I am crabby today.  In order to spare you the majority of my craptastic attitude, which I wish I could also be sparing myself, I instead shall bring you the world’s finest slayer of tiny stuffed chipmunks.

World Champion

You’re welcome.

Scene:  Lego people talking to each other amidst the other 4000 other Lego pieces and buildings on the dining room table:

ACTION!

hey, this is our temple!  get out of here or we’ll kick your butts!

but wait, you can’t kick our butts!  we’re on your side!

what!?  what do you mean you’re on our side?!

really!  we’re on you’re side, like nationwide

huh?

like nationwide!  (goofy voice, familiar tune)  nationwide is on your side!

(Offstage:  sounds of mother erupting in small fit of hysteria from kitchen)

Curtain.

I love my job.  I learn every day.  I help people learn every day.  I take great pleasure in both of those things and a lot of personal pride in it too because I think I’m pretty good at it.  Someone I am training told me that I created a wonderful and safe learning environment with the right mix of patience, knowledge, praise, and honesty.  It was an amazing compliment, but the pride I felt wasn’t that she had told me that.  It didn’t puff me up or make me feel special or validated.  It made me happy because that is exactly what my goals are in training someone, and I was thrilled to know that I had helped someone to feel that way.  I was far more happy for her, and that was very cool.

The flip side of my job is that sometimes I see patients who are gravely ill, patients who die, patients who were standing on the wrong corner when an out of control car came by, patients who woke up one morning with a headache and went to bed that night with a brain tumor.  They are old, they are young; they are mothers, fathers, babies, grandparents.  Some of them come with their entire family in tow.  Some come alone and leave alone, because they have no one to hold their hand.  Some come with the caregiver from the assisted/group/nursing/psychiatric home where they live.  Some have lost the ability to write their name.  Some don’t know their name.

I see a lot of patients who get better, thank God.  I work daily with miracle workers and life givers, people who, for whatever reason, have dedicated themselves to fighting an ultimately un-win-able war, one battle at a time:  We will all die.  These men and women go to work every day to put that day off a little longer for whomever they can or to give the days that are left some type of quality to the people they treat.  Sometimes they drive me crazy, sometimes I’m in awe, but most of the time, I feel like a member of that team and like I’m doing something that matters in someone’s life.

And then I meet the patient in her 50s who has decided, no  more.  She’s been sick a few years now.  She’s put multiple different poisons into her body to try to stop it, over and over and over again.  They’ve found something that seems to be helping, but it is making her even sicker, knocking her down, beating her.  And so it is that even in the face of potential promise, she says, Enough.  He tells her that he understands.  He tells her that, most likely, this will be it; the disease will rear up and take her … and she says okay.

Some days my job just reminds me how much I want to live.

I think I’ve probably posted in the past about the Summer Kids:  the kids from down the street who have ended up at my house nearly every day of every summer for the last few years.  I’ve been the impromptu babysitter for these kids for, wow, I guess now this is the 4th year.  They are brothers, one just older than my son and the other a couple of years older.  This year, that couple of years has seen the oldest turn into a teenager, which means that the difference between the kids has become about far more than age.  From very early on, I figured out that trusting the older one was a bad idea, though I’ve continued to give him chance after chance after chance after…  I’m someone who just thinks that there is good in there, no matter what, and that if you give it enough chances, you might see it work its way out and actually develop.  Apparently, though, I’m no match for whatever else is at work in his day, including his parents.

The younger brother is a sweet child, artistic, kind.  He’s the one we met first all those years ago, as he rode his bike down the street and we introduced ourselves.  He’s finally come into his own this summer, old enough to feel okay telling his brother that, no, he doesn’t want to share his space, actually.  I’d like to think that I’ve helped that along; I’ve certainly encouraged the younger kids that they have a right to their independence from the older kids.

I’ve now had the younger child at my house for 7-8 hours a day for numerous days out of the last week, and I can safely assume that this will continue for the rest of the summer.  It’s even been on the weekend.  It’s when both parents are home or just one, no matter which parent it is.  I sometimes wonder when these people see their kids and if they care whether they do.  I wonder what in the world they do with their kids that is not about what they, the parents, are interested in doing and just drag their kids along.  I wonder why they had kids.

Recently, I’ve twice heard the heartache in this child’s voice as he told me (in so many words – I don’t want to quote) that one of the parents had no interest in him or what he was doing that day, as long as he wasn’t around to be a bother, and as he described an incident with his brother that the brother turned physical, resulting in the bleeding of the younger child.  The incident was entirely dismissed by the parents, and I could hear the bewilderment in his voice as he told me about it and could see that he was fighting not to cry in front of me that his parents, the people he trusted, could be so unjust and so apathetic about the fact that he had been attacked and bloodied – in his own home, no less.

Needless to say, I understood.

I was commenting over at NBAI and needed to confirm someone’s name to attribute a quote.  I was quoting life coach, Martha Beck, whose website is looking a whole lot fluffier these days than when I was last there, which disappointed me a little until I scanned down and saw her quote of the day:

“You invite inner peace when you stop trying to force yourself
to either change your relatives or to think of them as sane.”

That’s a profound truth people.

While I want bourbon and vitamins, I was mainly just being funny there because I also L*O*V*E being at home with my kid in the summertime.  I get bummed and depressed at times because I feel like I’m letting him become a vapid, braindead little thing at times, rotting in front of the tv or xbox or or or, or because I can’t stop working and take him to do all the fun stuff that I want to do with him — expanding his young mind, playing hard until we fall down, doing things people forget to do, seeing new things like caves and bugs and whatever else we can find.  But I still love having him here with me and getting that time together, no matter what we do with it.  There are, of course, days when my husband walks in and I pretty much RUN away, either to the basement, the shower, outside, into a quiet closet, anything, but that has more to do with the fact that the child is constantly noisy and I live a normally very quiet day by myself.  Going from 5 daytimes of solid quiet time to a constant 7 days of never.ever.shutting.up would be enough to drive Mother Theresa to swear and consider injecting brandy into the fruit roll-ups.

I learned that I was a little odd in looking forward to break time with my kid when I sat down with some other parents from his class and said, “Who else is excited that it’s almost time for Christmas break?” and had women looking at me like I handed just landed on this planet.  They seriously asked if they had heard me correctly and did I mean to say what I actually said??  And was I drunk?  I said, really?  You don’t?  Nope, any change in their child’s daily routine was a horrible trauma for all involved, and having the kid home at that point was tragic and terrible, plus there was the whining and the demanding and and and.  I guess we had equal parts of getting lucky and working at it in that respect; we just capitalized on the parts of it that he would like early on, and it mostly worked out well for us.  Also helps to not have siblings and that he actually really likes us.  And that we stocked him thousands of dollars of Legos.  And a dog.

So I feel incredibly lucky to have this time with him, even if I am working my brains out and missing out at the same time.  This is probably as close as I can get to having my cake and eating it too.  Just some days, I need some liquor to wash it down!

I may just have to turn “Summer” into a new page for the host of fun things that will be my summer at home with The Boy.

For instance, so far today my son has:

• Told me about the “hot” girls in his class next year (he has last year’s yearbook from there to learn faces and names of kids and teachers) and that he will be dating said “hot” girls.  Clarified that he will be dating all of them.  But one at a time.  I assured him that, yes, in fact, they do prefer one at a time and tend to get mad otherwise so that was some strategic planning on his part.
• Asked me for a snack 132 times.
• Jumped up and down, roaring and whatnot, when I denied snack requests 130 times.
• Told me everything I never wanted to know about the Lego characters he has invented to live out his Oblivion fantasies, ad frickin nauseum.  I shall be instituting a “No Oblivion Talk” rule for certain hours of every day, partially so that I can get some peace from it and partially just so neither of us has to feel like I’m ignoring him when he’s talking about it the rest of the time.
• Determined that if the dog was going to be on the loveseat with me, the whole family (in residence – TB is at work) needed to be on the loveseat together.  People, the dog and I barely fit, so this involved The Boy climbing his lanky self up and over to lay across the back, which is all of about an inch and a half wide.  Mmmm, togetherness!  3 seconds later, he was quite miffed when the dog abandoned us.  Because she has sense.
• Had me on the SpongeBob Squarepants Wiki page to find out what kind of pet Mrs. Puff has…  and if you think I’m telling you so that you don’t have to take your curiosity and look it up for yourself, you are SO WRONG.

It’s officially summer.  Someone get me my vitamins and some bourbon.

I very recently made the mistake of exposing a vulnerability to my mother.  Several years ago,  I made a choice regarding an educational therapy for my son; the choice was not whether he would receive the therapy, but where and with whom.  There was nothing “wrong” with the choice that I made; I just didn’t have the information that the people I was trusting at the time were totally worthless.  So, ya know, when I did get that information, I made a different choice that has gone well but had we started worthwhile services for him when he was much younger, he probably wouldn’t even need it at all by now; it’s also possible that potential has been lost there that will never be regained.  Obviously, this is something that hurts me, something I wish that I had done differently, something that has caused me some sleepness nights and murderous thoughts for the people who promised us everything and failed us miserably.  In other words, it’s a very tender spot, and like a fool, I expressed my sadness to my mother that I had not made the other choice when I had the chance.

Big, Big Mistake.

It wasn’t 60 seconds before she turned it back on me, the sharp end expertly filed into her patented jagged edge and then laced with salt and acid for a little extra thrill.  ”Since you admit that you made a mistake…”  (yes, a direct quote – and what, like I never admit to a mistake — no, Mom, that’s you)  and then proceeded to tell me something else she thought I needed to do for my son, with the emphasis being that I was falling down on the job in that area.  Mmmmkay, if you wanted to tell me you thought I was a bad parent (twice apparently), then I think I would have taken it better if you’d just said exactly that.  If you wanted to encourage me to do something in particular for my son, then I would have taken it better if you’d just said exactly that.  If you wanted to piss me off, push me away, and remind me why I moved the hell away from your hypercritical, have-to-be-in-control-of-everything, condescending, bitchy self, then kudos – ya nailed it!

When I sounded a bit upset (the nerve of me), even though I was being agreeable with the idea of what it was she was ‘encouraging’ me to do — and had been, mind you, as we talked about this just last week, but the office was closed on the one day I could stop and call — she decided to up the ante and tell me that she would not be letting me have money she’d promised for other therapies for my son if I didn’t get that done.

Wow… can you see my head exploding from where you are?  I’m sure it’s showing up on satellite photos.

I’m going to be totally honest and say that I can’t even remember what the hell I said to that.

Suffice to say, that was basically the end of the conversation, though no confrontation was really had beyond that, so I’m still equal parts seething and traumatized.  I mean, let’s just take a tally there:  My mother, the person I was (foolhardily, I admit) lamenting to because I thought (I’m obvious brain-damaged) I could find some motherly-type solace, just knifed me with a shiv after I handed her the materials.  She told me she knows better than I do how to parent my child.  She told me I’m a rotten daughter for not immediately doing what she thinks I should do AND for even considering that I should have a right to take offense when she thinks she needs to ride my ass about it.  Then, when she sees me knocked to the mat, she stands over me and threatens me in a way that can only hurt the very same child she claims to be the only one capable of caring for.  

Did I miss anything there, Mom?  Anything at all now, don’t be shy.

Way, way back (many — ago, I was a young girl listenin’ to how ya flow), I promised a companion piece to TB’s 2009 MotoGP Season Preview.  I spent a bit of time getting all my stuff together, and then, in my ADD-ese, wanted one more thing that I never went and picked up so you haven’t seen this yet.  Well, I have 2.2 seconds on my hands, and damn it, I wanted to finish what I started.  Without further ado, THIS is what I love about MotoGP:

To our left, my very favorite MotoGP eye candy:  Nicky Hayden, The Kentucky Kid.  Yeah, I could give an interesting description here, tell you all about how he’s an American rider, a World Champion, and (finally) no longer with Honda and working hard to master the monster over at Ducati… but why?  If you have 2 X chromosomes, you’re not paying the least bit of attention to me anyway.  

Stayed tuned, more Nicky to follow.

 

John Hopkins actually isn’t riding MotoGP this year, after the economy kicked Kawasaki in the butt.  Instead, he saddled up in a different racing series, only to suffer what looked to be a potentially career-ending injury in a crash, though recent reports say that he is mending well and will return.  I’ve rooted for Hopper since he was just a whipper-snapper in the GP, and fate has just never gone his way.  Whether in or out of racing, I wish him luck, safety, and happiness.

 

 

 

Someone who is riding a Kawaski in GP this year is Marco Melandri.  He’s basically riding for what equates to a privateer team in GP (sorry if that plane just buzzed past your ear); suffice to say, he has a bike and a crew, but he won’t be getting any fancy new parts coming through development week in and week out:  He’ll have to end the season on pretty much the exact same bike he started on.  So far, he’s been doing pretty damn well with that.  He never tamed the monster at Ducati, and if Ducati can’t help Nicky to do it, Marco will be vindicated.  If Nicky does master the Duc, it will be a permanent stain on Marco’s career.  I’m thrilled for him that he’s hanging in there this year though.

 

 

Which brings us to Casey Stoner (whose wife is gor-geous, but let’s ignore that for a moment) is, so far, the only man to harness the power of the Ducati to bring himself a World Championship.  He seems a good guy (if a bit whiny, sorry kiddo, but at some point you went a bit too prima donna for a guy who grew up on the dirt track), and he’s can’t possibly be a worse teammate for Nicky than the midget at Honda whose name will go unmentioned in this write-up because I don’t want to use that kind of language.  Casey’s nickname (around our house) is Opie — as cute as he can be, the boy does have some ears.  But the profile shot is juuust fine.  ;)
 

 

And now we ride with the World Champion…  The 8-time World Champion, that is.  Valentino Rossi is the only other rider to really share my heart with Nicky, and truth be told, he had it first (been around longer).  He won my heart not only with his riding style, which is crafty, intellectual, and daring without being reckless, but also with his incredible sense of humor and love for what he is doing.  He’s an artist, and I love nothing more than to see an artist displaying their craft.  He’s said to love the U.S. because he can be anonymous here (not for much longer), but his fame has him up there with Wilt Chamberlain so take that ‘anonymous’ thing with a grain of salt.  ”The Doctor” is a Yamaha boy.

 

 

Ben Spies must have a million serious, studly-looking pictures on the innernets, but for me, it’s the smile that does me in.  Mr. Texas didn’t make the jump to the GP this year, as many had predicted and hoped, but he did make A jump that still has him well on his way to his GP seat.  We did see him in the blues on the Rizla Suzuki in Indianapolis, and it was great fun to see someone who was still learning the ways of the GP monsters (though Ben is The Man in his own right, don’t get me wrong).  Ben’s nickname is Elbowz because he rides those babies with his elbows out like he’s doing the chicken dance.

 

 

 

Chris “just try to find a picture of me without my bucket hat on” Vermeulen is a savant when it comes to wet-weather riding.  If they ran every race in the rain, the man would have a title to his name.  It’s downright freakish, frankly.  He has a boyish look and charm that just capture you, though heaven help me, I’d like to cut his hair and do wish he’d have some surgery on the hidden cheek here (not easy to find a pic from this angle).  Chicks dig scars, babe – trust me!

 

 

James ‘Jimmy’ Toseland is a Brit who can not only ride the GP but is also a classically-trained pianist, hence the photo seen here.  Again, it’s the smile that captures me, though the package it’s plastered on isn’t hard on the eyes either.  We did hear him perform in Indy (we were wandering around), and he was great!  He has a little prima donna to him as well, though he also isn’t afraid to go after it in a race and crash out doing it.  He has an extra OOMPH of competition this year since he, um, “borrowed without the intent of giving back” his teammate’s crew chief.  And the freckles are cute too.

 

 

… and did I mention Nicky Hayden?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’re welcome.  :)

I’m a little late, but I know he wouldn’t mind.  I wrote this in 2007 and am so thankful that I did.

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My grandfather died in September of 1997 — my father’s father, an Army veteran of World War II, son of a veteran of World War I, father of a veteran of Vietnam, one of the oldest of 13 children, a father of 5, a grandfather of no less than 8 (depends on your counting method).  Circumstances would ultimately conspire so that he would get to spend real time with only one of his grandchildren — me.  

It is nearing 10 years since his death.  I can still smell his aftershave and the blanket on his bed.  I know how his hairbrush felt in my hand, and I can hear his voice humming along with Johnny Cash or Kenny Rogers.  I remember the smell of his work van, from those mornings when he would drive me to school; it was pretty much the same smell that was in the blue cap he always wore and his blue coat and pants.  I can feel the weight of his boots and remember learning the difference between his boots and my dad’s boots when they were both at the door.  When I close my eyes, I can see his smile and hear his laugh, as suddenly I am 5 again and we sit at the table together eating our Cheerios right down to the mountain of sugar in the bottom of Grandma’s green bowls.  We’re playing a game, and when I best him, I can hear his jolly, “Why, you little rat!”  I know where he keeps his screwdriver that looks like a pen and the real pen and paper pad that he will use to draw squarish pictures of dogs and alligators for me.  With the flick of a decade, he is down front in the auditorium–dear Lord, he’s even sitting down amongst the audience this time, and he hates the crowd of people–but it is my senior choral solo recital, and there he is; he wouldn’t miss it for the world.  I need only look at him if I am worried; I know that he will be smiling at me.  I know that he will applaud with those gentle hands of a giant–joyous, affirming applause.  After my recital, he will move to the back for the rest of the concert, where he always stands, but for now, he is in the audience – for me.  If he can do it, I can too.  The music is starting…

I wrote and delivered a eulogy at his funeral; it was full of the unique details of his personality that made him who he was–things that would touch everyone who knew him, and of the special things that only he and I shared.  I’ve never seen so many people at a funeral before; he was well loved and a well-respected man and electrician and knew many, many people.  Most of his other grandchildren were there as well.  When my heart had been pouring out onto the paper, in the form of heartache and memories-even before he died, I thought that many of these things were memories I would rekindle in his other grandchildren and that we would share.  It was only after the service that they told me the truth:  My words had introduced them to the grandpa they had never gotten to know.  They were devastated, and I felt even luckier than I had before.

I don’t know much about his father:  I know that he lied about his age to join the Army and go to war.  I also know that he loved to smoke and, even with emphysema, would have his favorite grandson (my dad) sneak cigarettes to him when my dad would drive him into town every few days.  I also know that he left the world sometime in the week that I entered it.

I barely knew his mother.  Though I lived most of my childhood with the good fortune to have 4 living great-grandparents, she was the one with whom I spent the least amount of time (ironic, as she was the only one who was nearby).  We apparently had Sunday meals at her house when I was little, but I was too young  to remember it.  I believe it was around the time that I was starting school that diabetes and senility started working together to take her mind (16 pregnancies and 13 children… how her mind lasted that long is beyond me).  I believe I was 14 or so when she died; do the math–that is 14 years after her husband.  My greatest memory of her is only through a story told to me:  Her son, my grandfather, was back from the war, married, and had a small child of his own.  My grandmother and great-grandmother were in the house, cleaning up the Sunday lunch dishes while my grandpa was out working underneath a car that had no wheels on it and was up on blocks.  Something happened, the blocks moved, and the car came down on my grandpa, pinning him under the car.  His mother saw this through the window, rushed outside, LIFTED the car up off his body so that he could crawl out, and then set it back down.  He was fine, but everyone was completely awestruck that she had lifted the car.  It was the first time I really understood just what love could do.

Grandpa had a 6th-grade education.  He left school when he was 12 to work as an electrician and help out at home; as one of the oldest of 13 children, you can imagine there was some helping to do, particularly as it was 1933–the pit of the depression.

When I was a child, Grandpa and I did special things together.  He would play his guitar and teach me silly songs, like one about a mule in a picture show, K-K-K Katy (a war song, I would learn later, and one that I think his father probably taught to him), and our favorite song about how great life would be if all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops…. I’d stand outside, with my mouth open wide – yes, that’s the life for me, ba-by.

He wasn’t perfect, and since his death and my own voyage into marriage, adulthood, and parenthood, I’ve learned a lot about the reality of everyone being human.  There was one thing I was sure of as a child, though, and have only become more sure of since then.  That man loved me deeply, and he took absolute and pure joy in watching me living my life.  Something about my just ‘being’ and his just being a part of that… it was like sunshine in his day.  And sometimes, especially in a household of chaos and angst, his presence reminded me that there was fresh air beyond my front door, a space in the world that didn’t require anything of me, and someone whose reaction to me would only ever be a smile.

Grandpa would also indulge me with photos and more photos.  We’d sit and look through the shoebox of his photographs from war time.  I never got to just dig through on my own, though, and as a normally very respectful child, it never occurred to me to wonder about that; I simply accepted that I would be shown what I was allowed to see.  I vividly remember pictures of Grandpa standing in the snow in the Alps.  I remember the ski lift in the background, him kneeling with the snow in his hands, posing with his rifle over his shoulder.  Dapper and dashing in his uniform–Grandpa was a handsome man on any day, but his uniform made him swoon-worthy to be sure.  Picture a young Ed Harris, but better, and with bluer eyes–gorgeous bright crystal blue eyes.  My father has that color too.  I had it when I was younger, but somehow mine have dulled where theirs did not.

He never talked about the war, not the realities of the war.  He told the funny stories of being abroad, silly things that happened, crazy situations he and his teenage friends found themselves in while they were in Europe.  I wish I could remember those stories, any of them.  I can’t think of a single one.

There are two stories that I most remember, both are somewhat vague, one moreso than the other, and both he told me when I was 25 and he was dying.  

I was living in Virginia with my then boyfriend now husband, and as was habit, we went home in early August for my birthday.  My grandpa had been diagnosed with ALS–amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig disease, which weakens and paralyzes the muscles of the body in a way and for a reason that no one can understand.  Looking back, he had been deteriorating for years, but the workups and diagnosis had just come in the last few months.  No one knew just what to expect or when to expect it, but when he could swallow nothing but soup or Pepsi (and sometimes not even those), we knew that it was coming sooner rather than later.  On that visit home, I made a point of spending time with him.  In just a few months, I would be planning my wedding, and it was one of the saddest things in my life that he was not alive to be with us that day.

He sat with us at his dining room table, and I remember basically ignoring my aunt and my grandmother.  Honestly, and somewhat guiltily, I wished they weren’t there or wouldn’t speak, though I think they somehow knew that to a point–or at least understood that this was my time with him.  For the first time in my life, he took out his Army books and the photos that I had never seen and started to tell me about his experiences, the things he saw, the horrors of the war.  He wanted to make sure that I knew; I think he suddenly felt the need to ensure the passing of his memories to a younger generation.  He spoke so freely and so openly about the atrocities; he remembered it so well and spoke with emotions I’d not seen from him before.  He showed me his book with photos of mass graves, dessicated corpses piled high, and the odd skeletonized form that had tried so futilely to crawl out of the pit of death.  Then there were the photos that were even harder to grasp–the men, women, and children who looked as though they too were dead, but they were not.  He described these people and their ‘joy’ at seeing Americans.  It was not like the joy that we exhibit when something seemingly miraculous happens to us.  It was tempered, not by a distrust or a disbelief, but by exhaustion, starvation, and the fact that virtually all of them had already accepted that the only change in their situation would come in the form of death.  There was a will to survive, to not give in to those who would wish them destroyed, but there was no hope of actually being ‘alive’ again.  And so, when these young American boys approached, they were met by eyes that were hollow and souls that were broken, and after all these boys had been through to arrive at this moment, they looked into those eyes and felt guilty for being so alive.

He remembered being in northern France when the Germans were in control of the area.  He and another man from his unit were together–maybe separated from their unit?  I can’t remember clearly–and came upon a small home.  A woman was there with her young son but no husband.  She invited them into her home, and though they were wary, it was winter and they were also cold, tired, and starving.  They accepted and took shelter against the raging cold outside.  She fed them warm soup, and they played music with her son after they ate.  They slept, one at a time, for a few hours each, and then left before dawn, with bread stowed in their packs and fresh water in their canteens.  As he told me of her kindness, this woman who was on her own and should really have been terrified of these two foreign men, I could hear the amazement in his voice, the respect, the honor, and the sorrow as he wondered if she and her son survived the war and what became of them.  I know that it was hard for him because all he wanted to do was to thank her one more time – for reminding him that our basic humanity is worth fighting for.

It is difficult to express the magnitude of that simple message, and we can’t offer our gratitude directly to every person who stands up for basic human decency.  

Sometimes, all we can do is to say thank you and promise to do our very best to learn from their experiences and the past so that we don’t make the same mistakes, ignore the same warnings, commit the same atrocities.

Thank you, Grandpa, to you and all those like you.

I love you, Grandpa.  There are no words to tell you how much I miss you, and I promise you that I will try harder every day to remember that I make you smile.  It’s the least that I can do.