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altarflameI'm in a somewhat disconnected, dissociated state all the time lately. Because my Grandpa (mom's bio dad) died three weeks ago and I took her to see his body while she was completely broken down and grieving hard. And my Nana (her bio mom) is in the hospital now, with brain damage. She - my mother - is at the bedside 24/7 and it's wearing her down. Nana is in the ICU, the swelling in her brain just won't quit, she is continuously calling her cat from the bed and saying she's in Pennsylvania (they're in central Florida) and alternating between laughing at how she can't formulate a sentence...and getting really frustrated that she can't express herself, and that something is wrong with her. My mom has to leave when they do physical therapy because she cries the whole time from the pain. Nana's house was my only permanent home growing up, Nana was the boss at the warehouse where I did most of my teenage employment time, Nana is only 61 and is missing work right now, and probably won't ever be able to go back...
And, my Pa (Dad's bio dad) has now been airlifted to Baptist Kendall (here, in Miami) for a heart attack...from Key West...I've been to see him, and I've talked with him on the phone, and Laura is going and we're trying to take him food. All day everyday Laura and I wait for the phone to ring. Nana updates. Pa updates. Mom updates. My Dad is a wreck, he channels his vulnerability into anger and so when I say, "But if they can't give him blood thinners with the ulcer...how will they do the triple bypass?" he explodes, "I don't fucking know, Tina!"
He's 77. Pa. And he is so small now, still the thick head of jet black hair because come on, he's Cuban, but jeeeeeeeeeez the bones. Still saying "I love you Dahlin, you don't have to stay long" and trying to serve me his ice water and make sure I can hear the tv, like he's hosting me in his freaking room in the cardiac ward. I start to wonder horrible ethical questions like whether or not they're feeling very urgent about keeping a 77 year old alive anyway.
Death and life and time passing is this very tangible thing around here lately...I look at Grant with his toothache and his aches and pains and I think of our parents with their complications and...I don't know. I just don't know.
I have these crystal clear moments of raw emotion when I cry the whole day's worth of tears in 10 minutes and pray very fervently. Then I slip back, again.
I'm trying to step back and enjoy my very young, very healthy, very oblivious children, particularly the youngest and healthiest and most miraculous, who is just turning two...we've thrown together a party on short notice and I'm up at this hour baking and cleaning after the kids and I tackled the deck and yard and walls and toilets and things all day...and hit the store for food supplies...and I am happy. And Elise is so excited about having a birthday, she flips when we talk about it.
...And I feel guilty. I know my Mom needs me in Lakeland. I know my Dad is stuck in Key West and expects me to be with Pa more often. I know I'm planning a big celebration in the midst of all this crap, the ICU just keeps rolling 24/7 while we pick out candles and craft supplies and blah blah blah. All day long I have this hum in the back of my mind of needing to make phone calls, at war with this more surface level dread of any more phone calls.
I'm glad I have Annie and Aaron to get goosebumps with, and just FREAK OUT about the Half Blood Prince trailers on the Apple website (GO SEE THEM...seriously), and my amazing good friends to distract and invite and vent with me. I went to pick up an organic produce share from my friend Kristin, who runs a co-op and had extra, and we ended up talking about her life and her issues, which have nothing to do with death or loss of identity or crushing hospital obligation bullshit. Just all the kids playing and her chickens and my chickens and her stand mixer is lime green. And she has normal stuff, LIVE life stuff, issues that don't imply any sort of impermanence...We have a lot of good people coming over here tomorrow, for the party, too.
My husband sends me emails in the middle of his workday telling me how looking up the Sarah Mclachlan lyrics to "Answer" make him think of us. "I love you dearly" as the subject. Then he comes home and uses boiling water on the nasty floors and let's each kid run and leap into his arms in turn. They form a line :)
Just pulling in the parking lot of Baptist makes my mind slip further, and further, and further back. It's like what I do right before surgery - "I'm not really here. I'm completely calm. No feelings."
I have pictures to share...
The chicks are growing up.
And this is what I did with some of that giant flat of fresh picked strawberries we had...that filling is strawberries that have been cut up and soaking in sugar for 2 days as I stir, add more, and repeat. Chocolate buttercream. Om nom nom.
Cheeseless pizza for my dairy free, allergy free lifestyle...the picture does not do it justice. I was upset when I saw it, but ENRAPTURED WHEN I TASTED IT. What does Professor Snape say about potions to that first year class? "Bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses..." yeah, that was this pizza. But really.
It's puttanesca sauce, thin sliced vine ripe tomato, and chopped kalamata olives on the bottom. Then olive oil and salt roasted red peppers, zuccinni and mushrooms, whole black olives, squeezes of lemon juice, and seasoned salt on the whole thing. Thin whole wheat crust. HOLY CRAP JUST TRUST ME AND DO THIS.
A and A having ice cream cake at the Earthday thing we went to, which was also a birthday party. Earthday is my birthday, sponsored by Whole Foods, because my friends manage crap like that.
All the free watered down carrot juice we could drink ;)
And my office...nowhere NEAR DONE, not even painted after months of "we need to..." but how I love it anyway.
My taste in lamps, much like my taste in beds, runs towards "sex den".
I am going to make a ripple blanket for Isaac out of all this, and it's just what he wants. I would never normally have these colors anywhere in my possession, and so I'm practically drinking all the pretty yarn in the yarn bag, everyday...
You see where my color choices for my normal projects tend to go...
Messy desk with roses from my love. All phone calls are better taken that way, btw.
And A and A come to me to show me this "museum" they built.
I really, really wish I had made captions for this the minute they showed it to me, because to hear them narrate what each and every one of those exhibits is (including the cryogenic chamber in the middle) was pretty damned astounding.
While crafting this entry I've also baked two round cakes, 28 large cupcakes and a dozen mini cupcakes. All carrot. And realized, as I tend to when I start quantifying, just how much goodness I have and how lucky I am and how thankful I ought to be.
Also awesome - being able to call my sister up and make her watch this on the phone with me and have us all laugh hysterically. Because somewhere in the middle of all this hysteria there has got to be some laughter.
(MAJOR LANGUAGE WARNINGS, I just don't care about language...love it.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQuibqQj0hM (blast it all ,embedding is disabled)
And, my Pa (Dad's bio dad) has now been airlifted to Baptist Kendall (here, in Miami) for a heart attack...from Key West...I've been to see him, and I've talked with him on the phone, and Laura is going and we're trying to take him food. All day everyday Laura and I wait for the phone to ring. Nana updates. Pa updates. Mom updates. My Dad is a wreck, he channels his vulnerability into anger and so when I say, "But if they can't give him blood thinners with the ulcer...how will they do the triple bypass?" he explodes, "I don't fucking know, Tina!"
He's 77. Pa. And he is so small now, still the thick head of jet black hair because come on, he's Cuban, but jeeeeeeeeeez the bones. Still saying "I love you Dahlin, you don't have to stay long" and trying to serve me his ice water and make sure I can hear the tv, like he's hosting me in his freaking room in the cardiac ward. I start to wonder horrible ethical questions like whether or not they're feeling very urgent about keeping a 77 year old alive anyway.
Death and life and time passing is this very tangible thing around here lately...I look at Grant with his toothache and his aches and pains and I think of our parents with their complications and...I don't know. I just don't know.
I have these crystal clear moments of raw emotion when I cry the whole day's worth of tears in 10 minutes and pray very fervently. Then I slip back, again.
I'm trying to step back and enjoy my very young, very healthy, very oblivious children, particularly the youngest and healthiest and most miraculous, who is just turning two...we've thrown together a party on short notice and I'm up at this hour baking and cleaning after the kids and I tackled the deck and yard and walls and toilets and things all day...and hit the store for food supplies...and I am happy. And Elise is so excited about having a birthday, she flips when we talk about it.
...And I feel guilty. I know my Mom needs me in Lakeland. I know my Dad is stuck in Key West and expects me to be with Pa more often. I know I'm planning a big celebration in the midst of all this crap, the ICU just keeps rolling 24/7 while we pick out candles and craft supplies and blah blah blah. All day long I have this hum in the back of my mind of needing to make phone calls, at war with this more surface level dread of any more phone calls.
I'm glad I have Annie and Aaron to get goosebumps with, and just FREAK OUT about the Half Blood Prince trailers on the Apple website (GO SEE THEM...seriously), and my amazing good friends to distract and invite and vent with me. I went to pick up an organic produce share from my friend Kristin, who runs a co-op and had extra, and we ended up talking about her life and her issues, which have nothing to do with death or loss of identity or crushing hospital obligation bullshit. Just all the kids playing and her chickens and my chickens and her stand mixer is lime green. And she has normal stuff, LIVE life stuff, issues that don't imply any sort of impermanence...We have a lot of good people coming over here tomorrow, for the party, too.
My husband sends me emails in the middle of his workday telling me how looking up the Sarah Mclachlan lyrics to "Answer" make him think of us. "I love you dearly" as the subject. Then he comes home and uses boiling water on the nasty floors and let's each kid run and leap into his arms in turn. They form a line :)
Just pulling in the parking lot of Baptist makes my mind slip further, and further, and further back. It's like what I do right before surgery - "I'm not really here. I'm completely calm. No feelings."
I have pictures to share...
The chicks are growing up.
And this is what I did with some of that giant flat of fresh picked strawberries we had...that filling is strawberries that have been cut up and soaking in sugar for 2 days as I stir, add more, and repeat. Chocolate buttercream. Om nom nom.
Cheeseless pizza for my dairy free, allergy free lifestyle...the picture does not do it justice. I was upset when I saw it, but ENRAPTURED WHEN I TASTED IT. What does Professor Snape say about potions to that first year class? "Bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses..." yeah, that was this pizza. But really.
It's puttanesca sauce, thin sliced vine ripe tomato, and chopped kalamata olives on the bottom. Then olive oil and salt roasted red peppers, zuccinni and mushrooms, whole black olives, squeezes of lemon juice, and seasoned salt on the whole thing. Thin whole wheat crust. HOLY CRAP JUST TRUST ME AND DO THIS.
A and A having ice cream cake at the Earthday thing we went to, which was also a birthday party. Earthday is my birthday, sponsored by Whole Foods, because my friends manage crap like that.
All the free watered down carrot juice we could drink ;)
And my office...nowhere NEAR DONE, not even painted after months of "we need to..." but how I love it anyway.
My taste in lamps, much like my taste in beds, runs towards "sex den".
I am going to make a ripple blanket for Isaac out of all this, and it's just what he wants. I would never normally have these colors anywhere in my possession, and so I'm practically drinking all the pretty yarn in the yarn bag, everyday...
You see where my color choices for my normal projects tend to go...
Messy desk with roses from my love. All phone calls are better taken that way, btw.
And A and A come to me to show me this "museum" they built.
I really, really wish I had made captions for this the minute they showed it to me, because to hear them narrate what each and every one of those exhibits is (including the cryogenic chamber in the middle) was pretty damned astounding.
While crafting this entry I've also baked two round cakes, 28 large cupcakes and a dozen mini cupcakes. All carrot. And realized, as I tend to when I start quantifying, just how much goodness I have and how lucky I am and how thankful I ought to be.
Also awesome - being able to call my sister up and make her watch this on the phone with me and have us all laugh hysterically. Because somewhere in the middle of all this hysteria there has got to be some laughter.
(MAJOR LANGUAGE WARNINGS, I just don't care about language...love it.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQuibqQj0hM (blast it all ,embedding is disabled)
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 04:31 pm (UTC)Your kids are incredible.
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Date: 2009-05-03 05:34 pm (UTC)And that cake. Yes please. Like right now.
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Date: 2009-05-05 10:39 pm (UTC)from eBirdie
Date: 2009-05-06 01:50 am (UTC)~That pizza looks delicious. My daughter is allergic to dairy (among other things) and she loves pizza without cheese. I've found, in experimenting on her behalf, that cheese is not as essential to a good pizza as I once believed!
~I love the Lego museum. And the chickens.