Aw, just stuff....

Snickers.  The Family Dog.... even though she showed up right after my wife and I separated, but before we became Ex's.  That ain't no never mind, and it isn't of particular note, but the kids were ten and seven when Cheryl bought her.  Pure bred Bishon.  So we shared custody of two kids.... and a dog.  For almost fifteen years.

Two weeks ago we had to put her down.  She was almost totally blind, had arthritis in her hips, couldn't eat much ...kidneys were failing.  Cheryl called me and said it was time.  Snickers had a seizure, was shaking, convulsing...did not seem to recognize who we were .... where she was...just pain.  So Cheryl and Wonder Girl and I took her on her last ride.  The Girl held her at the end... and wept.  Cheryl cried.  Me too.  I took her collar off and we went back to Cheryl's house.  Pretty quiet, all of us.  She had given us so much, and it was the last favor we could do.  The Kid went to her room to cry... Cheryl and I sat in the kitchen....we talked... she cried a bit... then she went to her freezer and pulled out a small ziplock bag    that had..... a frozen potato dumpling in it....... and then we laughed right on through the tears.

See, the deal was... it was the last dumpling that my Aunt Helen, my father's older sister, had made, something that she was famous for making. Legends are told of those dumplings...seriously... they were that good.

Helen never married, had been a career woman with the phone company, bac when it was called the Bell System.  Forty-two years she worked for them. My sister and I were her main 'kids'... our children were her 'grandchildren'... that was how it was... she would spend days at our house sitting with the kids, and the dog, while Cheryl finished Grad School. Her opinions were open, unguarded and some what officious. Sometimes we became employees instead of relatives, but that is no never mind.  Once a month, at least, we went to her apartment for a dinner of pot roast... and those awesome dumplings.  There is more to say about all that, but it would go on forever and there just isn't much point in that.  She was Helen and Aunt was her title and she wore it as if it were Queen, or President, or Pope.. or whatever.  Aunt Helen.  One word.

She developed Pancreatic Cancer.  The doctor said about six months.  She made it another sixteen.  We took care of her as much as we could.... but she continued to lose weight, got feebler in body... never her mind, but finally I had to get her a room at a hospice where she would be as comfortable as possible.  I was there at least three times a day, more if my schedule would allow... and some days I could get her to eat a little.

On December 28th, 1998... I was at my house with the kids when I had a premonition that I really still cannot describe. It was late and I called Cheryl and asked to come and watch the kids... I was going back to the hospice......

Helen was down to about 80 pounds by then and really couldn't speak anymore.  When I got there I kissed her on the forehead, she woke and mouthed, "Hi, Jim."  I told her Christmas was over... I mentioned who had been up to see her, the memory was slipping away on her.  I told her what the kids were doing, that Cheryl was with them..... and then I told her..... it was ok... to go home...

See, it had dawned on me that she would not die until after the Holiday, that she would not ruin a celebration by dying ... she was that kind of person.  Well, her eyes went wide... she motioned me to get her rosary beads... and she slowly mouthed prayers... and slept,.. and prayed.  I fell asleep in a chair.  They woke me about six am.  She was gone.

Well, I thought of all that two weeks ago, that potato dumpling in the freezer bag on the counter between me and my Ex.  We told a few Snicker stories... and Helen ones.  We got teary and laughed. And teary and laughed.  It is what it is.  Before I left I slipped the dog collar in the bag with the dumpling and put it back in the freezer.

have a song... take a drink...call me in the morning

New Year Resolutions....

 ok... why wait for Yew Nears to make a resolution... nobody ever keeps them anywayz!
I prefer to make them on my birthday... and I like to keep them REAL, I mean, see, things I truly mean to do... so, here goes!!!!




 ........ never drink cheap beer

 
..... never...ever... get a crewcut....

never buy, much less wear... plaid shorts.

 .... never buy, eat, or even think about wearing beef liver

AND....  I will never, ever, noways, nohow,uh-uh, nope , ain't happening..... wear socks with flip-flops.... ESPECIALLY while not wearing plaid shorts and beef liver!!!!

Where the heart is... and ain't

Norwalk Tunnel- Sparta_Elroy Bike Trail

It was a quick trip, less than 24 hours, back home, which is a funny way to describe it as I lived there only twelve years as opposed to the almost forty I have lived here, but it is where I grew up.  Western Wisconsin with it's hills and valleys and small running creeks and foggy bottoms and farms always will seem like home. It is where my parents lived.... and I guess, in some sense, it was where my home was.

We sold my mother's house. There were items I had left there, stored there, that needed to be moved and this was the time it had to be done.
I didn't get about on this trip... spent time with my sister and brother-in-law, cleaned out the last little bit out of the house and came back..... home.  But it got me thinking about where home really is.

I went to grade school there, High School, played football there, went to prom, had my first girlfriend, got laid for the first time, first beer party, swimming in the lakes, doing the bike trail, it always felt like home, and yet, when it came time to leave yesterday... I felt relieved... to be coming home.  Here.  Where I went to college... joined the debate team when I could not make the football team... had multiple girlfriends, smoked my first joint.... and made friends that are still with me.  Here.  I got married, had children, bought a house, got a divorce, watched my children go to the same college I did... I guess here.... is home. Oshkosh.  It is where my parents got married, where all my relatives lived.  Well they are mostly all dead, my son has moved to Oregon, my daughter graduates in December and I do not expect her to hang around.... here... home... for very long after that.  So, will this, here, still be home?
I think of moving elsewhere....no where in particular, just elsewhere, and extinguish this notion of home altogether.  But then I know it will never be possible... as long as I have a memory and a heart.

Back... home.... there is a nice thirty some mile bike trail that was made of a old railroad bed, a neat level grade through the hills.  I used to ride it frequently... made special trips just to ride it.  Years ago, when home for holidays I would gather my kids, their cousins, and take them on a hike on the trail, through the longest tunnel, nearly a mile long.  They would hoot in the darkness, collect bugs and leaves that would strike their fancy, look for frogs in the creek and generally have a great time being kids.  Now they are gone; Portland, Minneapolis, San Diego, Madison, Milwaukee. I miss those hikes...and their laughter.
  In their lives, so far, they have gone places I never have and never will... Korea, Australia, Germany, France, Peru, Vietnam, Italy,......... It was like they walked through a tunnel... and went home.  Where ever that is.

Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Silently for me
Silently for me

Mid August and How I Count My Richs and Get Stimulated...

I broke into my Savings..... thought I would go out and buy one a dem HD LCD PCP LSD HIFI STP 40050 inch flat screen TV thingees... do my part to try to stimulate the economy of Japan....

...... maybe put it over by the fireplace......
but when all the counting was done... I only had enough to stimulate a bit of the local economy...

This little piggie.....

SPAM is the undisputed king of mystery meat. Made of pig parts and secret spices, cooked in its own cans right on the assembly line

 ...hmmmmmm....lemmmee see, lotza Pork in Iowa..... hmmmmm.... The Spam museum is in Minnesota..... hmmmm are there dots to connect...

a shared room is forever

Uncle John on his porch

I call my younger brother John most Sunday mornings.  I need to wait until almost 10:30 CDT because he lives just a few miles south of British Columbia and a scant few just east of Puget Sound. He rises early enough, but prefers to talk after he has had time to fully wake up.

He is just two and a half years behind me in age but, at 6'8", a full eight inches taller. His voice has the tone of a bear in springtime asking for a fresh cup of coffee. When he was in HS we called him Lurch. He had that kind of presence. Generally, he is a kind soul, but when angry he is like a bear in springtime without a cup of coffee.

As kid's we shared a bedroom.  He would steal my comics. Sometimes I would get them back. Other time's he would hide them in the attic and disavow any knowledge of how the got there... except we  all knew he was the only one who went into the attic.  It was his cave when we were kids.

Now he lives on six or so acres in northern Washington.  His wife is a Canadian.  They have apples and pears and cherries and kiwi that they grow and press into juice or make jams and jellies, depending on how plentiful the harvest was; when it is a good harvest he mails me a box of jam at Christmas. His wife cans salmon and halibut and fixes the plumbing.  He tends to the chickens and geese, which they give names to, but subsequently eat. He once told of having to buy a slingshot to shoot at the eagles that would perch in an old dead tree on the property and prey on his chickens.  Finally he just cut down the tree. His chickens are truly free range and he rounds them up at night.  I think he buys them comic books, too, just so he can steal them.

I remember driving with him from Wisconsin to Idaho back in '77 when he first moved west, but before he moved to Washington. His old Pinto station wagon would not make it up a mountain in Montana, four-cylinder cars need more air than mountains will give, and I had to push it up the last few feet.  Then he scared the shit out of me driving down.  He likes mountains. I visited once and we went camping in the Olympic mountains.  His idea of camping is just a sleeping bag, some granola bars... and a pint of whiskey. Maybe a flashlight.  I think I preferred sharing a bedroom with him rather than a mountain, but he taught me then that reading stars can be more entertaining that comic books.

They are having a party next week, always the last week in August, when their Canadian friends come down from Vancouver and they harvest blackberries and drink wine and sit around grilling Salmon, playing music, smoking dope and eating fresh veggies.  I hope to go next year.

It is almost time to give him a call.  I hope he has had his coffee, see, I wouldn't want to talk to him when he is grouchy.  He may steal my comics....but that would be ok, cause once you share a bedroom with a brother..... it is almost better than sharing parents.