Category: us

about the family

Moshi Moshi

old fashioned rotary phone with the reciever off the hook.

It’s over. I killed the landline.

It was pretty much a waste of budget since nobody has used it in years. We kept the account for Internet–a sluggish DSL service that we never bothered to upgrade because of my absolute HATE for Comcast and because FIOS isn’t an option in our part of Ward 5.

But even after we switched to grown-up Internet, I kept the landline. I said it was because I was being lazy. It was really because I was being sappy.

This was the phone number we had when we we were first married. I put my office number on the invitations to the Spouse’s surprise party and reminded our guests that it would be extraordinarily bad for them to leave a message on our answering machine at home. Only one person did. I don’t think we know them anymore.

This was the line that the Spouse used to tell his Mom that we were going to have a baby. He was instructed to pass the phone over to me. She told me that she didn’t believe him and that she needed to hear it directly from me. Then she whooped.

This was the line that traveled with us from our first house to our current house that delivered more than one conversation with teachers–and more than one conversation with the principal. I dreaded the phone ringing at six o’clock.

This was the line that The Big Guy proudly broadcast his armpit fart version of the ABCs as I sat on the side of the bed in my room on the 33rd floor in a Chicago hotel. The Other Parent had to assist. I pictured the receiver being held inches from his skinny ribs as he went all the way through to X-Y-Z. I don’t remember if that was the call when The Big Guy complained that the Other Parent kept messing up the lunches, but that happened, too. I tucked my boys in via that line every night I was on the road.

This was the line that was attached to the answering machine to which my Sibling delivered a remarkable screed that could be a totally different post except I don’t want to go there. Suffice it to say that I am sorry I wasn’t the first person to hear that message, and I am most sorry that was a very bad turn for us.

This was the line that I would pick up and answer questions about my music preferences, give my opinion of local politicians, take a CDC vaccination survey, test messages with the PR firm for the electric company, and, my favorite, spend time with a stranger talking whiskey. She asked, “When was the last time you drank whiskey?” and I truthfully responded, “about five minutes ago.” The next twenty minutes were hysterical as I asked her to repeat the five choices on the Likert scale almost every time.

A landline is very quaint. It is from a time before we all had our own personal communications devices. It was a shared resource. It created obligations. If I answered the phone I was duty-bound to “take a message.” I had to make sure that it was passed on. My children have never taken a message.

This landline stopped being of any import probably nine or ten years ago. It didn’t bring the news of my parents’ deaths. It didn’t keep me in touch with The Spouse when I was in the hospital. It didn’t participate when someone made the call from the police department. Nobody left messages on it anymore–especially since robocalls don’t count.

I’ve had the same cell number for about fifteen years. I think that everyone who needs to get me has that new number. And now, the old one is gone.

I dialed the old number. I am not sure why. A lady that I didn’t know answered.

The number you have dialed, 2-0-2-2-6-9-3-0-6-5 has been disconnected. No further information is available.

Goodbye.

Posted on by docthink 0

Puzzled Solution

Pile of old crosswords in the Sunday Magazine appropriately piled in the recycling basket.

Got a confirmation query. We were going to get lunch, but hadn’t zeroed in where.

FRiend: I know I said that cool new place, but I couldn’t find it. I can’t find the review of the restaurant I was looking at and I don’t remember the name.  Where do YOU want to go tomorrow?

ME: Did you really look?? Was it in the Post? Give me a clue.

FR: I went to the pile of stuff where I tossed the Magazine.  Yeah, online.  Duh.  It was in the Magazine week before last.  Local organic stuff.  Touchy feely in all the right ways

ME: The Magazine? I bet it’s over here. Spouse prolly has it since he hates to throw away the Magazine after he has completed the puzzle.

Yes, The Spouse completes the Sunday crossword puzzle at some point in the future that is not Sunday. He leaves the completed artifact laying around. He’s like some proud Tom Cat strewing small animal carcasses around like trophies. But it’s the strew that should go in the newspaper recycling bin.

If this was a cartoon–and it’s close, cuz that’s the Doc’s life–you would now see a light bulb pop over my head.

The Spouse had just triumphantly completed a puzzle not 20 minutes before.

I knew this to be true because he chortled. Really, a weird sound. Chortling. And he slapped down his pencil like a basketball dunk.

He never uses pens when he does his hallowed puzzle. He can barely conceal his exasperation with my nonchalant use of a pen. Okay, truth? He doesn’t hide that he finds my use of an ink pen in a crossword puzzle positively philistine. Also, I don’t care.

ME: Got it. If it was The Dabney. It’s not open for lunch.

FR: Yeah, that was it.  OK, where to Magellan?

Down
28.  See 36 Across.

Posted on by docthink 0

Food Affairs

dark chocolate squares. yum

I had a boss once who didn’t like food. He had the palette of a 4-year-old.

He’d eat spaghetti with 70s-style Ragu™ sauce that was most likely corn starch, corn syrup solids and red dye no. 2 and yellow dye no. 6. No meat product. No mushrooms. No chunks of anything. Nothing but a red-ish orange coating on well cooked starch.

He’d eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, too. Always creamy peanut butter. Always grape jelly, since preserves or jams had an unpleasant texture–which for him was any texture. It was important to him to be healthy, so he spread the peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread, soft wheat bread. He was proud of himself when he tried quiche. He liked it. We’d joke and call it egg pie. He called himself sophisticated.

The guy took no pleasure out of food. He ate to live.

I was thinking about the relationships we have to food. His relationship would be considered a good one by many. Food had no power over him. It was not imbued with a special meaning. It gave him no reward. It wasn’t a treat. It was fuel.

I sent Baby Bear some chocolates with a request to be his Valentine. I sent it as a gift. I sent it because I love him. I sent some common chocolate and some better chocolate.

The common chocolate is good. It’s a quick hit of sweet and crunch. The chocolate wraps around a cookie wafer. The combination is good. You might hold the candy between your fingers as you bite it, and if you’re slow, it leaves some residue that you lick off. It can incite a smile.

The better chocolate is richer and darker. It has some sweet. It has some layers of bitter, too, like cherry coffee beans. When you bite it there is a satisfying snap. If you let it sit on your tongue it begins to break down. It becomes thick and creamy and swirly. There is a richness, a mouthfeel that helps you remember it after it melts away.

When you share the chocolate with someone–especially the better chocolate–you look at each other and say, “mmmmmm.” You might slightly close your eyes as you savor it.

I love food. I raised my kids to love food. And we love it together. We reward ourselves with a good dinner or maybe even ice cream. It wasn’t so much used as a bribe, but we would use circumstance as a justification to take pleasure in the taste and experience of food. A good report card was an excuse for Momma’s Fried Chicken. And a birthday was a reason to make paella for a table full of his friends. It’s making it sometimes. Or buying it sometimes [this one was REALLY good].

It’s definitely not about volume, but it is about consuming and enjoying. Both at the same time. In some books this is not a healthy relationship with food.

I smell the onions and garlic in a tomatoey sweet homemade sauce. It’s chunky and spicy and full of good fats and hot Italian sausage. The Spouse is making it. We will sit down and eat it. He made it for me. It makes me feel loved. We are living to eat.

I know. I’m doing it wrong, again.

 

Posted on by docthink 0

Cheesey Post

burnt grilled cheese sandwich in a picture wit a nice filter. I didn't make or take this.

It was pretty much guaranteed there’d be Kraft Singles in the deli drawer. Processed cheese product, Pepperidge Farm soft whole wheat bread and butter was my the three ingredient go-to dinner when I didn’t feel like cooking.

Grilled cheese sandwiches. Crunchy on the outside, melted goo on the inside. I would put butter on both sides of the bread so the cheese would be buttery as well.

Balancing the buttered bread as I assembled the sandwiches was the hardest part. (This worked out poorly if I left the butter in the fridge. I usually kept it on the countertop. Except for that time period when the dog was on his butter diet. The other dog, when the kids were young.)

I’d butter two pieces of bread and lay the cheese in, put the bread together, then butter the top. I’d flip the top to the bottom when I put it on the grill and butter the piece that was now on top.

Actually, buttering the sandwich really wasn’t the hardest part. Fact is, I would regularly burn the grilled cheese. The toast would be black and gross on one side. Sometimes both sides, but usually after I burned one side I’d be much more mindful and avoid burning the other. I’d scrape the bad side and serve it burnt side down. Artful presentation can go a long way. They’d still notice, though.

Fact is, burnt isn’t always the same. Sometimes it just burns right at the surface–just the coating of butter. It looks bad but tastes fine. The bread under the crust is soft and the cheese nicely melted and buttered. Sometimes it’s burnt through so the bread is hard and shiny like plastic and you know this because someone at the table knocked on it like a door with a little knuckle to prove it’s lousy. When you bite in, it definitely does not taste fine.

Because of the latter disasters, the kids would not trust that the former could occur. Always twice shy, they began to turn the sandwich over on the plate to see if it was actually burnt. Woe unto me that it was not good. To make it through dinner, I’d take the one that looked most burnt. It was fine. Almost always.

And that’s what I’d do when I did not want to cook dinner.

I think I may have burnt this one as well. It will be better next time. Probably.
<

Posted on by docthink 0

Beds

I can’t really remember the beginning of this story. There have been so many versions of the beginning that I can’t quite place the proximate cause. And the initial what really isn’t important.

Where my memory–and this story–starts is driving up to Henry Ford Macomb Hospital on 19 Mile Road. It was dark, but that doesn’t mean too much in mid-December Michigan. If it was dark it could have been 5 pm, but I think it was closer to eight.

I don’t know if I checked into the hotel first, but I must have so I wouldn’t be distracted by that personal logistical detail of where I would sleep.

Although she’d been at Henry Ford Macomb before, I hadn’t. She had been abulanced to the ER the day before. There was confusion about whether she was getting admitted so I flew in to see what was happening.

I walked into the hospital to find her room. She didn’t have one. Somehow she was still in the ER and had been for 36 hours. The nice lady at the desk told me to get back in my car and drive around the hospital to the ER entrance. I asked if I could walk and she looked at me like I didn’t realize that I was in the Motor City where people do NOT walk when they could drive.

She was in an observation bay at the far end of the ER, a little bitty lump underneath a bunch of blankets that doubled her silhouette. She was asleep so I brushed a kiss on her wisps of white hair. Her skin was gray. I followed the IV to see that she was getting blood. To counteract that gray, I supposed.

There was a bunch of untouched food on the tray next to her and some empty blood bags.

This joint was a disaster. Patients in ER limbo for days. Improper biohazard handling. An impotent patient advocacy process. (Why would an organization create multiple ineffective avenues for remediation? You only need one ineffective procedure.)

She was surprised to see me when she woke up, except she really wasn’t. Waking up in a hospital bed is accompanied by a through-the-looking-glass haze, and, while I didn’t belong in this scene neither did she.

Her smile was weak, but it was sunny and I was so happy to be there: to advocate for her; to make the nurses really see her; to argue about a room with the moronic patient advocate; to steamroller through to the hospital president; and to get what she needed.

I was there to watch the miracle blood bring back the color in her cheeks and watch her lose her wilt. I sat with her for a few days. I held her hand. I made sure she ordered food and that she ate it. I positioned her poinsettia so she could remark again and again on how beautiful it was. I held her hand again, and rubbed her back. And she melted at the touch. I sat next to her with my computer on my lap so she would wake up and see me. We chit chatted about pretty much nothing.

I did this, I thought, for her. But when she peacefully died in her sleep in her own bed a short few weeks later, I knew that I had done it for me and that it was my hand melting when I touched hers.

How fortunate that the hospital was such a shit-show. I am grateful for a last intimate connection. I am happy that I was present with her and she with me. It was a good-bye that I didn’t recognize in that moment. But it was good.

Thinking about you, Mom, especially today, the anniversary of that last time you snuggled up in your bed and went to sleep. Sweet dreams.

Posted on by docthink 0

Tub Thumping

“Well Doc, I think this is it.”

So said my Loyal Reader, reduced to maybe 80 pounds, her hands looking more like a bird’s foot than the hand that held a champagne glass. Her breathing supported by both a tube to her nose and a mask over her mouth wasn’t labored, and she apologized for the getup being awkward.

Her blue eyes were ringed indigo and bored straight into mine. “I am glad you came. I wanted to say goodbye.”

My Spouse–away in NYC–had called the night before, telling me that she only had a few days left. I felt like I was hit in the stomach. It was dumb to be shocked–she had stage iv colon cancer, prognosis is lousy.

Except she had me totally fooled. She had me convinced that she was going to kick this cancer-thing. Even after she lost the month of August when she was sedated and intubated–she was mad that it took her so long to regain the strength and to relearn to walk. She had been back and forth with chemo and radiation and surgery for two years. She decided that she was going to do whatever she could to get better, and it was working.

I walked in to her postage stamp sized room and saw her kids and husband crowded inside were wearing yellow hospital garb. I retreated as instructed and donned the disposable gown. I clumsily kissed her cheek, then her hand, and then her husband who looked so so so sad. I was thinking about pork roasts at her house and burnt ribs and blue martinis at my house. And my crewe, who earned the reputation of always leaving their house as the last guests, very late.

And then the times when she would tell me to be less cynical (Doc, think!), tell me that the Republicans didn’t have it all wrong (she worked for the RNC as a designer–not a believer–long before my foray into a Republican administration), and, most importantly, remind me that when my kids were in trouble that my job was to love them.

She was a good role model. She loved her kids–they had the best birthday parties and halloween costumes. She nurtured their creativity and embraced each of them for who they are. She raised three of the best people I know.

She was my most normal friend–not a D.C. type who was driven in that Washington kind of way. She would sit with me and drink beers at Redskins games while we chattered through 4 quarters of football. What was that score? She would tell me that I did something stupid, or ask me “Why?” when nobody else would.

I am glad that I told her that I love her every time I saw her. I am glad that I told her I love her last week. And I am so glad, and so fortunate, that she loved me.

She asked that we celebrate her life and have a party. I miss her.

Kris, this is for you,

Posted on by docthink 3

Take Her, Not Me

Not too far on the heels of my adulthood, I started joking with my folks that they didn’t do so bad. I mean the cops never brought us home. Mom and Dad were never called by Officer Krupski to come down to the station to pick us up. Never booked or in a lineup. Maybe not a high bar, but certainly a marker of “not so bad.”

Yesterday, the cops came for my mother.

She has been suffering from depression and anxiety since my father died in June. She was sometimes unable to control her anger. It was loud. She was feeling like she couldn’t trust people. At the same time she didn’t feel that she could trust herself to make decisions–despite being perfectly capable. She wanted someone else to take control. She couldn’t stand being out of control. She fell and went into a nursing home for recovery.

The hospital provided an opportunity to address her mental health. Working class people don’t seek psychiatric care. Maybe, just maybe, we might see a priest. People who see therapists are weak or can’t control their families. And people would find out. There is a stigma. You can take medication for high-blood pressure, but not for debilitating sadness.

In the hospital, my mother started taking medication that made her feel safe to try. She went from saying “I can’t” to “I can,” from saying “me, me, me, me” to asking about other people, from blaming everyone else to helping other residents learn the ropes of the nursing home.

When she moved into her senior apartment, she was full of hope and potential. She was everyone’s favorite, including mine. Phone calls were balanced. When for years she hadn’t asked about me or my family, now every member of the family was addressed and caressed. She would talk lovingly about my father, remember to ask about the football game two days ago, and tell me that she felt so close to me when we spoke.

She fell in the grocery store. She was still a little wobbly, but was helping out one of her friends from the apartment by returning her bottles. She was off her meds for the two-plus days in the hospital. In that short time period, us Sibs saw a return of the anxious, self-oriented, suspicious mother. We knew then that the medication was critical to her self-reliance and success. To say nothing of our own selfish needs to have a mother that we liked.

Me: Is it wrong to want her on the medication?
Sib: Better living through chemicals is not a bad thing. Do you think she is happier when she acts unhappy??

About two weeks ago, phone calls became litanies of anger and distrust.

Me: Your mother said, complaint, complaint, complaint.
Sib: Well your mother said, mean thing, mean thing, mean thing.
Me: She was getting so upset.
Sib: She is so hard to talk to now.

Then the light bulb went off. She was going to crash again. And, again, we couldn’t do anything to stop it. Only her kids saw her paranoia and anxiety, and that it was getting worse. Monday her doctor did not see any reason to change her meds. She wasn’t complaining to him and didn’t show any increased agitation. So the train wreck that we were watching was set into motion.

And the cops came for my mother yesterday. And the paramedics. And the ambulance.

And I realized that my mother isn’t suffering from being old. She is suffering from mental illness. And I also realized that she has been suffering for decades.

Me: Remember that time when we were like ten, and mom was locked in the bathroom and we were begging her to come out because we were afraid that she might hurt herself?
Sib: And when we would come home from school and she would be screaming at Dad like he was messing around with her sister.
Me: And we were like ten and twelve and we called Auntie to see what really happened? Now that was a family rift.
Sib: And when you moved out, I would come home and she would scream the same scream at me. Like every day?
Me: And we thought she was a bitch. But not like she was sick. Do you think that Dad was masking her behavior? And when he left, there was no one left to shield her?
Sib: And Dad took the brunt of her anger. We saw that.
(Both a question and a statement) She has been very sick for a long time.

So when the cops came, my mother told them to take my sister, not her. Her daughter was the bad guy. But the professionals could see that there wasn’t a bad guy in the room. Just someone very sick. And someone watching her mother get strapped onto the stretcher who was very sad.

(c) 2005-2016 Doctor of Thinkology. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons License.
Posted on by docthink 2

Siren’s Call

The beach beckons the Doc for our annual sojourn.

I know. It’s early for us, but football practice starts in early August and was a big factor in moving the calendar up.

I am looking forward to the 4th over the water. Don’t know what to expect, but the key to this vacation is keeping expectations minimal. So, I am expecting sand and hops. Oh, and clearing my head.

And, for my loyal reader, don’t worry. I’ll be back in a couple weeks.

(c) 2005-2016 Doctor of Thinkology. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons License.
Posted on by docthink 0

1st Gear

Maybe this is one where you really had to be there. I thought it was hysterical. The 15-year-old was a bit concerned, though.

We were driving back from football practice–me and the 15-year old in the Subaru, about 1/2 mile from home. A very bright yellow car passed us on the left. There was something about the rumble that made me look up and see the Ferrari horse rearing on the back of the car. Like this, only yellow.

I met my foe at the light and quickly assessed the competition. The passenger, some short 30-something guy. Bad hair cut. The driver was much better put together. I could see his cufflinks glint against the steering wheel. MUCH better haircut. A weasel-ly moustache, though.

The light turned and I gunned the Subaru through her paces. That Ferrari ate my 4 cylinder dust. I cackled maniacally. The yellow car met me at the next light.

“So, you think that was funny?”

The 15-year-old raised his eyebrows in warning to me.

“Hey, let’s face it,” said I. “It WAS funny.” The 15-year-old coughed his concern. “I’m from Detroit,” I continued. “We used to race from the lights all the time.” The guy was pissed. I was crying, My laughing was out of control.

The 15-year-old was flashing yellow. I revved the engine. My foe did so, too. About 6 octaves lower than mine. I revved back. The light changed, and I immediately lost my place on the gears. The canary car was long down Michigan Avenue.

Me, still in hysterics, fumbled my way to second (or third?) gear. The smell of burning clutch was everywhere.

But I did beat the Ferrari. At least once.

Posted on by docthink 0

Disproportionate Response

The 14-year-old was off to football camp this week. Overnight camp. At a college. Sleeping in a dorm. Eating in the cafeteria. Being cool.

The 14-year-old was being fickle, however, in choosing his camp dates. So we had to do last minute walk-up registration. And do you know what you miss at walk-up registration? Well, in addition to $30 (late fee!), you also end up missing the pre-registration packet.

In the pre-registration packet, you not only get the schedule (and NO, I did NOT know that camp broke mid-day on Wednesday causing a work-logistics thing), but you also get the list of what to bring. Like sheets and a towel.

Oops! Didn’t realize that we needed to have something on the plastic mattress item in the triple room that was the size of a good-sized master bedroom closet in Potomac, Md. And no A/C. So sleeping on the mattress would be like sleeping on a garbage bag after you have worked out. Don’t forget about the 150% humidity. I told the 14-year-old that I would go home and get some sheets, and he should pick them up at the desk later.

Four days later, he is checking out with the other parent. Turns out he never got the sheets, pillow, towel, and soap that I had left for him. I was so pissed. I had spent almost my entire Sunday checking him in to camp and then another round trip with the linens. Grrrrrr! How dare he not listen when I was hooking him up. HOW DARE HE!

In the meantime, we had torrential rains in the D.C., area. And while the 12 inches of rain came slamming into the roof of the old house, the roof leaked. And then part of the ceiling upstairs came down. And, I wasn’t mad. Just picked up the sponge-ey soaked wall board and threw it in a big, black construction trash bag and dragged it out to the curb. Indeed, I was feeling lucky because the next morning was trash day.

But damn that 14-year old for not sleeping more comfortably on the sheets I brought.

I am a bad parent.

Posted on by docthink 2