those tall things? The big pointy things? "Trees" No, the really tall things "Oh, Mountains!" Whew, yes!
But she didn't want that topic, she wanted something else, which is fine, but after 5 minutes of "I'm thinking," I said we need to go with the idea we have now, rather than wait for one that might come sometime next week. Let's go with the mountains. 15 minutes after starting, we finally have a topic. For one question.
Now we have to write it. Descriptively. Lots of fumbling for words so we don't stop at, "The mountains are big, the river is fast." The thing is, when I asked her to close her eyes and describe the place, she could do a pretty good job (after some whining). My favorite description she came up was, "The mountains are like a crystal (insert mountain-shaped, hand-waving gesture here) in the ground." But turning the hand-waving and phrases into sentences (without telling her what to write) takes a while. By the time we figure out the end of the sentence, she's forgotten the beginning. Not to mention the starts and stops to: play with the pencil, play with the hair, watch the cat, watch the brother, check between the toes, pick at a hang nail, and anything else minorly distracting. And the fact that she....writes....very....slowly.
And, Voila! 45 minutes later, you have the answer to a question. One. Stinking. Question. Sigh.... and we're only on chapter 1.
Arrive home - Math, Social Studies and Religion are done, and English questions are being started. Once that's done, all that's left is the 2 book questions and the Ferris Wheel (?). Easy peasy?
Well - first nobody can work more slowly on English than DD. Only 14 problems, short answer, identifying the direct/indirect objects. And that takes 45 minutes. Then I remind her that she needs to double check her math, as she has missed a lot of problems lately due to "silly" mistakes, even though the work comes very easily to her. (I always tell them that if they truly didn't "get" the math, I would not be as concerned with those mistakes, but it's a shame to get a 'D' because you forgot the units, or miscopied the answer and left out a digit, or skipped a problem altogether) So she glances at the first page and flips it, claiming she's checked it already (Right... in less than 30 seconds you double-checked 20 problems... hmmm....). OK, I need to sit there to ensure she actually checks. She did all the work, but will only pretend if I'm not sitting there. Good thing she did - she found 8 out of 30 which were wrong due to easy mistakes.
OK, now on to the questions. I have read the same section of the book, since I cannot rely on her reporting of it. Question #1 takes us 20 minutes - it's a question which asks her opinion, and that throws her. She wants there to be a "right" answer, and there just isn't one for this one, and she fusses, and pouts, and howls that she doesn't know, but we finally get something reasonable. More concrete than the teacher was probably expecting, but it works.
Quick up for a shower, as bedtime is in 15 minutes, and there's still one question and the Ferris Wheel. Pushed her through the shower process, and got her downstairs. Now I have 3 choices: 1) wait until the morning, and try my luck on getting to work on time, 2) skip it, and have her get an incomplete (which will add to tomorrow's work load), or 3) plug on tonight and hopefully get it done quickly.
The question was, "Describe a place you have been that is powerful. Use lots of descriptive language. What do you see? How does the place feel?" Great....
First - pick a place. DD suggests Wyoming, where we took a family trip last year and I think, "Great! Lots of powerful stuff in Wyoming!" I asked her to narrow it down, since describing all of Wyoming would be asking a bit much. "Mt. Rushmore" Ok, that's not in Wyoming, and not quite what they're looking for. What else did we see in Wyoming? "The wedding?" We need a place, not an event. Where did we go for the wedding? "Jackson" OK, but what was behind the wedding? "The hotel" How about behind you in the Christmas picture? "The bride & groom" Sigh... those tall things? The big pointy things? "Trees" No, the really tall things "Oh, Mountains!" Whew, yes!
But she didn't want that topic, she wanted something else, which is fine, but after 5 minutes of "I'm thinking," I said we need to go with the idea we have now, rather than wait for one that might come sometime next week. Let's go with the mountains. 15 minutes after starting, we finally have a topic. For one question.
Now we have to write it. Descriptively. Lots of fumbling for words so we don't stop at, "The mountains are big, the river is fast." The thing is, when I asked her to close her eyes and describe the place, she could do a pretty good job (after some whining). My favorite description she came up was, "The mountains are like a crystal (insert mountain-shaped, hand-waving gesture here) in the ground." But turning the hand-waving and phrases into sentences (without telling her what to write) takes a while. By the time we figure out the end of the sentence, she's forgotten the beginning. Not to mention the starts and stops to: play with the pencil, play with the hair, watch the cat, watch the brother, check between the toes, pick at a hang nail, and anything else minorly distracting. And the fact that she....writes....very....slowly.
And, Voila! 45 minutes later, you have the answer to a question. One. Stinking. Question. Sigh.... and we're only on chapter 1.
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Dreaded Destination
The day after Mom died was a blur of details and distractions: get the plane ticket, get packed, get to work to cover last minute details, get the Christmas tree taken down (I know - small detail, but I didn't want to deal with it two weeks later). Call a lawyer, figure out what we're dealing with. It was like running on automatic pilot. Flew to CA, took the train over to the right side of the bay and was picked up by a friend. I was staying with one of my best friends (I've known her since 4th grade), and I don't know what I would have done in those months without her home as a sanctuary!
The next morning was D-Day - my dreaded day. By that point, brother #2 (EV) had arrived and taken over the "death watch" on my stepfather, so TW had made his way home. I met him and my SIL at their home, and we headed out to Mom's house. It's hard to explain what a trek this was, physically and emotionally. I grew up in the "East Bay" of San Francisco, and Mom lived on the coastline north of SF. Between here and there is a mountain, Mt. Tamalpais, and there are only 2 ways to get there. Climb the mountain and go up and down the twisty roads (slightly shorter, but harrowing), or go around the mountain through redwood forests and twisty roads (slightly longer, but much less harrowing - our preferred route). Either way, it was 1 1/2 hrs. each way from where I was staying, 2 hrs. from my brother's house. Most of the route is unpopulated. Up, down, around curves I hadn't driven in years.
At one point, we stopped at a grocery store for supplies, figuring odds were that no edible food would be present (smart assumption). My brother and I were standing in the soda aisle, when it really hit me what was about to happen. I just looked at him, stunned, and said, "I don't want to do this. I really don't." He nodded in understanding, but what else could he say - there was no avoiding it. It was like standing on a cliff knowing you have no choice but to jump with both feet.
Mom and LL hadn't always lived out there. When we were living with them, they lived in the East Bay, a couple of miles from my grandmother's. I was able to attend the same schools, keep the same friends even after moving in with them, which was good. However, both Mom and LL had spotty employment records, particularly Mom. There was always a "good" reason, and it was "never her fault," but she rarely held down the same job for more than a year or so. It's always confused me how someone so intelligent, so well spoken, so literate, could fail to manage to arrive on time, do the job for which she was hired, and keep her work at least marginally organized.
Shortly after we were placed with Grandma and Auntie, Mom got a job working with the Bolinas Water Dept. She had a lot of experience with water treatment, and this rural community seemed like a great place for her - a little eccentric, but welcoming to her. She and LL bought a house, and told us about the layout, how we would live there with them "when they got us back," and which rooms would be ours, where we would go to school, etc. Once again, it was a dream world produced from her own delusions. I didn't want to move out there. I had already planned to run away if we were placed back with them (not like they were well-thought out plans - I was only 12 after all). Visitation was increased in stages - first at Social Services, then supervised at other sites by Grandma & Auntie, eventually, when I was able to drive, by me. Radius increased as well, till eventually we were allowed to make the 1 1/2 hr. drive to Bolinas. In all that time, we never saw (nor were we allowed to see) LL. Mom had long since been fired from that job, but they remained in Bolinas, where their eccentricities fit in with everyone else's eccentricities.
So that drive, over those hills, was a trip back through my memories. I hadn't been sure I still remembered the route, but it came right back to me. Each mile was another twist in my gut.
The reality of the place, after not having seen it for so long, was disturbing. As I said, even when we were children, Mom had a "cleanliness" issue. There were always piles all over everything. Never an empty surface. Never able to find anything. But at the time, it was basically clutter. It could have been gone through - it just wasn't. The last time I had seen into the house, when I brought DH out to meet Mom for the first time, it had been waist deep and impassible. We only saw it through the doorway, did not go in, but DH said that was enough and he didn't want to have to go back again.
The property location was actually quite beautiful. It is at the end of a short road, with no other houses. The lots across the "street" are not buildable (too wet), and so there are no immediate neighbors to the front or side. But the lot was a junk yard. Two rusted 10-ft storage containers (metal, like you'd use for shipping) greeted us at the end of the muddy driveway. Several non-functioning cars, three rusted-out horse trailers, and miscellaneous junk were strewn about. There was another 40-ft shipping container in the back of the lot, along with several poorly constructed wooden buildings (which had previously housed horses). A small broken down camper was in the middle of the lot (I was to learn later that this was home to an itinerant man from town - more on him later). Plants to the left of the house were overgrown, and scattered with other junk (planters, plates, paint cans, what all) buried under the plant life.
The deck leading to the front door was rickety, and contained a old, large (non-functioning) grocery store wall-to-wall refrigerator, and another (functioning) fridge next to the door. A hot tub (non-functioning) sat just beside the deck, and some old pieces of deck furniture had fallen off the edge. The rest was covered with rain-soaked boxes (many unopened), horse equipment, and plastic bins full of mail. We were greeted by Carl, the cashmere goat - a friendly sort, whose favorite pastimes were getting in the way when you were carrying something, and pooping on the deck where you wanted to walk. Carl quickly became our mascot.
Inside, we found my stepfather, in an ancient lounge chair, covered with who-knows-what, with the foot rest supported by an old stool. A similar chair sat beside it, previously occupied by Mom. These were the only open surfaces in the house. Every other square inch was covered by stuff. Piles and piles of it. There was a cow path to the two chairs (facing the TV), to the bathroom, and to the bedroom. The back half of the house was completely inaccessible (laundry room, long hallway, and two good-sized bedrooms). The kitchen was inaccessible (hence the fridge on the porch). The fireplace was covered, the dining table, the walls, every bit of floor. Even the passable bits had paper and other stuff you had to step on. Three cats roamed the house, and the litter box had not been cleaned in days (months? years?), so they had resorted to using other parts of the house. A large parrot sat on an open tree-type stand - Lola the blue and yellow macaw. The walls were yellowed by cigarette smoke, dust, and blackened cobwebs. Bits of ivy from outside grew through the ceiling and through some of the windows. Many of the windows were broken - repaired with bags stuffed in them, or plastic taped over them, or just plain ignored.
The smell in the house is impossible to describe, but very distinctive - a mixture of mold, dust, cigarette smoke, old animal smells, and ???. I still have items and papers from her house which will likely always bear that scent. One whiff and I am back in that house, back in those rooms.
Seeing my stepfather was... underwhelming... freaky, but underwhelming. You know how these things can become bigger-than-life? I had realized years ago that he had only the power to hurt me that I granted him, and certainly could not touch me as an adult, yet that childhood fear remained. But he looked so broken down sitting there - dirty, unshaven, subsisting on beer, cigarettes, and morphine.
Then I got the first of many shocks in this odyssey. LL asked me to sit down, because he wanted to go over some things. He reiterated that he planned to die within the next few days. He would leave everything to us three kids. And he wanted me to be in charge of everything. He told me he trusted my judgement above everything, and all decisions were to be mine. He would stay alive long enough to sign whatever legal paperwork was necessary to smooth the way, but otherwise, it was all up to me.
I couldn't believe it. 25 years of estrangement. All the stress, all the sadness. We had barely spoken more than 100 words to each other in all that time. And he trusted me. He said he knew, through Mom, what kind of person I had become, and that I would be responsible and fair. My brothers, for all I care about them, have their own issues, which would make them unsuitable, but he had had at least had some contact with them in the intervening years, but he had chosen me. From that point on, any questions addressed to him about "what should we do with X," were answered with, "Ask Heather, it's her decision."
Where do you even begin in a pile like that. We had brought trash bags, and not knowing what else to do, we starting filling them, and sorting out the apparently useful items. It seemed a Sisyphean task - even the 1 1/2 weeks I'd been allotted for bereavement would be insufficient. But it was the only thing we knew how to do. Pick up, make a decision - throw away or move to a pile for later sorting. General piles started - electronic equipment, horse equipment, books, craft equipment, movies..... But the trash bags outnumbered them all.
At one point, my SIL thought she might be able to save some time by glancing through the top layer of each box and determining whether the contents were worth sorting. Early in this process, she pulled a box from under the parrot's stand. It was filthy, encrusted with everything you would expect under a parrot stand. She was about to toss the entire, stinking mess. Then, out of curiosity, she pulled out a small box... and found a priceless antique pocket watch, several old coins, and other old family mementos of LL's. A book in the same box (Dr. Phil's diet book), was almost moved to the Book donate pile, when we noticed writing on the front - see page 100. Curious, we turned the pages to see what had fascinated Mom enough to make such a note. And found several $1 bills dating back over 100 years.
From that point on, we knew there was no way around it. In order to make sure we didn't toss any items of true value, we would have to go through every single item on that property. Piece by tiny, rotting piece.
The next morning was D-Day - my dreaded day. By that point, brother #2 (EV) had arrived and taken over the "death watch" on my stepfather, so TW had made his way home. I met him and my SIL at their home, and we headed out to Mom's house. It's hard to explain what a trek this was, physically and emotionally. I grew up in the "East Bay" of San Francisco, and Mom lived on the coastline north of SF. Between here and there is a mountain, Mt. Tamalpais, and there are only 2 ways to get there. Climb the mountain and go up and down the twisty roads (slightly shorter, but harrowing), or go around the mountain through redwood forests and twisty roads (slightly longer, but much less harrowing - our preferred route). Either way, it was 1 1/2 hrs. each way from where I was staying, 2 hrs. from my brother's house. Most of the route is unpopulated. Up, down, around curves I hadn't driven in years.
At one point, we stopped at a grocery store for supplies, figuring odds were that no edible food would be present (smart assumption). My brother and I were standing in the soda aisle, when it really hit me what was about to happen. I just looked at him, stunned, and said, "I don't want to do this. I really don't." He nodded in understanding, but what else could he say - there was no avoiding it. It was like standing on a cliff knowing you have no choice but to jump with both feet.
Mom and LL hadn't always lived out there. When we were living with them, they lived in the East Bay, a couple of miles from my grandmother's. I was able to attend the same schools, keep the same friends even after moving in with them, which was good. However, both Mom and LL had spotty employment records, particularly Mom. There was always a "good" reason, and it was "never her fault," but she rarely held down the same job for more than a year or so. It's always confused me how someone so intelligent, so well spoken, so literate, could fail to manage to arrive on time, do the job for which she was hired, and keep her work at least marginally organized.
Shortly after we were placed with Grandma and Auntie, Mom got a job working with the Bolinas Water Dept. She had a lot of experience with water treatment, and this rural community seemed like a great place for her - a little eccentric, but welcoming to her. She and LL bought a house, and told us about the layout, how we would live there with them "when they got us back," and which rooms would be ours, where we would go to school, etc. Once again, it was a dream world produced from her own delusions. I didn't want to move out there. I had already planned to run away if we were placed back with them (not like they were well-thought out plans - I was only 12 after all). Visitation was increased in stages - first at Social Services, then supervised at other sites by Grandma & Auntie, eventually, when I was able to drive, by me. Radius increased as well, till eventually we were allowed to make the 1 1/2 hr. drive to Bolinas. In all that time, we never saw (nor were we allowed to see) LL. Mom had long since been fired from that job, but they remained in Bolinas, where their eccentricities fit in with everyone else's eccentricities.
So that drive, over those hills, was a trip back through my memories. I hadn't been sure I still remembered the route, but it came right back to me. Each mile was another twist in my gut.
The reality of the place, after not having seen it for so long, was disturbing. As I said, even when we were children, Mom had a "cleanliness" issue. There were always piles all over everything. Never an empty surface. Never able to find anything. But at the time, it was basically clutter. It could have been gone through - it just wasn't. The last time I had seen into the house, when I brought DH out to meet Mom for the first time, it had been waist deep and impassible. We only saw it through the doorway, did not go in, but DH said that was enough and he didn't want to have to go back again.
The property location was actually quite beautiful. It is at the end of a short road, with no other houses. The lots across the "street" are not buildable (too wet), and so there are no immediate neighbors to the front or side. But the lot was a junk yard. Two rusted 10-ft storage containers (metal, like you'd use for shipping) greeted us at the end of the muddy driveway. Several non-functioning cars, three rusted-out horse trailers, and miscellaneous junk were strewn about. There was another 40-ft shipping container in the back of the lot, along with several poorly constructed wooden buildings (which had previously housed horses). A small broken down camper was in the middle of the lot (I was to learn later that this was home to an itinerant man from town - more on him later). Plants to the left of the house were overgrown, and scattered with other junk (planters, plates, paint cans, what all) buried under the plant life.
The deck leading to the front door was rickety, and contained a old, large (non-functioning) grocery store wall-to-wall refrigerator, and another (functioning) fridge next to the door. A hot tub (non-functioning) sat just beside the deck, and some old pieces of deck furniture had fallen off the edge. The rest was covered with rain-soaked boxes (many unopened), horse equipment, and plastic bins full of mail. We were greeted by Carl, the cashmere goat - a friendly sort, whose favorite pastimes were getting in the way when you were carrying something, and pooping on the deck where you wanted to walk. Carl quickly became our mascot.
Inside, we found my stepfather, in an ancient lounge chair, covered with who-knows-what, with the foot rest supported by an old stool. A similar chair sat beside it, previously occupied by Mom. These were the only open surfaces in the house. Every other square inch was covered by stuff. Piles and piles of it. There was a cow path to the two chairs (facing the TV), to the bathroom, and to the bedroom. The back half of the house was completely inaccessible (laundry room, long hallway, and two good-sized bedrooms). The kitchen was inaccessible (hence the fridge on the porch). The fireplace was covered, the dining table, the walls, every bit of floor. Even the passable bits had paper and other stuff you had to step on. Three cats roamed the house, and the litter box had not been cleaned in days (months? years?), so they had resorted to using other parts of the house. A large parrot sat on an open tree-type stand - Lola the blue and yellow macaw. The walls were yellowed by cigarette smoke, dust, and blackened cobwebs. Bits of ivy from outside grew through the ceiling and through some of the windows. Many of the windows were broken - repaired with bags stuffed in them, or plastic taped over them, or just plain ignored.
The smell in the house is impossible to describe, but very distinctive - a mixture of mold, dust, cigarette smoke, old animal smells, and ???. I still have items and papers from her house which will likely always bear that scent. One whiff and I am back in that house, back in those rooms.
Seeing my stepfather was... underwhelming... freaky, but underwhelming. You know how these things can become bigger-than-life? I had realized years ago that he had only the power to hurt me that I granted him, and certainly could not touch me as an adult, yet that childhood fear remained. But he looked so broken down sitting there - dirty, unshaven, subsisting on beer, cigarettes, and morphine.
Then I got the first of many shocks in this odyssey. LL asked me to sit down, because he wanted to go over some things. He reiterated that he planned to die within the next few days. He would leave everything to us three kids. And he wanted me to be in charge of everything. He told me he trusted my judgement above everything, and all decisions were to be mine. He would stay alive long enough to sign whatever legal paperwork was necessary to smooth the way, but otherwise, it was all up to me.
I couldn't believe it. 25 years of estrangement. All the stress, all the sadness. We had barely spoken more than 100 words to each other in all that time. And he trusted me. He said he knew, through Mom, what kind of person I had become, and that I would be responsible and fair. My brothers, for all I care about them, have their own issues, which would make them unsuitable, but he had had at least had some contact with them in the intervening years, but he had chosen me. From that point on, any questions addressed to him about "what should we do with X," were answered with, "Ask Heather, it's her decision."
Where do you even begin in a pile like that. We had brought trash bags, and not knowing what else to do, we starting filling them, and sorting out the apparently useful items. It seemed a Sisyphean task - even the 1 1/2 weeks I'd been allotted for bereavement would be insufficient. But it was the only thing we knew how to do. Pick up, make a decision - throw away or move to a pile for later sorting. General piles started - electronic equipment, horse equipment, books, craft equipment, movies..... But the trash bags outnumbered them all.
At one point, my SIL thought she might be able to save some time by glancing through the top layer of each box and determining whether the contents were worth sorting. Early in this process, she pulled a box from under the parrot's stand. It was filthy, encrusted with everything you would expect under a parrot stand. She was about to toss the entire, stinking mess. Then, out of curiosity, she pulled out a small box... and found a priceless antique pocket watch, several old coins, and other old family mementos of LL's. A book in the same box (Dr. Phil's diet book), was almost moved to the Book donate pile, when we noticed writing on the front - see page 100. Curious, we turned the pages to see what had fascinated Mom enough to make such a note. And found several $1 bills dating back over 100 years.
From that point on, we knew there was no way around it. In order to make sure we didn't toss any items of true value, we would have to go through every single item on that property. Piece by tiny, rotting piece.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
"The Best Christmas Present Ever"
I finally found a Christmas gift my husband loves. In fact, he actually declared this "the best Christmas present ever."
It's a heated throw, and he loves it! I had almost given up on getting him anything because he never uses/wears what I get him (even things he has requested specifically have gone unused) Of course, now it's even harder to get him off the couch when I want him to do something.
Maybe she uses the heat to recharge her laser eyes?
It's a heated throw, and he loves it! I had almost given up on getting him anything because he never uses/wears what I get him (even things he has requested specifically have gone unused) Of course, now it's even harder to get him off the couch when I want him to do something.
As you can tell, our heat-seeking cat loves it, too!
Here is her usual spot - completely covering the heating vents. You can see just the corner of the vent here, just by her tail. The temperature drops quickly in any room she enters.
Maybe she uses the heat to recharge her laser eyes?
The Plague is Spreading
Recently, Kari and her family came up for dinner, and we had a great time socializing while the kids roamed the house and played.
However, they seem to have left the seeds of a plague....
Finger Knitting!
Recently, Kari posted about Ben's new found interest in finger knitting. Well, he taught my kids, and now they are kitting like crazy. The ones above sprouted in less than a week - some of them are 15 ft. long or more. There are others which have already been passed on to friends. And they still aren't done!
Well, at least the cats are loving the new toys. And we could always just mail the extras to Kari ;-)
However, they seem to have left the seeds of a plague....
Finger Knitting!
Recently, Kari posted about Ben's new found interest in finger knitting. Well, he taught my kids, and now they are kitting like crazy. The ones above sprouted in less than a week - some of them are 15 ft. long or more. There are others which have already been passed on to friends. And they still aren't done!
Well, at least the cats are loving the new toys. And we could always just mail the extras to Kari ;-)
Friday, January 2, 2009
Two Years Ago Today...
Once again I find I am apologizing for falling behind. The funny thing is, I have lots of ideas swimming around my brain of things I want to write, but sometimes there is so much I just freeze and don't write anything. Claudia mentioned New Month's Resolutions, and maybe this will be mine - to write at least two to three times a week (no need to set the bar too high to start out!)
I am actually going to switch gears, at least partially, for a little while. When I started this blog, I had a couple of reasons. One, because I was enjoying others' blogs, and I am enough of a big mouth to want to have my say, and two, because I wanted to record some things which had happened to me, for my own posterity, whether others found it interesting or not. I've fulfilled a lot of that by talking about our experiences adopting through foster care, but I also wanted to write about my mother's passing two years ago, and never could find a way into the topic. It's been weighing on my mind as of late, and I think the time is right. Those of you who are here for adoption issues, please bear with me... my kids will still be driving me nuts periodically, and I'll still write about that, too!
Two years ago this evening (actually, about 2 hours ago was the exact time) I was blithely enjoying a post New-Year's rush. Our house was full, and getting fuller by the minute - we had hosted two foreign exchange students for the holiday break, and were expecting two new arrivals any minute. DH's cousin's daughter and college friend were headed for a day of shopping here in "The Cities," and had taken us up on our "anytime" offer of a place to crash. We were happy to have them, and said they were welcome as long as they weren't picky about accommodations. I was busy making beds, getting out sleeping bags, and basically preparing for visitors. I love a happy, energized house, so I was looking forward to spending time with this lovely young lady and her friend. And then the phone rang....
My sister-in-law (with whom I am very close), was calling me from CA. When I picked up the phone, the answering machine kicked in, and I rushed downstairs to turn that off, so my call wouldn't be broadcast to the entire household. Hearing my SIL over the general din of the household, it sounded to me as if she was laughing, so I figured I was about to hear another tale of the general zaniness of my very dysfunctional family.
I had misheard...
When I reached the relative quiet of the bedroom, she told me that my mother, age 56, had just passed away due to what we presume was a pulmonary embolism. Now, my mother was young, but she did not keep herself in the best of health. Severely overweight (not that I am one to talk), and extremely inactive, I knew she also suffered from bouts of depression, and didn't go to the doctor regularly. She had had issues with embolisms before, and poor circulation appears to be an issue in our family. I'm not sure how to explain this, but while her death was very shocking, it was understandable given her general health. Does that make sense?
What really made this spooky for me was an incident which had happened the wee hours of the preceding day. It was just after midnight, the start of the new year, and DH and I were already in bed. He had been napping, and I read until the last minute, woke him up and turned on the TV for the countdown, then we kissed good night. Yes, we are party animals. The new year always makes me pensive... I think about the changes the past year has wrought, and the potential of the coming year. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. As I contemplated the year ahead, I was filled with and overwhelming feeling of "wrongness" about it. I took stock - jobs OK, kids OK, marriage OK, house OK. I couldn't put my finger on something to account for that feeling, but it was there nonetheless. I leaned over and poked my semi-sleeping husband and announced, "Don't you dare die on me this year!" He mumbled something confused, to the effect of "Huh? Wah???," and rolled over for more sleep. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. In retrospect, I know it was a premonition. You may scoff, but I'm certain of it, and I've had others that have come to fruition in the past, too (rarely, but definitely).
Now, I'm sure there are others of you who have experienced the death of a parent or loved one. It's not that unusual, and in that respect my story is of no note. But it's the aftermath of that death that truly opened a lot of issues for me.
Some background.....
To start with, my mother did not raise my two brothers and me, and we were not close at all, for a variety of reasons. My parents divorced when I was about 3 or 4, at least in part due to my father's explosive and abusive temper. My earliest memory of my father was of him hitting her and the police being called (lest you get the wrong idea, my father has a much better leash on his temper now, and they even have always had a cordial relationship. I'm certain both of their stubborn streaks played a role in the situation. They acknowledged that while they cared for each other, they were not meant to be married to one another. They were young (19 & 20, I was an oops), and simply not ready for the pressures of marriage with children) My mother spiraled into depression, and we were cared for by my maternal grandmother (Grandma - then age 60) and her sister, our unmarried great aunt (Auntie - then age 62), with the help of my paternal grandparents, intermittent stays with my mother, and even the help of some wonderful friends of the family. Our sleeping place would sometimes literally change day-to-day, but we were always loved, well cared for, and given the best that Auntie and Grandma could provide.
When I was in 6th grade, my mother met and married LL, and soon they moved us in with them, to a small, messy house nearby. At first, we all slept in sleeping bags in the living room, the lucky one got the couch. Later, I was moved to an army cot (and later a bed) in the small back bedroom, which was used as a library, and had previously been used to grow pot. My brothers slept in bunk beds in the dining room. I grew up fast, was responsible for getting my (unwilling) brothers ready for school, and other chores around the house. Mom and LL liked to sleep late, so we had to keep it quiet. There were other abuse issues, which are not the issue here, but basically within a year and a half, we were moved to foster care, then later to live full time with relatives - me with Grandma, my twin brothers to Auntie's. The courts gave Mom a choice - LL or us; she chose him. I had neither seen nor talked to him at length since age 12, except to ask to speak to her on the phone (which for a while sent me into minor anxiety attacks). I tell you this just to set the stage for what is to come.
My mother's biggest issue was that she was a hoarder. It was bad when we lived with her as children, but in subsequent years, it had become tragic. It wasn't just that she had a lot of things. No, this is the type of home you hear about on the news. Her home and 3/4 acres of land in Bolinas, an eccentric small town on the CA coast north of San Francisco, was completely filled from top to bottom with junk - rotting, smelly, useless junk, sprinkled with items worth saving. I'll get into that some other time, but when I learned she had died, I realized with dread that we would have to go through that stuff. Piece by horrible piece.
She also hoarded animals. Not cats, or dogs, or rabbits, or even hamsters... something manageable. No, she hoarded horses. And we would have to figure out what to do with them.
She was also delusional - not in a diagnosed-mental-health-issue kind of way, but in a way that seemed so sane that you'd swear she was a normal level-headed person, and feel ashamed for doubting her. She created her own network of lies about her life, about her plans, about everything, and in some way I think she actually believed them. She would talk about this job she was getting, or this problem she was solving, or imagined hurts and slights, or her own innocent role in the past, and I really think she believed them.
I also realized that I would have to see my stepfather again, after 25 years. I did not know how this would go. I had not wanted to have to find out, especially not in this way.
With one sentence from my SIL, the things I had dreaded in the back of my mind for years (cleaning out, seeing my stepfather, etc.) had become reality. I got a sick feeling in my stomach that still hasn't completely gone away. I don't recall all of the conversation, but my son heard me through the door and went to get DH, saying, "Mom just said, "Oh no!" and it wasn't the good kind of oh no." About that time, our guests arrived as well, but I blurred out the voices and action downstairs.
I also learned that my brother (TW) had headed out to the house (about 1 1/2 hr. drive from anywhere) to check out the situation and stay with my stepfather (age 59), who was threatening to kill himself, either with one of his guns or by OD'ing, within the day. TW had the unfortunate duty of being there to wait with LL and my mom's body for the coroner (who also had to drive for an hour), and of staying the night with a suicidal man (with whom he had had only slightly more contact than I had during the past 25 years) I did not envy him that, and I appreciate that he took on that responsibility. Of course, since we three estranged step-children were my stepfather's only remaining family, there weren't a lot of options. I was a 3 hr flight away, my other brother (EV) a 5-hr drive away.
I spent several hours that night on the phone - contacting a few people, arranging a flight, arranging a place to stay, letting my boss know I'd be out, etc., before I collapsed in a flustered heap for the night....
I am actually going to switch gears, at least partially, for a little while. When I started this blog, I had a couple of reasons. One, because I was enjoying others' blogs, and I am enough of a big mouth to want to have my say, and two, because I wanted to record some things which had happened to me, for my own posterity, whether others found it interesting or not. I've fulfilled a lot of that by talking about our experiences adopting through foster care, but I also wanted to write about my mother's passing two years ago, and never could find a way into the topic. It's been weighing on my mind as of late, and I think the time is right. Those of you who are here for adoption issues, please bear with me... my kids will still be driving me nuts periodically, and I'll still write about that, too!
Two years ago this evening (actually, about 2 hours ago was the exact time) I was blithely enjoying a post New-Year's rush. Our house was full, and getting fuller by the minute - we had hosted two foreign exchange students for the holiday break, and were expecting two new arrivals any minute. DH's cousin's daughter and college friend were headed for a day of shopping here in "The Cities," and had taken us up on our "anytime" offer of a place to crash. We were happy to have them, and said they were welcome as long as they weren't picky about accommodations. I was busy making beds, getting out sleeping bags, and basically preparing for visitors. I love a happy, energized house, so I was looking forward to spending time with this lovely young lady and her friend. And then the phone rang....
My sister-in-law (with whom I am very close), was calling me from CA. When I picked up the phone, the answering machine kicked in, and I rushed downstairs to turn that off, so my call wouldn't be broadcast to the entire household. Hearing my SIL over the general din of the household, it sounded to me as if she was laughing, so I figured I was about to hear another tale of the general zaniness of my very dysfunctional family.
I had misheard...
When I reached the relative quiet of the bedroom, she told me that my mother, age 56, had just passed away due to what we presume was a pulmonary embolism. Now, my mother was young, but she did not keep herself in the best of health. Severely overweight (not that I am one to talk), and extremely inactive, I knew she also suffered from bouts of depression, and didn't go to the doctor regularly. She had had issues with embolisms before, and poor circulation appears to be an issue in our family. I'm not sure how to explain this, but while her death was very shocking, it was understandable given her general health. Does that make sense?
What really made this spooky for me was an incident which had happened the wee hours of the preceding day. It was just after midnight, the start of the new year, and DH and I were already in bed. He had been napping, and I read until the last minute, woke him up and turned on the TV for the countdown, then we kissed good night. Yes, we are party animals. The new year always makes me pensive... I think about the changes the past year has wrought, and the potential of the coming year. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. As I contemplated the year ahead, I was filled with and overwhelming feeling of "wrongness" about it. I took stock - jobs OK, kids OK, marriage OK, house OK. I couldn't put my finger on something to account for that feeling, but it was there nonetheless. I leaned over and poked my semi-sleeping husband and announced, "Don't you dare die on me this year!" He mumbled something confused, to the effect of "Huh? Wah???," and rolled over for more sleep. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. In retrospect, I know it was a premonition. You may scoff, but I'm certain of it, and I've had others that have come to fruition in the past, too (rarely, but definitely).
Now, I'm sure there are others of you who have experienced the death of a parent or loved one. It's not that unusual, and in that respect my story is of no note. But it's the aftermath of that death that truly opened a lot of issues for me.
Some background.....
To start with, my mother did not raise my two brothers and me, and we were not close at all, for a variety of reasons. My parents divorced when I was about 3 or 4, at least in part due to my father's explosive and abusive temper. My earliest memory of my father was of him hitting her and the police being called (lest you get the wrong idea, my father has a much better leash on his temper now, and they even have always had a cordial relationship. I'm certain both of their stubborn streaks played a role in the situation. They acknowledged that while they cared for each other, they were not meant to be married to one another. They were young (19 & 20, I was an oops), and simply not ready for the pressures of marriage with children) My mother spiraled into depression, and we were cared for by my maternal grandmother (Grandma - then age 60) and her sister, our unmarried great aunt (Auntie - then age 62), with the help of my paternal grandparents, intermittent stays with my mother, and even the help of some wonderful friends of the family. Our sleeping place would sometimes literally change day-to-day, but we were always loved, well cared for, and given the best that Auntie and Grandma could provide.
When I was in 6th grade, my mother met and married LL, and soon they moved us in with them, to a small, messy house nearby. At first, we all slept in sleeping bags in the living room, the lucky one got the couch. Later, I was moved to an army cot (and later a bed) in the small back bedroom, which was used as a library, and had previously been used to grow pot. My brothers slept in bunk beds in the dining room. I grew up fast, was responsible for getting my (unwilling) brothers ready for school, and other chores around the house. Mom and LL liked to sleep late, so we had to keep it quiet. There were other abuse issues, which are not the issue here, but basically within a year and a half, we were moved to foster care, then later to live full time with relatives - me with Grandma, my twin brothers to Auntie's. The courts gave Mom a choice - LL or us; she chose him. I had neither seen nor talked to him at length since age 12, except to ask to speak to her on the phone (which for a while sent me into minor anxiety attacks). I tell you this just to set the stage for what is to come.
My mother's biggest issue was that she was a hoarder. It was bad when we lived with her as children, but in subsequent years, it had become tragic. It wasn't just that she had a lot of things. No, this is the type of home you hear about on the news. Her home and 3/4 acres of land in Bolinas, an eccentric small town on the CA coast north of San Francisco, was completely filled from top to bottom with junk - rotting, smelly, useless junk, sprinkled with items worth saving. I'll get into that some other time, but when I learned she had died, I realized with dread that we would have to go through that stuff. Piece by horrible piece.
She also hoarded animals. Not cats, or dogs, or rabbits, or even hamsters... something manageable. No, she hoarded horses. And we would have to figure out what to do with them.
She was also delusional - not in a diagnosed-mental-health-issue kind of way, but in a way that seemed so sane that you'd swear she was a normal level-headed person, and feel ashamed for doubting her. She created her own network of lies about her life, about her plans, about everything, and in some way I think she actually believed them. She would talk about this job she was getting, or this problem she was solving, or imagined hurts and slights, or her own innocent role in the past, and I really think she believed them.
I also realized that I would have to see my stepfather again, after 25 years. I did not know how this would go. I had not wanted to have to find out, especially not in this way.
With one sentence from my SIL, the things I had dreaded in the back of my mind for years (cleaning out, seeing my stepfather, etc.) had become reality. I got a sick feeling in my stomach that still hasn't completely gone away. I don't recall all of the conversation, but my son heard me through the door and went to get DH, saying, "Mom just said, "Oh no!" and it wasn't the good kind of oh no." About that time, our guests arrived as well, but I blurred out the voices and action downstairs.
I also learned that my brother (TW) had headed out to the house (about 1 1/2 hr. drive from anywhere) to check out the situation and stay with my stepfather (age 59), who was threatening to kill himself, either with one of his guns or by OD'ing, within the day. TW had the unfortunate duty of being there to wait with LL and my mom's body for the coroner (who also had to drive for an hour), and of staying the night with a suicidal man (with whom he had had only slightly more contact than I had during the past 25 years) I did not envy him that, and I appreciate that he took on that responsibility. Of course, since we three estranged step-children were my stepfather's only remaining family, there weren't a lot of options. I was a 3 hr flight away, my other brother (EV) a 5-hr drive away.
I spent several hours that night on the phone - contacting a few people, arranging a flight, arranging a place to stay, letting my boss know I'd be out, etc., before I collapsed in a flustered heap for the night....
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