Tag: Family

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Just because I’m a nice guy…

Doesn’t mean that I want to be drawn into your bullshit.

Especially if you don’t have the balls to directly ask me what you want.

I think I’m going to have a T-Shirt made!

I’m basically a nice guy. I can be an asshole, but to be honest that’s a defensive screen because so many people want to take advantage of any nice people they meet.

Being nice is perceived by some, sadly too many, as inherently weak and easily manipulated. So a lot of nice people cloak themselves in the mantle of being an asshole. If we didn’t, we’d be manipulated into doing shit that we don’t want to do, or indeed didn’t have the time to do for other people all our lives.

I can tell you this from bitter experience, once someone gets their hooks into you and figures out that they can manipulate you they will never stop. They’ll be a fucking parasite until you’ve got nothing left to give them or you actively burn them out of your life.

I have a lot of respect for people who can say “No” without guilt, fear, or remorse.

I have a hard time saying “No” because growing up I was conditioned to please EVERYONE! Instead of breaking that conditioning which was built from the damn cradle onward, I created the asshole cloak. My problem is that sometimes I leave the house without it.

An interesting case in point was Saturday.

I had a very disturbing call with my Mother. The call was beyond disturbing it was very upsetting. (No one can push your buttons like your Mother!) Normally, when I get this kind of upset, I do something physical to dissipate the hurt and anger before it turns in on me and causes further damage.

This is how we came to have a drip irrigation system at our house prior to the place burning. It’s a serious challenge to dig any kind of hole where I live. One day, The Other Half and I had a throw down of an argument. I grabbed my handy trenching tool and proceeded to dig all the trenches necessary to bury the drip lines. When he stepped out onto the deck with a tall glass of ice tea and told me to come and drink something I took it as him apologizing. He wasn’t… He was just worried that I’d work myself to heat stroke. Later he told me he kept thinking, “That dumbass will come in soon, he’s been out there working in that heat for six solid hours with no food and no water.” He only fixed me a glass of iced tea when he realized I was fixated on what I was doing.

From then on, he’d keep an eye on me. He realized that day that I was very stubborn and if I was completely engaged in doing something, I would literally forget basic stuff. This was especially true if I was working off anger, frustration, or sadness. He wasn’t so worried about me in the Winter time but Summer always made him nervous.

Anyhow, I’d had this phone call with my Mother. I pulled on my boots, grabbed my yard tool, and got to cutting and trimming. Trouble was, I ran out of plants to mangle before I ran out of anger. I switched from the chainsaw to the weed whacker and discovered there wasn’t anything tall enough in my yard to trim down.

Then I remembered that my next door neighbor had been out in Palm Springs looking after a sick friend. I marched over to his yard. Surely, there must be something that needs cutting! No Joy! Nothing had grown since the last time I trimmed his place. (I took care of his yard before the weed abatement people could ticket him.)

Now I’m getting frustrated about not being able to vent my frustration!

Hmmm. The new guy… he’s going through a divorce. He’s been spending time with his kids and doesn’t have any of his stuff with him. He’s only living there for 6 months… And he’s gone for the afternoon with his Son.

His rental yard is ripe for the trimming…

So I get to work. My anger and frustration flowing out of me as I focus on trimming the weeds. I’m happy in my own world mowing down thicket after thicket. I’ve moved to the area where he parks and have just about completed it when I hear my name.

FUCK!

It’s the neighbor that lives next to Crazy Pants. The guy who NEVER says what he means. Who never just asks for what he wants, instead it’s always a long drawn out convoluted miasma of words and randomized ideas. I sometimes find dealing with him excruciating. And in my current state… I’m in no fucking mood!

But then, he hits me with a question that makes me concerned that he’s losing his mind just like my Mother. He asks if I’m the property owner of the rental air B&B. He knows that I’m not. When I tell him, “No,” he asks me if I have a key to the place. Uh, “No!”

Suddenly I flash forward to where this conversation is going because this conversation is like 10 other “conversations” before.

He’s going to bitch about the exterior lights being left on and since he sleeps in his living room how these lights bother him and disrupt his sleep. YAWN! NOT MY FUCKING PROBLEM!

But he wants to make it my problem. He wants me to talk to whoever and make them turn out the lights. He seems to expect me to be interested or concerned or frankly give a damn.

In the back of my mind I’m thinking, “Get off your ass, put down the fucking bong, and deal with your own shit.” He’s still droning on and on about how tough it is for him sleep and how put upon these lights are making him feel, no-one understands how difficult… blah, blah, blah.

I’m at the end of the conversation while he’s still droning on. And I’m getting really angry about it. I put my brain in neutral. Why does this guy think I, or anyone else for that matter care? Can he not see that I’m hot and sweaty and his puerile issue with the lights is of zero concern to me, I just want to get back to burning off angry energy which he’s actively refueling.

I cut off the remaining 45 minutes of his bitching and complaining, “You know man, both of the lights shine into my house too. We’ve discussed this before. The folks are renters and probably haven’t figured out what switches do what yet. When it was an Air B&B those renters always left the lights on. Having a permanent renter is better than an Air B&B here.”

He blinked, “Both Lights????”

I pretty much growled, “Uh yeah, the porch light and the deck light both shine into my house. I use this new thing they call a shade.”

The whine of the weed whacker motor drowned out whatever reply he might have made. Then I realized part of what had made me so angry. For all his whingeing and blathering on about his interrupted sleep, not once did he ask me directly to speak to someone on his behalf, he just assumed that because I’m a nice guy he can delegate his shit to me.

Now I’m really pissed off. How about this motherfucker asking himself, or me what’s up? Not once in 30+ years of living here have I gone unbidden into someone else yard to clear weeds. Clearly I’m exhibiting odd behavior.

I popped open the gate to the rest of the rental’s yard.

The weeds in that yard now know the meaning of Vengeful! The weeds on an odd small patch of land at the end of my street also learned the term.

The battery died just as I finished the little patch.

My anger and rage had abated significantly, but embers still remain.

I’m going to be really screwed the next time my Mother calls.

OH LOOK! There she is now.

Maybe I really need that belt sander I’ve been looking at. There’s some painting to be done around here. Perhaps that nice compound mitre saw too.

Sigh, “Hello Mom. No, we spoke yesterday. Yes we did, I’m sorry you don’t remember. No, I’m not lying to you…”

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The best laid plans…

The tail spin I’ve been in for the past few months is starting to be… less spinney. I’m not out of the spin yet, not by a long shot, but I’m getting better.

I had a plan for our retirement. A plan for what I wanted to do. I pictured us having a small home, with a lawn. I pictured actually having to own a lawn mower for the first time in my life. I’d even been shopping for mowers I might want. I pictured puttering around in a garden, and the two of us enjoying warm days with friends. Nice barbecues, dog walks and quiet times. Most of all I pictured having a mailbox. A “real” address and the joy of not having to worry about how something was being sent to me, because there was only one address to worry about. 

Yellow houseThese are small things. When you haven’t had them for most of your adult life they attain outsized importance.

I saw us enjoying hobbies and interests we’d not had the time to pursue because our jobs were always in the way. We always wanted to travel, we envied those of our friends who made traveling a priority and found the money to afford to do it. We always thought we’d have time. “Once we retire,” we’d say to each other.

I know this is an idealized view, and the reality of our retirement wouldn’t have been quite so… idyllic? Bucolic? But I thought that I’d be able to hammer some part of it out for us, even if it was only for a few years. 

Now, all that is changed. That’s what put me into the tailspin in the first place, aside from the shock, then learning that my other half had made no provisions for his demise.

You’d think I’d be mad, but I gotta say, “Good one babe, ya left me holding the bag!” 

I find myself wondering what now? What next?

I’m still here, the dog is still here, there’s still a small home with a patch of grass out there somewhere. There’s still barbecue, beer, warm days, mild winters, dog walks, and laughs. It’ll just be me and the dog doing all those things by ourselves. The dog is generally good company so that’s a plus. 

One distant acquaintance told me I’d meet someone else. She was attempting to tell me there was a future. She has no sense of boundaries, or decorum, and didn’t know that I’d long ago decided that I wasn’t going to “get hitched” again. I might not even date. I might simply decide that scratching a certain itch is best done in a way that ends with me saying, “Your money is on the counter, now please leave.” There is an interest on my part to “ordering from a catalog,” so to speak. I suspect that is cheaper than dinner & drinks, and I don’t have to be deafened by bar music.

I’ve decided that moving is best for me in the long run. Where I live now is a beautiful place, I have a view that I enjoy very much. But time is catching up with me, I don’t do as well in the winters as I used to. I’ve concluded it’s time for me to take the hint. I think I should go in search of the patch of grass and a mailbox that I’d fantasized about so often.

As I’ve looked at other places to live and the houses available, I’ve discovered that I like either brand new houses or I like really old houses. 1944 and before generally. I suppose it’s because those houses seem to have a lot of character. I know that is sometimes another way of saying they’re a money pit but some of the pictures of these older homes are very nice. The newer houses seem to have a lot of conveniences. 

I’ll have to adjust my visualization down to one chair on the porch but I’m working on that.

The mornings here are getting warmer, I’ve been taking my coffee and iPad out on the back deck to enjoy the quiet of the morning and scan the daily follies of the “Adults” in Washington. The dog likes it because he can watch the world and keep an eye on me at the same time.

I guess the lesson learned is plans and dreams change. 

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Life Events

We’re all getting older.

Deny it all you will, it’s a fact.  Currently, on my mantle is an urn. It’s a nice simple shape.

It contains the cremains of my Significant Other. We had 34 years together; some good, some bad, but the important thing is we endured the hard times and celebrated the good times.

There’s a finality to that urn. It’s like a stake in the ground that says, “From here you go on alone.”

Now, there’s all the paperwork and complications. There’s the digging through documents and trying to find accounts and pay for this, that, and the other thing. There are originals and copies of proof of death to be sent to various organizations. It’s complicated, litigious, and annoying.

There’s cleaning, and organizing of all the little bits of stuff that my S.O. considered important enough to keep and deciding the validity of each thing. Should the silly coffee mug from some professional conference be kept? It means nothing to me. But it was a cup that frequently was on the breakfast table. I suppose, in that, some objects have attained sentimental value, but are they important enough to keep?

How do you decide? What merits an object’s inclusion in a cabinet when everything in the house is something you remember picking out together? When your home is full of memories, how do you weight one item over the rest?

There are items that should be returned to my S.O.s family. I’ve been collecting those because these items have historical significance to the family and should be passed on. Like other objects they have little significance to me personally, but to the family they are bits and pieces of their history. The family should have the opportunity to accept or reject these items.

Our home is full of memories. These memories come unbidden at random times and they can be paralyzing.

Then there are all the good people who don’t know what to say or do. There’s really nothing they can say or do, this pain is mine. I appreciate their well wishes and concern. But really there’s little they can do to help, short of standing with me.

There are those among the friends of my S.O. for whom drama seems to be necessary. For them, sharing their trauma of losing a parent or sibling is supposed to be helpful. In reality their repetitive oversharing is just ripping the bandage off the wound.

It’s not that they mean to be cruel. They just don’t understand that grieving a spouse seems to be a private affair. Losing a spouse is very different from losing a parent or sibling. I’ve experienced all three now. The spouse, is a completely different experience.

When you’re growing up, you come to understand that death is part of life. You understand there’s an order to things. You eventually realize that your parents will one day, not be there, and you usually have a long time to come to grips with that concept. Often, your parents, realizing their own mortality, provide you with guidelines and instruction. It’s not overt, but you see your grandparents pass on and by observation you learn how to come to grips with that inevitably.

When your parents pass on, you grieve following your parent’s example of grieving their parents.

When your spouse passes on, you have some rudimentary coping mechanisms but those don’t really fit. You’re in uncharted waters and each day brings new and different pain.

You see something that your spouse left behind. For example, a mess, and your first thought is to be irritated by it, then you remember your spouse is gone. That’s when you feel guilt about being irritated with them, and grief washes over you. Then you wonder if you were good enough to them, were you petty when you expressed your irritation about them leaving messes in their wake.

Should you have been more patient and loving? Then you’re back to guilt.

You don’t really have time to process your feelings because there are plans and decisions to be made.

The love of your life may be at peace, but you’re anything but…

I’ve found myself losing hours of a day over something trivial. I’ve been awakened by the dog in the night because unbeknownst to me I was crying in my sleep. It’s a strange feeling to be awakened by your dog kissing tears away. In the dim moonlight I can see the dog’s concerned eyes. Once I’m awake, he lays down next to me with one paw on my arm, as if to say, “I’m here Dad, it’s going to be alright.”

I’m anthropomorphizing the dog. He doesn’t really understand, but he’s aware something fundamental has changed in our home.

Grief appears to be a journey. It’s not one that I’m prepared for, and not one that any of us have a choice in undertaking.

I’m getting the feeling that this is also a long journey.

All of which is to say, I’m likely to be writing intermittently at best.

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One Disaster at a time please!

Scnet beetlejuice 5408As of today, all disasters must take a number!

I’ll get to them in the order they occur and in my own damn time.

On the other hand, perhaps just ignoring them might be an option. In the case of sick relatives… Well, that will probably resolve itself on its own.

I know CostCo sells coffins, but do they have a family pack?

The past weeks have been eventful, and while I’m not complaining I sure could use a break.

The problem with aging and having aged parents is that with each passing day it’s ever more likely that something is going to happen where someone you care about someplace winds up in a hospital or the morgue.

In the last month I’ve learned that while I like tiled floors, cleaning blood out of grout is virtually impossible. So that scene in Scarface while memorable, is impractical with advanced forensics and DNA evidence. If you do a chainsaw murder make sure the area has nothing porous anywhere within the splatter zone. 

Not that I’m advocating bloody murders in anyway, it’s just that you’re going to get caught if you use a tile enclosure. Call that my criminal PSA for the year.

About a week after learning the lesson of grout. I was faced with the worst nightmare of anyone living a great distance from family. Death and hospitalization, not in that order… It wouldn’t make any sense to put someone who died in a hospital. What’s the point, right?

Most of my parents generation is in their 80s, many of them are single handedly keeping their local pharmacy open. With advancing age and infirmity comes the likelihood that someone is going to wake up one sunny morning dead. That’s happened in my family. Two days later another member was hospitalized. I’m waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop and taking care of the other half who’s been “off” for the better part of two months. Remember the grout? 

So the horns of dilemma are poking my bottom mercilessly. Do I stay on one coast to look after the other half, or do I head to the other coast to attend one funeral, visit another hospitalized family member and perhaps get back home only to go back to the opposite coast a month of two later.

Numerically speaking two events on the East Coast outweigh one event on the West. Excluding the deceased family member though, the numbers stack up even 1 to 1. Logic says take care of living people because the dead ones are beyond caring.

Over the last year I’ve seen way too much of hospitals, rehab clinics, and Emergency rooms. I hate them all.

So family, you’ve got a choice. Either all go to the same hospital / funeral home at the same time, OR schedule getting sick! In other words take a number and wait your turn!

Yes, yes, I realize that waking up dead is inconvenient and you’ll lose your Tee Time. But think about the rest of us having to clean up the mess. The squabbling, and infighting are awful. Outliers of the family skulking about trying to see if they can score a car or silverware. It is simply annoying and messy. The stress on the other old members of the family takes its toll too. The last thing anyone needs is one of them, already with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, getting a shove into the grave stressing out about your funeral.

So to my family members… Just stick around spend the children’s inheritance on hookers if you want.

Be polite. Be immortal, and make that 6AM Tee Time, maybe you’ll finally break 80. Given that your vision is failing, you’re all old, and no-one is going to say a word if you play someone else’s ball on the green. Just don’t wander off with another group of golfers while the rest of us are looking for the ball that you sliced into the water trap on an adjacent fairway. If it comes to it, I’d be willing to “mulligan” you right to the green if you’d just stick around.

Give it some thought.

Love you all.

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In Northern Florida

Made it to the Tallahassee area.

My Brother was at work when I arrived but I know the secret handshake to get into his place.

It was so nice to walk into a silent house where the temperature wasn’t 83 because unlike at my parent’s house the A/C was on.

I made myself a drink and sat down on the couch listening to quiet music. I guess I fell asleep because I lost some time. The sound of the garage door opening, woke me. I feel so at home in my Brother’s place. Everything is neat and orderly unlike my house, and certainly my parent’s place.

But most wonderful of all was that the dang TV isn’t always blaring. My Brother, like myself only turns on the TV when he’s actually going to watch a program. Neither of us are big on having shouting matches over the racket of the TV. If you’re going to have a conversation, turn off the TV and set aside your phone.

I drove him to work today and will pick him up tonight when he gets off. My being here allowed him to have some work done without needing to take a day off. I’m glad I’m not creating an inconvenience for him. I really like this part of Florida and wish that I could just leave California altogether. 

I’m hoping to be able to do exactly that in the next few years. 

Sitting here in my Brother’s living room I’m catching up on stuff. The ticking of his ships clock on the shelf behind me is comforting and oddly calming. On some level, I’m working through the issues that I observed at my parent’s place. It is only a matter of time before my Mom will be too much for my stepdad to handle. Neither of them are spring chickens and both of them ingest a pharmacological cornucopia with each meal.

I suspect the number of drugs they take will be increasing in the coming months or years. This might be why my Mom is hungry/not hungry a lot of the time.

Speaking of hunger, that’s something I hadn’t been until today. I’m thinking about going out to find something to eat, after that I’ll probably come back and see if I can finish a story I’ve been working on.