Life

The Weekend, Dreams, and Butthurt

/ Tara / Leave a comment

I woke this morning from a terrible dream that involved the kids and my ex and Todd was in there somewhere too but incongruously juxtaposed with the ex, and there was this weird camp/event/gathering with strangers (who were friends in the dream but who I’ve never seen before in my life). We were having dinner at the friends’ apartment and there was this keg of red champagne that exploded like dynamite and somehow I was to blame because I’d partially opened it by mistake and then everyone there was angry with me. I tried to wipe everything down and suddenly was fighting with my ex, or maybe it was Todd, and crying about the fact that I was trying my best to clean up the blood-like spatter of this red champagne that made the house look like a crime scene. And then I left there for some marketplace filled with outdoor shops and flea markets,  there was a flood and I was floating along the rapids with my shopping cart, worried about losing the ibuprofen I’d just purchased for Opac.

I know what you’re thinking. I don’t do drugs.

Why me? Why do I have to have these fucked up catastrophic dreams where I’m either crying or running away from a serial killer? Too much binge-watching of Murdock Mysteries??

Why can’t I have dreams about swashbuckling pirates like my friend – who, incidentally, is a very physical dreamer and has frightened more people awake with her very loud vocals and thrashing about? It seems infinitely more fun than being chased by a whackjob who wants to kill me.

Sleep is overrated, apparently. The dog decided that she absolutely could not wait until morning to go out on the last night I could actually sleep through the night before V came home, and woke me up at 1:40 a.m. When I actually want to sleep – I can’t. Otherwise, I’m falling asleep on the couch at 8:30-9:00 every night because my eyes just can’t take it anymore. Poor Todd. I wasn’t much fun on Saturday night.

And speaking of sleep, the cat continues to sleep on the dining room table such that I’ve taken the tablecloth off, leaving the ugly vinyl padding exposed and I don’t give a shit. I’m so over de-fuzzing the tablecloth every night so we can eat dinner there. He knows he’s not supposed to be there, and how do I know this? Because he knows the sound of me picking up the water gun, and also because the minute he hears me down the hall he’s jumping off. I guess he thinks he’s fooled me, but it hasn’t occurred to him that I can hear the sound of elephant paws hitting the floor.

I noticed that he no longer sleeps with us when the kids are away, and he no longer sleeps with V either. I thought maybe something was amiss, especially since he doesn’t jump up on the couch next to me much lately either. But this morning it occurred to me that it’s too hot, and then it occurred to me that he only sleeps with us when it’s cold and NOT because he loves any of us, so in reality he is selfish and only out for himself. Which is why he doesn’t give a f@#% about the rules. YET, I continue to love him.

But not as much as I love Todd and IPA, which is why I woke up Sunday morning prepared for butthurt and to make it up to him for falling asleep so early the night before. We got up and cycled a 13.6-mile circle around our town which was exhilarating and satisfying and only momentarily embarrassing when our two lumps on bicycles were passed by a cycling club of about 8 sleekly-clad riders who knew the proper alerts to give me as they approached from behind. At least they were kind and asked, how are you this morning, though it should’ve been painfully obvious.

We got home and Todd took to mowing the lawn, and then I took over the push mower for the first time ever which I know must come as shock. I’ve never mowed a lawn in my life. I once rode a tractor in my old life, but only for about 2 minutes because I panicked when I let go the brake and the damn thing took off like a train. (Well, not really, but it was really scary when I forgot how to make it stop.) So, I can now check off another item from my bucket list. Not that it was on there. I find that it’s easier to add things to the bucket list after I’ve done them.

We ended up checking out a local place on the water we hadn’t been to yet, which turned out to be the very same vacant, for-sale property we’d checked out four years ago and talked to my mom about opening a restaurant in. Obviously that never happened, and – excuse my French – this place is now a fucking gold mine. And loud. But we enjoyed sitting outside on the covered deck, enjoying IPA and Crabby Mac n Cheese and loaded nachos, all of which I think were well-earned after the morning we had.

Lessons learned – don’t ever hesitate on a reasonably good idea. Although, I wouldn’t want the headache of a place like that, between the hell of staffing and security, not to mention the liability associated with its proximity to the water. I’m so over the restaurant business anyway, even as Todd keeps returning with these fantasies of owning a very lucrative, if not seasonal, one. Personally, I love the idea of a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 situation, where somebody else is the boss and I only have to show up and do my job right. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with lower expectations. Well, except when you just want to sit down without pain.

When the Kids Are Away

/ Tara / 2 Comments

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V and O are off enjoying the sunny shores of the Outer Banks this week and, while I will admit to feeling somewhat melancholy at their initial departure, I also knew it would be a week of much needed quiet and an opportunity to get shit done. Or, more accurately, time to up my Happy Dance and stop adulting for 8 days. The only one who didn’t get the memo was the cat.

Things I thought I might want to get done:

Finish the laundry room and move the litterbox, paint the guest bedroom and the workout room, refurbish some old dining room chairs, patch a hole and paint the kitchen wall, clean the cobwebby corners of the cathedral ceilings, repaint the foyer/vestibule, make a headboard for our bed, finish my walk-in closet, change the paint in the kids’ bathroom, call a pool company for an estimate on a pool, …

What I “might” actually have done –

Played pool,

Lost several hours on the computer doing I-don’t-even-remember-anymore,

[Still learning to] play a song on the keyboard,

Mopped up a pile of cat vomit strategically deposited at the bottom of the stairs,

Drank several bottles of Dogfish 60-Minute,

Did the absolute minimum to clean the house,

Brushed up on my Spanish for about 30 minutes (which really means, re-learning it),

Binge-watched the new season of Orange is the New Black,

Drank wine,

Cleaned out the fridge and prepped some food for easy grab-snacks,

Gave myself a pedicure,

Slept through every night since Friday (well, except for my body’s programmed 3 a.m. wakeup),

Put a filet on the grill and forgot about it. For an hour.

Drank more wine,

Stayed in bed an extra hour this morning to show Oliver who’s boss because he woke me up out of a sound sleep by standing on my arm. All 17 pounds of him. Because, hungry.

Boring?

I’m not sorry.

There’s a lot more trouble to be had, but I’m currently an hour into a bottle of Domaine Bellevue Touraine Rose and patching a hole in the kitchen wall is probably NOT a good idea. Sabra is watching me closely to see if I will follow through on my threat of giving her a bath, but alas – she is off the hook until the kids come back.

Todd made me help wash the car this morning and I pulled an Opac and swiped at it with a sponge a few times and then complained about the pain in my arm and suddenly remembered a phone call I had to make.

Reality returns shortly and so does the whining. I’ve got less than 3 days to squeeze in some more slackin and I’m going all out. I refuse to be a productive adult, at least outside of my job, until Sunday.

Pass me that bottle of wine.

Sometimes Life is A Country Song

/ Tara / 2 Comments

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My life doesn’t always read like a country song, but when it does…

***If you’re pressed for time, I’ve made it easy for you – just read the bolded phrases.

That snow storm that cut my San Francisco trip short was heavy and became solid ice hours afterward. Several days later as the sun melted it off the roof of the house – a sheet of it fell on, and caved in, the hood of my new car.

The new kitten we adopted turned out to have a polyp on his larynx – a catastrophic mass which would involve resectioning his digestive and respiratory tracts and likely a tracheotomy for a while – and I was forced to make the worst decision a person can ever make, while he was in the OR. I scream-cried for an hour after the surgeon and I ended our call. The bill – all totaled – $1800.

I started a new job – the highlight of my Spring – a part-time position with the world-renowned Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It’s going to be 2 days a week, but I have been training 3 days a week in the office, and I have to spend a week in Philadelphia in Epic training. That’s Epic training, not training that is epic.

My anxiety has topped the charts over working all these extra hours in the midst of all this other personal stuff, having to cover Veruca’s schedule with school and softball when I can’t readily be there, and now having to drive to Philly every morning at the break of dawn and not getting home until 7. I don’t do Philly. Send me to New York any day. Although technically my “home” city (my parents took me there A LOT, growing up), I get lost in Philly with its labyrinth of streets named after trees that confuses me.

My 92-year-old grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago. Todd and I drove up last weekend for the memorial service, but had to cut our time short due to another commitment in Baltimore in the evening (see below).

Opac had oral surgery and won the award for Worst Patient Ever. I took him to a longtime client of ours, because I trusted him absolutely with my precious offspring. Opac presented himself to this like a tough footballer with a bring-it-on attitude, that is, until about an hour into our ride home when the pain kicked in and he was hollering and swearing and crying. I had to stop for the Percocet and prayed they’d hurry up on it, while Opac sat in the car with his stupid fucking ice pack that isn’t helping at all texting me in a panic because I hadn’t come out after 5 minutes. No one likes to see their kid in pain and be helpless to fix it, and he brought me to tears.

The Percocet took an eternity to kick in – I swear to God I am not exaggerating – well over an hour before O stopped moaning. And believe me, he’s loud. The level of stress ranks right up there next to the 5 days I spent at CHOP when Veruca was diagnosed with diabetes. He wanted to die, FML, wanted to hang himself, and at one point told me I’d see him at his funeral in two days. (This news, while disturbingly and inappropriately funny, did not go over well given the current state of family affairs.) I literally dove into a bottle of wine the minute Todd walked in the door after work.

Roughly ten days after granddad passed, my uncle passed suddenly and unexpectedly. It was a shock to everyone, and my cousins have been struggling with the news and planning a service. There’s more related drama, but out of respect for them I will not mention it. Meanwhile, my grandmother had to be told and, as expected, it was not for the faint-hearted. We were seriously concerned there would be a third funeral.

After grandad’s memorial, Todd and I raced home for a wardrobe change and then we were off to his college’s annual Gala – first time for me. It was a great time! I met some new people, caught up with others. We bid on some auction items and won a piece of artwork now hanging in our living room and, though I really wanted the Michael Kors bag, I bowed out of the bidding war for that once it topped $200. The bad part of the evening was that I was drinking vodka+cranberry’s, against my better judgement after I realized it was Absolut they were pouring, and I got very drunk and very sick afterward. I’m fairly certain it was a reaction to all the stress I’ve been under, because I’ve had more to drink than this before and didn’t come close to feeling this way.

I spent the entire next day on the couch feeling like I wanted to die. The kids came home later that night from their dad’s. Opac hit a wall the day before with his pain level and there was no more Percocet, and my ex had to call the doctor – who explained to him that he was not getting more Percocet and he needed to take an OTC cocktail of ibuprofen and Tylenol that would help, along with some other topical instructions. Ex texted me his disappointment (read= doctor was so rude and cold, what a d***) and at this point I was now wondering how much damage control I was going to have to do at the followup appointment. Meanwhile, Opac called me in the middle of the College President’s speech at the gala to complain about his pain and not knowing what to do. Really, I tried to be compassionate but for the love of God – could I not have ONE night without stress and worry?

And so it goes. The hangover I had morphed into some sort of viral thing and my gut was in knots for days, and I’m still not feeling totally normal.

Meanwhile, my uncle’s wife developed an aortic rupture and we were told she had a 20% chance of survival. So she is currently in hospital under heavy sedation, and missed her husband’s funeral.

That is all.

 

 

Not Always How It Looks

/ Tara / 1 Comment

I’ve had a plethora of thoughts about my next post, one of which was planned last week on a topic that has long bothered me about the business I’ve grown up in. I didn’t get it written before the weekend, and damn if it didn’t happen again and it not only pissed me off that it happened again, but that if I wrote about it NOW, someone would assume it was because of THEM. So, I’m putting that post off for a few days while I process some other stuff. Yes, I’m cryptic sometimes. Deal with it.

I went to bed last night exhausted, but my brain wouldn’t shut off and I was turning over some thoughts about Life. Profound thoughts, some with sadness, some with gratitude, and some with just more questions. I fell asleep then and, as always happens, those great thoughts got sucked into the black hole of my dreams and it may take me a few days to conjure them up again. Am I being cryptic again? Okay – I’ll be direct – just this once.

Exhausted – because one of my BFFs came for two days and we didn’t get much sleep. Profound thoughts – because a friend from high school just lost his battle with cancer two days ago.

But before all of that, I was putzing around this closed group I joined under the probably somewhat misguided notion that we were all there because we were fans of a certain blog. Which is mostly true, but many of the posts mentioned troubled lives, inability to get out of bed and/or leave the house, insecurities, and so on. One girl posted how her life was so messed up while everyone else on Facebook is living the dream and have families and kids and great jobs… you know the story.

We all know the story. Who hasn’t been on Facebook and seen how great some people’s lives are? And maybe felt like, wow – I wish my life was like that/better.

Well, here’s a newsflash: NOBODY’s life is perfect. And I told her so. I also told her that social media is a place where one can be whoever they want the world to see. People do it every day.

A friend gushes on and on about how smart her kids are, how they made distinguished honors again, and what great athletes they are. Another calls her husband the best husband ever because he did something nice for her – maybe he brought flowers home, or made dinner and took care of the kids one night. Another travels all the time to wonderful places.

About seven years ago I reconnected with a friend who – in a nutshell – was living her dream. Great job, great husband, beautiful house, beautiful kids, lots of great friends. I felt a pang of jealousy, mingled with joy for her at having those things that she so deserved after years of struggle. It was another card stacked against the deck I was living in back then. I couldn’t ignore the feeling of, why can’t I have all of that too?

Appearances are deceiving. Some people gush to cover up their own shortcomings, insecurities, or fears that they don’t measure up to “the dream.” Some of those people will experience divorce, illness, job loss, money and stability, loss of a parent or loved one, or – heaven forbid – the loss of a child. The mother who gushes over her children? She has lived the last 18 years without her mother. The friend who has money and is always traveling? Lives a lonely single life and is struggling to find love.

I write a lot about my own life. People who know me personally, know who I really am. I write tough sometimes. Sometimes funny. Sometimes I write about my weaknesses. I try to be honest. I live in a nice home, drive a nice car, have beautiful kids, wonderful friends and neighbors, and the love of my life. Gushing?

No. I count my blessings. Because 7 years ago my life looked very VERY different… and I was the one wishing it could look more like hers, or his. And I am not so naïve to believe that anything can change in an instant. And that – my friends – is a truth I will share today. Inside myself lives a terrible fear of losing those who are most precious to me. I don’t focus on it, and I push it down, but it is the demon who occasionally whispers my darkest fears.

I have this God-awful anxiety that I cannot explain, that came to roost in the cobwebs of my sanity and steals my inner peace with wordless whispers. Not every minute of every day. But it’s there. My life is far from perfect. It may look like it is, to outsiders. I struggle with bills, I don’t work enough or earn enough of my own money. I have debt. A lot of it. It’s not Todd’s burden, but mine.

I don’t get enough quality time with my kids. I don’t get enough quality time with Todd. I wish I could travel more. I wish I had money saved for college. I wish I hadn’t given away 13 years of my life to abuse and unhappiness. I wish I didn’t still hear his critical voice in my head. I wish I didn’t have to work weekends. I wish my knees didn’t hurt, and that I could run again. I wish I was more this, and less of that. I wish, I wish, I wish.

And all any of that does, to repurpose a meme – is steal today’s joy. Which is my long-winded way of saying:

  1. The grass is NOT always greener on the other side and
  2. Don’t believe everything you hear/read.
  3. Don’t kick yourself for what you haven’t done. Do what you wish you could.
  4. Nobody’s life is “perfect.” The only world that’s perfect is heaven.
  5. Count the blessings you DO have. (In religion-speak, that means you praise God for what He has done for you. You reap what you sow.)

 

I’ll just leave this here…

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

~ Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Melancholy

/ Tara / Leave a comment

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I went to Walmart yesterday with Opac. He was adamant about stocking up on his favorite hair glue, so much so that he was spazzing out because I didn’t want to go since my brother was over and Veruca is overdue for a haircut and I wanted to kill two birds with one stone (hairdresser is in the same shopping center). And Veruca wanted to stay home with her frizzled hair with Uncle Matt and play video games.

Side note: this is an interesting stage – this age 11-going-on-12 stage. She’s obsessed with the clothes she’s wearing, and little else. She ransacks her room for clothes every morning, and right now every drawer is open on her dresser, and clothes are spilling out of them onto the floor. The ones that have escaped the dresser are covering the floor like measles on a sick kid. She obsesses over the leggings and t-shirts/sweatshirts she wears every single day – nevermind all the nice stuff I got her from Justice – but never remembers to brush her teeth. And her hair? Her hair makes me nuts. It’s tough keeping quiet, yet I know there are bigger problems worth arguing over, like the snacking without bolusing that continues like a blister on my heel. And I do know, thank you very much, that this will all shift in some blindsided way and suddenly the raging hormones will render her certifiably irrational.

Meanwhile, back to Opac. It’s always nice when we get one-on-one time, even if it’s simple like going out to eat or a trip to the store. He will always say he’s glad when it’s just the two of us. We shopped together. It was nice. He shares things with me. Although initially I was reluctant to go, I later realized it was something he needed. An old friend of his from middle school, whom he hadn’t seen in over 2 years, was killed in a car accident yesterday morning. The news spread through the high school like fire; he told me there were people crying everywhere. One of his good friends, was this kid’s best friend. He said it was weird. He feels weird, not sure how to feel at all. We talked about it. About my own experiences with this – how it’s difficult to understand why something like this happens, and what I believe is at work spiritually, behind it. He swiped at his eyes once or twice.

I’ve fallen into that delicate place, the “life is a tragedy for those who feel” part of Shakespeare’s prolific words, and I was already feeling emotional, as I always do, on my Nana’s birthday. I can’t explain what I feel, though I often speak of her with love and honor. My kids know who she is, even if they don’t remember anymore. I’d give almost anything to talk to her today. If even just one more time.

The news of this young kid dying struck me senseless, left me weeping in the car this morning after I dropped V off at school, as I literally felt the physical pain those parents are feeling. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. For a moment I felt the inside of their hearts, and I felt sick. I don’t know how one goes on living after such a loss. I don’t know that I could. I call myself strong, I think many people see me that way, but on the inside is a weakness, a compassion or emotion for tragedy that I must consciously block out sometimes, for nothing less than mental survival. Please Father, don’t take my children. I will die.

I was also reminded of another friend of his, when he mentioned that even “John” had tears in his eyes, because about a year ago “John’s” mother died a horrific and tragic death that left me crying for days. She suffered from some form of mental illness, and believed to not be getting the proper care and support she needed. She told John one night where all the important documents were kept in the house, and told him to go upstairs to bed and not to come back down, no matter what. What followed is a police account of what happened. They were called to the darkened home with reports of an intruder, only to break in and find her seated in a chair in the dark holding what appeared to be a gun. She ignored repeated requests to put down the weapon, and when she raised it, they fired on her, killing her. The sorrow I felt for John was overwhelming. How does a 15-year-old boy recover from that?

The sadness was overwhelming, not because I knew them, but because his was a familiar face and I just wanted to reach out to him. And because I remember seeing him and his mother in the grocery store, weeks before, and I attempted to smile at her to be friendly but she never once looked at me. And in retrospect, I can’t help but wonder if she had – would it have made a difference in her day? In the future?

Of course I’m not that powerful. But the takeaway is, it’s always better to offer a friendly smile to anyone – because we’re all fighting battles that are sometimes less obvious than a grumpy face. If you can turn one person’s day around with a simple gesture, would you do it?

Meanwhile, my other grandmother, a life-long smoker and drinker, is approaching her 92nd birthday. She has type 2 diabetes, and now takes insulin to manage her blood sugar levels. She told my mom the other day, she doesn’t know why she’s still here. She has body failings, that upset her and add to her overall depression. My mom reminded me that the body as it ages is only going in one direction… that improvements, while small, will ultimately only hold up until they don’t. The body, at 92, is slowly deteriorating, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. That revelation made me sad too. What must it feel like to be where she is? Will I approach it with today’s half of Shakespeare’s quote, as my mommom does, or will I approach it with Tara’s usual MO – the other half that says, that “life is a comedy for those who think”??

 

 

 

Honoring Friends

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With all the negativity circulating social media and most often in my morning news feed, I made a couple of self-preservation decisions. One was to start my morning with coffee and my journal. In other words, I don’t start my day reading the stuff that gets my blood pumping. I’m journaling “almost” regularly now, like I used to, since 1987. The current journal’s (numbered #38) opening date is August 23, 2013. That’s over three years ago! Which at one time would  have been unheard of.

I’ve also begun writing what I’ll call a “long piece,” because I’m not ready to call it a novel yet. So far, I have 15 pages and 7500 words. Which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an accomplishment for me to actually DO it. I have so many ideas that I bounce back and forth between this one and that – which do I want to write? So I can now say I’m committed to writing this one.

I met the sweetest woman at the restaurant about a month ago who told me she keeps a Gratitude journal. Every day she writes in this journal, about something she is grateful for. I thought, what a wonderful idea! So positive, so enlightening, so powerful. We ALL need more of this, especially now. I decided that I wanted to keep one too, but couldn’t decide whether to include it in my current journal or keep a separate one just for gratitude, and then I thought that perhaps there would be times they’d overlap and then it would be like writing twice, and who has time for that? Plus, I could be in danger of creating my own version of the Golden Notebook and I already have enough anxiety.

Anyway, back to social media. I started what I’m calling an Honoring Friends Initiative. Every day I choose a friend to honor. So, in essence, it’s very much a gratitude-type of journal, only it’s public.

I’m 8 days into what I limited to a 30-day initiative. It’s been easy so far, with the exception of locating a suitable photo with both of us in it. I clarified that it was random, so that the order in which I introduced each of them wasn’t a declaration of their order of importance to me – which I suspected could easily be misinterpreted.

What I’ve noticed so far, on this eighth day, is that if I had to get married all over again, traditional wedding and all – I would want every one of them to stand up with me.

These eight women are comprised of a friend who traveled with my family to Greece when we were 14, another dear friend I met at the bus stop who 30 years later is still one of my closest, my oldest friend I’ve known for all (but 5 months) of my 47 years, a best friend with whom I shared all the ups and downs of adolescence, my pledge sister from my first college, another long-time friend and maid-of-honor (the first time around), my roommate at NYU, and still another long-time friend who’s been there since the 6th grade.

They are all special in their own ways, they have all been “best friends” with whom I have collectively shared laughter and tears, sarcasm, arguments, hugs, secrets, sleepovers and concerts, late nights, hangovers, vacations and silly adventures, broken hearts and weddings, and most of all – unwavering friendship in spite of our absences.

What is life without friendships? They are all valuable, for they are all different. I want to thank those eight ladies for their friendship and love, in spite of me.

My friends have made the story of my life…. turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy. ~ Helen Keller

 

 

 

 

Three Times I’ve Felt Blessed

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When I really, really knew. I’m talking profound, existential moments.

The first time it hit me, really hit me, I was on a flight home from Santa Barbara. I’d been in California visiting a long-time, on again-off again boyfriend. What was different about this trip, as opposed to a handful of others to San Diego and Laguna, was that this time I fell in love with California. Santa Barbara – its intimately small airport, State Street with its farmer’s market full of vibrant locally grown produce, the little Greek deli’s spanakopita, the flea market/mall filled with old treasures, the Mission and the beautiful rose garden, the State Street Theater, Earthling bookstore, the magnificent cliffs overlooking the Pacific, two old men painting landscapes on the beach. I spent a great deal of time driving and exploring by myself, and the independence I felt brought me back to those solitary New York days where I was discovering who I was.

I got on the plane that last day and felt not melancholy, but … at peace. I’ve never been afraid to fly. I’ve always loved the rush of the jet lifting off, and again when the wheels skidded to a halt on the runway. And, as the plane lifted off and the California landscape grew smaller and smaller, I thought to myself, how wonderful. If this plane never lands again, if I don’t survive this flight, it will be okay, because I. Am. Blessed. I am happy.

The second, profound, time, on a day I can’t exactly recall, I realized again. Blessed to have extricated myself from a painful situation and I knew that God stood beside me as I walked in the light again. My friends stood beside me, they offered prayers and encouraging words, and I was blessed. And I was blessed to have Todd back. I was blessed during this time that he loved me still, and he stood beside me during the worst of the battles I needed to walk through. The revelation and remembrance that I was blessed is what got me through my darkest days.

This morning. After waking up on the couch at 4 o’clock in the morning, alone, with the cat sleeping on top of me and the dog nearby in her bed and the candles still burning on the coffee table… I crawled back to the bedroom where my husband lay sleeping. I woke again 3 hours later, and snuggled up beside him, his hand massaging the pain out of my arm and we spoke the silent language of long-time lovers and friends and I stroked his brown and gray-stubbled cheek, admiring the curve of his nose and the softness of the lips I’ve known for a lifetime. And I felt Blessed.

For I am and have always been blessed. Not more than anyone else deserves to be, but I recognize it – and inside the walls of my soul, no one and nothing can take that away.

The Chronicles: Thanksgiving Edition

/ Tara / 2 Comments

The desire to write again is creeping back slowly. I was, as so many were, so deeply affected by the outcome of the election. Many people are talking about it, still talking about it, posting about it …. and I don’t want to. I have no desire to write about it. But what worried me more was that I had no desire to write, period.

So I returned to my writing roots, to my journals where I write only for me. The daily morning ritual of coffee and pen to paper has helped. The impending holidays and several neck and back adjustments have done just enough to turn my frown upside down. And so, without further ado, the previous week’s shenanigans…

About a week before Thanksgiving, Veruca begged me to listen to the Holly channel while we were driving. Please please please?? Fine, I said. It was the Twelve Days of Christmas. At least we could sing along. However, this version, by Straight No Chaser, is like following somebody to a place you’ve never been and they’re driving so fast you end up losing them. These dudes skipped numbers, turned back to those missed halfway through the song, dipped into Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel, and then slipped into Toto’s Africa, Christmas-style. Eight maids-a-milking, and they’re milking just for me…  And I don’t always have a dirty mind but when I do, it’s not in the car with my 11-year-old singing the Twelve Days of Christmas.

And while we’re on the subject of feeling uncomfortable, I recently heard a fun story about a family that sits in a circle after Thanksgiving dinner watching the Sound of Music and rubbing each other’s feet. The whole damn family! In a circle. Touching each other’s feet. For 3 hours. Imagine that! Because I can’t. But if you can, and you like it, that’s great. There’s no judgement here.

So Thanksgiving. The night before, Todd and I drove the kids up to their dad’s and – against my better judgement – decided to have an impromptu date night at the restaurant. The night before Thanksgiving. This is never a good idea, no matter how much food and wine my mother plies me with. I ended up behind the bar – surprise! And date night turned into tipsy-bartender night with hubby rubbing elbows with some of our favorite guests. And then, while totally unnecessary, the staff tipped me out for “saving” them. How many people who aren’t professional escorts can say Date Night turned a profit?

We hosted Thanksgiving at home, as we always do, with a total of 15 people (and four dogs) who came to nosh and drink and watch The Secret Life of Pets before passing out. I’m happy to report it was a peaceful bi-partisan gathering with no talk of all the president-elect’s men. Well there was the whisper of one, which I shut down like a boss by threatening to leave my own house and run away to an unnamed neighbor’s, leaving the targets looking like two deer trapped in the headlights. Nonetheless, I would like to apologize to all of my mothers, who may not have been guilty at all.

It was a lovely day… no smoking bird and no fistfights (really, we’re not that kind of family, but wouldn’t it be fun to say so?), the only casualties a crystal champagne glass and our downstairs toilet, which sustained a mysterious crack in its tank and leaked a rather large puddle of water overnight. Oh – and in keeping with the spirit of lost items at every event, a pair of ear buds were found in the driveway the next morning.

Oliver was extremely pissed to have to share his home with visiting dogs, one of whom spent the night guarding the space between the kitchen and the rec room where his litter box lives, and having the area around his litter box flooded sent him over the edge and apparently onto one of our bathroom rugs, which sent Todd over the edge. Oliver has been banned from the master bedroom indefinitely, and there’s nothing I can say to save him until the smoke clears.

I don’t shop on Black Friday because I’m not suicidal, so I don’t have any good shopping stories yet. But I learned some other things. I learned that people who get really drunk and loud and obnoxious still exist. I learned that some girls really do like older men, though in some cases I can’t for the life of me figure out why. To quote a friend, there’s not enough money in the world to [put up with that]. The latter part is censored because I just can’t write it here without feeling dirty, and believe me I feel dirty enough when two people are hurling accusations of infidelity in front of me and I’m desperately wishing I’d worn my invisibility cloak. I must say I felt terribly sorry for the Uber driver who spent what must have been a very entertaining, albeit uncomfortable, hour locked in a car with these two.

Yet truly, I felt sorry for the two of them. Imagine being in an on-again, off-again relationship for years, punctuated by fancy dinners and expensive wine (if it doesn’t get spilled all over the table), mistrust and hushed yet very public arguments, hopefully some decent Viagra-assisted sex, and constantly having to apologize for your date’s behavior. Where is the joy in that? It’s a very sad, sad situation, and one I would never envy. I’d rather spend the rest of my life alone with twenty-seven cats, than have even one night of that kind of drama.

It’s a gift, to get reminders now and then of just how good I have it.  An old family-drama-of-marriages-past tried its best to suck me  in recently, and I’m relieved and proud to say that I slammed the door on that circus.

I am so blessed to have the love of a good man – who may be old to a 20-year-old but is perfect for this 47-year-old. Life is good.

 

 

 

Diabetes, and Emails, and Mice

/ Tara / 3 Comments

I’m working though my emails this morning and there was one from Kohl’s. It’s their “best Black Friday deals early” email. Um, WHAT? We barely have one foot in the door of November. My God, I haven’t even begun to think about Thanksgiving.

There were also several “store” emails taunting with coupons to save money by spending money, daily recipes I will never cook, endless Pinterest pins I have to see, and a new bill from waste industries. Which I find ironic seeing as this week they didn’t even have to leave the comfort of their truck because Opac forgot to take the trash cans out. Oh, and another email with 5 Trending Ideas for the Living Room and Where to Hide the Litter Box in the subject line. This sounds like one I can’t afford to miss. Hopefully the trend in Living Rooms is not where we hide the litter box.

Speaking of litter boxes, I was watching American Horror Story last night, alone, when I suddenly became aware of some shuffling noises coming from my kitchen. Both kids were already in bed. Then the dog stood up and stared into the kitchen. A moment later, Oliver came barreling into the living room chasing a small gray thing that appeared to be fast-limping in circles until it found the entertainment center and scuttled under it.

Long story short, we live in the country and the nights are growing colder. This is the second night this week that Oliver has had a live toy to play with. The first night, he and his furry buddy woke Veruca – and then me – at 4 o’clock in the morning. She and I followed them in horrified amusement until the mouse disappeared into one of our guest rooms in the rec room. I figured it’d take a miracle for them to end up back in Veruca’s room, so we went back to bed. By morning, Oliver was playing with the body just inside the front door.

Last night Todd came home from working late and found me sitting on top of the back of the couch, simultaneously watching AHS and the cat, and said – what are you doing? I stood up and walked across the couch to greet him, and pointed at the cat. Fifteen minutes later Oliver chased this thing down the stairs, I opened the front door, and Todd swooshed it outside with a dustpan. It is an unnerving and slightly hilarious thing to watch your cat capture a mouse in his mouth and then let it go several times, and not know which way the mouse is going to run or if it’s going to end up in your bed before morning.

So, back to that first night… where I was up at midnight and 3 a.m. for blood sugar checks. Veruca went to bed high (high blood sugar, not drug-induced high) and after an insulin pump site change, at 9:30. She continued to run high all night – 452 and 343 respectively – probably due to the pizza and birthday cake we’d had earlier for Opac’s birthday celebration.

My alarm was set for 3 and I got up to find her stable again at 162. Less than an hour later I was awakened to shuffling noises and then a soft knocking at my door – Veruca standing wide-eyed in the hallway – and for a brief moment I panicked, thinking she might’ve gone very low after correcting those high numbers.

November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and I commit myself every year to advocacy and awareness for Type 1 diabetes – the chronic illness my daughter has lived with for 9 and half years.

The JDRF has a new “thing” on their site where one can calculate their diabetes footprint. My daughter was diagnosed in June of 2007 at the age of 2. She began with a terrible, old-school regimen of insulin shots that turned her blood sugars into a ride so wild they made the Kingda Ka look like It’s A Small World.

Her calculated diabetes footprint looks like this:

3,425 Days living with T1 Diabetes

1,952 Hours of sleep lost (this is waaaaay off base)

20,550 Finger Pricks (also way off base)

964 Insulin Pump site changes (off base)

There were far too many nights I had maybe 3 hours of sleep total, after constant monitoring and vigilance. Night time is the scariest time for T1s – when many can suffer low blood sugars that can go unchecked if they don’t wake up to test. Low blood sugars, if left untreated, can lead to unconsciousness, and even death.

We used to test her every two hours. Every. Two. Hours. Every day. That’s a minimum of 12 finger sticks per day. Based on that, and given that we’ve backed off of so frequent checking – her total number of finger pricks to date is more like 30,000.

She’s had T1 for 9 years and 5 months. She’s worn an insulin pump for just over 8 years. The site gets changed every two days. Except when there’s a “bad” site, or we have two consecutive blood sugars over 240. Then it gets changed again. There were many, many times it was changed nearly every day, and on a rare occasion, more than once in a day. Therefore, I’d recalculate the above number to more like 1500.

Nine years in, and we know when it’s a site issue, or just some other anomaly. We know that highs happen, and that lows happen, and that that’s just how diabetes rolls.

I know that to outsiders we make it look easy. We don’t piss and whine about how horrible Type 1 diabetes is. After 9 years, it is our way of life… and it is all my daughter knows. But there is so much more to this disease. So much more, and it’s scary and unfair and there are children dying from it. Just one child dying from undiagnosed diabetes should be too many, and last year there were at least 5 that I can count.

 **Disclaimer: I don’t use the upgraded service; therefore, you will see ads at the bottom of my posts (ads I don’t see because I’m not you). As it has come to my attention that certain ads may not align with my world views – I am compelled to add the following statement until further notice.

I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP. NOT YESTERDAY, NOT TODAY, NOT – EVER.