Life! What a Roller Coaster Ride!

A good family friend called me this morning to tell us her husband had a severe stroke yesterday. My heart just broke. Bud and Lucy are Mechanic Man's parents' best friends. They became our surrogate parents when his mother had a very similar stroke. My first thought when Lucy called was suddenly filled with images of nurses, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, pneumonia every other day, lost weight, lost spirit, the total devastation and sorrow and tragedy. It was overwhelming.

I hate to think of Bud being incapacitated. He's such a goofy, free-spirited guy. They have been selling antiques at swap meets and antique shows for years. He's been famous for setting up their table and then wandering around the other vendors and coming back with four or five items to re-sell. Half the time, they would load up more than they brought with them.

At the same time, I am gearing up to welcome my first grandchildren into the world. Life. It's a ride. You go up and down - but you go!
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Is Your Spouse a Strange Bedfellow????

Just curious. Are you sleeping with a politician??? Haven't you been warned about how "politicians make strange bedfellows"?

I for one think I'd kick him out of the bed.

Take our former Mayor of Spokane, for instance. Please take her. Queen Mary [Verner] defines a strange bedfellow. What's that??? My definition of a Strange Bedfellow is a greedy, slimy, snake that is selfish, egotistical, smug, snobbish, money-grubbing (literally money grabbing) and hulks around like a vulture, feeding off the poor and meek.

If I were her spouse - I'd kick her out of my bed!

Why would you even want to go into politics if the prerequisite (it appears) is to be a Strange Bedfellow?

I think they (and specifically HER) should go lay in the bed they made and close the door! Forever!

We village people have much more integrity in each of our humble homes than all the strange bedrooms combined. We'll take care of our country just fine, thank you.

Now go back to your coma.

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Live, Life, Love

There are so many reasons I am looking forward to 2012 - don't worry! It isn't going to end! I have too many reasons to have 2012 be the best year ever in this century.

For one thing, I have had about 12 years of loss. Little losses. Big losses. But losses, nonetheless. My firm lost one of its big money-maker attorneys, when he left just before the end of the year, in a huff, taking several attorneys with him along with million-dollar clients. The first year following this event saw several losses - of coworkers who had become friends - of clients that I had become attached to - of a whole branch office in Moses Lake, where I had most of my work, along with more friends and beloved clients. By the end of that first twelve months, we had lost over 30% of our people.

Then Mechanic Man's mother had a stroke - and for three years, she was here but she was not. Another loss. More poignant than all the others because we MISSED her while we cared for her. Living, but not living, personality lost, wit lost, spirit lost, heart lost.

A year after that my own mother suddenly became ill and at only 79 she lost her will to live and died three weeks after being told she had cancer. Double loss. Having her just quit, just give up, was another loss, followed by the very real loss at her death.

Then back home to taking care of the shell of the woman who was my "other" mother.

Followed quickly and overwhelmingly by the loss of my kidneys.

The recession.

Continuation of the consequences of failed kidneys, dialysis, losing my job, which was everything to me.

Now we reach a new year and with it the great news that I will become a grandmother for the first time.

The wheel of life turns, and makes a full circle! Life is coming!

Hallelujah! A New Year Approacheth!

I am so excited to have a New Year unfolding!

• I didn't do anything extraordinary to even warrant a Christmas letter (Hi, I did dialysis 1,068 times (oops, 1,069 because one day it didn't work and I had to come back the next day) and went to about 4,000 yard sales);
  
• I avoided being filmed by "Hoarders" (note sentence just above) only because I kept my curtains closed;
  
• Thanksgiving sucked because for the first time in my sons' lives (37 & 38 years), neither one of them were here (sob);
  
• Christmas ads started before Halloween and were just plain annoying!
  
• After two years on Unemployment after losing my precious job - even Unemployment ended;
  
• Maybe I can make bag-loads of money selling all my yard sale stuff on Craig's List;
  
• Maybe I can have Mechanic Man build shelf-units in the walls, which would do double-duty as storage for all my stuff AND insulation for the house!
  
• A New Year means a new slate!
  
• Maybe instead of a job, I'll do fascinating volunteer work and have something to write about other than I'm terrified that "Hoarders" will find me;
  
• Finally, it will be such a fantastic New Year because I just found out I'm going to be a GRANDMOTHER!
  
  

Happy New Year everyone! Now, I'm going to crochet about 30 baby blankets, shop for a car seat for my car so I can drive my grandbaby around to show off, sign up for the Gerber College Fund, get a new digital camera for pictures, collect ribbons and buttons and sequins and stars for the 5,000 page scrapbook I'm going to make for my grandbaby, generally go wacko on baby clothes, purchase a year's supply of Pampers, spoil, spoil, spoil my new grandbaby. See ya later!
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Joining the Unemployed

I am curious - when someone who makes a LOT of money, like WSU Coach Paul Wulff, and is fired from his job - does he go on unemployment??? And how does he do a job search? I mean, are there a lot of college coach positions open in the Eastern Washington area? Does he go through depression like a lot of the newly unemployed? Will he be unemployed for over two years, like me? Just wondering.

Confessions of a HoarderCollector

I am a collector. I collect tea sets. Santas. Snow Globes. Christmas decorations. Glass animals. Duncan Miller glassware. Stationary. Window box displays. Scrapbook supplies. Books.

And I have embellished on what I collect. Like the tea sets. I actually started by collecting vintage 50’s children’s porcelain tea sets, like what I had when I was a little girl. Three pieces of my tea set survived my childhood and sat on a desk at my mother’s house. When she told me I couldn’t have them returned to me until she died, because she didn’t trust me with them (at the age of 50 years old, let alone when I was 5), I started collecting that set. And then, when I couldn’t find the whole set, I started collecting tea pots. And then I started collecting tea cups and saucers. And then I started collecting adult-sized tea cups and saucers. Or, like the scrapbook supplies. I collected paper. Then I collected ribbon. Buttons. Lace. Doilies. Glitter. Sparkles. Sprinkles. Ink.

And I put these collections in little piles. Cups in cups in cups. Saucers on saucers on doilies. Little boxes with little drawers stacked on top of one another. A stack of books with about 50 books in a column, five columns so far.

Let's just say that I am super easy to shop for.

Oh.My.God!!!!!

I think the film crew from “Hoarders” just knocked on my door! Film rolling!

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Bake a Cake, Win a Turkey, or Starve!

Thanksgiving was just around the corner, years ago, when my sons were 8 and 9. I worried about Thanksgiving, coming and going, without a turkey. It was going to be a pretty grim Thanksgiving; I was eyeballing chickens and wondering how fooled the boys would be.

The boys participated in the Boy Scouts Bake Sale the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The prize was a turkey dinner, complete with potatoes, gravy mix, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. With $6.00 to my name, I knew this was my only chance. That, or we'd have to settle for chicken.

The scouts were supposed to make their own cake. Home made by the boys. My mind slithered back to the soap box derby earlier that year, where the boys were supposed to make a screaming racing car out of a block of wood, *by*themselves* There was a family at the bake sale that evening - affluent, intelligent, and beautiful parents with equally beautiful twin boys, age 9. The twins showed up at the derby with a cherry-red, cherried-out, speed demon race car that won hands down! My son showed up with a hand carved by him (with a little inadequate help from me), lemon colored (for a reason) obviously home-made car that wouldn't even roll an inch without help.


Now my mind came back to the night before Thanksgiving, and there on the table of 20 cakes was the twins' cake, stunning in its beauty, of course, an absolutely beautiful beehive cake with yellow and white striped icing, and little furry bees on toothpicks "hovering" over the beehive, every detail finely etched as if it were created by some elite French chef. And our cake, Mr. Happy Face, which was bumpy and wavy, black frosting smeared into a crude half circle with a crooked little smile and two globs for eyes – the saddest cake I have ever seen. (But hand-made by my son!)

I grumbled to myself. I had decided I was going to have to buy the cake back for $2.00, leaving me $4.00. I could still get that damned chicken.

It was getting darned close to disaster time in my family as our misshapen cake, made totally by my son (did I say that already?), was sitting forlorn and lonely as all the other cakes were being raffled off – it was down to the beehive cake or the happy face cake.

Bee Family bought my cake AND theirs!

I felt a strange twisting in my gut – I was bitter and angry and jealous and peeved and crabby. They could have bought all 20 cakes! And of course, Bee Family won the turkey dinner. It was a test for me to practice sweetness in the face of total disaster. Now, I had no turkey dinner. And I had no cake!

I told myself that this was a good thing. I still had SIX dollars to buy my "chicken" dinner. And spare change to get two ice cream cones for two pretty sad little boys.

We got to our car and I was loading the kids in, when Mr. Bee came up to me with this HUGE box, the hump of a gigantic turkey peering over the edge; potatoes, stuffing, Pumpkin Pie, the WORKS. "We've already got our turkey – this would just go to waste – would you mind taking it off our hands?"

Well, I tell ya, I could hardly talk to him as I choked up and teared up and tried to stuff all the guilt I was feeling for, well, for feeling cheated, and poor, and pathetic!

There is always something to be thankful for. If you find yourself in a downward spiral, something will come along to lift you out of that hole. I am ever thankful for this family's gift to my family.

May I be able to pay it forward in every moment where I can pass along a kindness or a gentle touch. Hoping everyone finds abundant reasons for being thankful.

Wearing the Suit of Professionalism

I loved Doug Clark’s take on the Karl Thompson/Otto Zehm issue here in Spokane. It was contrary to his usual funny, witty, and sarcastic commentaries – it was serious, eloquent, and on the mark for the truth that is going on with our police department.

He mentioned the police department’s guide for being a good police officer. (And mind you, most of our police officers follow the guideline; it is the few that are marring the reputation of the whole.)

Ten years ago, I started a chapter of a legal association in Spokane for legal secretaries and paralegals, NALS of Spokane. (NALS is a national association for the education and professionalism of non-attorney law firm personnel.) We have a series of tests we take covering laws, regulations, ethics, and skill sets that guide us in our jobs – even though we are low man on the totem pole, so to speak. A quarter of our eight-hour test covers two Code of Ethics manuals, one for attorneys and one for judges. Secretaries and paralegals follow the same principles as attorneys and judges – we follow, in fact, their Manuals. (The "Model Rules of Professional Conduct" for attorneys was created to resolve issues, like the Watergate scandal.) When I read both manuals (just as long in length as for police officers), I was struck by how it affected me. I wanted to wear the values and philosophy like a suit. I mean that I wore professionalism, integrity, ethics, high ideals, and moral fortitude. I held myself to a high standard, and my actions influenced all the staff around me, and even the attorneys. My attitude held weight for my entire firm – little old me.

When I read Clark’s article, my mind went back to the day I passed my certification test – I thought to myself that the manual police officers follow is the crux of everything wrong with the police department. They are not reading the manual. If a small peg on the board of a whole bunch of holes can read the manual and carry a whole law firm, then a police officer should be able to do it, too.

Conundrum

Is it too late to do Spring Cleaning??? You never hear about Fall Cleaning. I'm just wondering. I had so many nice days to do Spring cleaning but there were yard sales to go to, friends to visit, scrapbooks to scrap together, puzzles to assemble, games to play. Now that we have a record-breaking Fall (instead of the usual two little days of autumn colors before ten feet of snow clouds our vision), you think today would be too late to do my Spring Cleaning?

Unemployment Blues

Today I opened my last unemployment check.

[Ominous drum roll]

It had a note at the bottom to the affect: Good luck in your job search and your future life that will not be what you have been accustomed to.

Um, there ain't no job in my future unless it is Tuesdays and Thursdays, pays well enough to feed me and not too well to impinge on my meager social security disability - which is paltry to the point, I should be eligible for food stamps. Yikes. Oh, and also, the job should be glamorous, fun, self-fulfilling, self-gratifying, and - oh, what? You mean I should have a dreary dull job just like the rest of you? Filing files, filing data cards, filing taxes, filing my nails.

Then the news came on - and I was featured!!!! Well, not me specifically, but they talked about the fact that "54% of Americans are unemployed." That is an outrageous number. For me, it has been two years of unemployment. They featured two different women, however, who have been unemployed for three years and are not covered by health insurance (or unemployment insurance).

There are people out there, lots of them, that are far worse off than me. I can't whine about this. At least I have my disability check - and I know of people that need disability but aren't eligible because either they didn't pay into social security, or their ailment isn't "bad" enough to become a category.

This is a very scary road I'm starting to travel down.

Train Lullaby

We live next to a single train track that goes through Millwood.

I kind of worried when I first moved here, how that would be. Sometimes, it is so heavy and loud, that the pictures on the wall shake, the small bottles collected over 50 years ago, vibrate to the edge of their little shelves - and we unconsciously push them back as we walk by.

I try to guess which way the train is coming from - east? west? And then it appears in my kitchen window, the engineer so close I can see him smile at me, the engine so massive I am surprised at how small the engineer is, how he can control something so huge.

At night, it passes with a different sound - it is rhythmic, subtly clunk-a-clanging along, but muted - as if the night clouds buffer it somehow. If I am awake - I am soon lulled to sleep. In fact, if I am awake, and not able to ease into sleep - I wait for the train. It is faithful and timely. Soon - soon, it will come whispering by, and I will be asleep by the time the caboose comes through.

The Kissing Gate

When I was a teenager, we lived on a little farm just outside of Spokane, where my Dad practiced being a gentleman farmer while keeping his day job as a reporter for The Spokane Chronicle. He bought a beat up old tractor and drove it around the fields, plowing just to plow. With that tractor, he built a fairly large vegetable garden outside the back yard. To get to the garden, he built an old fashioned stile. Three steps up to a landing, three steps down to the peas, beets, carrots, beans, corn, tomatoes, lettuce. We had everything you would want for vegetables. It was a heady scent, to sit on the stile at night in the moonlight.

It was to the stile that I would take my date. First we had dinner with my family, then we went hand-in-hand to the stile (I thought everyone had a stile to the garden!), and we would sit on the top step and talk, maybe kiss, smell the tomatoes, until, invariably, the back screen door would whine open, and Dad’s voice would interrupt, only 15 feet away through the Locust trees, “You kids doing anything out there?” It wasn’t really a question. It was more interpreted by my dates as, “You kids are NOT doing anything out there!” And my date would surreptitiously slip away from me a couple inches – not even close enough for kissing.

I had three young suitors go through the dating ritual with me – one became an attorney and politician here in Spokane; one became a missionary and preacher; and I married the third, had two sons, and after seven years we parted.

There was Magic in the garden stile. It was safe and there was a special aura around it – as if little fairies would float up from the garden itself. My sister also “dated” at the garden stile. I’m fairly certain we were the last virgins in Spokane County and it’s probably because of the stile.

Or maybe it was my Dad. It’s kind of hard to fool around when your Dad keeps appearing on the back porch.

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The Rumors of My Death. . . .

I got home last night after being out of town for the weekend, with the first email being from someone I don't know, starting, "Remembering Art especially as the ski season approaches."

Art's dead? O my God! Art - who has been the token male in my women's dinner group for - well, since forever. He knew the rest of the gals way before me. Art - who met us at Disney World and was my personal driver to and from dialysis - where he would camp out in the lobby and visit with all the people coming in to wait for their turn on dialysis - for three and a half hours.

How could this be????

I started to weep, trying to dial one of the group - Kathy. And when I tried to subtlely find out what had happened, she was confused and said she didn't know anything. I sent her the strange email and she finally wrote back and said "I think she is trying to find Art."

This morning we all got an email from Art himself, alive and well, with a picture of him riding his motorcycle around Florida just for the heck of it, long white hair and beard blowing in the wind, and because 75 is NOT too old to have fun.

The rumor of his death is grossly exaggerated. Mark Twain was on to something there.

(Sigh)

His Hands

I love Mechanic Man's hands.

We were at a swap meet on the west side, and he stopped to check out some clunky big greasy car part, some part that is Greek to me. He placed his hands on it, like he was caressing a baby.

I thought, what beautiful hands. Big, powerful, beefy, strong. He swings a mighty sledge hammer with those hands.

He feels motor parts with those hands. He can tell the fitness of a part, feeling the strength, or the weakness, of some heavy metal car part.

He lifts engines and other heavy equipment with those hands.

He disassembles and puts back together in intricate detail, pieces and parts, with those hands.

Such powerful, beautiful hands.

He touches me gently with those hands.

Gray Power

I got my hair cut this afternoon - Short! Short! Short!

And Gray! Gray! Gray!

I've decided I kind of like it. So, I think L'Oreal is losing one of their main customers. I should have bought stock in L'Oreal. I've supported them for many years. Once I hit my 30's and my natural auburn hair was getting a few grays in amongst the red, I bought my first hair color from L'Oreal. (After all, women older than me, at the time, were touting that we aren't getting older; we are getting better.)

It's more salt and pepper - streaks of near white. Overall - it's not a bad look. And it might even appear that I have some smarts up there - it somehow gives me a wiser demeanor. I think.

My hair stylist - Mechanic Man, of course. Gives new meaning to "only your hair dresser knows for sure" and he's not talking!!!

:)

Bad, Bad Kidney

September 30, I will have been on dialysis for two years. The average time spent before transplant is six years. Trivial little facts on the Second Anniversary of Dialysis:

Total Weeks: 104
Total Days: 312
Total Hours: 1,092
Cost per hour average: $1,143.00
Total Cost for two years: $1,248,000 (yes, that is almost one and a quarter MILLION)


In the last two years, I have had four surgeries, multiple doctor visits, 20 drips to unclog my site, bitten by a dog in my dialysis hand once, had my blood pressure crash about 40 times. (This morning, for example - 60 over 40 and still breathing)

Every dialysis day is an event. I call them “Bad Kidney” events. Like, a bad dog. They simply misbehave. Even though they aren’t functioning – those little guys continually act up.

• First you get poked by two needles – and there is every chance just one of the needles will not work, or will infiltrate, or will hit a nerve. Sometimes, when any of this happens, you have to go home (they charge you anyway for the needles and the prep of the machine) AND you have to come back the next day! AND, this little scenario is all you think about every time you start dialysis. Will it work? Are they using the right needles? Will the flow be sufficient?
  
• Then once you start – you have to worry about your blood pressure crashing. Which usually happens towards the end. Alarms go off, they have to add back fluid, and you leave needing to have fluid removed but you wait until the next time.
  
• Also, once you start, you have to worry about the blood flow both going into the machine and coming back into your arm. If it is too low or too high, it sets off alarms.
  
• Every time the alarm goes off (an average of 9 times for me each session), it intermittently STOPS my dialysis and then restarts and adds that lost time to the total time spent on dialysis.
  

I love the other patients at my dialysis center. You get to know each other, say hi, you run into each other at stores – and more often than not – at restaurants – where there’s lots of forbidden foods loaded in our no-no ingredients (sodium, potassium, phosphorous). And there we sit, eyeballing each other – knowing we are indulging in our favorite foods with sinful delight.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed an ugly trend at my center –around Christmas. Winter is not kind to dialysis patients – we’re worn down, our immune systems are compromised, we get flu shots – but we still get the flu, or something kind of mundane to healthy people. And then we lose people – usually in droves. Last winter, it was two women who both died from heart problems. And then there was that one young kid, 35, paralyzed from the neck down, who went home from dialysis one day and decided not to come back – he died after only four days of no dialysis. It gives you pause. (My Dad did the same thing – lasting seven days.) We lost them all in one weekend, so that Monday morning, I came in and noticed the three empty chairs immediately. The techs aren't supposed to tell us what happened, but they tell me because I have that open honest face and people tell me their deepest secrets - including what patients died this weekend. Yeesh.

Oh – add the above trivia to the 90 patients my one center has (Spokane has seven centers) and these are the center’s numbers:

Total hourly earnings: (this is what insurance pays, not what they charge) $102,857 (an hour)
Total annual earnings: $56,160,000.

Ever wonder why insurance is so high?

P.S. I'm thinking of creating a second blog - called Bad, Bad Kidney just for journaling - except that I've said in this one post what happens to me every day, 156 days a year.

Bennies of Being Old

There are many benefits of being old, and being an old woman:

1. No periods. I know - if you are a guy, you don't understand, unless you live with someone who has them.
2. No menopause - I'm too old. Again - you don't appreciate this unless you have a gazillion hot flashes in one hour; sleep with someone who has a gazillion hot flashes in one hour; drive behind someone with a gazillion hot flashes in about a two mile stretch, screaming her head off with a string of expletive deleted words.
3. No rush hour traffic. We avoid them. We don't need them. They are a total waste of our energy.
4. No paying for parking downtown at $150 a month. Whoopee!!!!
5. No dressing up - I can go out in my tattered jeans and baggy t-shirt. Pretty much anywhere.
6. I only need two pair of shoes - one pair for the single party I go to a year (to go with the one dress I own)
7. No alarm clock.
8. I'm so old that Medicare pretty much pays all my health bills (about $600,000 a year)
9. I don't have to work. Ok, so I'm disabled and on social security. Still - no work.
10. No boss - unless you count Mechanic Man, and I pretty much humor him.

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This Bites!

I was bitten by a dog yesterday.

Writing those words seems so bland. Like I just said I was bitten by a mosquito.

No, I was ravenously gnawed on by a large dog with a very strong jaw. Mechanic Man and I were doing our usual browsing through various yard sales. We routinely meet and greet the various dogs and cats who act like we have arrived solely to visit with them and give them our attention and pets. I look forward to these visits because we don’t have room for pets, and I crave the cuddling and warm fuzzy feel.

But not this time.

This time I was going back to the car – and the dog (on a chain inside the owner’s fenced yard) ran up to the fence, both paws on the fence, acting so much like all the other yard sale dogs – I thought in a friendly, “pet me!” attitude.

I was wrong.

He bit down hard on my hand and chewed, then grabbed my other hand as I was trying to get his grip off of me. I came away with dozens of puncture wounds on the top of my right hand, and deep bite marks and cuts on the top of my left hand and middle finger. I now have steri-strips and gauze wrapped around both hands, and a splint on my left middle finger.

More worrisome is that the bites narrowly missed the large vein going across my left hand – my dialysis hand. I have dialysis in my left upper arm – and all dialysis patients need to keep their arms and hands SAFE for future dialysis sites because they always fail eventually and a new site needs to be ready. It’s very scary.

Anyway – three hours spent at Emergency, including the “scrubbing” of all the wounds, sending in a Dog Bite report, and now home – typing with about five fingers.

I will not be petting strange animals anymore. And that is really, really heart breaking for me. It makes me cry.

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Bring Them Home

The Parting Shot photo on Huckleberries August 30, 2011, was so heart breaking. I worry about every CHILD that is serving as a soldier in these days. Every one of them is a son or daughter, some are even fathers or mothers.

http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/hbo/2011/aug/30/parting-shot-83011/


I am thinking of the soulful song from Les Miserables, Bring Him Home. I can hear it in my head, it bleeds from my heart. Please, God, bring them ALL home.

God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there

He is young
He's afraid
Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.

He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.

Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy

You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.

Lyrics from Les Miserables, Bring Him Home

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Junk (I mean Yard) Sales

We've gone to yet more yard sales, and Mechanic Man has made whopping deals - like a huge box of tools (that look like a lot of junk to me) for five bucks. And the huge box of similar "tools" from the "free" pile. (Free.) And the box of true junk that included a gazillion little boxes with a gazillion little bits in them. Five bucks. And now, take a look at our (what we thought was LARGE) shed - where you pull up the door and several boxes threaten to explode out at you from RIGHT THERE. (sigh) And now take a gander at the boxes by the tomatoes - which will never ripen because the sun just does not shine there any more. I ask you - there is a moral to this somewhere, but I don't know where. Is it still a deal if it's starting to sprout parts in your garden? If you run out of shelf "space," how long does the "shelf life" last? Can you ever have enough greasy parts? Can you take it with you when you die? Can Mechanic Man live to be 498 years old? Is there a sale-a-holic association? Is there room for one more?

Oh my God - I think the Hoarders TV crew is coming up the driveway!

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