Refresh

If you ever want to know how your family is doing, rent too small a rental car on a family vacation.

We're a good family. We get along pretty well. When we crammed into a midsize sedan outside the Maryland airport in 100% humidity in a building surrounded by a jungle of trees and what looked like a prison exercise yard, the minute sweaty arms hit other sweaty arms it was like the Battle of Gettysburg. Which happened not too far from here.

This may be why we fought for freedom in our country. Just to have more legroom.

The added good news is, we spent alot more time in this car than we thought we were going to. Turns out kids who are old have to do things like work on zoom when they're on vacation, and since we were staying with Uncle Wayne who lives where they haven't invented wifi yet, we had to keep driving up to the center of a very small town to experience the pleasures of a modern life.

Not having wifi made for some fun other things. Like looking around the attic and finding a secret door. Like finding a book on sex and aging amidst a ton of christmas decorations and then reading it for the next five nights. Aunt Janet's attic is like a throw pillow of disorder, I guess it's her loft actually, but there's two twin beds up there, one that Bess slept on that felt like the door Rose was floating on in Titanic, another one that had pillows for your head that were flat as pieces of copy paper, and then the bed we made of the floor for Emma which was good if she only went up to her knees, I didn't have enough blankets to make a full sized Emma floor bed. 

Not having wifi meant we could wake up in the morning the first time someone started talking in the kitchen because you can hear everything like they're yelling right in your ear. But we liked this feeling, to wake up belonging somewhere, in a comfortable lived in house, where you could picture making order out of the disorder but then not do any of it because you are on vacation and this is the best feeling in the world. Just hearing people's voices not in a hurry, saying things cheerfully like good morning sunshine

Not having wifi meant we could rest on the weather beaten dock and cast lines for fish. We could wipe worm guts on our bathing suits as we baited our lines. We could lower ourselves carefully off a ladder we dropped into the water into the waiting kayaks and then sail heartily for the distant shore. Scanning terrified for sea nettles and then splashing water all over ourselves, and stopping directly in the middle of the wide river and listening to nothing. 

We saw three bald eagles. We saw a cardinal. Not the religious kind, the bright red kind. We saw Aunt Janet hang up her bird feeders everyday. We saw a duck meander over to lay on her eggs. We felt the air heavy like wool blankets. 

All we did was sit on the porch and then get up to swim. Or kayak. Or fish. Or go to the Amish Market. 

When you're crammed in the car with trees and deer all surrounding you on the path to town, and your daughters are making fun of you for videoing too much or talking too much or being yourself too much, it feels like being shrunken, like the last one asked to dance at a party. But then if you say that they say you're being too "pick me". So you can't even say hey that hurts. But then we pass a carnival in a field or a friend comes to visit or we get ice cream and a hot pretzel served to us by someone in a bonnet in the year 2025 and my life feels refreshed. I bought Amish biscuits and licorice and chicken salad and kept hitting refresh.

It is not easy to travel with all the personalities you made and the extra ones they made for themselves all crammed into an overpriced midsize that we didn't get the extra insurance on. And then Barry turns too quickly in the car and we all fall over in the back like dominoes he says What so much that they started counting how many times he said What

Because he asks a question and then doesn't listen to the answer and then has to ask What again.

I like that he doesn't really want to know the answer to any question, I actually respect this new technique. It's really only the question that matters. Who actually needs to know the answer

when there's deer out the window, and you can pick up frogs and scare Nathan

When you have to put on bug spray at 6pm or be eaten by a hundred mosquitos by 8. When you sit on the porch at sunset because the whole world turns orange pink and blue

and there's the silhouette of your babies out on the dock, on the grassy expanse, throwing out one last fishing line, restfully tired, hoping for a bit of luck

A special outfit and a gathering

whaddya do when you're done

I feel like I never finished anything in my life. I try to never finish anything because then there's still more. 

But with this last one, getting to the end of 18 years, today the graduation, 25 years of motherhood, all of them successfully navigating the lausd school system and living to tell about it

what the heck

was I there all those minutes?  Did I make any mistakes? Did I do things I wish I hadn't

surely

 shirley

I watched time pass

I watched time pass in tiny legs that turned into running legs that turned into feet running away from me. They don't seem to run far in this family. We've only gone as far as the midwest so far. We seem to still like each other

I mean we have our moments

We have rage

We have screaming and disbelief and utter sadness

We have shocks and surprises

We had the tiny feet though

Three sets of tiny feet, one at a time. Now the caboose is loose. Little Bessie is chugging on her own track. She still won't let me take a picture of her or hug her all the way. But she did lay on me the other day, unprovoked. I think I might just stay open

 

Keep watching time pass

Still enjoy the three sets of feet we made

These graduations confuse you

They make you notice the milestone because there is a special outfit and a gathering

But it's only a milestone. It's not what's beyond it. It's celebrating what we already did, what is now dead to us, cause we're only looking forward. It's a memoriam for what we already did, and a leaping off place for what is ahead

The vast ocean

in this case, the one near Santa Barbara. All our kids decide on Ventura as their next destination after high school. Then Nathan came back, Emma went to Boulder and Lilly, well let's see what the next four years aims her toward.

We'll be here still cleaning up and remembering the tiny feet. 

So You Thought This Was Easy

If you ever think you're doing a pretty good job with dementia, it's good to add a second dementia patient to your roster and then stand back and look at what you've done.

B had to take the kids to Vegas to see Bess's final basketball tournament and I wanted to go but I had my mom and B said also Vegas sucks, but still it's Bess. The Caboose. The last one. But then also B had to fire Nandy's helper so there was no one for Nandy. Nandy is able to mostly function after trying to die about five months ago like the serious way, like stopping your heart and lying there heartless. They revived her several times and jammed an air tube down her throat breaking a tooth off which is still missing, so she's alive now and when she talks you just look at that little black space because there should be a little white soldier there but he's a fallen man.

Anyway Bruce could have come to watch his mom but he was balking at the drive and he's too "busy being gay" up in the north so finally I said bro pay me the helpermoney and I'll watch your damn mom.

Now let me say when he sent me the money I momentarily felt sick because I was hoping he would say no way man I can't do that to you I'll come down but then I remembered boys are stupid except for Nathan. and Brandon and Dima and my dad and B. Oh and Patrick. And Nathan's other friends. Okay so maybe just Bruce is stupid

The point is I took on the job when I already felt buried in dementia at the bottom of a hole with a broken shovel and I look up and the sun is going out because there's a solar eclipse. (A soul er eclipse) But I see the silhouette of B flailing and somebody's got to do something man

So Vegas day yesterday they're all packing and Nathan warming up his fancy car they're taking and B has brought Nandy here and she seems ok, she can form sentences that's kind of exciting since I've been doing all talking for me and my mom for about 3 years now.

Bess is dragging, the reason for the trip, and the one least motivated to go. But she gets packed and it's too chaotic they're all out the door and Nandy comes out with wet jeans and says oh no I didn't make it to the bathroom and Bess is passing me looking at me with big eyes as she overhears this I say Have a great time honey

They're off and I have mom in the half sun cause I never know if she's burning alive or freezing exactly and I throw Nandy's pants into the wash because I had one happening anyway and give her some pants I find by the door that belonged to no one so now here you go Nand, these are now yours. 

I then make Nandy sort and fold all the laundry like a venezuelan orphan for no pay. Then she sweeps the back patio. Then she cleans the sink to perfection. This is like having a maid (the good news) that you have to make sure doesn't fall into the pool (the bad news). So my mind is all day evaluating her capacity since it's been a problem for months whether she can keep living alone of if she has to be put (down) somewhere or put in a bunk next to my mom. And can I handle the two of their declines. With my own little body and soul.

We spend the whole day outside. No Love Boat. No tv at all. It's so pretty out, and there seems to be alot to do now that I don't have the kids home to worry about. And somebody new looking at me saying what else should we do. I forget to eat. There is a huge mess in my mom's from taking out a bed and putting it in the house for Bruce which he ended up not coming down and needing. So the piles of stuff that were under the bed was a majestic mountain all covered in dust. Nandy and I looked at that mountain at 7 pm after working all day, when I put my mom to bed and we both looked tired and I said you know what, maybe tomorrow

She helped me feed the horses which was really just me shadowing her to make sure no one trampled her, but she can walk, man. I would kill for my mom to be able to walk and speak and smile and hold my hand.

The good thing about having a past in film production is when there's a job you fucking take it, it doesn't matter how tired you are. It will lead to more work and you need the money so you can travel and pay bills. So I wired into that part of my brain, I helped Nandy into the car with the dogs and I took her home. I had a map to her house but I let her show me and we got a little lost but she did get me there. I wanted to see how her mind was doing.

Getting out of the car I knew the dogs would think we were at the beach cause I never take them in the car and I knew they'd leap out over Nandy so I said wait don't get out yet and was almost around the car but she opened the door and Violet thought it was rope drop at Disneyland and shoved right across trampling Nandy who fell out the car door onto dirt. Then Huck landed on her. But she took a second and said I'M OKAY! like a damn hero. This is what's good about her. She's not a complainer. We dusted her off and shot the dogs okay no put them back in and then walked her in to her place.

Driving home, my brain feeling lucky that it still works what I thought was bad but is actually incredible, thinking about what should happen with Nandy, noticing that loving and caring for Nandy is a thing I can do but not the deep connection that I feel with my mom. My mom I'm doing it because I would do anything for my mom. I have no other capacity in there, there is no other road when I look in my heart.

So that feels good to see that some things make sense.

I go home and feel free, I cleaned the big bed so I can sleep in the house like the plantation owner and reign over my land of dogs and horses with no family to bother me. I check on mom and see that huge pile on the floor and think I can't look at that anymore so my mom is watching Flipper and laughing at the shirtless boys and dolphins (flipper never wears a shirt) and I slowly hang up all the clothes and throw out bags of crap and vacuum and put away comforters and wipe every counter and fold towels and pat my mom and give her juices and three hours later her place looks amazing and she's resting happily, and I climb into the big bed in the big house with hours ahead of free time until I have to go pick up Nandy and start a Saturday.

The dogs climb up on the huge bed, I have a book from GS and some ice water, everything's clean and I feel like a KING.

I'm so HAPPY, I say outloud to no one, to snoring Huck.

All I Had Were Wetsuits and Lingerie

I went across town or through our never ending valley town to a pretty waldorf (not salad) school where Bess was having her last game I would ever see. They charge $13 dollars to get in which is a scandal since most games at the humble Burbank schools charge $5 bucks, and once I tried to sneak in here with a mom friend and we got caught and I imagined my life on the run forever but instead I just paid the horrible ransom and then didn't go to games there for a few weeks in protest and japanese shame.

But this is the last one so Bess and B went early and I went after shoveling my mom safely into bed, driving her slick stickshifty car on a moody Friday night in May of my lone teenager's twilight years.

I ended up heaving up a hill with all my fat slapping around as I ran because the game had already started but I paid my stupid money while giving the lady the frigid courtesy of not looking at her, trying to ice her out as my final protest which she noticed not one bit. In the movies I would have grabbed her hand while she handed me my 2 dollars in change and I would have said do you realize you are taking advantage of hard working parents when you charge easily 3 times as much as every other game venue sorry I said venue but don't you see man, you're part of the machine of uncaring this is how it started in Berlin in the 30s. It's not JUST A GAME MAN

but instead I just took my 2 dollars like a tired dog. And sat.

Here's how it is with the ending of things. It's a fizzle. The firework that sort of goes off but mostly you don't realize you're already seeing the best in the show when it's happening beforehand so when it gets to the end you're all keyed up and then it's just a regular game like you'd see in the background on a bad teen 80's tv show.

Bess was in there for sure. She tossed a few balls basically toward the net. She blocked players and shots with her semi-ferocious body. She had just had her nails done for the prom tomorrow so I'm sure in the back of her mind she was like I want to win but I really want to not ruin the hard earned tips of my beautiful fingers

Then the buzzer and she's saying good game in a line with her team and then there she is next to me with her backpack and her ponytail and I look up at her and say end of an era Bess 

And I force her to take a picture which she leans away from me so not much has changed but I wanted to mark the moment even though she resists cause we got here on this winding path of childhood I got to witness. B did most of the driving but I was there to see whatever she was doing, she was always following some path and whether she knew it or not, B and I were trailing behind, picking up her trash

We walk out of the game into the black night, surrounded by acres of neighborhoods in the never ending LA, but in this school there is a meadow and a copse of trees (sorry I just learned that word it's not very satisfying) also copse is itself just a group of trees so 

ok

We're walking down the hill past some copse 

no

It's pretty, trees make you feel you're not choked by civilization, and most of the other cars have left. I say bye to B and Bess and zoom out of the gate in my mom's car and then I get about half a block and Bess calls me mom we have a flat tire

Circle back

There's no solution for flat tire. I can't blow that one up and pat it on the butt and head it on its way. B has been nauseated for days taking an antibiotic for his chopped out back skin cancer and he's standing there unshaven and befuddled and it's already like 9pm and Bess would really like to get started being on her phone

So we call Nathan the family car guru and we're suddenly hefting all the stuff in the car around looking for the spare. Bess's coach Ray shows up with Mya his star player daughter, going to their car and sees our flinging stuff around and says hey I'll play, he's always up for any game

So we finally figure out the spare tire is in the WALL of the back of the car which we didn't even know comes off and it's also flat hahahaha

Triple A is coming but Ray says well we can get it started and finds the jack shit of jacks in the wall of the car, and shows Bess how to jack up a car and after the childhood he had, he is no stranger to a car jacking. Ray is the same age as B's older son Bruce, but Ray has two teenage daughters and is a struggling coach in a challenging divorced dad life while also weighing about 85 pounds, and Ray is always ok with everything going wrong. He is cheerful. The best thing that could happen to Bruce is two teenage daughters and a divorce and a coaching career. Ray is grateful.

Mya is freezing so I look through the pounds of crap in our trunk and I say how bout these wetsuits can you put them on? I search through the goodwill bag we haven't dropped off since last summer how bout this lingerie

She takes her dad's sweatshirt since he's sweaty from jacking the car and finds a granola bar in his front seat so once Mya's fed we're just staring at the trash in the car and looking at two flat tires and Ray on the ground and then we're just laughing because that's how flat tires are, he says, there's nothing else to do

AAA Jeff shows up and Ray unfolds himself from the ground and the tire gets pumped and changed in under twenty seconds and Ray says ok you'll be ok now and the girls are sitting in the middle of the black parking lot giggling over tiktok

And I follow B and Bess home looking at the three fat tires and the one ridiculous cheerio sized clown tire and think yes

I belong here 

Look at This

Bess and I went downtown to get her a prom dress.

Her friend knew a store and she had already been there once so I let her map us there. We've been to the toy district so we knew what to expect. It's like a mini 14th street in NY, there seem to be alot of things leaking into the street, the streets look like alleys and the alleys look like murders. It's crammed down there so it looks like there's more people but really it's just foreign people like us, parking and hoping their car is still there afterwards, trying to all fit on the sidewalk with the carts selling what looks like blue lemonade with a side of burning rocks on a grill under an umbrella too big to get under as you pass.

We duck into a place called Connie's which they immediately start doing when we walk in the door. I like a store that isn't lying, they want your money and they want all of it as fast as possible.

The dresses are flowing off the walls like chinese upholstery. Are these expensive dresses? Or are they 40 dollars and they want us to pay 280 dollars so they can go buy some electronics next door. Hard to tell. 

The colors though, it is like a sea of foamy color, with sparkly beads. It's like the childhood bedroom of Tori Spelling. I imagine a flowing canopy bed which is so majestic you can't notice how big her nose is. 

Bess is as boggled silent as I am, but she does find a sage green, a lavender lilac rapunzel dress, an electric royal blue. Emma suggests the deep blue, that's how she pictures Bess.

We cram into a small curtained area about the size of a valet parking attendant and this is maybe the closest Bess has let me get to her in about 6 years. But she saw her friend needed help dressing from her mom when they went so this fore-adventure helped her know how to act in this, our adventure. I help her pull fancy dresses over her head and then we stand looking in the mirror and they say no pictures I guess the chinese government is really worried about dresses on the internet, but I take pictures secretly like James Bond steath fast. 

She considers her image in the mirror. I'm not sure what she likes or doesn't like about herself, she keeps most of her pain inside. I hope she sees what I do, a mother deer and her gentle doe. Blinking her big eyes and seeing perfection. I don't even think she sees the mother deer, holding the curtain. But she knows I am there. I did the zipper.

When she tries on the blue dress, all the other dresses fall to the floor in tears. The blue dress wraps her like the ocean. It holds her gently in its palm and lifts her to the gods like look

look at this 

We get the blue dress. 

The way you pay is you have to hold the dress up to a counter up so high it's like you're in divorce court and the cashier is the looming judge. Also the judge is wearing an enormous black wig and way too much make up and I think is a chinese drag queen. This is maybe the best part, the unfortunate lack of beauty in a sea of colorful drapey gauze. This slipping wigged cartoon wart in enormous glasses.

She takes my money like she's doing me a favor.

Bess and I walk out of the store the dresses on the lined up, headless mannequins bowing and whispering at our good fortune. The street steams and looks ragged and the sun seems perplexed why its beaming rays seem to bounce back on a flat mirror, the sun can't make things look joyful in this section of town. But my little daughter in her tennis shoes and jean shorts, her high school career wrapping up on this stenchful street, her quiet walk and the white bag with her coveted dress, for one night she will be the star. 

I'm Not Done Learning

My shrink told me I'm valuable. 

This is a crazy concept!

We were talking about my mom croaking eventually and she was asking how our relationship was before all this 24 hour sickness care started 5 years ago

And I was thinking well. It goes back way farther than 5 years. I was like. Um. I think I've been mothering my mom since I was 9. 

I did read somewhere that when your mom gets divorced, the daughter usually becomes the new husband. Well if that isn't a kick in the pants job description

Of course my mom worked and she was present in the house and she gave us lots of freedom to make our own mistakes and she showed us how to make many mistakes, unknowingly valuable lessons. But as the daughter you protect your mom's heart. That's the heart you know as well as your own. It was there beating first before you knew about yours. You trusted hers. She told me everything would be ok. And to have some more creamed chipped beef while you were thinking about it. And to snuggle under blankets on the couch when nothing else fixed it.

I think we expect alot out of moms and dads. They seem so fearless and stalwart. Is that spelled right? They're there to be strong and ignored and alternately desperately needed and longed for. I like being human. It's so tragic and funny, messy and unlikely and beautiful.

I've been helping Kurt's horse get adjusted to life down the street. And helping that new farmer get used to her new horsekeeping, she's never kept a horse at her house and now she has three. I helped her by taking her out on the trail with my horses, not knowing for sure how my horses would do either, Meri is young and mischievous and Maggie wants to kill all other horses not in her group, but they did fine, we led her and her horse down to the water and we all did fine. That's the trembly path we all walk, the not knowing, hoping we'll do okay and then climbing aboard and doing the thing. Even if it's just a graduation lunch. Or having to meet a new person. Even though I'm already getting old, everything seems still to be like a flower opening, every day. 

I'm not done learning. I am valuable.

Really Jule

My mom's been sick and I know I've had alot of posts about dying and mom leaving the ultimate betrayal of mom leaving me to go off and die! Like she's supposed to or something like all nature does except for plastic bags and batteries and paint and Demi Moore and Dyan Cannon.

But I've been slogging through this last illness and she hasn't been that bad, really, even though the irony of me NOT having hospice now that she's actually at the scarier end of the stick, NOT having a staff that will show up or a nurse who's reliable, it is the way of life

But I've done everything like in the past, the breathing treatment, the cough med, sitting up straight all night, oxygen, antibiotic. I did it a little less frantically because she was eating, she was relatively ok until the cough started to sound like fat wet washcloths

then

The first antibiotic day I sat her in poppa's big chair and cut her hair and clipped her nails and gave her queen treatment. And yesterday she sat up in the regular chair and didn't need oxygen so I wasn't too worried just halfway, I could have almost a regular day. Then this morning she is still running low oxygen after breathing treatment so I put her back on oxygen just keep that number above 95, lots of fluids, and let her rest. Go eat breakfast Jule, the regulator in me thought.

But I want to say before I left I put my head on her belly and looked up at her cause she only looks at you if you angle in there and lying your head on your mom's lap is nice anyway and I told her she was having a little sickness but we'd take good care of her, I would be here, cause she's my sweetheart

She crinkles her eyes still in that sweet way, and she does this squint where she raises one eyebrow and tips her head slightly like are you sure about that like she'd do if you made a joke

and I love that to the very end to right now this point in dementia my mom still plays

the part of the brain that regulates warmth and spirit, humor, is with you to the very end 

if you had it to begin with

we aren't abandoned by our humor it cradles us which makes me know that it is (if you're lucky) a core of life

Like Ricky Gervais when his mom died, at her funeral, his younger brother was in charge of telling the priest about their mom so he could say nice things since they weren't religious and the priest knew nothing about her. And the younger brother gave the priest the names of all 4 of her boys but purposely told him Larry instead of Gary for his older brother so at the funeral when the priest was talking to a grieving room about how she loved her sons, especially Larry, the brothers giggled

The way a mom would want

So when I have to be doing the other parts that eventually come, the scattering of ashes or the empty bed I can think as I fling the dust out onto the river in Maryland and most of her gets back in my face, I can think about her tipping her head and raising her eyebrow in her hospital bed, with my head  on her lap looking up

her face crinkling at me like really Jule 

that's just how it is

When my mom is sick I feel everything doubly because she is my mom and she has no idea what's going on or the mortality or any of the drama of life, she is strictly what is on her tray in front of her, or if you are in her eyeline her eyes soften and she is so glad to see you

She is all trust. She is in my hands. My hands are sore and tired. She should never trust me but she does and so I rise

I am the farm girl with the strong body who can help the sick mom.

But when you add in the cough the wet cough I get scared and the oxygen machine wasn't working and the new company doesn't care as much about helping with my mom and I get scared and I cry trying to fix the oxygen machine with the old hospice guy Andrew who I've never met but on the phone he says let's troubleshoot it these machines are pretty simple and somehow I figure out to blow in the tube that's in the distilled water just like I clear out the bunny water tube actually and miraculously the oxygen is working and maybe my mom won't die from faulty equipment

so I get her loaded up on cough meds and antibiotics and nebulizer and then oxygen and now I'm in the sickness mode, I have to be vigilant and I wheel her in and if she's going to die I want her in the comfy chair so I wheel in the huge lift that helps get her hefted one place to another so I heft her into poppa's chair and i make sure she's sitting way upright for fluids and I get her comfy, I cut her hair and nails so she looks good in the afterlife and helped every four hours and make sure she's eating and lots of drinking and sweet potato for poop ease and my mom smiles at me, she loves me still or I love her at least and she's grateful she's really unaware that wet cough is so scary

I have to go out there now, it's late, I have to sleep nearby and make sure she's okay, and hope she has an easy time she needs someone who cares and that's me today

everyday

When you have someone relying on you it is an honor and it is so scary because you can do everything and one of these days it still won't be enough and just like the Lakers, we will lose the big tournament and have to go home empty after all that work and doing our best

because that's the rules of the game sometimes you lose and just like a tree in the fall, we have to allow life to grab us by the throat and tell us this is how it is man

This is just how it is 

let's not do lunch

I had to eat lunch with Elaine's mom, a basketball mom. She ASKED me to lunch like ME, no other party favor people to loosen the blow, all the focus would be on how entertaining I could be AND she asked me to go like three weeks ahead of when we would eat.

There are so many things wrong here I don't think I even have enough cyberpaper to explain how this was so horrifying for me in every way. I can just say I only like to eat alone in my car.

But Nathan said aw, that's so nice she invited you. She likes you.

WHAT

What have I ever done to get anyone to like me. And then to have to PERFORM at a lunchDATE

Okay so I said okayokay Nathan says it's nice okay I'll go sure I'll go let's go to Panda. I thought I'd say the shittiest place possible I thought maybe she'd say no cause she's fancier than me but she said yes 

and then it gets to be 3 weeks later and then the day before and I forgot all about it and then Bess said oh Elaine said you're eating with her mom tomorrow and then I have to text her and say oh are we eating

Then she says yes and I can bring it to your house

I was like NOOOO now I have to clean my HOUSE? And how can I get rid of this situation in an hour like I wanted to be able to do at a RESTAURANT

sorry I'm yelling

but then ok she shows up and I have cleaned but also I have decided my house can be mostly the way it is because my house is comfy and then she comes in and she's so happy and she DOES NOT HAVE PANDA she has sandwiches and I WANTED PANDA 

and then she says where is B, he should eat with us and I did not plan for that so I go out to B's office where he just ate and I'm like please come in don't leave me alone with this

so he comes in and they talk about basketball for half an hour while I eat all the sandwiches and then I get so bored I start gluing flowers onto barrettes to make hair clips and then b leaves and I'm up I have to ask a bunch of questions to keep seeming interesting and finally it's over and I give her a hair clip and I shut the door and I say I hate people and I put my pajamas back on

and then she texts me I had a wonderful time

and I feel like a douche. Like I was just about to break up with her and then

So now we have to do this more often apparently but I think I have to say BRO I cannot enjoy eating with anyone I can't cuss around or that doesn't take place on a couch or on the way back from costco in the car

Also if I am required to still see human beings then can we take a pottery class or something so I can do something squishy or fun with my hands so we can be DOING something and I don't have to seem interesting

I think there is a late onset autism I may be sprouting or maybe it's just I am already overwhelmed with the caring for people I can't do the sitting at a table with the blank slate that is my mind and be able to converse freely without feeling crushed

so in closing yes she is maybe the nicest person ever

and I really want orange chicken 

Get Off Your High Horse

My friend Kurt ain't feelin too good.

I met him on Craigslist back when people still went on craigslist looking for stuff in the farm and garden section. I had put an ad up looking for guest riders to pay me to go on the rides I was going on anyway, to help me with my hay bill. Mostly I met weirdos and always it was women, but then there was Kurt, helicopter pilot, throat cancer survivor, dad, humorist, rogue. 

He ended up buying a horse that I found for him, and keeping that horse, the big old Hank at our house for the last almost 6 years now. 

In the last few months, the radiation scarring from the throat cancer all those years ago is starting to wreck his ability to take a deep breath, or any breath. So lately when we were riding he was wheezing and after the last ride he said um

I probly shouldn't ride anymore

But this is KURT, my trail husband, so many women he has invited on trail rides so I could check them out and see if they were Kurtworthy and we had so many laughs with the rainbow variety of women we met. There were hardly any good ones, but they were all entertaining.

So now we've spent the last few weeks getting his horse used to going to our friend Double D's ranch down the street, where he will be living. She can use his horse, and he will be good for her horses.

It is very weird after having a huge horse at your house to be walking him down the street to another house, and to be interacting with other horses there, and to be trying to make everything okay and smooth when everything feels productive, yes, but underneath, so disruptive and sad. 

I am glad to be rid of the extra poop of this huge horse, it is killing me running the farm with all the hefting and lugging, and how am I still so fat? It will help to have Hank doing all his crapping down the street where my muck rake can't reach but still I am sad because is it the end of Kurt.

I don't want any endings. I thought I told all of you. You should be protecting me. Already I have Bess saying yes to UC Santa Cruz and that is five hours away where she'll be doing all her crapping starting in the fall unless she gets off the UCSB waiting list, in that case she'll be only an hour and a half away. I can handle that. I can handle it all I just don't WANT to do any handling that isn't like the handling of a fluffy baby chick or a bouquet or maybe a big pile of money. The only good ending is the one that doesn't happen.

So each morning I've been walking Hank up the secret path and over to Double D's and giving him a few hours there, to get used to it, letting him loose in the arena and he's been yelling for his friends back at my house, and his 70 foot tall frame hangs over me by the fence and he looks at me like when am I going home and I don't want to say what if you are home

His big brown eyes trusting me

I like that I will have more room in my barn and that no one will be in my way but maybe part of the good of life is that there are things in your way and personalities of people to wrestle and too much to do

I kind of like to be needed, and used in a way that makes me feel good and kind, especially to big furry lugs like Hank

You ever get to a place where you don't have any idea what you're doing. I've been living there for sure  since dementia mom these five years, but really for most of my life. There's some really good movies playing though in the neighborhood theater of my reality. It's such a small place but there's definitely an old movie theater, and some leafy bridle paths

My barn is going back to just being my barn and not being a host barn for a boarder horse.

Kurt will still be my friend, we are friends til we're both choked out of life. It's just there's nothing like a Kurt ride, where he's growling out conversation in his radiation scarred voice, making jokes and talking about vaginas. It was never boring. Also it was mostly quiet and beauty, all that water and the stupid horses making everything grounded and peaceful, the dogs frolicking. The comfort. 

Stupid Kurt. Stupid endings. Stupid breathing troubles. 

The good news 

We never wasted one ride

Who's Got the Pain

I'd like to go through my body and you can click yes and subscribe to all the things that also are hurting on you. I told my friend Chris yesterday that when I ride my elbows are actually on fire, like the elbow joint could burst into flames at any time which is why I now carry a small fire extinguisher. I'd like to blame it on rolling my mom over in bed everyday but it could also be the thousand pound horse on a lead rope that likes to stop suddenly on a hill, wrenching my arm back, or maybe the million pound horse shit buckets I heft into the trash every few hours. My elbows have started a craigslist ad looking for a new body with a less ambitious arm owner so if you see it DO NOT RESPOND, I need the elbows they're all I got bending in that area.

Then my plantar faciitis in my feet which sounds alot fancier that it is it's really just fucking sore feet. Arches. My golden arches are shot, Achilles got nothing on me, or was it Hermes, or Apollo, whoever greek or roman who does feet maybe Nike but Nike got a deal he sold out, Nike's doing ok now while I hobble from place to place. I had it in only one foot for like a year and now it's moved over to the other foot so I misuse my feet sure, but I also strap them up and stretch them so they can just shut the fuck up and let me walk I gotta get around man with no complaints from down below.

At least it's hotting up enough outside to swim again so I can lose the 40 million pounds I gained by eating only good n plenties for two months after Christmas. It is nice to be able to bend over to pick something off the floor without the internal fatpack strapped onto my waist in the way. I am swimming, riding and dogwalking and then hula hooping during commercials of laker games that the boys always have on, and hula hooping is fun way to trick yourself into doing ab work. Also my vet who came to give the horses' shots is 78, and he said the way he stays in shape is mostly Diet Coke and butterfingers so I have hope. Also his name is Dr Dick, which Kurt says was his nickname in elementary school.

Speaking of observing pain, let's cut to how mom got kicked out of hospice for not dying fast enough (ok it has been almost 5 years), and so she's on Home Health which is basically the same and they'll put her back on hospice when she starts dying with a passion. But switching to Home Health means a whole other team of people who come in to evaluate and they actually sent a physical therapy person and I was like wait

ok, you can send a pt person, but this patient has end stage alzheimer's. She is not in training for the luge. She can use her left hand and her head, but basically the rest is just the stand for holding up those two things. The pt lady has to get paid and it's free for me so I'm like, ok sure. 

So the pt lady stands in front of my mom and yells BONNIE CAN YOU PUSH AGAINST MY HAND while holding her foot and my mom is looking at her like if I could push against your hand I wouldn't be in this fucking wheelchair

Also why is she yelling it doesn't get my mom to look any faster

The good thing was that my mom had someone touching her and moving parts around which had to feel better than just sitting there not getting touched or moved around or sorted out. And mom did enjoy it.  So we had four sessions of this inane prepping her limbs for easier death and then they discharged her as I knew they would because they were like 

whatthefuck are we doing

which was the medical diagnosis on the chart

And now my mom is just doing her regular left arm work feeding cheerios to her waiting face, which I am really grateful she is still able to do. So I can needlepoint nearby and just refill the tray with fun foods. I can't give her a cup tho which sucks so I am still in charge of holding the water.

Then my friend Chris calls and says her parents are going mad, her dad is starting to forget things and not be able to speak and her mom throws water on him in the middle of the night and tries to break his door down with a hammer

so yeah I'm good with dementia, I'm happy to take my five years here with my mom who smiles and gives me a kiss and pats my hand. It's only hard if I want to go anywhere for longer than 2 hours. 

The best thing ever was last night Bess said she and Rayleen were gonna go look for prom dresses and her mom was gonna spend like 300 bucks and Bess said she didn't wanna do that she was just gonna look at thrift stores and I said you could wear mine and she said what color, and I said blue she said oh I was gonna get blue 

So we went to my closet and in the back was my prom dress, a simple sort of grecian blue off one shoulder number and she tried it on and that was so sweet, this dress which got worn for about four hours 41 years ago (?!) is now taken out for its second spin on this little person who never even existed back then and now fills in the dress. She looks at it carefully on her, and she tucks it a bit higher up so the waist fits more empire like and instead of saying ohmygodno she says

I think I like it

This little person who has not liked one thing from me except chicken strips since she was 12 and now she's going to the prom at almost 18 years old and she can wear this dress if she wants and take it on some new adventure in her own way and that

made me not sore anywhere, at all