I did spend a good portion of the day trying to force myself to come up with something about him, though, and that's not the way you're supposed to commemorate someone, at least in my mind.
Also, I'm cranky because I had all these plans for Mer and Snidge coming in this weekend (as it is MY High Holiday), and there was going to be much laughter and merriment. But Mer's in the Dominican Republic with her mom as a gift for earning her Master's, and Snidge is out in DC at an Aimee Mann show tonight which, I mean, c'mon, Punta Cana and Aimee Mann vs. NWI? Yeah, that's not rocket science there. But I had PLANS, y'all, and now I'm stuck working all weekend with few plans and no friends* with which to share them.
[/wehwehweh]
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Poppy and her hub are on vay-kay in Cancun, so I've been babysitting her menagerie, including the ferrets, Stushdon and Shnockies (I think, or that might be the other ferret she had). And I gotta tell you, if they didn't reek to high heaven, ferrets are a pretty good time. I let them run around in their room, and they chirped and wiggled and tussled and tried to get in the leg of my yoga pants. Good times on a Friday night.
Their one dog, on the other hand, hasn't been as easy. He's an old guy with bad hips, and once you let him out, it's a crapshoot whether you'll be able to get him back up the stairs. Last night was one of those nights, and after about 45 minutes, I decided I'd leave him on the stoop between the upstair and downstairs, thinking he'd be so exhausted he'd just hang out there for the night. He didn't, of course, so Hub's mom called me in a panic this morning because she in all her 100-pound soaking wet glory couldn't get him upstairs to go outside. We eventually got him up and out, but I left him in the house tonight when I went over there. If Hub's mom doesn't hate me for this morning, I'm sure she will if she walks in to a house full of dog crap.
But you know what I noticed last night? Even though I yelled at the poor bastard once thinking that might startle him into moving, my patience never waivered into DefCon territory. I'd kinda like to attribute that to Dad, because as we all know, Dad had to be a patient man lest he ended up burying Mother in the backyard, and we also know that I tend to have a rotten temper when I want to. Maybe it's something he left me when he went. Or maybe it's the drugs.
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I've had some crap about my sister, SC, that I've been processing the past few days, and I was all ready to throw it out there, but then I went to this chocolate fundraiser thingy tonight and had a conversation that really kind of knocked the wind out of me. It was with this nurse who works hospice with end-stage Alzheimer's patients, and I asked her how does she and the other nurses know that the patients are in fact Alzhemier's patients and not just dying of old age. Well, she said, aside from the fact that they've been diagnosed with the disease (which, Ok, duh), the biggest sign is that they stop eating; their bodies just start shutting down and don't really need food anymore, so hospice comes to manage pain. Often, the patients really don't need it because endorphins take care of it kind of, but if they do, the nurses are there, etc. etc.
Now, I know I've mentioned before that Dad's cancer got into his spinal cord and rather quickly killed his ability to swallow, so I of course told her a little bit about that. And she of course hit it on the head that I wanted to keep him around a little longer, but she also told me a little-discussed bit of info: Feeding tubes are often a bad idea, because pumping nutrients into a person whose system is dying off makes it more painful for them. Dad didn't make it to the feeding tube part, but I can buy that as good information. What I'm having a hard time with is that I'm guessing that Alzheimer's is a totally different critter, that it's more of a natural process of the body shutting down and frankly, they've just forgotten they need to eat. But see, up until the week before he died, Dad was asking for food; he kept going for the closet so he could get dressed and he and Mother could go for ice cream. So to me, it says that even though he might've been losing his faculties, the will to live was still there. I mean, Mother tells me that Dad was ready to go and talked with her about selling the house and shit, but this is a woman who swears she's not going to be around in a year. Would YOU believe her!?? Then I start thinking about the night he told me he would have the spinal chord chemo, and I remember being so happy because there was my proof that he wasn't ready to go.
Yeah, I know the cancer got into his brain and all the nurses said he was in a coma at the end and didn't know what was happening to him. But he told me he wanted to live, so how could that have changed? To me, it didn't, and yet there was nothing anyone could do.
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Today was one of those days that went from 0-60 in, like, 10 minutes, which sounds like it would be oh-so-slow but really wasn't, because in my biz, that usually signifies that the shit has hit the fan and plans have changed. But then when they did -- in this case, I got a third story -- it all stopped and dragged ass. So basically, I spent the whole day discombobulated, and tomorrow's not going to be much better.
So after all this discombobulation, Mother calls to tell me about the wake she went to yesterday for this former neighbor of hers who used to take care of my grandpa when he got ill. Not surprisingly, she was on warp speed -- what can I say, funerals excite her -- but this time, it wasn't necessarily because of the funeral itself; seems that Mother got a taste of her own medicine at the hands of one of my aunts. Lemme break it all down: The aunt, the wife of Mother's oldest brother, was talking to this priest who used to reside at the church to which this woman belonged. Mother walked up to join them, and I guess said aunt decided to introduce Mother as "the sister-in-law who doesn't go to church." Now, if you've garnered anything from my rants about Mother, you know that that was the absolute LOWEST insult that could've been thrown at her outside of claiming she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night. (She was. BeLIEVE me, she was.) "I belonged to St. Tom's for 32 years and I want to register at St. Mary's but it's not like I can just get there just like thatya-da-ta-ya-da-ta-ya-da-ta ... " she rattled on the phone. But did she say that to her sister-in-law? Of course not. She hung her head in shame, and the priest put his hand on her shoulder to console her in her minute of crippling embarassment. Sure it was incredibly rude; this particular aunt caught the ass-end of my ire right before Dad's funeral, in fact, for saying something about how Mother needed to get his class ring and any other valuables Dad might've had on him so the funeral people won't steal them -- you know, because a) the funeral people would have use for Dad's college ring and b) Mother and I are complete idiots who wouldn't have thought to do that*. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it when Mother gets to try on MY shoes when it happens. Anyway, to her credit, apparently she snapped out of it and gave a eulogy of sorts for the woman.
Meanwhile, I'm back to feeling all philosophical and weirded out by the TOG exchange, especially after watching Nip/Tuck last night. I mean, for as much shit as I allow him to get away with, I can't EVER fathom being turned on by such degradation. Guess I got THAT going for me.**
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I've been informed by a certain wad that I need to be updating more often. Sorry -- long week, sort of.
Last year, I'd wanted to post the whole "where I was when the planes hit on Sept. 11" like many in the blogosphere were doing, but I didn't. Can't remember why -- perhaps it was because by the time the day came and went, I didn't want to look like a tool posting it after "the day." Anyway, I was covering a 9/11 ceremony at our County Government Complex Friday when one of the commanders for one of the Legion posts asked participants if they remember where they were when it happened.
I remember it like it was yesterday ...
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Got word the other day that a friend of mine's close relative with cancer has relapsed. Not identifying the friend because they don't want identifiers put out on the Interbunny, so don't ask -- just send good thoughts out into the ether.
Of course, I'm now deeper into that time, especially since Mother and I got into a YOOGE fight tonight that made me want to throw her out of the damn car. (I didn't. But I wanted to, even more than mostother times. Trust me.)
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So I've been kinda quiet with the feeeeeelings and shit lately, mostly because we're coming up on that time again, and it's just not a good time for the obvious reason. Also? I've been worried about money much more than I usually am. I mean, we know I don't make a lot doing what I do, and that's fine, but I'm not usually THIS broke. It's like, I've started having dreams involving car repossession and shit, and I've NEVER had dreams like that before. Decapitation, yeah (not my own, oddly enough -- used to dream about Dad being decapitated when I was really young, and then Mike, my 21 year-old boyfriend when I was 15. And they weren't, like, getting decapitated or anything; with my dad, his head was dangling on a string from the light in the kitchen, and Mike was in my bedroom without his head), but never money.
Anyway, DtR was supposed to have gotten his "divorce settlement" (snerk), so you'd think he'd want to pay me the $550 he still owes me, which would take care of just about all the niggling little bills, but that would mean he would have had to get divorced in the first place, which we know hasn't happened. As if THAT weren't bad enough, you know how he was uber-coming on to me a week or two ago? Well, now that I kind of indulged him*, he goes all silent. I'm sorry, but excuse me, who the fuck does he think he is!?! This isn't college when I was despondent and on the rebound.
So, how am I going to combat this awful feeling? By changing my hair tomorrow. Don't know how yet, but I told EWK that I need to be shocked.
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The news is in, y'all: Dangdiggity's Pops be IN THE CLEAR! No non-Hodgkins for him! Hi-OOOHHHHH! So go congratulate her. NOW! Not later, like y'all probably did LAST TIME when I told you to go give her happy thoughts. Sheesh.
Btw, when did she and her family get the good news? Dad's birthday, natch.
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Dad would've been 71 today. Happy Birthday, wherever you be. I love you.
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Dad had an interesting way of handling the whole virginity issue with me: by not handling it at all, yet not ignoring me at the same time. I was a freshman -- it was June 1985, so I was still one at the time -- and I was all freaked out because my best friend at the time had just lost hers to the degenerate she was dating, and her parents found out about it. (How, I don't remember, but I know they did.) And so we (meaning the family) and I were at one of my cousin's high school graduations, and as Dad and I were standing in the driveway admiring my other cousin's new Trans-Am (Hey! I said it was the '80s), I started talking to him about my friend's dilemma in typical high school drama mode. He listened to me, and then I hit him with it:
"Dad, how old were you when you lost your virginity?"
Yeah, the thought of me asking Dad about anything sexual completely squicks me out now -- I didn't even see the man naked until he was on his deathbed, for Chrissake, not once in my then 31 years of life -- but for some reason, it was important that he tell me. And before I go on, I need to point out here that Mother was a virgin when she got married at 27, and believe me, there's no question that she was.
Anyway, so I ask him, and he looked at me and told me it was none of my business. He wasn't shitty about it or anything, but that was that. It kind of makes me wonder now if he wasn't a virgin when they got married, and he told Mother he was, or if he was just that kind of squirrelly about talking sex with me.
-- Written June 4, 2004
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As a high school teacher, Dad was always much more lenient than Mother ever was, although I'm sure most Gestapo were more lenient than she was when I was a teen. Because of that, there was never a unified front in our house, and mostly, it was Dad acquiescing to Mother's insane demands -- not the best of situations for a kid to grow up in, but no worse than 100 million other peoples', I'm sure. At any rate, that didn't stop Dad from conspiring to keep me under the radar, if only just to spite her. Like, when I was in lurve with my 21 year-old boyfriend, he covered for me, even though it was clearly not the wisest choice.
Especially cool was that Dad was the type of person you could tell anything to after the fact, and as long as you weren't hurt or hurt anyone else, he wouldn't get all apeshit on you -- like when I was 19 and dating my college boyfriend, who Mother HATED because she found out I was nailing him.
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Being a composition teacher, Dad liked to pick quotes off signs and post them up on the board for his students to ponder. They could be anywhere, of course, but a lot of times, they came off church signs. Not that he was particularly religious; in fact, one time, I was downstairs in his bathroom looking in his underneath the sink for things to read (that's where he stashed his stuff), and there was a book by L. Ron Hubbard. That shocked the hell out of me, thinking Dad could possibly buy into Scientology, especially since he was so fascinated by the Hyles Baptist people and what a fucked-up deal THAT is.
He never censored anything I read, really. I was reading Steven King novels by the time I was in sixth grade -- hell, I asked him for his copy of The Exorcist, and he gave it to me without complaint. And the John Powers trilogy -- The Last Catholic in America, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? and The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God? Required reading. In later years, though, he got all up into those Jean Auel books, a passion which I didn't get.
There were SOME limits to what he wanted me reading; after all, he DID throw away the porn novel I stashed under the love seat in the living room (as well as my next-door neighbor's porn novel she let me borrow). Never said a word about it, but once the carpet was cleaned? Gone.
-- Written June 2, 2004
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So it's June and therefore Dad month, so I've decided I'm going to replay the stuff that I wrote about him last year, and then on the days that I didn't write, I'll write something new.
Wait ... what!??<
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From the time I was a wee broad, Mother told me the story of how the summer before she and Dad got engaged, he hightailed it to Alaska. Apparently, the pressure from both sets of parents -- "But he's not Catholic, Anka!" "I want you to marry a college girl, Lee!" -- was bumming him out, so he split. Obviously, they got back together (after Mother gave him 10 kinds of hell for a month or two), but he always talked about the amazing beauty of Alaska: the wildlife, the mountains, the tranquility, but especially the wildlife.
Don't know whether he ever got up to the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, but in February I covered a talk about it. Below, the article:
A widower with three sons living in Northeastern Alaska as part of the Gwich’in Indian tribe, Solomon feeds his family by hunting and fishing off the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a giant piece of wilderness shared between Alaska and Canada. But their lifeblood could soon be decimated by oil drills if the federal government has anything to say about it, he told members of the Izaak Walton League of America Monday night.
If oil development is allowed on the plain, the 8,000-member Gwich’in tribe stands to its way of life for the past 20,000 years. For example, caribou, which return to the plain on Prudhoe Bay each summer to give birth, would likely suffer decreased herds because of displacement from drilling, thereby cutting off the tribe’s food supply. Plus, the nature of drilling would destroy acres upon acres of an untouched ecosystem.
”There’s a 65 percent unemployment rate in most of Alaska,” Solomon said, “But as long as we have the right to hunt and fish on our land, that doesn’t hurt us in any way.”
Lenny Kohm, a wildlife conservationist and photographer who spent more than 15 years lecturing about the Gwich’ins’ plight and spends most summers among the tribe, said that the amount of oil that the government hopes to harvest from the plain is about 3.2 billion gallons, or a six-month supply based on normal American usage. And that number can’t be proven.
”There’s a 20 percent chance of (the oil) actually being there,” Kohm said. “When (Spanish explorers) came through Mexico, they destroyed the Aztecs and Mayans, because they needed the gold. Then 150 years ago, we ran the Native Americans out, because we wanted the land. Now, we’re getting ready to do it again, because we need the oil.”
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, considered a prime piece of land for drilling since 1925, was declared as such in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act by former President Jimmy Carter, Kohm explained. Because the Coastal Plain has always been a target for drilling, however, Carter classified it as a study area until such time that it would be used for other things.
In order for the plains to receive refuge status, a bill before the House of Representatives, H.R. 567 will have to pass. It may not have a shot, however, since President George Bush in his budget for 2006 has earmarked money for the Open Up Arctic Refuge.
”It’s not even a budget item, but he knows that as a budget bill in the Senate, it can’t be filibustered,” Kohm said.
Kohm, along with Kim Novick, Great Lakes Organizer for the Alaska Coalition, pleaded with League members to contact Sen. Richard Lugar to vote against the budget. For his Alaskan Indian “family,” he prays the efforts will work.
”If it passes, that first drill is going to have to come right through here,” Kohm said, pointing to his heart.
Well, now I find out from Rude that it passed 51-49 to drill up the ANWR for oil they can't say for sure is even down there. Big oil (and the Republicans who support it) say that it can be drilled with minimal effect to the environment. Do you buy that? Do you really think that bringing heavy equipment to an area that;s never been exposed to it is going to survive and multiply? Do you think the birds and animals are going to want to come back to that shit every year? And once again, for oil that may not even be there.
Look at those pictures of the ANWR and tell me if you think that's right.
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I know I ask this a lot, but is it just me, or is Hootie the star of the new Burger King Chicken Bacon Cheddar Ranch commercial!? You know, "Where the breasts they grow on treeeees ..."!?! Seriously, listen to it and look at him -- I swear it's Hootie, and oh! how the mighty have fallen, because that commercial is about as fucked-up as they come. Whoa.
Anyway, here's a little thing about Dad, since I haven't talked about him lately: Yesterday was Dad's sister's and brother-in-law's 50th (!) wedding anniversary, and Mother and I went to the festivities. Other than it being a completely charming affair, which it was, I got to see their wedding album and discovered that Dad stood up to their wedding. He couldn't have been more than 25 or so if he was even close to that, and there he was, all tall and jug-eared in a black tux. And the hair! Ohmigod, he had a full head of black hair that wasn't cut in a flat top, exactly, but it wasn't a ducktail, either. Almost didn't recognize him; then again, I never knew him when he was that young. It was nice to see, though.
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Lee R. Quinn, June 30, 1934 - Aug. 30, 2001
Thanks, Dad.
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Today, we pick up where we left off with Dad back in June, because three years ago today was the day we brought him home from the hospital for what would be the last time.
Wait ... what!??<
Never one to enjoy the typically cloying, typically emotional film like most of my girl counterparts (Tara STILL gets all dopey and weepy over freakin' Steel Magnolias -- "M'Lynn! M'Lynn!"), I generally either scoff and be bitter about being subjected to them or try to avoid watching them (the episodes of ER about either Greene's mom losing her mind or him in end stages of brain cancer notwithstanding, because I loves me some ER -- in fact, in the early planning stages of my blog, I almost titled it "Get Rachel" after the one where Greene takes his daughter to Hawaii. But then I got smart and realized that with a title like that, I would probably also have to wear black all. the. time. and dye my hair black and be, you know, a WRITER all-refined, which is all right, I guess, but totally not my schtick).
So.
After yet another day of feeling like assbrine, I hunkered down on the couch to watch some UPN (Nascar was on Fox, and a gal's gotta draw the line somewhere) but fell asleep for a bit. And when I woke up? Marvin's Room was on.
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Today would've been Dad's 70th birthday, so in honor of that, I'm going to post something by someone who wrote about HIS dad and got it right. Thank you, Porny Boy.
Wait ... what!??<
Color me flumoxed: A former friend from long ago just sent condolences about Dad. Seriously -- check the comments. Wow. I don't quite know what to say. Well, all right, I kinda do, but ... wow. That's cool. Unexpected, and I'm shocked as hell, but cool. However, she didn't leave me an e-mail to respond, so if y'all will pardon the indulgence for a moment, I'm going to on the off-chance she'll check back.
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Here I was, all excited about the new sandals I impulse-bought today, and what happens? Their insides are squishy, and they make a farting noise as I walk. Nice.
Wait ... what!??<
The purse incident isn't the only time I thought Dad came to visit. For awhile after he died, for example, my TV, which has hit-or-miss reception anyway, would get these clearly electrical diagonal lines in it, but the picture would be perfectly clear otherwise, and while that was happening, the light would flicker, or if I was talking to Kaffy, I would get this huge electrical charge through the phone. (She remembers, because I would tell her about it as we were talking.) And sure, it could be coincidence, but my one best friend Laura, who lost her mom a little more than a year before Dad, used to talk about the same types of things happening to her and her sisters. In fact, it was Laura who pointed out that when I was giving my eulogy at Dad's funeral, the lights dimmed considerably. I didn't notice, of course, but I was hysterical at the time. And sometimes, he shows up in my dreams, but it's never a cathartic gesture as happens with some people -- at least not that I can remember, anyway. Maybe that's because we made our peace before he died.
I'm SURE he's around when I'm in the car, because of my idiot driving habits. A couple months after he died, my friend Poppy (not her real name) and I went out for the first time in, like, five years, and the short version? Two or three beers and three or four Flaming Dr Peppers later -- you know, the one where you set a shot of I-forget-what on fire and then drop it into a beer, which makes it taste like Dr Pepper -- I was FUCKED. UP. I mean, as in BAD fucked-up, like it was a miracle that I didn't kill myself/someone else/a telephone pole or tree/get pulled over for DWI. And the only way that could've happened was if Dad was co-piloting. I'm sure of it. But not one to ever miss out on teaching me a lesson in the process, the next day while I was driving Mother to get lunch, I had to pull over on the side of the road from the wave of nausea that coursed through my body, and then explain to Mother why I had to pull over. It was a toss-up as to which one was worse.
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Again, I haven't been blowing the Dad thing off; what I wanted to do was scan in the picture of Dad for Father's Day on Sunday and post that as my tribute. I don't have a scanner, however, and neither do any of my friends. So anyway, to the dads in the hizzie, happy happy, yo. (Pete, Og, Rock's dad, etc.)
Not sure how y'all feel about the afterlife and God and whatnot, but since I haven't talked about belief system -- or maybe I have and I just can't remember -- I'll tell you: Nonpracticing Catholic who believes in God but doesn't really buy into the whole organized religion thing. I'm also a huge believer in ghosts and spirits. Case in point? The Sunday after Dad died.
Hang in there my friend. I'll be up soon or you'll be down here - believe dat