Life, love and other stuff

What a week! I have barely had time to breathe, much less follow up on my blogging. But it's Saturday, and as always, I am desperately looking for ways to avoid doing my marking. So an update it is!

Dad is doing very well. He hates being incapacitated and is highly motivated to get the hell out of the nursing home and back home. I talked to Mom last night, and she sounded in very high spirits. Of course, this is all about her; for example, the other night it was nearly five minutes into my phone call when she even mentioned Dad. It is truly astounding how my mother manages to make someone else's injury ALL ABOUT HER. My sister and I still marvel at her expertise in this. She is an artist, that's for sure.

I am planning on going home over the March Break, and it looks like I am going to be able to tack on a few days before the actual school break, which means I can probably be home for 14-18 days. I am sure my sister will need a break by that time and Dad should be out of the nursing home by then. And as an added bonus, Marsh will now have an opportunity to meet some creepy Internet people, if she wants. *smile*

In other news, Grant and I are finishing up the second week of our diet. Those who know me, know that I rarely diet, in fact, I don't actually believe in diets. But Grant and I both needed to drop some weight and although we don't eat particularly badly, we just weren't finding that we were able to drop some weight. We decided that we needed a bit of a strict regimen to get us on track. I had talked to several people who had had good results with the South Beach Diet (hi Jess and Heath!), so I borrowed my sister-in-law's copy, figured out the logistics of it and we started twelve days ago.

Now, did we weigh ourselves before starting this diet? Mais non. We don't actually own a scale. So we are reduced (reduced, hee) to using the how-our-clothes-fit method of determining weight loss. Today, I tried on my black evening gown in preparation for the gala we are attending tonight (the black evening gown that I barely managed to squeeze into a few months ago) and joy of joys! it not only fit; it was actually loose in some areas!!

Which is a tremendous payoff, considering the cost of avoiding every single bit of Valentine chocolate that came my way!

Finally, Grant and I celebrated our fourth anniversary of marriage this Thursday. When our first anniversary was approaching, Grant asked me if I wanted to do the gift exchange thing. I told him that gifts were for Christmas and birthdays, but I would like some kind of special tradition for us to begin in celebration of our marriage. We decided that, since our courtship was conducted primarily by writing on the Internet, that on our anniversaries we would write each other a love letter.

This year's letter made me tear up before I even got halfway through it. I would just like to state for the record that I married the most wonderful man ever. There is no one in this world that can make me feel as loved, as beautiful and as appreciated as Grant can. I love my sweety.

Update

I spoke to Dad yesterday and he is doing as well as can be expected. He grumbled a bit, which is a good sign. My dad isn't himself unless he is grumbling. :-)

I hope to know more about his prognosis and the options available to us after I talk to Sally tonight. Thanks for the words of support.

My dad

Last night, my 82 year old father fell while walking the dog and broke his hip. Luckily, a motorist happened by about five minutes later and stopped to help when she saw the dog and someone lying on the side of the road. The police came by soon after and called an ambulance.

He is in the hospital, getting a hip replacement even as I type these words. He is in excellent health and the doctors are sure he'll have a relatively quick recovery. But still... my daddy is hurt and in the hospital. And I am 3,000 miles away!

I will be talking to my sister a lot over the next few days. If I need to go home, I will. Hell, I will probably go even if she says I don't have to. My mom can NOT manage this on her own and my sister has two young boys to take care of. The doctors are saying he will need up to six months to heal ( that's a quick recovery? apparently so, if you are eighty..) and may need to be in a nursing home for a bit. I would very much like to find another solution, if we can.

This is the kind of life-altering event that my very independent parents have been managing to avoid for many years. It will take some time before we can figure out what happens next. But there are many changes ahead and I know it will be hard for all of us.

*sigh*

Last night...

I got the BEST HAIRCUT EVER!!

Which is good, because I had one of the worst days ever and if my stylist had fucked this up, there would have been major carnage.

And I am traveling traveling traveling

My sister and I were talking on the phone last night. She is hankerin' for a new mini-van, as she says plaintively "All the other moms have one." She wants to be able to hit a button and have the doors open and the seats go down and all that good stuff. I commented that she probably wanted a DVD player in the mini-van too, but I would only let her get that option if she never allowed her kids to emulate that commercial. She knew exactly which commercial I was talking about.

You might remember it too. The family is on a long distance trip, Mom and Dad in the front and the kids are happily watching Bugs Bunny on the DVD system. The only problem? They are driving through some of the most amazing scenery the Southwest has to offer. We're talking monumental rock formations in gorgeous shades of red and orange and that impossibly blue sky overhead. And the kids are oblivious.

When we were kids, my parents used to load us in the car or the trailer or the motorhome for vacation and off we would go. Usually our travels took us to Arizona, New Mexico or Utah, although one year, we actually traveled all the way to West Virginia to visit my grandparents. There were three of us and although I am sure there were times when we were bored to tears, what both my sister and I remember is how great these trips were.

Sure it was tough to keep three kids contented on our long days of travel, but my parents made it fun. My dad used to challenge us to look for things. Not license plates; although we got really good at that game too; but really unusual things. He offered five bucks to the first one who saw a roadrunner. It kept us busy for hours. Sally says one of us actually won five bucks at some point, we are both certain it wasn't us, mainly because neither of us had the actual patience for that kind of thing like my brother did.

My particular passion were the trading posts. You know, those "Indian" trading posts, where the kitschy souvenirs compete with actual Navajo rugs and turquoise jewelry. I had a deep-seated need to stop at every single one of them, despite my chronic lack of money. I was content to simply browse the treasures to be found within. My parents rarely indulged me; if we had stopped as often as I begged, we never would have made it more than 50 miles a day!

I also adored the milkshakes you could get a roadside chain called Stuckey's. Pretty much the only milkshakes I ever got at home were McDonald's shakes, which were good, but couldn't compare to the thick, ice-creamy shakes to be found at Stuckey's. We would see the the signs advertising the next location about 50 miles out. Then I would start pestering. We almost never stopped, but I was always optimistic that this time we just might.

We saw it all. The Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Chaco Canyon, The Badlands, Little Bighorn. We climbed cliffs with native dwellings carved out of the sandstone, we peered into adobe pueblos and imagined what life was like before the inhabitants vanished. I walked the battlefield of Little Bighorn and communed with the men, both white and native, that had died there. We read everything we could find about the places we had visited and looked forward to every family trip.

One night in Montana, there was a giant thunder and lighting storm. If you have never seen the Western version of lighting, you haven't seen lighting. It lit up the entire sky. And deafened you with the loud BOOMS of thunder. My sister was terrified. The rest of us liked to watch the show, but when it was time to go to bed, there was my sister, entirely unable to sleep with all this KABOOMing going on.

I had recently starred in Once Upon a Mattress with my summer acting group for young people. I ended up reciting and singing the entire thing to my sister as we lay in the upper bunk over the driver's seat, to distract her from the storm. It worked. And I have a memory of my sister and I that I will never lose.

Only one of the multitude of memories my parents made possible. Somehow I don't think an in-car movie would carry the same significance.

Darn it

I didn't get the job. I am not really surprised. Apparently there were about 180 applicants for 16 positions and since I am still a relatively new teacher, I might not have hired me either.

Of course, I would have been dead wrong.

There is still a possibility I might get an offer. There will probably be a second listing of positions, as this is a new school and they are still determining how many teachers they will need. I may have a better chance once they ask for teachers with special education qualifications, which I have.

Yes, I am still optimistic. Oh, and that glass over there? Half full.

Sail the ocean blue

On Sunday, my elder stepson left home. I hugged him goodbye and he got in a car and drove to the airport where he boarded a plane to Montreal. There he entered basic training for the Canadian Armed Services.

Matt decided about 6 months ago that he wanted to be a firefighter. Grant had set him up with our local fire chief for a ride-along day and he was hooked. Apparently, one of the best fire fighting programs is the Naval program, so he applied. It took a surprisingly long time for him to get accepted; I guess I expected it to be more like the movies. You know, show up at a recruiting office and the next day you are on a bus to basic. Instead, he had to take a gazillion tests, both physical and mental and then wait for weeks to hear if he was accepted or not.

But accepted he was, and about a week and half ago, he was officially inducted into the Service. We are very proud of him, for many reasons, but mainly because this is something he decided on his own and pursued on his own. He has always been a pretty independent kid, but this was an adult decision and although we all had mixed feelings about it, we supported him completely.

Sunday morning I hugged him good-bye. I had tears in my eyes. For the first time, I realized how my parents must have felt the day I drove off for university. He isn't entirely mine. After all, I have only known him for five years. But I have seen him grow from boy to man and when he got in the car, I felt like a mom.

He called on Tuesday night. He sounded so upbeat and energized, it was wonderful to hear his voice. He told me that it was their first "real" day of training.

"Yeah, there was a lot of yelling." I could hear the smile. "And it's only going to get worse, I guess!"

I teased "I guess we should have yelled at you your last week instead of being so nice, eh?"

He laughed.

Although Matt will always have a home with Grant and me, I know in my heart that he will never come "home" again. Home will be a different place for him now.

But then, I look around. He didn't make his bed before leaving and his clothes are strewn in various places around the house. His ghost lingers. And it feels good to be the one to put his things away for the day he will come back.