Survey says...

 Dear John,

I spoke with a VA rep about you today.  It was a survey for people whose family members have committed suicide.  Aside from this blog, I guess complaining to the VA about how ignored and dismissed you felt is my other form of therapy.  I'm pretty sure you did not want me to talk to her, as the calls kept mysteriously dropping.  I spent an hour telling some young woman that you weren't acting any differently in the month before you died.  It was just that, for previous incidents, you talked to me about your wish to die, and I could anchor you in some small way.  This time, if you had wanted to talk about it, I didn't see the signs.  I do have some guilt over that, but I also know that I could never stop you from doing anything you were determined to do.  

Betsy, the VA rep, asked if I had any thoughts or opinions on how this could have been prevented.  I had a lot of thoughts.  I told her that when the military is conditioning young men and women to be mentally and physically strong, they're also preventing them from seeking help when they start having mental health issues.  How can you expect these people to admit to not being mentally tough when you spend all that time telling them they need to be tough?  There really isn't a solution there, except for, perhaps mandatory therapy when returning from deployments.  I also mentioned the VA policy of only having so many sessions with particular therapist before switching.  I understand the idea behind the policy, I think.  But there's no good way for people like you to establish enough trust with someone to actually explore the traumas behind your anxiety and depression.  And I imagine there are plenty of people like you.

It's almost September 11.  The bright spot of this year is that I don't have to yell at you to stop talking to me about how 9/11 was a huge conspiracy brought on by the US government.  That drove me up and down the walls.  I hope that death has brought you that ultimate knowledge that was promised, and I hope you're now saying "I hate to admit it, but she was right."

Tomorrow, I'm going to the electric co-op to...vote for something.  All I know is there is an opportunity for $30 in bill credits available, and I'm gonna get 'em!  Turns out, though, since the bill is in your name, I could change it to mine, and collect money from them.  I'm going to inquire about that too.

S is still talking about her ex-friend, the one you referred to as Green Teeth, or, when you were feelings nicer, Chef Boyardee.  I think she's jealous, because the girl gets lots of attention from boys.  S is getting attention, but not as much because she's not dating.  I don't think anyone has asked her to homecoming, but she was planning on going with friends anyway.  She is much more social this year, though.  She's even asking people for rides instead of completely depending on me (she still mostly depends on me). It's only a month til she can get her driver's license.  I'm so sad you're not here to see that and celebrate it with her.  Her birthday is going to be so very hard this year.  

I watched a terrible movie today.  Licorice Pizza.  You would have hated it.  Then I watched a documentary about Attica, and the 1971 massacre that occurred there.  That one would have made you angry.  Injustice always did.   I miss you and your opinions about my movie choices.

Love,

A

Minutiae

 Dear John,

September is going to be a busy month.  My oldest sister is coming to help me go through the baseball cards.  S is going to homecoming.  I have to schedule various beauty appointments for that.  S will be working, but she also has started managing the volleyball team.  And she wants to go out with her friends.

Last weekend, she went to her 3rd Quinceanera - I would never have thought she'd go to one, let alone 3.  This weekend, she wants to go to the Goodwill outlet to go through "the bins."  I guess it's a TikTok trend, but she's been wanting to go for a while.  I'm just glad she has someone to go with - I am not a huge thrift store fan, and she loves to spend time there.  Speaking of which, this boy who's been trying to flirt with her for months wants to go thrift shopping with her.  He wants to change his style, but needs encouragement.  S says he's a player, so she's not interested, but I don't know whether she is or isn't.  She said she doesn't really want to continue flirting with him, because she might start having a crush and then end up disappointed.  I guess she's inherited her parents' approach to romance, which is...don't bother.

Your prediction of the chaos in the house has come true.  However, in my defense, I'm very sad and that makes me unmotivated.  It took me a month to take the gas container for the grill to be refilled.  In the middle of summer.  I need to finish the laundry and sweep the floors, but I will probably only get one of those things done.  

We went to the dentist last week.  I don't know if you remember, but our hygienist's brother-in-law died in a manner similar to yours.  If I remember correctly, her sister went wild after that.  She was very sad to hear about you, and it was hard for me to go there.  Whenever I see her, or the receptionist you went to high school with, I'm just so overcome.  But then I saw a picture of the hygienist's younger son, who is sporting quite the mullet, and I laughed.  Then we talked about how her older son is on the golf team and that is not exactly the path she thought he would have taken.  Now she has to hang out with country CLUB types instead of country types.  It's definitely different.  We were supposed to have dinner with your mom afterward, but she said she wasn't feeling well and put us off.  She had dental work done in the morning, I guess.  Anyway, S and I went to the expensive wood-fired pizza place and got a potato and bacon pizza and some wings.  I suppose it's good for us to do things that you would never have done.

The dogs are doing OK.  The puppy keeps running into the couch - I think he's going to give himself a TBI, if he hasn't done so already.  They bark a lot - you would hate that.   But they're very funny and the pup is cuddly.  S cuddles the old man too, but he gets a frightened and pained look on his face when she does.  

R, next door, passed away.  Not sure what the fire department EMS is going to do, now that they've lost their best customer.  I am surprised that he lived as long as he did, especially through Covid times.  But it's good that he's no longer suffering.  I hope that means there will be no ambulances in the cul-de-sac for a long time now.  I did not like seeing that one ambulance here.  On the plus side, the VA seems to have paid their fees, since I haven't heard from them again.

Wishing you were here to discuss all this in person...

Love,

A

Good thing I can recognize when I'm being ridiculous

 More song stuff - but in relation to reading signs from the universe...

I keep hearing that Shaggy song, Angel, on the radio.  It's pretty old, so there's no good reason for me to have heard it 3 times this week.  So, there I am, wondering...is this a sign or is something else going on?

Today, I started watching The After Party on Apple TV+ (free for 3 months with my daughter's new phone).  Now I know why Angel is have a resurgence in popularity.  It takes a bit to go from streaming to TikTok (I assume) to the radio.

The After Party is dumb, predictable, and yet still worth a watch.  I gave up on The Morning Show, really enjoyed CODA, and am going to finish Ted Lasso without my daughter if she doesn't get back to watching it with me.  We've only got another 5 weeks!

Dreams

 Dear John,

I've dreamt about you the past couple nights.  I used to have dreams about my dad like this, but never about my mom.  I wonder why that is. 

In the first dream, you came back like you had been on vacation.  You were checking all your things, and when you got done, you were so angry about me spending so much money.  That's a pretty good estimation of how you would react to my spending.  But, first, I'm done spending, and second, my typical response to your annoying actions was to spend more of your money.  The more you would harass me about...anything, the more likely I was to go buy a new sweater or something. So I guess you can imagine how much money I've spent since you have made me angry by leaving me.

I don't really remember much of the second dream, except that a condom was involved.  That was really weird.  But still, you were alive again - like you had been away somewhere.

When I had these kinds of dreams about my dad, he was always very distant and different from how I remembered him.  The ones I have had about you, you're more like you were when we first dated.  Happier.  Lighthearted. 

I've been having the SVT episodes - this time it was only a few weeks between them.  I hope that's an anomaly, or I'm going to have to have the ablation surgery.  I don't want to do that to S - she would worry.  I can tolerate every couple months, but 3 weeks?  No thanks.  I do have to set something up for her care in case something does happen to me.  My sisters will take over for me - she would not want to go with your family.

Speaking of which, we went to K's for lunch the other day - almost everyone was there.  Just a few of the boys didn't make it.  It was OK.  S seemed so light afterwards - it was so strange.  I think she was just relieved that no one brought you up.  I, on the other hand, felt so sad when I saw the photo of all your siblings and your mom together.  It was so incomplete.  

I miss you - and I hope to see you in my dreams again soon.

Love,

A

Entertainment

Dear John,

I'm watching a movie tonight.  I tried to get S to join me, but it's rated R and has nudity.  She wandered off to talk to her friend on the phone.  You would have been bored by the movie.  Now that I can watch whatever I want...I don't want to watch much of anything.

S and I have been watching a show lately.  Somewhere in the middle, maybe the end of the 3rd season, the main character's husband died.  I almost burst into tears.  I remember how you would always say "Are you crying?" during sad movies - and you would laugh at me.  It was rare that I was crying, though.  I might tear up for a moment, but that was about it.  You never cried at movies.  You only cried a couple times, when talking about your family.  I wish you hadn't held so much inside.

I guess yesterday was the 8th anniversary of Robin Williams' death.  He was kind of a touchstone for you.  You met him when he came to your camp in Afghanistan.  I put the photo collage that my brother-in-law made for you with the autograph and your photos with him on our bedroom wall.  You were very upset when he died.  And then you went ahead and duplicated his manner of death.  It's hard for me to hear mention of him because of that.  And yet he was one of my favorite performers.

Anyway, the movie is bad, and I'm watching it anyway.  Nothing is as terrible as that Chloe Grace Moretz WWII movie that we had to turn off.  Maybe the latest Matrix movie will be better.  But I doubt it.

Love,

A

Waiting...

Dear John,

I feel like I'm waiting. I'm not sure what I'm waiting for, but I am stalled and I don't know why.  I mean, I'm waiting to hear about adding my dependent to the DIC from the VA. And I'm waiting to hear from ChampVA.  And I'm waiting to hear about your Social Security Disability. And I'm waiting to hear about your stock account with the contracting company.  But none of those things affect my daily life.  So I don't know what I'm waiting for.  Am I waiting for retirement, so I can leave this house and start over somewhere new?  Am I waiting for some sort of sign that it's time to get rid of more stuff?  Am I waiting for you to return, because it feels a little like when you where in Afghanistan and didn't have access to the satellite phone or the phone bank that you had in Uzbekistan?  

I know you're not coming back. I keep seeing your face as it was when I got home that day. I can't remember what you looked like sometimes, but I can see that expression.  It was sad and resigned, but also a little peaceful.  A few weeks ago, I felt like you were near - like you had your hands on my shoulders.  I don't feel you any more though.  Maybe that feeling will return.

Your daughter is doing well. I'm glad she's seeing the therapist. I don't know if she talks about you, but she has someone besides me to complain about her peers to.  I wish I could read her better - I have had to tell her that I think maybe she does come across as mean rather than sarcastic.  It's hard for me to tell and I know her better than anyone now. She doesn't bring you up, but doesn't seem to mind when I do.  I hope she'll be OK.

Missing you a lot today - maybe because it's my mom's birthday and you died in the same date as her.  I don't know, but it's rough.

Love, 

A 

Time

 Dear John,

Another week has gone by.  I went into your watch room today.  I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work that will entail.  10 years of pocket watch acquisition - parts and watches and tools - It's so much.  You spent so much time on those watches.  It was great to watch you learn - figuring things out for yourself and working with mentors whenever you could find them.

Of course, I also got to see people trying to take advantage of you.  I knew you weren't dumb from the moment I met you, but apparently you gave that impression to some people.  You were a negotiator - you always knew what you could get out of something you were buying so you had a good idea of what you should pay for it.  But so many of the watch guys thought that they could con you into letting them get the majority of the profit...or make you take a loss on something.  Dave and Jared and Tom - all thinking they could put one over on you.  I think Jared may have texted you the other day, but since you didn't save any contacts in your phone, I'm not entirely sure it was him.  Only Paul knows you're gone, and that's because you left me something to mail to him.  He said he'd help me sell your stuff, but I just can't do it yet.  First, because I can't find the key to that safe.  Second, because I would have to organize it all and I just don't feel up to it.  Third, because that was such a large part of you.

I finally sold that giant pocket watch clock at the garage sale.  I sold it for a loss, but it's gone from the garage.  I was actually pretty cool when I plugged it in - which doesn't mean I wanted to keep it.  I also gave the H's your Hard Lemonade bar light.  We never got around to hanging it, and they actually use their bar.  I think you wouldn't really mind, especially since SH has been helping me a lot since you left.

I was working on my paint-by-number picture at the bar, the other day.  I couldn't stop thinking about how you would be working across the way in the watch room.  I started doing those paintings to have some reason to get away from you and S when we were all stuck at home during the pandemic.  But then, over the last year, you started coming down to work on your watches while I was painting.  You'd play music and work on watches, and you'd get mad at me if I went back upstairs without you - "Never leave a man behind!" you would say.  It was nice to spend that kind of time together and I miss it.

Today, though, I went down and played the piano.  I was more terrible than usual, as it's been a while since I played last.  You found my playing both annoying and amusing.  It was the annoying part that kept me from playing too often.  Next up, I need to find a piano tuner.  And get the gas for the grill refilled.  And straighten out your stock thing with the contracting company.  There's always something else to do.  Ah, well, it keeps my mind occupied.

Love,

A

2022 is THE WORST

 Dear John,

It started with my uncle - but I wasn't too surprised when Covid got him.

Then, you - obviously devastating.

Then, my gynecologist - he was my favorite doctor ever.  He actually listened to things I said.  It is believed that he also took his life, due to unbearable back pain, even after surgery.  He was buried the same day you were.

Then, one of the guys from your hometown - M was good friends with him.

Then, this weekend, the nephew of one of my blogger friends.  Only 17 - I'm so sorry, Lori

I hope that's all 2022 has in store.  I've had enough, thanks.

Love, 

A

The coroner

 Dear John,

The police called the coroner to the house to investigate your death.  I didn't have the will to make everyone take their shoes off.  Now that we've got dogs, I wonder if it's worth it for anyone.  I'll have to ponder that.  We were ready for new carpet last year.  Maybe I'll actually get some soon.

I didn't look around much when I got home that day.  I just saw you, grabbed our daughter, and waited for the police.  They also brought EMTs who tried to revive you.  The coroner brought a chaplain and called the funeral home.  When they took you out, the chaplain took our girl into her room...and then sat on her bed.  For the first time in forever (you may recognize that as a lyric from a song from Frozen), your child was happy to change her sheets.  We may have let her develop a bit of germophobia.

Anyway, as people were milling around, I was pacing and trying to stay out of the way.  As I was wandering the kitchen, I saw the beer bottles by the fridge.  They're still there, by the way, 4 months later.  I can't bring myself to put them in the recycle bin, but I will get there.  Then I paced some more, and noticed all the pill bottles.  Anything you had in the way of painkillers was there and empty.  

I feel responsible, since I had suggested to you that there were some drugs that could help with anxiety.  You asked the VA psychiatrist for some valium and he sent it to you.  You took the whole bottle.  I had 15 year old leftover drugs (percocet?) from my c-section.  I had 10 year old leftover drugs from my hernia operation.  You had migraine medication.  You took all of that.  And probably smoked some weed - the kid said she smelled it.

It took 6 weeks for the toxicology report to come back - for some reason, they sent it to Pennsylvania.  They called and confirmed that all of those things were in your system.  But then, they wanted to know where you got the vicodin that was also there.  I was irritated because...what did it matter?  I failed to remember that they wouldn't have known that you weren't out and about buying drugs.  I told the investigator that it was probably from one of my surgeries and that you had just combined bottles.  She wanted to inquire further, I think, but I changed the topic.

The police took your note.  Once the coroner completed your death certificate, I called to get it back.  And then I promptly forgot about arranging to pick it up.  I showed up 3 days late.  I've been having lots of memory issues since you left.  It's starting to get better, bit by bit.  

Since I've had your death certificate, I've been able to manage most of the paperwork.  I still have to go and change the deed on the house.  I did go to the bank, where Barb was so angry and sad.  She said her brother had also taken his life about 10 years ago.  If she had known, she would have helped.  I told her that you only showed what you wanted people to see.  I wish you had known that she cared about you.  I also need to get your stock options from that contracting company that you worked for - it has been, without a doubt, the largest pain in my ass of all the paperwork I've had to file.  

One of the new people at work interned at the coroner's office.  She said your favorite neighbor said something racist in front of the only black employee at the coroner's office.  I told her about the spite berm that you built.  All the trees are still alive and blocking the neighbors out nicely.  Those people put a sympathy card in the mailbox 3 months after the fact.  Maybe they think that I'll let bygones be bygones, but everyone underestimates me and my grudge-holding ability.  

Speaking of grudge-holding, your sister K invited us to a family gathering in August.  Not sure yet if we'll go, and if we do...will I warn her that they might feel awkward when I refuse to acknowledge the existence of S and her family?  Hmmm, we shall see.

Love,

A

Let's talk about sex, baby

 Dear John,

It's Saturday night.  Saturday was the day we usually had sex.  It freaks me out a bit to think that we will never do that again.  And that I may never do that again.  

My grandmother was widowed in her 40s.  My mom was widowed around the same age I am.  My grandmother never dated again, but she apparently wanted to be a nun before my grandfather talked her into marriage.  My mom dated someone after my dad died.  He was 20 years older than her, which was not that weird - may dad was 17 years older.  But it made things weird as he was farther along in aging. 

I can't imagine dating.  I will never marry again - that was a one-time only deal.  Not only do I not want to be married to anyone else, the financial impact would be significant.  I doubt I will date either.  I don't have the energy to contemplate it.  First, by the time I would be ready to date...I would be in my mid-50s.  At least.  Second, I would have to move - I'm in a land full of Trumpers, and there's no one less likely for me to want to date.  But it's scary to think that in just a few years, I will be alone as my girl goes off to college.  That was not the plan.  It was supposed to be us, fighting with each other, forever.

Love,

A

A musical interlude

 Dear John,

The radio was playing The Fray's "How To Save A Life" as I was driving home today.  The chorus hit me pretty hard:

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

I should have known something was wrong when you were holding my hand while I was sleeping, Monday and Tuesday nights.  I woke up to it and squeezed back just a little.  You never liked to hold hands, but you did it a few times this year on our walks.  I guess you were trying to hold on and stay with us, when you had sort of already decided to go.  

I also wish I had stayed up with you all night - but you knew that was impossible.  When I decided it was bed time, I got in bed and went to sleep.  Unlike you, who would walk around and check the house, adjust the temperature, do a few minor tasks, check the kid, and an hour later finally go to bed, I would say "I'm going to bed" and then be in bed within 10 minutes and asleep within 20.  When you were able to get in bed at the same time...or if you were already there when I got there...you always wanted to talk.  I just wanted to go to sleep, so you would talk, and I would try to listen, and then I would fall asleep.  I'd usually wake up after a few minutes, usually when you had gotten everything off your chest.  You didn't really need me to listen; you just needed to talk.  I called it your lullaby. It put me to sleep every time. But that last night...when you asked if I had heard what you said...I suspect I missed something very important.  I don't know whether you were disappointed or relieved.  I do think you had decided to go through with taking your own life (depending on what the stock market did the next day), and were sort of looking for me to talk you down.  But you didn't give me your usual signals.  And I fell asleep and I think I missed your statement of intent.  I did feel you hold my hand and I wish I could have held on tighter.  I wish it hadn't been a Tuesday, when I was at work for 13 hours and thoroughly exhausted.  I wish you had talked to me earlier.  I wish you could have made different choices and stopped doing the things that made you feel so terribly bad about yourself when you were already anxious and depressed.  I wish a lot of things. 

I also can't get that Glass Animals "Heat Waves" song out of my head - of course, it's on repeat on the radio, but also:

Sometimes all I think about is you
Late nights in the middle of June
Heat waves been faking me out
Can't make you happier now

and

I just wonder what you're dreaming of
When you sleep and smile so comfortable
I just wish that I could give you that
That look that's perfectly un-sad

You were the music afficionado.  You were always on YouTube, looking for songs, complaining about the ads.  I just listen to what's on the radio - I don't usually seek out particular songs.  But these, and some of the lines in Juice Wrld's "Lucid Dreams" are playing in my head a lot lately.  I wish the iPod that you used all the time could tell me what you listened to the most.  Of course, those weren't your favorite songs necessarily; they were just whatever could drown out the ringing in your head.  I hope you have some pleasant silence, and can access music solely for enjoyment now.  

We did listen to what I have always thought of as "our song" on our recent
trip.  "Shake the Disease" by Depeche Mode - your daughter thought it was a good song.  I'm glad she agrees.  

Love,

A

An obvious play for sympathy

 Dear John,

Your family has been...your family.  C has been in contact with me the most.  She texts me whenever she needs comfort.  Your SIL reaches out, but I haven't spoken to your brother since the day you died.  K has some regrets, I think, but is her usual self.  Unless you're directly in front of her, you don't really matter.  E has expressed some sorrow that there was distance between you.  I have completely blocked S, and will never speak to her again.

There was, as usual, a clear division of my family vs yours at the funeral.  Not one of your siblings spoke to any of my family.  My family would have been receptive, if cool.  My sisters told their kids to surround our girl and make sure she was never without one of them.  She and I sat with your mom.  The rest of your family sat together on the opposite side of the aisle.  I know you didn't want a funeral.  And I wouldn't have done it at all, but I felt bad for your mom for a minute.  She needed a ritual to say goodbye - I think our daughter sort of did too, even though she hasn't been raised in church.  It rained so hard that day until everything was done - I said it was you expressing your disapproval of the proceedings.  On the plus side, I applied for, and received, additional burial benefits from the VA, so it brought down the cost of the proceedings.  Your mom paid for the mass and the musicians - I didn't offer to do that.

So, why am I never speaking to S again?  I stopped by your mom's a day or two after the funeral to drop off some cards.  S was there and they were asking me questions about you.  I told them that you had been struggling for a long time.  I didn't want to violate your privacy, but I thought they needed to know that I had mentioned your issues.  Your mom saw it as me making an excuse for your behavior rather than as a signal that she needed to get closer to you and try to help.  That may seem like a harsh judgement on her, but I think it's true.  Anyway, later, S texted me for more information.  I gave her a slightly longer version of how you had withdrawn from everyone.  It was a fairly neutral response - I am not here to absolve anyone of their guilt, but I wasn't blaming either.  She replied with the following:    

    "He did speak to M and D the weekend before.  No one noticed anything unusual.  I know John is         private but I can't believe you wouldn't want to tell us that he was suicidal.  He's our brother &             you're his wife.  If you cared, you would have told somebody, that he was talking about it, even if         he didn't want you to"

Let me tell you, I was HEATED when I read that.  I replied very coolly, though, reminding her that her actions were a main factor for why you were distant from your family.  I told her that saying anything to her or anyone else would have been a major violation of your trust.  I told her, more or less, that I didn't owe her anything, and she should not pursue that line of thought with me.  So, of course, she doubled down and told me that other people were hurting too.  BLOCKED.  She's still on the family group text, but I don't see what she says.

In true (Your Family) style, though, I have sent a few passive aggressive messages out.  I may have married in, but I have the name and I will use some of the traits when it suits me.  To E, I send an occasional picture of the many drawings or notes she sent you when she was younger.  Am I deliberately reminding her that you adored her and were very hurt when she pushed you away?  Yes.  Yes, I am.  I send C photos of you and her and D having fun - a little reminder that she also withdrew from you.  I'm mostly avoiding your mom - still waiting for her to follow up on her idea to come up here to see us.  I think it's going to be a long wait.

Your daughter has inherited the worst of us, though, as far as grudges go.  She has no interest in seeing any of her aunts/uncles, cousins, or grandmother.  I think she was really hurt that your mom forgot her both for her last birthday and for Christmas.  So, now, as far as she's concerned, they don't really exist for her.  When I mention any of them, she sort of sneers.  I can't blame her.  I will probably try to attend some sort of family gathering and drag her along.  She may need that connection someday.  We shall see.  We did go to see A when we were in Chicago.  She continues to be a delightful person.  Cousin K had a major faceplant bike accident and did some serious damage to his cranium.  I sent him some Legos for entertainment, because he has to take it easy for a while.  D had surgery for Deep Vein Thrombosis - that's kind of scary.  C says he's doing well, but has to wear his compression socks all the time.  E just posted something very curious on FB, that appeared to be an ad for an orthodontist.  Weird.  That's all I know for now.

Love,

A

Taxes

 Dear John,

Your stock trading made our taxes so complicated.  I did the easy parts, and left the investment stuff to you.  I always assumed you were not doing them properly.  We hadn't yet filed when you died, so the first thing I did was file for an extension and then send all the info off to my sister's friend, who is an accountant.

I am just the tiniest bit irritated today to find out that the accountant is going to do the taxes the exact same way you did them.  He said that the people who usually do that kind of filing work for companies with accountants who track that stuff.  I don't know how much I'm paying him for this yet, but I guess it's worth it, since I don't have to be the one to answer correspondence from the IRS this time.  Sigh.

In other news, I went to visit your grave today.  The VA finally got your headstone done properly.  They have the correct rank this time.  I still don't know what Arcom is, but I guess it's not important.  They did not mention anything about your service in Enduring Freedom - they left it as Persian Gulf.  That's probably where many of your problems started, so I guess it's fine.  You're between an Army guy and an Air Force guy.  Most of the graves around you are WWII vets, but the Air Force guy served in Vietnam.  I suppose you would probably give him a break on all the grief you would usually heap on Air Force vets, since Vietnam was difficult on everyone.  I left you some roses - I was hoping for a colorful bouquet from Aldi, but red roses were all they had.  I think those were your favorite flowers to receive anyway, and the red ones are for love, so it was most appropriate.  I'll take the kid back soon - we'll find something else, and maybe get a container to put them in.  

I was going to get gas while on that side of the river, but that's a state with an abortion ban, so I'm trying to limit my spending there.  Plus, the gas isn't any cheaper there than at home, for some reason.  I'm going to make the kid fill up the car, though, as you had intended for her to do with her first paycheck.  It's way past that, but I will get it done.

Love,

A

Sales

 Dear John,

Today has been hard.  I'm having a garage sale to pare down some of the stuff in the house.  I've got a bunch of your clothes and shoes and military stuff for sale.  The military stuff is selling well, but as usual, not much else is.

It's so difficult to give up your stuff.  I don't want it here any more, but it feels like letting you go too soon.  You don't need the stuff, and you would definitely be in favor of getting rid of it.  But it makes me cry.  You hardly wore anything but sweatpants and sweatshirts (or t-shirts and shorts, depending on the weather) the last 10 years, but I look at your clothes and remember times when you wore them to work, or for family celebrations.  You wore those corduroy pants all the time.  I'm keeping your cashmere sweater, obviously.  It will complement my collection, since I didn't have a chocolate brown one.  

I'm glad to get rid of your military stuff.  I don't know if I resent the Army for making you the way you were or for not figuring out how to keep all the veterans with suicidal thoughts alive.  But I don't need the 5 American flags, assorted uniforms, random specialty pieces, or anything else.  I know you were proud of your service, and very harsh when talking about anyone who hadn't served who wanted to determine US policy.  I'm just sort of indifferent to it all now.  I'm sure I will be angry later.

I got into an argument with your daughter, as John Jr. decided to tell me how to do something that I was already in the middle of doing.  🙄🙄🙄  She left me to do all the work for the garage sale.  Little does she know that she's on duty tomorrow.  Maybe she will also inherit your ability to sell stuff along with your annoying habit of assuming I'm incompetent.

I still have all the baseball cards, tractors, and pocket watches.  That's going to take a while longer to disperse.  I'm more than a little irritated that I have to deal with all that stuff.  It's very distressing to have a bunch of things that you want to get rid of, but can't just give away because you know they're worth money.  So, thanks for that.  

I did sell that stupid vacuum you chose.  Sure, it was only $60, and it worked well enough, but the hose came off every time I tried to vacuum.  I'm hoping the new one I ordered will make it easy to vacuum the stairs and keep the dog hair under control.  It also claims that it won't get hair wound up in it.  That will save us a lot of trouble.  It will (supposedly) also vacuum the bare floors with ease, so maybe I can get rid of the other vacuum too.  Why do we have 4 vacuums, anyway?  

As I type "supposedly," I suddenly miss hearing you say "supposably" even though it drove me up a wall every time you said it.  

Love,

A

I did what I said I would

 Dear John,

We got a dog a couple weeks after you left us.  I always said I would do it, but it turns out that the shelter got a dog that we weren't allergic to on the day of your funeral.  His owner died, and the family didn't want him.  I saw him the Sunday when he became available, and brought him home the same day.  Our girl tried to get him to sleep with her but he started following me around immediately.  Plus...he's 9.5 years old.  He used to cry when I left, but he's better now.  He sleeps with me, loves walks and car rides, and wishes he had access to food all the time.  He's also partly the same breed as one of the dogs I had when we were first dating.

Since he loved me so much (or, you know, had shared trauma), our girl wanted her own dog.  So I looked around for a puppy for her.  I found one near where my sister lives - we went to visit them for my niece's graduation and picked up the dog then.  He was an adorable black mop - the same breed that your oldest sister has.  Hers is white, and our little guy seems to be slowly turning white.  He's hilarious and pounces on his toys.

We took them to my other sister's house for our annual visit.  There were a few fights, but mostly everyone got along pretty well.

I wish you would have agreed to get a dog.  Old man would have followed you around instead of me.  Little man would have snuggled up to you and made you laugh.  They would have got you out and about going for walks.  They also have made messes and cost me lots of money.  But it's worth it.

The floors are holding up OK.  Maybe there are some scratches.  And Old man scratched up the bathroom door when I left him locked in.  I painted most of what he tore up, so you can't even see it.  Little man keeps destroying clothing - mostly underwear.  But they're both so worth it.

Love,

A

Pride

 Dear John,

You would be so proud of your girl today.  She is attending something she calls "manager camp" because her boss decided to promote her to assistant manager already.  I'm glad you got to see her start her first job.  She is so much like you when it comes to working.  She loves getting paid and watching her bank balance grow.  She's so reliable and hard-working that after 3 months, her boss decided to let her, a 15 year old with no previous work experience, be responsible for helping run 2 different venues.  

Of course, you would not have let her work as much as I have.  You would have complained about driving back and forth.  You would have bemoaned the price of gas.  You would have said she needed more down time, though she doesn't really have anything else to do.  You would have been really irritated by the fact that she often gets out so much earlier than she's scheduled.  But you would still have been impressed with her work ethic and enjoyment of being employed.

She has made a few frivolous purchases so far - she got her iPhone.  That one is kind of funny, since she got a job to buy her own phone and pay for her own plan so you couldn't take her phone away from her again.  Too bad she didn't realize her plan would never have worked.  The thing is...she's not on it as much as you assumed she would be.  But she also succumbed to peer pressure and then found that her peers still criticized her for getting a phone that was too fancy.   She also paid ridiculous amounts of money for a pair of shoes.  

I wish you understood how your anxiety fed her anxiety, and that's why she rejected your offer to drive her to work that Saturday.  She didn't know where to go, and when you expected people to know something and they didn't, you would get upset.  She knew that, and didn't want you to be upset or have to manage that when she was already nervous.  It wasn't a rejection of you, just of your reactions to things.

We miss you every day.  She's in therapy to talk about you, but she's also there complaining about her friends and classmates.  There's a boy who seems to be trying to date her, but she's very suspicious of his motives.  You'd be proud of that, too.

Love,

A

Background

I met my husband at work.  We shared an office, but that is a story for another day.  In addition to our profession, my husband was also an Army Reservist.  He was deployed multiple times, including to the First Gulf War (Desert Storm) and to Uzbekistan/Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom).  Due to his experiences there, he experienced a variety of physical and mental issues that caused him to be completely disabled 9 years ago.  He was frequently obsessive, entertained many conspiracy theories, was too anxious to leave the house (although he managed a few 3 day vacations over the years), and didn't like to go anywhere new.  This was quite a change from when I met him - 25 years ago, he was adventurous, silly, appreciative of life, and always trying to be positive.  We got married upon his return from Afghanistan.  I sometimes think he wasn't sure I would wait for him, since his deployment was almost a year long. Over time, he became joyless, relentlessly negative, and very much down on himself.  I operated as his therapist, because he didn't trust the medical systems to treat him properly (with good reason).  Our daughter was his only source of happiness and that happiness was fleeting.  As she became a teenager, he had a more difficult time navigating a relationship with her.  He wanted discipline and respect, but he also wanted to act like the sibling she never had.  She found that incomprehensible and unpredictable, and so they would butt heads a lot.  

My husband was an amazing man.  He could figure out how to do almost anything.  It would drive me a little crazy when he would call for estimates for projects and then decide he could do it himself.  He built our house.  Sure, he was the general contractor, but he also helped the framers build, assisted with the siding, worked with a friend to do the roof, installed the hardwood floors on his own, made me help with the insulation and painting (and the tray ceiling in our bedroom that was completed after much swearing), helped his friend do all the wiring, and completed any repairs necessary.  He would also figure out how to fix anything by YouTube video.  And once he qualified for disability, he stayed home and kept the house clean, delivered the kid to school, and generally made my life so easy that I couldn't even believe it.  In the pandemic years, he also started experimenting with cooking.

He was really excellent at buying and selling things for a profit.  He had a great head for numbers and a good eye for things he could buy cheap and sell for more money.  It started in his teens with cars and motorcycles.  But over the past years, he took up collecting, repairing, and selling antique pocket watches.  But he was also obsessed with the stock market, which was a huge source of stress and misery for him, and was one of the main reasons he decided that he could not live any longer.  

I miss him every day.

I decided against the really inappropriate title that first came to mind

 A few months ago, my husband died by suicide.  He died on the 9th anniversary of my mom's death.  Our 15 year old daughter found him.  While she is seeing a counselor, that's not the right thing for me.  It occurred to me that I could write what I'm thinking about, so I have decided to dust off ye olde blog.  I'll be changing the name - I think it will mostly be like writing letters to my husband, so I am going to rename this space to Dear John.  (Let me tell you, Are You Kidding Me? still fits very well, because this was definitely not supposed to happen.  But there are things I want to tell him, and saying them in my head seems inadequate.)

#Microblog Monday (on Tuesday)

Things in my house that will not act right:

My daughter (all noise, all the time?  Really?  And what's with the backtalk?)

My husband (I knew that when I married him, so that's on me)

My dishwasher (annoying but still mostly functional)

My patio door (Phew!  Still baaaarely under warranty!)

My DVD player (Oh, wait - No.  It would be too easy and cheap to replace, therefore...)

My TV (ALL of the HDMI connections had to fail?  How will I watch movies?  To the basement with  you!  The Xbox needs a new TV.)

My water heater (the sudden appearance of blazing hot water is EXTREMELY suspicious - you didn't even work this well when you were new.  If you weren't electric, I'd suspect imminent explosion.)

My other TV (Well, we had about 5 more years than we thought we'd get out of you.  At least we can be sure you won't be turning yourself on randomly any more.  And yet my other, other TV - the tube one from 1999?  That one has no problems)

On the plus side, I guess I know what we'll be getting for Christmas - or maybe we'll just use that small one from my mom's house.

Microblog Monday - A Poem

Rain brings a change
from summer to fall.
There's something about the weather.

Temperate days
Cooler nights
A brown leaf floats like a feather

The meteorologists warned us
for over a week now.
And this time it wasn't a con.

So, neighbors, please tell me,
do you not have TV?
Why are your automatic sprinklers still on?

(Seriously.  You're wasting water.  Turn 'em off.  The three of you.)

GRABook Club: The Hunger Games

I read The Hunger Games 2 years ago, while on a flight to Wyoming.  I was so enthralled that I couldn't stop reading but I didn't want the story to end.  I loved the complexity of the characters and the tension of the story. 

My husband always talks about the day when society will fall apart, and how I'm far too soft to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.  I don't like to be outside.  I hate bugs and snakes.  My eyesight is abysmal.  I don't like to eat game.  I am allergic to everything.  I burn when I spend any time in the sun.  I refuse to camp.  In other words, Katniss would be almost exactly my opposite.  However, I am quite good at flying below the radar, so I might have a chance in The Hunger Games.

There were several things I wondered about the story, but I think the largest question I had was:  How did people end up in the various Districts...especially those who lived in the Capital?  Was it simply locational?  Was it socio-economic?  Was it plain old luck?  What do you think?

I assume that there was money involved for the residents of the Capital, but everyone else just got stuck where they grew up.  But that theory doesn't necessarily make sense in terms of a war.

The Hunger Games is the best of the trilogy (well, according to me, anyway), but Catching Fire and Mockingjay are also well worth reading.

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for The Hunger Games.  You can get your own copy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins at bookstores including Amazon.

It's Book Club Time Again! This time - To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I think this is my all-time favorite book.  I grew up in an in-between era.  I was born after the Civil Rights movement but with people who were still unaware of their racism and prejudices.  It took a long time, and many corrections, for my mother to stop referring to "her black friend."  I think To Kill A Mockingbird really exemplifies things that are still wrong with society today - where skin color makes a difference in every facet of life...but no one will admit it.  Much of our society likes to think we are in a post-racial society, but we're not.  Not really.

How do I know this?  Well, I belong to a political discussion group on FB - it's comprised of a mixture of people with different ages, races, education and income levels, and views.  Mostly we keep things cordial, but discussions about race come up a lot. When you have Ivy League educated professionals discussing how race still affects their everyday lives, we are not post-racial.

In recent days, there have apparently been some interesting trending topics on Twitter - one is #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen - and is in regards to the way the feminist movement excludes women of color.  Here's the story if you're interested.  A related topic is #blackpowerisforblackmen which outlines the misogyny and racism within the black community itself.  I'm not a user of Twitter, but this sort of thing appeals - you can join in the stream of conversation.  Or you can, after the heat of the moment has passed, return to the conversation and see if you see yourself there.   Either way, I think these topics started some conversations, and that's progress.

But back to the book.  In addition to just being a good story with really well-written characters who feel like family, there are so many different messages in To Kill A Mockingbird.  There is the obvious racial theme.  There is the theme of white privilege.  There is the theme of the underdog.  There is the theme of familial abuse.  There is the theme of familial love and loyalty.  There is the theme of living an unconventional life.

 For me, I think the most important theme. the one that has stuck with me, is the theme of standing up for what's right, no matter the personal cost.  Most days, I'm not sure that I have the strength of character to always do what's right.  Other days, I'm confronted with the choice, and fortunately, so far, I've mostly chosen the right path, rather than the easy one.

I guess that's my question, then - which theme/message stuck with you the most, and why?

 After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for To Kill a Mockingbird.  You can get your own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee at bookstores including Amazon.

*Side note:  Because I transferred high schools between my sophomore and junior years, I was able to use To Kill A Mockingbird for class assignments 3 years running.  Maybe that's why I love the book so much.

The Workaround

I work for state government.  This means that when you have a problem, no one will actually let you take the steps necessary to solve the problem.  They will only tell you how to work around the problem.  I encountered this recently when I called attention to a photography issue with one of the people involved in directing our policies.  I raised a philosophical question and got a workaround in response.  (However, since I am not generally satisfied with glib answers, I responded and got a half-hearted assurance that the issue is something we really should discuss in more detail.  If nothing else, I am excellent at starting arguments!)

I thought that out in the real world, people actually attempted to solve problems instead of just working around them.  But I was amused to find not one,but two, examples of the workaround in my inbox this morning.

Google's new tab-based system for their email is...mildly annoying.  Some people find it helpful, but I don't have hundreds of emails to sort through on a daily basis.  Therefore, it's more trouble than it's worth for me to have to sort through the tabs to see what's new in my inbox.  I would probably appreciate it more if I could make the tabs, rename them, and sort accordingly, but it's not a very customizable system.  Basically, Google does an auto-sort of things it thinks are personal, things it thinks are related to social media (G+, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, etc) and things it thinks are non-spam promotional emails.  This would probably be more useful for me if I didn't take the coupons/discounts/deals bloggers advice and create a separate email account for all that crap.

This morning, however, the two emails were sent to ask me to put their emails into the primary (personal) tab in gmail.  Both are companies who were auto-sorted into the Promotions tab.  Well, that was fun, Google, but they've found the workaround to being shuffled off to the Ignore Me folder!

I wonder what the thinking behind the promotions tab was, anyway.  Companies want to show up on the front page, no matter what the circumstances are.  I also wonder if companies are pulling advertising in protest of being sidelined in their email marketing.  I look forward to Google next pulling the plug on Blogger, because it seems that they're trying to rid themselves of people who aren't paying them for something or another.  Irritating customers seems to be their current business model.

I'm also about halfway through Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, in which Google has a strong background role.  This may be affecting my attitude, because the book, at least thus far, is about a conflict between books and the digital age.  I'm a fan of books. 

Meanwhile, over at Yahoo, if they switch their logo one more time, I'm going to lose my mind!  I've seen about 3 different ones in the last couple days.  I liked the old one.  Maybe they'll hit on a new one that works, but the ones I've seen have been less than spectacular.  I'm not sure what the workaround to a new logo is, though.  Cached pages or something?   

Well, there you have it.  My internet complaints for the day...

GRAB(ook) Club: The Fault In Our Stars

I read this book several months ago, and didn't get a chance to reread it.  But I loved the book - it made me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time.  It has made me a huge fan of John Green - I think I've read all of his books now.  Some are good, some are great.  This is my favorite, because the emotions he evokes seem so accurate to me.

So, a question:  What do you think about the roles (or lack thereof) of the parents in this book?

I've lived with someone who was dying.  My father had rheumatoid arthritis and the circulation in his legs gradually faded because of it.  He developed a sore that wouldn't heal, which became a gaping hole in his leg.  I didn't know what would become of that, but I knew it was not going to get better.  But still the doctors threw seaweed wraps on it and tried skin grafts and sent physical and occupational therapists - because they didn't know what else to do and they couldn't do nothing.  And so I could identify with the parents lack of real presence in this book...because there was little that I could do for my dad but sit back and watch.  To pretend that things were as normal as possible, so he didn't have to feel like I was responsible for his care, when it was still his job to watch over me (I was 22 when he died).

I believe that John Green minimized the parents as characters because it was a realistic way to portray them.  I believe that parents would have to go on with their daily lives, that they would attempt to let their children live their lives to the fullest, knowing that they wouldn't get as long a time to do so as most people.  He captured their sorrow and their frustration, but made them into great parents who knew that it wasn't about them, even though the cancer was happening to them too.

Do you think expanding the roles of the parents would have made the book better/worse/the same?

FYI, in case you cared, my preference for the rest of John Green's books are as follows:  Will Grayson Will Grayson, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and An Abundance of Katherines.  And he's pretty entertaining on Mental Floss.

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for The Fault in Our Stars.  You can get your own copy of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green at bookstores including Amazon.

Now That It's Completely Useless To Anyone

I have tried a bunch of different readers, since Google will be depriving me of my favorite tomorrow.  :(

I'm using Feedly at work with Firefox.  It's OK.  I don't like that it doesn't seem to automatically update - I have to refresh it. 

I'm using Bloglovin on my phone.  That's mostly because it's the only one that seems to work with an ancient (4 years old!) Blackberry.  I would like to get a new phone, but my husband refuses to pay an activation fee and additional money for data services just because the cell phone company feels like charging for it.  So, until there are no more Blackberries available on eBay...I will be stuck with an ancient phone. 

At home, I'm still deciding.  I like Netvibes, but it was very complex to import everything.  However, it does have an advantage over the other two choices.  Any site I follow with multiple pages (like The Pioneer Woman) or feeds is not showing up in Feedly or Bloglovin.  For Netvibes, they seem to be working just fine.  It's probably just a setting I haven't discovered yet, but I don't have the energy to figure it out.

Note: for all of these services I am only using the FREE option.  I'm not a fan of paying for things if I can possibly avoid it.  I'm getting used to repeating this philosophy on a daily basis, as my daughter complains that I won't let her have Club Penguin memberships or buy boosts/lives for games on Facebook.

None of these are ideal.  And I'm curious to see how they'll all work once Reader is deactivated.  But at least I have some options to make sure I keep up with things in Blogland.

What are you using?

GRAB(ook) club and Measure of Love

My first online book club!  I really enjoyed Measure of Love.  It was both a light read and a book that made me think about the characters beyond the bounds of the story.  I related to some of Rachel's issues, while at the same time she was annoying me with her dithering.  I'm looking forward to reading Arianna's story in the next book.

Now, I have to think of a question about the book...hmmm...well, how about some creative interpretation/write your own addendum to the story:

Adam is sort of a minor character in the story. We don't get to see many of his reactions, but he seems fairly perceptive (at least at this stage of the game).  While Rachel was going through all of her issues, how do you think he was processing all of her insecurities and assumptions?  I mean, they had to be somewhat evident, right?  Was he suffering his own doubts, or was he just oblivious?

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for Measure of Love (http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2013/06/grabook-club-discusses-measure-of-love/).  You can get your own copy of Measure of Love by Melissa Ford at bookstores including Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Measure-of-Love-ebook/dp/B00C7Y1Y8E/).


And if you read it, don't forget to leave a review!

Trying to do my part

It's National Infertility Awareness Week.  I've never really fit into the Infertility Crowd (except, of course, age-related secondary infertility...fertilization is easy!  Creating viable embryos and housing them properly is beyond my capabilities.  Except for that one time.).  So, my efforts to do something for NIAW will have to be unconventional also.

I was reading an article about an interview with Michael Pollan - I'm sure everyone but me has read his books on our food culture.  If you haven't, you probably should - all my friends seem to be big fans.  Anyway, as I read his interview responses, one sentence struck me and I couldn't let it go.  Normally, I'm pretty good about flushing the stuff I read on the internet pretty quickly, but this one sentence inspired me to find some contact information for Michael Pollan, so I could send him a little piece of my mind.  Here's what I wrote through the FB messaging system:

Mr. Pollan,
I just read an excerpt of your interview from Lucky Peach Magazine in The Daily Beast, and a part of it struck me. I'm sure it was a somewhat off the cuff remark, but it's definitely a trigger for many people. Perhaps you are unaware of the so-called Mommy Wars, in which women who do not or cannot breastfeed are made to feel inadequate. You have given ammunition for those kinds of attacks with this remark:

"But we still can’t make formula as good as breast milk. There’s still that mystery X-factor because babies raised on formula simply don’t do as well... It’s human arrogance to think we can outwit nature."

As someone who has a nephew who was failing to thrive because my sister couldn't produce enough breastmilk, and whose own daughter required supplementation with formula, I object to your assertion that babies raised on formula simply don't do as well. To me, alive and thriving is better than dead from starvation. While I agree that breastfeeding is the best option, it should not be implied that it should be the only option. Formula is a life-saver (quite literally) for many children.

Based on your words, I suspect you have not had a great deal of exposure to women who have had trouble breastfeeding. I'm sure, as an author, you know the value of choosing your words carefully. So, this is simply an attempt to let you know that this might not be an example that you want to use in the future. Certainly, formula cannot match the benefits of breastmilk, but since, for some, it's the only option, it would be better to measure your words on this topic.

Very Respectfully,

Are You Kidding Me? (I actually used my real name since it was through FB anyway, but this would have been a more amusing close.)
 
P.S. I found the rest of the article quite interesting, and look forward to reading your books - several friends have recommended them.

So while I don't have anything useful to say about infertility, I have tried to do my part to raise awareness of at least one women's issue.  If you have a hard time making a child, the last thing anyone should do is make you feel badly about feeding that child if you have the good fortune to get it here.

It's looking a little dusty around here

My poor, neglected blog...sigh.  It's been a while.

This morning, as I was taking my pre-dawn walk around the neighborhood, I was thinking about the state of medical care in this country.  I have a primary care physician, but I almost never see him.  There are two reasons for this: 1) I am rarely sick.  2) I find him to be generally useless.  I think I find him useless because he has completely bought in to the idea that patients just want a pill to make them all better.  As I was walking this morning, what occurred to me was that it's not so much patients who want a pill to make things better as it is doctors who want the patients to go away.  And they won't go away until they feel at least somewhat better about whatever is ailing them.

I've seen my primary care physician for 3 things.  First, shortly after my daughter was born, I had pain in my hand, wrist, and elbow.  He diagnosed me with De Quervain syndrome, gave me a splint, prescribed ice and ibuprofen, and said it would probably go away eventually.  Second, I went to see him because I thought I had an ear infection.  As it turns out, I injured my ear, probably with a Q-tip.  I got some ear drops for that, and the advice to stop sticking Q-tips in my ears.  How am I supposed to scratch my brain if I can't put a Q-tip in my ears???  (I think anyone who has seasonal allergies will understand what I mean by that.)  Finally, I was in a car accident and I saw the doctor for my whiplash.  It was at that point he started treating me like I was a drug-seeking hypochondriac.  I think I should have told him straight out that I was looking for a physical therapy recommendation, so he could have skipped the ibuprofen and ice routine. 

In contrast to that jerk, I recently saw a surgeon to get my umbilical hernia repaired.  Of course, it was an entirely different sort of situation, since my problem was clear, as was the solution.  But when I asked how long I should take off of work, and what the recovery would be like, the doctor was all sorts of optimistic.  I wouldn't need much more than a weekend and a couple days.  I would be done using the pain medication quickly.  I would be moving around moderately freely shortly after surgery.  I should take it easy, but I wouldn't be an invalid.

After surgery, the hospital gave me 2 doses of pain medication within an hour or so - probably enough to get me dressed and into my car.  They also brought my prescriptions to my bedside - I highly recommend that service!  I went home with 30 painkillers - enough to take the max dosage for about 6 days.  But my doctor told me I'd be done in 2 or 3 days.  So, by day 3, I was done with the painkillers.  I don't like opioids anyway, but I did feel much better.  I had surgery on Tuesday.  I took my daughter to story time at the library on Saturday (there would have been hell to pay if I hadn't - the kid loves the library).  I did a little shopping on Monday (I don't work Mondays anyway), and felt like I overdid it, so I took the following Tuesday off too.  By Wednesday, I was back at work - not doing much more than taking up space, but back at work nonetheless.

The next Tuesday, I had my follow-up visit with the surgeon.  One of his first questions was "So, are you back to work yet?"  Of course!  You told me I wouldn't need more than 4-5 days at home!  It was about that time that I realized that he had made every effort to set me up for a quick and successful recovery.  He told me it wouldn't hurt too much after a few days.  He said I'd be capable of working inside a week.  He told me most people stopped the painkillers after 3 days.  I think it was a concerted effort to create a mindset that would facilitate a more easy recovery.

Contrasting that with my primary care physician, I can only determine that it's kind of a matter of trust.  My primary care physicians trusts only that I will come and complain and want him to immediately fix things.  My surgeon trusted that I would listen to his advice and make the best recovery possible.  If I had problems, they wouldn't be due to having a bad attitude - there would be an actual complication to deal with.  My primary care physician believes that I am not well-informed, nor am I a partner in my health care.  Maybe it's because I never get physicals.  Maybe it's because I refuse to  have my pap smear done there (I have the most awesome OB/GYN ever.  How do I know?  Because he actually read my chart.).  Maybe he's just a paternalistic dickhead who doesn't believe that there are any reasonably smart people within the area he serves. 

I don't pretend to know as much about healthcare as someone who went to med school and has been practicing for a number of years.  But I'm not an idiot either.  I know many doctors are wary of treating patients like partners, because patients are so often ill-informed.  But it can be done in a subtle and reasonable way - my surgeon's method shows that.  I can only hope that more medical offices and hospitals are following that sort of protocol.  An informed patient with realistic expectations is more likely to feel satisfied with their care, regardless of the outcome.

Privacy, please

The other day, I was perusing items in my Google Reader, when, suddenly, items would no longer load.  So, I went to Gmail to see if there was a problem with Google.  Instead of being able to log in, I was directed to another page.  On that page, they notified me that my account had been locked due to suspicious activity.  They noted that, usually, suspicious activity consisted of some sort of Terms of Service violation.  I'm not sure how I violated Terms of Service by clicking on a blog link to like something on Facebook, but that's another story.  Then they requested my phone number so they could give me a call or send me a text to unlock my account.  Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but Google frequently requests your phone number in order to be able to contact you if you've forgotten your password or if there's a problem with your account.  I always refuse.  I'm sure they are aware that I access my Gmail and Google Reader and Google Maps on my phone, so I'm sure that they already have my phone number.  But I haven't given them permission to use it for anything, so they can't do anything with that information.  Because I am suspicious by nature, and I enjoy making up completely ridiculous yet believable conspiracy theories, I assume that the account lockdown was just a ploy to get me to give up my phone number.

I prefer to communicate by email, so I sent one complaint and 2 requests to unlock my account.  It took Google approximately 43 hours to complete the task. [Mel actually noticed that there was a problem - that surprises me.  I am so anti-social sometimes that I used to think I could disappear for more than a week before anyone noticed. (Now I have an almost 6 year old little cling-on, so that wouldn't happen).]  Apparently, had I been willing to give up my phone number, I would have received faster service.  But, as I told Google, if I had to give up my Reader and Gmail...well, I'd have a lot more time on my hands for other things like reading and knitting. 

I don't know why I find it so irritating that everyone asks for my phone number.  Maybe it's because I hate talking on the phone.  Maybe it's because I have a constant stream of voice mail messages from the school district now that my girl has started kindergarten.  Maybe it's because I find the phone so intrusive.  Maybe it's because when I answer my work phone, it generally turns out to be bad news.  Maybe it's because I don't have a landline, so every incoming call has an associated cost.  (I am pretty cheap, after all.)

More likely, though, it's because I know that every company is trying to accumulate data on me in order to market to me more effectively.  I was stunned last night when, after watching Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention and commenting about it on Facebook, Clinton and Obama ads immediately popped up in my sidebar.  It is beginning to make me slightly uncomfortable to watch that tracking happen.  So, Google, no thank you.  I will not give you my phone number.  It's one of the few pieces of information over which I have a bit of control, and I'm keeping that control. 

(I will, however, be exporting my address book, so that if I do get kicked off Google again, I will be able to send out a message to let people know that I haven't disappeared into thin air.)

Siblings

St. Elsewhere and I were emailing about siblings and when my response got long and involved, it occurred to me that maybe I had a blogging topic for a change!

My daughter LOVES to ask for a brother or sister.  She used to do it daily, but has slowed down to once or twice a week lately.  Today she was playing with her cousin, and there was much yelling.  I told her that now she knew what it would be like to have a brother.  My mother suggested that I adopt an older brother for her...

My mother is the queen of family planning.  Her philosophy was that each child should have a companion, and so she has two sets of children.  My two oldest sisters are a year apart.  My next oldest sister and I are a year apart.  There are 6 years between the sets.  My grandfather referred to all of us as Pete and Repeat (or Re-Pete, if you will).

It's nice that my mother was able to have a plan and execute it.  Even for her, though, it didn't exactly work out as she intended.  I think she actually wanted to maybe stop at 2...but then 2nd oldest sister started asking for a little sister.  She didn't want to be the baby any more.  Then 3rd oldest sister came along...and 2nd decided that life had been pretty good before 3rd turned up and she would like to go back to that.  44 years later, I believe that's still her philosophy.

The other downsides to my mother's plan are mostly relevant to me.  First, 3rd and I are sometimes still referred to as "the babies."   That's a little annoying when you get to be 20-something and downright absurd when you're in your 40s.  Second, my name was chosen by 1st sister.  2nd and 3rd share the same first initial, and she felt left out.  So, while my mother was in the hospital having me, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd were at my aunt's house.  1st sent my parents a letter with a list of name selections all starting with A, so things would be even.  I'm not a huge fan of my name - I don't really feel like it fits me well.  Everyone else I meet who shares my name is pretty perky and bubbly.  I tend more towards awkward and sarcastic. But I have a story behind my name.  I suppose that's something.

Finally, and most importantly, my companion and I do not get along.  Things were fine until 3rd went to school.  In my opinion, she abandoned me in her quest to fit in with the other kids - her younger sister who had been her best friend suddenly became a major annoyance.  Unfortunately, due to her personality and probably some mental illness, she never quite fit in...and, after multiple betrayals (that stick with me even though they happened when I was 8 years old!), I was not willing to take her into my circle of friends.  We had some knock-down, drag-out physical fights...up until we were well into our 20s.  Now that she lives 1000 miles away and we see each other every other year or so, we get along just fine.  But as companions, it did not work at all. 

In some ways, I feel badly that my daughter will be an only child.  Having a sister has its moments.  But here are the things I know that make me comfortable with what is:

1)  My daughter does like children younger than her...until they can talk back.  Then, not so much.
2)  I'm too old and tired to keep trying, and the added stress would be detrimental to the rest of my life.
3)  When I die, there will be no one to fight with over my stuff...and she will be able to save it or throw it away without having to consult with anyone else.
4)  You never really know what you're going to get.
5)  I'm lucky to be where I am.

First Captcha, now Wordpress

It would appear that there is a giant conspiracy on the internet these days.  First, it was the infamous Captcha, which annoys commenters everywhere.  Speaking of which, why do those letters have to be all squished and stretched, anyway?  Is there some sort of spambot reading machine that can read the letters if you don't skew them?  NOBODY can read them and we can't all be robots...

And now wordpress tells me that there is a wordpress account associated with my email address.  Yes, I know.  But, wordpress, you never let me log in to that account.  You tell me the username is bad.  You tell me the password is incorrect.  And never before has it prevented me from leaving a comment.

I'm seeing a trend...the internet does not want anyone leaving comments anymore!

Everything evens out eventually...

After that nonsense from last week, a fellow alumnus from my high school helped my mood with this:

I feel better now.

Suddenly I see

Normally, I don't get too excited about what happens on the internet.  But today, either I am extremely irritable (most likely) or the internet is losing its luster.  I saw two posts on Facebook today that almost spurred me to making some really obnoxious comments.  First, there was this from a random relative of my husband's:

"Today someone got a life changing phone call that they have a terminal illness. Today a hero's famliy was notified that their soldier made the ultimate sacrifice. Today a lot of people will hear horrible news, so lets be reminded, we DO NOT have the right to complain about our life or our crummy day. Things are far worse for many. So stop complaining, we have it good. These "bad" days for us, others would die to have."

Um, yeah.  Right now, I'm not terribly pleased with my in-laws anyway.  This little blurb almost made me want to respond that I hope she never has a bad thing happen to her, because my response will be "well, you don't have a terminal illness" or if she does, it will be "well, you didn't make the ultimate sacrifice" followed by "quit your bitchin'."  Really?  Yes, perspective is good.  But we all have the right to complain, because venting is a useful stress reliever.  If you don't want to listen, then get some friends who don't whine about every little twinge or slight misfortune.

The second one came from a friend's stepbrother, and is political.  Now, I belong to a political discussion group on Facebook, and sometimes people say some really outrageously biased stuff.  I don't really know the people in the discussion group - except for a couple people from my high school - so I don't take it personally.  But I grew up with my friend, her sister, and her stepbrother.  We came from a middle class neighborhood in a city full of liberals.  So, I find it incredibly confusing that for some reason they all became raging conservatives.  I feel that middle class Americans who espouse the so-called conservative point of view are acting in direct contrast to their own best interests.  But, whatever.  Everyone's entitled to their beliefs, and I agree that smaller government is good.  I don't want to restrict gun ownership either.  The bad guys always find guns if they want them - the rest of us might as well have the same access.  However, when you share information that is patently untrue, it irks me.

Hate to tell you, Mr. Conservative Obama Hater, but Obama really has no control over the gas prices.  It's the market that controls the gas prices.  Pick on the speculators, instead of the legislators.  Also, maybe I should hook you up with the aforementioned relative - you oughta stop whining about gas prices, as prices in Europe have been in excess of $5/gallon for over 15 years. 

Yep, I'm probably just irritable.  Or maybe it's time to take a break and become a Luddite for a while.  Maybe I should reinstate the baked goods and candy that I gave up for Lent and turn off the computer instead.

Free Advice Day

Mel suggested that the best way to protest the SOPA/PIPA bills would be to show Congress what they might be missing if they passed those bills.

Here's my free advice, worth more than you're paying for it:

Bad things happen frequently on Thursdays. Prepare yourself.

When you say what you mean, in a clear and direct manner, you are less likely to make people angry.

When you agree to something to avoid confrontation, and then get other people to protest what you agreed to, you're going to get confrontation anyway. (Related: Don't promise something if you're not already planning it out in your head. Disappointment and unrealized expectations are the quickest route to anger.)

General contractors are generally untrustworthy.

Censorship is a bad idea. There are better ways to protect your original content.

But really...is there anything original anymore? Do you have the right to an idea that you essentially ripped right out of Shakespeare? Sorry, not advice...just a question.

Since all of that is more of an indication of my frame of mind, rather than advice, I will share the following. It's fantastic, and actual good, beneficial, useful information.



And finally, for your entertainment, some of the web's best protest content can be found here (Oops - just noticed there's a pregnancy reference in there. Fair warning.)

Oh, one more thing. If you're having trouble accessing Blogger blogs...try a different browser. Several sites won't respond in Internet Explorer - but they're fine in Google Chrome. Coincidence? I think not.

All right, enough of this depressing shit...

Look at me! 3 posts in a month! Apparently, all I require for more posting is...oh, never mind.

For your viewing pleasure: the singed trees that my husband created with his unusual spring clean up methods

2/3 of a tree - it used to look like the ones on the left



I grew these two trees from little sticks



What? You don't see a second tree? Look by the blue bird.

Here's what's left



Trees are very resilient...

2012 is NOT starting off well...

Maybe it can only improve from here. My FIL died last month. So far this month, my husband's grandmother (his father's mother) died, and yesterday, my aunt died. For all of them, I would considered it a blessing, but still...

I hope I've completed my death trifecta and we're done for the year (or longer!).

In other news, my husband has returned to work (out of state, of course) and I am quite displeased with his family.

I'm taking the week off of work. Maybe that will help.

Failed...

Only one post last month...I guess I was lacking inspiration However, today, when following links from Stephanie, I came across the story of a staff Christmas party gone awry. This inspired me to recount some of my favorite fire stories. Sorry I can't illustrate them...

Once upon a time, I went to college in Colorado. A group of us loaded up into three cars one night to take a ride up into the mountains. We made it to the foothills, where we went off the road a bit and lit a fire. It was a beautiful night, we were having a great time drinking our 3.2 beer (it was legal for 18 year olds to drink 3.2 beer and wine coolers! So we did!) around the fire. After a while, we noticed some flashing lights coming up the mountain road. They kept getting closer, so, like any rational 18 year olds (HA!), we poured our beer on the fire and took off into the trees. We stayed out there for a period of time, until the firemen got on the loudspeaker and asked for the owners of the cars to please come up to the road. We determined that they were not going to leave, so we sheepishly made our way back up to the road. Since we were mostly a bunch of urban kids from the much more humid East and Midwest, we were idiots who knew nothing about fires and forest fires and dryness ratings. The firemen lectured us for about 20 minutes regarding fires and forest fires and dryness ratings and how would we like to pay the $5000 it cost for them to come up from the bottom of the mountain to deal with our idiocy? We would not like it. They ended up giving a $50 ticket to each of the cars, and we pooled our money to pay for it. All the people on my floor at school were big fans of the
Grateful Dead, but Fire on the Mountain has special meaning for a few of us...



Shortly thereafter, it was the fall break, where we got a 3 day weekend. That was as good an excuse as any for a road trip, so we decided to drive the 1000 miles from Denver to Chicago. My roommate, our next door neighbor, our RA, and I drove to my house and surprised my mother. It was a surprise all around because they hadn't told me that my father was in the hospital again. (He had heart disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis - he was in and out of the hospital quite a bit through my teenage years). Here's a tip - do not try to spare the feelings and worry of your out-of-state family member by not telling them about someone's illness. It will just make them angry. Anyway, while we were there, my RA took us to a Greek restaurant in Lincoln Park. Because my RA was Greek, she knew the owners, and we were therefore treated to some shots of flaming Ouzo. In case you're unfamiliar, Ouzo is a licorice-flavored, gut-burning liquor that produces a lovely blue flame when lit. The typical response to a shotglass of flaming Ouzo is to clink your glass, blow out your flame, and down that baby. Instead, the next door neighbor knocked her shotglass over and set the tablecloth on fire. It was a beautiful sight - pristine white tablecloth with perfect blue flames...

However, my favorite fire story was several years later. I think I was in my late 20s. My second oldest sister was home for Christmas, and we accompanied my mother to Christmas Eve Mass. The church had extra decorations in place and it was pretty full. As we sat there watching the people line up in the aisle to go up for Communion, my sister and I were doing our most dramatic renditions of the Christmas carols that were playing. Now, as it is, I'm not very well-behaved in church. It's probably pretty amusing to sit next to me, but you might not get a whole lot of spirituality. So, I do a lot of people watching in order to fuel my conversational topics. As I was watching the lines of people going up to communion, I noticed a woman in one of those parkas with the faux fur lined hood standing in front of us. She moved up a little and was standing next to a large candle. Since this was the first of the Christmas masses, the candle was much higher than the glass protector that would make it safer for the next several masses. They should have cut the candle, or burned it down a little, because as the woman moved back a little to let someone out of the pew, her faux fur lined hood went directly into the candle flame and lit up (like a Christmas tree - haha). Fortunately, there are many good and helpful people to be found in church, and the guy behind her started patting the flames out immediately. She hardly even knew what had happened.

Now I'm married to a part-time arsonist who likes to deal with yard waste by setting it afire. Last spring he had the brilliant idea (from his mom's crazy neighbor) to get rid of (i.e. cut back) the ornamental grasses by lighting them on fire. Unfortunately, he forgot that all of our ornamental grasses are quite closely placed near our pine trees. He got through a couple clumps of grass before he figured out that he needed to water down the trees before he lit anything on fire. So, one of our pine trees was scalded and seared along one side. The tree was probably 8 feet tall and beautiful - it was our nicest tree. Now, it's been cut down to about 4 feet and is totally bald on one side...but it perseveres.

Now, my toes are kind of cold, so I think I'll turn on the fireplace...

Awww! How sweet! AdSense thinks my blog is popular

Mina suggested that I owe two posts, since I had nothing to say in November. AdSense thinks I'm popular. I don't know how these two things are related, but I'm sure they must be.

This is what happens when I have nothing to say - I ramble on about nothing. It's been an eventful week around here, but not a pleasant one. Fortunately, I had Mel's cricket to distract me for some time.

My husband's father passed away this week. He had cancer a few years ago, and it appeared that he had beaten it. Unfortunately, it came back. It must have come back in stealth mode, because the doctors did not detect it until it had spread everywhere. My father-in-law opted to forego treatment, and was able to fulfill his desire to die at home, surrounded by his family.

Now I just have to get through the wake and funeral without saying anything awkward. It's really hard to suppress my natural talent that way. If there's one thing at which I excel, it's saying awkward things, and I really let my light shine at wakes. Someone sew my mouth shut, please.