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!