Today was an exhausting day but I got a lot accomplished and had fun with Dad while doing it! This will probably be a boring blog!
I was out of the house by just after 9:00 headed to Target to buy a mouse for Dad's small laptop computer. I was carrying a hammer and picture hooks; wood glue and clamps to repair the entertainment center and a 2 page form that needed filling out for Dad's Veterans (VA) payments.
Dad was just completing therapy when I arrived so I quickly grabbed the head therapist and asked her to complete her portion of the VA form. I also will need Dad's nurse to complete part of the form and his Doctor's signature too. The Dr. is located in Manassas within 5 miles of Dad, but I need to drive there and hopefully arrive before they close for lunch at noon. It's currently just after 10:00. If you've never been to northern Virginia/Metro DC you have NO IDEA how much traffic and road construction is ongoing and how miserable it can be to do anything here! I'm not looking forward to running around!
First things first....install the mouse and work with Dad using it. Ahhhhhh, much easier with a mouse than with the touch pad. Accomplishment number 1!
Now it's time to tackle the entertainment center. Terry has given me two clamps and some glue and I proceed but doh, the glue has dried up. End of that project until I go out to the doctor's office.
Now it's time to pick up the form from the therapist and get the nurse to sign off. I sit and wait for the nurse....10.....15 minutes. Finally decide to try later and head back up to Dad. Meanwhile he has gotten completely lost on the computer so we try to figure that out again. By now it's 11:20 and I want to leave by around 11:30 to go to the Dr's office before they close. I went back out to find the nurse and by 11:45 I've entered GPS coordinates into my phone and I'm on my way to the Dr's office.
I arrive at the Dr's office after noon (closing time for the entire afternoon) and plead with the man at the front office to please see if he can get the form signed. Turns out most of his relatives live in the Bay Area and I think he kinda likes me. I can be very nice. 50 minutes later I meet the Dr and get the form signed! That was BIG accomplishment number 2.
Did I mention I hadn't eaten breakfast?
I leave and dash to Subway (eat fresh!) for a veggie delight, wolf it down, stop at a hardware store and buy glue and head back to Dad's. By this time he's through with lunch and back in his room trying to use the computer. He was used to a PC and the laptop is perplexing him and is difficult to use. We try again.
Then the fun part begins! By Dad's direction, I start hanging and re-arranging artwork. Then we get into moving furniture around, oh, and I repair the entertainment center. AND I unstuff the vacuum cleaner hose and vacuum the art and clean his room and organize all his papers and put away cards, etc. We had fun! I love doing that sort of thing - re-arranging furniture and hanging art. Just ask Gordon!
So after leaving him at 4:00 I came home and took a shower and now Terry, Sandy and I are going out for a lovely dinner at this wonderful restaurant called Forlanos. I've been there before with them and the food was fabulous and they have a very lively atmosphere.
Tomorrow I'm bringing more artwork to Dad and we'll do a little more decorating and cleaning and straightening up.
p.s. just back from Forlano's....wow, wonderful food all local and handmade; calamari, bruschetti with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella; crab cakes; flank steak; lamb sausage over home made fettuccine; chocolate torte and poached pear; glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and red wine. I can't remember what Sandy and Terry had!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Imagine - Day 3
Imagine if one day you went out to play golf. You leave the home that you've lived in for 20+ years; drive your car that you love down a lovely road to play golf with your best buddies. You have a fantastic round of golf; good lunch; couple of beers to re-hash the game. Go home, clean up and meet a favorite friend for dinner.
The next day you are in the hospital.....and you never go home again. You can't drive a car; you can't play golf; you can't walk; you can't even stand up or raise your arms.
This is what happened to my father after a stroke took the use of the right side of his body. He has been battling every day since to try to regain the use of his right leg and the use of his right arm. This is the life that he is now trying to imagine over one year later.
Today I went to visit my Dad at his assisted living home. He lives at Emeritus Senior Living in Manassas, Virginia. It is a lovely home with an incredibly friendly staff and lots of patients with different levels of needs. He has a big room with his own furnishings which, of course, include a huge entertainment center with flat screen TV, surround sound, a Blue Ray Disc and IPOD player hooked up to the surround sound! Always the first one on the block with the new color TV, or the best sound system or the coolest camera, etc. Some things never change! He has a private bath and a small kitchen stocked with cold drinks and snacks to share with visitors.
For Dad, his situation is torture. What he wants is to play golf. What he wants is to drive over to Sandy's office and grab a conversation. What he wants is to fly to California and visit Gordon and I and the girls. What he wants is to hold his greatgrandchildren and give them a big Granddaddy hug. What he has is a new situation that is very hard to come to terms with. And not just for him, by the way, but for all of us. All his brothers and sisters; all the nieces and nephews; all his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren; we all have suffered this tragedy with him.
I visited with Dad for a few hours today. I'm trying to help him organize his computer so logging onto the newspaper or Facebook or blogspots takes only a few clicks. His laptop is difficult to navigate with his left hand only and I will buy him a mouse to use instead of a touch pad. He showed me his walking capability which, to me, because I haven't seen him since February, is amazing! He actually can get around pretty well. The problem is balance....it's easy to think you can just go strolling down the hall, quite another to actually do it. Every step must be calculated and cautiously taken.
Tomorrow I'll visit again and try to repair a broken door on his entertainment center. And I'll install the mouse and see if we can get the computer to be a little easier to use. And maybe I can get him to go sit on the front porch with me little. Perhaps we'll discuss how his disability has screwed up his golf swing!
You have to keep your sense of humor or you'll go crazy and I think I can say that Dad has managed to hang on to his good personality and wonderful humor....even when he finds it hard to imagine his new life.
The next day you are in the hospital.....and you never go home again. You can't drive a car; you can't play golf; you can't walk; you can't even stand up or raise your arms.
This is what happened to my father after a stroke took the use of the right side of his body. He has been battling every day since to try to regain the use of his right leg and the use of his right arm. This is the life that he is now trying to imagine over one year later.
Today I went to visit my Dad at his assisted living home. He lives at Emeritus Senior Living in Manassas, Virginia. It is a lovely home with an incredibly friendly staff and lots of patients with different levels of needs. He has a big room with his own furnishings which, of course, include a huge entertainment center with flat screen TV, surround sound, a Blue Ray Disc and IPOD player hooked up to the surround sound! Always the first one on the block with the new color TV, or the best sound system or the coolest camera, etc. Some things never change! He has a private bath and a small kitchen stocked with cold drinks and snacks to share with visitors.
For Dad, his situation is torture. What he wants is to play golf. What he wants is to drive over to Sandy's office and grab a conversation. What he wants is to fly to California and visit Gordon and I and the girls. What he wants is to hold his greatgrandchildren and give them a big Granddaddy hug. What he has is a new situation that is very hard to come to terms with. And not just for him, by the way, but for all of us. All his brothers and sisters; all the nieces and nephews; all his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren; we all have suffered this tragedy with him.
I visited with Dad for a few hours today. I'm trying to help him organize his computer so logging onto the newspaper or Facebook or blogspots takes only a few clicks. His laptop is difficult to navigate with his left hand only and I will buy him a mouse to use instead of a touch pad. He showed me his walking capability which, to me, because I haven't seen him since February, is amazing! He actually can get around pretty well. The problem is balance....it's easy to think you can just go strolling down the hall, quite another to actually do it. Every step must be calculated and cautiously taken.
Tomorrow I'll visit again and try to repair a broken door on his entertainment center. And I'll install the mouse and see if we can get the computer to be a little easier to use. And maybe I can get him to go sit on the front porch with me little. Perhaps we'll discuss how his disability has screwed up his golf swing!
You have to keep your sense of humor or you'll go crazy and I think I can say that Dad has managed to hang on to his good personality and wonderful humor....even when he finds it hard to imagine his new life.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Day 2, Three States and a Good Visit
Today begins with a massive hangover! All three of us - Sandy, Terry and I. Too much red wine (three bottles - one each) and too late to bed. Will I never learn? Apparently not.
My mission for the day is to drive with sister Sandy the two plus hours up to Thurmont, Maryland to see my brother, Paul, and sister-in-law, Marcia, and then on to Pennsylvania to visit with our mother, Irene.....just like the hurricane. Three states in 2 hours. Entirely possible here on the east coast.
I'm introduced to Sandy's new car, a Lexus sky blue hard top convertible coupe. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Sandy dons her cute baseball cap and I my Grace Kelly scarf and off we go looking like movie stars.....feeling like what the cat dragged in!
After a brief visit with Paul and Marcia at their train and hobby shop, Catoctin Mountain Trains and Hobby, we head out to lunch where I'm treated to the southern delight......Deep Fried Dill Pickles!
Oh yeah. I thought "no way am I going to eat a deep fried pickle." Well I'm here to tell you they are delicious! I ate 2! The three of us girls head up to Paul and Marcia's home to go through old photos from Dad's home and sort through costume jewlery from Mom's home. And to have a hair-of-the-dog before heading over to see our Mom.
Sandy and I see Mom at just before 4:00pm and are delighted to find her new assisted care living arrangement much to our liking. It's spacious with beautiful grounds, very friendly staff and residents and Mom has a lovely, good-sized room with her own furniture and art and personal affects. She seemed happy and comfortable in her new surroundings which has relieved Sandy and I and set us at ease throughout our visit. She DOES have complaints mind you food being the biggest but all-in-all we have found her well.
About 5:30 Paul and Marcia show up and the five of us proceed into Emmitsburg which is almost to Gettysburg for a nice dinner. Within minutes of our arrival my brother promptly pours an entire glass of ice tea on Mom and me! Oops....but we recover and have a lovely dinner sitting outside - a rare thing to do in the summer on the east coast. Usually it's too hot or too buggy to sit and eat outside but northern Virginians are experiencing relatively mild weather after Irene (the hurricane not the mother) came barreling through.
Once Mom is safely back to her home just after 7:30pm.....past her bedtime....it's time for the three siblings and Marcia to head out for a hot fudge sundae with WET NUTS! Another east coast delicacy! Why can you NOT buy wet nuts in California I ask you? If I lived back here I'd be 500 pounds!
Sandy and I arrived back to Broad Run, VA and the safety of her and Terry's nest just after 9:15, had a nice glass of red and a quick catch-up with Terry and now off to bed.
It has been a good day. I confess that I dreaded seeing my Mom a little only because I had heard that she was entirely unhappy about her new "digs" and complaining alot. I was prepared for the worst but got the best surprise with her pleasant demeanor and happy situation. It's never easy being with our Mother because you never know what to expect, but today was good.
Next up.....Dad!
My mission for the day is to drive with sister Sandy the two plus hours up to Thurmont, Maryland to see my brother, Paul, and sister-in-law, Marcia, and then on to Pennsylvania to visit with our mother, Irene.....just like the hurricane. Three states in 2 hours. Entirely possible here on the east coast.
I'm introduced to Sandy's new car, a Lexus sky blue hard top convertible coupe. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Sandy dons her cute baseball cap and I my Grace Kelly scarf and off we go looking like movie stars.....feeling like what the cat dragged in!
After a brief visit with Paul and Marcia at their train and hobby shop, Catoctin Mountain Trains and Hobby, we head out to lunch where I'm treated to the southern delight......Deep Fried Dill Pickles!
Sandy and I see Mom at just before 4:00pm and are delighted to find her new assisted care living arrangement much to our liking. It's spacious with beautiful grounds, very friendly staff and residents and Mom has a lovely, good-sized room with her own furniture and art and personal affects. She seemed happy and comfortable in her new surroundings which has relieved Sandy and I and set us at ease throughout our visit. She DOES have complaints mind you food being the biggest but all-in-all we have found her well.
About 5:30 Paul and Marcia show up and the five of us proceed into Emmitsburg which is almost to Gettysburg for a nice dinner. Within minutes of our arrival my brother promptly pours an entire glass of ice tea on Mom and me! Oops....but we recover and have a lovely dinner sitting outside - a rare thing to do in the summer on the east coast. Usually it's too hot or too buggy to sit and eat outside but northern Virginians are experiencing relatively mild weather after Irene (the hurricane not the mother) came barreling through.
Once Mom is safely back to her home just after 7:30pm.....past her bedtime....it's time for the three siblings and Marcia to head out for a hot fudge sundae with WET NUTS! Another east coast delicacy! Why can you NOT buy wet nuts in California I ask you? If I lived back here I'd be 500 pounds!
Sandy and I arrived back to Broad Run, VA and the safety of her and Terry's nest just after 9:15, had a nice glass of red and a quick catch-up with Terry and now off to bed.
It has been a good day. I confess that I dreaded seeing my Mom a little only because I had heard that she was entirely unhappy about her new "digs" and complaining alot. I was prepared for the worst but got the best surprise with her pleasant demeanor and happy situation. It's never easy being with our Mother because you never know what to expect, but today was good.
Marcia, trying to get away, Sandy, Mom and Paul.
Me and the sibs plus Mom.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
The Journey: the Beginning
Today, Sunday August 28, I did not sleep well. I set the alarm for 5:00a.m. I woke up at 1:20; I woke up at 2:02; I woke up at 3 something. Finally at 4:22a.m. I got up and disabled the 5 a.m. alarm. What's the point?
I began our Fall vacation/journey today. My first leg is all on my own. San Francisco to Washington Dulles to visit my family. I was last here in February this year when Jillian moved into her new apartment and I was able to come to Virginia, see my parents and most of my family, and move some of Dad's belongings to Jillian in New York. Of course there was the blizzard of 2011 to contend with at the time.
Coincidentally, this year, there was just an earthquake and a hurricane on the east coast for this "planned" trip! WTH! Is this an omen?
Anyway my day began by checking my email for updates from Continental, which, by the way has merged with United to become one mega-massive, take-your-money-and-run organization! I'm now on a booked-through-Continental United flight into Dulles and it's departing 45 minutes late. That's ok.
When I finally board the massive aircraft I notice the, shall we say, unseasoned flyers. Why do people insist on blocking an entire aisle trying to fit their too many pieces of luggage into the overhead bins? All the while announcements are being made to find your seat; step out of the aisle and let others around message blaring on the speaker system so we can take off on time. The idiots don't seem to hear or, don't care.
The next thing I notice is that children of a certain age have no control over the level of their cute little voices! Everything must be said as LOUD AS POSSIBLE AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE! And, three, parents are powerless over their children!
My flight was relatively non-descript. I read my Kindle. I watched a couple of TV shows. Snoozed. I ate my pre-packed PB&J and pear and had a hot tea and later a diet coke.
Upon arrival I casually made my way to baggage claim and waited the requisite hour and 10 minutes for my baggage. Then I caught the shuttle bus to the Hertz rental company for my car. Upon arrival there I quickly realize the many, many, many people who could not get into New York or New Jersey this weekend due to Irene, which by the way, is my Mother's name and part of the reason for my visit, are now trying to rent cars to drive up the eastern seaboard! The rental car company is mobbed. Literally mobbed. Hundreds of people and millions of bags of luggage adorn the ususally quiet Hertz car rental hub. I had to have been 100th in line. Called my sister to come get me. Screw this.
Many glasses of red wine and a LOT of fabulous conversation and yummy food later....I'm here; relaxed and writing and happy to have this day behind me.
Day one complete and ready for day two.
Tomorrow Sandy and I will drive up to see my brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Marcia, and go visit my mommy, Irene.
We shall see what a new day brings.
I began our Fall vacation/journey today. My first leg is all on my own. San Francisco to Washington Dulles to visit my family. I was last here in February this year when Jillian moved into her new apartment and I was able to come to Virginia, see my parents and most of my family, and move some of Dad's belongings to Jillian in New York. Of course there was the blizzard of 2011 to contend with at the time.
Coincidentally, this year, there was just an earthquake and a hurricane on the east coast for this "planned" trip! WTH! Is this an omen?
Anyway my day began by checking my email for updates from Continental, which, by the way has merged with United to become one mega-massive, take-your-money-and-run organization! I'm now on a booked-through-Continental United flight into Dulles and it's departing 45 minutes late. That's ok.
When I finally board the massive aircraft I notice the, shall we say, unseasoned flyers. Why do people insist on blocking an entire aisle trying to fit their too many pieces of luggage into the overhead bins? All the while announcements are being made to find your seat; step out of the aisle and let others around message blaring on the speaker system so we can take off on time. The idiots don't seem to hear or, don't care.
The next thing I notice is that children of a certain age have no control over the level of their cute little voices! Everything must be said as LOUD AS POSSIBLE AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE! And, three, parents are powerless over their children!
My flight was relatively non-descript. I read my Kindle. I watched a couple of TV shows. Snoozed. I ate my pre-packed PB&J and pear and had a hot tea and later a diet coke.
Upon arrival I casually made my way to baggage claim and waited the requisite hour and 10 minutes for my baggage. Then I caught the shuttle bus to the Hertz rental company for my car. Upon arrival there I quickly realize the many, many, many people who could not get into New York or New Jersey this weekend due to Irene, which by the way, is my Mother's name and part of the reason for my visit, are now trying to rent cars to drive up the eastern seaboard! The rental car company is mobbed. Literally mobbed. Hundreds of people and millions of bags of luggage adorn the ususally quiet Hertz car rental hub. I had to have been 100th in line. Called my sister to come get me. Screw this.
Many glasses of red wine and a LOT of fabulous conversation and yummy food later....I'm here; relaxed and writing and happy to have this day behind me.
Day one complete and ready for day two.
Tomorrow Sandy and I will drive up to see my brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Marcia, and go visit my mommy, Irene.
We shall see what a new day brings.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
A Simple Sentence
There are moments in your life that change you and your perspective forever. September 11 is one of those moments. The Berlin Wall coming down. The Challenger explosion. Kennedy's assassination. And there are moments that happen just within your own family that forever change who you were into who you are. Events of the mid to late 60's changed me from a young happy girl into a confused insecure and often times, scared teenager. I was 10 in 1965 and the world was changing at a furious pace. And inside the Barton Street house, well, things were about to come undone.
I remember my family in our little den in the house on Barton Street. The room was tiny. I think us kids must have sat on the floor when we all wanted to watch TV. There was a couch that could comfortably seat 3 adults and an overstuffed chair. I think there may have been a rocker by the window too. The TV was wedged in the corner. You remember the TV right? Small boxy thing with rabbit ears we were always adjusting and the stations would get all fuzzy and snowy. You had to get up to change the channel......but there were only 5 or 7 channels anyway....black and white TV though we were one of the first on our block to own a color television.
Our family watched Ed Sullivan. I remember watching the Beatles debut on Ed's show. Ma, my grandmother, she liked Lawrence Welk. Remember the bubbles? Dad liked Mitch Miller - Sing Along with Mitch.....follow the bouncing ball. Sandy and I watched I Dream of Jeannie; Gidget; The Flying Nun; Star Trek; Bewitched; Lost in Space; Lassie; Dark Shadows, oh and the Twilight Zone! So many TV shows! We were happy in our little den watching our shows.
We watched TV all day as Kennedy's funeral took place. All the schools were closed for the funeral. I was in third grade in 1963 and my teacher's name just happened to be Miss Johnson. She made it clear to us that she was not related to our new President and that I wasn't either. I remember watching the Mall in DC filling up with hopeful, peace-loving people when Martin Luther King used to "have a dream". I remember watching the TV when Dr. King was shot.
I have these memories that are clear as a bell. But I wonder if time has changed them in my mind. Are these memories as they actually happened? Were things in our household as good as they seemed? Was I just a clueless naive little girl or pretty much normal for a child of the 60's? Life seemed pretty simple. How could it get complicated so quickly?
The note said "I love you all."
I'm in the sewing room at the Barton Street house, only the sewing room is now my bedroom. The year is 1969, and we are just past "the summer of love". The hippies have converged on San Francisco. The United States' youth are in the midst of a social phenomenon; free-thinking, culturally diverse, sexually active, drug experimenting young people..."hippies!" The pop radio waves are dominated by songs from the musical "Hair" and The 5th Dimension's "Age of Aquarius." I am fourteen and the noise in my head is really loud and becoming really painful. I am alone. But let's back up slightly.
In the mid sixties the three of us sisters, Sandy, Shirley and I, got involved in roller skating at the rink in Old Town Alexandria; first for fun on a Wednesday evening and then competitively shortly thereafter. We each took lessons in figures, freestyle and dance and soon became involved in the skating "club" and connecting with a new group of friends outside our school friends.
For me it was the second year of integration and the students from my school were unlucky enough to be bussed from all the friends we had grown up and went to school with for the last 7 years in North Arlington into South Arlington. The school we came from was in an all white slightly upper-middle class neighborhood. The school we were bussed to was in an all black middle class neighborhood. They didn't want us there and frankly, we didn't want to be there. It was a tough time. My roller skating friends offered a welcome change from the daily torture of middle school. I connected with this group of friends better than with my current junior high school friends. Pretty much, I didn't know anyone in middle school. I was starting over and it was hard.
My little sister Shirley excelled at skating and was completely adorable with her long braids and shy, sweet smile. She was good at figures and dance. All three of us had dance partners but Sandy and I skated in the same dance division being only two and one half years apart in age. Sandy's dance partner, Doug, eventually became her husband and father of her two children.
We participated in the rink's skating shows wearing various fun costumes, fixing our hair up and skating routines with the rest of the club members. I was having a blast!
On Saturdays our mother would take us to the rink for our lessons and to practice our "moves". We'd meet up with our partners and go through our dance routines preparing for a local competition or practice for the annual skating show. Our mom would always take us to skate during a session on Wednesday nights. She would bring sewing from the house and sit in the same spot, alone, with her draperies or what-not that needed hemming or other finger work. She never sat with the other moms but some would come and sit by her a little. We'd skate from 7:00 to 10:00 pm on Wednesdays. For me it was the most exciting time of the week. Hanging with my non-school friends and getting a little exercise. Listening to the Wurlitzer organ and occasionally skating couples or the best was when they called for "triple" skate which was when three of us would link up and skate together! How corny it seems now but such fun when I was younger. There would also be a chance to practice our set pattern dance routines with our partners.
It was not usual for our father to take us skating or to come to the rink to watch us. I really didn't give it a lot of thought. Dad worked from 7:30ish in the morning until 5:00 pm. He didn't really seem to have a lot of free time. He was involved in choir at our church so he and Aunt Sis would go to church during the week for practice and sing in the choir on Sundays. I guess I just figured he had his thing and mom took us to do our thing. Division of duties.
So it came as sort of a surprise when Dad said he was going to take Shirley and I to the rink one Wednesday night and that he wanted to leave earlier than our usual time because he wanted to stop off to watch the jets taking off and landing at Washington National Airport. Okay - a little odd. I sat in the backseat and Shirley was in front as we left the house. Sandy wasn't with us that evening as we drove to the airport lot which was only a few short miles from the skating rink.
It was that night life as I knew it began to change and the naivete with which I had lived my life to this point abruptly came to a halt. For me, that night explained what innocence lost feels like. As Dad told us that he and our mother could no longer live together and therefore would be separating, the painful noise began. It was only a whimper then. In time the bomb would drop.
I cried. And I cried. And I wondered how on earth this had happened without me having any idea. Did this just happen? Did my older brother and sister know? Did Aunt Sis and Ma know? Nobody had said anything. Mom hadn't said anything. I never heard them speak crossly to each other. I never heard anyone speak crossly in our house. I never saw them angry. I never saw anyone angry in our house. Everyone was always civil in our home. Everything seemed normal. And we were happy weren't we? We had big Sunday dinners; we went on two week vacations in the summer to the beach; we had huge happy Christmases. We took drives up to the mountains with a picnic basket. We watched TV on our new color television set in our little den. We were normal right?
But thinking back now I remember that I never saw my parents smile at each other. I never saw them hold hands. I never saw them kissing. I never heard kind words either. I never saw them do anything together. I guess I never saw anything between them. I guess I only saw each of them going about our daily lives and me thinking everything was normal. Me in my blissful state of young ignorance noticed nothing.
So I sat in the car in shock, dumbstruck, in silence and with tears streaming down my face while I listened to Dad drone on about how he loved us and he loved our mother but just couldn't live with her any longer. I looked at the back of Shirley's head and wondered what she was thinking... just another shocked, sad face staring......waiting for this to be over.....waiting for this to end.
That night's skating session was difficult. I spent a lot of time in the ladies room trying to re-arrange my face into my old face. The one I used to recognize. The happy one - the one without the redness around the eyes and the puffy bags. The one without this new knowledge. The one that didn't look as old as this one seems to now.
When I got home nothing else was said and we just sort of went along as usual all summer. Like nothing had happened. Did I dream it? We had dinners together; went swimming and played games together. And we prepared for National's; a skating competition in New York held later that summer. I had only been to New York once before and was looking forward to really being in the city for a period of time and watching a National competition.
Mom drove us up to New York....Sandy, Shirley and me. By then Sandy and Doug had totally fallen for each other. She seemed so grown up to me. Sandy and I shared a double bed in our hotel room and Mom and Shirley shared the other. It was really exciting for me staying in a hotel for the first time. AND the hotel had a swimming pool though we weren't allowed to use it because it might effect our muscles. You know, the ones we used for skating?? Each day we would go to the rink to either practice or watch the competition. Sandy and I skated in a particularly competitive division as most of the kids in that division had been skating for years. We weren't very good but we were happy to have participated.
Soon the week was up and we were dragging our suitcases and skates back into the Barton Street house and up to our rooms. In the hall just before my bedroom sat a small desk with a lamp and a rotary phone with a long extension cord. The light on the desk was on and there was a note with that single sentence....."I love you all". The handwriting didn't register with me immediately and I proceeded to my room questioning in my mind who had left this odd note.
I can still feel the impact when the realization of who wrote the note hit me. The bomb dropped and the noise began. It was our Dad's handwriting. It was a goodbye of sorts; it was meant as a reassurance. It was a planned cop-out that us kids didn't know about. What I did next was like something from a movie. I was in slow motion. I dropped everything I was carrying and ran down the stairs to my parents' room. I threw open the closet where Dad's clothes used to be - there was nothing there. I opened each drawer that used to hold his clothes - there was nothing there either. He was gone. Nobody told us he was leaving while we were away. I don't recall anything more being said since that night in the car weeks ago. My Mom was standing in the room with me and she said nothing.
I spend most of that night crying. A young persons tears. Selfish tears. What will Christmas be like now? What will happen on my birthday? What about Sunday dinners? Summer vacations? Church on Sunday....will Dad still be there singing in the choir? It all seemed so hopeless to me. And still I cried knowing that my life was changing; knowing I'll be the kid at school with the divorced parents. Knowing Dad won't come home for dinner at 5:00pm any more. I knew from that day forward my life had changed forever. Who I was was no more. This was the new me.
And all the while I was crying my mother was laying in the room next to mine with my little sister. She never came in to reassure me. She never came to hold me or stroke my hair and tell me everything would be okay. She never said a word. Not one word.
For years I held this against my mother. After all how could she be so heartless not to talk to me about the situation or reassure me? Why didn't she explain what had happened or help me to understand? How could she know I was so upset and not come to comfort me? Why did the whole summer go by without any acknowledgement of what was to come?
Now, years later, I think, who was comforting her? Who was answering her questions? She was about 46-47 years old and a mother of four children. She hadn't worked out side of the home since her first child was born. We lived in a six bedroom home on a large lot and she was alone now. She had lost the one to share her life with. Her first and only love. And my father had lost his first love too. They were just trying to survive and doing the best job they could under the circumstances. That is what I came to understand.
Our Dad re-married two years later. But that is a story I have yet to tell. He has lived a happy and fulfilled life.
Our mother slowly recovered as we all did. Still we have never talked about the divorce and what happened. I only know Dad's side truly. Mom never remarried and she only dated one guy for a short period of time. She has always been a hard person to understand; never a warm kind person at least not with her girls. She is a person who holds on to a grudge. She has never truly been able to be friends with my father or forgive him.
Dad never did sing in the choir again. He didn't come home for dinner at 5:00 pm any more. There were Sunday dinners just not with Dad. Christmas was weird because we now had Christmas Eve with Dad. Dad ALWAYS remembered our birthdays and would do something special for us. Sometimes he would come over and sit on the front porch in a rocker and Shirley or I would sit in his lap...but he wasn't warmly welcomed at the Barton Street house. His grandparents' house.
There was a lot of hurt in our family over that summer in the 1960's. That summer changed us all forever. I grew up a little quicker. I learned that things are not what they seem and there is never a perfect normal. Normal comes in all shapes and sizes and it changes all the time....at the drop of a hat. I learned that a single sweet affectionate sentence can change your life forever.
I remember my family in our little den in the house on Barton Street. The room was tiny. I think us kids must have sat on the floor when we all wanted to watch TV. There was a couch that could comfortably seat 3 adults and an overstuffed chair. I think there may have been a rocker by the window too. The TV was wedged in the corner. You remember the TV right? Small boxy thing with rabbit ears we were always adjusting and the stations would get all fuzzy and snowy. You had to get up to change the channel......but there were only 5 or 7 channels anyway....black and white TV though we were one of the first on our block to own a color television.
Our family watched Ed Sullivan. I remember watching the Beatles debut on Ed's show. Ma, my grandmother, she liked Lawrence Welk. Remember the bubbles? Dad liked Mitch Miller - Sing Along with Mitch.....follow the bouncing ball. Sandy and I watched I Dream of Jeannie; Gidget; The Flying Nun; Star Trek; Bewitched; Lost in Space; Lassie; Dark Shadows, oh and the Twilight Zone! So many TV shows! We were happy in our little den watching our shows.
We watched TV all day as Kennedy's funeral took place. All the schools were closed for the funeral. I was in third grade in 1963 and my teacher's name just happened to be Miss Johnson. She made it clear to us that she was not related to our new President and that I wasn't either. I remember watching the Mall in DC filling up with hopeful, peace-loving people when Martin Luther King used to "have a dream". I remember watching the TV when Dr. King was shot.
I have these memories that are clear as a bell. But I wonder if time has changed them in my mind. Are these memories as they actually happened? Were things in our household as good as they seemed? Was I just a clueless naive little girl or pretty much normal for a child of the 60's? Life seemed pretty simple. How could it get complicated so quickly?
The note said "I love you all."
I'm in the sewing room at the Barton Street house, only the sewing room is now my bedroom. The year is 1969, and we are just past "the summer of love". The hippies have converged on San Francisco. The United States' youth are in the midst of a social phenomenon; free-thinking, culturally diverse, sexually active, drug experimenting young people..."hippies!" The pop radio waves are dominated by songs from the musical "Hair" and The 5th Dimension's "Age of Aquarius." I am fourteen and the noise in my head is really loud and becoming really painful. I am alone. But let's back up slightly.
In the mid sixties the three of us sisters, Sandy, Shirley and I, got involved in roller skating at the rink in Old Town Alexandria; first for fun on a Wednesday evening and then competitively shortly thereafter. We each took lessons in figures, freestyle and dance and soon became involved in the skating "club" and connecting with a new group of friends outside our school friends.
For me it was the second year of integration and the students from my school were unlucky enough to be bussed from all the friends we had grown up and went to school with for the last 7 years in North Arlington into South Arlington. The school we came from was in an all white slightly upper-middle class neighborhood. The school we were bussed to was in an all black middle class neighborhood. They didn't want us there and frankly, we didn't want to be there. It was a tough time. My roller skating friends offered a welcome change from the daily torture of middle school. I connected with this group of friends better than with my current junior high school friends. Pretty much, I didn't know anyone in middle school. I was starting over and it was hard.
My little sister Shirley excelled at skating and was completely adorable with her long braids and shy, sweet smile. She was good at figures and dance. All three of us had dance partners but Sandy and I skated in the same dance division being only two and one half years apart in age. Sandy's dance partner, Doug, eventually became her husband and father of her two children.
We participated in the rink's skating shows wearing various fun costumes, fixing our hair up and skating routines with the rest of the club members. I was having a blast!
On Saturdays our mother would take us to the rink for our lessons and to practice our "moves". We'd meet up with our partners and go through our dance routines preparing for a local competition or practice for the annual skating show. Our mom would always take us to skate during a session on Wednesday nights. She would bring sewing from the house and sit in the same spot, alone, with her draperies or what-not that needed hemming or other finger work. She never sat with the other moms but some would come and sit by her a little. We'd skate from 7:00 to 10:00 pm on Wednesdays. For me it was the most exciting time of the week. Hanging with my non-school friends and getting a little exercise. Listening to the Wurlitzer organ and occasionally skating couples or the best was when they called for "triple" skate which was when three of us would link up and skate together! How corny it seems now but such fun when I was younger. There would also be a chance to practice our set pattern dance routines with our partners.
It was not usual for our father to take us skating or to come to the rink to watch us. I really didn't give it a lot of thought. Dad worked from 7:30ish in the morning until 5:00 pm. He didn't really seem to have a lot of free time. He was involved in choir at our church so he and Aunt Sis would go to church during the week for practice and sing in the choir on Sundays. I guess I just figured he had his thing and mom took us to do our thing. Division of duties.
So it came as sort of a surprise when Dad said he was going to take Shirley and I to the rink one Wednesday night and that he wanted to leave earlier than our usual time because he wanted to stop off to watch the jets taking off and landing at Washington National Airport. Okay - a little odd. I sat in the backseat and Shirley was in front as we left the house. Sandy wasn't with us that evening as we drove to the airport lot which was only a few short miles from the skating rink.
It was that night life as I knew it began to change and the naivete with which I had lived my life to this point abruptly came to a halt. For me, that night explained what innocence lost feels like. As Dad told us that he and our mother could no longer live together and therefore would be separating, the painful noise began. It was only a whimper then. In time the bomb would drop.
I cried. And I cried. And I wondered how on earth this had happened without me having any idea. Did this just happen? Did my older brother and sister know? Did Aunt Sis and Ma know? Nobody had said anything. Mom hadn't said anything. I never heard them speak crossly to each other. I never heard anyone speak crossly in our house. I never saw them angry. I never saw anyone angry in our house. Everyone was always civil in our home. Everything seemed normal. And we were happy weren't we? We had big Sunday dinners; we went on two week vacations in the summer to the beach; we had huge happy Christmases. We took drives up to the mountains with a picnic basket. We watched TV on our new color television set in our little den. We were normal right?
But thinking back now I remember that I never saw my parents smile at each other. I never saw them hold hands. I never saw them kissing. I never heard kind words either. I never saw them do anything together. I guess I never saw anything between them. I guess I only saw each of them going about our daily lives and me thinking everything was normal. Me in my blissful state of young ignorance noticed nothing.
So I sat in the car in shock, dumbstruck, in silence and with tears streaming down my face while I listened to Dad drone on about how he loved us and he loved our mother but just couldn't live with her any longer. I looked at the back of Shirley's head and wondered what she was thinking... just another shocked, sad face staring......waiting for this to be over.....waiting for this to end.
That night's skating session was difficult. I spent a lot of time in the ladies room trying to re-arrange my face into my old face. The one I used to recognize. The happy one - the one without the redness around the eyes and the puffy bags. The one without this new knowledge. The one that didn't look as old as this one seems to now.
When I got home nothing else was said and we just sort of went along as usual all summer. Like nothing had happened. Did I dream it? We had dinners together; went swimming and played games together. And we prepared for National's; a skating competition in New York held later that summer. I had only been to New York once before and was looking forward to really being in the city for a period of time and watching a National competition.
Mom drove us up to New York....Sandy, Shirley and me. By then Sandy and Doug had totally fallen for each other. She seemed so grown up to me. Sandy and I shared a double bed in our hotel room and Mom and Shirley shared the other. It was really exciting for me staying in a hotel for the first time. AND the hotel had a swimming pool though we weren't allowed to use it because it might effect our muscles. You know, the ones we used for skating?? Each day we would go to the rink to either practice or watch the competition. Sandy and I skated in a particularly competitive division as most of the kids in that division had been skating for years. We weren't very good but we were happy to have participated.
Soon the week was up and we were dragging our suitcases and skates back into the Barton Street house and up to our rooms. In the hall just before my bedroom sat a small desk with a lamp and a rotary phone with a long extension cord. The light on the desk was on and there was a note with that single sentence....."I love you all". The handwriting didn't register with me immediately and I proceeded to my room questioning in my mind who had left this odd note.
I can still feel the impact when the realization of who wrote the note hit me. The bomb dropped and the noise began. It was our Dad's handwriting. It was a goodbye of sorts; it was meant as a reassurance. It was a planned cop-out that us kids didn't know about. What I did next was like something from a movie. I was in slow motion. I dropped everything I was carrying and ran down the stairs to my parents' room. I threw open the closet where Dad's clothes used to be - there was nothing there. I opened each drawer that used to hold his clothes - there was nothing there either. He was gone. Nobody told us he was leaving while we were away. I don't recall anything more being said since that night in the car weeks ago. My Mom was standing in the room with me and she said nothing.
I spend most of that night crying. A young persons tears. Selfish tears. What will Christmas be like now? What will happen on my birthday? What about Sunday dinners? Summer vacations? Church on Sunday....will Dad still be there singing in the choir? It all seemed so hopeless to me. And still I cried knowing that my life was changing; knowing I'll be the kid at school with the divorced parents. Knowing Dad won't come home for dinner at 5:00pm any more. I knew from that day forward my life had changed forever. Who I was was no more. This was the new me.
And all the while I was crying my mother was laying in the room next to mine with my little sister. She never came in to reassure me. She never came to hold me or stroke my hair and tell me everything would be okay. She never said a word. Not one word.
For years I held this against my mother. After all how could she be so heartless not to talk to me about the situation or reassure me? Why didn't she explain what had happened or help me to understand? How could she know I was so upset and not come to comfort me? Why did the whole summer go by without any acknowledgement of what was to come?
Now, years later, I think, who was comforting her? Who was answering her questions? She was about 46-47 years old and a mother of four children. She hadn't worked out side of the home since her first child was born. We lived in a six bedroom home on a large lot and she was alone now. She had lost the one to share her life with. Her first and only love. And my father had lost his first love too. They were just trying to survive and doing the best job they could under the circumstances. That is what I came to understand.
Our Dad re-married two years later. But that is a story I have yet to tell. He has lived a happy and fulfilled life.
Our mother slowly recovered as we all did. Still we have never talked about the divorce and what happened. I only know Dad's side truly. Mom never remarried and she only dated one guy for a short period of time. She has always been a hard person to understand; never a warm kind person at least not with her girls. She is a person who holds on to a grudge. She has never truly been able to be friends with my father or forgive him.
Dad never did sing in the choir again. He didn't come home for dinner at 5:00 pm any more. There were Sunday dinners just not with Dad. Christmas was weird because we now had Christmas Eve with Dad. Dad ALWAYS remembered our birthdays and would do something special for us. Sometimes he would come over and sit on the front porch in a rocker and Shirley or I would sit in his lap...but he wasn't warmly welcomed at the Barton Street house. His grandparents' house.
There was a lot of hurt in our family over that summer in the 1960's. That summer changed us all forever. I grew up a little quicker. I learned that things are not what they seem and there is never a perfect normal. Normal comes in all shapes and sizes and it changes all the time....at the drop of a hat. I learned that a single sweet affectionate sentence can change your life forever.
Friday, August 19, 2011
What Happened to the Summer of 2011?
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| Jillian, Alison and Natalie in Central Park in New York. |
My last blog post was way back in June shortly before my summer began in earnest. The time has come for a little catch-up in preparation for my upcoming adventures. Out with the old and in with the new!
The day after posting my Bunko blog Gordon and I left in the wee hours of the morning to move Alison out of her beautiful, but on-campus, apartment at Cal Poly into a storage unit in preparation for moving into a single family home later in the summer. We decided to deliver what furniture items we had stored here at home and some things we had stored at Natty's home in San Jose too. We would also move her apartment things into the storage unit as well.
We had rented a Uhaul to pull behind my Trailblazer all the way from Tucson, Az. to Pleasanton back in May of last year with Jillian's things. So we have some experience with towing. Unfortunately the only Uhaul available for the trip to San Luis Obispo (SLO) is a bigger unit and that makes Gordon uncomfortable. Have you ever backed up a car with a trailer attached? I'm sure many of you have but we haven't. It's ridiculously hard! We make the decision that wherever we go...we MUST NOT have to back up. We must only go forward. Ok. So we pick up furniture from the studio behind Natalie's house in San Jose and then we are off back to Pleasanton to pick up furniture we have purchased from the local thrift shop. Fortunately in both places we were able to park in such a way that we only had to go forward!
Now we have driven to SLO and we meet Alison at the storage unit to unload. Alison has rented a 5X10 storage unit. We have a full bedroom set, a sofa, a dining room table and end tables, and 4 chairs. Oops! The storage unit is a little small but we manage to get everything in and we are hoping to get her things from the apartment in too.
BUT we are realize there is NO WAY we can go to Cal Poly with this huge car and trailer with so many people moving their kids out of campus the same day. CRAP! What to do? I come up with the idea that maybe we should park the trailer and remove it from the car so we can use just the car to schlep back and forth. Ok. Now here comes the tricky part. The only place we can find to safely leave the trailer is a space that we must back into. Doh!
I won't go into detail here but suffice it to say that Gordon doesn't follow direction well. I think we spent a half hour trying to park the trailer next to a curb. I swear there was smoke coming from Gordon's ears and Ali and I couldn't help but laugh at each feeble attempt to park the trailer even close to the vicinity of the curb! AND after all that we couldn't get the trailer off the hitch! CRAP! Now what do we do? We need to get Alison's apartment things over to the storage unit (about 3 miles away) without driving my vehicle with trailer attached.
We pile in to Ali's little 2 door Honda and go to the campus thinking we'll just have to make a billion trips in this little car. Not a good plan.
Once we are there we discover that Alison has not packed many of her things. She was waiting for me to bring boxes? There are people everywhere; the elevators are slow and packed each time you want to use them and we have to not only schlep all her stuff out to her car, we also now have to drive over to the storage unit each time her car is full. Not good. We decide to move the car with trailer to an empty lot close to the school which makes the whole thing easier.
Once we've done that it becomes simpler and we finish up; drive over to the storage unit to cram whatever we can in there and head home with way too much stuff that wouldn't even come close to going into the storage unit. Now, Gordon is driving my car and the now empty trailer and I'm riding with Alison in her car. We get to the top of the mountain you must go over when leaving SLO and Alison remembers that her new eyeglass prescription is in a box in the storage unit along with her birth control pills and all her make-up. CRAP! We turn around and drive the 20 minutes back to the storage unit but I called Gordon and told him to go on....we'll catch up. By now it's 4:00 p.m. and none of us has had lunch. We're a bit cranky, tired and hungry.
We are back at the storage unit and we manage to get all the boxes down and look through them. Guess what? The prescription and pills are in a box in the back of the Trailblazer. CRAP! Close the roller door to the unit; lock the key lock and head back to the car. Alison says "where are my keys?" Eh? What's that? You were driving and you have the keys. No? CRAP! The keys are now locked in the storage unit on a key chain that has the storage unit key on it! OK! So we head down to the office to get a pair of cutters to cut the lock off, buy a new lock and head back home. Ach!
Anyway, mission accomplished on phase one moving of Alison. A few days later Ali flew to New York for a week with Jillian. Gordon, Natalie and I join them one week later in New York.
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| Jillian in front of her Hell's Kitchen apartment building. |
It's done, we venture out to dinner at midnight and walk the city until about 3:00 a.m. The next morning we grab our suitcases; schlep them down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk and walk the short 2 blocks down to the Port of Manhattan and grab a cruise ship down to the Virgin Islands.
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| Sailing out of New York with Lady Liberty in the background |
Now I don't know if having cruised twice aboard Oceania Cruises qualifies Gordon and I as seasoned cruisers but the clientele aboard those cruises is a bit different than a Carnival Cruise out of New York. Suffice it to say that we are SHOCKED at the clientele aboard a ship leaving from New York. Can you say Jersey Shore meets the next cast of the Biggest Loser? Oy Vey!
Gordon and I had a beautiful stateroom with a large balcony, tub with shower and double sinks and a separate dressing room and makeup area for me. A very large and comfortable stateroom. Let's hit the mini bar! The girls have a triple room; a little cramped but with a balcony. Most of the time we have cocktails as a family in our room which suits us fine. And fortunately, Natalie had the foresight to think about the fact that Jillian gets car sick and recommended that perhaps I should get patches for sea-sickness. That's good because both Jill and I need them. Once we sailed out of New York....in the rain, the sea swells got bigger and bigger until Jillie was pale and there was sweat on her brow! Not good.
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| Gordon enjoys the view from our balcony. |
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| Four girls in a bed! |
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| Gordon takes a turn on the Carnival Miracle water slide. |
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| The streets of Old San Juan. |
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| The old Cathedral in San Juan. |
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| On a hot and humid day the locals enjoy the refreshing fountain. |
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| Natty makes a new friend in Puerto Rico. |
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| On Sapphire Beach in Saint Thomas with Phil and Kath. |
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| Our ship from the shore of Grand Turk. |
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| White sandy beaches and turquoise waters of Grand Turk. |
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| Can you find Gordon and Alison? |
then back to New York. The trip was 8 nights and as a family we had a blast. Would I want to go on another Carnival Cruise? NO. Would I want to travel with Jersey Shore and Biggest Loser casts again. NO. Would I sing to Lady GaGa's "Let's Dance" with Alison and Jillian at karaoke again? NO.
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| Sailing back into New York. |
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| View from the Top of the Rock with Central Park in the background. |
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| Gordon meets a flat friend in Matt Lauer at the NBC Studios. |
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| A very hot day in Central Park with Jillie and Ali. |
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| Ugh, Hot and humid! |
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| Gordon and Alison on the Brooklyn Bridge. |
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| Come on Stock Market! The NY Stock Exchange building. |
Natalie and Alison spent another week in the city with Jillian and Gordon and I headed home to deal with an overgrown garden; slow real estate market; and news that another of our rentals would be vacant soon. We had just painted and re-carpeted a rental in Livermore and now we have another to do. Money seems to flow like a river from this house. Unfortunately there's not enough money raining down to keep the lake the river flows from supplied! On top of that, Gordon had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee on his 51st birthday just a week after returning from New York.
So this summer has been spent healing at home and managing little crisis. Though the summer has been cooler than usual, we have managed to have a wonderful time with our friends. Casual dinners; hiking and biking and relaxing by the pool; lots of wine tasting; a BIG birthday party for a friend which was a complete blast. AND we got Alison moved into her new house in San Luis Obispo. Guess what we did? We hired movers to do the schlepping this time! Brilliant!
So Alison and Natalie are tucked away safely at school and working on their careers; Jillian, who is off the payroll, has just received her second promotion since February to Assistant Editor at her company, Fluid. She is moving from her crappy Hell's Kitchen neighborhood into a new apartment 25 blocks north to a Lincoln Center neighborhood with two new roommates. AND the big news is she's getting a kitty which will finally make her feel like she's home again. All is well with the Corsie family.
Next up? I'm headed to Virginia on August 28th to visit my family. Both of my parents are in assisted living facilities. Then I head up to New York for the Labor Day weekend to spend with Jillian. I'm meeting Gordon at he Newark airport on the 6th of September and we are flying to Scotland where our friend Charli will be meeting us for a week. We are going to Paris on the 23rd through the 28th and coming back to California on October 11.
Details of our adventures to follow.............
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| Possibilities! |
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