Category: Family

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It Might Sound Trivial, But It’s Still Sadder Than Sad

I picked up Suzanne for her lunch break today, and I chose houndstooth floppy Bow Tie o’ the Day for the occasion. She was pleased because I kind of matched, with the coupling of Bow Tie and my black, square-collared tank. I apologize that the tank’s gray stripes aren’t visible in this photo. Suzanne likes the clashy fashion I concoct. She also likes that sometimes I match, although we both know that if I’m matchy, it was most likely by accident. I admit my authentic fashion sense was lazy today as far as clash goes. In fact, since my surgery at the end of June, I have matched too often for my taste. I’ve been too exhausted to dress the way I like. But I’m getting my stamina back, so I’m getting my clash back– slowly but surely.

Lately, we’ve spent Suzanne’s lunch time at a park where there is a municipal outdoor swimming pool– complete with water slides. It’s full and loud all summer. At the pool– and everywhere we go really– Suzanne and I have made people-watching almost a sport. We enjoy it immensely. Sometimes we’ll see people who look/act so interesting that we make up stories about their lives, explaining how they became their “interesting” selves. Storytelling at its best.

Anyhoo… There are definitely a host of sad things all around us. An outdoor swimming pool that’s closed for the season is one of those sad things. Hundreds of kids laughing and yelling and splashing and getting along is a wonderful, optimistic thing to see and hear. That much play and joy in one place is a remarkable and uplifting sight. I hope they do winter things that allow them to lose themselves in communal joy.

I have this theory that if we could all take a swim together in a pool, the world’s populations would be less combative. It’s difficult to plan destruction and cruelty when you’re playing in a swimming pool. Just try it.

When you find yourself getting short-tempered about something– or towards someone– take your kid, or grandkid, or any kid you know– to take a dip in the pool with you. I defy you to stay ticked off and impatient. I defy you to not smile for the entire time you are there.

Unless you’re swimming laps. There’s a good chance that swimming laps won’t cause you to smile, no matter how much you enjoy it. I don’t know why, but it’s what I’ve observed. I like to swim laps, and I know I don’t smile while I do it, although I feel uplifted.

Pick one person, any person. Now, for thirty seconds, picture that person in a swimming pool, wearing goggles and arm floaties and swim fins and a nose clip– and floating with a swim noodle. Now doesn’t that make you feel better? Doesn’t that put a goofy smile on your mug? When you’re angry at someone, picture that person in that scenario. That’ll put everything into proper perspective.

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A Serendipitous Meeting, Part 2

Caught in the crosshairs o’ love, Bow Tie o’ the Day waited patiently to read Part 2 of our little tale. When we left our saga o’ love in the previous post, this is where we were:  Suzanne and I had decided to quit being we/us. And, as I have admitted, it was all because I was a dope. My bad.

Fast forward to the year 2000, when I moved back to Delta from the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area. Between my freshly diagnosed bipolarity and my freshly flaming Hanky Panky, I was not well. I seriously expected to die soon. I was drained of health and hope. I needed to choose a power of attorney (POA) to handle my finances and medical decisions if I couldn’t deal with them myself. I pondered about who knew me best in the world. I pondered about who I trusted most in the world. And even though I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in over a decade, Suzanne was the answer.

I had no idea where Suzanne even was. I searched. Was she still in Utah? Did she move to England? It was almost Christmas so I decided to try to contact her by sending her a Christmas card, in care of her parents– hoping they still lived where last I knew them. A couple of days later, Suzanne telephoned me from her house in Ogden. I was glad her parents still lived at their same address and gave her the card. And I was gladder that she still lived in Utah. And I was gladdest of all that our phone conversation wasn’t one bit awkward.

I drove my 1970 Ford Falcon to Ogden a few days after that phone conversation to meet Suzanne for dinner and a chat about doing a POA. We went to her fave Italian place on 25th Street, where I ate halibut and explained what I needed her to do and why. That dinner changed the course of our lives. Everything since that dinner has been nothing less than a wondrous second chance. From the moment we sat down in the restaurant, we talked easily, laughed far too loudly, and couldn’t quit smiling at each other. It was as if the years we lived through without each other had never happened at all– like we had never been apart. Love at second sight. The decade-long homesickness for something I could never quite pin down made its exit. We were where we belonged. We were home at last.

[Here’s a BTW: When you ask a writer a question, expect to get an extra long, extra detailed answer. 😄]

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A Serendipitous Meeting, Part 1

Love-struck Bow Tie o’ the Day eagerly awaits my answer to another of Wendy Lowery’s questions. Bow Tie is new to our house and doesn’t know much about our history yet. Anyhoo… Wendy asked how Suzanne and I met. Fortunately, I can still remember that long ago.

‘Twas 1983 when Suzanne and I kind of met. We were both wee pups attending Weber State University (Weber State College, at the time). It was fall quarter, in a class called Poetry Writing. I was minding my own business, just sitting in the desk closest to the door, waiting for the first class to begin. In walked Suzanne at the last moment. She scooted between my desk and the chair in front of me, to find a seat on the other side of the packed classroom. Yes, I noticed her the very first moment I saw her. I noticed her every day of fall quarter. I noticed her boots. I noticed her jeans and t-shirts. I noticed her brown eyes. I noticed her elegant hands. Did she notice me? Nope. Not at all. And I mean NOT AT ALL. To this day, she still doesn’t remember I was in that class with her.

Fast forward a year, to fall quarter 1984. 20th Century European History. First day of class. Again, I’m sitting in the desk nearest the door. Class begins, and in walks Suzanne. Once again she scoots past me, between my desk and the chair in front of me. Same elegant hands. Classes happen for weeks. One day, the professor asked me a question about my being from Delta, and I answered something silly, but irreverent. (No, I can’t repeat it.) It was funny enough that Suzanne finally noticed me. But we still didn’t talk. We just smiled at each other in class and in the halls.

And then one day soon after the snark incident, we ran into each other in the WSU library. We started to talk, and then we spoke, and then we conversed, yada yada yada. We stood talking for hours, bothering the other library-goers. Why we didn’t find a place to sit down is beyond me, but we were so entranced by our conversation that we didn’t notice hours were passing. We don’t remember anything specific that we talked about, but we remember we talked about everything.

And then I graduated from WSU a few weeks later, and moved to SLC for Graduate School at the U of U. Suzanne still had a year left at Weber. She occasionally trekked to SLC to visit me at the Ruth Apartments on 3rd South– a big ancient house, where I lived on the top floor with my rubber Gumby and Pokey figures.

That summer, I mailed Suzanne a letter, finally asking her out. I did not have the courage to do it in person. And then we got an apartment together on 8th East. And then we got another apartment on 9th East. (We called that apartment The Kingdom of Scary Yellow Carpet. We couldn’t walk on the shag carpet with our shoes off because it shot carpet slivers into our feet.) Suzanne was finished with her degree at WSU, but was saving bucks to go back to school to get her teaching credentials. She worked as a lifeguard, and at a camera store. I worked at a magazine, and went to Graduate School in Creative Writing. I also taught at the U of U. Life was good.

And then a thing happened. It was entirely my fault. I take full responsibility for it. I was a full-fledged dope. But it caused us to take a break from each other. For 13 years.

In the next post, Part 2, I will explain how Suzanne and I met for the second time– the time that stuck. Second time was the charm.

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Bees Gotta Be Who They Be

Before Bow Tie o’ the Day and I can wreak havoc on Davis County today, we’re jumping in the car to go visit my regular doctor. You see– I am in dire need of re-upping my EpiPen supply. In all the hub-bub of selling the Delta house last year, I didn’t take time to get my yearly EpiPen prescription. My current injectors expired months ago.

The irony of why I need to carry epipens is that I am allergic to bee stings, which is not the best allergy to have when your father is a beekeeper and the bee warehouse is basically in your backyard. Bees around your house make for some tense times. Oddly, my allergy didn’t kick in until I was 16. Getting stung was a somewhat regular occurrence in my childhood, with bees as my siblings. It was really no big deal. I even worked in the warehouse sometimes and hung around with Dad in bee yards.

But the summer I was 16, I was wrangling some hollyhocks growing up against our house, and I got stung by a bee who was enjoying the ‘hocks. A couple of minutes later, I couldn’t stop sneezing. I decided to settle my sneezing by lying down on the couch with a cold rag on my forehead. I had a hard time catching my breath, and when Mom saw me she asked why I was turning blue. That’s when I connected how I was feeling to the bee sting. I hadn’t even considered a sting being the cause of how I felt, because I’d been stung a thousand times before without any problems.

So off we went to the old Delta Hospital. I was not breathing well at all. My appendages were swelling up. My eyelids swelled up to the point I couldn’t open them. It was all EpiPens, all the time from that point on. But I did get four shoes– sort of– out of my bee sting hospital visit. Apparently, when I got into the ER, the nurses needed to take off my shoes. When they couldn’t get my Nike’s off my swollen feet, they cut them off me. Thus, two shoes became four partial shoes.

But at least I was excused from helping Dad in the warehouse or in bee yards ever again.

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Realistically, How Much Trouble Can I Cause?

Suzanne is leaving this morning to go cabin-camping with her Champagne Garden Club for four days, which means Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are free to do some scampin’. Of course, exactly how much scampin’ we accomplish depends on my energy level. But we’re ready, and I’m attempting to consolidate all the oomph I can gather. Clearly, Bow Tie and my Shirt o’ the Day have energetic clash going on. Perhaps I can feed off that.

When you’re dressing up in clashiness, not only are you making a loud choice of your attire, you are saying to everyone who sees you, “Out of all the clothes in my closet and drawers, this is the ensemble I chose to put together just for you. Today, I chose to show this version of me to the outside world. Please enjoy my outfit being original enough to get in your face, in all its non-matchy color and dapper-osity.”

At the cabin the Champagne Garden Club Girls will inhabit, there is no cell service, which means Suzanne can’t check on me. She won’t be able to get a daily report of my healing and/or not-healing. I told her I will follow the rules for my continued recovery. But when I told her I’d follow those rules, I crossed what’s left of my pancreas, and I didn’t use the word “promise” when I said it. I figure that gives me a bit of leeway in my behavior while she’s gone.

With no communication possible between us, she won’t have a clue in the world as to the things I’ll really be doing. But I tend to feel guilty when I don’t come clean about performing my inadvisable antics– or even advisable antics. So when she gets home, I’ll tell her everything. I’m a dope that way. I’ll take whatever lectures and punishment I deserve.

I’m completely transparent about my doings, to the point of ridiculousness. Out of my mouth comes every teeny and bigly detail of my existence. Suzanne, on the other hand, doesn’t tell me a fragment of what goes on at the annual cabin get-away. You know– what happens at the cabin, stays at the cabin. What occurs there is on a need-to-know basis. That sort of thing. And I’m sure that’s a good policy. At least it’s a good policy for Suzanne. So far, I’m the only one who ever gets in trouble when she’s at the cabin.

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Still Takin’ It Easy

I declared Pajama Day for just me, and wood Bow Tie o’ the Day’s cat glasses are keeping me and Skitter company. Look, I’m so exhausted today that I fell asleep while taking this selfie. And my face says I must have been having a weird dream.

I usually declare a PJ Day on a weekend day, mostly so Suzanne can enjoy it too. She busts her butt all week, and she needs to get her sleep-in sleep to catch up with the z’s she requires. She is a champion sleeper. And she can nap more and longer than any newborn I have ever known. Her record for sleeping in was set in Delta a dozen years ago, where one Saturday she slept until after 5 pm. She hadn’t gone to bed late the night before or anything. She’s just that excellent at sleep. She’s pretty much the tops at whatever task she takes on. She’s persnickety about getting things just right. IT DRIVES ME NUTS! Sometimes. I am laid-back and non-linear and loosey-goosey. She keeps me grounded to the practical world, and I remind her to inhabit her imagination. She provides order, and I provide craziness. We balance each other.

Now that the flooring is finished, moving The Ultimate SewingBox into the house and onto the new flooring is next on Suzanne’s list. It has to be assembled, so we’re looking for an assembler or two. It’s a bigly job, and we can’t do it ourselves. We can read instructions. We can understand instructions. But we also understand what is and what isn’t possible in our relationship.

For example: We can agree on pizza toppings. And that’s a must if you’re going to stay together. But one of the things we cannot do is work together to assemble anything– small or huge, simple or complicated. When we have tried to do it, the scene has not been pretty. Trying to work together on building anything that requires instructions has been known to result in us blurting out bad words we didn’t even know we knew. Wisely, we’ve decided to never attempt it again. When it comes to assembling The Ultimate SewingBox, we decided it would be much cheaper to hire someone to put it together than for us to hire divorce attorneys. You gotta know the limits of your couple-dom if you want your relationship to last.

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The Flooring Is Down, And Skitter Is Down With It

 

 

Skitter hid upstairs– on the bed, under a blanket– the entire day yesterday while two completely affable and skillful young gentlemen installed our new floor. Except for sleeping at night, Skitter is always downstairs, but she was petrified of the men and the bigly noises they made in the house. Of course, the second the installers were done and gone, she promptly threw on Bow Tie o’ the Day, sat on her throne, and took over the new floor. She lounged smack-dab in the center of it for the duration of the day.

We’re so pleased with the flooring that I’m sure I’ll find reasons it needs to be background in these posts a zillion times. As you can sorta see in the pic of me, we chose a complementary, but contrasting, flooring. And although this pic doesn’t show it well, you may be able to see that the new floor is laid with its lines diagonal to the existing floor.ing’s lines That was my idea and I was quite surprised when Suzanne agreed it would be nifty to have it laid that way. My surprise was due to the fact that Suzanne’s taste runs to the traditional, while I prefer more snappy modern designs– with architecture, clothing, furniture, etc.. Our taste in books tends to go the same way. She’s all for British classics, and I’m all about American modernist fiction and poetry.

I wax nostalgic about the bookshelves upon bookshelves of books I got rid of when we sold the Delta house. Oh, heck– I get downright misty-eyed about it. However, it was time, and moving made culling my library a sensible decision. I ended up keeping about 500 books I can’t live without. But I estimate I let about 2000 find new homes. I sorta decorated with them in various stacks and formations throughout the house. And I had ideas for a bunch of book sculptures. But I finally knew I would never get to it, cuz I’m at point in my life where I mostly want to spend my energy writing and reading. In fact, I’d rather spend more of my time writing than reading. In reality, I guess I’m actually doing more editing and completing of pieces than writing new pieces. I mean– I have decades worth of drafts that need sprucing up for publication. I’ve got to hurry. I’ve got more decades behind me than I have in front of me.

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Gettin’ Purty Is Weird. Plus Another Topic.

It appears I opened up a can of beauty worms when I let Suzanne put makeup on me a few days ago. She somehow suckered me and Bow Tie o’ the Day into letting her slather this facial mask gunk on my face last night. (The bow in my hair is actually my own touch. It’s how I keep my head hairs out of my eyes.) I can attest to the fact that it was fun peeling off the mask after it had dried. I managed to peel it off in one piece, which I am extremely proud of. Was this mask enough to calm Suzanne’s current cosmetology bug? I think not, because she then polished my fingernails with a breathtaking emerald color– except for the nail on my ring finger which is always painted purple, whether my other fingernails are painted or not.

There’s a national anti-domestic violence campaign called Put The Nail In It, meaning to end something once and for all.  Its signature symbol is the purple ring-finger nail. When anyone asks about my nail, it gives me an opportunity to talk to them about the importance of the issue. See, I can be serious. In fact, I’m serious about anything that affects the dignity and safety of human beings. And dogs, cats, etc., as well. I think it’s why we’re here on the planet.

I’ve never understood the question a lot of people have about why God allows suffering. To me, people are the ones who cause suffering, and so the right question is, “Why do WE allow suffering?” We created all the problems on the planet (except natural disasters), so it seems to me that our purpose is to learn how to clean up the messes we’ve made, and then create extraordinary solutions. Love your neighbor. Pray. Vote. Hope. Feed the hungry. Teach literacy. There are infinite ways to solve the chaos. Do whatever positive action you do. You can’t do everything, but you can do some things. It’s our responsibility to do what we can. To do any less than what we can should be unacceptable to us. Doing any less than what we can is what makes and allows suffering.

That’s my sermon, and I’m stickin’ to it.

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If It’s Sunday, It Must Be Brunch

Bow Ties o’ the Day had a fantastic time at Cafe Niche for Sunday brunch. As you can see, Suzanne wanted to get in on the bow tie act. We donned our bow tie bibs for the feast because we were famished, and we were afraid we might eat sloppily. The bow ties on each bib did a perfect job of keeping our clothing from being defaced by our lack of delicate eating. And bigly Bow Tie o’ the Day presents its grapes– Mormon grapes for Sunday, I’m sure.

Brunch can have a calming effect. I recommend it when you’re stressed out or tense. Suzanne and I stressed ourselves out by having a little tiff last night– over nothing of any importance. But the tiff happened, and the tiff went on in silence, right on into today.

In the middle of the night when I had to potty, I ended up using the last few squares on the toilet paper roll. There was a new roll on the bathroom vanity, three inches from the tp holder. Normally, of course, I’d change out the rolls– no matter what time of the middle of the night it was. But I was still miffed about the tiff, and there was no way in heck I was gonna politely take the old roll off and put the new one on. Nope. Suzanne was gonna have to do it herself the next time she needed to potty. (That’ll teach her!) And do you know what I thought in my tiff-miffed head as I walked back to bed? I thought with great sarcasm, “Well, she told me I wasn’t allowed to lift anything, and I’m sure that includes a roll of toilet paper.” And I sooo wanted her to say something to me about the tp roll incident this morning, so I could say the same snotty thing right to her precious face. And then we went to brunch, and everything got forgiven and forgotten.

 

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I Feel Really Bad About It

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are feeling useless this afternoon. Our flooring installation is Monday, and Suzanne forbade me from helping her move furniture and other objects from the area where the installers need to work. I know she’s right that I shouldn’t help, but it makes me uncomfortable to watch her heft and tote and pull and push stuff around. I was a bad girl anyway, and I moved three bottles of lotion and one container of baby powder from the ground floor to the second floor, at the same time–without Suzanne seeing, of course. I was trying to help. At the top of the stairs, I knew I should not have done it. And then I made the mistake of telling Suzanne what I had done and that I should have moved only two bottles at a time. I got THE LOOK, and I am now banished to The Kingdom of Sit-on-your-butt-and-watch-HOMICIDE-HUNTER:-LT.-JOE-KENDA. It’s one of my fave kingdoms, but I hate to be bossed into doing anything– even if it’s exactly what I want to do. It’s a pride thing, I suppose. And I feel like, for Suzanne’s sake, I should act a little put out and hurt about being banished from the moving action. But jeez, according to my hospital discharge papers, I’m allowed to lift 10 pounds by now. It is true that the papers also say every patient recovers at their own speed, and some should wait longer to lift objects more than 2 pounds. That means I’m still not allowed to lift the Mini-Keg yet. Very sad. BTW At this very moment, Suzanne is vacuuming the carpet which will be torn out for the flooring to be laid down. What the heck is the point of doing that? In less than 48 hours, the carpet will be ripped out and disposed of. Is she trying to impress the flooring workers with her perfect vacuum tracks? With her being kinda miffed at me already, I don’t dare ask her if she’s gonna shampoo it too. Hell, it’s crappy carpet anyway, which is why we’re getting rid of it in the first place. Ok. I’ll shut up about it now and watch more HOMICIDE HUNTER.