Walking the Last Mile

The garage is finished; however, I'll wait until I return home to enjoy the impact of empty space. There's been a lot on my mind lately, especially the knowledge that my years are dwindling to a precious few and so much of my past is detritus in boxes that I refuse to open. Once opened, the contents have to be handled, and, sometimes, that's not what I'm going to do. I'm not sure why B, my plumber-handyman felt that about me, but he did, and that's why he offered to open them for me. Well, that and the fact that the hour and a half we sat at the edge of the garage and discussed the project, my breathing became so impaired that it was obvious that I could not do the task myself!

A quote from a Nora Roberts' TRN, Tribute, sums up my feelings about dealing with the debris we all accumulate: Sentiment didn't magically restore rotten wood. I have a lot of rotten wood that needs to be discarded so I can restore the framework of my life and continue with the rest of the journey. There is just so much that lurks, that haunts me in the moments least expected. I know in one part of my brain that I should re-establish contact with my siblings, but I won't: even family members can cross a line that should never be crossed. I did the stop-look-listen before I took the first step off the curb when my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, I thought the street was safe to cross -- but I was run over by a semi just the same. The injuries weren't terminal, but I'm not going to put myself on that curb again. For those who believe that blood is thicker than water, I can honestly say that water is a hole hell of a lot more refreshing and restorative than bad family blood!

I have saved things beyond the point of reason. When my daughter married, I packed every single thing of hers I could find and shipped it to her: it was her turn to make the discard decisions. She laughed at some of what she received but appreciated the gesture. I did the same with my son, culling out that which was for him to care for once he established his own adult life. There was a miscommunication about some documents he thought I had discarded, but he did find them last summer when he packed for the relocation to Canada. I have kept just about 35 years' worth of teaching materials, good lessons and supplemental materials that I cannot throw out on my own. I still have every single bank statement and canceled check from my entire adult life. Unbelievably, I still have all the letters my ex-husband wrote to me before we married in 1967!

Hopefully, I can put some of that into the past tense!

The boxes in my garage represented parts of my life I simply did not want to have to quantify, to assess and determine worth. B understood how torn I was, which is probably why it took me an hour and a half to talk through the process with him! In some ways, it was a relief when he said in a recent phone call that it was easy to see what needed to stay with me and what could be removed. And there were the pieces of rotted wood of no use to anyone: whether they were irreplaceable or not, they had to be discarded either by me or by the person helping me clean the garage.

Another quote from the same source: Neglect takes longer to damage than deliberation, but it does the job just as well. I have been neglectful; I have avoided digging into a sad time in my past, a time when I was living where I wanted to be, had new friends that were special to me, doing a job that I truly enjoyed. When it all fell apart and I felt compelled to return to my past, it was a long, sad journey back to where so much began and so much more ended. I have moved on in some ways, but in other ways -- I can close my eyes and be there again.

It's time for new decisions about where I am in life and where I want to be, not just physically, but in the other realms, the internal areas that make a difference in the quality of the day-to-day. I have about used up my time to waste, but sometimes, wasting time is the point. I've used the past several years to walk through the forest, but I've been standing where the path offers me a choice of which way I'm going to continue the journey. It's time to take the first step on another path, rather than waiting for someone to take my hand and make the decision for me.

Fast & Furious

At the National Zoo, J found the fact board interesting, filled with different kinds of human trash and then options for guessing how long it takes for the different items to decompose. Glass takes one million years, if you are ever asked for that bit of info.

Saturday, M and I were lazing around, had a bit of lunch, and I decided to have a few of the different cherries I purchased when J & I last visited Wal-Mart. About 20 minutes later, I began to feel really bad, really fast. My head was pounding, I got dripping wet from the intense, sudden heat attack, then I went into body-wracking shivers, and in a flash realized that I was going to be violent sick!

I was. Once my body voided whatever offended it, I took a shower and went to bed, where I slept for a solid 3 hours. It came on like food poisoning and pretty much worked its way done by that evening, so I'm not totally sure what hit me. I've never had an issue with fruit before, but perhaps that was the trigger.

Anyhoo, M and I spent a lazy weekend, mostly reading, but she did mow the lawn (cheaper than a gym membership). We made a bookstore run and I found a $5.95 bargain book that had us howling with laughter: there is no way I can read a book that is as poorly written as this one, and I didn't make it past page 5. However, I told M that I'd check the ending to see if it improved. You be the judge:

She and Jace had spent their first night together with their bodies inhabited by others, but they hadn't minded. --Deveraux, Jude. Someone to Love. 307.

Today, J comes home and I'm taking care of the neighbor's son this evening, while Mom and Dad go out for a movie. They kept track of M's 2 cats while she was gone, and I always like to say thank you to those who do nice things because they want to, not because they have to do them. I may retry making the apple pie for the other neighbor, just to ease my guilt over the first attempt, but I'll have to go back to W-M for more apples (oh, J will like that).

I'm flying back home this Friday, so the days are ticking down. It's nice doing not much with my family, but sure makes me miss my son that much more as we've always spent a lot of time together prior to his relocation to Canada. I'm glad that he's there and happy, and I really like his wife, too, but I miss him. Guess I was spoiled by having him so close for so long.

Vacation Part ii

J was totally immersed in the WWII Memorial, asking questions and then standing silently to absorb the meaning of it before finishing the walk to the Lincoln Memorial.

The tiny plane zoomed to the ground, 6 passengers aboard, M in the seat behind the pilot. My first clue came when the ground crew opened the window by a passenger’s head to pull down the boarding stairs; my second was when another crew opened the wings to retrieve luggage. This is an up-close-and-personal commuter flight, relatively new to the PA-BWI airport circuit. No, M didn’t know how small the plane was when she booked the flight, but it cost her $50 to fly here, rather than my driving to BWI to pick her up last night. The good news is that the flight took 30 minutes, was smooth, not bumpy, and comes within 10 miles of home for my commuting daughter; the bad news is that it’s really a tiny plane. Thus ends the DC part of the vacation.

Wednesday, J and I trudged to the Cosi at the DC corner so he could wi-fi (his I-Pod is his new best everything) as I only paid for one 24-hour connection ($12.95). We returned to the hotel to finish the last bit of packing, called for the bellman and our car, and armed with what we assumed were good directions, headed back to PA. We only made 2 errors, the first pretty soon after leaving the hotel, but it turned out to have far less traffic than the way we were programmed to travel, so it was a good error. Down the road, we didn’t go left around Baltimore, but right, and after missing that exit, we also flew past another that would have turned us west toward I-83. No matter; we found our way and made it home, J off to find his posse and I to start the laundry. I timed him out much too early, but he’d been on the road for 3 weeks, so I thought to slow him down a bit and re-establish a better routine than bed at any-time hours and waking up whenever. After he jammied up, we put on a movie, made some popcorn, and enjoyed Homeward Bound for about the zillionth time. It also gave us time to talk and come down from all the going here and there we’d been doing. It was a much happier, more well-rested g’son who crawled out of bed at 8 am the next morning -- his choice -- because we had no groceries!

At Wal-Mart, J found several items that he had to buy -- I’ll pay you back -- and I finally confronted him on that strategy doesn’t work for me grounds. I reminded him that he can ask, but he cannot put items into the cart and inform me that he’ll pay me back. Yeah, that didn’t sit well, but I don’t like being manipulated. I collected my money as soon as we walked into the house, but I know he was thinking I would just pay. Wrong. J wanted to make meat loaf for dinner, which he did, but he was a bit pushed by my offering a couple of cooking tricks, rather than the dump all the stuff into the bowl, pound it to a pulp, mash it into a loaf pan, and put it into the oven for a while. I also showed him how to make “real” mashed potatoes, but he objected to slightly heating the milk and butter before pouring it SLOWLY into the mashing pots, rather than dumping the whole thing and dealing with the consequences. And he doesn’t cook frozen peas, but he allowed that I could heat my serving if I insisted: I did. We had a great dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, then went next door for swimming in the neighbor's pool.

Friday we did our shopping early again as it was my favorite day: neighborhood movie day. We invited in a group, had pizza delivered, sucked on popsicles, popped corn, and made it through one full movie and part of another before becoming distracted. Each one of the invitees is responsible for preparing and serving part of the fest, but I did the clean up my self as it began raining. I suggested they all go outside and get wet, which they did: they are all 11 or 12, still kids, so they played tag, red light/green light, and hide ‘n seek in the rain. I called the party off at 5 so J could shower, pack his overnight bag, and be ready for his time with his dad.

During the day, I made an owed apple pie to thank the neighbor for fixing the garbage disposal (I didn’t do anything: there was something down it that M knew about but thought she had removed), but the pie wasn’t my best effort. I also made a rustic fruit tart that turned out well, but I forgot to decorate it with the apples I had already peeled and sliced! Guess it wasn’t a good baking day. Oh, well.

I’m not sure where we’ll go or what we’ll do this weekend, but it’ll be quiet as M is exhausted. I’m hoping to entice her into a chick flick, the one with Kathryn Heigl, but my dotter isn’t easily entertained by mindless driven as am I. J will be back on Monday and Tuesday is another Movie Day, while M has a lot of work to do. I'll work on a project she needs done while I'm here, so she can see if it's what she wants, and then ship the rest of it home so I can finish it up for her before I go back to work in August.

Time does fly when you're having fun, and I'm having fun!

Vacation Part i

SHHH: don’t tell anyone, but I know where Judge Sotomayor stayed this week: I saw her in the lobby of our hotel as I was on my way to get coffee. I hope she could sleep through the construction that began at 6 pm and ended at 6 am each day: the incredible noise kept waking me up once I was finally able to fall asleep! Hard to comprehend that road crews could repave an entire block of roadway each night: one direction the first night and the other direction the next night, complete with striping. Lots of work and even more noise. For being on the 8th floor, it was noisy enough to have been camping on the curb!

I’ve had a wonderful time so far, walking more miles than I thought possible during 4 full days of sightseeing. We actually had boots on the ground at the Air & Space Museum, where we saw a presentation on Black Holes; American History Museum; National Zoo; Botanical Gardens; cruise to and tour of Mt. Vernon; Congress; Library of Congress; the mall at Pentagon City; dinner at Hard Rock Café, the best HR I’ve ever been in; the WWII Memorial; the Lincoln Memorial; and past the Washington Spire several times, the tickets for which sell out soon after the kiosk opens. Yesterday, after getting up with my daughter for her 4 am jaunt to Union Station and unable to go back to sleep due to the construction noise, I pulled a cab over rather than taking one more step after seeing Abe in his chair. My only hope was that after walking from the Library of Congress the entire length of the Mall to see him that he had not decided NOT to wait around any longer and had taken off before I could arrive. Darn, but that is one long walk!!

G’son and I also went back to the shopping mall at Pentagon City stop as it’s quite enticing, with an entrance off the Metro stop, which makes it handy. He didn’t really want anything, but once you’re at that spot down the Mall looking at Monuments, it’s just as easy to zip over to the shopping mall for lunch, then back up to the Monument Mall to continue the walk. Uh huh, NOW you know why I was so tired: it was one long darned day!

By far our two favorite activities were the cruise and tour at Mt. Vernon and the time we spent at the Botanical Garden. The Museums are not as spectacular as one thinks, perhaps because they have so many old things that you look at, rather than living things and/or various activities to do. G’son was upset that he could not walk into the Library of Congress, which is the entire point of his putting it on his to-do list; however, my pick, the Botanic Gardens, saved the day for him as he loved it and wants to go back another trip in the future.

We did get lost today, driving out of DC and then finding our way to I-83 North, but we pulled off somewhere in the greater Baltimore area and I asked a well-dressed man in an expensive SUV (g’son thought it was cool: getting directions from the driver of a Navigator) where the heck we were. We were so far from where we should have been that he said, “Follow me to the Beltway and continue straight after I turn off. You cannot miss I-83.” We did; he was right; it was smooth sailing thereafter.

I also had to deal with a call from my alarm company: the garage alarm went off this morning at 4:45 CA time, an ungodly hour in anyone’s morning. I do have the 2 men working on the garage overhaul, but figured they wouldn’t be there that early, so told the dispatch to alert the police. Then I called one of the guys who went into panic because all his tools are in the garage. But he called me back about 5 minutes later to tell me that his friend, who is working with him, couldn’t sleep, and went up to start work early. He forgot about the alarm and opened the door to the patio, but did not hear the alarm going off. B called him, got the alarm off, and I hope dealt with the police, so all is well.

B told me that the transformation is astounding and he wishes he had taken a before/after photo. He and A have taken literally a ton of trash to the dump, repacked what I knew I wanted to save, as well as anything about which they had doubts. He said it was pretty obvious what needed to go, as well as what could stay, especially after they found the boxes the rats had been into, as well as the remnants of very dead termites (which could have been brought in from TX). They have patched the holes, made a new workbench, installed the gas dryer, changed out the watering system timer, replaced the light fixture above the washing machine, and reinstalled the towel bar in my bathroom. B assures me that I’ll be able to park both my car and the truck inside -- and have lots of new places to store my new accumulation of trash/treasures. Hurrah!

Wacky Wild Woman Wins!

Okay, so I'll be the first to admit that I am mentally ill, however benign my condition may be. There are some things that I'll agree are wacky, without logic, off the wall weird -- but what's inside my head is very, very real. Lately, I've been having the wildest dreams and the only reason I can find is my mother's admonition that eating hotdogs gives you bad dreams. I have been eating hotdogs, craving the weiner in a bun with mustard, relish, and chopped onions, along with a light sprinkle of grated cheese, and I've had wild, wacky dreams, so perhaps Mom is right.

One of the hotdog-induced dreams is that my water heater falls apart and floods the garage with however many gallons of water therein, which is actually not a totally bad dream as my garage houses about 40-50 boxes from the move in January 2000. Yeah, January 2000, which is where more wacky comes into play, which I'll explain in a moment. Meanwhile, back at the hot water heater, I'm thinking that I'm thinking about it covering the floor with water as a definitive way to have to deal with the boxes: logical thinking from my brain as the flood forces me to do something, anything, with the boxes.

The other night, after another hotdog dinner, I dreamed that I left on vacation and when I came back -- the garage was empty. Now, that seems too good to be true, but get this: my guy sent me an email the next morning and said, "Do you want me to come to the house while you're gone and deal with the boxes?" Again, logical thinking from my brain forces me to accept the karma present in this whole scenario, so I send my one-word response: YES!!! and added ASAP.

Today, he showed up with a chair so he could sit while we talked about the garage project, which led to the dream about the hot water heater (which is 20 years old), as well as the need to get a gas dryer and rid myself of the electric dryer (he has a gas dryer and is donating it to the project). I also don't have any idea how to set the timer for the watering system, so he's going to pick up another one of those when he goes shopping for a new water heater (which will, of course, necessitate new fittings, etc., as well as strapping it to the wall for safety). We decided on 4 options for the contents of the boxes: save, donate, discard, yard sale -- but he has to take the stuff for the yard sale as that's not in my comfort zone. The general guidelines are if it looks old with a foundation in family history, save it, along with my dishes, the rest of my pots and pans, and anything that looks like I really should hold onto it. I've already asked my children if there is anything that I have that they want and both of them said, "Hell, no," so let's git 'er done.

Now, you have to understand that he's totally into this project and has been bugging me since last summer to git 'er done. I tried to explain that I think the reason I cannot open/empty the boxes (since the move in January 2000) is that it will mean that I'm going to stay here, and I don't want to spend my twilight years in the desert. I moved away for a reason, and I came back for an income; between the two, there has to be somewhere else I could enjoy living now that I have my retirement income, but I have no idea where that is or if I'm ever going to go there. Now, the interesting thing is that as long as the boxes stay packed, I think I can pick up and go, but the reality is that once I get rid of all the stuff I haven't seen in almost a decade, I really can get up and go -- and I don't know which of these options to pick! Is there a door number 3???

Just in case, I bought 5 quick picks for tonight's lottery, basing my decision on the fact that today is 070809, which the numerologists say is totally lucky for financial investments. After looking at the check I wrote to my guy as a down payment on all the work he's going to do, I actually need to win so I can pay the balance when I come back from my vacation -- however much that balance is going to be. Suffice it to say that he's going to St. Thomas after cleaning my garage, and I think I may be paying for his vacation, as well as mine.

So there ya have it: one of my dreams is going to come true (a clean garage) and one of my nightmares is going to be avoided (the bottom falling out of the hot water heater). I've polished off the last of the hotdogs, so I should be good to go until the next cravings hit.