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For some reason I decided to take a class locally. Well, local in the sense that it would only be 5+ hours of driving time. But hey, it was going to be an “adventure”. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have tempted the gods or maybe I should have just flown to Las Vegas. The class was to be a boot camp of 6 full days (9-7 pm). I must have been crazy!
My friend from work heard about the journey and loaned me his GPS Navigator thinger. After a few lessons, he drove off confident that I wouldn’t break his toy. I was a little nervous about using the darn thing. The last thing I wanted to do was break it or have it stolen. But I was going on an “adventure” and it would be just like having my SO with me to navigate.
Well, for the first 100 miles the poor little device was constantly telling me it had to recalculate, cause I just wasn’t going the way it thought I should. Once I crossed over the big-ass bridge, it finally got its act together and started talking nicely to me.
There was this little scary moment when the thing ran out of juice and I plugged in the charger. Seems whoever had the charger last hadn’t treated it with loving care and the darn thing fell apart (more like exploded) in the cigarette lighter. I pulled off the road and started pulling pieces of the charger out from the socket. Praying I wouldn’t somehow electrocute myself.
I pull back out and as I’m sailing back down the road, I noticed I have no tunes, no books on CD, no clock, no dash lights, no radio, no noise, no charger… Nothing…. You have to understand, I could get along without the GPS Navigator thinger, but I could not survive (and many others might not) without my Books-On-Tape. Things would get very ugly, very fast.
I grabbed my owners manual from the glove compartment, found a grocery store parking lot, and pulled in for some repairs. Seems in order to get the spare fuses, I’d have to pop the hood, poke around in the very, very hot engine compartment and find this very little tiny fuse remover tool. Then go back under the dash and find the offending fuse. I did it. I found it and got it replaced. Lights, noise, clock, radio, charger, everything worked again. EXCEPT for the Navigator thinger.
Talk about a rollercoaster. I’m sitting there with sweat dripping off my nose and the damn thing won’t work. I tried every button, every plug, even tested with my phone charger. I’m thinking how to break it to my friend that I busted his toy.
Okay, once more through all the plugs. Still no joy. Resigned, I start to take everything apart to put it away and I noticed a little button on the back under the clamp piece I just popped off. I get a pen out, poke it, and the darn thing fired right up. Seems somewhere in all the power plugging, battery running out, and fuse blowing, the puppy lost it’s mind. Hitting the hard reset button made it come back. Crisis averted.
Back on the road, with it once more happily telling me what to do, I made it to my destination.
Gota’ love that gadget stuff…
Ciao
Shredding my mom’s papers. There are still bad feelings from the relatives some 8 years later after my mom died. They hate me for “slapping her in a nursing home and just watching her die”. They forced their way into her funeral arrangements. They demanded that I go against my mom’s wishes for disposal of her remains. I wasn’t torn up enough. I just didn’t meet their expectations of what a grieving daughter should act and be like. What a bunch of hypocrites.
She had cancer. She couldn’t take care of herself. My sister was several states away. I had to make a choice. I often wonder if she thought she was in purgatory or some hell that she couldn’t escape those last few months. The cancer had gone to her brain and through some strange quirk, she outlived her hospice care. She was delusional, in great pain, heavily medicated, incontinent, and dying by inches.
My sister told me a few years later Mom would call and ask what she had done to me to deserve this. I wonder at my sister’s motives for telling me this so many years later. It wasn’t like she was ever around for the hard decisions. Maybe guilt? Anger?
The relatives all wanted me to do something. To be there for my mother. They still to this day, think badly of me, because I didn’t have that lovely relationship they all wished we had. I didn’t seem to have the right reactions. Before Mom went into the nursing home, each aunt would schedule time, connive to get us isolated together somewhere, so we could ‘just work it out’ because they knew that we were just too stubborn for our own good. My mother abused me. They never knew. Little did they realize that I had already made my own way and peace with it.
There is no law that says you must like your parents. I believe self-preservation is a must. Why do we follow our instincts with anyone else but family? Why do you all let the ones that raised you treat you like dirt? Sometimes the only way to stop the bleeding and heal, is to cut them off. If that means you move on and detach from the situation, then do it. If it means not allowing yourself to play into the emotional blackmail, then do it. Do what you have to do to be right with yourself.
So now that the papers are shredded and the last physical vestiges of my mother are shredded, I still wonder if anyone will understand?
I kept waking up last night. There was this darn train effect going on and on. Somewhere in my mind, I knew it was the wind. But it was so loud. Constant noise. Another part of my brain, kept waking me up with ‘what ifs’. Like what if one of those lovely trees you insisted upon keeping, does you the favor of falling on the house? What if a big branch lands on the truck? What if the recycle bin your SO insisted wouldn’t blow away is in the next state by now?
My friend had Cancer. Had being the operative word there. They think they got it all. She’s recovering nicely and only needs to go back for annual checkups.
I cried when I found out.
Ciao
I’ve been a little remiss in my thoughts lately. It’s not that I’m not having any, its more attempting to get them out on paper. Someone I know has had major surgery and possibly has the C word. They found a tumor so large that it was just easier to remove a kidney than do anything else.
I’ve been a bit bemused from people’s reactions to the dreaded C-word. Cancer isn’t something you catch. Its something that happens and if gotten to early is something you can recover from. It’s the lump in the breast, the ache in the back, the headaches that wont go away. But when it sneaks up on you, its the most dreaded. Go into the hospital because you’re short of breath and shazaam lung cancer.
When people hear about it, they immediately personalize it. What if it was me? What did the person notice? Did they feel ill? What are their symptoms? How did they discover it? Is it treatable? What if it was me?
Some people can’t even say the word Cancer without freaking. One of my friend’s husband actually asked me not to discuss it with his wife. He said every time she hears about someone with Cancer, he has a very bad night. She seems to have a morbid fascination with Cancer and those who get it. She pulls each story out of the victim and ghoulishly glories in the details.
The older I get the more I realize that every single person is profoundly different in their heads. Mine included.
In a week, we will know.
Ciao
Thoughts of an Old Fart 