Tea and Apathy and a Little Sloth

Oh, my God! It's happened! In just two weeks of unemployment, I have digressed to a new low of uninhibited disorganization and total disregard for structure and rules and standards. Take baths, for instance. I mean, I find it absolutely unnecessary to actually “take a bath” every single day. Who cares? Mechanic Man? Yeah, right – a guy that spends his days elbow deep in grease, dirt, and oil; running his fingers through some vile smelling fluid, wiping his hands on his shirt and/or pants and even his hair. He's going to notice if I miss a bath?

I've stopped even looking in a mirror. And that usually gets a reaction from Mechanic Man as I head out the door to go to the store. “Whoa, there little wild woman. Have you even looked at yourself lately?” Who cares? And then I'll glance in a mirror and hair is tousled every which way, no make up, little squinty eyes looking back at me. Who cares?

I'm worse than Scarlett O'Hara. “There's always tomorrow” has become my motto – I'm thinking of having it monogrammed on my sweats that I wear all day long. On my butt.

Why do today what can be done just as easily tomorrow. Take my Christmas cards. I have had all good resolutions to get my cards out right after Thanksgiving. There they sit – labels ready to peel and stick, the dreaded form letter typed and printed (at UPS because my printer, that I need to fix or replace is still on my list of stuff to do), ready to fold and stuff.

I have plenty of stuff to do – it's motivation that I lack. When I was working, I was Wonder Woman. I could have a million tasks on my plate and still manage to handle three bosses, filing, copying, writing, typing, mailing, scheduling, and plan dinner, clean the house, tune the car, organize my financial portfolio, keep track of Mechanic Man. It was a miracle!

Now – I am not working and my very full calendar was efficiently maintained - - - - at work! And the same calendar is NOT here at home. And I am helpless and paralyzed to do any single thing. I have a list of chores I plan to do but I keep getting them out and then putting them back and thinking – there's always tomorrow – and the list doesn't get any shorter and in fact gets longer every day.

I need to replace my printer because the really nice one I have doesn't work and the really cheap one is sitting in a box (over there) just waiting for me to make the switch. But the printer that I have next to my computer has become a shelf for two feet (I do not lie) of bills, notes, files, envelopes, and a shoe box (holding more bills, notes, files, and envelopes) – all belonging to Mechanic Man. I started moving them last night and then decided that my life (staying alive) depended on NOT putting any of this stuff that appears totally disorganized to me – into a different order. So there they sit. Now he tells me that the pile just needs to be organized and I am thinking, yeah, but – that skill has evaded me for the past two weeks. I don't think I can handle it. At all.

I don't set the alarm. Who cares? I have to go to my computer and hover the mouse over the time in the task bar so I can see what day it is. Today is Wednesday. Who cares? I'd get dressed – but it's just as easy to stay in my sweats and thick socks with rubber daisies on the bottoms, and just putter around the house. Do the dishes??? Where are they going? Will it make a difference in my life if I leave a couple plates and forks in the sink?

I think I need one of those organizational coaches. They need to be a drill sergeant or some kind of handler. I think he/she needs to move in. Maybe tomorrow.

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Cookies with Granddad

I was seven when I went to stay with my grandparents for the summer. It was all I had ever dreamed – I was a star! Little Jerome, Idaho had a brief paragraph in its small town weekly paper, all about ME. “Welcome little Jeanie Rice, age 7, granddaughter of Floyd and Marvel Rice, who is visiting for the summer, , , ,”

My granddad was the postmaster of Jerome, Idaho. I could send letters to him, and they'd always get to the right address even if I only put “Granddad, Jerome, Idaho” on the envelope.

Granddad and I spent the days of that summer delivering mail in the countryside. Every farmer's wife came to the mail truck to greet me and hand me cookies! We had dozens of cookies. Every day we would leave the house with carefully packed lunches so we wouldn't starve to death and every day we would wind our way through town and the rural farmland, and find our way to a little fishing hole, with an old worn dock, and we'd sit on the edge of the dock, dangling our feet in the water, and take our lunches and all our cookies and eat until we had ate every single cookie.

When we got back home and Grandmom asked what we wanted for dinner, we'd both sigh and say, oh, you know – a little fruit, a little cereal – we're just not that hungry. And grin at each other with our little secret. I'm sure she never caught on.

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Which Came First?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Oh, I'm not really asking. But that was my first thought in my head when I started to write this article on the insurance industry and the medical industry. Which came first? I mean, they seem to feed on each other, don't you think? The medical industry sets the price for whatever procedure, office visit, surgery, injection, whatever. But the insurance industry decides what they will pay, and “adjust” the amount accordingly.

I am learning way more than I want to about the two. Recently I received a bill for over $8,000 for my one week of dialysis in Orlando. The reason – the insurance company decided the facility I used was “out of network.” At the same time, there were NO “in network” facilities anywhere within a 100-mile radius of where I was staying. And dialysis isn't something you just put back in the closet and forget about it for a week. So, after my social worker argued with the insurance company, they adjusted it down to $790. A whopping 90%.

My question is – if the insurance company marks it down 90%, why then can't the medical facility have started at $790. Why this outrageous difference?

I've seen it all the time on my “normal” doctor visits. The office charges so much for a visit; the insurance company adjusts it down anywhere from 10% to 90%.

When I was in the hospital in late September, the hospital bill for three days was around $20,000, marked down 50% to around $10,000.

So who's the boss here? And what will the new health care plan be like? Same old same old??? Or worse? Or better?

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Recession Depression

Well, isn't this just ducky.

After 11 years, I got laid off yesterday. On a stress scale, I think I'm off the charts.

First there was the thyroid biopsy (which turned out fine).

Then there was the anemia problem.

Then the failing kidneys.

Then 3-days-a-week, 3.5 hour dialysis sessions.

And now I have no job!

I believe it is highly possible for an elephant to fall on my head.

Actually - I think I'll be ok. I'm eligible for SSI, which could take five months to resolve. In the meantime, I'll do unemployment (think a 60-year-old dialysis patient is readily hireable?). Fortunately Medicare (for kidney dialysis) will kick in December 1.

The good news:, , , , , , I do NOT have to drive in snow to work. :)

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I Can Fix That!

I’m a computer wizard. Really! With no effort on my part at all – and no license, no degree, no schooling. It just happens. I have built-in radar or aura or something. Maybe a little bit of magic.

I’ve been helping people with their computers for years. I worked at one law firm (as a secretary) where we were switching from DOS-operated Word Perfect to Windows-operated Word. For the first time we needed to use mice, and my job was to teach the attorneys how to use them. To help them get coordinated on the mouse moves, I had them play Solitaire. I cautioned them to not double-click. There are times for double-click and single-click, and the two just never got separated in these attorneys’ minds. They wanted to double-click everything. To this day, in fact just yesterday, I am still cautioning my current attorneys to not double-click on every little thing. I have a coffee mug where a wild-haired man is shouting, “No! No! I said to NOT double-click!”

But here’s where the computer wizardry comes in. Something will go wrong for (usually) an attorney. I’ll get a frantic call to come here right now and fix this whatever-it-is. I’ll show up and stand behind them to have them repeat the problem, and, , , , , , it’s FIXED! Just my showing up fixes the problem. It’s Magic!

They lose their program they were typing in and I’ll show up and can plainly see it in their tool bar, and have them click on the icon, and MIRACULOUSLY, their program reappears.

They have a totally blank screen and call me in a panic, thinking they should just throw in the towel and go home, head in hands, failures, flops, fools, nincompoops. And I will push the power button on their monitor and all is well with the world. Sometimes, I will fiddle with the cords, climb under the desk and make lots of racket, butt waving in the air, and when they aren’t looking, I push the button, slap my hands together, and mutter, “whew, that was a tough one.”

An attorney called me at home on a Saturday, urgently requesting my help with his secretary’s computer because all of a sudden it had hieroglyphics all over the screen. Come now! Hurry! When I arrived and saw her screen I knew immediately that she had turned her field codes on. (This is in Word and the toggle switch is Alt-F9, which she had somehow hit.) So I was there ten seconds, hit Alt-F9, and told her if it happened again, to just hit Alt-F9, to which she crossed her eyes and said, “I think I’ll just keep on filing – these computers just don’t understand me.” And I knew that I would get a call again in days because those funny squiggly {brackets} came back.

My job is never done.


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The Cycle of Life

I was leaving for work this morning, and just caught a glimpse of something on the roadway behind me. A well-fed, cared for gray cat lay dead in the middle of the road.

I ran back to Mechanic Man and said - "There's a gray cat in the road - I think it's Chowder." Chowder is the kitty next door that stands in our yard and stares at us, never letting us get too close, just close enough to almost pet him, and he darts away. I've been trying for years to coax him into letting me pet him - but he's convinced that I will only maul him instead. Probably this is true.

We went back and looked, not closely, but enough. I turned away towards my car and started bawling! Chowder - who never let me pet him. It broke my heart.

About a mile down the road, Mechanic Man called and said the neighbors had both their cats: Chowder and Jasmine, alive and healthy and sleeping on the couch.

"O, good!" I said, still crying. "So I cried for some strange cat." (sob)

Mechanic Man paused and finally said, "Well, yeah - that was a kind thing for you to do, for the cat whose owner doesn't know."

So I cried some more for a pet that someone has lost, like once happened to me - and I always wondered what happened to her. Maybe somebody cried for her, in my place.
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I'm Coming Back

I’m coming back around – slowly. Now that I have made the step to actually go on dialysis, the fear and dread has gone away. It’s really not a big deal! I get up, brush my teeth, get dressed, go to work, head out to dialysis, get hooked up, sit still for three and a half hours (and THAT is the hardest thing I have to do), go home, fix dinner, watch tv with Mechanic Man, and feel better than I have in months. I’m not up to snuff yet – and have had a couple set backs, because I was seriously being poisoned by toxins. It will take a while to get that all out.

In the mean time, my dialysis clinic is setting up dialysis for me in Orlando next week. By then I should feel much more perky and will enjoy the sights and sounds of Disney World and Epcot.

The gals I am traveling with have been watching over me like hawks. I get sporadic telephone calls from one or all four of them, asking me how I’m feeling today, if I’ve packed for our trip, if the dialysis is working. Just now received the second call from Kathy. We have a mutual friend who lives outside of Orlando – Art is close to all the other gals having met them at Alcoholics Anonymous for Spouses. They bonded, started skiing together, becoming deep confidants of all things weird with being single parents, dating, marrying, divorcing – Art and the girls stuck with each other through thick and thin. He will drive me to my dialysis appointments. Hallelujah! One less detail to worry about.

So – see – this just isn’t a bad thing at all.

Going down the drain

Welcome to DialysisLand, best described as a room full of people needing to have their blood washed and toxins removed, all in a sterile setting with the humming of machines, swooshing of nurses (who call themselves techs), and the background sound of water whirling down the drains, washing those bad toxins into the sewer system.

We patients are simply required to sit still for three and a half hours or longer, while all this scientific wonderland of activity drills past us, ticking, ticking the time down to when we get “unplugged”.

It starts with us getting “plugged in.” The tech and her co-workers go through a flurry of sanitation procedures, putting on gloves for one thing, whipping them off, putting on a new set for the next step of exposing my “access site” (direct line to my heart for all my frenemies’ handy knowledge), masks go on (on me too), something is fiddled with, gloves go off, new set goes on, more fiddling, as I divert my gaze to something benign, like the ceiling lights (because if I take my gaze anywhere else, I see other people, other machines, other techs, gloves going off, going on). So I look at the ceiling lights, while Heparin is flushed in my two access sites, then blood is drawn for lab work (first time EVER that I’m not poked), and finally my lines protruding from my access site are snapped onto lines going into the dialysis machine and the wheels start turning, my blood effortlessly leaves my body to go on its own little cruise, taking with it excess fluids, nasty toxins, and anything else I could do without.

After your “run time” is done, the tech does a reverse of the sanitation process, not as many gloves, but still the flurry of fingers, clicking through different tubes and connections, until finally you are officially unplugged. And after all that medically miraculous activity, you simply walk out the door to your car, stop at the store for groceries, and go home, as if you just spent the afternoon sitting at a spa getting your nails done.

So it isn’t all that traumatic and awful, really. I’ve dreaded this day, the official first dialysis. It does have a major impact in my life – for the rest of my life. There is a loss I can’t quite explain. And I have these two tubes hanging from my chest, making me feel very much like a Borg. And the image is only reinforced when I get hooked up. I half expected the 16 of us in the room to universally commune as one. But there is also the feeling that it is us, the Nouveau Borgs, who are being assimilated.

For days now, I have been, you know, sitting back, trying to mind my own business and not dwell on this dialysis thing. Trying to just make my life as normal as possible, cleaning the house, going to work, reading a book, watching a favorite TV show. When something innocuous will happen – the plot will turn just a bit to something sad – just a little – and I’ll sit there and tears will well up and I think, o boy, if I start crying right now, I will not ever stop. Today, at lunch, I went home and scrounged around for cold weather clothes for our bi-annual trek to Monroe, Washington and car parts heaven for Mechanic Man. I’d turned on the TV to a movie I love – Little Women – and it was right at that moment when Beth discovers that the Hummel baby just died of Scarlet Fever and she thinks she has it. WAAAAAAAAA, the tears flowed, I couldn’t stop, I cried and cried and cried.

Ok, I feel better now.
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Contained or Uncontained

As I idle my time, these days, I tend to live by the Scanner Report, a report that spawns infinite “stories” out of real life situations. Soon, the report will change, like the seasons – our unique population of contained or uncontained animals will go into hibernation. I am assuming that is what contained or uncontained species do when it is too cold to wander about garnering reports from citizens of their uncontained locations. (So I always wonder about the “uncontained” whatever INSIDE a fenced yard.) I don’t know if it is indicative of the Pacific Northwest, to have so many uncontained reports. But it’s entertaining nonetheless.

There are uncontained goats – by far my favorite. Uncontained horses. Uncontained dogs. Uncontained chickens. Even uncontained cows – which makes you wonder if being uncontained has anything to do with being contented or not – you know how cows are. They are contented cows. Always. So – if you are an uncontented cow, then do you wander out the gate in search of your aspirations and dreams and then you unwittingly become lost in some strangers’ backyard and are now adjudged uncontained? An uncontained uncontent cow. How utterly sad.

You actually don’t read about “contained” animals much. Why would that make the news. And you never ever read about uncontained cats. That would be a fete of insurmountable proportions, don’t you think? Or rather, can you contain a cat? I don’t think so. Those cats you see in windows peering out at the life running by their view – they aren’t being held prisoner on that ledge behind the curtain. They are supreme beings who snicker at those poor lost animals wandering the avenues until some neighborhood nosey old lady calls the police to report they are uncontained in her yard. One day it’s a goat. Another day it’s a dog. Another day it’s a cow. And the contained cat just flicks his paw and changes direction of his contemplative musings.

Soon, as all the various uncontained animals find their secret hiding places for winter, I’ll have to focus on other aspects of the Scanner Report. Like “unwanted woman in short skirt in parking lot.” And then I wonder how pertinent is the short skirt as a factor in being unwanted. Would you want the woman if she wore long slacks?
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The Kidneys Lost

Just to let you all know. I am officially going on dialysis tomorrow. Woo Hoo! Let’s Party – meet me on the 5th floor and we can all watch the set up.

I have chosen peritoneal dialysis as my choice – which can be done at home. For about two months, though, I will have hemo dialysis until my new little appendage is healed and in place.

The good news for me – well of course feeling tons better is that they are arranging for dialysis for me at Disneyworld in the middle of October. My four friends and I have saved for five years for this trip. I was beginning to think that I would lose out on a great trip. (The dialysis center there caters to Mickey maniacs like me.)

Thanks for all your prayers and hugs and good thoughts!!!!

Jeanie

Must be Love

I was so ticked at my brother-in-law when he announced he was getting counseling because of my sister’s kidney disease, subsequent surgeries, and her transplant. I was flabbergasted that he would need counseling for something not happening to him. I wanted to scream at him, “but it’s US, it’s US that have this disease. Not you! How dare you!” That was ten years ago.

Then last night I saw through Mechanic Man’s eyes and I kind of got knocked in the head with the realization that what I am going through is impacting him as well. I get support from readers like you; friends in two groups – my diner’s group of friends, and the friends I have made in the Red Hats, and lately, especially, my friends through Huckleberries and Community Comment. But Mechanic Man has no support group, other than me.

Last night we were discussing my various options, all of which are the Lessor of another Evil, just can’t decide which is the least Evil. He’s petty mellow, Mechanic Man. But his eyes grew darker and more brooding. “I’m so mad!” he said. “It makes me so mad! I feel like someone is pinching my head till it pops!” And he wasn’t mad at me. He was mad at what was happening to me. He was mad because he couldn’t fix it.

And then I understood what my brother-in-law was going through.

So this is love.
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My Kidneys and Me

Big Bully Kidneys
or
Kidneys R Us
or
Kidneys Rule

You didn’t ask but after talking with friends, I thought it would be a good idea to give you a basic easy-to-understand synopsis of kidney dialysis. First, though, you should probably prop your head up on something in case you fall asleep or go unconscious or into a coma or something. Prepare to snooze.

I am having to research my plight and decide which is the lessor of several evils.

Did you know that people whose kidneys are failing are experiencing the medical term: End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Sounds innocuous enough, doesn’t it. But wait! It says “End Stage” as in - death is knocking at your door, big guy. When your kidneys fail, you need to find some alternative to just sitting back and letting nature take its course – because nature is done with you. Those two little organs (well, in my case not so little) have powers you wouldn’t imagine. Like creating red blood cells. Boosting your energy. Filtering waste. I’m very close to having no kidney function at all. I lay awake wondering what will be the tell tale sign that THIS is it; this is the big one; this is all she wrote, kid. Will I gradually just stop peeing??? Will my guts suddenly clench like a thirsty man in the middle of a desert with absolutely not a drop of water anywhere? Will I just not wake up? What??

So – I am researching the different methods of dialysis. First – you should know that there are two types of dialysis – hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. One is through your blood – one is in your peritoneal cavity between the membrane surrounding all your organs and your skin.

There are pluses and minuses on both. So, here’s my take. With hemodialysis, you have to have a fistula prepared, which is a surgically constructed vein utilizing your own vein and it is permanent – usually in your arm. In my Dad’s case, his fistula always needed “roto rootering” or it was relocated entirely to a new site – and there are limited sites. Dad ran out of sites. Also, with hemodialysis, you get two needle sticks every time you have dialysis, three days a week. Plus, getting a shot of epogyn for your anemia (which requires a monthly blood draw). It’s just poke, poke, poke, poke.

Ummmm, that looked like a whole lot of negatives. The plus, if there is one, is that you don’t do a thing. You just go to the dialysis center and nurses and techs will be happy to poke you two or three times; ignore you if the alarms go off until your neighboring dialysis victims start really complaining; stick you AGAIN with something to deaden the pain, but not quite, and then stick you for the start of dialysis, and then for good measure repeat the whole process when you end dialysis.

With peritoneal dialysis – you have to have a tube surgically inserted in your belly, with two little bumps that act as stops so the tube will stay in place – and eventually scar tissue will form around the little bumps and seal the deal. Viola! Your newest body appendage. Yippee. The plus with peritoneal dialysis is that you can do it at home. You can take it with you and do it on trips. At work. Anywhere your little heart desires. The drawback is that you feel pregnant. You have all this dialycate (the solution used to filter your blood) and your peritoneal cavity stores it until you replace it. You feel “stretched.” The documentation also warns that you will have to deal with your “feelings about your body image.” You will look FAT. I’m short enough that I will look very round. Just give me a shove in the general direction, and I’ll just roll there. I already have issues with my body image. Sheesh. And while I’m filling up with dialycate, my kidneys are casually increasing in size all on their own. It’s like girl friends pointed out to me – wouldn’t it be nice if your kidneys were located in your boobs? Mechanic Man would probably think he died and went to Heaven.

So – either of these is a difficult choice to make. One, hemo, offers me every other day off. But at the cost of hours every other day on dialysis, plus working a full time job (because kidney patients are not considered disabled), so I go to work at 8:00, get off at 5:00, go to dialysis at 5:30, leave at 9:00 and somewhere in there I will have a normal life with Mechanic Man. Right?

Or – I can do peritoneal and have my very own recycler machine humming away at night, connected to me through my new little belly button appendage, and when I need to get up at 3:00 in the morning because I can’t sleep, I go through the 30 minute process of closing off my tube, shutting down the machine – all while sleeping romantically cuddled next to Mechanic Man.

Ugh. And all the while I am thinking – ok, now, this should be like brushing your teeth – just a mundane, routine, dull ritual. But – this is the kicker – this will be my way of life for the rest of my life or until I get a transplant.

I’m leaning toward the peritoneal dialysis. Less burden on Mechanic Man, more ME time. So, what do you think?

By the way – I have A negative blood type. Just saying.
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Saturday Night at the Races!

Saturday night at the races. Yep, that’s what I did. I spent Saturday at the Spokane Racetrack and watched several drag races with lots of Mopars, funny cars, nitro cars, alcohol cars, and one jet car.

It’s totally exciting and heart thrumming. You can feel the engines all the way through the cement bleachers to the top row, which is where I sat from noon to midnight. Twelve hours of muscle cars! Hours of hearing-loss thundering engines, burning rubber, pungent smells of gas, nitro, fuel – smoke filling the air. What a day!

And you ain’t seen nothing until you see a jet car. It’s almost frightening in a kid-in-a-cemetery-on-Halloween-night kind of way. You can’t get enough and you want to hide and you want to get really close and you want to duck, all at the same time. It sounds like a jet is standing right in front of you, powering up. The whine is powerful and mesmerizing. And once it has your attention fully focused on it, it BANGS with flames spewing out. Even the ambulance that is waiting by, backs up 100 feet away from the jet car. It bangs and pops and whines and slowly inches to the lights and then, WHAM, it screams off in front of you and goes 290 miles an hour, RIGHT.NOW. Amazing!!!! It’s a wonder it doesn’t fly.

I think I’m addicted. It’s the most awesome, exciting thing I’ve seen in forever. Can you imagine 290 miles an hour – and it was mere seconds to go a quarter of a mile.

Then we went back to piddly little race cars that went a pokey 100 miles an hour. Kid’s stuff.

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Tea and Sympathy

I’ve had two occasions this week to partake in “high tea” at the same place. One was sweet and the other will be bittersweet.

I’m struggling here. I have had several ups and downs this week, more downs than ups.

I met with my Red Hat sisters at a high tea in Spokane at the “Taste and See Tea Room.” (See their website.)

(Cindy Hval writes about it here.)

Tonight, there will be 25 women, all co-workers, attending high tea to celebrate one of our own – who is losing her fight with colon cancer. She has been part of this place, a family away from home, for almost 29 years, starting when she was 29 years old. Half her life.

In the middle of all of this, I am facing more tests for a transplant and the likelihood that I will NOT be a candidate. What I am feeling and dealing with is so short of what my co-worker is going through, not even comparable. But I’m still feeling it.

I am experiencing an overwhelming sadness – for things lost, friends slipping away, time moving on and not, damn it, standing still.

Tonight we are gathering in all our finery, hats, jewels, gloves to honor and celebrate the life of our friend. We are helpless in what to say and can only say – we love you. I love you.
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To School We Go, Giggidty Gig

I just passed a co-worker who is leaving early to plan for Back to School Shopping for the Kids.

I remember those days. For my parents, it had to be pretty bad – four kids, 6, 8, 10, and 12 – shopping for clothes. I could almost hear my Dad’s wallet squeak painfully.

Then with my boys – we combined our visit to the grandparents on the coast with school clothes shopping. Partly because my Dad by this time had a fuller wallet and he would “help” me buy clothes and shoes.

For many years, the boys were the same size and it made it pretty easy to shop. I had convinced them by the time they were in 1st and 2nd grade that everyone, all siblings, all over the world, wore each other’s clothes. There were no personal, this-is-mine clothes, except for shoes. Everything got washed together. Everything got folded together. Everything got worn together. I suppose that is why, when one day we were frantically tearing their bedroom apart looking for matching socks, that they finally gave up and wore mismatching socks. Both boys were wearing one brown sock and one green sock.

And boys are SOOO much easier than girls. I had only one incident (at Walmart) that both boys were stubbornly adamant that they would NOT be caught dead in jeans with yellow thread (I think they were Wranglers). It was “lame” and they weren’t going to do it. They’d go to school naked if I bought jeans with yellow thread.

So – here’s my sympathy to all you parents going shopping this weekend for school clothes.

But – look at it this way – it also means that you are going to be FREE during the day for the next nine months. Hallelujah!

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Mooseknuckle and Huckleberries

I spent summers on the Oregon coast when I was little. Such memories!

My grandparents started building their home on the beach in 1955. Several great aunts and great uncles lived on the tiny lumber road that twisted and turned up a very steep hill to the top of our very own “personal mountain.” On top sat a little two story cabin, one room on the main floor for a kitchen table and a huge monstrous wood burning stove, one long room upstairs with several beds – enough to sleep my family of six and my mother’s brother’s family of four, AND our grandparents.

The cabin was called Mooseknuckle. So was the Mountain. We have no idea where this name came from, other than my grandfather (Gramps) was a teller of tall tales and his imagination knew no bounds. He would tell us stories that would make our eyes bulge out and we would go to bed totally unable to sleep with all the excited thoughts running around in our heads.

Once upon a time, there was a logger on the Mountain and there was Indian Joe. Indian Joe was like Goliath in the Bible and the logger was like David. Indian Joe was a bully and mean and ugly and terrorized the poor wee logger. But one day the logger grabbed Indian Joe by his little finger and hauled him over his shoulder and off he flew, off the Mountain, while the logger yelled, MOOSEKNUCKLE!, something he yelled whenever he felled a tree. It worked for the trees, so it must work for Indian Joe.

My grandmother was equally adventurous and we would walk everywhere – up the Mountain; up the highway to an old fashioned hamburger joint that served the absolutely best hamburgers I have ever tasted in my whole life; across the fields to the ocean, telling us to watch out for “cow pies;” up the wider logging road south of the cabin, where we picked gobs of wild strawberries or huckleberries and feasted on short cake for dinner. Wherever we went, we would sign a song she taught us in one lazy afternoon.

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

I sang this song exactly as she taught us and it was years before I realized I wasn’t singing la-de-da gibberish. It was actually real words. (Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid will eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?)

Such sweet memories of grandparents as they should be.
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Quail run

We have one of the last barns standing in the Spokane Valley (just west of Millwood) and a field that lays beside it, which is mowed about once a month just to keep it from getting wild looking. But a little wild is a good thing. There is a family of quail that live in the field, by one of the trees that Mechanic Man has to mow around. He’s very careful in his efforts because the Quail Family will roust itself up and away from the tree and scatter to another corner of the field, while he passes by, Mama, Papa, and several babies. When he would get far enough away from the home ground, the Quails would lift their heads up, and scurry across the grass back to their “home.” This would go on every time he circled – getting further away from them to the point they figured he was finally over his rampaging of their homeland.

That was in the spring time. Mr. and Mrs. Quail raised their little ones, sent them off into the world, and this weekend we chanced upon them crossing our road and scurrying past our car and into the field and to the same home tree. This time with half a dozen NEW little ones, all little puff balls, flitting to and from among the blades of grass. So they have had two sets of families this summer, which means our little space for them is quite perfect.
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Over Thinking

Don’t you just feel like Winnie the Pooh sometimes? I go around mumbling to myself, “Think. Think. Think.” And then I realize that I’m thinking too much and overanalyzing something that should be very simple.

Like some recipes. I was making my first batch of cinnamon rolls from scratch. Everything went perfectly until the recipe said “place cut side down.” I had my dough rolled up and I had sliced the roll into one-inch pieces and all the pieces were standing up side by side waiting for further instructions. And now it said “place cut side down.” And I thought and thought and thought. I pondered the book from a distance, hands on hips, wondering why they would put this particular instruction in and that I must be missing something. Something really important. I decided that the book was trying to talk to some moron idiot simple-minded twit that didn’t know a cut side down from a cut side up. I’m looking at the roll of pinwheels thinking (because of that silly instruction, that was put in there for SOME good reason, surely) that there must be a “right side” and a “left side” and they want one of those sides down. But which one? It was way too much thinking. The idiot is the person who puts the pinwheel standing up in the pan, hoping that by some miracle it will flip itself on the flat side (either side will do) of the pinwheel. Good grief!!!! In fact, the idiot was the author. How ELSE would you put a cinnamon roll in the pan??? I ask you?

Or those tags on pillows and mattresses that say something like “under penalty of law do not remove this label.” I used to ponder that one too when I was little and sent to my room for my naps because I was tired. This commandment was said by my mother who promptly fell asleep on the couch totally exhausted after I don’t know what while I was still burning with energy after beating pans all morning long, and then finding Mom’s matches and lighting them one by one and dropping them in the dog food to see if the dog food would catch fire. How tiring is THAT? So I’d go to my room and contemplate the tags on my pillow and then after further scrutiny and research would find the same tag on my mattress and I had to really work to rip that tag off to see what a penalty of law was.

I’m still waiting.

And then there’s the form from the State whose first question was: Can you read this? (with a Yes or No box)

How do you answer that?

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The Piano and the Exes

My parents gave me a piano when I was 11 years old. Yeah. Wow. I mean, it was a HUGE deal to me. And kind of a heavy burden to bear. It meant I felt like I should practice way more and really study at my lessons in order to “earn” the right to have a whole piano to myself. Oh, I shared it with my brothers and sister – and lessons were paid for all around, but I was the only one who continued with it.

So, when I was divorced, my parents helped me move and in one of the truck loads to my new apartment was “the piano.”

I loved that piano. I would play on it for hours. When I was growing up, I would play on it for an hour before school, again after school for several hours. I played and played and played. Actually the reason I did this was, one, well, I enjoyed it, but two, after a meltdown in college where I majored in music, I had to perform in front of a panel of four judges and I suddenly could NOT remember a note of music and had to slither back out to the hallway and gather up all my music books and bring them back to the studio piano and play by reading the music instead of by memory. Ever since, I have not been able to memorize music and have to have it in front of me all the time. I would play a piece over and over, and eventually I would play by memory but only if I had the sheet music right in front of me – just in case.

I had several moments while being a single mother that I just did not have one dime to spare for food or for the light bill. I would scrounge in the cupboards until they were bare. And one day I spiraled down to desperation and I sold my piano for $400 to my piano tuner. $400.

I left the house the day they picked up the piano. I couldn’t bear to watch it leave. It was winter and snow was on the ground. I remember coming home and seeing the tracks of the people who slid it down the sidewalk to their moving van. I cried for a week.

Months went by, holidays went by, a couple boy friends went by, and then one day an ex-boyfriend called, knowing how I felt about my piano, and said he had a friend (the girlfriend before me) who needed to store her piano for a couple years until she got settled. If I could get another set of muscles and a truck, he would help me get the piano. And it just happened that my boys’ Dad was in town and he offered to help.

So, I’m driving my car behind the truck being driven by my ex-boyfriend, carrying his ex-girlfriend’s piano in the back, with my ex-husband bracing it along the way. There’s a moral here, I just can’t quite peg it.

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Attitude Schmattitude

It really is all in the attitude. How you look at things reflects back to you and “becomes.” It’s like what The Secret tells you – that you attract what you think about.

See, I’ve been going through a whole lot of soul searching and introspection about my progressing illness with kidney disease.

Now – I am a strong believer in positive thinking and in the tenants of The Secret. But then I get all muddled up with 1) thinking positive thoughts and 2) being realistic about what is happening to me. So – if I think about my kidney disease and my failing kidneys and start visualizing me on dialysis and then go further into the type of dialysis (tube in stomach, solution feeds through at night for eight hours) or (surgically installed fistula (extra strong vein) in my arm and going to a center every other day for four hours a day), then according to The Secret I will fulfill my “wish” and be on one of those two types of dialysis.

If I DON’T think about that and visualize me staying fit and healthy just like I am now on less than 10% kidney function (which is hardly noticeable at all!), then am I sticking my head in the sand and not being realistic???

I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Oh, what to do, what to do, what to do.

I’ve got little tapes in my head of Dad’s experience on dialysis (horrible at best), Mom’s viewpoint of Dad’s dialysis (worse than horrible and probably why it WAS horrible), my sister’s experience of passing on dialysis and going directly into a living donor kidney (not great experience if you count the bi-monthly trips to the hospital because of this infection and that infection, losing her house because she couldn’t afford the anti-rejection drugs after the three-year Medicare period was done for), and then my brother’s experience of both dialysis and cadaver kidney transplant (both successful – the dialysis being an annoying inconvenience and dealing with impersonal stoic staff and the continuous, never-ending, always going on, needles.

I’ve been playing these tapes over and over repeatedly (too much) in the last six weeks. I have dreaded dialysis because of my Dad’s experience and I’ve worried about a kidney transplant because of my sister’s experience.

Then I spent the day with my brother on Sunday. What a difference a positive person makes!!

It’s in the attitude. Always. It goes back to that very simple concept – attitude. As my sister-in-law said, dialysis is just another little thing you do in your life, like getting up, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, hooking up to dialysis, going to work, relaxing and watching TV. It just slips in there and becomes a routine deal. For sure, not a small deal but not a BIG deal either. And one day, you will get “the call” and a new kidney and it will be a perfect match because I’m way more like my brother than I am like my Dad or my sister. And I especially am not like my mother, who seemed to drill into all of us the doom and gloom and death-to-all attitude.

I can do this. I just have to burn those tapes.

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Disgusting Bugs

I am just not a bug person. I know, I know – every living creature has their place and purpose. And spiders should be placed outside where they came from. But there are a couple bugs that defy all logic. What are they good for, anyway??? Tell me what good a mosquito is. Give me ten good reasons why I shouldn’t try to wipe them off the face of the earth.

And earwigs. Earwigs are the scourge of the earth. Did you know that they lay 100 eggs at a time? They take only two weeks to incubate and about a week to mature. I’m surprised they don’t cover the earth from end to end.

Who named them earwigs? It’s a horrible name. I spent many years as a child, terrified that they would find my ears and crawl inside and hibernate and lay eggs (100) and then frolic and cavort inside my brain until I was totally insane. The bug version of mad cow.

I have a covey of earwigs in my lettuce. Not just a covey – a planet, a solar system, a whole universe of earwigs hiding in the dark places of lettuce leaves. I told MechanicMan that I will Not Ever Bring THAT Lettuce Inside The House. Ever. He finally pulled them up and threw them away. And then later told me he spent about an hour killing earwigs that followed him into the house. Rampaging earwigs out for revenge for the screaming deaths of their children, cousins, aunts, uncles, great grandparents. Later I was getting something out of the fridge and there on the front panel of the fridge was an earwig. Totally absolutely grossed me out and I called to MechanicMan to rescue me. We both got back to the fridge and the villainous earwig had vanished. Where did it go???

So, tell me – in the Biblical sense – is there any thing good about mosquitoes and earwigs? Do they make a beneficial difference by their existence. I think not.

Worms are good for bait. Lady bugs are pretty little creatures that clean the earth of aphids. Who cleans the world of mosquitoes and earwigs?

You should be very pleased (and relieved) that I didn't put up the picture I found of an earwig - actually two earwigs, one female and the other male. Be glad. Be very glad.

Well, there’s my thought for this Wednesday. I’ll ponder it awhile.

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Ten Sucks

I started the week out so well, with my Ten Things About Monday

And then Tuesday came and I thought I would do Ten things About Tuesday, but the first thing I did was see the Kidney Transplant Center in the morning and that kind of got me stuck on the number “ten.”

So, Ten Things Tuesday went like this:

Ten – the number of my blood count, which has improved from 7, but would be best at 12

Ten – the percentage of my kidney function.

Ten – the length in inches of my kidneys. Yeah – read that again. Ten inches. Let’s see. I’m 5’2” tall; that’s just under 1/6th of my entire body.

You know what? I really don’t like the number ten. It’s too blunt and short. Its numeric form is a silly dinky “one” followed by a zipless “zero”. 10. Nope don’t like 10.

I think I’m not going to do 10 list items anymore.

For more on this delirious subject, http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/commcomm/2009/jul/30/calling-all-organ-donors/
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Ten Things About Monday

1. You get to start over in the work week and fix last week’s goofs.
2. On the other hand, your building’s air conditioner was turned off all weekend, and Monday is going to be hot, hot, hot.
3. There is no filing to do because you did it Friday (for those who know me, please don’t faint)
4. It is a doubly good Monday if your boss did NOT come in over the weekend; otherwise you can’t find your desk for all the piles he cleared from HIS desk because he wanted a fresh clean slate on Monday.
5. You don’t have to really look to find something to wear because everything is cleaned, ironed, and hung up – you just need to decide if today is a Pink Monday or a Blue Monday. I choose Pink.
6. The work fridge is empty and you can place your food anywhere you want and know that you’ll find it at lunch; by Friday, several unidentified “to go” boxes will be crowded in there with no takers.
7. There are no series of email requests from your boss for this and that and the other thing (yet).
8. You start out the day so organized (savor the moment)
9. You *know* the coffee is fresh and hadn’t been sitting there since yesterday afternoon because anyone who comes in on the weekend doesn’t bother to even make it because their secretaries always make it for them. They don’t know the coffee pot from the sugar bowl.
10. You know it’s going to be a good day when the elevator goes right to your floor without stopping. (Be sure to check that it really is Monday and not Sunday, like what happened the last time you didn’t stop at any of the other floors and the office was dark and empty).

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Giving v. Taking; Transplant 101

Hey all! I am back from my round of medical tests - you would not even believe all the places on my body that were xrayed, sonogrammed, echoed, CT'd, scanned, poked, pricked, and prodded. I am going to start journaling something like, Kidney Transplant Procedures 101.

One thing that happened throughout the day was that everywhere I went, one diagnostic room after another, each technician asked “are you a giver or a receiver?” It gave me pause to think about donors. I've been thinking about deceased donors - but there are living donors out there too. A lot of them are officially known to the transplant center as “altruistic” donors. Amazingly enough, these altruistic people simply call the transplant center and tell them they wish to donate one of their kidneys, just because. I find that absolutely totally amazing and “altruistic” doesn't even come close to defining such an extraordinary gift.

I also felt kind of selfish when I was asked if I were a giver or a receiver - interpreting the question as “I'm a TAKER.” Take! Take! Take!

I was simply amazed that there are people out there that think nothing about giving up one of their kidneys – they are willing to go through all the medical tests, the surgery, the follow-up, and living the rest of their life with one kidney.

From here, I have to wait for approval from the transplant committee (if any of the tests come back showing some other illness or cancer – things could change badly). I should be officially “on the list” in three weeks.

Here’s a little tidbit: there are three times the amount of people who NEED kidneys over the amount of kidneys available at any given time.

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Will New Health Plan Cover Me?

So, I start the process of getting on a transplant list tomorrow. It’s a real big deal! I have a typed up schedule of all the different procedures I’m going to have, along with a map of all the locations these procedures will take place. In fact, I have four pages of maps of Sacred Heart Medical Center. I will be visiting one of the parking garages (that’s plural), the Women’s Health Center, Lower Level 1 on the west end, then Lower Level 2 on the east end, then center, then to Lower Level 3 and they’ll treat me to breakfast if I can find the cafeteria, then the 3rd floor in the Doctor’s Building which appears to be next to the garage I’ll aim for.

I’ll have a marathon bloodletting at dawn, and somewhere in there I will have “tissue typing.” Along with CT scan, ultra sound, chest x-ray, another ultrasound, skin tests, echocardiogram – all in one fun day. I am only worried about the “tissue typing.” I mean – “tissue.” Is that like scraping skin off of me??? What’s the difference between skin typing and skin tests? Or are the skin tests to see what happened with the skin scrapings earlier in the day?

I’m taking the day off – maybe I should take Friday, too. After all, I might have no skin by Friday. I’ll definitely be low on blood.

I have a questionnaire to fill out too. “Potential Kidney Donors.” And a big blank space to fill in all my friends’ names. It’s here where I hesitate. How deep and true must a friendship be to ask one friend to go under the knife for another and end up with one working kidney? Yikes. I’m afraid I’m leaving my space empty.

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Run Away With Me

O boy it’s Friday. 4:34. I’ve got my tennis shoes on and in the ready to run out the door at full blast position. I am tired of this week. Now on to the weekend.

I have garage sales to go to and things to poke around in and other people’s junk to buy as my new treasures.

Mechanic Man found me an old, old very tall book case to hold my thousands of books, and now it’s time to seek out more at yard sales and garage sales and estate sales. It’s in the shed that holds the freezer right now for want of space inside the house but I am seriously considering the few steps from the door to the shed could be considered exercise and I may put my books in the shed with the freezer. Except it is a nice old antique-looking book case that I would like to show off.

And more yard sales to find things to stuff in my book case because book cases are NOT just for books. So boring. No. Book cases are perfect for tea cup collections and glass animal collections and owl collections and old musty-smelling leather bound book collections about nothing I have ever read.

My sneakers are squeaking in anticipation.

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Reluctant Volunteer

How do you say no???? I need to learn this. I am a people pleaser big time. I want to please everybody around me, be it at home or work or in the store or, well, all the time. I never say no. Most times it’s a good thing and I walk away feeling just a little taller or kinder or gentler. It’s my little self boost. But sometimes, I should just say no.

I was standing at the bus stop downtown to go the short two miles to my home on the lower northwest side of Spokane.

A gal was standing next to me with a couple large boxes at her feet. As the bus arrived she turned to me and in very broken English, in a strong Russian accent, asked if I would help her with one of her boxes. It was more of a command than a request. “You carry box,” pointing at the box and then at me, nodding her head once as if that would seal the deal. I thought nothing of it and lifted up one of the heavy boxes for her.

As we got close to my stop she again said, “You carry box,” along with the curt nod. I asked her when her stop was and she indicated the one right after mine, so I nodded back, once, and then watched as my bus went past my [perfectly good car parked in front of my perfectly good little house] on the way to the next stop.

We got off and she curtly ordered “Carry box” and “Follow.” And I followed. The box got heavier and heavier, my legs got more lead in them, I moved slower and she hustled down the side street, her box on her head, marching resolutely along, every now and then curtly stating “Come.” She was plainly disappointed in my lack of speed. So there we went, a little mini-parade, marching down another side street back around the block until we were exactly across (but two blocks away) from my house.

I would have gladly driven her and her boxes from my house to hers. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t ask. Except for the fact that she probably assumed that since I was taking the bus I did not have a car. Probably a real luxury from where she lived in the Ukraine.

Made me think how we take for granted our material possessions while people from other cultures might consider them precious luxuries that few have.

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Tears for my Dad

I searched for him everywhere. I sought out his friends. I googled his name. I wanted to have him back. My Dad.

Dad went in for the umpteenth time for dialysis. At three times a week, four hours a day, six years – he had dialysis for 730 days of his life, 2,920 hours. And now he was being told they had run out of veins for his dialysis. It was Friday, December 10, 1993. It was my son’s 21st birthday; my Army child, stationed in South Korea. Dad decided not to go back to the center where he spent all those long grueling hours. He chose to die now rather than months from now, under all the same four hours a day, three days a week routine. He died on December 19.

I came home after spending the last week of his life with him and did mundane things, like shop at Albertson’s for milk and bread. All the while thinking that surely the clerks, the other shoppers, the children in the child seats, the baker, the butcher, the florist – would all see the pain in my eyes, the ache of my heart, the hole in my soul. Surely they noticed. I wanted to go up to each one and say “Did you know my Dad?” “Did you know he died?”

I went to his friends and would touch their hands, knowing that their hands had shaken my Dad’s hand. I knew that their hands had affectionately clapped my Dad’s shoulder or embraced him. And I would eagerly and breathlessly wait for anything they would say about my Dad. I wanted to confirm all the good things I knew about my Dad. I would stand there, soaking up his friends’ words like water on a parched throat.

“Your Dad was very kind.”
“Gentle”
“Warm.”
“Intelligent.”
“He was so important to me.”
“Your Dad loved you kids so much.”

All these words would bathe over me and sooth me.

Recently I have watched various news blogs about local people who have met untimely ends in freak accidents and what struck me were how many relatives who had never commented on these blogs, now were writing. They were writing in response to remarks made by various bloggers who didn’t know their lost loved one, and the remarks were sometimes hurtful, tacky, or erroneous. These loved ones have written from Ohio, California, Seattle – outside the scope of Spokane, Washington. And these loved ones have expressed the pain of reading these remarks when all they were doing was what I had done – they searched for anything about their child, their mother, my Dad. They googled their loved one’s name. They wanted anything about their loved one. Just like I did with my Dad. Any positive word to say he was loved by someone else. That someone else misses him as much as I.

Four months ago a good friend’s 24-year-old daughter passed away due to cystic fibrosis. I wrote about it on this blog – in a good way, in a positive way, highlighting what I knew about his daughter from my own experiences with her. I have a comment tracker and I have been amazed that every day, every single day, I have received hits to that particular post, from all over the world. Her friends started commenting to me – that it helped them so much to handle their grief over the loss of their friend. Her mother contacted me. She too wanted to hear that people loved her daughter as much as she did. The loss of her daughter took her breath away with its nearly unbearable anguish. She wanted comfort, she wanted to see her daughter through others' eyes. It confirmed for her that her daughter was vital to many, many people. That particular site gets two dozen hits a day. All because I said kind things about a person that was loved by so many people.

I wrote that story because I desperately wanted someone to write about my Dad in the same way. I wanted someone to say they loved him too. They missed him. They were sorry for my loss.

The empathy I get from others has healed the gaping hole I had felt for months after my Dad died.

Hopefully my treating others as I wish they would treat me makes a difference.

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No TV for me!

Just got back from a totally relaxing week on the Oregon coast, south of Yachats, north of Heceta Head Lighthouse. I did absolutely nothing. I was totally unproductive. I vegged big time. I lay around in my pajamas and ate cereal for dinner, in the living room, watching bunnies out the front window and ever-watchful bald eagles from the back window. The eagles starved and the bunnies were totally oblivious.

I didn’t watch a clock. I took naps. I didn’t follow rules. I did, however, floss and took my vitamins. I ate whatever I wanted; got up when I felt like it; dressed when I felt like it (some days, never). I became civilized occasionally and dressed appropriately and blended in with other tourists in the quaint Old Town villages of Newport, Waldport, and Florence. I stopped at every wayside along Highway 101 from Lincoln City down to Florence, enjoyed the ocean and all her majesty from as many viewpoints as I could find.

I spent a wonderful full ten days with no phone, no tv, and lots of books. So, I was a little startled as I drove home and all that was on the radio were news items about Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Gale Storm, Billy Mays, and Ed McMahon. All dead. O my. Of all of these deaths, the one that bothered me the most was Gale Storm. She was one of my mother’s favorites. Perky, saucy, funny. Her death was lost amongst all the hype that went with particularly Michael Jackson, but Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon as well. All the loss, turmoil, pain, ups, downs, eccentricities, foibles.

Of all the things I didn’t have on my vacation – the television was the least missed. It brought to point for me that there really is nothing worthwhile on television that enhances my life in the tiniest way. I came home refreshed and revitalized – something that television just does not do for me.

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Yard Sale or Bust

I had my very first yard sale this last weekend. Suffice to say, it was a bust. So I’m making up a list of How to Have a Yard Sale:

1. Advertise! Toot your horn! Make sure the whole area knows that YOU are having absolutely a must see yard sale right in your own neighborhood. And put your ad in TWO days before, not one. Sign up on Craig’s List – and update your ad every morning under a different email account so it’s always towards the top of the list.

2. Signs. Signs are a must. About twenty signs on every intersection you can think of.

3. BIG PRINT. The sign must be readable from a car a block away as it is driving towards the sign at 30 miles per hour; if your sign is too small or too lightly written, and your drive by car has to slow down to read it, or even stop to read it, other cars get antsy and honk at you until you just say hell with it and drive on to the next sign that MAYBE you can read this time.

4. Print your address – don’t just say “yard sale that-away” with an arrow. Quite often the wind blows the sign and it ends up pointing a totally different direction, like down.

5. Anchor your sign. I didn’t have near enough signs and one of them kept falling over repeatedly until I braced it against a light pole. I worried about my sign incessantly until I thought I’d have to put a “stupid” sign on my forehead.

6. Balloons. Mark your territory and show the whole street that you are having a party!

7. Tell all your friends to stop by. Give them a schedule and have them just park their car at pre-appointed times. They don’t even have to get out. For some reason, a parked car at a yard sale begets other cars. Whenever one stopped, several stopped.

8. Have a tarp for every table and then you just cover them at night and hope nobody helps themselves to freebies in the middle of the night.

9. Don’t have a yard sale when something big might be going on like graduations from all the high schools in your area but they are celebrating downtown and aren’t even going to drive by any time soon to just happen upon your poorly advertised yard sale.

10. It is so true that what is one person’s junk is another person’s treasure. You think that little sole Tupperware lid all by itself is ready for the garbage and some old lady pounces on it because she has been missing hers since the last church picnic.

I’m going to read this list and check it twice and try this whole thing again in a month. O my God what a lot of work.

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Kidney Update #2

Here's my sad soppy saga. I am starting to go through tests to get on a transplant list. (no cancer wanted - if I have cancer, they'll just throw me away). Anyway - went to see the kidney doctor today (saw the dentist last Thursday and this last Monday for what can only be described as roto rooter of the gums, with anesthesia and nitrous). So I'm already kind of whacked out of shape.

Then the doc tells me that my kidneys are functioning at ten percent of normal. Ten Percent. yeesh. I feel ok, really. The kidneys are shutting down but not telling the rest of my body - so my brain thinks I'm doing just fine thank you very much. But one of the things the kidneys do is "talk" to the bone marrow who talks to the blood who toils and turns out red blood cells - and the kidneys aren't talking, so I'm really low on blood. I'm getting what's called an EPO shot, once a week for three weeks and then once a month - if that doesn't work - it's a blood transfusion.

Are your eyes falling out of your head yet?

So - he said to watch for these symptoms: fatigue, feeling out of breath crossing the street, going up the stairs; itching skin; nausea; dry heaves; and anorexia (I wish). Well, as he starts clicking these things off, I'm still insisting I "feel FINE" but it's flashing through my mind - last night's itchy leg episode that about drove me insane; yesterday morning I didn't even want to brush my teeth because my gums still hurt and just the thought was making me feel like throwing up - and lately I don't just throw up - I do it repeatedly several times and then go into the dry heaves for several bouts; and I've started taking the elevator to get from the 15th floor to the 16th floor; and last night I gave Mechanic Man half of my hamburger - and no fries. I'm thinking, Jeanie you are so out of shape and need to diet and exercise. But Doc said that wasn't my problem. I have kidney disease related anemia. It's my uncommunicative kidneys again. Those silent buggers.

I went to Riverfront Square and then to Rite Aid over lunch. I was panting the entire way and just pooped by the time I got back. And I've noticed this before when I've gone to the Riverfront to get my hair cut - I'd start back and think, o boy, if someone would just carry me, it would be sheer bliss.

I'm beginning to think I'm SICK.

I’m still insisting I feel fine. I’m still trying to think positive thoughts and not dwell on this. I’m still trying to tell myself I’m not in denial. It’s a quandary. If I think about it, I’ll get worse. I’ll get worse if I don’t think about it. If I think positive thoughts, my kidneys just might go completely gonzo on me and turn out their lights because I’ve got my head in the sand. If I think negative thoughts, like, you’re-going-to-be-on-dialysis-for-the-REST-of-your-life (this is a litany I heard my mother sing to Dad for seven years until he finally pulled the plug on himself), then I’ll be on dialysis that much sooner. They’ll never find a donor kidney for me. I’ll have a permanent tube in my stomach or my arm, depending on what type of dialysis. What about sex? Bikini’s? (well, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a bikini – but what IF?) Slinky dresses? The too-sexy-for-my-jeans look?

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Oscar, the Oven Mitt

I love names. I give names to everything – my car, my cat, my kids, spiders, clothes, and oven mitts. Actually, it’s my Mom’s doing. She started it.

When we were growing up, Mom acquired an oven mitt in the shape of an alligator (or a crocodile – I can’t tell them apart), and we were fascinated with “him.” We worried endlessly about how he would survive going into the hot oven to grab something with his teeth. Mom named him Oscar. Oscar was like a Mighty Crock who could withstand innumerous dunkings into the fires of hell, er, the oven. He was singed, and once even caught fire upon which my Dad heroically put out the fire by throwing Oscar into the dishwater and nearly drowning him. Once he actually made it into the laundry and all the little singed parts became little frayed holes. But he still managed to be the chief pot holder in the family, and the only one with a name.

We had a George, too, who was really all our hoodies for camping – only they weren’t called hoodies back in the cold age of camp fires, marshmallows, and ghost stories. They were plain old sweatshirts with hoods and pockets in the front. We each had an identical shirt and they were only used for camping – so at the end of the summer, Mom would make a show of putting the smallest hoodie into the next hoodie, into the next, until finally Dad’s sweatshirt was enveloping the whole family of hoodies. It looked like a torso and sat in the back of the closet. She named him George.

This was handy other times of the year because if we heard creeks or groans from the house, we all chalked it up to . . . . . . George.

And of course, spiders have names. According to my mother. They are all Fred. Fred lives outside – at least that is where he belongs. So she carefully picks Fred up with a tissue and puts him outside where he belongs. All of my siblings and I learned this very valuable skill very early in our lives. Spiders – all named Fred – belong outside as God intended.

However, if the spider happens to be a Black Widow – then all rules about Fred go right out the window – I mean to say – the Black Widow doesn’t get the same privileges as Fred. The Black Widow is killed by Mom at least 150 times until she is absolutely positive that there is no more Black Widow at all, not a single molecule.

So – I was dating a guy I considered pretty macho and we were sitting on the couch watching a movie when a centipede started marching along the wall behind the television. I thought nothing of it – a cousin of Fred – and grabbed a tissue and gently lifted the centipede and put “her” outside where she belonged. I turned back and here is macho man, with his knees up to his chest, looking like some monster had slithered along the floor under his feet. What? You don’t put your little critters out where they belong?

Anyway – Oscar grew old and frayed and finally was relegated to the back of the drawer of old towels and cleaning rags – the nursing home of oven mitts. I still put Fred out where he belongs.

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And so it begins. . .

I was blithely going through my day, the normal humdrum of filing, typing, cataloging, typing, time entry, bla bla, more typing, and arrived home to the mail:

A packet starting with the ominous "The Journey of Transplant Evaluation."

O boy.

It's several pages and forms to fill out to start the process of being evaluated to be placed on a kidney transplant list.

I'm half excited about this. Actually I feel too good to really be considered for a transplant. I'll probably go along like I do in sports - and be the last one on the list. Who knows? Evidently my doctor sent my name in to the transplant center - and also to social security. Did you know that I might be able to get Medicaid?

I'm half overwhelmed, too. I'll meet with a team of people - the transplant surgeon, transplant nurse coordinator, social worker, and dietitian. I'll have all kinds of tests done: dental, colonoscopy (well, I've kind of been looking for an excuse to have one done, other than having it done just because I'm "old"), EKG, ECG, Ultrasound, cardiology, vascular, CT, besides draining me of my blood for chemistries, serologies, microbiologies, and cancer markers. Heck, once I pass all of these tests with flying colors, I should be able to live totally free of kidneys - who needs a kidney when everything else is working so well! Well, maybe not.

But what if I fail these tests or it shows something else.

Anyway - here I go, off into the dark world of medical tests on every single cell in my body.

It beats dialysis any day!

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Take Me Out of the Ball Game

I have found my household glued to the TV lately, watching the Mariners’ games. I’m not a real enthusiast. I only know that my presence is a hindrance to winning games, whether I am watching in the bleachers, or totally at a distance from the hidey-hole of my living room. And I have mystical, magical powers of doom.

If I leave the room, the team scores. If I stay, the other team will get a three-base hit and run. Never fails. So I try to occupy myself elsewhere and give the Mariners a fair chance. :)

All this baseball drama has brought memories of the one summer I was on a softball team for the City. I won’t say when because I think I’d get tarred and feathered. You see, I have the same effect if I am actually on the team. Worse.

I could not hit a ball to save my soul. I couldn’t catch a ball either. Or throw. But I’d try, try, try!!!!

Once, I was thrown the ball to 2nd base, where the runner was flying down from 1st. I just closed my eyes tight and held out the ball towards the runner and, damn! if she didn’t run smack into it with her left boob. She said she was going to go around again and try for the right – so at least they (the boobs) would be even.

I was a terrible but extremely earnest player. I never did make it to a base – so no need to worry about stealing 2nd or 3rd – I never got to 1st.

The legend of my lack of prowess got to be so bad, that BOTH teams would root for me. I caught a ball, playing shortstop. I mean, I actually caught a fly ball. I’m hopping up and down and shouting, “I caught it! I caught it!” and then realized that every one on both sides is doing the same thing. All jumping up and down and screaming “She caught the ball! She honestly caught the ball!” The game stopped so we could all regroup. Even the people on the bases stood still instead of running for all they were worth. Oh, maybe you can’t do that if I caught the fly ball. What do I know. . . .

Sigh.

When we got to the finals and there were several teams playing, I showed up, loyally and diligently, in my uniform, with my mitt, ready to Play Ball. The coach met me at my car and told me he was benching me right off the get go. No hard feelings – we just needed to have all players actually hitting the ball and catching it. You know, we’d like to actually win a game here.

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Joys of Camping

This is for Cindy, who thinks camping is for the birds, in response to my post on Camping at http://jeaniespokane.blogspot.com/2008/07/time-to-go-camping.html.

Ten reasons you can enjoy camping:

1. You can throw your dirty dishes in the campfire with no guilt. (Well, paper plates, unless you are a true camper phobic and have to bring along your good China – then have your sons wash the dishes for you – in a kettle of water they drew from the lake and heated up over the open fire).
2. You can stay up as long as you like and tell ghost stories around the campfire after the sun goes down – no need for tv, radio, or books
3. If it rains during the day – you get to do jigsaw puzzles with your kids
4. If you go camping with your mom, you get to go to bed before the sun sets because she doesn’t like sitting outside in the dark by herself
5. If you go camping with your dad, you get to get up first thing in the morning because the fish are jumping, the fire is going, the eggs are frying, the cold fresh air is invigorating, nature is calling.
6. Those little black thingies in your eggs – that’s just pepper. Really.
7. You can lay in the sun and have absolutely nothing to do but bake (bring sun screen).
8. You can prove your warrior strength by standing over your children so horseflies as big as basketballs don’t carry them away.
9. You experience the Zen of sleeping on the hard ground and waking up energized and ready for a dawn swim in the icy cold river.
10. You love building a fire with twigs you and everyone else gathered when you first set up camp, after you found a fairly flat piece of ground, raked away the rocks, tree limbs, and pinecones, set up the tent, pounded the stakes in the ground so the tent wouldn’t blow away, and if it is really windy, you built a windbreak just for the fire. The fire never goes out because you feed it and feed it and feed it and feed it.

Camping is just so much FUN!!!

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Perspective

Age is all from perspective, I have decided. This weekend alone I have witnessed the whole continuum. I stopped and chatted with a man I didn’t know, who was on oxygen. He started telling me about the ailments of old age. He said, “You turn 60, and it’s all downhill from there, in a rush! You turn around and there’s another birthday. And then another. And another! All downhill from 60.” And when I told him I just turned 60, he remarked that I look good for my age and maybe that downhill race won’t happen to me.

Then a little friend came over. She’s 11, almost 12, going on know-it-all 30. She saw my birthday cards and upon asking how old I was, her mouth turned into a perfect O and stunned silence for about 30 seconds. The usually chatter silenced in speechlessness.

Just now a young mother with two toddlers in a stroller came by and stopped to talk to me. I’ve never seen them before and they both readily told me “I’m four.” (Twins) They told me their names and asked me for mine. And then chatted nonstop about their adventures in the playground and that they have to go home now because they were sopping wet from jumping around in puddles. And treated me like I was a playmate or at least a doting aunt with an ear for listening. Age meant nothing to them. I still hear the cheerful humming as they both sang “Bye Jeanie” in unison and went on their way.

From young whippersnapper to ancient crone to best pal in 24 hours.

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Waking Up Old

So, I woke up this morning, my birthday morning, as an older woman. Older than yesterday when I was 59. And somehow jumped into another decade as I have just turned 60. Ok, now I can tell you that I was being kind of optimistically frivolous when I made up my 60 reasons I am excited about turning 60. It's more like, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I say it – 60 years old – and think to myself, uh, no that's not me. That is not who I am. Age doesn't describe the inner me. I am ageless in my mind – and you ask my two sons and they agree. I'm playful and goofy and pensive and romantic and introspective and soul searching. Has nothing to do with age.

Several years ago, my coworkers started a tradition of "60 presents for the 60th birthday." Little things. So for the past five days I have received 10-12 little presents every day – books, cards, plants, candles, soaps, energy drinks (which seems to draw every single person and they all want to try it). Does an energy drink counter the effects of just plain being old? Inquiring minds want to know. It says it has no caffeine and no sugar. So, if you come to my cubicle and I'm not there, look up – I may be on the ceiling, having sampled some of my energy drink supply, called "Orange Explosion." If that doesn't work, I have several latte gift cards so I can get my double caffeine, triple shot chocolate, Grande latte. Fat, hot, and a hell of a lot.

How do I feel about 60? I didn't notice a big drop in brain cells, so I think the "senior moments" are still in the future. Maybe if I keep working, I'll keep my brain active, and I won't have those moments. I'm playing Sodoku frequently over the last year because I have heard that it improves the mind. However, it hasn't improved my balancing-the-checkbook skills, at all. Instead of a savings account, I have a slush fund in my checking account, to account for my not accounting my account.

Age is relative I suppose. I remember when my grandmother turned 95 years old, still living on her own. Her son-in-law asked, er rather shouted to her good ear, "So, how do you feel today?" to which she replied, louder just for the heck of it, "I'm 95 years old. How the hell do you think I feel!" When you are 95 years old, you can be cantankerous and ornery just for grins and giggles and nobody will fault you. When you're 60 and act like that, well, you're just being a brat and a pill.

So here I am – 60 years old. Am I better? Older? Wiser? I like to think wiser, finally, after many false starts. I'm an all-around better person, through time and through events and experiences. I'm just not older. I'm definitely not elderly – although were I to trip and fall in the street and a reporter happened by (and I'm only a block away from the S-R building), the article in the paper would read "Elderly Woman Breaks Hip on Riverside and Monroe; Traffic tied up for hours trying to get her, screaming and clawing, into ambulance for ride to nursing home."

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Identity Redux

I usually enjoy getting my driver’s license renewed. I like to compare pictures and prove that I’m not getting older, I’m getting better.

Something went really bad when I went in to renew my license on Saturday. It’s the most awful picture I have ever seen. It’s a mug shot. It’s a mug shot of a seasoned criminal. I can’t show this in public! What am I going to say to whoever looks at it?

O, yeah, that was one hell of a hangover. (Even though I spent the night before watching old chick movies.)

That? That picture? Oh, it’s evidence for my malpractice suit on Botox injections gone horribly wrong.

What? No, oh no, that’s not me. That’s someone who stole my identity and tried to phony up a picture to look like me. Despicable job.

That really is a mug shot of me trying to steal Dentyne gum from the neighbor store.

I can explain that. Some really old, short, fat lady with no neck invaded my body. And I want it back.

* * * * * *

ARRRRGH! I’m stuck with this really awful picture for FIVE years. And the truly horrible irony of all of this is that I had the chance to renew online and keep my really great looking picture for another five years but I kept having trouble with my credit card billing address because I have moved but haven’t really moved and I can’t make up my mind whether to make Mechanic Man’s address MY address or to keep my real address as a place to temporarily go to on lunch hours and weekends. Now I have this truly ugly picture following me around every single solitary second of my life. For five years!

Obviously, the Department of Licensing did not get my memo on 60 reasons to be excited to be 60. They must have received one that said "there is only one reason for this person to look like an old worn boot, because she is ELDERLY, OLD, WRINKLED, and, well, REALLY OLD."

New Year’s Resolutions have nothing on the resolution I am making as a result of having my driver’s license renewed. Oh no. Now I am passionately and resolutely determined to change my identity. I’m going to lose 40 pounds and I’m going to join a gym and I’m going to get massages every other day and I’m going to tape my face up and back and go back in and have the damned picture retaken. Again and again and again until it looks like ME.

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The Walk Home

I had a migraine that day. It was set to be one of the bad ones and I decided to leave for home. I had missed the bus and so prepared to walk the two miles. It was cloudy and threatening to rain and so I picked up my yellow polka-dot Mary Englebriet umbrella and set out on my way.

As I got to the Monroe Street Bridge I noticed a man leaning on the cement banister, looking out over the water. I'm always aware of people when I'm walking. I try to assess them and make up a story about them. This one though was different. He was older than me, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. My first thought was, where's his coat – it's going to rain and it's cold still for early April.

I got closer and just wanted to get past this guy. I was chanting in my head "don't turn around, don't turn around, don't turn around." I was just inches past him when he said "Hey lady." I planned on ignoring him and I planned to keep on going, but there was something about the tone. I stopped and looked back. He looked at me, soft sad brown eyes.

"Yes?" I hesitantly asked.

"Help me. I'm going to jump."

There's dead silence; I can barely hear the river below; I don't notice it has started to rain.

"What?" I ask – surely I didn't hear him right.

"I'm-going-to-jump-you-need-to-help-me."

I pointed my finger at him and I think I only said "STAY", not anything else. In my head I was shouting, "You stay right there and don't you move one muscle!"

I ran up the walk to the first building at the edge of the bridge. Closed! I ran to the next building. Closed! What's with all these closed buildings? I don't have time for this! I went to the next building and couldn't get the door open. I don't know why. My brain stopped working and I was a blithering idiot. I finally noticed a phone booth right next to me and miracle of miracles I even had money on me, in my pocket. I dialed 911 and told them my story. The dispatcher questioned me with "How do you know he's going to jump?" "He just told me!" I yelled back. I hung up in despair and my mind is screaming "O my God O my God O my God"

I ran back down the sidewalk, the man still standing there, O thank God, leaning over the edge. Just then a police car came down the road, the absolutely only car for three blocks! Two officers gently approached the man and lifted his hands off the edge of the cement wall and carefully guided him back to their car. The three of them made one glance at me and then drove away.

And there I stood with my cheery sunny umbrella while it rained in earnest now, pouring tears from Heaven.

Three weeks later, on my birthday in fact, I was reading the paper and I got to the ad section, which I never read, and it just caught my eye, a little ad:

"To the lady with the yellow umbrella. You saved my life. Thank you."

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60 reasons I am excited about being SIXTY:

ONE WEEK AWAY

1. I don’t look it – see me next year
2. I am healthy (mostly)
3. I am content
4. I am mature (something I am extremely grateful for – no more hot emotions, no more being jealous or petty; just nice calm maturity)
5. However, I can be cranky if I want to. I'm OLD.
6. I love the person in the mirror that looks back at me.
7. I laugh at myself way too much. And that’s perfectly fine.
8. I am hardly ever sad.
9. I have the bone density of a 30-year-old, so my doc tells me
10. I am mother of two great sons that I don’t have to nag after
11. I have dear close friends that hold secrets, tell jokes, and care deeply
12. I laugh and laugh and laugh
13. I’m alive
14. I feel great
15. I am comfortable in my skin
16. I have become a sensitive, compassionate woman
17. I have become an example to follow
18. I’m a great mother-in-law and the envy of all my daughter-in-law’s friends who don’t have me as their mother-in-law
19. I have a beautiful singing voice, especially in the shower
20. I am 1/3 of the way through my list
21. I look back at some of the things I write and think, boy, that was really good!
22. I am passionate about attitude and living, truly living!
23. I am a good listener and confidante.
24. Not to worry when you tell me a secret; I can honestly say I have forgotten it by the next day
25. I dance when I clean the house, usually to Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell.”
26. Sunsets
27. Beaches
28. The ocean
29. I can still climb lighthouses
30. I am a pretty good photographer
31. I might retire in five years; maybe not; maybe work fulfills me still
32. I’m good with computers
33. Babies – I look forward to being a very young in spirit Grandmother in my 60s
34. All-you-can-eat buffet places that give senior discounts to 60 and older. I can eat those 80-year-olds under the table.
35. I can skip exercising (well, occasionally) and blame it on "old age."
36. I get to take naps!
37. I can be weird and eccentric and everyone will love me anyway
38. My eyesight is still 20-20
39. I actually wasn't born yesterday
40. 2/3 through my list
41. I am wise and make less mistakes
42. When I make mistakes I just write them off as senior moments
43. Cats love me (they see an easy mark)
44. I'm still active and in more ways than one
45. You are only as old as you feel – and sometimes I feel like I'm twelve.
46. Some days I feel like I'm 100.
47. Life!
48. I have God in my heart; God walks with me all day long
49. I have a great sense of humor
50. Other people laughing is contagious; I surround myself with laughing people
51. I am introspective and engage in lots of soul searching and generally find good things in my soul
52. A former boss told my current boss to hire me because I was gentle and kind; I really like being thought of as gentle and kind
53. I have my teeth; and I floss
54. I sleep very well
55. I have no regrets
56. I have at least 60 friends!
57. 20 of my 60 friends are my very best friends forever VBFF!
58. Today is the first day of my life, and I get to start all over again with a fresh slate; and it is the last day of my life and I get to fill it up with all kinds of adventures and experiences and memories
59. I can still swing to the top of the bar with my feet high and my head back
60. Wow! I'm sixty years old! Can you believe it???

Pieces of Joy

I love finding little things in the day that are joyful.

• Like, passing a gradeschool during recess and listening to dozens of children laughing;
• Watching the neighbor teen "race" with his little short-legged terrier running like it meant his life, the little dog's tail wiggling so much that he zigzagged as he ran, stopping now and then to smile at his master and let the teen catch up;
• Sitting at a light and hearing loud cheering from the car next door with its window down and realizing the guy by himself is singing at the top of his lungs to the radio, his head thrown back with glee;
• Babies being strolled by on the first spring day;
• Tulips and crocuses have exploded out of the hard wintered soil;
• Putting my coat back in the closet, finally;
• Spring cleaning! Leaving the windows and doors open, sending the old stale air out and letting the fresh spring air in;
• Bliss.

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Health Report #1

Just wanted all of you to know that I am "good" for a while. I am having tests done to start the process of going on a transplant list but my overall health is very good and that will keep me riding the fence for a while – and I pray for a long, long while. As I told a good friend, I am really good at sitting on fences. I should be a politician.

I feel the good vibes and the prayers. Thank you so much! I'll just keep on keeping on, as they say. Our minds are so powerful and our attitude is magic.

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Giving up the bottle

Giving up the bottle. . . . . Not the beer bottle – the baby bottle. When my youngest boy was born a mere 17 months after my oldest, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt that I had a second baby while my first born was STILL a baby. I remember walking up the stairs with the brand new baby and looking at the top step where my not even 18-month-old was standing. My heart stopped with a pang. He's only a baby I thought. I wanted to cry. And sometimes, when both were crying, I cried right along with them. How could I have done such a selfish thing! So, I appeased my guilt by letting my now 18-month-old still use a bottle.

I knew that I should be potty training him but it was so much easier to simply make up two bottles instead of one and then there would be about five minutes of silence, with the two munchkins happily and contentedly (and quietly) enjoying their bottle.

When they were 18 months and a month shy of 3 years old respectively and STILL on the bottle, well, things needed to change. I worried about this moment for weeks. I tried to think of plans. Plan A - and Plan B in case Plan A blew up in my face. So – Plan A was to wait until their Dad went on assignment (in the Air Force) where he worked off site three days and three nights. We'd take Daddy to the base on such-and-such morning and then go back to the house and throw all the bottles in the garbage. Cold Turkey! And then we would burrow in for three days and three nights of crying, wailing, gnashing of teeth, pounding heads against crib bars, going through bottle withdrawal – and after three days and three nights we would be boys and not babies. We would be bottleless and ready for potty training! We would be out of diapers and into training pants. Hoo Rah.

So – we drove Daddy to the base and came home. I asked the boys to gather all their bottles together. They happily did so. Like a game! Then I had them go out to the garbage cans and toss them into the brand spanking new empty garbage cans. And we went back inside and they jumped up and down and clapped their hands and asked what else they could throw away. And acted like nothing happened. They went and played with their stuffed animals and their Weebles and their Fisher-Price cars and acted like nothing happened. They had their lunch with their milk in sippy cups and again – no wailing, no tantrums, no kicking and screaming.

My babies miraculously turned into little boys with a snap of a garbage can lid.

And there was no Plan B.

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Cars Rule

You would not believe this. I think my cars have personalities. Really. I have a little red Suzuki Swift that I bought brand new in 1989. "She" is tops. Fantastic mileage (40 mpg), doesn't go through oil, likes to travel, never talks back to me, no dings or dents, the upholstery is still perfect. She's a little gem.

And then two years ago, while she was innocently parked across the street along a vacant lot lined with boulders, she was creamed by a drunk driver who sideswiped her totally from back to front and then smashed the other side by squishing her against the boulders. I got up at 3:00 in the morning right after it happened and all I could do was stand there in my jammies and stare. I couldn't believe this had happened to my trusty excellent little car.

So I bought a new car and Mechanic Man parked Little Red in the garden.

The new one just doesn't have my heart. It has a very dull personality. It's boring. It's silver and so are a gazillion other cars. I'll park at the store and when I come out – there are a whole row of silver cars like ticky tacky houses all in a row. It doesn't call out to me. It just sits there, blending in with all the rest.

Maybe that explains why I have had a couple fender benders with it in the last couple months. It's almost like a disease. I'm starting to get paranoid. I'm starting to hyperventilate and second guess myself. Will today be another "bump" in the road?

I don't think my silver car likes me.

So, I went to the store to get stuff for home made tacos. Mechanic Man makes tacos to die for. I got home and discovered the corn shells broke when they were tossed in the bag with everything else, so I went back to the store to replace them.

And I bumped into the car next to where I parked. Don't ask me how. I don't know. It just happened. So I pulled to the spot in front of where I was and checked the damages. Scraped the front bumper on my car. Nice little dent in the door of the victim. I called my insurance company and relayed all the petty information.

• No – I'm not hurt.
• No – I'm not blocking traffic.
• Hell, no, I'm not fixing it THIS time.
• No – I don't know who owns the other car because they aren't here. It was parked.
• I'm in a parking lot and all the cars are parked.
• The owner isn't here. The owner parked their car and went into the store.
• Fine. I'll leave a note on the other car.
• Thank you so much.

Only the owner never came out (turned out she worked there all night). Well, I was so rattled by the whole thing and that it was MY fault AGAIN, I saw that the window was slightly open and I slipped the note through the opening only to just at that moment realize that the car I hit was the next one over and not this one! And this one was a junkie, dented, crapped out piece of junk. I couldn't leave that note in this car saying "I'm sorry I just hit your car here's all my insurance information, my name, my phone number, my first born. . . . ." So I tried sticking my hand through the window and I couldn't get past my elbow. And so I waited. I prayed that the first person to come out would be the wrong person so I could get my note back. Otherwise, if it were the right person then we'd both have to wait for the wrong person. . . . . . Are you with me?

Finally a guy came towards me and to the pile of junk car. I explained my predicament and he laughingly gave me my note back and said "Lady, too bad you didn't hit my car. I would have never noticed."

So – long story short – the gal that owned the car I hit wants to get a new car in a year and she doesn't care about the dent in the door and was very surprised that I even bothered to stick around. And the insurance company said that next time I have an accident I will have to pay two deductibles because I made a claim on this one and even though neither one of us wants our car repaired, you can't save up dings and scrapes and have them applied by one insurance claim if you have already made another claim. It's so confusing.

In the meantime, Mechanic Man found a little white Suzuki Swift and brought it home and parked next to Little Red. He's all excited about getting the car fixed up so we can run around on 40 miles per gallon. We got the little car on Thursday; Friday we were driving his big Town Car, when it suddenly smoked, popped, choked, and died a shuddering, sputtering death, on the freeway. As we waited for the tow truck, he said, "ya know, I think the cars have been talking to each other and this one is jealous."

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