Where To Begin

After a long pause, I finally got around to writing a blog entry on Monday, November 14. I felt a bit adrift then. We were planning a little celebration (of our first date) with some friends. We had a trip to New York scheduled. (Which we took December 5-12. The above picture is our multiple reflections in one of the Bloomingdale Christmas windows.) I couldn't decide what, if anything to do about Christmas and the holidays. Whether to send cards, buy presents for anyone.

On November 16 my mother-in-law died. (The events of that day are somewhat interesting. See Forrest's description here.) That capped off a year and a half during which Forrest had a cancer scare and two surgeries; my dad died; his dad died; I disposed of my Dad's estate; he handled his dad's; and his mother died, leaving us parent-less. Then we begin disposing of his mother's estate.

There were three services, burials and such to arrange during what seemed like such a short time. There were fiduciary duties. There were (mercifully short) trips to MD Anderson, times in hospitals here. Three ambulance rides at the end for parents. Through it all we were very 'lucky.' Lucky FFP's cancer has apparently not spread. Lucky our parents didn't suffer too long. (My mother died in 2002 and, sadly, she did suffer a lot longer than I would have liked. My dad, of course, had his share of problems in the last few years.). But still. We were lucky. We had the money to handle things, for me to retire and take care of things for Dad after mother died. For Forrest to retire. We had time to see my dad through some trouble, to look after some things for his parents. We have the money now to not worry about money but just do what needs to be done with houses and stuff and all that.

Lucky or not, things are different. I realized after my dad died that I'd stayed young (in my own mind) and exuded confidence that I could take care of things trying to help him through his old age. Forrest did most of the things for his mom but her presence made me feel younger. Because she needed us, didn't she? Because we were young and strong and capable, right?

Now we can arrange to travel and not worry about what parental difficulties may arise at home. But, of course, we may find ourselves in difficulties. Can't really escape that.

We have kind of sleep-walked through the last six weeks. We went on with our schedule after a few days of handling my mother-in-law's services. We cleaned the valuables and mementos out of the house. We drifted through Christmas. I finally printed a few cards and sent them post-Christmas. We had a fancy dinner with friends on Christmas Eve and we were invited to a family gathering with someone else's family for Christmas Day. I didn't buy any presents except hostess gifts. FFP and I bought whatever we wanted and I sent money to my nieces and sister.

Now I wake up and it is 2012 and I'm vacillating between wanting to make some changes (blog, write my novel, exercise more, socialize with people, travel here, travel there, get rid of stuff, get new stuff) and wanting to roll down the shutters and be a recluse, changing as little as possible and buying nothing.

Where will I go with it? Will the blog record the journey or will I go back inside my head? Too early to tell. Going through old blog entries for the links in this entry make me realize that sometimes it does help just to write it down.

Not All There

Do you ever feel like you aren't completely present in your life? Like you are entering a new phase where you are adjusting to new realities by halting steps, sometimes one forward and several back?

That's how I feel now. I have been through ups and downs of my dad's medical condition. We seem to be settling into a situation where he is getting stronger, no longer flirting with imminent death although you never know. But he is dealing with side effects of the treatment. He is able to do some things for himself and to complain to his caregivers (me at the moment and my niece and her husband when they were here). I suspect he'll be unhappy with the hired guns that are going to be his reality after I figure out just what he needs and can afford and get some help. He is adamant that he wants to stay in the house he's in which we own but for which he's been paying all the ongoing expenses (taxes, insurance, yard maintenance, utilities, phone, cable, cleaning, etc.). Add on top of that paying caregivers to come each day and help with daily housekeeping, laundry and bathing and such and it will be expensive for him. He can afford it for a few years so why not? But the details of managing hiring and also of absorbing complaints will fall to me. It occurs to me, though, that sometimes he is a little more forgiving of the outsiders. I'm just saying.

Anyway, I feel only partially present in my life. I keep absorbing new things each day, victories and defeats. I feel like I'm in a box with various slits that let you see forward but you have to shake your head to make the images come together to make any sense of it and then you get dizzy.

I'm neglecting things I want to do in organizing my own life...getting some computer issues resolved, getting my condo cleaned and better organized, organizing taxes for 2009, etc. Sometimes I'm just sitting around at Dad's, just babysitting or waiting for the home health people to come by or doing little chores like laundry or taking out trash or tidying up. I will pull out the laptop and do things (like posting Holidailies) and Dad will mildly complain about it. When my niece and her husband were here he complained that we were always on our laptops. He didn't know what we were doing with them. I guess he thought we ought to be doing something he saw as useful all the time. Of course, the elderly are absolved to nap between bouts of watching screeching on Fox News!

When I get away, I just want to go out with FFP, read, eat decadent food, drink. In other words live the decadent life until I arrive, partially present in some further broken down future like my Dad's.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not really. I'm just trying to come to terms with my dad's reality and my own and then live that life fully. I have lots of issues to solve but lots of resources to solve them with.

One foolish pursuit I hope to have more time for in the future is the taking, editing and displaying of shop window reflections like today's and the others I've been showing during Holidailies. I think the daily exercise of writing for the Holidailies challenge has been a good thing although I'm pretty sure it has been mostly a long screed against the duty of daughterhood. Ah, well. I'm a lousy caregiver and admitting it may make me a better one...or just get that off my chest.

You Don't Know What You've Lost

Take something away and then you appreciate it, right?

Actually, I like to think I was appreciating things right along in the moment.

I was happy to wake up every day without my hands stiff and aching. I didn't know what was coming with the hands, I guess, but I woke up feeling good and I appreciated that. My dad used to say "If people don't drink then when they wake up, that's the best they are going to feel all day long." My drinking hasn't caused an unpleasant awakening in a long time. But the hand thing has made the first thing in the morning a hangover for my fingers.

When Dad was taking care of his own needs (apart from the help we'd arranged for yard men, cleaning, handyman, errands), I appreciated that. I appreciated that other people with parental units as elderly as ours had more demanding responsibilities. (FFP's duties still center on shopping and errands, amazingly, since his folks are 99 and almost 90.) Dad is working hard after a bad six weeks to get back to virtual independence. He spent 13 days of the last six weeks in two hospital stays and had four procedures and lots of intervention and tests. He's been to doctor's offices three times and to a pre-opt visit to the hospital and another emergency room visit. He's had several visits from a home health nurse, several from a PT specialist, etc. He has an evaluation from Occupational Therapy on Friday. I figure his ability to dress himself, go to the toilet and even cook is proof that he's getting back some facility. He's dealing with a lot. And I would be lying if I didn't say I long for when he was more self-sufficient. He told me yesterday that he had his last car wreck (and subsequently gave up having a car) a year ago. I admit that when he could still safely drive a few places and do his own thing that I appreciated that. I knew it might end just as FFP's Dad gave up driving (his mother never drove) because of his poor vision and that ended a lot of their independence. (Although his parents took cabs for a long time before they felt that was too onerous after a failure to pick up at the grocery store.)

This is where we are now. My health is good if my hands are trumpeting my age. My dad is improving after the latest interventions have halted a rush to possibly fatal anemia. And I don't really know where he will land. I'm going to monitor it until after the holiday and then, if necessary, get him additional help to stay at his house as he wishes. It would be easier to go to assisted living where meals and other services would be more straightforward. But he resists it. He knows how he would feel if he lost the ability to be in his own private space. I think he felt that during his recent hospital stays.

Going Crazy Now

What should you spend your mental cycles on? Lately I've been spending a lot of my bandwidth on the issues of my dad's health as well as his living situation and finances. The broad issues of what is going to happen to him and the extremely detailed issues of day-to-day care and feeding. How much of this is really helping him? Some, I guess.

I know there are lots of things I need to think about in my own life and finances. There is housekeeping of all sorts that I need to do. The literal kind, the financial kind and the computer kind. I try to make time for this but it keeps coming back to Dad. When I get away and I know someone is with him, I get a little break from it and start to think about my own life. Which is not exactly filled with purpose just now. Frankly when I get away I tend to socialize. Then people ask me how my dad is doing and I have to talk about it a little.

It's really a sad commentary on my effectiveness. Normally, I don't have any trouble managing a list of 'duties.' The problem with the Dad duty is that you feel like you are making awesome, irrevocable decisions about someone else's life. And that you are imminently unqualified for the job. Even if that person is ninety-three and people can toss the H word (hospice) around in his earshot without irony, it is overwhelming. Now it appears that he may be able to rally for another round, thanks to a last resort try at a fix. Which would make me feel better if it didn't just make the future all that much more unknown. How much additional help will he need now and in a few weeks? How long will this fix work? Will something else come along?

All any of us can do is make the best of where we are at any moment, managing our lives and health and capabilities. It's harder when you're doing it for someone else. I'm unsure if the task is made more difficult or easier by the relative cognitive capability retained by the person. Dad is aware of his situation and also aware of the point at which he wants me to make decisions. He's cooperative with me and his health care providers. I guess this is easier than dealing with someone less capable, in general. Although end of life decisions for my mother seemed easier in the final analysis. I had Dad to help, of course. But her very helplessness made things more black and white.

No...I'm not really going crazy. (Or that's my opinion.) But I wish I could find something else to write about since I'm doing the Holidailies thing and feel I have to write every day.

Somewhere Out There

Out where dreams come true.

Feeling vague and unsettled. No one knows the future, of course, but we can put this nice spin on our own planning when things are not going down fast. Watching my dad reach a nadir of as yet unknown depth has been a bitter experience. There are things with no fixes. You know that. And yet.

My dad's uneasy relationship with his own health right now and the fact that we are still doing the family care-giving 'wait and see' means we are focused on him in a probably unhealthy way. I know people give this kind of care to their relatives day-in and day-out for years and years. I won't being doing that regardless of the cost to my dad and me. Arranging for care will be challenge enough. A care facility might be an easier choice. For me anyway. But he adamantly wants to stay in the house he's been in for nine years. Of course, we bought it with the possibility that my parents could stay in it in old age and infirmity. It is handicapped accessible. My dad likes it. Perhaps too much.

It means I have trouble focusing on joyous things. Like the brief sunshine out there on a cool day. Like reading the paper. Or just editing a shop window picture and writing something. Like having a drink and some good food and visiting with friends.

It's only a couple of weeks until Christmas. My lack of festive feeling is pretty complete. If I get to go to the ballet tomorrow night to see "The Nutcracker" and maybe go to a couple of holiday parties, maybe that will change. But I'm pretty sure it won't. This holiday is a wash for me. Not that I need a holiday. I'm not religious and I'm retired so I don't need a vacation.

Except I do. I need a vacation from responsibilities. But no one gets that. Maybe next year at this time I'll feel festive, though.

Selfish

Do you ever say to a someone taking care of a parent, spouse or friend "take care of yourself?" Yeah...people say this to me all the time lately as I've worked through this latest weeks-long health crisis with my dad.

Not a problem with me really. It's all about me. As I do what I think is right and proper for my dad I think constantly about what fun things I've cancelled. I wonder whether Forrest (and maybe someone enjoying a second ticket or seat at an event) are having a good time while I babysit my dad or attend to him at the doctor or hospital.

As I plan for my dad's future with him it is not in the back of my mind what will happen with me and whether I will be able to plan for my future for trips and commitments and the alleged joys of retirement. It is top of mind. Me then Dad. I'm sorry, but there it is. It doesn't mean I don't have his best interests at heart. But I'm the opposite of a martyr. Is their a word for that?

In the last two years FFP and I went on three trips I think. If you don't count one night in San Antonio and two nights at Lake Austin spa. Each of those longer trips had the attendant worry of some health problem with Dad and guilt over going away. It didn't end too badly in any case, but yeah I felt a little bad about and maybe resentment over the guilt.

Now the good thing about about my dad is that he doesn't want to be a burden and you can openly discuss your own frustration with him. My mom wasn't lucid at the end and you couldn't have had that discussion with her anyway. She was very different in that way.

When my Mom was in the hospital for the final 90+ days of her life, I spent a lot of time in her hospital room trying to keep her from removing IVs that were saving her life while she was hallucinating. I'd read newspapers and one night I was reading a travel section from "The New York Times" and dreaming of being able to travel, guilt-free. My mom said, suddenly, out of the blue, "I need to die or get better so you can travel." Yeah, I felt guilty for a few seconds and I knew she was hallucinating random stuff. Still I saw the wisdom.

So, when people say 'take care of yourself,' I'm thinking 'you bet I will.'   

Looking for Dad

This is my mom and dad. They are looking out over Grand Canyon, I think. (Only they are looking back at the camera.) I don't think I was with them. I think my sister and I saw the Grand Canyon, alone, perhaps this same summer. Not really sure, however. I think my dad is around fifty here, maybe.

This morning I got up a little late, around eight. I made my morning call to him. No answer. Tried again a few times. No answer.

My dad has a Lifeline button. I shouldn't worry. Maybe someone took him to early church service. He doesn't have a car because, if you are a close reader, his was totaled a couple of weeks ago.

One can't help worrying even though one knows it's nothing. One knows there is a 99.9% chance someone drove him to church. Still.

FFP says we should go out there and check. We do. We don't rush but we get dressed and drive out there. He isn't home, of course. His Sunday paper is arrayed around his chair. He hadn't written today's date on his drug list in the bathroom, but, yes, obviously he has gotten a ride and gone to church. In fact, maybe he has the date wrong and did write in there.

We went to Waterloo Ice House on Burnet and had breakfast. In order to make use of having gotten the car out, we called FFP's mom and got a grocery list and went to the store and got here some stuff and bought bananas, coffee, yogurt and laundry soap for ourselves.

I knew I could have ignored not getting to talk to him this morning, but we are a little paranoid about that after the 2006 death of one of our friends after she lay alone in her house for days after a massive stroke. We take our charge to check up on people seriously now.

I think the picture is funny with Dad barely captured by whoever took the picture. Dad was always disappearing. He worked weird hours and then, when he retired, piddled with a flea market stand and helping some guy who bought and sold cars. My whole life as a youngster, my mom was wondering where Dad was. He'd go off with friends on some errand after work. Maybe he was off drinking or just helping fix a car. Often he was doing a favor for a friend. But he never felt obligated to let folks know where he was, particularly, and it made my mother crazy. And it bugged us if we were hoping he'd come home for some reason. (He always seemed to take a shift at the hospital where he was an attendant on Christmas Day and we'd have to wait until he came home to open presents.) Now I have to worry about him, but he can't get far away. I have to be more responsible than he sometimes was and remember his appointments and see that he gets what he needs. He still wants to be the independent, capable middle-aged man in this picture. But he is not. Indeed, I'm about fifteen years older than my mother was in this picture if I'm not mistaken. In ways he is more responsible than when he was younger perhaps because he has to be.

Just before posting this I looked to see what the Holidailies writing prompt was. "Never mind your chronological age: how old do you feel?" Ah, yes. Am I sixty? Am I sixteen? Am I drug up (or it that down) to the parental level...do I really feel like ninety? Hard to say. Maybe I should make a New Year's Resolution to feel younger.

Every Day Brings Its Surprise

On the day before Christmas Eve, I went to bed late and didn't sleep well. So Christmas Eve morning at seven I was still slugging the bed (a family term around here for doing pillow time when it's light and other people are up) and FFP said I should look at the sky. It did look a bit strange. I got up and FFP shot some pictures of it with me directing him to some settings on the point and shoot that might help. It was a strange sky indeed. And that day's little surprise. Right now, as I type this sentence the wind whips up and the sky darkens as a new front moves through. The pundits (the weathermen that is) thought it would be here a bit earlier. I wasn't confident I'd get to play tennis but I did as the sky was covered and uncovered with clouds and the wind whipped through then lay back. I enjoyed playing. No suprise there. Although I was playing with a sore toe. Stubbed it last night on something. It's not swollen though, but it's tender. It surprised me when I stubbed it and I almost feel down landing instead in my chair. Yes, I'd had a few drinks. Shut up.

On Christmas Eve, it didn't feel festive. The annual Christmas party at the Headliners Club (our first one), almost picked me up the day before. I wore my decades-old red blazer and red socks. I posed FFP with Christmas decor in the building. I drank two Bloody Marys (the drinks are free at their annual party, no wonder it's so popular). I was going to go out by myself in the evening, but I ended up driving FFP to the Long Center for Mother Ginger wrangling and then I thought I shouldn't drink so I could go pick him up if needed. (He walked home, though.) And I started doing laundry and watching TV and just stayed home. But staying home in my undecorated house was not festive.

We went out with our friends on Christmas Eve. It was a long, fun evening. I met some new people including a young lady about to graduate and go to medical school and a teacher who was trying to teach her dog to skateboard. We had a New Zealand dinner, complete with wines. Someone bought champagne and cheese plates to kick it off. We had crackers (those popping novelties with toys inside that British people like) and tried to play with the toys inside and wore the paper hats, too. Then we all went to a large apartment near our building and had a White Elephant (Yankee Exchange/Chinese Exchange) of wrapped Christmas ornaments. And drank champagne and had more desserts. The place was decorated, but at the end of the evening my festive quotient still was a little low.

Our Christmas was very slow. We took FFP's parents to Threadgill's which was beyond packed. We got there early enough to get a table and got them fed, though, and went back and unwrapped presents with them. They had money in cards for us but had temporarily forgotten where they put them. Finally FFP said "Did you put them in a drawer?" His mother went to the bedroom and found where she'd stashed them. Because my dad didn't feel like getting out we took him his presents and visited with him a short time. I called in a prescription for him to the automated renewal thing. He was feeling better but we didn't stick around long. The outing with FFP's parents wore us out. We went back to the condo and I don't think we left except maybe to go across the hall to the gym. We washed towels and we watched a DVD from Netflix and sports on TV. I liked the movie ("Heights" with Glenn Close but written and directed by this guy Chris Terrio whom I never heard of). I enjoyed sitting around reading the papers and drinking coffee. I worked some crosswords since FFP gave me some puzzle books for Christmas.

We spent a good part of the day after Christmas doing stuff for my dad. He wanted to be driven to church to play games and to a friend's house for leftovers. We picked up his prescription and we took him to do the paperwork and turn in stuff to get a check from his insurance company for his van that got totaled. I wasn't going to burden FFP with it, but he went along with it. We got his car washed and wandered Barnes and Noble and such while Dad was playing games at church. In the evening we had a dinner date but it got canceled, so we went to Taste and had snacks and drinks and then went to the Alamo Ritz and saw "Milk." (Wow. Good movie.) It's been so long since we found time and actually got ourselves off to see a movie that it kind of surprised me that we were doing it. But the canceled dinner date pushed me and I bought the tickets online so as to push myself a bit more. We don't even get that many Netflix watched.

So, here I am, rambling to say something so I'll have another Holidailies entry. I'm cool so far with the count. Why is it that I can resolve to do something like blog every day and actually do it, but when it comes to more important things, no? I am going to make two and only two resolutions for 2009. (More on that later in another entry.)

Enough With the Holidays

OK, it's Christmas. I'm resurrecting an entry I started last Friday (the 19th) and abandoned because it was too down. When I was writing the paragraphs below Christmas was less than a week away.

So here we go. This is what I wrote last Friday. I'll quote it and then continue.

A lot of the writing prompts at Holidailies have been about, well, the Holidays. Understandable, I suppose given its seasonal nature.

Enough with the holidays, though. Christmas is less than a week away. Yes, next Thursday is Christmas. And then there is New Year's Eve. We don't have a plan yet for New Year's Eve. We may watch the downtown festivities from our tenth floor balcony.

Today's reflection, showing me still in sweats from a tennis game in the cold and holding a bundle (Texas pecans bought at the Farmer's market) makes me look like a homeless person. The reflection is in a design shop called Kirk (only one or more letters is reversed or something) and the white things are rubber trinkets on a tree. The peace symbol. Yeah. The guns and bombs? (I'm assuming, the bomb like thing could also be something else.) Those aren't so festive.

I'm not homeless. Far, far from it. It must be pretty horrible to face the holidays without necessities like a roof, let alone money for festivity. And here I sit, with two Action packers full of decoration (one entirely filled with bendable, posable figures of Santas and such) locked away in the storage cage. I'm not feeling it, I have to tell you.

Today I'm going to buy a few presents. Perhaps. I'm going to exercise, read the paper, get outside and walk. I have a pretty free day and I'm retired and we may survive the financial crisis. The old folks are snug at home. My dad had a great adventure with a friend who was visiting yesterday and may have to 'rest up.' FFP stocked his parents' pantry yesterday. All should be right with them for a day. I can spend the day however I like.

Why don't I feel more excited about it? What is dragging me down?

Well, it's nothing I can put my finger on so I'm going to just blast on through it and embrace the day. The fog is burning off outside and maybe it will burn off in my brain soon enough.

And here are some more paragraphs I ditched yesterday (and started a completely new entry):

It's Christmas Eve. It doesn't feel like it to me. I have a few presents piled on the desk in the living room, no other decorations. I've been taking FFP's picture in front of decorations at other places. Yesterday we went to the annual party at the Headliners Club. I posed him in front of one of their trees and in front of the tree in the lobby of the Chase building. I haven't co-oped any Christmas spirit, however.

A few things are bothering me. I could articulate them in this space, but I'd rather not. Because by the time I did then the things bothering me would morph, I think. It's those sorts of things.

We are going out tonight with friends and spending tomorrow with our parents. The friends are going to be festive, I think. Most of them. It's a large group. Our parents will not make me feel more festive. Entertaining them isn't too bad, but it makes me feel old. I have been telling people that when we get together with them the average age is 80. It's true, too. The total age among us is 400 exactly at this moment.

When people ask us what we are going to do for Christmas, I say we are taking our parents to Threadgill's for a meal. Some are shocked. Some think it's a great idea. I mention what a production it is to get them all in and out of cars and into the restaurant and get the food ordered. Often they say, "But you are so lucky to still have them."

Perhaps these people are missing their own parents. If they saw their parents suffer old age, time has softened that. I have one friend, fifteen years older than I am, whose mother is still alive. She is 106. She is in a nursing home. I think she is officially on hospice care. Perhaps has been for years. My friend is still in good health (plays tennis amazingly well) although she has some complaints. Occasionally the doctors think her mother is at the end of her life. Then she rallies. Perhaps, after all, living well isn't the best revenge. Perhaps living long is the best revenge. But you have to have some children (preferably daughters or daughters-in-law statistically) to exact the revenge from!

Yeah, so. I haven't been feeling the holidays. My old relatives filter it for me and, while they (or us as people would have it) are lucky to be doing as well as they are, life with them is covered with a constant layer of infirmity. Their minds are sharp, but they still repeat themselves. My dad can't quite deliver the punch lines of his many jokes like he once could. The things they are interested in and capable of doing are boring for us. This morning my dad informed me that his blood pressure took a drop and it took him a while before he was able to go to the curb for his paper. (He takes medicine to lower the blood pressure and sometimes it works too well.) He doesn't want to go on an outing today to lunch. He recently had a car accident and the insurance company has decided to total the car. He wants me to help with the paperwork. He also wants to buy another car. But he has already restricted his driving to day time and certain places. I think cabs and/or paying someone to drive him is more reasonable. I will be driving him more places, at least in the short term.

When people say how lucky we are to still have parents, I think of how I miss my mother sometimes and agree. But sometimes I think, "Well, you can take a turn doing their errands and explaining things in our modern world to them and worrying about their future. No problem. We'll spread the luck around." I think I know how people with children feel. How our own parents were feeling when we were young, needed help. But they had the hope that we would grow up. The only thing we can hope for is that we stay healthy enough to help them and that they stay reasonably happy and pain-free until the end.

Yeah, it's hard to be festive and that's why stuff like the above accumulates in my unpublished blog entries. But I must shower. Because I think that FFP's parents still want to go out to lunch. And I don't think we've gotten them out of the house since Thanksgiving. And I need to take my dad his presents. And see about the paperwork on his car wreck. And see whether his episode this morning is anything to worry about.

I'll leave it to you, dear readers, especially those who still have kids who are visited by Mr. Claus and those who have sincere religious feelings for the day, to feel festive.

In Case of Christmas Emergency-Break Glass

I'm not in the spirit of the season. Today's Holidailies prompt is "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

Yeah, so how do you fight it off? I've started another entry with a photo of the morning sky and devolved into such a funk that I ditched it, picture and all. (I'll get back to that.) I took this picture on the Capitol Metro train the other day. It's one of those escape tools, behind glass.

So, what's bothering me?

And how to break out of it?

Some would say I should go help others. But I know that I don't do well in direct contact with those in need. It's hard enough for me to help the parental units and friends in person. My money will have to suffice.

Some would say I just need to be thankful for what I have. A nice place to live; plenty of money for the lifestyle we lead (moderate to profligate); parental units still (somewhat) able to go it alone and cognizant of what is going on. I have my health, a good Internet connection and plenty to read. Yeah, I'm thankful. So?

Some would say I need to embrace (their) religion. Easier said than done.

Some would say I need to 'get professional help.'

My experience, however, is that one just keeps on getting up, doing stuff and pretending to be festive and the mood will change. Maybe I won't feel festive for the actual holidays. Maybe my mood will improve for...President's Day and the tax season. That could be useful.

It's a Wonderful Life

Did I mention that I saw this radio play of "It's a Wonderful Life" over at the theater at Penn Field (Austin Playhouse King Stage) Saturday night? It is the story of George Bailey but done as if six actors were performing it as a radio play in the 1940's. They took on multiple characters (Mr. Potter is also one of George Bailey's kids, not to mention the head Angel, helping Clarence!) The cast did the sound effects like on old radio. Its run is finished now so this isn't a review. (In fact, it wasn't on my radar until one of the gals I was going out with on Saturday suggested it and found that they did have a few tickets for that performance.)

Anyway, I like that story because I'm rather fascinated by the way chance and actions conspire to make life what it is. The premise of "It's a Wonderful Life" is not that George Bailey has a great life. He really doesn't. His dreams were thwarted. (Oh, you might count the wife and kids in the drafty house as a great life, but that's you.) No, to me, the fascinating premise is that George gets to see the world with him erased, as if nothing changed except that one little thing never happened: the accident of his father's particular sperm and his mother's particular egg getting joined. He doesn't see the aftermath if he succeeds in jumping off the bridge and drowning. No. He gets to see the world truly without him.

Just as an aside, before I continue, there was an article in The New York Times this week about the movie and one man's experience with it. There is a funny bit in there theorizing that maybe life would have been more wonderful without George.

So. Have you ever thought about that? What if you hadn't been conceived? You weren't an aborted fetus or a baby or child killed in a tragic accident. You just were not there, never thought of, literally never conceived.

It does change things, doesn't it? Maybe my parents wouldn't have had a second child. If my sister was their only child, things would have been different all along the way. Maybe my mother would have gone back to school four or five years earlier when my sister started school instead of when I did. They could have given my sister more things and avoiding sending a second kid to college, gotten financially solvent sooner.

When my parents grew old, however, and their support system in North Texas was disappearing, they wouldn't have moved to Austin to be near the baby child and get some help from her. They might have moved to be near my sister in Colorado, but I doubt it. My sister had a cerebral aneurysm rupture in 1998. At that point I bet they would still have hoped that my brother-in-law would retire and he and my sister would move to Texas. My sister had a long recovery and many set-backs. She can do many things but she is handicapped by the hemorrhagic stroke and the other strokes that followed. The first time my parents visited her, in March 1999 in rehab in Denver, I took them there, worried about them being in the snow and ice. They might have tried to move there all the same. My sister had children and, starting in 2000, grandchildren there. My mother would still have had Multiple Myeloma, I suppose, and I suppose it would have been eventually diagnosed. Certainly she would probably still have died in 2002. Although one never knows.

So I see my Dad. Alone in that house in the Dallas suburb? Moved to Colorado where the thin air bothered his breathing after a few weeks? But, who knows, maybe better off. Maybe without the burden of another kid, my parents would be strong and vigorous and both still alive. Who's to say?

The other close to home thing is wondering what my husband of thirty-plus years would be doing. He says if he hadn't found me he would have never married. But I wonder. He might not have started his business less than a year after we married if he hadn't had a partner to pay bills. He might not have been there to take a call from a young man at UT selling gray market IBM PCs and do advertising for him as his business morphed into a build-to-order and sell direct PC firm. I'm betting that he wouldn't have bought a bigger house that same year he started the business. He might not have purchased a building to run his agency during the Dell era. The doctor who now owns that building and the house we bought that year would probably have put his practice some other place.

I wonder if the man who never met me because I didn't exist would have ended up in a condo downtown. My bet is that he would have married someone else who was smart and driven but wanted children and ended up in Tarrytown with some way too intelligent smart ass kids that he nevertheless loved unmercifully. Or maybe he would have left the company where we met, but not started an ad agency in Austin and, instead, moved to some other city. As an only child he would be looking back to Austin at his very elderly parents and trying to see that they were all right from a distance.

Then there are the jobs I had. I wouldn't have been there to write certain lines of code, to create certain bugs and avoid or fix others. I wouldn't have been there to think up software ideas or squash others' visions. It would have been different. Better? Worse? Barely noticeable? Hard to say.

I don't really think the world would be that different without me especially once you move out of a pretty tight circle around me. But little things would be different. There would be one less site on Holidailies. (Or more spookily someone else doing a site called Visible Woman! But that would be an entirely different site anyway.)

Well, um, that was an instructive line of thought. But since I do exist I have to clean the condo and go have lunch and dinner with friends who would be doing something else today. In fact, one of them would probably not live in Austin if we hadn't met forty years ago or so. So they'd be doing something someplace else. We are having lunch with Dad who wouldn't live in Austin. Whoa, it's just too weird.

How Did That Go?

I know you are out there, fans of the moving/downsizing debacle (not really a debacle but isn't that a great word?). Anyway, yes we had our inspection. And, yeah, we have a long punch list and we are sending our contractors back for some measurements and getting a licensed inspector to inspect it, but generally we are almost giddily happy about the place. Long punch list or not (most are minor things but certainly ones that need fixing) we love the place and while it isn't huge I think we are going to learn to love it immensely and, having discarded our way to a fighting trim that fits in the place, be happy there for years to come. The above view looks across our neighbors' balcony to the Long Center. We have been at the Long Center a fair amount during its triumphant opening and standing on the City Terrace we have been pointing out our balcony so we knew we would be able to see the Long Center from there. Still, it was exciting to take this picture.

This picture is directly across Nueces from our balcony. The cars in the foreground are on top of the State parking garage. The structure in the lower right delivers chilled water for air-conditioning to surrounding buildings and they pointed out our own chilled water in our mechanical closet. I didn't get a picture but if you look northeast you see the Capitol.

We had enough time on our appointment to get a quick tour of the gym, party room and media room. There is still a little construction around the pool but the pool is there and filled. I was thrilled that they have the exact kind of recumbent bike that I like. It has a personal TV like all the machines. I thought putting the 360 logo on the benches and stuff was a bit much but who is to argue???

The people running the inspections and such are using a one bedroom on the ninth floor. We asked if we could step out on the balcony while they made copies and they said sure.

I went back in and ask, "Did you know there is broken glass on the balcony?"

They said a pane of glass broke on the seventeenth floor. Yikes. Hope no one drops a martini while I'm on my balcony.

I'm feeling very urban and I'm in a pretty good mood, but now we really need to get some stuff done. Yikes.

Oh, and about the iMac. My computer guy dropped it off and I received the following e-mail from the Apple Store. Yeah, well, I wonder how long it will take for the Genius to call!

Thanks for making a QuickDrop. You have dropped off the following item:

Your Reference number is: Q01337051
Product: iMac (20-inch Mid 2007)
Date: Monday, May 12, 2008
Time: 10:36AM
Location: Apple Store, The Domain
Reason: pro care tech tools deluxe reported many bad sectors in the hard drive

A Genius will contact you at 5125551555 when they have completed their diagnosis.

Is it just me or is that Genius thing Apple asserts a kind of hubris??

So, yeah, I'm here, I'm cheerful, what else do you want? My in-laws don't want to go out tonight but I think I'll treat my dad anyway. Smiling, here. Because really...great views don't you think? And I'm just going to have to walk across the hall to the exercise room and a few more feet and I'm on my bike looking out over the pool deck and to the west, watching the Spring condominiums rise at Lamar and Bowie.

So, enough blogging. Off to throw something away!

I Once Shot Shops in Other Latitudes

I am so whiny. I know I got to go on my (blizzard-shortened) jaunt to New York not so very long ago. But now I'm wondering if time and circumstance will allow travel any time soon. (Not to mention gas prices and air fares.) It's sad to be retired and unable to travel. Of course, moving to a condo is supposed to be a first step to making travel easier. We just have to weather it, so to speak. It is clear, though, that we will be needing to get hired help for our parents to make those trips and who is to say that their circumstance might not necessitate our presence. Don't you laugh when you see those ads from financial advisers showing smiling and fit gray-haired sixty-somethings pursuing their dreams on beaches or in exotic locales. If you'd invested with some of those 'advisers' you probably wouldn't be smiling plus you wonder where the elderly, needy parents or the return to the next ne'er do well children are at that moment. (Fortunately I don't have children, but I certainly have younger relatives who aren't providing for themselves too handsomely.)

Maybe the young people are right...spend it now whether you have it or not, mooch off the older people if possible and HAVE FUN. Because you never know.

Yes, I know how lucky I am. And yet...I wish I were taking shop window pictures in Paris or Vienna or even Portland...where this one was taken.

Roots and Roaming

My roots? Lower middle class (to be kind) folks with farm roots, a good work ethic and generous spirits. My parents also seemed to have a roaming gene, too. There just wasn't much money with which to scratch the itch. I guess Texans have a not to far in the past legacy of moving to new places (as do most Americans). My parents always wanted to go somewhere. My sister's peregrinations with her husband when he was in the Air Force served as their excuse to travel and, really, hardly any excuse was necessary when money came to hand.

This picture I discovered on my computer today. It shows the parents walking on the sidewalk in what of those frighteningly similar motels. I think it was Raton, New Mexico. The year was 2000. But it doesn't matter. The cheap hotel was just a necessary sleep. We were driving to Colorado, no doubt, to see my sister. (Who settled there after the Air Force was finished with them.)

Yesterday we got details of a trip we are taking to New York City. Ordinarily we plan our own trips but this one was mostly planned by a local producer of Cabaret shows. So when we got the details, I started a folder for info, started planning the things we'd do on our 'free' time. I looked up all the places the tour was taking us and got links to their WEB sties. I love to travel and I haven't gone anywhere at all for what seems like a very long time.

My roaming gene was honestly acquired. My parents traveled to all fifty states before they died. Plus England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Parts of Canada. And Russia. My dad has visited Germany, Austria and Iceland since my mother died.

Now if I can just get out of the real estate maelstrom and do more traveling.

No Resolutions! None!

Today's photo was taken yesterday on Second Street. It's really a portrait of a friend of mine. You can see her back in the striped shirt if you blow the picture up by clicking. This is as close to getting a picture taken as she likes to get.

This is the penultimate day of Holidailies. Which I like. Because of the opportunity to use the word penultimate if for no other reason. That's one reason I write. I love words. Today's writing prompt is "For 2008, I resolve ..." but we all know I need no prompts to write. Er type. (I used to have a feature on my online journal in days of yore called 'Just Typing!')

No. Resolutions. For 2008. None will be necessary, you see. It is going to be a year that pulls me along through already promised actions and firmly-made commitments. We are buying a different, very much smaller place to live. We have to fix up our current place and sell it. We are committed to caring for our parents and they will hopefully celebrate their 88th, 92nd and 98th birthdays. They need us to look into things. The IRS and other taxing authorities have commitments lined out for us. I will follow my commitments from day to day, dutifully doing my best to fulfill them with ample reminders from real estate entities, the governments and my dad and in-laws.

Oh, I've made resolutions in the past. And even relentlessly tracked my so-called progress against those goals.

Last year, I decided to just recycle some resolutions. That itself says something. I then proceeded to examine the ones I thought I should try to give attention to. There was exercise. There was the save money thing. The old 'write more' illusion. Lots of talk and little doing.

This year I have to do more and talk (write) less. I'm afraid I'll be forced to. Now...off to the gym before they close early for the holiday.

No Nightmares, Maybe Just a Bad Dream or Two

I have been downsizing while not saying too much about it. And that brought me to a dilemma mentioned here. I decided that I could keep the Christmas-themed bendable figures. The others, unless they were very old or special, had to be gotten rid of somehow. FFP had decided to let go of a box of National Lampoons and a couple of boxes of research material for something he was interested in at one time. This necessitated getting into the under the stairs storage area and going through stuff. I needed to do something to acknowledge Christmas since a friend was coming by to honor the jigsaw puzzle tradition and our parents would hopefully visit for the opening of gifts. I pulled almost everything out from the under the stairs storage. Including the Christmas stuff which includes these three Jack Skellington figures shown in the pictue. (Reminder to self: I need to rent that movie. "Nightmare Before Christmas" that is.) I put out most of the Christmas decor I have in our media room. It does look oddly festive although there are no lights nor candles.

I actually sent FFP to the thrift store with sacks and sacks of bendables. Including some MOC (mint on card). They took his Lampoons, too. (A friend took the research material.) He made two trips and, on the second, said that there were Toy Story bendies out for sale from the first trip. I also pulled out a few figures for my nephews in Colorado and a bunch for the toy box at my dad's. A lot of them were new with tags and all. I have already used those to create a stocking for my dad's little neighbor (who is four) when he wanted to give him something. I understand that my dad gave it to him just before he was off with his parents on a trip to Grandma's. I got a stocking out of the heavily marked-down goods at the grocery, added some candy and put in bendies of dogs and other animals.

The result was many cubic feet of 'stuff' that are no longer in the house. Yes, I still have a couple of cubic feet of Christmas decorations that I plan to store in the condo storage unit. I have another box of my favorites and some really old figures that I haven't given up. But a lot of stuff is gone. Or at my dad's and queued up to be gone. I also found a few boxes of what we call 'parts is parts.' Old wires, cables, computer accessories (mice, speakers) and such. I Freecycled (through a local Yahoo group) a couple of cubic feet of stuff.

So I've shed a few things and I've decorated this house. Maybe for the last time since we are hoping to sell next year. I don't really have any nightmares before Christmas but I had a few disturbing dreams last night about India (as a result of watching "The Namesake" on DVD last night). (Reminder to self: read the book after you find it. Oh, there it is on top of the filing cabinet waiting to be cataloged. Just as I thought.) In the bright light of day, I'm having a few bad feelings, too. I spoke to my dad this morning and he was breathless from retrieving his newspaper. He said that his amaryllis plant had to be propped up because the blossoms made it top-heavy and he made this sound like a big effort. When I offered to pick him up for our Christmas outing tomorrow, he said that he would come over here "if he felt like doing it at all." Dad is putting off going to some doctors until after the holiday. I'm letting him because I think that there is little they can do. He's already been to the doctor about one problem and this confirmed my feelings. He has been repeatedly treated for the other problem, always with mixed results and interim suffering. Ah, well, 2008 might be a year of sitting in waiting rooms or waiting on my dad if things like trips to the curb for the paper get too overwhelming. I don't expect nightmares, I'm an optimist. But I'm having a bad day dream or two.

What Makes a Holiday?

The soldier Nutcrackers wear iPods. The association of Nutcrackers with epaulets and Christmas is strong but how many people see the ballet ("The Nutcracker") or just see decorations like these (at the Austin Apple Store hence the iPods) and think 'Christmas.'

For a lot of years now, over a decade probably, we have mostly spent the Christmas holiday in Austin. Usually in the company of our parents who have been aging apace. My mom didn't make Christmas 2002 and so this six Christmases with just Dad and the in-laws. And I've got to say my mom loved Christmas. She'd wear Christmas socks, sweatshirt and earrings. All at once. She loved big family meals. The last Christmas she was alive she was pretty festive about it even though she was in the hospital, I think, right before Christmas Day. There are no little kids around here. The little kids in our immediate family are up in Colorado.

I usually decorate a little inside the house even if we aren't having a party. (It's a good thing we didn't plan a party. Our front yard and driveway is a war zone from the water works.)

This year I can't bring myself to decorate. The outside decorations are sold and the yard wouldn't accommodate at the moment. We never had a tree really but I would put out decor, light up a glass table, put presents on it. I have spread the cards that have arrived around in the front room but they don't really look much like Christmas. Most of them are pictures of families.

When I was a kid Christmas was about Baby Jesus, sure, but also about getting something you wanted and some surprises. We buy what we want these days and our wants are mostly unfulfilled by shopping anyway. When I was a kid, we loved decorating the tree with all these ornaments we used every year and then wrapping stuff for others to surprise them and examining and shaking the packages addressed to us. We can't surprise anyone any more. My dad gives money and FFP's parents, too. We do all their shopping of that sort anyway.

No amount of money or electronic gear can make my dad's back feel better or make me feel better about him staying in today and asking me to bring him stamps, money and his shirts from the laundry. We have parties to attend but they feel a little like burdens. Maybe that's my toothache talking (I mean all this festive ditch digging in my front yard and a possible root canal, too?), but I'm just saying.

We will pass the holiday without noticing much festivity, I guess. No one will get an iPod in this family. There will be a few bright greetings in the mail and we are going to a party at a neighbor's house that will be decorated to beat the band. They have a little miniature village that takes up most of a room, a Nutcracker collection although none wear iPods. Maybe along the way I'll don my gay apparel (my one red sweater or red blazer) and I'll feel all cheery and bright and it won't all seem as stupid as a nutcracker with an iPod. Maybe my annual pilgrimage to see "The Nutcracker" will actually spark a holiday feeling. Even if the weather outside is still unconvincingly winter I can watch the Snow Queen and think, yeah, Christmas!

It's Always Something

People say "it's always something." My dad has a better saying. "There's always something to take the joy out of life."

I haven't taken a new picture lately. I'm lazy and, well, there have been those joy-sucking things.

This picture is from 2004. Austin has a art studio tour of the East Side. When we went in 2004 we visited the workshop of the guy who did our first found object musician sculpture in our backyard. (Barry George.) Inside and outside there were bits and pieces, he'd collected for his work. This pile of bits including a rusted out typewriter caught my eye.

Since last we spoke, I chased my Uncle's appetites. His surgery was canceled. He was admitted to the hospital to have an echo to look at what they suspected was a clot and was. This was disappointing because it made his surgery too dangerous. But the procedure would have been (to paraphrase the doctor) amazingly suitable to his heart problems. He had to return to his Dallas area home and try to work on a regimen to dissolve the clot. Before the gang left, though, they had to be fed. And restaurants were full of people going out before Valentine's Day. So I had to take my uncle of the appetites to the grocery store where deli fried chicken, ribs, fruit salad and ice cream were seleccted. The next day the relatives left. But within an hour or two there was a toilet flood at my dad's that soaked carpets and I got a call that my uncle left his hearing aids and they needed to be overnighted to him. I found them since I was standing there watching a water removal guy I hired suck water out of the carpet. I put them in a plastic Easter egg that was, for some reason, in my Dad's dining room with some napkin to cushion them and took them to my favorite mailing place, Beyond the Mailbox, to be overnighted.

I am thrilled for my uncle that he may get the clot dissolved, get back down here and get a procedure that will help his heart keep up with his appetite. But I'm not looking forward, honestly, to the time when they come back. I'm so selfish about my time. But as Dad says, there is always something to take the joy out of life, and it would be nice to have my uncle be able to exert himself without getting so breathless. I hope it works out. My aunt and uncle are very independent but they are getting older. And I worry about them. They maintain a home in Maine and an apartment in the Dallas area. It seems like more than they should do. And they don't have kids so it will be up to nieces and nephews to help. Which brings us to the situation FFP and I find ourselves in. We are childless. So we have to put ourselves in a situation where we can take care of ourselves or pay someone to do it. Our current dream is to spend our old age in a downtown condo where we can walk to stuff (you know if we can walk) and we don't have a yard and a roof to maintain and we have a concierge to bribe to do things. Meanwhile, though, we have these parental units in houses living independently (after a fashion). And other older relatives. I guess the good news is this: I don't have kids! If I did they would theoretically be grown and independent and helping me out. But with my luck they'd be the type who were moving home to 'find themselves' after consuming an expensive education.

Maybe I'm a cynic. I know I'm lucky. I'm retired. I have time for these things. But it is always. Something.

Sometimes Things Go Better Than You Hoped

I'm sure it wasn't a great day for everyone. But I got to play tennis. People were late arriving because there was a big fire. Apparently a giant house under construction burned. It was south of the club and I live a bit north and east. But ash from the fire fell on the tennis court here and there. And it was at least a mile away, the fire. Big fire. Someone said it damaged the house next door, which didn't burn but got so hot it was damaged.

But I got to play tennis. Because my dad felt better than I dreamed he would today. I thought I'd have to cancel tennis. But he was happy to wait a while for the delivery of some supplies and for me to do a few things like fold and hang up clothes. Which he'd put through the washer and dryer himself. That's what I'm talking about!

And the sweet doctor who has saved us from the emergency room by having Saturday hours and squeezing in patients with no appointments had called my dad to see if he was OK.

So this one day, yeah, things are going better than I had any right for them to go.

Besides I love this photo. I'm easily amused.

Lists

Christmas is over. It's time for lists.

Reading List. A lot of of people keep a tally on their blogs about what they are reading. This would be too embarrassing for me, generally. I'd have to admit that I only recently finished Gilbert's study of James Joyce's Ulysess which I purchased on June 16, 2004 or thereabouts in the Paris English language bookstore Village Voice. I read this book in the bathroom. OK, another embarrassing admission. I read whole books in the bathroom even if it did take over two years. This book was particularly difficult since it was written in the 30's about a difficult book (which I haven't actually read...I'm working up to that one) and assumed a knowledge of Greek and French and, I think, maybe a little German. Not to mention the history of myths in multiple cultures. I'm now reading A.M. Home's The Safety of Objects in that bathroom. In the other there is a choice of old copies of The New Yorker or a book called Objects of Desire: The Lives of Antiques and Those Who Pursue Them. It's a pure coincidence that these books share a word. I'm obssesive about some things. But that would be a bit much even for me. The former is a small book of short stories. Even at one paragraph at a time, it should be dispatched in short order. When I use the third bathroom, I am the prisoner of whatever FFP left there.

On the obsessive side I do want to announce that I have sent to recycling virtually all the old newspapers around here. Without some serious searching (perhaps in the aforementioned bathroom) I would have to read today's paper if I wanted to read the paper. My gym reading today will be Prisoner of Trebekistan: a decade in Jeopardy! which was my Christmas present from FFP. We don't really buy each other things but given my penchant for recording Jeopardy and shouting the answers out (when I know them) I think he saw this and couldn't resist.

To Do List: There are things to do for my dad. I think he has waited out Christmas and now expects his doctors to turn their attention to his problems. Sadly, I think they are on vacation. He wants me to call them. He also has some shopping for me to do. So there is his list. And then mine. The month and year are winding down. That means taxes. And bookkeeping. And then there is the long list of things to do around here. Like cleaning up offices and files and storage. And, of course, putting up all those silly decorations.

Sigh. Well, I could make some lists. That's a place to start. Off to work on Dad's list first. He would like sliced cheese, some Milk of Magnesia and a doctor to explain his back pain.

Naturally today's picture has nothing much to do with anything. Except maybe that to do list item: "organize digital pictures so you can easily find one that is relevant and not just post another shop window."