Christmas Imminent, Thanksgiving Past

It is approaching once again! The time of insane spending which is, afterall, what keeps our country alive! But I realized some time ago that I don't need a whole lot once I have what counts. I now like hearing from my family, what is happening with them, are they healthy?, are they OK? So I am now going to try and glean what I see, what I hear, what I feel to make me feel like I am approaching Christmas, the time I want to celebrate something that really gives me chills of wonder, and says, you have got it. It is a special time to just be alive, happy, and connected with those you love. There is another being in the family, a little girl, and another on the way. Ah, so special, little girls. They will give this family balance as there have been so many boys, and let us all feel the wonder.

Women could probably get the whole world out of the fix it is in if the men would just let them. So everyone, reach out and try to make a small change in our global mess. Touch an old person who might not have anyone to celebrate the season with, give a buck or two to the pan handler, smile at people you pass on the street, and give from your heart where it is needed. Mentally hug your family whever they are, say a prayer for the whole world, and try and feel the pulse of the universe connecting toyou!

CODs

I forgot to mention what CODs are. Confused Old Duffer s. But perhaps we have not really totally arrived at that position. And Space is something to be considered. Each one of us needs some space, private space, quiet space, alone space, loud messy space, cluttered space, but there to we can adjust. I try meditation but there are too many space interrupters in this Space, so I guess I do my meditating when I am pulling weeds. The garden is a meditative space. Rocks moved for a better setting are meditative. Pulling small leaves of grass can become meditative. So I guess I am saying space is meditative!

I just read about centenarians. They are our 100 and older people. The Study done revealed that nothing they do or don't do makes a difference. It may be genetic loving a long life. So you might as well just live the life you want because it will either be long or it won't. So each day could as well come and go and you do what you want with it, cause you just don't know.

Family and CODs

It is a day of pouring rain. It is coming down so hard that you can hear it on the roof. Granted, the roof is metal, new in the last 6 months, but there is a small attic space between us and the roof. Pounding rain, and I contemplate the change in the house hold. We have had a visiting daughter and her dog. It was pleasant and warm with all of us here. Two dogs skirted each other carefully, but really were OK with the arrangements. The cat hissed when close to the new dog, looking a bit like a lion in miniature. There was laughter, and intense silence as daughter did her research, grading, and teaching on line. And she did a lot of driving exploring the surrounding territory filling us in with what she found. When we moved the towels out of the bathroom she used, it rang with the silence. It echoed. Frogs spent time in that bathroom waiting for the trip back home. I heard them burble a few times.

I thought about how older humans seem to need to move from home and go somewhere they have read about, sunshine, sand, townhouses filled with their kind and age. But I really think that is probably a mistake. I bet they really end up feeling lost and alone, and like what do I do now. And then there are usually masses of people, parading around, pushing you aside in grocery stores because they have to pee, but need to pay for their purchase. And they end up walking but not seeing where they are.

If you stay where you are familiar with the terrain, the weather, the services, and perhaps some of the people you know that are still living in the area, than you continue with your life, and it may just seem longer! To have a daughter filling the spaces with laughter and helping you chatter about things, makes you realize what empty can be when she leaves. So heed the decisions that can be made about what you do as you age. Stay where you can welcome the family and know where you are walking or riding. And perhaps the daughter, or the son, or the other daughter will come and visit. Well, really, she knows where you live. And the cat will adjust once again! And all the other kids might come and visit as well! Being old is liking your space if it remains the one you remember.

I still hear the rain, but the cat came in and is napping.

My Attempt At College

For some reason my Mother thought it important to send me far away from home. I guess I should question that, but she had to convince my Dad that I would do just fine. I went to Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Now that is enough Colorado's, isn't it! I had to take remedial courses in the summer before going away in Math. I passed my SATs with the help. I had no idea what I wanted to do but did take Geology because I really like rocks. But at the time my advisor told me that most likely I would like being outside, and they just didn't send females into the field back then. So I change to Art. I should have taken just basics and be happy with that. (I hear dogs howling in the background as I write!) (Not werewolves!)

I arrived at college and remember vaguely being introduced to the school through orientation. Then the beer bust that I went to out in the woods. How I got there I will never know, and I had really never done beer before. But I survived that, and then ended up dating a Beta guy who was very persistent. My Mom had to call the Dean of Women to check up on me and find out if I was actually going to school. I did make some really cool friends who I hung out with on Sunday's, two guys and a couple of girls, and we went to a deli a few blocks away for sandwiches, mine usually liverwurst with mayonnaise, lettuce and wheat bread. Loved it! We would go to the Shove Chapel to hear one of the guys practice on the organ. We would lie on the choir benches below the pipes and bliss out! This I was happy with and not really with the persistent Beta guy. to be continued!

Aging Continued

I could weep and become ever more depressed as I feel my body not being able to adjust to my old active lifestyle. But it is just adjustment. I can still ride my bike, walk a bit, ski some, go up and down stairs, and keep my mind active with books, cross word puzzles, laughter, and research.I test myself at times and try to remember what I had eaten, and I keep a journal. I remove weeds but I have to stoop to do that as a knee doesn't want me to kneel quite yet. i found a Towhee nest the other day at the base of my poppies. There was one last year. The fledglings are almost ready to fly by the time we get back, thank goodness, as the cat likes stalking little squeaky things.

To age is to make it to the top of the life hill and start descending down the other side. It is to be told when you go in for a physical check up, 'oh you don't have to do that test anymore'. I get it, it won't matter and we won't fix it! I still monitor all those things in my mind as I don't want to go out debilitated and in pain! So what would I do? Deal with it. Since we have lived where we live, at least three people have taken the life force into their own hands and ended it. One swam out into the Bay until she could no longer swim and then washed up on shore. Another rowed out into the Bay and disappeared. And another shot herself in her car near the same Bay. I think my Dad just starved himself. He wanted one of us to bring him a gun and we wouldn't. So he stopped eating. He wanted to go but his life force wasn't ready so he had to take his own measures. In those last months we connected. I heard a lot of things he wanted to remember. Even though I was a woman, he could talk to me. He had an old fashioned opinion that women should be in the home, and that was all they were good for, homemaking! But maybe he found out finally that that wasn't so! So could I take my life force and remove it? I don't know.

One wants to age with some sort of dignity. If my mind goes, I won't know if I am dignified or not, and won't care. Others will have to deal with me and that is a hard thought. But as long as I can get up in the AM, shower, and dress and feed myself I will be happy. All the other things will fall into place.

So it is the body failing to do its job that determines your aging pattern. Changes occur. But my dream is that my husband and I can live in our house, take care of each other, and when we can't it will end. No burden to our kids, just happy memories. Going to have to work on this scenario and make sure it happens. A dog is softly breathing behind my chair. I looked and she has a paw over her muzzle. Pretty cute. I am so easy!

The Dog's Life

Aging will be continued! This morning into the fog and fine mist, the dog and I went into the back yard. I like to give the plants some water as the fog helps soak it down into the soil. The dog leaps out of the door enthusiastically unless I open, first the main door and then the screen, very slowly. If I open the door and screen briskly she thinks she must challenge something vile! The back corner of the yard which has wild roses, and a white lilac we brought from our other home 24 years ago, and thimble berry plants and snowberry that came with the lilac. It is home to some kind of troll in the dogs mind. She will go up there smartly if I go, but if not, she has to insinuate herself punctuated with barks and look backs until she can get up into the vicinity of the corner. I think perhaps she has seen a raccoon in my neighbors yard ghosting under their porch and gets bold with that sighting, but the troll has her flummoxed.

We are truly lucky to have a very happy dog. She likes to be with us, and things make her bounce and jump and chase. Of course, we provide lots to be happy about. There is regular food, warm beds, toys to chew on, bones in appropriate places, and sticks in the yard. And she has a sister cat who likes to taunt her into chasing games in the house or out. They both seem to adjust to our winter place and our summer place and it is all just fine. The cat stays inside in the winter home, and she goes outside in the summer home. And it seems to be no big thing getting used to her routines. She checks in with a meow when she comes back in from outside in summer, and she checks in with us at mealtimes in the winter and finds places to sleep, and games to play while awake.

Our dog is a large dog, but fearful of the unknown. A branch rustling can startle her, but if she sees what did the rustle, she stands right up to that. She is cautious with people but likes every dog she meets. If a dog snaps at her, she just steps away and goes on about her business. And then there is the corner of our yard! She is totally fixated on our routines and us as her people and that can be a problem as anything else upsets her. Her Mother was fearful of us as well and we should have known, but we had fallen in love and that was that.

Routine with animals is important. As long as those remain fairly constant, life is good. Having had dogs and cats all my life I find I cannot tolerate what I see as abuse of animals of any kind. They deserve just as much attention and kindness as humans. Oh, thats right, humans abuse themselves and are vicious and cruel forgetting compassion and respect. Humans perhaps have really doomed this planet to it demise. But perhaps the speechless animals can make it right again. Oh Oh, I have mounted the soapbox. And where did that term come from. Soapbox!

If you live with an animal most of your life, and can feel relaxed about their presence, they can feel your every mood. Building trust with an animal calls for attention, softness, kindness, and love. When our dog first was with us as a puppy she would rouse up and give a guttural sound in being surprised if disturbed. As time went on, this changed and we could bump her, or move a limb and she did not respond. We had built trust. Animals have to find out if they can trust you, and then act accordingly. Wouldn't it be nice if humans could do this without having to be armed? It appears it just takes time. Trust and you will feel good. Maybe even happy like our dog. I could get on the soapbox about arms, but I won't. NRA will be proved wrong one of these days. They will start shooting each other because none of us without arms will be left! That ought to get me in trouble. Pacifist! One shot deserves another, and on and on! Pacifist!

The Aging Phenomenom

I just finished a novel, 'Still Alice' concerning an well educated woman, Professor of Linguistics at Harvard who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer Disease. She is 50. Well, I am into my 70's and can go whew for that! But it was indeed thought provoking. I found myself taking mental notes. I would also feel apprehensive, and then I would wonder about myself and the things that I would forget, the reasons behind my desire to organize my files and make notebooks noting where things are, what accounts we have, etc. Then I read the Obits! There I note that people either die young, below fifty, or they seem to make it into their 80's. Lots of people die from 'battling cancer'. God forbid that should happen now. I wonder if I would be up to the battle. Then I wonder, do these people move around much? The ones who make it into their 80's? We are still driving back and forth on trips that take 2-3 days, and so far we have been aware enough to notice if we think something might happen. But things do happen! Tires come off those big trucks. Things like blocks of wood fall off truck beds. Idiots throw things off bridges. Drunks are out there driving the wrong way on highways. But one thing, we don't drive at night. That narrows some things down. And the roads we travel on seem to be so empty a lot of the time, and they are four lanes. There are two big, well maybe three big city corridors to drive through, and they can be some kind of hell, but we make it by both being alert! Well, we try being alert. One lovely trip going from East to the West, we were in the Salt Lake City corridor, the beginning of it, 8 lanes here, and coming around a long gradual corner there in the road is an large metal shed that would hold bags of ice, but it has just fallen off a trailer into the middle of the middle lanes. If you can believe it, a person with no shirt on is coming out into traffic to do Lord knows what. The truck and trailer are on the right side of the road, and another person is standing looking at the trailer. Oops! The best thing to do is get out of there. We did!

So back to aging, but the above is an example of being alert. If no one else is alert, it could be one big mess. But driving in and around where you live gets to be easy, so you have to make yourself be alert. Driving to the Post Office I prod myself to look around me, watch for others, obey stop signs, lights, and whatever else might be out there. No nonchalance for me anymore. Once driving with my Father who was in his late 70's, he was driving, and managed to merge across six lanes after coming off a ramp on the left, and I swear he did not look at all, just kept merging. I know he didn't look because horns were going off all around us, and when he got to the far right lane so he could go off another ramp, traffic was stopped, he stopped abruptly and the license plate right in front of us was 'Yew Ram'. I almost peed my pants. Another lesson learned.

Missing parts

That should have gone on to say peanut butter, tomato, and mayonnaise sandwiches. I wrote two more paragraphs, and they disappeared. I will have to try and capture the muse once again, but that will happen tomorrow.

Earthquake of 1949

I was 11 years old. My Grandmother and I had gone to downtown Seattle to see a movie. We had gone up to the balcony to watch the movie, as my Grandmother preferred that place over being downstairs. I really can't remember what the movie was, but I know my Grandmother did not want me to tell my Mother what movie we had seen. We were well into the watching when we heard a sound, over and above the movie sound. It was a rumbling and it seemed to come from the back of the screen. Grandma said it sounded like maybe the boiler for the heat was acting up. After a few more moments of this sound we realized the balcony was vibrating. Grandma said it was time to get out. There were not a lot of people in the theatre, so it was easy to get out, no pushing or shoving, and very little panic or frightened talking. We got out on the street, and it seemed sort of dark, and then we both noticed the windows in the buildings around us. They were bowing in and out. Grandma said we had better get out of here, and remember, don't tell your Mother what movie were saw. Walking was weird, sort of like you were tipsy as the street was sort of undulating. My memory is poor from then on, but I imagine we finally walked to where we could get a bus and get back home.

The movie bit, not telling what it was, reminds me of taking my own Mother to Vancouver B.C. to see 'I Am Curious Yellow', and my Mother asking me if I was sure I knew what this movie was about. There was a scene up in a tree where a man and a women were getting very amorous. Once again, there was an astonished comment from my Mother, 'my goodness, how are they managing that?' I am not sure she was impressed.

Ah, the movies. I went and saw Avatar three times and was enthralled. It really hit a cord that twanged with me, and reminded me of my imagination when I was a child playing in the woods, with my next door neighbor, swimming in the Lake, and climbing trees that were twined with ivy that braided so we could swing from tree to tree bellowing like Tarzan, and then running down to the lake and plunging in to swim away into the lily pads to hide. We often skinny dipped, and then snuck up to one or the other house to make peanut butter, tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise sandwiches. They tasted so good on a hot summer day. We would sit on the lawn and eat, laughing and telling each other jokes. Then it would be back to the woods or the lake. We could go into the neighbors boathouse and watch the bass swimming languidly under the dock. The light was just right slanting into the boathouse so the the fish seemed like we could reach down and touch them as they swam by. In actuality they probably would have bitten our fingers. We could be food.

Early mornings on the weekend we would meet and munching on something sweet, like a donut or something, we would cruise along the waterfront which was actually front yards down to the water and there would be dew on the grass, but we felt like explorers in new territory. I don't know if anyone saw us and were irritated, but it was a nice time of day.

I wrote a lot more here, but for some reason it did not get saved and it melted out of my brain. But I shall keep trying to find the thread.

My Old Home

While on a visit to the big city to see my youngest who flew down from the cold country up North to have a respite with a shopping spree, on the way back home we went by my old home on the Hill. It was a wet day, rain off and on, and evereything is so green this time of year, and the Rhodies are in full bloom all over, and I was sure the streets were way narrower than I remembered, we drove slowly by the house. I asked if we could stop and I would take pictures of the place for posterity. In front of the house is a triangle that divides a road that goes down hill from the narrow little street in front of the house. The Chestnut trees are huge, but the yard looked smaller, and a rhododendron by the door was enormous also. It is pink and beautiful.

As I stood there looking at the house and imagining the interior, the door opened and a young man with bare feet putting on a shirt stood there, and he said, 'hi'. I pardoned myself and just said I grew up in this house and I was taking pictures of the rhodie. He walked down the stairs, and over the grass in his bare feet, and I thought he must feel the cold. He said, 'hey, I grew up in this house also.' He gave me his name and asked me mine, and then a siamese cat came mewing out towards us. I said we had cats and dogs in this house, and he said, 'well, we are keeping up the tradition'. I told hims some little reminiscent stories, took a couple more pictures, and he said, 'my parents left for Europe, but if you come back down this was again, knock on the door cause I think my parents would like to meet you and here about when you lived here.' I said that I would, and left.

As a small girl, the yard was huge, and the streets wide, and the house huge, and it is now in perspective, but I remember every room in that house. I told the young man that my Dad hated the pigeons that roosted over his bedroom window, and was always at war with them. He said his Dad did the same thing. I just might go back!

More Pneumonia?

I am back in the PNW. I am coughing again and the goobies have returned. Is it pneumonia again? I do have seasonal allergies also, although they tend to last all the time. I guess I need to research this. And my knee is not feeling good. I thought maybe it could be the cholesterol lowering pill I am on, but have been off that pill for a week, and maybe it feels a little better, some days. I can't bend it very well. Aging is a incremental process, and I seem to fight this fact and the aging. I can't see myself as old. But if I can't do something, I fret. I guess I will be a whiny old lady and fight it!

The Spirit of Passing It On

After my daughter died, I discovered a side of her that had been hidden from me. She did not toot her own horn, but she gave of herself. If someone needed monetary help and she had some money, she would hand it over. If they needed a hug, she had one. She was pretty selfless when it came to giving of her self. I always called her my labor intensive child as I had to bail her out a lot, so some of the money she handed out could have been mine, and I don't care. But when she came into some money that her Grandfather had set aside, she could have done something great for herself with it, maybe bought herself an apartment or condo, but she went through it pretty fast handing it out, going to her most favorite place in the world, Maui, where I have since heard, you can spend a lot in a short time. But it made her happy.

After June 6th, 2006 I began to hear from people who wanted to tell me how my daughter helped them. So I have now taken on passing it on. I call it to myself the spirit of my daughter, and if I see some one in need, I can spare $20. Or if it appears that there is greater need, a multiple of $20. This started when I was met by a distraught woman with a fantastic story in the parking lot of our local grocery. She needed a specific amount to pay to stay the night so she could see her two children who she was trying to regain custody of after finding a job. It was a wordy frantic story, but I can spare $20. So I gave it to her. I realized on the spot that this was what the legacy of my daughter could be. I can spare $20. The stories may be far fetched, but who am I to judge. My daughter usually had far fetched stories to tell me, but with the basis of love for her, who was I to judge, and, hey, I can spare $20. What I was given in return from my daughter was a quirky love that did not come and go. So I will continue to spare $20 when I see a need. It happened yesterday.

We were in the gas station, best price in town at Love's, and Jack was filling the car and I was knitting a baby blanket, and noted the rig in front of us. It was a truck with the bed filled high with probably household goods, a pet kennel tied on the back, and a tarp over it all. It was a double cab truck with four people and a small child in it. The child was smiling and climbing over the driver who was obviously Grandma, and Grandpa came around to the front of the truck and pushed the hood closed. Jack commented to him that that was a good move. He came over and told us that they had just bought it and were still finding out how good it was. They were from Oklahoma going to Oregon. Entering the State they hit black ice on a bridge, jack knifed, hit the abutment lost control and ended up off the road totaled. The trailer was smashed, one dog disappeared and they never found it, but they had enough money to buy this truck and they were going to make it to Oregon. My husband gave them $60. It was what we had. We got a God Bless which one can always use. And they pulled out onto the road heading for Oregon. May God bless them. As the Grandpa said, we are alive.

So in the spirit of a daughter we will pass it on!

Pneumonia

I am into day 16 of having pneumonia. It is not fun. I am still coughing, and getting the goobies up. I don't have a fever anymore, but I am feeling weak and tired, and don't have the fitness I had two weeks ago. It was a viral one, caught out of the blue, probably from some obscure door handle, or at the swimming pool where I was doing water aerobics. I feel like doing some things again, and I have read two books, but I want my old self back. At one time, 5 days into the illness, I was in my chair with a blanky and not feeling like doing anything, and I looked outside, up at the rafters in the overhang on the porch, and I thought it would be so easy to just let go. Being a pretty positive person, and loving humor and laughing, this was not me thinking. But I am aged now, and aging, and thoughts like that come to you. Who are those tough ones that seem to be able to get through huge physical things, illnesses, really bad stuff like cancer and soldier on into old age, like their 90's, and then they are there and life quality is not all that great, but they seem to be happy and enduring. I don't know if I will be like them, but I do know I like being able to race down the ski slope, ride my road bike and feel the accomplishment of it all at my age, and even feel a little smug about it all! So here is to getting over this damn virus and out on the slopes before the season is over. I need to get day 70!

Anitiyah Continued

I was supposed to be writing about my youngest. When we drove down to Leadville in 1963, we had a VW bug. It was green. The two older kids road in the back seat, and the baby was in the back window storage space. So if she fussed, we had to stop the car, and I would retrieve her from the space and take her up with me in the front seat. It was a cramped trip and we did not take much with us as there was not much room to do that. We had to have diapers, etc for the kids, well, really for the baby. I nursed the baby so that was taken care of as far as food was concerned for her, but it was a hectic trip.

When we finally made it to the apartment on the second floor, it became a blur because of the logistics of two kids in one room, and a small travel cot for the baby in our room until we could get a crib for her. So two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. Basic! I remember a few things, such as Anitiyah learning to crawl in the living room, on our old oriental carpet that had belonged to my Grandmother. We had a Christmas tree in one corner at Christmas and there are some pictures of the kids and Anytiyah laying on the carpet reaching out for goodies. I am vague as to time frames of finally being able to buy the Lot SW of town, and then getting a well dug, and ordering our house which was a manufactured home. It was not big, a bedroom, small bathroom, small kitchen, dining area, free standing fireplace, and living room. There was a staircase up to the second floor which involved the roof in the two bedrooms, but huge storage area under the eaves. The kids were upstairs, and Anitiyah switched rooms over time, giving the older kids a bit of privacy for a time. The baby was still in a crib, so I would roll it back and forth. My son told me that after I would tuck them all into bed, as I went back down the stairs, a monster would raise up out of the vent that allowed heat to rise into the bedrooms, and he would have to hide under the covers. Sometimes he would call me back, but he never told me about the monster until her was way older.

What a time. I was trying to keep myself together, do some kind of job, be with the kids and take them out exploring in the summers, and trying to be a wife to a husband who worked all week, different shifts, would go climb mountains with climbing buddies in the summer, and was a ski patrolman in the winters. I was so naive, and lonely, and don't know if I was much of a Mother other than loving my kids. I admit to turning to other people for friendship and not making very good decisions at times. But I also had been very sick with the kidney problem that was finally solved. I would wander the woods at times, just lost in what I should do to correct the situation. In the midst of all of this, while walking with a neighbor with my three kids and her two kids, in these same woods, we came across a body of a young man lying with his head up to a tree and a gun laying on his chest. My oldest child went running toward this scene, and we all called her back. She was amazed at the sight. She was pretty tough even as a young girl. This poor soul had been there a bit. I remembered noticing that the hands were an orange color.

We turned back, called the Sheriff and my neighbor took the Sheriff out to the site. I kept the kids at our house. I also fell apart. I think this was the final ending for me. I pinned the curtains together at night imagining someone creeping around outside. I took a trip to some friends who had moved to Albuquerque, insisting that I needed to just get away, and my husband took care of the kids. I drove my little Saab, which barely made it back up all the hills to Leadville. It was when I got back and we fought verbally, and roughly, that I decided to take the trip to Washington and visit my Mother. I drove us all, three kids, a cat, and myself.

I made it to Grand Junction, drove into a gas station for gas, and the car vapor locked. I sat there crying, sort of bumping my head on the steering wheel wondering why I couldn't even get out of Colorado. A young man who worked at the station came out and asked what was wrong and when I told him, he said he would push me, and to turn on the engine, and slip it into gear when I got a little speed up. It worked, and didn't let the car get very empty again, and drove on into Idaho, and a motel with a swimming pool for the kids. My oldest was my engineer and map reader, and helped me keep things going. By the time we got to the motel, I had a raging headache, and needed the respite. The kids really had a good time swimming and playing in the pool, and we had a dinner, and we all slept long and hard. Next stop, with my long driving days, was my Dad's in Washington. Going up I5 I was really getting sleepy, all the way from Portland, OR, and kept stopping at every rest stop and rested. The kids were so good I couldn't believe it. They must have sensed we were embarking on a new life. My youngest who had wet her bed almost every three nights never wet it again. It was like the tension was lifted and it felt so good to all of us.

More to come!

Anitiyah!

New apartment, Leadville, and a long stairway out the back for the kids to go in and out. Three kids in one bedroom, the oldest was 4, next 2, and the two week old baby. I don't know how we managed to stack everything up in that three room apartment, but we did. The oldest girl was starting to have some temper flares that involved almost having some kind of fit like a seizure. The middle child, son, developed asthma, and had many episodes of breathing difficulties, and the little baby was just trying to fit in and get some attention with all this upheaval. There was one hospitalization for my son with his asthma where the next day I was told they almost lost him. There was no call to us. I was alarmed by this as we certainly should have been informed. But the Dr. attending him was the one who liked breasts, so I guess I should have known. And after a couple of years I developed some symptoms that were un-diagnosible for the local doctors. I would feel fine in the early morning, but then develop nausea, and back pain through the day. They used ultra sound on my back, 'to break up the focal point of pain', and then they clearly decided I was a hypochondriac as they kept telling me I was pregnant. I protested and mentioned that there did not seem to be a new baby. There were two doctors, one was distant and uninterested, and the other was too interested, kept wanting to examine my breasts and would. He would never have a nurse with him, and I should have suspected something. I was naive, and sick, and just wanted help. He also used to follow my car if he crossed my path. I should have reported him to someone, but I just felt too tired and ill.

Finally I wrote home to our family friend and our doctor of many years. I was so sick, that I wrote the bare symptoms which gave my family doctor and idea and he wrote back and told me to get home immediately or go see a colleague of his in Colorado Springs. I got an appointment right away with the colleague, and under great distress, considering the children, and my husband's job, and trying to figure out how to handle all of this, I got a diagnosis of a kidney problem called a fallen kidney. No wonder I was so sick. I was booked for surgery in about 2 weeks, my Mother came out to take care of the children, and I expected to lose a kidney. ( My husband would come down on weekends to visit, and stay with a friend from my college days. Husband would tell me about strange magazines and books that my friend had lying around. I had to giggle as I knew my friend was gay. ) The doctor decided that my kidney looked good enough to try and save, and tied it up to my ribs. I still have the kidney even though it was a long haul to heal and feel better and for years I would get infections very easily. I had lost a lot of weight, and the kids had more upheaval. Before the time of this event, we had managed to find a Lot NW of town and had a manufactured home put on it for 'our place'. We had 5 acres, I think, of woods around us, our own well, and electricity into the Lot, and wonderful deck looking out into the woods.

There were good times, hikes in the mountains, our yard to play in, learning to ski. But my life was crumbling. I decided to try working again. I was a window dresser for J. C. Penney's, and then got a job teaching skiing up at the local ski area. I earned enough to buy a little Saab 2 stroke car. Zoom I called it. The kids could go to the area with me, ski, and then play in the day care with the other kids. My husband was a ski patroller at another area most weekends, and in the summer he was off climbing mountains. I began to wander. I would take the kids on trips into the mountains with a lunch, and we would explore. Or we would stay at home and amuse ourselves. The oldest went to school, walking a pretty long way until they finally got a bus going for our area. I would walk her through the woods to the next street over, and my son would keep an eye on the baby. Lots of times I would come back and Aniy would be crawling around the house. It took some time figuring out how this could happen, me suspecting my son of her liberation. She had found a loose bar in her play pen. She just pushed it aside and crawled out, and my son did not see it happen. My oldest daughter would walk home and bring me flowers that she said she found in the woods, but I am sure she found in peoples yards. We would discuss the propriety of this, but the lecture would not last.

I will continue this story concerning the further breakdown of my ability to maintain a place in my first marriage. To be continued!