Bucket List 2024

Remember the bucket list?

I love how the list changes over time. I think that the only thing that has been on the original bucket list that I've actually done is to sing the national anthem at a baseball game, and I have to say that that no longer feels fashionable. But I did it. And a lot of other things that were never part of the list

13. Perform in a pantomime horse costume

One more item departed the list this year: perform in a pantomime horse costume. This was going to be the year. But being jolly really took some effort, and I work at a place that is so high-functioning in "doing bits" that I realized it would not be as fun as first imagined. But I got so much fun thinking about it. 

8. Volunteer in the Bishop Museum archives

This hasn't happened yet, and I'm not working on it. But I keep it on the list because I think that some sort of thing *like* this will come my way and feel satisfying to do. I still transcribe the Freedman's Bureau records from time to time.

5. Meet distant family in Ireland

I gave up on this, but I feel it's still pertinent to the list. This year I tracked down a genetic relative who has similar research goals. It is possible that my great grandmother and her great great grandmother were siblings. Both died of insanity.

Also, I've really enjoyed being part of a local Irish genealogy group. I feel hopeful that some day this goal of going to met rellies will come to pass.

7. Be a balloon wrangler in the Thanksgiving Day Parade

If an opportunity comes up in the future, I will ask.

NEW TO THE LIST

Participate in an archaeological dig. 

I Did The Things

Yesterday was a river of activity. 

Tiger Brown and I went to the city in a rainstorm. We were buffeted by the wind, and at time I could not see in front of me. Went to the holiday meeting of the Irish genealogy club, where I may have committed myself to doing research on the Orange Men in our state. Developing.

Then I went to kill time at the blood donation center, but flunked iron, as I often do. This is why I stopped giving blood. You psych yourself up for the donation and then they tell you that your iron is too low. On the way out a lady told me that if you heat your hands first, it makes your finger iron register higher (or somesuch).

This all meant I had 4 hours to kill until my next appointment. I visited two cemeteries. The first one is known to be the posher one of the two, and I looooove how they carve the name of the place into the lawn. I drove around the monuments for a bit:

and had to make myself stop because I sort of knew I was in the wrong spot. I took a deep breath, pulled over, and tried to figure out how to get to the area where my friend's ancestors are buried. 

That took a bit, but my nav told me I had arrived. Then I realized that there were hundreds of grave markers in that area and I couldn't figure out what the direction markers mean.

The direction markers look like this. The cemetery nav said I was at my destination, which was plot 101, fifth row, but the marker looked like this:

and more often than not there were four numbers, two on each side of the line, lined up vertically. Never figured out what that meant, and light was growing dim. I walked around for a bit and then asked a groundskeeper if he could look at the listing on the website and help me find the plot. He said something akin to "No se", and we pretended to understand each other. I thanked him and went back to my car. It was freezing and the wind was blowing like stink. My nose was running and I didn't have a tissue. I was super frustrated but I did not cry and I knew I'd figure it out. There were actually walking directions, it turns out, and I made the blue dot and the red droplet line up and found my target. Whew!

Got back in the car and drove over to the less-stellar cemetery where my granny and grandaddy are laid to rest. Wow. It used to be nice, but now it has a marquee wishing you happy holidays, and light up reindeer on the lawn *and* my rellies' resting place has been remodeled. It used to be pretty:

But instead of the window and lawn that used to be there, they busted through that side of the building and added another wing. My folks used to be in what was a quiet destination but now their location is a dank passageway to that new area. I've been thinking of tucking my mom in with her parents when she dies, but now I think it's not fancy enough for her tastes.

When the man called out "Hello?" and asked me to move along, I did. And I realized I still had an hour and a half until dinner. I drove to the Club and parked (1/2 hour). Did my nails in the car (15 min). Finally it was time for Christmas Dinner at the Club.

Simple Things Are Hard

If only the "directions" for the small desk organizer I ordered had said "screw the parts together as you go" I would have finished this project in well under an hour. Between getting things turned around, as I do, and everything falling apart as soon as I moved from one part to the next -- there were many deep sighs and lots of muttering. After about half an hour I had a pile of parts that had once been attached to each other. They weren't even organized any longer (in the photo I've organized them as in the directions).

I kept telling myself that this was a test in patience.

And then I started using low-stick tape on the sections I'd assembled, and when that didn't hold, I started screwing together the parts I knew for sure went together -- basically the drawer -- as a reward for the persistent. And then I had a lightbulb / wtf moment where I decided to just screw parts together and hope I got them right.

That worked. 

Facebook Knows Me

It offers me the following ad:

    

I thought it was a personal degaussing device, but it's for not having to hold hands with your kid but still being quasi responsible on Black Friday.

Or something.

Coincidence

I'm trying new things these days. A person in one of my local fb groups suggested a meetup for people who do craft projects. I took up the needle and joined in, admitting that most of my handiwork is aspirational. I brought some of my projects. I even went to the yarn store prior to the meeting, in order to get some thread. And I showed up at our local bar.

I very much admire the work of the person who had suggested the meetup. She does visible mending and has amazing taste.

We ordered beers. I was judging her taste a bit, it seems.

The bartenders were playing some great music while we talked -- Os Mutantes, some reggae, Beatles songs that we both like that aren't overplayed. Then they played a song -- already forgot which one -- that I used to play in a band 800 years ago. I mentioned this fact, and she asked me what instrument I play.

"I played bass"

"I also play bass." Then she listed her basses, most of which I didn't know but she *did* play a Rick. Ooooh. I've always loved that bass for its sustain. It really feels special when you're playing it.

Then she said:

Her: "I played in a band called (very obscure band name)"

Me: "After (name of previous girl bass player) left? My husband is mrguy"

So she had recorded with my husband at his studio. Also I remember meeting her in the basement of a club in the City. Her band had opened for his the week we got married.

My mind was completely blown. She had replaced my former friend in that band, and my ex-friend had long-term unpleasant feelings about that band and its members back in the day. Like my former friend, this girl had a hard time in this band and felt separate from the other members. Well the first part of that last sentence is accurate and the second applies only to her. My ex-friend wasn't very open about her own experience in that band. Or perhaps I wasn't listening. There were many things you weren't allowed to ask that person about.

Anyway, we talked and talked. Had many common interests. And we sewed.

Winter Garden

Boy am I loving my winter garden. Leaves are my flowers, mostly, because the deer around here eat almost anything that blooms, and the leaves are leafing!

First, some traditional friends:

First camellia of the season (Debutante):

and the other camellia whose name I do not know is finally producing nicely:

These succulents have been really satisfying this summer and fall. Also thriving is the one that my friends hate that smells like burning tires (not shown):

What's driving me wild right now is the variety of colors and textures:

And red-on-red:

For some reason the maples that are in the front of the house somehow turn colors and lose their leaves at different times even though they are presumably the same kind of maple. At the upper left in the photo below is the maple that turns color last. The leaves on the lower branches are still green. And hidden behind it is the Bloodgood maple that we moved from the driveway to a more shaded spot earlier this year. This is how it's thanking us. It is still caged until it gets bigger and is deer proof:

Which brings me to my last photos from the morning. I am eagerly following the progress of the baby fruit on the citrus tree that has never fruited in the 11 years we've had it. I went into the back yard and as soon as I opened the door, there was loud stirring in the bushes and a juvenile deer scrambled to his feet. He had been sleeping in a tiny patch of leaves on the cement, in between the two statues of Thompson's gazelles (George and Emelda). Weirdest thing. This is George, with the patch of leaves behind him.

And a closeup of the bed the deer had made in the leaves, with Emelda's flank on the right:

Go figure.

Celebration

I am enjoying being super subliminal this weekend.

Friday kicked off with Pilates, therapy and a buns of steel walk with a friend.

Saturday I went to the Mormon library and did some research you can only do on the library wifi, which was nice. Things have changed over there. Nobody asked me to put my bag in a locker. I sat on a couch with my laptop and did my research in comfort, which is basically what I do at home. They had ten cent Laffy Taffys. I bought a lime and a banana. The ride home was super dull, but I'm listening to Alison Hammond's memoir and she's great company. Plus she's a really nice person. I got to do a segment with her once about 15 years ago and it was super fun. I felt like she was my new best friend, but now I realize that she is the entire world's best friend. Great gal.

I did a supermarket shop before coming home, and bought bogels (bogus supermarket bagels) for our birthday breakfast. A blueberry for mrguy, which is traditional (and gross, in my opinion). I had planned for us to get a mani-pedi, but mrguy's saying no. I don't want to get a mani-pedi alone on my birthday. 

Mrguy: I support your mani-pedi

Me: How is this support? This seems like saying no

Mrguy, laughing: By allowing you to have a mani-pedi

Me: Will you help me put up my Christmas arch?

Mrguy: Yes

Me: Would you make me more coffee?

Mrguy, incredulously: You want more coffee?

Me: That also sounds like a no.

Mrguy: I said I'd help with your arch

Me: Will you get the thermos from my desk and bring me my throat coat? Basically I want to ask you to do things and for you to do them.

We put up the arch together, and it looks fabulous. I sat underneath it in my dad's chair and listened to 1960s Japanese music. That, alone, was divine. I had a bit of a scare when my glamor boy decided to chew on a lower branch of the tree, but he lost the taste for it and moved on to other things.

Meanwhile I went on an extra buns of steel walk with a friend who is part goat. She was unaffected by the steep grade of the main drag over here, which we were trudging up. I usually drive, and have to hit the gas to get the car up that hill. Then is suggested we finish with the super steep stairs. She made an amazing lemon cake for my birthday, which we ate without (for me) worrying about calories.

We finished up by ordering sushi and watching some tv. The cats were very good boys. 

It was a lovely day.

Not bad, Birthday!

Election Week

Well that didn't go to plan. Less said, the better.

I filled my mind with work, and a visit to The Club Of My People, where I ate meatballs during a presentation about Norwegian Black Metal. One young man blurted out "My uncle was in that band but he wasn't good enough at singing or explosives," which was pretty funny. I sat next to a woman who showed us photos of her son mowing the grass on the ship burial mound in the backyard of their family property in Norway. A lot of us were people of a certain age coming full circle at this point in life. I met the secretary of the club who had been there ten years ago and felt too young for the scene. He now fits in. His sister dated someone in the Black Metal scene. I ate vegetarian meatballs and one of the best creme caramel of my life. The person who gave the presentation brought his own akvavit. We sang skol a lot. It's kinda like "the wave". You don't know who starts it or why, but once it's happening you have to go with it.

And here we are. New on the horizon is an examination of whether ADHD might frame some of my life's more special / least favorite moments. I don't think that this thought of would be surprising to the people who know me well. More on this as it develops. In the meantime, it's time to go grocery shopping and prepare for sumo tonight. Maybe I'll make some clam dip in celebration.

UPDATE: I looked up the ship burial. The site is recently being re-excavated. I thought the unusual name of the ship sounded familiar and realized that my 3rd ggfather had lived there on that farm in the 1860s.

Kinda cool.

And Now We Wait

Yup. Today's the day. I will descend into the garage and pull out the "Jessie Jackson Urges You To Vote" and hang it in the window, as is the custom. And there's nothing really to do. I'll wear my Vote earrings for one last time this year and hope for the best.

My guess? Kamala by a nose. 

Anything else would be tragic. This is not a drill. 

If he wins, his people will do everything they've been threatening / promising to do, and the world will be worse for it.

Near Miss

In the countdown to election day the old impulse control is really in abeyance.

Witness: two kittens on my "I just want to get rid of this now" group. I was almost going to see them this weekend, but luckily someone else got to them. They were adorable and fluffy and cute. I think that mrguy needs a new kitten now that his little girl is gone and the inky boy has decided that he's obsessed with me (at the age of 14). His response? "To be honest, those cats will outlive me and you will have to take care of them." And when pressed further at a different time he said that even if he lived a normal dude lifespan the cats would outlive him. Boo. Nothing like bringing us down. Undaunted I went back to the lady who was helping her friends adopt out the cats and they had found a family. I am happy for them.

In the meantime, the last cat I brought into the house found his way into the cabinet with the garbage can last night and he bit the electrical cord for the under-cabinet lights, which went dark. Oy. Well I wanted to ask the electrician a question anyway, so tomorrow I'll take care of that. Am I sure I want kittens?

Well of course.

The other thing that got away was the world's ugliest lamp, which would have really tied the pink Lady Bathroom together. It was also on the "get rid of" group. Wow. I wanted to see it in person. And even when I learned that it was 3' high, I wanted it and found a perfect ugly lampshade for it (I was planning to add some pink touches to it, to help integrate lady painters, angels and motorcycles). But then a woman said she had a friend who would love it as a housewarming gift, and I was given the perfect out. I told the giver to please give it to the other lady. For several hours I had the perfect amount of joy from this lamp without even owning it. Whew!

Happy Halloween 2024

I was late in finding this, but please enjoy and know that there are more ancient holiday post cards coming your way. This collection was saved by mrguy's grandmother when she was a child.

I would like the black cat to know that we share his feeling of horror in seeing two pumpkins kiss.

The Mom Report

I did it. I went to see my mom. It wasn't horrible. Her caregiver had told her I was coming the day before. She doesn't know who I am, but when the caregiver tells her that I live up the hill, she knows she's been to my house. The sofa is right next to the bed, so I sat there and held her hand. She said "What's new?" and of course I can't tell her because she is hard of hearing and hard of understanding. I showed her pictures of cats and she liked that.

I have really missed our caregiver and we had a really long hug. She's the best. She has *such* high standards for my mom's care and for what my mom gets for the money at the place where she lives. She told me one of her really long stories. Remember when we were interrupted once about 20 minutes into an engrossing story where she had just said "Nobody gives you a goat for nothing"? It was kinda like that.

The regular team of caregivers is a mother and daughter. Then the daughter's sister-in-law came over from Hawaii to help. She and her teenaged son lived with the daughter. She had a horrible abusive husband back in Hawaii who everybody in the family hated and wished she'd divorce.

Toward the end of the time the third lady was working for us she had really terrible health problems. Sounded like endometriosis or something. It would regularly cause her to stay home or go to the doctor or ER. Pretty devastating stuff that was life changing for her and for the family and for my family. Everybody was concerned, but luckily she was going to have surgery this year and get it taken care of. She hasn't worked for us for several years now, but she had clients in the building where my mom lives and I'd hear about how she was doing.

Fast forward to this week. I was asking about the daughter, and our caregiver started talking about the third lady. I heard that she'd gotten married, and that sounded like a good thing. I also see that either she or her new husband looks me up on Facebook, because they're suggested as friends. Anyhoo, the story goes like this: our former caregiver comes to the daughter one night, crying. She says I'm getting married. The daughter asks a bunch of questions, because as far as she knows there is no boyfriend, definitely a current husband, and what the heck? She says "You better tell my mom".

In her community our main caregiver is a person of substantial standing. She's the head of her family line, and everybody knows her. The idea that this side-relative, who everybody else at church knows, is getting married and there has been no preamble makes it look as if our caregiver's been hiding this knowledge. And once the daughter has shared with her that the relative is getting married, our caregiver senses what's up. So she sets a trap to get the woman to confess. She was over at her daughter's house after work, sitting at the dining table and eating dinner. She calls over to the woman: "Come have some dinner with me and we'll talk," she says. The lady keeps folding her laundry in her bedroom and says thanks but no. "Come get a bowl. There's plenty," she says. Then she encourages her to have a second bowl. The woman starts to cry. "Why are you crying? Is there something that my family has done to hurt you? What is wrong"? In the telling of this she seems to be saying this in all sincerity (also cause that's the person she is). "I'm getting married tomorrow". "Whaaaaat?"

The woman tries not to tell our caregiver the name of her future husband. She tells her the name of the father, who lives in Salt Lake City. Our caregiver knows him and figures out who the son is. He has eight children. And more than that our caregiver has figured out that all of the times she went to the doctor and the ER and was sick and maybe was going to have surgery (which was mysteriously canceled) she was with this guy. All of the extra shifts that those guys worked to fill in for the woman and times when we all jumped to rearrange schedules -- that was because she was lying to her family and my family about what was happening. Argh. Nothing to be done about it but I feel bad for our caregivers being lied to. Our primary caregiver also a son and he, too, would kindly rearrange his life around this woman. There's more to the story, but the punch line was that her new husband mopped the floor and then they both skipped town when rent was due.

At this point in the story a PAL (caregiver who works for the Facility) came to give my mom a shower and I pounced on the opportunity to leave. I kissed my mom on the cheek and she smiled.

Nobody gives you a goat for no reason.

Loving The Weekend

Last week I was a mess. A few things cracked me open and ripped my heart out. After therapy I had a ball of used Kleenex bigger than my head.

This week is fine.

So many things have happened. Last weekend we had the 'ohana over for dinner and there was so much laughing and so many hugs. I love them so much. 

This week I invited myself to a dinner at a club that my parents used to belong to, and met really fun people there. Instead of being one of the young people, I am now about average. Can't believe I went by myself because it involved many things that make me anxious: public transit, humans I haven't met before, unexpected public speaking (spotlight on guests, who are asked to stand and say something). I never do such things without mrguy as my manager.

At public transit I saw this bit of awesomeness:

On the way to the dinner I wasn't entirely alone. I was accompanied by celebrity chef David Chang and a pointy fork from my mom's storage space that I brought for self defense. 

The dinner itself was great. I was a big girl and started conversations with people. Awkwardly at first, with the guy giving the night's presentation about labor history. He and most of the people in the room shared a version of my first name, with a few Ragnars and Stigs thrown in to spice things up. So it wasn't as awful trying to remember what people were named.

On the way home the train engineer held the train at the transfer station, so it wasn't a painful trip home with long waits. I was so exhausted, though.

Unrecovered from Thursday's evening of communing with adults, I went to a long but lovely work event on Friday, celebrating the work anniversaries of people who have met milestones in their career. I go as the company historian. Sat with friends and the CFO. I perhaps said too much and am trying to stop flogging myself for doing so.

Yesterday I met precious nephew at the storage space and we cleaned it out for real and closed our account. Only took 30ish minutes. The downside is that now we have lots of chairs in the garage that I haven't managed to shift to other people's possession. But wow. This was one of my projects that I told my therapist would help me feel less burdened. And it does.

After storage space time, I met with nephew's mom, who had just come back from seeing our mom. It might be time for me to break my 8 month streak of not seeing her. According to her Saturday caregiver "It's mama's Time". Also she can't fully use her hands. Her humor is still intact, though. When told by one of the nice workers in memory care that she was coming to give mom a shower, mom said "Maybe next year." Oh, also my mom thanked my sister for visiting and asked how long she's known her. "76 years," said my sister. I can imagine that if my mom doesn't know who I am I could possibly see her. Could it be that she wouldn't remember all of my shortcomings if she doesn't know who I am? That might be worth a try. I am taking the day off on Wednesday because mrguy has an appointment with the eye doctor far away at a ridiculous time. Maybe I can visit my mom in the morning.

I am listening to a book recommended by my therapist about narcissistic mothers of daughters. There's a checklist of behaviors, half of which I recognize. And half I recognize in myself, which is always depressing. But she suggested the book because when I talk about my mom's behaviors my therapist has noticed that I usually explain the behaviors by undermining myself. Apparently children learn to do this because it's conceptually so wrong to think of their parents as not living up to their role as parent. I guess it's something like "If I weren't such a cruddy kid they wouldn't be such cruddy parents." I will be learning how this fits in with my mom's dementia somehow. It's super easy to explain it all away by saying that she has Alzheimer's. But if that's all it is, why did I avoid my mom for a lot of my adult life before she had Alzheimer's?

Digging into this will be interesting, I think. My mom had a narcissistic mom, and she never forgave her. I intend to break the pattern and forgive my mom, but I will not forget. I mean how could I, after the crazy memories she's given me the past ten years?

Joys of the Week

This has been an interesting week. So much joy, and so much crying. I've been worried about my throat, but now I have three different appointments to see if it is an issue. My worry these days is always: if something happens to me, who will take care of mrguy? And if something happens to me who will take care of me? I am tender these days. I saw a film on Wednesday and it ripped my heart out. When I saw my therapist this week I ended the session with a ball of used Kleenex bigger than my head.

I used to never cry. Never ever.

On to joy. I just came back from the front yard, where I was potting wheat grass seeds to make cat grass for my chonky love. I keep a basket of lemons from the tree on the blue chair on the porch for the neighbors -- we're the lemon dispensary for our street. While I was potting, a fancy car rolled up and I didn't recognize the occupants. They rolled down the window and said they were on the lookout for lemons. I ran four of them out to the car. The driver declared that they are our biggest fans. That put a smile on my face. Then I grabbed a few more lemons off the tree to replenish the supply in the basket.

And this just happened. The yellow ginger is blooming. I saw it, stepped into the bed, leaned in, and took a deep whiff. And then laughed because it smells like the cologne from the ABC Store!

Yesterday mrguy and I walked around the island in the middle of our street. He continued home, and I chased down the mailman and gave him our mail. Then I walked up the hill, around and then down the stairs to our street. Without friends to distract me, I stopped quite often and also huffed and puffed, hoping that nobody from work happend to be driving past. Is that weird? On the way down the stairs the color of this bougainvillea against the sky made my heart swell. I captured this sight for mrguy.

Also on my walk, some googly eyes on a tree. Much appreciated, neighbor!

This has nothing to do with anything, but I got a fang-tastic photo of our grand fellow as he begged for a piece of Saturday's breakfast omelette.

I would say that the following is the best news of the week, but it is actually second. Yet, I revel.

In this photo you see flowers, but if you look a little more closely you also see teensy green fruit. This, my friends is our orange tree. "But mrsguy doesn't have an orange tree," you say. That's a pretty accurate assessment. This orange tree came with the house. It was in the "wrong spot" according to certain occupants of our home, so we dug up an apple tree (4 kinds of apples grafted onto one tree) and gave it to our nephew. Then we planted the orange tree in the apple hole.

If this were a 1950s film, newspapers would be spinning around to indicate the passage of time. Nothing has ever come of this tree. In the meantime the lime tree went from major sadness to (eventually, around year 7) solid production. The orange tree is pretty solid, and I've considered ordering scions from UC Riverside, which is the only legal source of live citrus wood. But after my camellia grafting turned out so sad, I lost momentum on this idea.

One of my dear friends who is a landscape designer, and in fact our landscape designer, told me how much she likes to water. I like to prune, but I don't really like to water much. I decided to break the cycle. It's meditative, and I need anything that has that quality right now. And then I got my excellent nozzle and it made watering fun. I started to water in the back yard, even the orange tree.

I have been rewarded. Look at this! Last weekend I was watering during the heat wave and I saw flowers. This week I saw the beginnings of teensy fruits! It's a miracle, I swear. I am so darned pleased.

But the best of the week was dinner with the 'ohana. It's been a year since we've had people over for dinner. And so long since our bandmates have all been in one place with us. They brought food, I made food, and we drank beer and hung out. Caught up on all of the news. Mrguy was in excellent form, and when I was tending to last details in the kitchen he was able to talk with them without me barging into the conversation. The sound of my beloved friends wafting up from the livingroom while I was puttering in the kitchen made me feel surrounded by love. We talked and laughed and ate A LOT in the glow of candle light. And we hugged endlessly as we wrapped up. "Just one more," we'd say and there would be another round of hugs. They said how great mrguy looks. And that was great, as well.

He slept a little better last night after all of the excitement.

9 Tiny Diamonds

The prompt was to take an object, map out stories and write them.

The stories represent the 9 tiny diamonds in my wedding ring.

During the search for a wedding ring, a shop owner turned to my boyfriend and said "Why don't you find something in that case over there?" There was one ring, made out of an unknown metal, with enamel letters that spelled out Haboru Emlek 1914. It was years before I was able to learn from alt.languages.slavic (or somesuch) that it meant "war relic". My engagement ring was a Hungarian WWI memento. It was too large, and I wrapped masking tape around it so that it wouldn't fall off my finger. I have been too large to wear it for years, even without the tape.

We went looking for rings on our New Year vacation with my father-in-law. I was able to realize that the thing I really liked about the vintage rings I was seeing was the gold, rose gold. To me it suggests history, times past.

We went to a vintage ring store in the City. While looking in the cases, a woman entered. Have you ever had someone make you so uncomfortable that you simply fled the scene? That was this woman. She started asking intrusive questions of the salesperson, such as what her ethnicity was. And you know how sometimes in jewelry stores they'd put other kinds of flashy objects in the display cases? In this case they were crystal animals "Are those pigs Baccarat?" she asked, loudly. Months later we ate at a local restaurant. Shortly after the waiter started taking our order, the woman with the unmistakable voice began berating him for some imagined misstep. It was her restaurant, and the situation was mortifying. Food was good, though. This woman intrudes on my thoughts sometimes when I think about my ring. Maybe she couldn't help herself.

I found my wedding band shortly after the first of the year, in the window of a jewelry store. It is a plain band that can be modified to place teeny pave diamonds. They had it in rose gold. I went in. I didn't have money for stones, but they let me try some by putting tiny daubs of wax on the band and then placing tiny sapphires on it as it began to cool. I loved it. I excitedly told my mom about the ring and the sapphires. Shortly after, my dad told me that I could use the tiny diamonds from a pin of my grandmother's. I was so happy. My sister, who was getting married the same year, really needed a large mineral tribute. I did not, since my hands were covered in pancake batter all day at work. It is the perfect ring for me. Mrguy paid for the ring, and the diamond placement. The white against the rose gold reminds me of the bubbles in a glass of pink champagne. 

After the wedding, mrguy went on tour. I accepted an invitation to sail with a friend and his dad. The short story is that as the waves crashed over the sailboat and I realized that things were not in control and noticed that my friend's dad's life jacket did not fully close around him and as I learned that the radio had no batteries and as I saw waterlogged vanilla cream sandwich cookies disintegrating in the hold while I said a Hail Mary, my hands shrank from freezing water and wind. I moved my wedding ring onto my thumb and curled it tight. I thought about how ironic it was that I would be losing my ring and perhaps my life during the week after my wedding.

My mom became prideful about the gift of the tiny diamonds over the years. As her dementia took hold she began to finger the ring when we were together and to ask me if I still liked my ring. More recently, before I stopped visiting her, she would often add that she didn't know why she had given them to me and she should ask for them back. I would reply that I am now so fat that I can't remove the ring, so that's too bad. By saying this, I am striking out in two ways, by saying no to her, and by telling her that she is the mother of a fat daughter, a fate worse than death.

In her safe deposit box are items of her mother's that are too vulgar for her to wear. Among them is a pretty sizable pear shaped diamond ring, given to my grandmother by her second husband, the dread McToad. I've taken to wearing this ring. Not around my mom, because she'd have an episode, but around the house and at work. Preferably with dungarees of some sort. I am trying to earn the ring through all of the many thousands of dollars worth of Depends and butt creams and such that I have purchased for her over the last ten years. Also sweat equity and shame.

My mom could never get away with wearing the ring (due to her being so classy and all) but I can.

However now that I wear the thing on a regular basis I don't really feel the need to. Its work is becoming complete. 

In the meantime am working to reinstall the proper associations with my own ring. It was given with love. It represents my love for my husband and creation of our own family and joining his, not duty to the one that brought me to that moment.

The 1991 Fire

It's fire season. I'm really concerned, since the recent heat wave crisped all of the vegetation on the hills and slopes that surround our house. And it's the anniversary of the big fire. I can't see that I've written about it, but pardon me if I have.

The day of the fire I was working at the restaurant. It was warm, with a wind that kept blowing leaves inside the restaurant. We kept chasing them out. We heard there was a fire in the hills. After a few hours, a regular customer came running in, asking to use our phone. Her house had just gone up in flames.

We kept serving pancakes.

Eventually our power went out. We kept working and I don't feel as if our boss had a plan to let us go home. The fire continued to advance toward us, but we couldn't see how close it was was because of the big hotel across the street that blocked our view of the hill behind it. When the fire trucks wanted to use our street as parking I ran.

The sky was orange. The fire was not that close as I left, but it still felt scary. I remember seeing the reflection of a big red sun in the chrome bumper of the car in front of me. I drove across the bay to the safety of our apartment. At a bbq on our side of the bay, I heard that pages of the telephone book from the firestorm floated down on our friends. At mrguy's recording studio, as well.

People I knew lost everything. One customer attending a convention on the other coast, watched the news from afar. She'd taken her favorite jewelry with her. Her husband thrived, in a way. He was able to design them a new home, and felt unburdened by the loss of "things".

Another couple couldn't get back across the bay in time. They called their neighbor and asked him to break in and get their dog. They, also, did well -- confessing that when they had the keys to their rebuilt house they had sex in every room.

There were customers who we never saw again. I still think of them. And others that trauma turned into complete monsters. They wanted special treatment, discounts, and brought up the kinds of conflict that I don't deal with well and wasn't authorized to address.

It's been thirty years. This is the story I always tell. Many people dressed as the Firestorm for Halloween that year.

Egg Protest

I made some hard boiled eggs yesterday. As readers of mrsguy are aware, my mom used to put a little mark in pencil on the hard boiled eggs to differentiate them from the raw. And during the pandemic and whatnot I took to writing actual things on them, because you have to crack the shells in order to eat the eggs. And I live to make mrguy laugh.

Here are some highlights from previous years.

Yesterday I felt the need to return to the egg tradition as the leadup to the election shortens.

And here you go. Marjorie Taylor Green, J.D. Vance, Steven Miller, Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation. 

I smash you!

In the meantime, I am encrusted with cat as I write this. The inky ingot is laying across my chest with his back paws on my sternum, his left front on my arm and his chin resting on my arm. This is both delightful and a little painful. My guy is long in the toof, and when I moved his head a moment ago we saw the impression of one of his fangs in my arm.

It's worth it, though. A sweet morning with my men.

We Left The Home

We actually got out of the house yesterday. I don't think that mrguy enjoyed it as much as I did, but I needed it. The morning started with the big inky boy purring and clawing into my bare shoulders and neck while quacking like a duck and drooling on me. The fact that he's discovered me over the last few months is both a joy and a pain in the neck. How, after 14 years, is he somehow obsessed with me?

Then it was a delightful 2 hours with the local Irish genealogy club. The topic was cemeteries, gravestones, traditions, cemetery records.

Then we had a nosh and went out to a favorite spot. It was completely foggy, which was lovely. It smelled like low tide, and there was a lovely garden in the parking lot that had so many gorgeous things that attracted happy, supping hummingbirds. There were also children chasing each other and screaming about nuclear waste.

We sat on a bench beyond the parking lot. A little walk was good for mrguy.

It felt cold quickly, so we went home after a little bit. Mrguy took a nap and started feeling the effects of our Covid and flu shot the day before. Fed him some chicken soup and we turned in early.

One More Day -- Heat Wave 2024

From Sunday, written while sitting on a chair with my legs dangling in the dog pool:

We're gonna need a bigger thermometer.

Big boy cat is sleeping on the kitchen counter. Big mister chonk kitten is downstairs in the lady room hanging off of the bookcase with his legs dangling like a very well fed panther. Me? I feel warm but pretty darned calm.

I don't know what it is. Lack of calendar items for the past few days, perhaps. I should not be calm at all. It's been around 90-95 in the house for that last few days. The deadline passing on our family business is a relief of sorts (until it isn't -- but a consultant says that the only thing keeping us from thriving is fear).

Worry about the cats has waned now that little girl's suffering is over. Sweet friends sent us flowers in the color of her fur. Everybody thought that the one who died was the big boy. He is doing well.

Mrguy is too hot. I think he's doing well but is taxed by the heat.

I filled up the dog pool in the back yard. Friends came over and put their legs in. I invited clam, but she was busy with family stuff so I came back to the dog pool myself and watched the light fade while doing a meditation focus exercise. Close your eyes and spend half a minute thinking about each sense, one sense at a time. What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you taste? What do you feel? It was lovely. I could feel the cool water on my legs and the sweat on my forearms. I could hear the whoosh of traffic on the freeway. I could smell the (few) blossoms on the lime tree. Taste is always a challenge, but I realized I could still taste 4 o'clock's popsicle. Centered, I opened my eyes and watched the water on the bay and thought about the joy of having the only dog pool in town with a 3 bridge view. 

It was several days before it cooled down. And today I used a blanket on the sofa for the first time in a month.

An Hawaiian Happening

They have the Hall and Oates Channel on softly in the background while I wait for the results of my latest Mohs surgery. I don't require that much Hall and Oates in my life, and need to drown it out. I figured out very happily that I have Iwalani Kahalewai's An Hawaiian Happening on my phone. Unlike most humans I don't have a lot of music on my phone at the moment. I love George Chun's arrangements. Sometimes sassy, and sometimes molasses slow, with some piano and noodle-y wandering guitar. Go find it here.

On my way over here to get my face rearranged I was listening to Sally Field's autobiography. The first few chapters were a little challenging -- I had a hard time remembering who was who (and this is where a visual learner has trouble with audiobooks) but I came to like it. It's kinda harrowing at times, and then there is some familiarity. Like the argument with her stepfather where he tries to control her by threat. I don't think that I ever shared this, but while visiting my mom one day last year I wasn't doing what my mom wanted. As usual. So she started threatening me -- you like your job, right? If you don't do (whatever it is she wanted me to do) I'll tell them about you.

Thanks, Mom!

I told her it was too late. They already know. They don't care.

My doctor makes really fine stitches.

Oh The Week

It's been a full week:

• Sunday: fantastic lunch and full museum visit with a friend.
• Monday: Coffee with a friend, followed by skin cancer surgery. No big whoop, but it smarts and my under eye area is a bit puffy and green. It's 122 in the sunroom. 
• Tuesday: Mrguy's birthday, celebrated by his having chemo. Major milestone in family business strikes at midnight. 122 in the sunroom. VP debate :(...
• Wednesday: we said goodbye to our baby girl cat. So sad. Work, Alzheimer's caregiver group. Thankfully Season 7 of Love is Blind drops
• Thursday: Work was great. Temperature slightly less. 
• Friday: Boy cats are sleepy from the heat. So is mrguy. His tumor markers are good. I am ready for the weekend!

Tiger Spirit Is A Big Army

We had a celebration the other day at work for people considered unsung heroes. I took some audio from the occasion, plopped it into transcription software and the resulting transcription was completely unintelligible. Here's a Friday poem, with the only rules being 1) it had to be comprised of complete existing sentences or standalone phrases in the transcription and 2) they had to be presented in the order that the software provided. 

Tiger Spirit is a Big Army

redacted by mrsguy

---

Fishing community.

And then an easy adult male.

Tiger spirit is a big army.

Criminals as works of art.

But perhaps the most humble, under-the-radar virgin that you can imagine.

And I 1,000% every congratulations on getting.

Granted, it's not something in the Constitution yet.

Fiction.

All of our heroes.

Progress!

We are nearing the end of Project Storage Space.

1) Numbering the un-numbered items at my house and review

2) Going through all of the boxes at the storage space and deciding what is for the dump and what is to donate

3) Friends who are outfitting their apartment come by to take what they like / donate and dump run

3) Moving all of the items from my house to storage space

4) Rellie visit 1 -- one elevator worth of stuff moves out

5) Rellie visit 2 -- another elevator worth of stuff moves out

6) Friends come by to take my childhood dresser

I have put several items on the virtual free table at work and have shouted out about the availability of the last bureau on Facebook.

One woman at work is going to take my mom's bureau and my grandmother's "three dollar table"

Another woman is going to take a tiny chair

And a friend of a friend might take the last bureau.

All I will have left is chairs and one box of things that nobody wants.

Start

Yesterday (note that the boxes on the left came home to be given away to people in the family who like jade fruit)

Friday Joy (Sunday Edition)

For 24 years my morning commute has taken me past a racetrack. Occasionally, peeking over the freeway, I could see the horses on the track, or catch a delicious whiff of horse while sitting in otherwise urban traffic and listening to NPR.

Recently the track shut down, which is ok because I like horses more than racing. I embraced the end of an era by looking at the auction of racetrack assets, and surprised myself by not needing anything from it. I have wondered if there was anything to replace the track's impact. What sensory interruption would waken me during my drive? Fate has provided me a new joy -- a communal kitchen has popped up along the freeway. Several times a week, on that same drive, I now smell crisping garlic, even with my car windows closed.

That is my Friday joy.

Victor Vasarely and Gordon Onslow Ford

I was going to say that they made too much art, but they both lived to be 90, bless them.

Oleander

The prompt was to choose a piece of art and write about what it evokes. It was accompanied by the painting Oleander, by Vincent Van Gogh.

A woman in a tightly cinched shirtwaist dress prepares a martini for her husband at a campsite. With the shiny Airstream behind her and martini shaker in the foreground, she is somehow steady-footed in her kitten heels. She takes an oleander leaf, breaks it in half, and adds it to the ingredients. 

The husband dies.

Oleanders mainly evoke long car trips with my parents in the navy blue 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass. No air conditioning, windows opening, listening to the baseball broadcast on the radio and wondering why the oleanders in the median, pink, white and red, have no rhythm to the planting pattern. I’ve come to appreciate them over the years and would like some of my own to plant in the barren island that divides us from the neighbors. Plumbago has largely taken over the role of oleander these days, brightening with a slightly dusty blue and thrusting itself unreservedly up hillsides along the freeway. It is no oleander.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Oleanders is a rare painting of his that I like. The composition is delicious, accentuating the counterpoint of the flower to the leaf, using the leaves separately to direct the eye and give shape. It is not this way in nature. In this way it is two works of art, the arrangement and the painting itself.

Update: Oleander in the wild (or at least in the back of the storage facility).

PS

My three favorite parts of the Van Gogh Museum:

1) The artist’s paints and palettes

2) An exhibit dedicated to his use of new pigments to achieve certain looks (and how those pigments have faded)

3) A gallery that showed the works of his schoolmates

PPS I lost the name of the movie where the woman kills her husband...