Hot Dog Diplomacy

It's week 2+ of 5 in mrguy's radiation and chemo journey. He feels like shit. Wants to throw up, or he has diarrhea or he's constipated. He's sleep deprived and angry with everything.

On the other side of the fence our neighbor [name redacted]'s beautiful wife died suddenly. He feels like shit and is being loud. Mrguy can't sleep with him acting out, because the bedroom window points toward [name redacted]'s house / his loudness. I went to the wake on Friday. It was beautiful. But it's been days, now, of lack of peace. Kinda like when [name redacted]'s sister and mom passed away in weeks of each other. He acted out, I asked him to keep it down (not knowing the context) and that made things escalate.

Six months later mrguy saw him manning the grill at our block party, and told me "I'm taking one for the team." He does not usually eat pork or beef, but he sidled up to [name redacted], started a conversation and ate a hot dog. 

Hot dog diplomacy worked. We have been cool ever since.

Right now I'm at the place where I want to protect my man, but I don't want to ruffle any feathers. And mrguy just yelled at me, which made me cry. Mrguy tries not to bother people, and [name redacted] takes up so much space, as do all of the people in the neighborhood whose sounds and actions bother him. And the things that I do that he usually overlooks have also provoked him. Poor guy. I have taken refuge in the pasha lounge with some sewing and an audiobook.

I've Been Missing, Sorta

I haven't blogged about Hawaii for various reasons, and when we came back I didn't feel like it. I've been doing things. Been busy.

The day after we came back from Hawaii, mrguy had to go in for his ambulatory EEG. They put electrodes on your head, lash it all down with webbing, and you walk around like that for two days while writing down the time and symptom description whenever you feel weird. I thought he looked adorable in the weird contraption, hence the photo.

The EEG checked out as ok / there is nothing wrong with his brain. But his new neurologist specializes in seizures, and that seems to be what's afoot. She thinks they are caused by the chemical load of his chemotherapy meds. She prescribed a mild anti-seizure medication, which immediately gave him his first migraine in 6 months. We're expecting side-effects, but this was a very un-fun one for mrguy.

Then he had a PET scan. It shows a possible recurrence. Or not? This one is in his esophagus and it's soft tissue. Could be inflammation. On followup with our oncologist he said he wasn't too concerned. Decided against an endoscopy, but then scheduled one. We know that the doctors were conferring in the background, so I have a feeling that someone else weighed in and advised the endoscopy after all. His clinical trial doctor, who he meets with periodically, was aware of the updates to mrguy's situation. Mrguy got to have one of his medications infused that week, but they didn't give him his anti-nausea drugs (which he never needs cause he's not nauseated ever) and gave him compazine, instead. He did great. No weirdness. Next week he "gets" to have the full chemo regimen. Hope it shrinks whatever it is in his genechtagazoink and I hope he is infused without incident.

In the meantime time marched on and I had a funeral of a workmate to go to. 

All the founders were there, and none of them brought their second wives, who were the *correct* wives but didn't really know the deceased so well. I kinda went into hostess mode, inviting my faves to the table where I was sitting and inadvertently but happily excluding the one OG who I've blocked on my phone and fb. It's possible that he didn't want to join us because there's an allegiance issue with one of the other founders who was not present at this event. Both feel butt hurt about how they left the forklift factory. The reason that I blocked him was that before the guy was laid off, I tried to find him work to do within our department, at his request. But (and this was a problem always) he didn't look at his calendar, visit his office often, respond to email or to voicemail. You could barely contact him, but then he'd mysteriously stop by your office from time to time. He lost his job in one of the big layoffs. Afterward, he was still a fb friend and one of my go-to people for historical information, so I'd reach out to ask questions. He'd promise gobs of information, but again never followed through. He was a tease. One day I posted a fb memory of mrguy and I in Hawaii. My former colleague saw it and commented that it was nice that I was in Hawaii when people like him were out of work. I pointed out to him that the memory was from 5 years earlier, when we all still worked together. Then I blocked him on every device. He could have found a job, and certainly had talents, but I think that he was so shocked from being canned that it wrecked him. I think that there was a part of him that assumed that his prior accomplishments would render him immune from harm. None of us is unexpendable, my man.

What to Do?

Mrguy's half brother and his extended family left the state, leaving behind family cremains. Somebody thought mrguy wanted his stepdad's ashes, not realizing that he wasn't his real dad. Mrguy's step-niece ended up holding them and she reached out last weekend. What to do?

She isn't related to the ashes and never met them when they were a person.

Mrguy isn't interested in them because his stepdad was a creepy dude who punched him.

We discussed many options, including tossing them in the trash and saluting the pail (my idea). But mrguy is a proper fellow and was torn between wanting to do the right thing for his stepdad and wanting nothing to do with this problem and feeling sorry for our step niece because she was stuck in the middle. I pointed out that, yes, mrguy could make a long drive down to pick up the ashes and maybe get a niche near his mom's, but that he only has so much time and energy in his current situation.

Step niece to the rescue. She mentioned her situation to a friend who has a friend with a boat. For $600 the friend will scatter the ashes in the bay. Mrguy and I paused for a sec because that's where we scattered the big guy, and we don't really want their particles to be mixed up, and that's also where *we* want to be scattered and we don't want any of our creepy dude on us. 

But we will be dead then, and whatever.

Done

And I am done. This is how we started out, after the work I did yesterday:

My nephew came to help. 

Mostly we were using luggage movers to convey items from the apartment, through the memory care neighborhood, and often past people in bulky wheelchairs who were doing an activity. Every trip involved asking someone to let us out (it's a locked community) and let us back in. Anything can set the residents  off, so there's a weight that comes with every trip through the activity room. One bright spot was that there was a woman who I hadn't previously met, who wandered into the apartment and began saying in French that she was cold. I got to use a few vocabulary words that I still had available to me.

The neph took two giant truckloads of stuff to our house. And got to see his uncle, who is doing great on his chemo.

Then he took apart the big sofa for the guys (who still hadn't arrived). Late in the game I remembered that someone in the community had offered a different kind of dolly. This was a game changer. After we loaded the bed onto this thing for the guys, the neph took a truckload of stuff to our house and dropped it in the driveway for us, and went off.

The guys still hadn't arrived. They were looking for hand truck rentals, and it's the end of the month. I shared the happy news of the floor dolly, and they made it back to the apartment. It took two shakes after the prep we did.

Then I was alone. I had a date with filth, soaking more dried food puddles off of the ground and splatters off the baseboards. Then I managed to get every single thing onto the luggage mover, including a bag with all of the brooms, toilet brushes, plungers, etc. I duct taped that thing closed.

It now looked like this:

I ran into the person who signed us up at this joint. Gave her the keys. We walked out to the elevator together, and she reminded me that I had one more item in the apartment -- a toilet riser. Gross! She gave me the keys back. I put them in my purse.

I got downstairs, got everything into Tiger Brown, and was just about to take the last load to the dumpster when this roll of paper towels escaped. I was ridiculously tired. Had to clean it up, go to the apartment and -- have someone let me into her apartment because my purse was in the car. Did the walk of shame with the toilet riser through the activity room full of people who were being wheeled in to dinner. Out to the dumpster again, turned in the keys and finally I got to drive home. Almost there, I pulled over and bought some Guatemalan grape soda. Mrguy helped me load the stuff into the garage (I could barely walk by this point) and I flopped on the sofa. Wrote my sisters a text: "It's all done. Even whatever you want to ask me about? I did that."

I keep waking up and asking myself what horrible task I have to accomplish today and the answer is NOTHING. I kinda can't believe it.

A Post About The Sun

 

The force is gone. I always wondered what it would feel like, and I hoped that the force would leave us. In fact I bought a Magic 8-Ball just so I could ask it “Will my mom die soon?” But she persisted. As her abilities diminished, her pride in the strengths she still had were obvious. While she could still summon a sentence, she told you how strong she was and maybe even made a fist or a bicep to prove her point. She also hit, bit, spit and used *all* of the words that were banned from my own childhood vocabulary.

 

She was once an elegant woman who cared what others thought. She both made me take tennis lessons and also chose the color of my skin for those lessons “You will either wear panty hose or let me put tanner on your legs” – *that* lady left the scene ten years ago and in her place was a beast of increasing cantankerousness.

 

On Thurday, I wrote to a dear friend who coined the phrase “She lives for the hate” about my mom. I said “My mom died. What do I do with the 8 Ball? “Inconceivable!” she replied. ”I will miss that cranky old lady”. So will we all. She was 97.

 

It took four children, three 24-hour caregivers, a memory care facility and drugs to power the force. The results were tough to experience. I think I felt a certain amount of pride in how well I dealt with the barbs, both physical (poking me in my fat parts and laughing at me) and mental (constant haranguing about whatever she wanted and threats if you didn’t give it to her). In a way there was an artistry to her awfulness,. And although I wish that I’d spent my 50s differently, I am proud of how we cared for her and I have a lifetime of stories, and memories of countless Saturday lunches prepared for her and her beloved caregiver. Those we all enjoyed, at least.

 

The force is gone. She is at peace, and in these early days the world seems big and scary. I have slipped out of my customary life's orbit and need to choose my own gravity now. I want to be at peace as well.

I'm Not Ready

Yesterday was weird. I visited mom and she was talkative and morbid.

Previously, she has danced around the subject of death just a bit. And when she does, or she mentions her mom (which is a rare occurence) we're certain that it's a sign. Well yesterday all she talked about was death.

At first, she told me that she was afraid of dying. I asked for more info and got nothing.

Then she started to riff on my brother and his health problems. And she also referred to his wife by her (first) sister-in-law's name. That is remarkable because my brother has a strong resemblance to my mom's brother and now she can't tell them apart sometimes. And that is messed up.

It gets worse, but I don't want to share.

Then she asked me if I wanted to die, and asked her caregiver if *she* wanted to die. I told her that we aren't ready. Finally she dwelled on her own death. Did I want her to die? I told her repeatedly that I didn't (which is a lie, but whatever). After a few rounds of telling her no or “not today", I told her that if she wanted to die she should, and if she didn’t want to die she shouldn’t. I mean, really, at this point it is completely up to her. She is miserable and I don't want her to lead a miserable life. But if she wants to stick around for it she can do that.

Anyhoo from that conversation it seems like Mom is at least beginning to think of end of life. The only way she wants to go is if she can take us with her.

Good old selfish Mom. I had the conversation with our caregiver that if anything happens Mom has a DNR. She gets it, but has said that she doesn't know what she'll do when Mom goes because she loves her like a parent. We are so lucky to work with our caregiver. She's truly an amazing (and fun) person. As I was leaving, my mom turned to her and asked if she will help when the time comes. That was kinda heartbreaking. Poor mom.

On the way out last night I had a good conversation with my fake mom, Joan. She has a little knee pain, but saw the doctor and is actually doing pretty well (she says). She was reading the newspaper upside down, which I think is the most darling thing. 

People Blowing the Scene

Last night a sweet friend completed her journey. That's what they called it. It was my friend's mom, who started seeking my counsel about senior living communities. It was so lovely to have these talks with her, with an older woman whose wits were so intact. The last time we saw her we were invited over for dinner. She later spoke to some of us in her room at our friends' house. She talked about a wonderful group of women with terminal diagnoses at her ashram who talked about life, spiritual stuff, getting ready, and whether or not they will wear socks when they are cremated. She gave me this bracelet and necklace. I've been wearing the necklace all week. Her Caringbridge invitation came the other day. And now I'm headed over to pay my last respects.

Can I say that the hits just keep coming? In the last few weeks my cousin died, friend at work, my friend's mom, and I got another Caringbridge invitation this week (work friend who has had successful lumpectomy surgery). And on Thursday our work day was hijacked by another person's Stage 4 diagnosis (we will pull all of his designs and photos so that his family can see how beloved this very private person was). I will be going through my work friend's material this week, and have had to reach out to people who know his family re: the items that he texted me that he wanted returned to the factory after he died. Or as he put it:

"Anything I have from Hammerslag is all willed back to Hammerslag when I kick the bucket." followed by a list of what that was.

I will follow today's viewing by a day with my robust mom. She was in good spirits yesterday and today I'm hoping for the same.

Odd Vacation Activities

Relaxing also means reading the obits. Robert Pritikin, recently deceased, had a very full life. Among his many accomplishments? Recording an album that I actually own, called "There's A Song Inside My Saw".

I can't find it on Youtube, so you'll just have to imagine it. But while we're discussing Robert Pritikin, and while I was looking for the video, I found this:

Anyway, here's to lives thoroughly lived. To Robert Pritikin, and to Tom Gonzales, a lovely young colleague who left behind a wife and young children, and had so much more left to do had he been given more time.

Old People Is Us

Recently we went to a memorial for a musician friend of mrguy's. It was my first show since the pandemic. I wore a mask, people! Do not want the old woman in my life to get Covid because I went to the memorial of a significantly younger person.

Anyhoo, here are my thoughts or just one thought: we are old. You know how there are always people in your rock scene who look older than they are? And they kinda stand out? The whole crowd looked like that. I went to this gig and I couldn't tell if two of the old people were actually those people or whether they were people who grew up to *look* like those people (cause the people who you *think* they are should look much older now, right?).

It messed with my mind. 

Good news: my old people can still play guitar like a mofo. At least that hasn't changed.

The Big Cat Put His Paw On Us

The Big Cat summoned us for some hard work yesterday. Two days before, I'd seen a cat sleeping in an unusually vulnerable way in our yard. You could have easily mistaken him for the dirt and mulch that he'd settled into. When I noticed him next to the path, I sat down and spoke softly to him. He hissed, and scrambled away. He was in bad shape -- seemed to have arthritic legs, maybe. I kept an eye out for him.

Yesterday I saw him again. He was thin, with a stern face whose fluff stuck out at the cheeks. He hissed. I thought he had a raw drumstick with him. Then I realized it was his paw.

I went inside and got some food, heated it up and brought it to him. He backed away, but within a few minutes most of it was gone.

I could describe our actions in detail, but they don't really matter. The kitty is now gone. He had chosen our yard as his place to leave the world. Many people helped us yesterday with advice and a humane trap. Perhaps if we'd seen the kitty ten days earlier he might have had a chance, but by the time we saw him he was beyond saving.

Our cat guru held a seminar on grieving yesterday. Had I only known. It was a day too soon.

As we always say at times like this, love to all kitties everywhere.

Urns

From last week:

What did you do today?

Oh, a friend's widower asked the crowd for ideas of what kind of urn to get for her.

My idea: a vintage Wedgewood jasperware biscuit jar. Think about it. They often depict women in diaphanous gowns and almost funerary broken column kinds of images. It would be perfect. My own ashes? I've told mrguy that I'd like my ashes to go in here (that is until scattering):

From this week:

What did you do today?

Jury's still out on the urn. I was not a close friend of this person, but liked her so so much. And it turns out that her friends think that she would look good in an urn that looks like Japanese gold repair Kintsugi. And it still looks like an urn and not as I imagine my friend, so I suggested something else.

Don't procrastinate on that stuff, People! Mrguy knows that when I go, I want to be scattered off a boat, with jazz playing (Bill Evans?), just as we did with the big guy. My sparkles can eventually mingle with his, and with my pop's, or at least the part of my pop that ended up in the ocean, not the part that ended up at my brother's property which eventually became a pot farm. He would have HATED that.

Maybe the lesson, here, is to arrange to have yourself cremated and entrust your ashes to a service that will hide them from your family! 

Whatever you do, make a plan. Most people don't enjoy this sort of thing as much as I do, but don't leave your people to figure it out for you or you will end up in an urn that has both kintsugi and the Pink Panther.

Kill Clouseau!

The Foot of Cupid

I've been looking for a good gif of the Monty Python foot, because for the last few months I've been imagining the foot crushing me closer and closer to the ground. It's a comical way to look at the amazing pile-up of events we're all having during the pandemic.

In the last two months I've watched from afar the decline and death of my favorite cousin, the new partner of an old friend (he went from diagnosis of prion disease to death in a matter of weeks), and a work colleague who did chemo for most of the last year and blogged it all.

Three cats in our circle have died. Our older boy cat is hobbled and the boisterous kitten and I live in separate parts of the house to protect the elder from the younger.

Update: I totally forgot about the stress of fires. My go-bags are still packed.

I'm grinding through a more-than-decade project at work that is grinding to a stop, yet this project still occupies many meetings and emails and much planning even in its conclusion.

The election.

My family has so much conflict over my mom and her care. Covid has only made it worse. Covid will continue. The caregivers split a 7 day week between them. I don't think they can continue to work this way. My older siblings are too frail themselves to pitch in. In May I expressed to middlesis that this was a problem, and she responded that it was Spring and she couldn't think about it after a hard winter and doing so much for the family (truth. she does so much).

So we didn't talk about it, and with the holidays coming she asked me for help. I said go to mediation with me and I'll give you my answer. I've been seeing someone who specializes in gerontology to hopefully get my sister to talk to me about this stuff. Over the summer she had said she'd go to mediation with me, and now...nope. Big sis and I got a mutual email and we're on the shit list.

The election.

Big sis has a potential large health situation, in the middle of all of this.

The election.

The election.

Layoffs. Yesterday I went to four separate meetings about layoffs. Of 22 people at the factory, 4 were in my tiny department, and two others were people I work with closely. One of them is my closest work buddy, who was hired on the same day as I was, 20 years ago. I'm devastated.

I will cope. It will get better. I coined a phrase last week about finding one thing a day that you like and love the hell out of it.

But I feel the foot right now.

 

For more on the origin of the foot, check out its Wikipedia page.

Maybe I'll just love the foot today.

Cue The Plague of Frogs

Pandemic.

Shelter-in-place for six months.

Wildfires galore that mean you can't open the windows for weeks.

Heat wave after heat wave (without opening the windows).

My favorite cousin died on Thursday after a recurrence of leukemia. Amazingly, on Tuesday he sent me a text that just said "call" and we had one last phone conversation. Took a bereavement day on Friday.

Last night it was 101.7 in the kitchen last night and 120+ in the aku room. I watered the tomatoes 5 times, and the canna corms I've been resurrecting started the day underground and ended the day with 1/4" of growth. 

Several weeks ago, while on a toilet paper hunt for the mama at a local bodega, I passed a bottle of piña colada mixer. Impulse buy! It came in really handy last night. Why did I always think that making blended ice drinks was difficult? It is not.

Among all of the awfulness, we are not alone. Friday night cocktails with friends. Saturday evening zoom with our good friends who were good friends with our cousin after we introduced them. Sunday morning conversation with Cack and Blick. Sunday evening conversation with my cousin (youngest brother of the one who died).

In honor of my cousin, who someone described this week as "an animal of music facts", listen to some Richard Thompson and use the word fuck. 

A LOT.

You Know What's Dumb? A Work In Progress

A growing list, in no particular order:

1) Going to Mount Everest
2) Taking selfies on cliffs
3) ATV driving
4) Leaving things in cars. Things you will miss if they are stolen. Even you, A-Rod
5) Dodgeball
6) Running the bulls in Pamplona.
7) Base jumping. Even for science.
8) Getting off the boardwalk / pathway near sources of geothermal energy (volcanoes, geysers)
9) Getting in a rocket you built in your back yard
10) Puppetry of the Penis  
11) Photographing wildlife close up in state parks

12) Challenging the world land speed record when you're 69. Everybody knows your reaction rate slows when you're old.

13) Flying in vintage planes

14) Trying to retrieve your phone by climbing inside the stegosaurus statue where you dropped it

15) Gender reveals.

16) Balcony gymnastics

17) Rich people space travel

18) Shipwreck looky-looing

19) Feeding supermarket turkeys to predators in a swamp

20) Wearing stiletto heels when you're 84 years old

21) Getting rescued from Mt. Fuji, then going back to get your phone and needing rescue again

I can't feel sorry for you if you're going to do stupid stuff.

Bonus points for death or serious harm while selfie-ing.

Is it a sign of age that this stuff is getting on my nerves? When you know that things are ill-advised and you make the choice to do them anyway, I'm not going to feel sorry for you after the bad thing happens.

Updates:

I just added dodgeball. It's mean. 

Space travel was suggested by That Nice Boy, and I heartily agree

People who go looking at the Titanic and then have to be rescued. Waste of money