I've got nothing.

For the past few months I have been too busy, overexerting, overspending, over-committing (this is no surprise) but as things are coming to a close, and I am learning the same lesson yet again, I just have nothing to say.  Severe writer's block.  Oh how I wish for the inspiration that was coming so freely a year ago.  And I am sure as not going to get on my soapbox when I am not following my own advice.

I'll be back - not sure when but I'll be back.  Include your email address below and I'll let you know.  Charles and I need to do some resting and maybe get the tank off of the empty line.

this just seems to make it all okay

Yearly Review

Cali was lovely, too much but lovely. Whenever one of these things I attempt doesn't go well I wonder what I will be able to do and what I can no longer do in this illness. Are the plans I have futile? Should I completely alter the life I hope to have in order to avoid this disappointing physical failure? In short, should I go back to bed?

I have been, and maybe always will be, stuck in this sticky part of a well mind (okay, okay...it's at least a whole lot better off than my body) and a body that just can't keep up with the ideas and plans I make for it. I push it and push it and fall short, every single time. Now, this truly is not the end of the World as what health I do have leaves me in a far better state than most, and for that I am truly grateful.
I just get so tired of always falling short to these extreme lengths I beg my body to go to. Perhaps I should plan a one mile jog instead of a marathon, so to speak.

One of the greatest ways I used to feel accomplishment was to push my body, time, schedule, mind far more than I thought I could handle yet walk away an exhausted yet achieved mess. I would end up far too busy with paying for what I'd done to ever enjoy my victory; I'm now learning a better quality of life yet smaller trophy may be the ultimate wisdom.

So this brings me back to the things I want out of my life, the big steps along the way, are they ridiculous pre-cure? Then again, how dare I let this illness take even more away from me. Wayne Gretzky said 'you miss 100% of the shots you never take.'

In my life I see enjoying my days, taking my trips and doing my exploring, can this still be done in between naps? I see kiddos, ones with only two legs instead of four, I truly believe I was put on this Earth for that reason; am I ridiculous for refusing
to let that go? I don't think I am, it will just have to be much different than I had thought.

The solution that rears its ugly head each time, that 'b' word that I might have to name a child after or something, I must learn balance. And a well planned, well balanced, eager to say no, wary to say yes scares the tar out of me. It's the gray, it's the nothing all that special and the extraordinarily ordinary that scares me out of bed everyday and pushes on to projects and places I have no business in. This balancing act will be a life lesson for me and although I have been getting better at saying no here and there lately, I must get to the point of planning to utter the word instead of tackling its counterpart's climb.

Here I go again. Wish me luck.

Asking for help

Sooo. yeah.  I am now laughing at this past week - well, almost.  I had a ripe opportunity to ask for help the other day.  Through tears.  Half naked and freezing.  Let me explain.

First let's back up to the beginning of the week.  I am not only housesitting, but looking after two wonderful parents of my mom's best friend and her husband.  Viit Viitanen, the wonderful 92 year old Fin is by far the happiest man I have ever met.  I love him.  He lives on his own in Almaden and I head up every other day or so to check on him and 'grocery shop'.  By grocery shopping, I mean making booze runs.  His grocery list yesterday consisted of bourbon, gin, and celery.  I begged him to add just one more thing he could actually chew and he came up with olives.  But hey, I've been to Finland, where in fact all they did was eat fish, drink booze and get naked in saunas and if you are 92, who am I to judge.  (Except the part where he knocked on my door the other night and was completely nude in his roll around scooter with just a washcloth not covering much).  Okay, so that's Viit. We have dinner at the country club and he sings me old songs he used to sing with my Grandma Norma and 'drives' me around town in his golf cart.  Such a delight.

Gali.  Gali, the 98 year old russian mother of the husband whose house I am watching got pneumonia the week before I got here.  Gali, whom I was supposed to look after and take care of, well - Gali died, on my watch. Her other son came to stay with me down here a few days and that is a feeling of horror and guilt that I hope will go away soon.  God bless Gali.

Fast forward a few days later.  I spend a good hour a day 'working my land' as I call it (you should see my new tan).  The house is way up in the hills and their beautiful plants need to be watered every day almost by the clock. While I do that, I turn hose that goes to the pool on to give it a good fill every day.  Usually after about a half an hour I turn it off.  Well, except this day, yeah - I forgot. Left the house to go see viit and didn't return until hours later after our cribbidge tournament ended.  I turn on the kitchen sink - no water.  Hmmm, I think, that's funny.  The water comes from a tank that they have to have filled up every other month or so - water is precious here to say the least.  Then it hit me, all the water went to the pool. And flooded the pool. And the grounds around the pool.  Luckily, there wasn't much water left in the tank and it wasn't that bad except - THERE WAS NO WATER.  Hey, I like camping, I can go a couple of days without running water but the plants!!! It was 96 that day.  I called for more water to be delivered but it would be days before they had an opening.  Then I realized there was about 20 ozarka tanks of drinking water in the garage.  You know the big drums that you pour upside down in the cooler.  Yes, for two hours, I carried six of those things over each plant to water them.  Biceps are doing good. I finally found a guy that could bring me some water if I slipped him cash under the table.  I'm not proud, but it worked.

And now to the doozie.

One of the things I was most looking forward to about my month in San Jose was being able to explore and pop up to San Francisco, a city I just don't know too well.  I popped up once, saw the sights, and headed back but really wanted to get past the bridge up into Marin County this time.  My sister was having her huge shower for her wedding Saturday night and I really, really wanted to be there.  But couldn't.  Thus off Woodrow and I went that morning (after working the land) and headed north bound to distract me from my sadness.  We had a lovely afternoon where I finally got to take him to the beach (turns out he hates sand, and water) and then to Muir Woods.  It was a spiritual experience for me, to say the least and everyone should be in that peaceful place at least once in their lives.  I went up to San Rafael, where my mom grew up until her parents moved to San Jose when she was 13, and then down to Sausalito, a town that instantly stole my heart.  On the way back over the bridge, it was getting dark and I was exhausted but I thought, hey, when in Rome, and I headed over to Baker Beach to catch the last of the sunset. We parked, we walked straight to the water, and then before I could even sit down in the sand, I realized the car keys were gone.  They are on this black and white laniard that I usually have been wearing around my neck (it is one of those cars you can hit lock on the inside and then close the door) so I had been weary all month about making sure I knew where they were.  I had even gone to make a spare the week before because, well, I know me.

No keys.  I immediately retrace my steps to the water and back to the car. No keys.  I try and peer through the windows and still, no keys. No keys, no keys, no keys.  By this point it is completely dark, people are leaving, and oh yeah, my phone decides to die.  AND IT IS FREEZING.  This Texas girl didn't realize just how cold a California night on the water can be.  In a little sundress.  no coat.  Woodrow - no coat.  A lady let me use her phone to call the insurance company to send out roadside assistance - and while we are almost done her phone dies, too.  I get them back with her car charger and they inform me it will be at least an hour.  In the dark.  The lady leaves me!  Eish! I would never leave a woman by herself in such a situation but hey, call me old fashioned.  A cop comes and I explain the situation to him thinking he would at least let me sit in his car to stay out of the cold.  He just wishes me luck and drives off!  You know the cold that starts to make you go crazy?  At this point I was getting there.  I hugged my knees under my dress and sat down on the pavement by the car hoping it would block the wind.  Woodrow is shaking so bad that it is starting to scare me. I did what any good mama would do and put him down my shirt.  Hey, a mother's love.  It is completely dark and I am completely alone (did I mention that I drove to the remote park of the beach that most people don't know about and is so hard to find (good luck locksmith).  I thought about walking a ways to the bathroom but was worried the locksmith wouldn't see me.  So for an hour I sat, shaking, crying, cursing, praying, FREEZING.  I tried to count down each minute in seconds to give my mind something to do.  I had just a little bit of juice on my phone that I didn't want to waste but tried the boys to see if one of their little brothers still lived in the city. he had moved.

shot taken in unaware bliss just before the drama.  trust me, I've looked for the keys in this pic.  No luck

BRIGHAM!  I remembered Brigham lived in the city.  Who is Brigham you ask?  Brigham in the  nephew of my uncles wife that I went out with once in DC and in the middle of dinner he announces that he just came out of the closet that week.  Good for you Brigham but why are we on a date?  'Just making sure' was the response.  Cuz that's what you want to hear and yes, for the record, I sure kept him gay after that.  Number, I needed Brigham's number.  I try to get a hold of my aunt but she is 3 rows back at a taylor swift concert.  Luckily she sees my text and I get the number. I get a hold of him but he is 40 minutes outside the city and on his way to a dinner cruise.  no go.

The locksmith came, an nice African man (I tell ya, when I am in a bind the good Lord sends me an African) who opens the car and sets the car alarm off as he does so. I frantically search for the keys then - in between the seats, under the mats, everywhere (you should see how cut up my arms are) yet still, no keys.  I look and look and look again and think 'no, this cannot be happening!' After listening to the car alarm for 30 minutes and verifying that yes, there really are no keys to be found I get a text from Brigham that says they decided to head home instead and if I need anything, just let me know.  Long story short (too late), I happily take the locksmith up on the offer to drive me to Brigham's house (but first to the bank to get cash) where I am met with warm hugs to wipe my tears and tea to warm me up.  I then have to do the thing I really didn't want to do - I had to ask for help, to extremely inconvenience people.  I had to wake up this cute young married couple that live next to my aunt and have them get into the house, get the spare key, and drive it to Palo Alto where I had Brigham and Houston (love them both), drive me down to at midnight on a Saturday night to get the key.  From there, they drove me back to Baker Beach to get the tahoe and then I did something so unlike me, I took them up on their offer, was wise and didn't drive the 90 minutes back to Morgan Hill that night at one am.  I stayed at their place, got some sleep and proudly did the walk of shame out of their place the next morning.  Common sense, for once.  Old Laurie would have made that drive in the middle of the night as to not inconvenience them any further.  baby steps, people.

What did I learn from this? Always have a spare taped to the outside of the undercarriage of your car somewhere, more compassion for those who sleep in the cold every night and are in such despair, and lastly, that it is not only okay, but sometimes it is necessary to simply ask for help. to. not. do. it. alone.

amen.

Take 2

I've been avoiding you.  Not necessarily that I didn't have time, there were plenty of hours of me so sick and tired I sat and stared at the wall, I just knew I was in so deep nothing I could say would be worth your time.  It's like when you are on a diet and you

Like the plague.  Like an off the horse addict. The past 8 weeks have been so busy, old Laurie wonder woman busy and for me that means bad bad bad.  I had known for quite some time it would be crazy, but thought, 'oh well, work comes when work comes.'  And then it came.  And I got even sicker - scary sick when blood pressure goes 60/40 and there are many times in the day when I swore I was about to pass out.  I know better.  I thought I had come so far.  One step ahead and two steps back.

It's over though.  The whole time I kept thinking, 'just make it through and you can rest all you want in San Jose.' And here I am, in California, house sitting for a month - yet too sick to really enjoy it.  I just woke up after an 18 hour sleep coma.  Didn't even get up to use the bathroom.  Almost beat my record of 19.5 - almost, and no - I'm not proud of this one bit.

Yet time to start over, again.  I am in a beautiful valley south of the city covered in gold hill that absolutely glow in the late afternoon.  There are honeysuckle bushes at every turn that take me back to my happy childhood here.  And I have a Fin.  A 92 year old Finnish man, the father of the lady I am house sitting for, that 'takes me out' in his golf cart to the country club down the road.

Take 2.


Are there meetings for this?      

An hour too late

 



I was an hour late.  That next morning, I just couldn't not be there any more.  I got on the road and only an hour from his house, I got the call.  And he had been alone - that's what makes me so sad.  Okay, so he had a nurse there, one he had never met, but that doesn't count, in my mind.  No one holding his hand, telling him that it is okay to go, etc.  I still kept driving and by the time I got there, still had a good hour to sit with him until they came to take him away.  I was able to say goodbye and get closure and I think that helped alot. 

The previous day I had been so sad, crying my eyes out.  This day I didn't shed a tear; I felt very much at peace with the whole thing, it can't be easy living in a 95 year old's body.  After he was wheeled away (he donated his body to science with no service of any kind - so Sam), Charlie and I went to our favorite dog park.  It had rained that day and there was such a gorgeous sunset in the sky. I knew he was on your way.

(taken on one of our last visits together - I didn't want to forget this)



Thank you sweet Sam for being my buddy these past three years.  Whenever I felt my worst, I would make it a point to come visit you, and it always helped so much to put things in perspective.  We would sit on your couch and I would lean my head on your shoulder and you would rub my hand.  "What a pair we are!,' you would smile and say. We were both suffering in our own way and you would always make me feel so much better.  You truly taught me what long suffering is about and how to do it so gracefully.

Thank you for telling me all of your stories over and over again. You knew I didn't know what to say and you would always pipe up with one of your best, pretending you hadn't told it to me two weeks back.  Thank you for buying me an extra yogurt at the grocery store every week, it was all you had to give and in my mind, better than gold.  When you could no longer shop, that extra ensure you gave me tasted just as good.  Thank you for loving my family. I'm sorry yours was too selfish and my sisters and mother and father were honored to have our pictures framed on your coffee table.  I sure do love you over and over again and you will not be forgotten.



                               Sam and his most loyal defender - of the squirrels around his apartment, at least.

 

Sam adored my dad.  He always said he was the most wonderful man he had ever met.  I get a lot of comfort knowing my dad had been over to visit just a few days before he died.  This was taken we took Sam sailing and Sam insisted on framing this picture and putting it on his coffee table.

 



For the past three years I had mentioned in every prayer, 'Father, please bless Sam.'  The night he died I smiled as prayed, 'Father, please say hi to Sam.'




ps - there are SOOO many elderly that sit for months without a single visitor (boo bad families).  There are so many nursing homes and hospices that would love nothing more than an hour of your week.  As you can see here, the payoffs are immense.

one foot in and one foot out

I received a phone call today while I was glamourosly shopping at Walmart in well, yeah, my pajamas that don't exactly look like pajamas.  It was the hospice.  It is never a good thing to receive a phone call from a hospice.  'Well, I've got some bad news,' was the first sentence. Then click.  Line dead.  I called back, 'sorry this is the after hour answering service.' riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That wasn't going to work.  Luckily, the lady called me back from her cell phone and I abandoned my cart, grabbed my purse and headed to the front of the store for better reception.

'Sam is bleeding out.'  Sam, my dear sweet Sam whom I was assigned to visit nearly three years prior, was found unresponsive in his bed, his catheter so full of blood that it had overflowed and soaked his entire mattress, as well.  That is a picture I can barely handle - how long he must have laid there in his favorite green robe, soaked in his own blood.  Hospice people talk about death like they are telling you what's for lunch, by the way.  'He is in renal failure and will not recover,' was the further explanation, 'just thought you should know.'

One of the biggest (and only, really) drawbacks to moving to Austin was leaving Sam behind back in Dallas.  I still called every week and visited every time I was in town, but still, our visits were far less frequent.  I told him just three days ago on the phone, 'Sam, Austin is great but it would be perfect if you were here, too.'  I promised him that I would be back in Dallas in two weeks, would drop by and luckily ended with my usual, 'I sure do love you, Sam.'  'Honey, I love you too.' 

My first reaction upon hearing this news about Sam was to get in the car and head north on 35.  Three hours and I could be there.  Wait, it's rush hour, 4 hours I could be there.  Could I actually do it? It is no coincidence that today, even after 14 hours of sleep, I felt worse than I had in months.  Nope, couldn't do it.  Old Laurie would have grabbed a Jolt Cola and been on the road.  New Laurie is desperatley trying to learn these new lessons of moderation.  He is unresponsive, body shutting down, would never know I was there, yet I just wanted to be there and hold his hand.  I hate that he is there with only a strange nurse that is getting paid to sit there with him.  I hate that no one is holding his hand as he hovers in both worlds and telling him how much he is loved.  I hate that his two sons only call once a year and have no plan of coming down.  Sam deserves more than this.  If he is still with us in the morning, I will try and get up there.

I know he is ready, has been ready.  It is torture to live in a 95 year old's body and it was hard for me to watch.  He lived in a little apartment, no A/C, no TV (didn't want one), and basically just waited to die.  His wife of 63 years (and two weeks exactly), had passed a few years before and he was entirely alone. Or so he thought.  Sam I am with you tonight in every way I can. And I sure do love you.