My Mother's Last Days!

Mom was having lots of troubles with cardiac failure, and probably kidney failure as well, but seemed determined to keep on trucking. She was so proud when she made it all the way to the mailbox about a block from her apt. But she had trouble getting back. It was hard to tell what was the trouble, and I am not sure if it wasn't everything and COPD. But she kept doing OK, and when the assisted living place said we might start looking for something that could care for Mom with more intensity, we had no idea that it would soon be a traumatic trip to the hospital. We were called by the hospital, and I called my brother and we all started to drive North. We were 40 miles from the hospital, and my brother was 80 miles. We drove a road along the water and as we neared the town where the hospital was, Ode To The Moon came on the radio, there was an electrical storm going on all around us, and it was 12:00 midnight. What a spectacular way for someone to leave this world.

We arrived at the hospital, and were ushered into the Intensive Care Wing, and my brother soon arrived with his wife. Mom was hooked up to too many tubes, and was not breathing on her own, but they said she could hear us if we wanted to talk to her. It was hard to see and comprehend that this was the wonderful happy little Mom we all knew. But we talked to her and told her to keep up the fight and we would be there for her. They told us not to expect her to last the night. We left somewhere around 4:00 AM, and went home to be called and told that Mom had made it and would be making it for awhile maybe.

She actually went back to her apt. and when it next happened, maybe a month later, when we got to her apt. we found a note that she had written to us saying goodbye. We were in the apt. getting her glasses and some clothes as they said she could move to a nursing home in a few days. This was the downhill run, and she was very angry for awhile as she had wanted to die, but a neighbor had found her and called 911. She had wanted to let God take her, she said. She was ready, and hadn't she told us so in the note? She made it another few months, and we found her a really nice place near where she had lived for some time, a nursing home that had a day care, and a cat wandering around, and nice places to sit, and she had her own room eventually. When she was really going down hill she did not really understand where she was, and thought it so nice that she was able to live in this nice house with all these nice people. My brother from back East was here for the duration, and he would get to her bedside first in the day and was there when she breathed her last. She did not know much by then and suffered the extreme kidney failure symptoms calmed by morphine, and she slipped away. We got there 30 minutes late, but I held her and said goodbye anyway. She was my little Mom, and she loved us all so much, her kids, her grandkids, and her life, and her God she had found. She left a wonderful legacy of laughter, caring, and love that we all try to emulate in our own way. May she be able to see what she has wrought and be rejoicing in her heaven! Amen

Anitiyah!

I am borrowing that name from a book I am reading. I want to write a story about my daughter and want to preserve her privacy. This is my youngest daughter born in the early 60's, a time of great awakening, efforts at peace, and a degree of safety I don't think we will see anymore. Aniy was two weeks old when we were going to move to a new job, and a new home. Her birth had seemed to have been fraught with suspense as I thought I was in labor, but it was so light it might just be an upset stomach. We decided to drive to the town where the hospital was and wait at a friends home. We would leave our two other kids there while I was in the hospital. The friends finally shooed me out of there as they were sure I was going to give birth in their living room. So I got to the hospital and went through the usual preps and indeed I was in active labor. Aniy was born a couple of hours after I got to the hospital, and they put me in a room afterward with the only other person in the maternity section of this little old hospital run by Catholic nuns. The ward was on the third floor and to get there you climbed three flights of wide stairs. I think there was an elevator, but the nuns always walked up and down the stairs. Maybe they had to do that as a penance. You could hear the stairs creaking when anyone was on them. In my memory it seemed a dark place, but it was night when I gave birth.

I was really tired and dozed, but my roommate shook me wake to tell me she could hear dripping. I was hemorrhaging. We managed to get ahold of the nun in charge, I think I had a bell to ring, but my roommate did actually go out in the hall to look for someone, and the nun came up to check me. She elevated the end of the bed, changed all the covers and packed me, and massaged my belly, telling me to do the same. It was an agony trip, and I was so tired. I kept trying to keep kneading my belly, but would fall asleep. I think I must have finally stopped bleeding, and did sleep as I was soon out of the hospital. I am pretty sure they only kept you a day or two back in the early 60's. At home I attended to getting ready to move. What a mess. Three kids, one a newborn, and I was so weak I could barely do anything. I also was breast feeding this little bitty girl. We also had a big black cat named Linus.

We had a VW bug and we would drive that car to the new home with three kids, the cat, and what luggage we really needed to make the trip. A moving company had all our other household things headed to the new home. I really do not remember much other than trying to keep the kids quiet, and tending to the new baby, and hoping the cat would settle down. The meds we got to quiet the cat did the opposite. The cat was yowling and hyper and moving around, and we were all going a bit nuts. The cat was a big cat, and we finally stopped at a Vets office in some little farm town in Wyoming and asked them to keep the cat until we could arrange to get it to where we were going to live. This was the start of many cat fiascos in my life that I still cannot forget. We never got the cat back, and if we are to believe the Vet, our cat went to a good life as a barn cat. I really hope so!

We did make it to the new home in a small mining town at 10,000 feet, and moved into a motel room. I immediately ended up in bed as I began to hemorrhage again. So I had a little travel bed with Aniy in it next to my bed, and the other two kids were just going to have to entertain themselves while their Father was out arranging for us to have an apartment, and to await for our goods to arrive. It was pretty miserable. I went through this town a couple of weeks ago, and the motel is still there, and it pretty much looks the same. It is right on the main road through town, and rather stark.

When we finally moved into our apartment, it was on the second floor, had two bedrooms, a kitchen where you also ate, and a small living room. It was a beginning. The house we had moved from at a mine site in Montana was basically three shacks tacked together. It also had two bedrooms and was one among six houses up a dirt road at a phosphate mine. I guess I should write about this place in the hinterlands of Montana. So that will become an aside from the story of Aniy. To be continued!

Dollhouses!

I got a tour of a friend's dollhouse. She has been furnishing it with the Past, and it is lovely. All the little details are there, well, not all, but so many, you get the idea. Some things are so tiny, and so fragile, but so right. When I was a little girl, I wanted a dollhouse, and I think my first one was made out of two orange crates nailed together, and my Mother made the fabric things, and where they got the furniture, I don't know, but they had made a peaked roof so I had an attic, and I made up such fun scenarios with that house. Then I got a manufactured house that was not as big, and really so precious that I was afraid to mess it up much, but I played with that as well.

I had paper dolls that I kept in a shoe box, and played with them a lot, and my dolls. I also dressed my cat, Mittens, up in doll clothes when she tolerated. My Mom would here a thumping and find Mittens coming down the stairs, dragging her back feet in the nightgown I had put on her, left in a doll bed to sleep, and gone out to play. Mom would take off the nightgown, Mittens would shake, sit down and wash, and then look for some treats. She was the most amazing cat putting up with that kind of play. Doing all these feminine stuff, you would never guess I was the neighborhood tomboy. I rode my bike vigorously, even standing on the seat, steering the handle bars with my feet, hide in leaf piles in the triangle, playing hide and seek, bulling neighborhood boys, walking the bridge railing over the gully near our house that was supposed to be full of bums, so 'don't go down there'! I also loved playing in the front garden with three cars I had, one being a yellow convertible. I would make houses in the dirt, with underground garages, and there would be roads all through the garden. My Mom would be weeding at one end, and I would be making roads at the other end. There were great big horse chestnut trees in the front yard, and the garage was separate from the house and you could climb on the roof from the next door yard. A friend and I would do just that when my brothers were in their secret clubhouse in the attic of the garage, and pound and stomp on the roof. We could always get away through the neighbors yard, but the boys would come storming out of the garage to 'get us'!

I walked to school, about four blocks, and I had to walk by a Dr.'s house. For some reason he would always call out to me, 'hey, wet the bed'! I tried to avoid that house, but if I was in a hurry, I couldn't. My Mom took me to him once because I was always getting sties. He pulled out all my eyelashes. Boy, did that hurt, and I still got sties, and I do not have eyelashes to brag about to this day! He was the Dr. of last resort! Our family friend was our Dr. He was the one who treated me when I came down with Scarlet Fever. I was in bed for three weeks with that, and he came to the house to check on me. That was when I read the entire Book Of Knowledge. He also took out my tonsils, and my appendix, delivered my first baby, and adjusted an ovarian cyst. I now have no idea what has become of him as when my Father had an acrimonious break-up of his last marriage, he took the side of wife. It was a peculiar situation and I do not know why we didn't make People Magazine. Poor Dad, it was the end of things for him. I think he had had it by then. He did not last long after that. He got badly burned while I was staying with him. He caught his bathrobe on fire, and things never being simple, my brother had made that bathrobe for him, and noticed it was gone. We had to tell him, thus causing guilt feelings. I burned my hands taking the burning robe off of him, and putting out the fire, and Dad just never recovered. He kept asking one of us for a gun, and none of us complied. He then just stopped eating. That did the trick. But I think we all had found some common ground with him during that six months, finding peace with each other, and understanding. We should all be so lucky!

Well, this digressed from doll houses! But it is all wound up with a life. From birth to death, there are memories. Take heart!

Mouth Tricks

I have begun the mouth restoration, new crowns to replace aged fillings that are cracking and leaking so I fill the thrill of cold air when I breath through my mouth. The beginning of this process was taking molds of my teeth for the replacement crown manufacturing. And then whitening to get my old yellow teeth back to their natural color so to match the crowns. The process is called Zoom, and it uses light and bleaching agents to whiten the teeth. It is a long complicated process where they stuff gauze in and around your mouth and teeth. The tech then puts some material along your gums and saps it to harden it to protect that area. She applies sun block to lips to spare them the intense light, and wraps gauze up over the lips. It looks pretty macabre. Skeletal, as a matter of fact. Then you go through what they call passes, four of them 15 minutes each, and they remove the material they have put on your teeth to accelerate the whitening process. By the end of the second pass I could feel my upper lip and told the tech, and she reapplied the sun block. I should have mentioned that I was beginning to feel the bottom lip, but didn't until the 3rd pass, and on we went to the 4th pass. It was just a fluke, I got burned, more on the bottom lip, and I am now feeling the slow healing acutely. It will take a week, probably for it to get back to normal. But my teeth look white. I think the last time they looked this good was 40 years ago. So was it worth it? Probably! Going along with my Whisker blog, and writing about aging, I do want to make it another 10 or 12 years and see what happens around me, so looking good is probably the call!

Whiskers!

We are back in the mountains, waiting for snow to fall, which it did, but soon melted. And I am taking meandering walks with the dog, getting lost in thought, astounded by the views, feeling the wind after hearing it sweeping down out of the upper climes, and thinking of things that have nothing to do with really anything. Thus, I thought of my little grandmother, who I now realize was really little, but when I was young, 8 or 9, she was my size. I used to stay with my grandfather and grandmother when my parents did things I don't really remember, or maybe I just stayed there because I was the youngest and my Mom wanted space. I don't know. But there were things that I would do whenever I was visiting. When we would get up we would have breakfast in our pajamas. then when we would get dressed my grandma would have me stand over her on the bed and lace up her corset. Didn't everyone do that for their grandmother? And she would often have me pull her whiskers with tweezers sitting in the sun by a window. So where is the grandchild that will pull my whiskers, or even tell me that I have this big whompen whisker sticking out on my chin! No one! They won't tell you either cause you are not that important to them.

I discovered this summer when I visited my Internist for the usual updates of prescriptions, that I have graduated. Now that I am over 70, I have graduated to where doing tests, and updating health things really aren't that important anymore. When I mentioned a Pap Smear, she said, 'oh, you can wait on that for a year, I suppose.' OK, what about mammogram and bone density, which just a few years ago were hurriedly reminded to me to get! 'Probably you ought to get the mammogram, but have you broken anything lately?' 'Well, no!' 'Then you can skip the density thing.' I am not going to matter anymore! Oh, great, and I had such high hopes for lasting another ten years or so!

I have really suddenly decided, well actually this happened several years ago, to really try and keep this old body in good shape. I keep track of the veggies I eat, and how many fruit things, and I only try to have two hard candies in the evening after I eat my dairy things. And fibre, yes fibre, you need it, and apples give you a good supply. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, oh yah! I have a high incidence of heart disease in my family background, so I realized some time ago that I don't want to go there. I take a pill for blood pressure and a hiccup in the heart rhythm that I noticed several years ago. I am taking red yeast rice for my lipids, especially my triglycerides, which run high, probably genetic, and watch the weight gain and loss. I try doing some weight lifting, small amounts for my shoulders and my back muscles, and a stationary bike in the winter and a road bike in the summer for my thrills! So far things seem to be working, but who knows. I can walk up hill here on my mountain at 9500 feet without getting out of breath, or panting anymore. But I am pudgy! Pudgy is good, my Obgyn says, 'you need a little fat to replace those hormones you are missing.' Whoopee!

I have a friend who has had bariatric surgery, and she is so inspirational to me, I seem to be able to keep doing the things that have gotten me this far in the mathematical equation of aging. I also have too much yarn and need to knit it up, and lots of books still to be read, and a dog and a cat that need me around, and that is my excuse for wishing I had someone to pull my whiskers. I want to look good! Oh, and that is why I have finally given in about my teeth. I am going to get some cool fangs to replace some quaking aging old filling teeth that look kinda yellow and old. I remember when my Dad was in the hospital in his last months after being burned badly from a bathrobe that caught on fire, a tooth fell out. He felt so bad about that gap in his smile, and wanted the tooth put back in fast, and he was laying in bed with bandages on these awful burns on his back and arm. We do want to look good!

Aging is not for the faint of heart, it has been said. But there is the alternative, others have said. And why not stick around to see what is going to happen this time. Will the earth get too warm and not be able to recover, or will it launch into another ice age, and what about all those guns going off all over the world taking out this person and that person, and for what reason. We seem to have forgotten something along the way. What was this experiment all about. Why were people evolved to live on a planet that appears to be one of a kind and is turning into a trash dump and fought over for religious purposes to further this need, and that need, and for what? Whoa there, lets stop and figure out what that need is, and why. Look around you at all the wasted stuff, souls, and hearts. Take some breaths and think. Where am I bound, and is it worth it, or should I just look for someone to pull my whiskers!

Colorado

It was snowing for over 24 hours, and cold. We got here after driving for three days in cold, but clear weather. There does not seem to be much traffic, but we did the middle of the week instead of the weekend. It was fairly painless, although our good old Motel 6 seemed to be getting kinda seedy, and had the usual hunters. We got to see the yard without snow, but all the grass was gold, and our trees look like they grew again this summer. I need to stay and see the flowers bloom , come back mid summer and just look at flowers.

We are getting used to the climate and the altitude. We feel a little rummy, and out of breath and tired. Seen most of our neighbors. Now to avoid getting sick. Flu is about us. I hope the cold high place we live will protect us. I have a feeling of isolation here, and I like the hush of the area, only an occasional heifer calling its calf, and now they are gathering down at their collection pen wondering why they have not been taken lower to a better clime. The fox has been seen, and we may have heard an elk. There are porcupines about as our neighbors dog got some quills. Our dog stays close to us, only playing with her buddies when they are near her home. The cat has settled into being incarcerated in the house, disappearing for her nap we don't know where, and coming out blinking, and asking for food.

It is a pretty simple life, just coping with lots of snow and cold, and soon skiing down a hill!Flat landers enjoy what you are given, and send the rain our way!

AAADD

Someone sent me a forward titled AAADD: Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. Well, it can happen, or is it short term memory loss, STML. Or do we just get to the point that trying to organize becomes just too much trouble. Follow the thread, look between the raindrops, allow yourself to be, and for heaven sakes don't take everything too seriously.

We are trying to get organized, and we went to our Insurance Agent to set up automatic payments on our car and house insurance. We had changed to this Agency after our old agent whom we had been with for years died, and his wife took over, and then she decided to give up the agency, and since it was on the island that we used to live on, we changed to the one nearest our home. We had not met the Agent, and so going to set up payments allowed us to meet the nice man. He was by himself, and the women who take care of all such things were not there, he told us, but that he could take care of the change. When we left, we drove up the street about seven blocks to the first stop sign, and then several more to the second stop sign, maybe all of 5 minutes had transpired. As my husband started to go into the intersection and turn left, I yelled stop! I saw a car coming at a good clip, and thought we might collide. Husband does not usually go out in this set of circumstances, he waits, but this time I yelled. As we finally made the turn, he said, 'good heavens, I thought you saw something I didn't, like something crawling out onto the street or something. Like a baby or small person.' And I replied, 'no, no, no, just couldn't believe you were going to try and beat that fast car.'

Well, after that, we started to build a scenario of having to call the Agent we had just met, five minutes after leaving him and telling him that he should come take care of our claim as we had been hit and were lying bleeding on the street and the other car had travelled across a lawn and up onto a porch, and we thought a claim was in the works, but maybe he could get there before the ambulance came to pick us up off the street. Just hurry things along, you know. Sort of a British comedy scenario with the accents and all.

So this is not AAADD, but sort of OIKT or Old Idiots Killing Time. It is best to have a sense of humor about things. And acronyms are so fun, and sometimes they even form a real word. Like OINK-T: Old Idiots Not Killing- Time. I imagine I will now get worked up over creating acronyms.

The rain today was massive and we could hear it on our roof which is composition and not metal, but sounded like it was. I expected to see the old stream that used to run down the property line when we first moved to this place to reappear. It was damp, but no flood. Nice living on a bit of a hill and a huge bay almost in your front yard. There is room for all that water! So we took a nap! It was dark enough to do that, and it felt very good.

So aging can feel quite serious to those of us who have arrived at an age we consider at the top of the hill, looking down. We do have issues, and if we have all our brain cells working, we still need to pay attention. You have to make an effort to realize what is going on around you, and who is around you, and what you are doing to that which is around you. It takes more effort than you would think, this paying attention. So you become a team. And then that doesn't always work if one of you falls asleep on a lengthy drive. Oh, bother, just make sure you pay attention.

I am amazed at how long a lot of people live what with all the things going on around your own place, and your city,and your world. They paid attention. I read the obituaries, and they are really interesting. There are some amazing people who have passed on. And their nice families have shared how they lived their lives with all of us out here reading the Obits. There are sad ones, died suddenly, fought a valiant battle with cancer, or some other disease. Some didn't wake up, and some were in accidents, and the little ones you really don't know what takes them. I had to make up an Obit for my Mother, with help from the family, and discovered no one knew her real first name. I guess she didn't like it. I did an Obit for my oldest daughter who died suddenly in a truck rollover. But so much led up to that ending, and I wanted to convey that maybe she was now at peace, which can probably make some people angry as it really is a cop out. But she knew she did not have long to live as her liver was failing her. She just wanted to go to Maui, lay on the sand in the sun one last time, and she did not make it. We talked the week before she died, and she seemed at peace with her self, and a little weary of my platitudes, but we did get to tell each other we loved each other, and that gives me peace. I do love her and miss her, and think of her often in different places that bring up memories, and I can remember that she was the one who I practiced on as she was my first born. The other two got to benefit from that practice, but my daughter left us with something to remember. She was unique.

Plowing the Road!

Back to the North Country. Here we are on the Northernmost Land Post of the U.S., looking out across Poker Creek Gulch to ridges of rocky outcrops and no trees. We walk up to Cat Pass and can look down into Canada, actually we are already in Canada. On the road up to the border, one of the locals mans a grader for the State, smoothing the roads. He is a gold miner, and this is a job that gives him some extra cash for his family. He had three kids, Timber was the oldest, and Cheyenne was the youngest, and I can't remember the middle child's name. We think it had to do with a gun. They lived down in the draw on Poker Creek and ran a sluice for gold. Anyhow, the grader job was a nice addition and no one checked up on him. So a lot of the time there would be a ridge of gravel and dirt down the middle or off sides of the road that stayed there for a week or two. He would always have a reason for the delay in the finishing of the job. One time he said he was off in the trees taking a crap, with his pants down, and one would hope so, and a bear came wandering up to him. So he had to jump out of the woods, get his gun and shoot it. Then he had to put it in his rig, make it to his truck, and then get it home to butcher. We assumed it became food for his dogs. And then there was needing to get the mail, once a week, which meant you showed up at Action Jackson's to shoot the breeze with everyone else, and drink a little beer, and maybe make it back home.

This gentleman used to live out on the Kuskokwim River delta, house sitting, so to speak, which was really care taking, and was married with just Timber in tow. He had married a school teacher, and took her out into the boonies to learn about living off the land. They would also get delivery of staples by airplane. But as the season moved along, the plane did not show up, and they were running out of food and necessities, and finally with the weather changing, decided to walk out. They made up packs, and took turns carrying the young boy. They were walking in muskeg most of the time, looking for some sort of firmer land to walk on, which meant they took and erratic course through the delta, heading for Aniak or Bethel. It took a long time and the boy would get tired and restive. To keep him going they would promise him ice creme when they got to civilization, but Timber finally asked them what ice creme was going to be for him. He had no idea. He had probably chewed on smoked meat most of his short life. I don't think his wife was too keen on repeating that summer.

They next lived down in the gulch, sluicing for gold, with a soddy, a trailer, and an old school bus to call home. The soddy had fireweed sprouting out the top of the sod making a rather attractive scene, but inside was gloomy, dank, and full of one huge bed, piles of clothes, a wood burning stove with a huge pot steaming on it, and dogs in various places. The trailer was locked and not looked into. The bus was out along the creek, which was cloaked in willows, and possibly bears, so that one carried a gun and took the dogs to reach the bus. This is where the sluice was set up, and had plastic carpeting in it dotted with pieces of gold. The bus was an emergency retreat from bears, or the weather. The gold just sat in the carpet, and I asked if they worried about theft. They didn't as everyone who mined down in the gulch respected each others claims and were also armed. When I visited I was told not to stop until I arrived at their claim as I could be shot. Getting to the claim was down a very steep road that I hoped I could get back up when I left.

There was also small cabin along the way with a stove built outside and piped into the building. I was told that someone called Hygrade lived in this sauna one winter, and ever since wore piles of clothes. He would have to go outside to stoke the fire, and it would get so cold down in the gulch that things would freeze instantly. Hygrade was supposed to have out of body experiences. One day I saw him all dressed up and looking clean. I asked him what was up, and he told me he was going over to Whitehorse for a few days of vacating. I wondered why he didn't just go out of body! Although he did look pretty good and it would be a shame to waste the effort.

Action Jackson's had a three seater outhouse to serve the tourists that came through by bus. The experience of having home made pie at the restaurant/cabin would call for a use of said facility. One tourist asked if anyone was in the outhouse, and AJ took out his pistol and shot the building, and when no one came out, said, "no"! It was a reality check for that tourist. AJ's also had the only airstrip for a large area, and the mail would be flown in once a week, weather permitting. The collection of people was worth the trip down to get the mail, and the stories of living in the area worth the listening. A lot of drinking would happen, and maybe no one would get back to their claims. I have more stories, and will write them down soon.

Samoan Tragedy

I cannot conceive of how anyone could survive seeing family members swept out to sea on a tidal tsunami. I cannot believe that after the tsunami stopped its flow, there was nothing left. My daughter in law has a cousin married to a Samoan who got on a plane right away in some of the last few seats and flew to Samoa to help his family cope with the consequences of a tsunami. Three of his sisters children were gone, a grandfather was gone, and who knows what other family members. The resort they built slowly but surely was gone. And then earthquakes in Indonesia. And Malawi is slowly being eaten up by the rising waters from global warming. I will not get into the concept of a grand plan, or the God debate, or wondering what the message could possibly represent. We just have to take in the tragedy of catastrophic events that hurt our hearts and our minds, and maybe hope they will help us to recognize what truly is important in each and everyone's life. I look at the petty arguments concerning Health Care which concern those who only consider profit over lives and health and quality of life. I can understand the philosophical and ideological arguments that go on between political opponents, but do they really have anything to do with running a country? When you get down to it folks, it is day to day, and how we choose to live. We can reach out to each other giving what we can, or we can hole up and isolate ourselves and feel safe. Maybe! If we have something we can share, or contribute that actually does some good, to individuals or to groups, wouldn't that give us some sense of belonging to humanity and adding to our Karmic points? Or is that selfish? In the long run, what has anyone accomplished using up all that he has been given and not sharing at least something. In my mind I want to reach out, with a magic wand and make it all good. In the scheme of things, grasshopper, what does it all mean!

Look through the raindrops and you will see!

Old Lady Eye exam.

I have basically healthy eyes for an old lady. I have cataracts, but they have advanced very little, although they may be hindering my small print reading. I have a magnifying glass I keep handy. I have a mole in the back of one eye that has to be monitored as it could change for the worse! And I have dry eye, mostly in the winter. To help that the Dr. asked me if I was interested in trying plugs. They plug the drain hole in the corner of your eye so that more tears stay on the eye instead of draining away down your nose. So I am trying them. I can tell they are there. It feels a little like something in the corner of your eye, which, of course, it is. And my eyes seem to water. Went to see the movie The Informant and the eyes pretty much handled it, but I may have them removed as they are a bit irritating. Incidentally, if The Informant is any indication of how our great spy efforts work, like the FBI, I think I am worried. Here is a guy who at first you think is just dumb and egocentric, but who turns out to be very smart and egocentric. It was entertaining, and now we know how Madoff got away with bilking millions from happy campers, and assuaging the Sec of his doing any wrong by Wall Street. What are we thinking! Sure, I will give all my money to this nice white haired man who promises me so much. What could happen!

When in doubt we ask WWMD. That is What Would Miggie Do! Miggie is the cat. She knows how to sneak around, spy on things and people, sleep in a wild rose bush, come in from outside, demand food, skipper across busy roads (so far), and recognize what good captive people we are when it comes to food and shelter. She only brings in an occasional snake, or mouse, and then it is like it she forgot! Oh, this is the house!

We could all become isolationists. Just take care of your home base, take care of your own, and squirrel away enough provisions to weather a down turn. We could also reach out to those in need, still taking care to cover your own behind, but if push comes to shove, where do you think the heart goes? To each his own! More and more, I listen to the palaver going on around me, locally, in the news, from near and afar, it is the truth that one person really can't do much else than live ones life according to one's own tenets, and hope for the best. Does anyone realize how much most of the topics of the day have been discussed, like health care, going to war, staying in war, leaving a war, illegal immigrants, church and state, and still it is just blah de blah de blah! One can only hope that humanity prevails sometime, and we save this marvelous experiment we live on, the planet. That we get back our clean air, and clean water, and a chance to live a long healthy life enjoying the natural beauty that surrounds us, if we would let it, eat salads, and obtain the salad principal to contemplate for survival for all! Aha, the salad principal. I am working on it! TBC

Poker Creek

PC is the designation for the Northernmost Land Post in the United States. If you climb up on the ridge that looms above the Crossing, you can see the border for miles, a cut in the growing stuff, wide enough to be obvious to the naked eye. There is a good breeze up there as well, so it is a good evening hike to zone out before locking up and sleep.

When we first got there, our first need was water. So we loaded the containers into the car, and drove up the road until we came to a culvert that had a good volume of water cascading out of the business end. We both had to hold the containers as they were big, the water heavy, and coming fast. Whup wandered around sniffing out interesting things. So filling the containers became the norm until a tanker came up and filled the holding tank. Wondrous was the fact that it was cold, clear and unpolluted water! We tidied up our lair for the summer. Whup settled in right away, and would watch and listen to the marmots that lived in the rocks up behind the cabin. There were weasels that showed up off and on, and ptarmigans. Later the place would be a mass of wild flowers. I tried to identify and photograph as many as I could.

We started our routines, and walks were part of them. There were black bears in the area, but we usually saw droppings rather than the bears. I am sure Whup could smell them wherever he sniffed. Behind the cabin, up the road, in Canada, was a good climb to what we called Cat Pass as there were a couple of abandoned Caterpillar graders on top. You could see a long way in both directions, and on off time we would walk the ridge North or South. On the other side was a winding road coming from the Dawson City and the Yukon River with a very steep grade. If we wanted a good stiff walk, we went down this for a bit, and then back up to the top, and back to the cabin. The dog always accompanied us, ranging out sniffing up lemmings, or bear scat. Later in the season would be huckleberries that I would pick with Whups help. He would sit above me and watch for bears, and I would pick. Honest, he would woof if he saw any below me snuffling up berries also. I would go back to the cabin then and leave them to their feeding.

Finally all the Custom people were at their posts. We were not told that the IO had a drinking problem. The Canadian was a young man, newly trained and new to the remote site, and liked to talk. TBC

Alaska Story Continued

At one point, we started noticing that the road looked newly churned up, but passable, and we kept going. It took us awhile, driving by old rotting dredges, tumbled down cabins, and more gravel road. We came to a junction that indicated that we could keep driving East, or go North to Eagle. Eagle is a native town on the Yukon River. Actually, I think there was only a sign that pointed to Eagle.

Well, I actually got out the Atlas and can sound more knowledgeable now. We were on the Taylor Hwy from Tok to the Eagle cutoff, and then on Top of the World Hwy to the border with the Yukon Territory. The next landfall was Action Jackson's, and a landing strip. Then three miles up the road was the border and our cabin for the summer. There were three cabins, two in the U.S. and one in Canada. The other cabin in the U.S. was for the immigration officer. We unpacked, and examined our surroundings. The Canadian was not there yet, nor was the IO. We checked out our facilities which consisted of a propane tank, a chemical toilet in the bathroom, and a water tank. The tank was empty, but there were big plastic water containers that we could fill. I will continue this soon, but have to go get dinner going, which consists of popcorn. TBC

Alaska Story

My husband had been working for Customs on the island where we lived, and thought about branching out to another place. He heard they had an opening on the border between the Yukon and Alaska, and applied for that job. He got it, and we planned to go to Alaska for the summer, not knowing just what we would get into, but looking forward to the jaunt. We drove up in our 1982 Audi diesel, small plastic kayak on the top full of stuff we might need, and the dog. We had someone house sit for us on the island, and took off ready to enjoy the trip and the summer. A different venue, so to speak.

Things were great, and we took the Cassier Highway, it supposedly being a shorter way to Alcan. We would stop and swim in cold lakes with the dog, look at everything we could, and at Campgrounds we would hear about the bears that tore someone's tent apart. We tried to stay in the motels that appeared out of no where on the way. We have slept in the car, but it was not great. The motels were really pretty scrappy and old, and you could hear critters tearing around under the floor screeching either in pain or in lust. Tour buses would roar past us, or send up dust in front of us, and at one gas station we were warned about the buggies. Oh, yah, OK, and what were those, and we were told, 'oh, you know, them buggies!' We found out on the ALCAN as we were flying along, oblivious to much other than the gravel roads were pretty smooth for gravel, and then we hit a drop off, no warned of, and steep. We felt like we were flying, but we did land fairly smoothly with a clunk, and started slowing down for more reasons then self preservation. No, the car was OK, but the gravel was now deep dirt! The dirt is probably what kept us from breaking the car in two. And ahead of us were graders, huge graders, and what we found out were buggies. They are those enormous machines pulled behind other huge machines that scoop up dirt, fill their hopper, and take the dirt to other places and dump that dirt. There were no flaggers, and anything, and then we saw someone waving at us to come over this way. They pointed to a rocky tilting road scratched out of the side of the road that was our detour. No one was in the least surprised that we had done what we had done as no one cared! Well, that would explain the wrecks we would see off the road earlier in our trip.

So we did manage to get through Alaskan/Yukon resurfacing of roads in the Far North. And onto Alcan, on the border between the Yukon and Alaska out in the muskeg middle of no where short black fir tree North. We were put up in a spare apt. for my husband's training so we could move on up to Poker Creek for the summer. This is the northern most land post in the U. S. Whoopee! There were interesting things at Alcan to absorb, like where not to walk the dog, etc, the dump area where one year they tried to raise pigs so they could eat the Post's garbage, but in penning them in, they made nice meals for the local bears. There was water very close in the muskeg and firs. So the dog and I stayed close. My husband did training, working at the Post, learning just what goes on at the Crossing. And he met the people working there, and what was what. On guy wore his gun, and was told, so if it went off it would should him in the jewels. There was a little neat lady who ran the Post Office, which was a tiny shack out in front if the Post Bldg. She had a great story about trapping with her husband some time ago, and being told that the little ground squirrels would make a good project. Her husband didn't last long. She trapped them all summer and skinned them and prepared the tiny pelts. When they took their catch to the trader in the Fall she was asked what were these things, and when she told them, she was informed that she had been duped! They weren't worth a plugged nickel. I think people could and would go stir crazy in that place.

The people who came through were mostly locals, travelers, tour busses, German's on motorcycles with fishing rods, German tour busses called Papa Bears, and Baby Bears, and hippies, and a few people lost wandering back and forth between the border Posts, which in actuality were miles apart. My husband got acar with two young fellows in it that wove their way up to the stop sign, singing, and laughing. They were both high on pot, and oblivious to much at all, and still had enough to be confiscated. When told that they owed a fine, and if they didn't have it, their car would be confiscated in place of the money, and they were on their own in the wilderness, they magically found the money!

We soon moved up to the boundary Post at Poker Creek via Tok, AK in our Audi sedan that had received much punishment on the road, and would receive more. We loaded up on groceries at Tok, and turned North on another really scabby dirt road, and wondered. When we stopped for a pee break for dog and people, we found a pile of caribou legs, fairly newly removed, that added up to 13. The dog was fascinated. Further on our travels the road disappeared. It had looked like it was scrapped in an orderly fashion, and then it looked like it just ended. We stopped, thought, and decided to creep along on what was before us hoping we would find the other part of the road. Maybe in 5 miles, after passing a car that had been pushed off to the side of the dirt, we came to another area that resembled a road. Soon we came to Chicken, and could stop for something to eat, although it was really a bar that was open. We got a piece of pie, heard people talking about the local bears, which were blond grizzlies, it sounded like, and big. There was a gas station there, outhouses, and the reason it was called Chicken is because no one knew how to spell ptarmigan, or so we were told. It could have been that you were a chicken if you didn't go on from there. But we proceeded, hoping the road would stay a road.

Jumping Ahead

My bipolar daughter, as I mentioned previously, ended up in prison. She must have made the detectives rub their hands in glee as they decided to use her to catch drug people. She was so flaky and needy. I don't think she really was doing drugs as such, probably just passing them on. Her soporific was alcohol, much cheaper and easier to get. It also was like poison to her. It did not take much to get her crazy. I think she probably tried things, but she was probably a conduit for drug distribution.

When she had gone through a drying out program, rehab had gotten her pretty straight, and we then helped her find an apartment and paid a few months rent hoping this would get things going. It was there that she supposedly met someone who knocked on her window and therein started her drug distribution gig. Anyhow, she ended up in prison, the clanging huge metal door, and a quick goodbye to us.

Her time in the big house, Purdy, near Gig Harbor, was going to be five years. We had a lawyer of sorts, but it was all pretty pathetic, and routine, I am sure, for the officers involved. We as a family, rallied behind her, and her Grandmother even baling her out by using her house as collateral. We were away at the time all this happened, or we would have stopped that from happening. Her Grandmother was one who just loved all her family and would do anything to help. But since she was out and about, we all had to work at keeping her on the straight and narrow, which was pretty risky at times. If she skipped out on things, her Grandmother could lose her house, and we did not want that to happen. You get pretty fatalistic in your everyday life, and pray a lot.

Because things were so crowded at the time in Purdy, our daughter ended up in a closet as a room with another prisoner. She also told us she got to know the infamous Ruth who chopped up her ferry boat captain husband and put him in the cesspool. She started being her intelligent self as she couldn't get any of her addictive things going. When she made up her mind to do something, she could be so smart and cool and normal. She got involved in the things she could in prison, but really wanted out. One detail she was on was cleaning in the kitchen. She was under the greasy grill, with a dirty bucket, filled with dirty water, and scrubbing the grill with a wire brush. I am sure she probably did a good job at it, and being small, it was easy for her to be under there, but someone peered down at her through the grill and told her to speed it up! She called up to them, "a mind is a precious thing to lose!" She got in trouble for that.

We would go and visit when we could, and one time her Grandfather went with us. We had to be screened for bad stuff, and searched. Grandpa almost had to take off his trousers cause he kept setting off the metal detector. Her Grandfather was a retired Judge. How ironic is that!

Being set on getting out of prison daughter got as good as she could be, and got sent to a camp where they take teams of prisoners out to work on trails and parks in the woods. They told us she would be back at the big house in no time. She wasn't. She made it and they even let her out early for good behavior. I went to visit one weekend. We got to be in a trailer together, and talk and worked on knitting. I brought a cake because it was her birthday. It felt very weird being fenced in, but I tried to just relax. It is not to say that everything worked out for our daughter because she still had problems, but she did get married and had a son. The marriage was problematic as she met the guy in a halfway house, and he was an armed robber. So you see, things can actually get worse, or seemingly so, but she did not get into the trouble she had before. She just had more manic times and depression times, and times that were fraught with paranoia. It goes on! and next I will write about nicknames!

Current Event: The deer and the peahens

My husband and I ride our bikes almost every day. We have a regular route that we take that gives us six miles. There are those that think we were pretty much weenies for only doing that much for mileage, but it has a couple of hills in it, and at least we do the ride! The other day, on our usual route, one of the hills that takes us near a park, is residential, and backs up to the park. It is an interesting street as the deer and the people coexist very nicely, and there are a lot of deer. The last month has seen the arrival of fawns. So on our recent ride, we noted one yard had about six or seven deer in it, including maybe four fawns. The house owner was tossing apples to the deer, and they were partaking nicely. We watched for a bit, and then rode on up the hill. My husband had been taking deer pictures with his handy little camera, and having taken quite a few, up the hill we went. We take a drink at the top, and then we start back down the hill. Mileage, mileage! More deer were walking leisurely across the street both ways.

My husband said to me, 'wait, what is that?' Across the street among the deer traffic were six peahens, squabbling to each other, sounding like a bunch of demented chickens, and the deer were reacting like they had never seen such a sight before! We slowly drifted down the street on our bikes, and then stopped across from the peahens, who were up the curb and in the grass pecking around a tree trunk, and ignoring the deer. The deer reacted to any movement on the peahens part by leaping backwards or wheeling in the air, but not going far from the peahens. The peahens just kept cackling and pecking and moving slowly toward the woods.

We watched for awhile laughing at the sight, and observing deer behavior, who were not paying any attention to us. I think we could have walked right through the whole group of them and they wouldn't have noticed us. It was a case of existing or being invisible to the birds and the deer. Ah, how nice it is to know there are places that this can happen. Someone will get perturbed and put a [stop to it] I am sure. One can only hope not. If I weren't afraid of the dark, I would creep up into that park to listen to the night noises by all that is living there. Or I could take one of my Fairy Dust Balls with me, which by the way, don't seem to be doing the glow that was promised. Probably why they were on sale in my Gardener Catalogue. I am such sucker for anything that says fairy!

Now I have introduced being afraid of the dark, which is not entirely true but I do suspect there are creepy crawly things out there after dark. Especially at 9500 feet in Colorado. There are bears, foxes and coyotes. Well, there coyotes here in my place in Washington by the water. Every once in awhile you can hear them ky-ying to each other as they cruise Skyline looking for stray puppies, and locked out cats or rabbits. But not for awhile. Be safe peahens, and sleep well small fawns. My fairies will look out for you.

More Being Young

Christmas: I think my Mother really needed to make Christmas a special time. It was important to have the right size tree, and sort of a ritual to decorating with all the ornaments that reached back through the years. My brothers and I had to wait up the stairs while my Dad oohed and ahed over what was under the tree. Special to the whole family were boxes from our relatives in California. They always sent Graber's Green olives, and oranges, and cute little gifts. It was connecting to my Mom's side of the family. My Father's side lived in Seattle, and we saw them often. I would stay with Grandpa and Granma when my parents went away for a weekend or longer.

Grandpa would play games with me, let me take all his cigarettes out of his cigarette keeper so I could use it as a cash register. I would cut out paper money, and have him buy things so I could charge him and give him change. His favorite record was "I Love A Lassie" sung by Harry Lauder. I would listen to that record with him, sitting on his lap. Granma [or Mema], always fed me alphabets with butter, and creamed peas with butter. I found out much later that the peas were actually pea soup undiluted. I loved that and think of it as comfort food.

We lived up on Queen Anne Hill, and Granma and Grandpa lived on Capital Hill. Mom always drove the same way, and we would pass a house with an upstairs window that was put in as a diamond. It was a small square window tipped up on point. Mom told me that Nikos Kazantazakis lived there. I had no idea what that meant but I surmised in my little girl pea brain that it must have been someone mysterious and weird because of that window. Now I think it may have been an author. One time I had to stay with my grandparents for a week, and they put me in school which was a block away from the apartment on Capital Hill. I had to sit in the front row in looking at the teachers desk and the teacher. All I can remember, and it was not anything I learned, was being asked by the boy sitting next to me to pass a note to the girl sitting past me on the other side. The teacher had left the room, and before she left she told us not to talk, and to sit quietly and do nothing. She asked if we had done anything when she came back, and someone told her I had passed a note. I was speechless. I was told to stand in a corner. I could hear quiet laughing. I had been set up! I was humiliated and miserable. I never forgot that event. Scarred for life. I felt stupid, and was because I obviously did not learn anything. Nor did I make a friend. I don't think I told anyone in my family either.

So, living in Seattle, on Queen Anne Hill, I was pretty much on my own a lot. My brothers were older, and I had friends who lived near and would ride bicycles with me, play dolls with me, and paper dolls. I read by myself, and I liked doing that in my room curled up on my bed. Two friends who would play with me were Valerie and Carrie. My memories are faded, and I wish I could remember more of that time. But I do remember the household things. My Mother spent a lot of time in bed. I did not understand it, but I did know where to find her. My Father was in the South Pacific in World War II. We then had a wonderful woman named Maude who sort of ran the house. I knew to go to her when I needed things, food, or comforting. Maude was the one who told me my Mitsey dog had been hit by a car and killed. I also had a cat named Mittens who I treated as a four legged baby and would dress in doll clothes and then forget her. She would just sleep in my doll bed with a dress on, until she would drag herself downstairs thumping her back legs in that doll dress. Mom or Maude would find her and free her from the clothes.

Reading was very important to me. I read the Nancy Drew mysteries. I read the Book of Knowledge from end to end once when I was sick in bed. I had Scarlet Fever when I was about 7 or 8, and had to stay in bed for a month. Mom would bring a book a day up to me and I would read about everything alphabetically. I was a Brownie then, and had been stuffing envelopes with red feathers, a charity campaign, and felt woozy. I guess I keeled over with a fever, and was taken home to bed. The Dr. came to the house to attend to me! Wow, different times. I read the book about the Brownies, the little gnome type of brownie. I also read some books that my Mom gave me about some weird stuff I can't remember now, but there was a yin and yang symbol on the cover of the book.

To Be Continued!

When I was young!

I was born in the thirties. I just got a forward that was supposedly by Jay Leno. We who were born in the 30's are to be congratulated because we survived the 30's and the 40's. It was good! I think my kids lived in the last real time to feel pretty safe in this world. I know that I didn't even think about it, I just was out there living it.

We lived on a hill in Seattle, Queen Anne Hill. I wonder which Queen Anne it was named for,or if it was just a name. Our house was pretty neat, not on a corner but a round. The side walk was curved around our house, and across from the house was a triangle full of bushes and trees. It made sort of a round about, only shaped like a triangle. When I wasn't in school, I was riding my bike, playing cars, crawling around in the bushes that were piled high with leaves playing hide and seek with the rest of the neighborhood kids. There was a bridge half a block away over a ravine. We were not to go down in the ravine as there were bums that lived down there. I think the only bums were my brothers who had a camp they had put together down there, and they would just like to keep us scared so we would not go and bother them. I used to walk the railing of the bridge, which was concrete. The other kids would dare me to walk the railing, and of course, I would do it. Ho, ho, we would laugh, and I would dance across the top of the concrete railing.

There were lots of games we played, kick the can, hide and seek, see who could stand on bike seats and steer with our feet. I remember being pretty brave about doing things I shouldn't. My neighbor, Ramy, and I, would go about four blocks up to the Ave and wait for someone to get off a bus, and then follow them. I suspect we were really pests. The dark did not scare me. Thunder did, and I would hide under the covers until I couldn't stand it anymore, and then go crawl in bed with my Mother. I am pretty sure I was considered a naughty little girl because I was always doing adventurous things. I liked to crawl up on the garage roof and jump around when my brothers were in the attic having a secret meeting. My brothers were 5 and 7 years older than I was. When they had to take care of me, it was generally just familial torture. Their favorite was to open the front door, swing me between them and pretend they were going to let me go. My oldest brother, Frank, would drag me upstairs and lock me in my room so he would not have to worry about where I might be. Oh, and then there was under the basement stairs where they had painted a skull and cross bones in fluorescent paint. The had handcuffs nailed to the wall and they would put me down there and forget about me. Mom would call me for dinner, and then they would have to confess to having incarcerated me down in the basement.

My brothers would have wild vicious ping pong games in the big room in the basement. You could hear them upstairs. That room had the ping pong table and a bomb in it, the bomb painted red. I was always fascinated by that bomb, empty, of course. I suppose my Father had brought it back from WWII. The basement also had a laundry room, rather nice to be separate from the rest of the house, with a laundry shoot that deposited the clothes in a pile near the washing machine. Then there was a room that just had the coal bin, which was filled from the outside by a ramp. The brothers had to take turns shoveling coal into the hamper that led to the furnace. It heated water that went to radiators. Nice, those radiators, which kept the house warm. There was a work bench area with lots of jars with things in them. I tried to avoid the basement because of the skull and cross bones. There were cupboards at the end of the room created by the stairs coming down to the basement, opposite of the dread under the stairs cell!

My room looked out on the front yard. I loved that room. My oldest brother had the room next to mine with a closet between us, with a door that he kept locked. It had a sink in it also. His room led to a cold, sort of morning room that just collected spare furniture, I think, or maybe it was a sewing room. Keith had the small bedroom that looked out the back of the house. There was just a narrow passage behind the house where you could get in the back door of the kitchen, or a door that led down to the basement or up to the main entry in the front of the house. I don't know how they did it, but my Dad had a bathroom put in by those back stairs. It was small with a toilet and a sink. It was handy when I came home from having my tonsils removed. I needed to puke, and they got me in there just in time. Otherwise they would have had to bound up the stairs to the only other bathroom upstairs.

Christmas was always a great time, with a tree in the front window, fire in the fire place, and goodies for breakfast. I can remember my first real bike, a Schwinn, blue and white, and I was joyous. My very own, new bike, which I immediately painted black. Why, I don't know. Guess it was the weirdness in me at that early age. Probably thought I was an avenger or something.

To be continued!

BiPolar Disease

I was having a conversation with a friend about my daughter, Heidi, who had bipolar disease, long undiagnosed. When she was in her 40's, after many bouts with being either up or down with a few interludes of being what could be considered normal, in the midst of an upheaval in her life, she entered the system, was evaluated and diagnosed. There is a loop involved, which usually starts with the police and being reported or reporting an event that involves how one is reacting to an event in ones life. This leads to finally being involved with someone who treats people with mental illness, and hopefully leads to help and continued monitoring, but, alas, this is not always true.

The friend told me that with the young people nowadays, bipolar crops up more and more as a real thing or an excuse for behavior that is not in the norm. As I am sure there is a thread that runs through our family, probably starting with the fact that early relatives are of Irish descent, and in my research I have discovered that there is a high incidence of bipolar, schizophrenia, and associated types of mental illness with the Irish starting in the potato famine, and the hegira from Ireland looking for a better life. The Irish, like any distinct population, tended to settle together in the New World, and it was noted that there was a high incidence of, especially schizoprenia among the group.

My Father told me years ago that we had a relative, probably my great, great grandfather, who having established a family and homesite, disappeared. So there must be a thread of something in our family, that I can account for with my daughter, Heidi, and leads me to want to know more. To be continued