Who is Who and What is What, Page Two

So, I had to take a picture of my dad but that is really hard to do because he does not like getting his picture taken.  But I got one of him and my mom eating dinner.  The second one is when he looked up and asked me what I was doing.  I told him I was trying to figure out something on my camera, which is true, but not completely. 

Notice in the picture below, and you can barely see it but it's there, the bottle of BBQ sauce on the table.  I went to the store today and they had two for one - I was so excited for my dad.  Also, if you can see it, they are watching the Military Channel.  This is the den/kitchen area where my dad and I watch movies and talk when my mom is asleep.

Below, is their swimming pool, as Kita looks at her reflection in the water.  This is where I pray and relax and feel wonderfully pain-free for an hour or two each day.

This is a terrible picture, really, but I was in the screened porch and the sun was reflecting off of it.  This is the canal in the backyard where the alligators and poisonous snakes roam.  I actually saw an alligator yesterday when I was in the pool, and as I opened my mouth really wide to shout and tell someone to look, I realized there was no one to tell or see.  It was cool nonetheless.  It's back rose up above the water so I could see how big it was and then went into some bushes on the other side of the canal to continue lurking. 

Well, that's all the photos for now.  If something comes up and it would make it clearer to see a photo, I'll photograph it and include it in here.

Today was a busy, frantic day.  I went to the grocery store early in the afternoon and I actually saw an old lady fall on the floor.  She just went skidding like she was skating or something.  The man with her was using a cane and just stood there.  A big guy came around the corner and picked her up.  I went over and picked up some paper that she had dropped and when I gave it to her she just laughed.  Kind of a weird response.  All the suits in the store came rushing up to her to be of help.  They brought a chair for her to sit on and it was quite a big deal.  I'm sure they're afraid of a lawsuit, but I can see both sides of something like this now, since my mother has fallen several times.  Yes, there might have been something slippery on the floor and if that was the case, they should be held responsible for it.  But if there was nothing on the floor and she was as fragile as she looked, she should have had a cane or a walker or something.  I wonder what store owners do in situations like this where the majority of residents are old and frail.  They probably have really good liability insurance.

When I got home, I proceeded to take the food out of the bags and my mom called from the bedroom.  I went in there and she said she was dizzy.  Dizzy laying down and dizzy trying to get up.  So I called the home nurses because when they came over this morning, they took her blood pressure and it was very low - enough for them to be concerned.  They told me to take her into the ER.  So, Danny was on his way over to my mom's and suggested we call 911, which we did.  They came in and took her blood pressure and hooked her up to all these pads and apparently she was just fine.  They briefly examined her and let us decide whether to go to the hospital or not, but my mom and I decided to just stay home since they did all her vitals already.  The rest of the evening she was just fine, so maybe, hopefully, it was just some weird glich. 

Our bodies are like time bombs - we just don't know if and when something will go wrong with them unless we've had some warning signs.  And then, we still may not know because some of us don't know what to look for.  The bottom line, I believe, is to be ready to meet our maker whenever that time may be.

Who is Who and What is What, Page One

I thought it would be great to give a visual of what and whom I talk about, so I will use the next few pages to show who is who and what is what.  I'm partial to books with pictures -- I usually don't read books that don't have pictures in them.  Tomorrow I will continue with Page Two.  It took me all evening to figure out how to load pictures onto this Blog thing and I'm tired and going to bed.

 Below is my son Micah and his wife, Jasmine.  Micah was about to say something, but decided not to.

This is my mom, Eunice, holding my dog, Kita.  The wheelchair is holding my mom.















This is my youngest grandchild, Jade, playing Itsy Bitsy Spider with my mom at the nursing home.  My mother takes these games very seriously. 

Below is my daughter-in-law, Jasmine,  holding my grandson, Donovan.  Donovan in turn, is holding Spider Man.

Below is a picture of my daughter, Leah, with my granddaughters Shania, Latavia and Ashanti.  My daughter is not a queen - she wore this as an accent piece to her hairdo on her Golden Birthday/Graduation party celebration.

Below is my son, Jason with my grandchildren, Donovan and Jade when she was born.  Jas looks like he hasn't gotten much sleep here with his newborn...

Below is my son-in-law, Parris, and Micah, at Micah and Jasmine's wedding.  It was on the beach in Long Beach and was a beautiful wedding.

Sweating Must Be Good For Something

It's a huge production getting my mother out of the house and into the car. First, we have to keep yelling at the dog and telling her to "stay" to make sure she doesn't run out the door. Next, my father has to walk behind my mom and guide her through the house, out into the garage and to the car door, as if she doesn't know where it is. If she goes too slow, he'll give her a little push to get her going faster.  When he is pushing her wheelchair, he bumps into the walls and goes too fast as she holds on for dear life. He's got even less patience than I do. I try to close the laundry room door before opening the garage door because then Kita won't be able to run out the garage door and eventually run out the big garage door wandering into the street.

This morning, the lady who comes to clean the house, opened the door wide, letting Kita run out, after I just specifically told her why I keep that door closed. Kita was running around my father's car as we were all shouting for her to come to us. She of course, has a mind of her own and was trying to get in the car with me and I grabbed her and returned her to the cleaning lady, and she went back in the house. I wanted to scold the cleaning lady, not Kita. 

At this point, my father is shoving my mother's legs into the car as my mother is practically laying down in the seat. She has a difficult time sitting up so she kind of leans back and her legs are slanted sideways because they hurt too much to straighten up. This is the ritual every time my mom comes with me in the car.  My dad then says, every single time, to "wait until I get out of the way before backing up," as if I was too dumb not to know that already.  He has to walk around the vehicle to get back in the house and after he yells that, he still makes hand gestures, just in case I didn't understand English.  He's also telling me at this point to close the garage door, which I always do, but he feels necessary to tell me every single time I drive out of the garage. 

Now if I have to take her out of the car where we are going, like the doctor's office, it becomes an even greater ordeal.  I have to schlep the wheelchair from the back of the car, unfold it and lock it in place by the side door. She, very slowly, slides out of her seat, hanging on to the seatbelt because there is nothing else to hang on to in the car and I help her get her legs out first, then she carefully sits down while holding onto the sides of the wheelchair. I am sure to get all of our papers and paraphernalia that we have to take with us and lock the car.  We then proceed to the doctor's office in 95 degree humidity as sweat pours down my face onto my neck. When we finally reach the doctor's office, they check her in and look at me as if I'm a Martian, with sweat pouring from my head, into my face and neck.  I look like I just got out of the shower.   Before I have a chance to catch my breath, we are called by the nurse and walk the long walk to one of the rooms.  Again, the nurse looks at me rather oddly like I have a sword sticking out of my head and I try to ignore it as I wipe more sweat from my brow.  When the doctor finally does come into the room he also looks at me with interest for a moment, then focuses on my mother and not on my sweat.  After all is said and done, we have to go back downstairs and out to the car to do the procedure we just did, in reverse.   By the time I have to lift and throw the wheelchair into the car, I’m near death and I barely make it into the driver’s seat, sweating and wheezing and turning the air conditioning on “extreme high.”  It always takes me several minutes to just sit there to gain my composure, even though the sweating doesn’t stop for a long time afterward.  You’d think I’d be a twig at this rate, but alas, I am more like a really wide trunk.

I was hoping that sweat was good for something, but I really don't know what.  I mean, I could let it drip into a container and sell it for pete's sake, if there was some value in it, but that's nonsense.  What is really nonsense is that my whole head, hair and all, is soaking wet after an afternoon like this but I still have to wash my hair on Saturday nights.  It's not fair, I tell you.  I don't lose weight from it and I still have to wash my hair once a week.  Ah, but I've been told life isn't fair and I see that the older and older I get...

World Traveler

We waited an hour and a half for my mother to get in to see her doctor, who looked at her for maybe 5 minutes.  This was the infectious disease doctor and he thinks the mersa infection that she had is gone, although he did say it's possible that it may return.  Her legs were starting to really hurt her, sitting in the wheelchair and I was about to get up and complain when one of the nurses came out to get her.  It's true that we were surrounded by old people all waiting to get in to see a doctor, and one by one of them disappeared as we sat and waited.  But seeing my mom in pain was making me angry that she had to sit that long.  It was a good thing they finally came and got her or I would have had to make a complaint.  I'm not a patient person, but I had just changed my pain patches and was a bit foggy, so I was a bit more mellow than I normally am.  So if you ever want to argue with me, wait until after I put the new pain patches on and you'll probably win.

Waiting is not an easy thing for me to do.  I'm not a good waiter.  I wasn't even a good waitress.  I wasn't blessed with an overabundance of patience, like some of my friends who I greatly admire.  I really do think highly of those who are patient and mellow - 2 characteristics I always wished I had.  But then I came to realize that we're all made different and we should appreciate all the idiosyncrisies we each have.  (Now I know I didn't spell that right, but there is no spell-check on here and that drives me crazy.  Being an administrative support person all of my adult life, I always notice spelling or grammatical errors and then when I misspell a word, it annoys me, but not enough to get up and get a dictionary, so let's pretend I spelled it right.)

Kita is sitting on my shoulder, on the back of the chair I'm sitting on.  She likes to perch up there so she's right next to me.  She has to touch me when we're sleeping and when we're just chillin'.  I love her so much, but I'm thinking she should go back to Virginia for good because I just can't walk her.  She's so tiny, only 6 pounds, but really she should be taken on walks.  She does get outside though.  When I go in the pool, she's right outside there with me and likes it.  I've even brought her in the pool a few times and watched her "dog paddle."  Imagine that!  It's really cute, but she can really swim.  She just can't get over the side of the pool so I have to help her a little bit.  Usually, I let her swim to the steps and she can get out that way, with a little help.

She stands at the sliding glass window at times and growls and barks at something outside but there's nothing outside.  I don't know if it's her reflection that she sees, or if she senses something else -- like an alligator or something.  We were in the pool last night, but I was sure to get out of there before it turned dark.  Those alligators lurk around and come out at night and even though there's a screened in porch, it gives me the creeps.  Besides, Kita would be a tiny appetizer for them.

Did you ever notice when you're writing something like I'm writing this Blog, that you use the word "I" a LOT?  I this and I that, I went here, and I went there.  I, I, I, I.  Blah, blah, blah, blah.  Yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I just noticed that I say "I" alot.  But then I guess if I was writing about someone else, I would be writing about "them."  Dumb commentary but I guess it's just hard to avoid using the word "I" when you're writing about yourself and your family.   

So I just got my tickets tonight to go to Madison in October.  I made my doctor appointments and so I scheduled the flight around that and seeing my grandkids.  I can't remember if I wrote this or not, but the short-term disability insurance granted my application, but they are requiring me to see my doctor every 3 months and to have physical therapy regularly here in Florida, which I will have to pay for because my insurance doesn't cover costs out of county.  The next several months will be really busy for sure.  After the October visit, my kids and I are planning on going to Micah and Jasmine's for Christmas, but first I have to fly to Madison for Shanti's birthday party.  I can't miss that.  Then I'll have to fly back in January for my next doctor's visit.  Boy - I've become a world traveler without seeing the world!  One day I want to travel - some friends and I have already talked about going on a trip together.  That would be a lot of fun and I look forward to wherever we go.  But right now, my focus is here with my parents, and that's exactly where I'm supposed to be...

Sometimes I Just Have to Whine

Last night, I spoke for a couple of hours to a friend who I had lost contact with about 30 years ago.  It was great to talk with her again and we laughed just like we used to.  I knew Cheryl when I was pregnant with Leah and our kids played together when we lived on Simpson Street in Madison.  She and Melody were with me in the hospital when I gave birth to Leah.  I'll never forget their faces when I asked them how the baby was after she was born.  They both tried their best to cover up the truth that Leah was not breathing when she was born, so she was blue, and there was a possibility that she would have brain damage.  I kept passing out between contractions and when the doctor figured out that her shoulders were stuck, he called in a specialist to pull her out.  The specialist came in and I remember him saying, "We have to get this baby out of here right now."  And so they did.  And because I was in so much pain I kept passing out between contractions, I didn't see them whisk her away to the infant ICU.  Cheryl and Melody did - they told me much later that she was blue and that it was best that I didn't see her.  My doctor actually apologized to me while wheeling me to the recovery room.  I asked my pastor to come to the hospital and pray for her and he did.  He prayed for her through the incubator, while all the nurses watched.  I believe Leah was healed that day because of the power of prayer.  It was great to hear from Cheryl again, and hopefully we will keep in contact.  Friendships are very important to me and those I have been particularly close to, I hope to keep in contact with for many years to come.  

I was awoken early this morning, around 3 am, by my dad letting out a blood-curdling scream I have never heard before. I was in a deep sleep and I immediately jumped out of bed and ran out in the den and asked him if he was ok. He said yes, and kept apologizing for waking me up. He said that he must have had a nightmare but he didn't remember what it was. This bothered me all day.  It was an awful scream, and coming from my dad is even more bizarre since he is so self-controlled. 

Church was good this morning.  Pastor Dagan has so much exhuberance and zeal, he makes me tired just watching him.  At the end of the service, he is always sweating through his shirt even though the air conditioning works fine in the building.  I remember when I had that much zeal - well, maybe not as much as him, but more than I do now.  I've thought a lot about why I don't do the things I used to do in church or at home, and I realize that I am in constant pain and that prohibits me to do much of anything anymore.  I'm even on stronger drugs the last two weeks and it doesn't do a whole lot - it doesn't even take the edge off, but it does make me even more tired than I already am.  I get tired of talking about it, thinking about it and explaining to others why I am not able to do the things I used to.  The bottom line is that if you don't experience this for yourself, there's no way for another person to understand.  The only time I am not in pain is when I'm in the pool, or in deep sleep.  Otherwise, it's constant, no matter what position I'm in.  Ok, enough complaining.  Sometimes I just have to whine.

Danny came over today and helped me (well, he did it all - I didn't do any of it) move the furniture around in my room.  There is a huge bed that was in the middle of the room, so now it's pushed up against the wall and a few things were taken out.  I shipped my tv and vcr/dvd player down here and they should be arriving this week, so I can go in my room to work on my computer and watch tv, and hopefully my mom will sit out in the den more with my dad.  She said something to me the other day that was kind of weird.  I asked her if my dad had breakfast yet and she said, "No, he wanted to wait and eat with you (me)."  That made me slightly uncomfortable and I think it made my mom feel a little bad too.  Maybe it's because I don't critique everything he puts in his mouth and she does.  Oh well, I know how he feels.  I moved my chair at the kitchen table because I don't want to face her when I'm eating, so now I'm sitting on the side and can watch tv instead.  So now I deliberately don't see the looks and I can't hear the sighs of what I'm eating because the tv is always blaring.  She's gone to sleep by now, so I think I'll go and get an ice cream cone to enjoy in utter peace and quiet...

Close Calls

Sometimes I think about the close-calls I've had in my lifetime and have to believe that God has had His hands on me the entire time.  There have just been so many of these situations, even when I had no idea anyone was watching out for me.  I've experienced many times where I should have been hurt or killed because I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and because I was so young and naive.

When I was dating Jasper, I drove down to the southside of Chicago quite often and boldly because I was so naive. One day, at a stoplight, some guy just walked up to my car and began to open the door. I slammed on the gas and drove right through the light, as it unnerved me, and I was so unprepared. From then on, I started locking my car doors, but never stopped from driving down to where I was clearly unwanted. 

The summer after I graduated from the Day School, I took summer school classes for driver’s education and art.  My art teacher was an interesting man.  He invited me over for dinner at the end of the semester and I went, thinking he was a neat teacher and friend.  His wife was very pregnant, and also very nice, but unfortunately married to him.  My teacher asked me if I wanted to go for a walk after supper (they lived in the country) and I agreed.  His wife said she’d stay and do the dishes – she looked real uncomfortable as she was due at any time.  I offered to help her with the dishes but she insisted on doing them as I was their guest.  On our walk, he began to hug and kiss me and tried to molest me right there in the woods.  I couldn't believe it, he was my teacher and it never dawned on me that he would do something like that.  It was a good thing that I had a fighting attitude at the time, as I pushed him away and told him to knock it off and walked back to his house, as he pleaded for me not to tell his wife.  I left immediately after saying goodbye to his wife, feeling very stupid and weird that my TEACHER was such a jerk.  All I can say is that he’s a very lucky guy – if I had known better at the time, I could have had him charged with sexual assault and he would have lost his job.  As I drove home, I felt very sorry for his wife.

One night after work, I was getting off the train in Chicago to go to my apartment, and I had to walk down a flight of stairs from the elevated train to the street.  I remember vividly that as I got closer and closer to the bottom of the stairs, I felt a very evil feeling.  When I got to the base of the stairs, a really big guy came around the corner, right in front of me and I gasped.  There happened to be another person on the other side of the steps come around at the same time, and I hurried away and ran down the street to my apartment.  I felt like I escaped what could have been something very awful that night, and it was like God was preparing me as I walked down the steps to be aware of my surroundings.  And that was before I knew anything about God. 

One time my friend Vicki and I got real high and walked to her friend's house.  I don't remember her name, but her son's name was Jason and that's how I came up with the name for my first born child.  Anyway, she and her husband were in a big fight when we got there, and her husband ordered us to sit on the couch with his wife and son, pointing a rifle at us and screaming at us at the same time.  I was so high that I really didn't understand the seriousness of the matter at the time.  Soon, there were police outside, shouting up to this guy to let us go and it became a hostage situation!  After quite a long time, he let us go and the police took him away.  We left as soon as we could, but I couldn't stop laughing because the whole thing seemed too crazy. 

One day when Jason was about 3, I became very ill, with severe pain in my abdomen. Jasper had come over and noticed right away I didn’t look well. I thought I just had the flu or something, but he had enough sense at the time to take me to the emergency room at St. Mary’s Hospital. While waiting there to see a doctor, I began having shooting pain and I knew something was seriously wrong. They put me on a gurney in a room and after a moment, I passed out and fell off the gurney onto the floor. The next thing I remember was people standing over me, trying to get me back to consciousness. Years later, I remembered that it was at that point that I was in a conversation with someone who wasn’t in the room. I believe I was actually speaking with God and He was giving me a “second chance.”

They rushed me to surgery and found out by extracting blood from my uterus that I was bleeding internally and the blood was rushing to my diaphragm. When the doctor injected me with the long needles to extract my blood, I actually screamed out in pain as I have never felt pain like that before, or since. The sack he was extracting from was infected and so severe pain was a result. I suppose for confirmation, he did this twice, as I screamed obscenities at him to stop. They informed me that they had to do emergency surgery on me and found out through the surgery that I had an ovarian pregnancy that burst and that was the cause of the internal bleeding. The doctors told me later that if they had waited 15 minutes more, I would have died. 

Close calls.  I could go on and on with other incidents in my life that I recall now as "close calls."  God has truly had His hands upon me my whole life, and still does.  How can people not believe in God?  I can't fathom that.  And just like my father protected me when I was young against things that would harm me, my Heavenly Father protects me from things I can't even imagine.  Because He loves me more than anyone ever has or will love me.  And in His love, I am complete.

A Lazy Person You Shouldn't Be

My mother has a really hard time just sitting still, watching tv or resting without moving her body.  She feels she has to always be doing something and she raised us that way as well.  When we were kids, we were seldom allowed to watch Saturday morning cartoons - chores had to be done first.  And even after chores, we could only watch one or two cartoons and then we had to go outside and play.  We were never allowed to just sit around watching cartoons all day.  Even when it was nasty outside, we had to do something else besides watch the "box," like color or play games.  When we became older and just wanted to sleep in, she would make a sufficient amount of noise, like banging into our bedroom doors when she was vacuuming, to be sure and wake us up.  I was reminded of this today when she came in my room, without knocking, to come and get Kita while we were taking a nap.  She kept calling for Kita until I finally told her that she would not leave the room without me.  When I told her later that I didn't want to be awoken unless she was in need of something, she said "she saw my toes moving and thought I was up."  Funny - my toes move even in my sleep, a sure, telltale sign that my mother raised me to be doing something even when I am sleeping. 

And because I was raised to not be lazy and to be a productive human being, I've had many jobs in my lifetime, starting with babysitting in my teens.  I was a waitress when I turned 15 at The Red Balloon, somewhere outside of Chicago.  It was hard for me to remember what everyone ordered and because of that, I didn't make a very good waitress.  There were several times I only got a penny for a tip, but there was one time I got a joint wrapped up in a napkin, which I thought was pretty cool.  One of the first full time jobs I had was at the AAA office in Evanston, Illinois.  From there, I went to a car rental company outside of O’Hare Airport.  My job was to shuttle people going to and from the airport in a large van. The airport was much smaller back then - today it looks like a city, it's so huge.  I will always remember a salesman from a tuna fish company hitting on me each time he went to the airport.  He was a gross, older man with fat lips and pockets all over his face – and probably married.  I thought he was disgusting and I basically ignored him.  One time, on one of the trips coming out of the airport, I smashed into a small Toyota truck that was sitting in the road and didn’t have his brake lights on.  It was obviously my fault, but I argued with the police that he was just sitting there, in the middle of the road.  Another time, I had a van full of businessmen coming back to the car lot, and as I drove under a bridge, at that exact moment, a huge sheet of ice came crashing down through the windshield.  We all freaked out and I slammed on the brakes but no one was hurt.  Soon after that incident, I was fired.  My boss simply gave me a notice and told me to pack up my stuff – that was my last day.

From there, I went to work for my dad for a very short time, doing odds and ends clerical work.  There was a man who worked there that was giving puppies away and that’s where I got Louie.  He was also a racist and when he found out my boyfriend was black, he called me a “nigger lover” right in the office in front of everybody.  Of course, being the way I was, I had several nasty retorts for him as well and for obvious reasons, I didn’t last very long there.  My dad was really angry that he called me that, but he couldn't fire the guy as he was partners with 2 other people who had hired him.

I've had so many different kinds of jobs.  I've been a waitress twice, driver for the rent a car place, day care provider, claims processor and clerical worker on a construction site, for several different private companies and for government.  I never really wanted to be an administrative support person - I just never went to college to get a better job and that's what paid the bills.  What I really wanted to do was to be an art teacher, but that never panned out because I didn't go to secondary school, except for one semester of junior college.  I barely got through high school - I took my entire junior year in the hospital and I didn’t want to leave when they finally discharged me, but they realized my stay there was too long and I had no choice. I refused to go back to Niles West High School for my senior year, so my parents enrolled me in The Day School, in Chicago - a school for “kids with emotional problems.” It was located on Buena Avenue in an old, beautiful mansion that was used as a school. I had a lot of fun there, as it was very liberal and I only took classes I enjoyed, like art and writing. My writing teacher, Mr. Deutsch and I became good friends.  He was a very caring, loving man and it took me awhile, but I grew to trust him in the end.  I kept in contact with him for a long time after I graduated. The principal was like an old hippie. He and his wife, who was my art teacher, ran the school. I loved art class, but wasn’t crazy about my teacher, who I thought was eccentric and arrogant, although she taught me a lot of different skills. I received my high school diploma from this school, which at the time, could have cared less about.

I met different kids at the Day School, who all became my friends, as it was a small school with only about 30-40 kids. David, who had long, blonde hair and was very strange, had a crush on me and used to hound me all the time, which drove me crazy. I never liked him that way, but I never was good at confrontation like that because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Another boy, Mark, who also liked me, had a very violent temper and was always beating up on David for hounding me. Vickie, a tall, black girl with a bad attitude became my friend also. She was “going” with Kenny Johnson, who also attended the school, and who would eventually introduce me to Jasper, his half-brother. Kenny once said that I was the only white person he ever met that he liked. I guess I took that as a compliment.

I have a few photos of this time period and when I look at them, I am amazed at how I looked.  You would never have recognized me from those photos.  I think about what the other folks would look like today and none of us would probably recognize each other.  Time is harsh on our looks - for most people, that is.  Thank God that is not the quality of a person.  Looks are not the sum of what a person is.  Character and honor and truth is what makes up a person.  What lies deep within the heart of a person is what the person truly is, and this becomes revealed through the person's character, whether good or bad. 

So how does this have anything to do with my mom waking me from a nap this afternoon?  Absolutely nothing.  Except that while some people change from day to day or from year to year, my mom hasn't changed a bit during my entire lifetime.  She still has clothes from the 1960's.  And thankfully, she doesn't do the vacuuming any longer...