Birthdays, birthdays, oh what fun...

I know I've said this before, but I really have NO idea how I'm going to react at any given moment, about my dad's death.

His birthday was Aug 8th and I kinda felt like things were under control. Then I was at PPD (puppy play date) and a moment happened. The sky pulled open and rays of morning sunshine dropped down. It was like a painted illustration in a kids bible. That background from every Catholic trading card, with the saint in the foreground.

I thought about my dad. Did he have the kinda pull that he could whip up a sign like that? Is that reserved for folks that have been up there for some time, or just the divine one himself/herself. No matter...my throat did that all too familar thing these days and clamped down. The sting of salt water spilling over my tearducts. There I was in a field with a dozen dogs and all their owners, my emotions going AWOL on me.

My theory was to keep busy on his birthday. I had a long enough 'honey do' list to accomplish that. Next was to work out: great! Suited up and headed to the basement, thumping workout music on my iPod at the ready. After my stretch, I cranked up the tunes and hopped on the treadmill.

10 minutes in, P!nk in my ears, her emotions raw through her music:

Where did you go?
Where did you go?
How did you know to get out of a world gone mad?
Help me let go
Of the chaos around me
The devil that hounds me
I need you to tell me
Child be still

It crippled me! Sobbing, heaving sobs, rattling the ribs in my chest. Burning the tissue in my throat. Feeling the weakness of exerting the energy it takes to uncork that bottle and let the emotions spill out on the ground, like red wine on a white carpet...a shock to my system.

Off went the treadmil, before I fell off it. I took a moment on the weightbench, trying to get myself together long enough to get back to life. No breaks...breaks leave opening to think. Thinking leads to tears.

Keep Moving!

I managed to get through my workout.

On to the next chore. Chain-smoking chores to keep from thinking.

Why does opening up, hurt so much? Aren't you suppose to be rewarded for being open and honest? Yet everytime I throw the iron bars on my heart open, the pain forces it closed again. Like someone entering into the light, after being in the dark. The light is sharp and causes my eyes to ache, so aches my heart.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted. Was I any better off for letting go? I don't know. The saddness doesn't seem any less.

tomato - tomahta

I got a "patio tomato" at the regional market at the beginning of summer. Within a few weeks we had more tomatoes than we could handle. And to build tomato karma, we have been giving a few away here and there.

Then from the top of the plant came the most perfect tomato EVAH! Perfect shape, color, size. I wanted to give it just one more day on the stem before I sent it to tomato heaven.

I went home for lunch yesterday and we sat out on the patio. I looked at the plant and it took a second to register.

"Did you pick the tomatoes?" I asked LTR.

"No.....were any ready?" She looked at the plant.

"Yes...there was a perfect tomato on top and then a bunch that were just turning..."

SOME ONE HAD STOLEN MY PERFECT TOMATO!!!

Laura got up and walked a few steps when she spied on the grass a half eaten green tomato. Something had been busy making short work of all the red ones. Obviously the green ones weren't quiet as good.

I'm sure my tomato plant is now some sort of nature's buffet for wayward critters. The rest of the tomatoes don't have a chance!

That perfect tomato was now in some racoon's belly. I hope it makes him sick.

I know...I know....

I'm obsessed already.

YANKEE HALLOWEEN

POTTERY BARN SPOOKY STUFF

THE DISNEYLAND OF HALLOWEEN

MY ANNUAL BIBLE

WHO I WANNA BE WHEN I GROW UP

Is it too early?

I mean...July isn't even out the door and I walked into the Dollar Store yesterday and there was a whole end-cap of skulls and skeletons!

Now if that was xmas crap...I would be FURIOUS! Every year when xmas goes up and I'm still in flip flops I think, "How could they, for the love of baby Jesus, son of Oprah! Oh ya, I could pitch a downright fit about xmas stuff being up a day before Thanksgiving. I'll fight anyone that thinks the holiday season for xmas should start with the first day of school.

But the Halloween stuff, even the low grade Dollar Store crappy stuff, caused me to come up short, make my hands into a pyramid in front of my mouth and wiggle my fingers in hungry joy!

It's coming :)

To be honest, I've been on all sorts of Halloween sites for MONTHS now! One home haunter actually buries the clothes for his props in the summer so that they will be properly zombie-fied by Halloween.

Yes...these are the folks I idolize.

I signed up for the GarageOfEvil.com where 'weenies post their props with pride and pomp.

I have a list of things I want to make this year (flickering pillar candles, chicken wire dummies, a witch for the graveyard with a boiling cauldron, and some sort of projection show on the front windows from the inside of the house).

I'm already BEHIND and I haven't started yet!

Soon our basement will once again become the evil lab where I create Halloween goodies for my home haunt. And there might be some that pitch a fit that it's starting too soon.

To them I say: Boooooooo!

Summer time...and the livin' ain't so easy..it's busy. Very busy.

The one thing 'bout folks in upstate NY...they know how to make the most of their summer time!

There is not one weekend wasted here. Festivals, show, fairs, concerts, camping, hiking, the list goes on and on. Oh and there is that lawn thing. We don't have one of those for about 7 months and you need to keep up on it in the short amount of time it's there.

It's always amazing to me that, when the snow creeps away, there is living grass under there. It might be a lil brown and laid flat from the weight of winter, but it's still there baybee! A few rainstorms and a lil sun and all of a sudden it's a weekly chore to keep it at bay.

What makes these folks make the most of the very short 10 weeks of summer they are allotted? The dread that all that snow, like the dreaded Terminator, will be baaak. (said like Ahnuld) So before we are butt high in angel shit, we bake under the sun, withstand the skeeters, and add to the humidity with our sweat.

These are the days you look back on, when there is snow still on the ground in April, and think, "Remember when we complained it was soooooo hot last July?"

Heat = Hair

We are having a heatwave here in the North East. It's not pretty.

I've lived here 12 years now, and I do love 'hot'. It's the humidity that kicks my ass. It's like walking through soup! You get out of the shower, get dressed and you're drenched in moisture the second you walk out the door.

The car temp hit 98 yesterday. They have this thing called the "heat index" which mixes the effect of the humidity in with the temp. That's at 112 today, just in case you weren't hot enough.

Sticky girly bits aside...the worst part about heat? Men! Usually ugly, fat, bushy backed, old farts that decide it's ok to strip when it's hot. I can't tell you how many times I almost barfed just trying to get home yesterday.

One guy had a gunt on him that hung down past his belt-line by a good foot. He stood, watering his lawn, and burning my eyes.

Another fine specimen walked down the street with his shirt as a turban and his hair entrenched breasts swaying, as he lumbered down the street.

I'm sorry...but if you're going to insist that women cover up their chest, men should also have the same regulation for indecent exposure. 80% of the guys I saw, had bigger boobs than I do.

Then you have the guys, usually a lil younger, that insist on pulling just the front of their shirt up, so that their fat belly sticks out. I'm not sure if this is some ingrained mating tactic from caveman days, or their cooling panel is JUST in their belly. Either way....it's not working. Cover it or get a six pack. And I don't mean the one you drink. It's obvious you've had your share of the beer kind.

Let's talk hair for a minute. (and JUST a minute, cuz really...I will toss my breakfast onto my keyboard)

My sisters and I used the "puff factor" method of hair for men. A mess of hair just at the v-neck under shirt was a 1 or 2. Sticking out the sleeves or getting their gold necklace tangled in it, 4. If the shirt could actually stand up on the matt of curly mess that was beneath, then it was puff factor 10 and you should avert your eyes.

My sister Marlo and I were in the car one day, when I noticed ahead of us in a VW, was the only man who broke the scale with a 12. His tank top couldn't contain the hair that covered his body like a shitious halo of dark evil. The sun, setting in front of us, illuminated the height so that we could see where his skin stopped and the hair continued. It was a good inch and a half above his body. (oh crap...here comes my yogurt and granola!!)

I understand you guys are hot. I understand that, for every gross guy out there, I could find a woman wearing a tube top and hot pants that has no business doing so, but comeOHN! The worst part is you all think you look like Tom Cruise's sexy, younger brother without your shirt on.

YOU DON'T!!! Cover up or at least wear a bikini top. You're scaring the kids.

Hey batta, batta, batta...SWING!

We have a cute lil park at the end of our block. Just as we were moving into the neighborhood, they put in a little league field at the end. The park was more than big enough for the field, a snack bar, a tennis court, a basket ball court and a playground. But then the traffic problems started.



Then they decided they needed to move the playground closer to the field so that parents could keep an eye on their darling lil tykes that weren't in the game. So with that, there was a large grass space left at the far end from the field.



Neighbors got signatures for a dog park there, as many folks have dogs that walk in the park. But we came up against a brick wall and rumblings began that the LL wanted to put ANOTHER field in the green space.



Hackles people...my hackles went up.



It's been a couple years now, and it seems the LL has finally got what they needed to push this forward. A grant for $30,000 is helpful as well. What city is going to turn that down?



"Why didn't we think of getting a grant for the dog park?" my neighbor groused.



"Because the LL is a well oiled war machine that has for decades taken over park space like a militia on it's way to Tara, burning neighbors moods as they went." I grumbled back.



We went to the community meeting (re: dog and pony show) last night. They had hot dogs and hamburgers for us to enjoy. I chose not to share in the 'bribe'. Each member of the LL came over, somber and looking like a puppy that was just spanked for pooping on grandma's Oriental rug.



"Are you here for the meeting? I'm so glad you came. We just want to give everyone a chance to voice their opinion and we, the LL, want to work with the community to blah blah blah.....".



A lil bit of throw up in my mouth. They knew what they were up against. No one wants this park...they know it. You can read it on their guilty lil pusses. Lil did I know it was really deeper than that.



As the meeting proceeded, the president of the LL was a man with a 'tude a mile long. He was there with a chip on his shoulder and a disgusted look on his face. He tried to make it sound like we were a bunch of kid haters, which is the furthest from the truth.



I love them.....I just can't finish a whole one by myself. badumpah...thank you I'll be here all week!



But seriously folks....I went cuz I just think we are a kid-centric society. If you're a breeder, you get the benes. I'm childless (at least...that I know of :::wink wink:::) and I should have space in the park as much as anyone else. I pay the taxes for the city park, and I pay school taxes and I don't have kids! I like that green space for letting my pooch run around. I like that green space for laying in the grass. I like that green space for being...well....GREEN, damn it!



With an additional playing field there will be double the traffic. Double the parked cars lining the street. Double the children darting between cars.



The LL folks got frothier and more worked up the more folks brought up reasons NOT to have the field. One LL guy had this "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" attitude that really didn't help either when he pipped up.



I spoke my two cents and then it dawned on me: this is a done deal! They weren't acting all coy cuz they were trying to win votes, Oh no! This was in the pot and cooking and they thought it was a slam dunk! They thought we would show up, lift them over our heads and cheer them for saving our park from ruin with their t-ball field!



This turned out to be....a VERY differnt meeting, indeed!



"I just want you to go home and think....are your reasons for not wanting this field as selfless as mine?" said the president of the LL. "I'm just trying to make a place for kids to play...what are YOUR reasons for NOT wanting it?"



Ummmm...Ya JACKHOLE! I don't want to you dig up the park, increase the traffic and noise pollution with screaming kids. Let me just put it to you this way...I won't be having a picnic on your pitching mound. It's kind of in the way of MY park.

One lump, or two?

I finally had a dream about my dad the other night. I've been waiting. But it seems, after thinking about the dream, he's not quite in focus yet.

The only way I could see him in the dream is by refection: in a pane of glass, in a mirror, through a digital camera. When I would look with my eyes, he would be gone, but still present.

I could hear him. He was whistling and talking to my sister's bird, a cockateil. My mom was there too. She knew dad was there and was surprised I couldn't see him. She has a few stories of the TV being on when she walked into the bedroom and his leather chair making noise, as if someone got up recently from it.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

I remember when my grandmother passed. She invited me to tea in a dream and I made the climb up through many doors and ladders to a quite lil attic. There she was, sitting at a quaint lil table with her tea cups, steaming hot.

"There you are...I've been waiting for you to visit!", she grinned with her crooked smile. I sat across from her and in the dream we chatted and chatted. I can't remember what we said, or if any of the words were real. But then it was time for me to 'return' and I woke with the most peaceful and warm feeling.

Strange for me, as almost every morning I thrash awake with frustration creasing my brow and anxiety pulsating my heart to a fevered beat.

Dream interpreters will tell you that going through multiple doors and upwards is a way of traveling to a plane where you can converse with folks on the 'other side'.

That seems to be true for me.

There were no doors in my dad's dream. No ladders or upward motion. Maybe it was just a nod that he's around and will get to me in good time. I mean....it really is true for him that every day is a Saturday. So he's in no rush.

"Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, over you..."

I cried myself to sleep the other night.

I haven't done that since right after the wake and I was still in Cali. And it was the same reason: the vision of my dad, in the hospital bed. It coated my eyelids like a horrifying whitewash. I laid there feeling the tears spill down my cheeks, unable to strip the vision from my eyes.

It's bad enough, that I see him swollen, his arms covered with blood rashes. He was so swollen he looked more like the Michelin Man, than my dad. His eyelids forced closed by the weight of the fluid in those thin flaps of skin. The line around his thick, sausage fingers where his wedding band was. My mom got it off just in time, she said. From the size of his fingers...I think it might have busted the band in two if she hadn't taken it off in time.

Bruises criss-crossed his face, giving his stretched features a blue tint. He lay there, the machine forcing his chest up and down with jarring mechanical movements, like a bad Halloween prop that will shudder slightly before dropping into position.

Four IV towers held 30 some odd bags of chemicals and fluids: all going in, nothing coming out.

The constant electrical audio simulations of beeps and boops and pings. Blood pressure, oxygen, heart rate, respirator speed, all chiming just over the sound of air pumping into his chest. The regular rhythm of "electric life" split by an alarm on one box or another. Out of fluid, levels too low, time to change a bag.

I sat up and held my eyes open wide, my own chest heaving with the sharp intake of air. I flipped my wet pillow over and tried to close my eyes again. Trying to change the channel in my mind to something that would let me get the sleep I so desperately need.

Its been over two months since he's been gone. That's nine Sunday phone calls he wasn't on when I called my mom. Of course I've been calling my mom more frequently these days, and when she isn't there, my dad's voice answers the phone. I pause to collect myself before I leave my message, clearing the lump in my throat.

I'm going to go back to Cali in August. It will be the second time I'm in 'their' house. I keep saying "...my mom and dad....er...my mom." Adjustments, small changes here and there to adapt to this new life. A life that has been completely changed forever.

I seeeeeeee uuuuuuuu....

So we were sitting on our patio, on a bright lunch hour, when I noticed something up at the top of the hill. I've talked about our backyard before, the tree filled hillside that offers different levels of our summer sanctuary.

The neighbors house in the back is five levels up from our back yard. We can just see the top of the house over the edge of the dirt and trees. With the trees in bloom you can't even see the neighbors that line the street behind us. It's actually quite nice to have a privacy screen provided by mother nature herself.

I was facing said hillside when just to the left of one of the top-most trees, a shadow of movement caught my eye. I tried to, on the sly, watch the treeline, while still talking to LTR. Sure enough, someone was squatting behind a tree, knees bent, head in the 'Y' of the tree.

Smooth as I am, I stopped mid sentence and said to Laura, "I think there is someone watching us from the top of the hill." Laura being even smoother, turned around immediately and looked up the hill.

The knee that I had seen, pulled in behind the tree and the round head dropped out of the split of the tree and ducked down.

Through the course of our conversation the head would pop up and watch us. There are very few times when I feel "frail" as a woman. At 5"10' and an ex-professional football player, you tend to feel...well...safe. There aren't a lot of folks that I feel threatened by or intimidated around.

A creepy shadow watching a house with two women who live there.....I was feeling a lil uneasy.

LTR texted me the next afternoon to let me know that it seemed there were now two figures up at the top of the hill.

Great!

She didn't want to sit out there if they were going to stare at her the whole time. I said, "You sit on the patio and face the hill!" No one was going to make me itchy in my own space!

Sure enough, after a lil while, they figures left.

My question is this: if they are kids, why the HELL aren't they in school? Why are there always kids out of school? I wasn't allowed to even THINK about leaving campus! And I lived, no lie, half a block from school!

I know...I know...I'm starting to sound like an old fart, "You pesky kids get off my lawn!"

In the mean time, I'm going to ask my co-worker if he's still has those paint ball guns of his. I'm thinking bright pink splatter might mark my territory a bit for the shadow figures to get the hint.

Wy? Cuz.

We went and saw Wynonna Judd right before we left for a family reunion, of sorts, in Vegas. I have followed Wy since she was singin' with momma. And I became a rabid fan when she went solo. I have all her 'albums' (cuz I'm old) and love them all. Even the Jesus-y ones.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, when she asked who hadn't seen her live, I was one of the hands raised. I don't know why I hadn't. I just figured a big ol' lezzy in the middle of ten gallon hats and platter sized belt buckles might make me itchy that there was a lynchin' bout to happen. But after seeing the amount of 'family' in the audience, I shouldn't have worried.

My secret lust is Wy is one of us. I mean, come on....the guys she picks? Her horrible luck in love? The motorcycles? The rockin' guitar licks? Her affinity to Elvis? Her one attempt to get on an Olivia Cruise to perform? (thanks Christian, conservative fan base for screwing THAT up!)

I gotta say, if you were to line up the columns for probabilities, she would race to the top.

As soon as she stepped on the stage...her presence, her beauty, her wink and crooked grin....sigh....I was in LOVE!!! I mean I love her....I've always loved her. But holy crap! Her swagger and strut on stage and that voice? My heart melted into my panties!

I was deep in a lustful state of lustiness when she dusted off one of her top tens: She is His Only Need.

There I was, at a table, in a showroom in an Indian casino, at a table with six strangers, bawling my eyes out. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that song. It's from her first album, so it's played a lot over the years. And while it would often cause a lump in my throat, this time...this time it was the life of my dad put to music.

There was nowhere in the song to pull out. Every turn of phrase pulled at my heart. Every image her throaty growl produced, took me to a picture in my family album. So I let the tears flow. I let the sadness wrap around me. I did the one thing everyone hates: cried my eyes blind in public.

I never know where my dad will pop up these days. I will say it's always unexpected and there are just never enough kleenex around.