Weblog 232
July 18, 2010~ 12:00am
Hot, long week in Pittsburgh. This is typical Pittsburgh summer weather- sticky with humidity. You'd think I'd be used to it, but I've fought the summer months my whole life...my body simply rebels.
My work week was a bit 'askew' as well, covering for people out of the office while trying to keep up with my own stuff. Not the best week......
and then the news my aunt died. Aunt Bert was going to be 85 this month and will be buried on Monday, my mother's 90th birthday. You may think, 'well, that was a nice long life', and indeed, you'd be right- but who is ever ready for death? Mum and her sister Bert were like two peas in a pod, working together in my aunt's store for over 20 years, visiting and shopping, playing cards once a week, talking every day by phone.....this is a hard one. We were fearful of how mum would take the news, but she's been surprisingly stoic.
My aunt was a very loving, giving person, and the very HEART of that part of the family. Her grown children will miss her like a limb.
How fast life flies.
Not too long ago she was marrying my uncle, who passed away 3 years ago, and she was a young bride, a new mother.... the world very different than today.... it was the late 40's: the boom time after WWII.... with only hope on the horizon.
In every family album, pictures of a smiling, dark haired girl. The kind of dynamic presence you think will always be there. Up until a year ago when her health took a series of terrible turns, she was driving, shopping, picking up 'the girls' (my mum included) and making a day of it every Tuesday. My cousin told me her mother revealed that during one of her many, many trips to the hospital recently, she'd seen my grandfather at her bedside, tucking the covers up under her chin, as father's do, and telling her 'not quite yet'.... I'd love to believe in that. That we go on; that those we love, who have passed before us, wait -and are ready with open arms to greet us.
I think of death as a boat. (Yes it's the whole 'Charon myth', poling the boat that sails us from life into death) -and it's peaceful for me to think about it that way: a gentle ride, when it comes, with folks poised on the shore of the riverbank, faces so dear and nearly forgotten, but coming back into focus and smiling, arms outstretched.
I do hope it happened just that way for Bert. Her son was sitting in the hospital room opposite her in her chair, and he said as the hospital staff gave her an infusion of something to balance her electrolytes, she simply slumped sideways, heart stopped, but extremely peaceful.
Of course this makes me think about my own mother's age, and the scant years ahead.... and what mysteries we are, not only to ourselves but to the flesh that bore us, and we to them, however close that relationship might be.
How, through all of our lives, we're wearing masks, keeping up appearances; no matter how badly we want to truly understand one another, how often does that honestly happen? Especially between mothers and children, because those are always loaded dice being tossed again and again. There are expectations, disappointments....the shames and the failures and omissions, over and over, despite trying our best with one another. Maybe when this earthy suit is thrown off, maybe then we can enjoy the pure love, the pure joy that resides beneath. I hope so, because there's not a person I know who does not have a complicated relationship with their own mother. But the love......the love is always there and aching to be let loose. Maybe in death, maybe when both mother and child have passed through the veil, maybe it's then we find one another's true selves and rejoice in them completely... like Tinkerbell's light flickering... flickering happily.
I'll keep that image in my mind.
I'll hug my cousins tomorrow and say my final goodbye to an aunt as sweet as they come. May she rest softly, forever and ever (and yes, 'Amen')... for that was a prayer.
Taking my mother back to Assisted Living Saturday evening was certainly a challenge. It was after hours, almost nine, and the first time I'd brought her back after the 8:30 'witching hour', when the outside doors are locked.
You have to push a red button and a voice says, "Yes?" - and you have to let them know who you're bringing back for the night. (That part was easy enough....there was a buzz, and the doors swished open as if by magic.) Getting OUT again, was a different story. LOL!!!)
My sister had told me the combination of numbers to be punched into a keypad mounted by the door, and then I was to press the 'pound' sign. (Unfortunately, there was no pad by the door I'd come in) so I went to the opposite side of the empty, and yes, 'creepy' lobby, and I pushed that keypad and it opened (hooray!)-- but into an enclosed garden between buildings --with the front iron gates also locked down. (I tried them and only managed to make an alarm go off.) While it was ringing, I ran back to the doors and punched in the combination again (REALLY sweating now and panicky in the humid heat) --and they swung open.
Ok.....but I was only back in the lobby.
I got on the elevator and went down to the next level, where the whole reception area was dark, but I made my way to the front doors and pushed my numbers into a keypad with NO POUND SIGN... Nuthin'. No dice. Then I pushed a red button and an alarm started screaming. I ran over to the opposite wall (with the elusive 'keypad') and dashed off the same four numbers and the alarm stopped; I scrambled back to the doors, pushed- and they OPENED!!! I was outside! I had escaped!
I felt like Steve McQueen in 'Papillon'. LOL!!! (I wondered, of course, if the building was roused by those alarms I'd set off, but I saw no one coming after me.)
I made my way to my car (illegally parked in a 'reserved' spot up front)-- got in, backed up and felt like an escapee whipping out again onto the road.
THERE'S GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY! How could I have so badly misunderstood my sister's instructions, because it's true, the keypads directly mounted on all doors have NO FRICKIN' POUND SIGN! ---0 TO 10, THAT'S IT! (Oh well, I'll ask Kathy tomorrow) but I am HOUDINI.....I MADE IT OUT!
July 18, 2010~ 10:00pm
Back from visitations, casting about for something to grab me, and take my mind away from 1.- heat and 2. death..... and I remembered a link I sent to myself when I happened upon it from my work computer a while back.
The one thing I love is a good impressionist. (I rue the day Ed Sullivan went off the air and the likes of Frank Gorshin, Rick Little and David Frye had no showcase for their astounding mimickry.) I've always loved watching impressionists (and attempted some myself. LOL!) but the next best thing is LOOK ALIKES. How about this for amazing....
Angelina? James Dean?? NOPE! But how about that for eerily similar? Wander on over to Gina Marie's Entertainment to be flabbergasted by the VAST ARRAY of famous faces, new people wearin' 'em. The pictures go on and on. (With my dial-up connection, it took about 47 hours) but if you have high speed cable, you should be wowed in no time at all. There are sound files, short films.....granted, many are simply a clever ensemble of wardrobe and wigs, but the really good ones are mighty plentiful. I LOVE THIS STUFF! Enjoy.
July 21, 2010~ 5:15pm
Three days into this work week, and each day has progressively made me testier. It's the heat (of course)- and yes, by all means, the loss of someone close-- grawing away in the background like a sore unhealed. I need (we all need) some beauty to balance things.
Sound can play a huge role in seeking out some small space for yourself that promotes serenity. (Lord knows, modern office sounds or traffic won't do it. LOL!) If you click on the picture below (which is once again, a part of a LARGE photo snapped by my boss in her 'butterfly garden')
you'll be just like those golden-winged beauties....finding a place of bliss for yourself. The link will take you to "NATURE SOUNDS"--AND....you can compose and SAVE your own! (Mine is a mixture of rain, thunder, waterfall -and 'leaves in wind'.) I had to create mine at work, since I have no 'Flash' on my home computer. LOL! Yes, Flash is occasionally 'welcome'.
If you need more....I've found TWO MORE wonderful links for you. Click below and go to a photo blog of 'weather images'....some of the most incredible images of scenery and sky
(like that 'birdbow' above) you'll ever find! Wow! What wonders!
And if you're like me, and love to browse sites where artistic folks make marvelous doodads and gewgaws (a place such as Etsy features) --please pay a visit to....(yes...click on the fantastic tableau below) to enter
Altered Bits
I LOVE that place! If you're looking to buy something truly unique, I'd suggest picking out a 'one of a kind', right there.
(Here's hoping these three lovely places put you in a saner mood. They've done that for me. Hooray for those with the eyes and the talent to change the world for a while. Hip, hip, hoo-ray!)
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Hot, long week in Pittsburgh. This is typical Pittsburgh summer weather- sticky with humidity. You'd think I'd be used to it, but I've fought the summer months my whole life...my body simply rebels.
My work week was a bit 'askew' as well, covering for people out of the office while trying to keep up with my own stuff. Not the best week......
and then the news my aunt died. Aunt Bert was going to be 85 this month and will be buried on Monday, my mother's 90th birthday. You may think, 'well, that was a nice long life', and indeed, you'd be right- but who is ever ready for death? Mum and her sister Bert were like two peas in a pod, working together in my aunt's store for over 20 years, visiting and shopping, playing cards once a week, talking every day by phone.....this is a hard one. We were fearful of how mum would take the news, but she's been surprisingly stoic.
My aunt was a very loving, giving person, and the very HEART of that part of the family. Her grown children will miss her like a limb.
How fast life flies.
Not too long ago she was marrying my uncle, who passed away 3 years ago, and she was a young bride, a new mother.... the world very different than today.... it was the late 40's: the boom time after WWII.... with only hope on the horizon.
In every family album, pictures of a smiling, dark haired girl. The kind of dynamic presence you think will always be there. Up until a year ago when her health took a series of terrible turns, she was driving, shopping, picking up 'the girls' (my mum included) and making a day of it every Tuesday. My cousin told me her mother revealed that during one of her many, many trips to the hospital recently, she'd seen my grandfather at her bedside, tucking the covers up under her chin, as father's do, and telling her 'not quite yet'.... I'd love to believe in that. That we go on; that those we love, who have passed before us, wait -and are ready with open arms to greet us.
I think of death as a boat. (Yes it's the whole 'Charon myth', poling the boat that sails us from life into death) -and it's peaceful for me to think about it that way: a gentle ride, when it comes, with folks poised on the shore of the riverbank, faces so dear and nearly forgotten, but coming back into focus and smiling, arms outstretched.
I do hope it happened just that way for Bert. Her son was sitting in the hospital room opposite her in her chair, and he said as the hospital staff gave her an infusion of something to balance her electrolytes, she simply slumped sideways, heart stopped, but extremely peaceful.
Of course this makes me think about my own mother's age, and the scant years ahead.... and what mysteries we are, not only to ourselves but to the flesh that bore us, and we to them, however close that relationship might be.
How, through all of our lives, we're wearing masks, keeping up appearances; no matter how badly we want to truly understand one another, how often does that honestly happen? Especially between mothers and children, because those are always loaded dice being tossed again and again. There are expectations, disappointments....the shames and the failures and omissions, over and over, despite trying our best with one another. Maybe when this earthy suit is thrown off, maybe then we can enjoy the pure love, the pure joy that resides beneath. I hope so, because there's not a person I know who does not have a complicated relationship with their own mother. But the love......the love is always there and aching to be let loose. Maybe in death, maybe when both mother and child have passed through the veil, maybe it's then we find one another's true selves and rejoice in them completely... like Tinkerbell's light flickering... flickering happily.
I'll keep that image in my mind.
I'll hug my cousins tomorrow and say my final goodbye to an aunt as sweet as they come. May she rest softly, forever and ever (and yes, 'Amen')... for that was a prayer.
Taking my mother back to Assisted Living Saturday evening was certainly a challenge. It was after hours, almost nine, and the first time I'd brought her back after the 8:30 'witching hour', when the outside doors are locked.
You have to push a red button and a voice says, "Yes?" - and you have to let them know who you're bringing back for the night. (That part was easy enough....there was a buzz, and the doors swished open as if by magic.) Getting OUT again, was a different story. LOL!!!)
My sister had told me the combination of numbers to be punched into a keypad mounted by the door, and then I was to press the 'pound' sign. (Unfortunately, there was no pad by the door I'd come in) so I went to the opposite side of the empty, and yes, 'creepy' lobby, and I pushed that keypad and it opened (hooray!)-- but into an enclosed garden between buildings --with the front iron gates also locked down. (I tried them and only managed to make an alarm go off.) While it was ringing, I ran back to the doors and punched in the combination again (REALLY sweating now and panicky in the humid heat) --and they swung open.
Ok.....but I was only back in the lobby.
I got on the elevator and went down to the next level, where the whole reception area was dark, but I made my way to the front doors and pushed my numbers into a keypad with NO POUND SIGN... Nuthin'. No dice. Then I pushed a red button and an alarm started screaming. I ran over to the opposite wall (with the elusive 'keypad') and dashed off the same four numbers and the alarm stopped; I scrambled back to the doors, pushed- and they OPENED!!! I was outside! I had escaped!
I felt like Steve McQueen in 'Papillon'. LOL!!! (I wondered, of course, if the building was roused by those alarms I'd set off, but I saw no one coming after me.)
I made my way to my car (illegally parked in a 'reserved' spot up front)-- got in, backed up and felt like an escapee whipping out again onto the road.
THERE'S GOTTA BE A BETTER WAY! How could I have so badly misunderstood my sister's instructions, because it's true, the keypads directly mounted on all doors have NO FRICKIN' POUND SIGN! ---0 TO 10, THAT'S IT! (Oh well, I'll ask Kathy tomorrow) but I am HOUDINI.....I MADE IT OUT!
July 18, 2010~ 10:00pm
Back from visitations, casting about for something to grab me, and take my mind away from 1.- heat and 2. death..... and I remembered a link I sent to myself when I happened upon it from my work computer a while back.
The one thing I love is a good impressionist. (I rue the day Ed Sullivan went off the air and the likes of Frank Gorshin, Rick Little and David Frye had no showcase for their astounding mimickry.) I've always loved watching impressionists (and attempted some myself. LOL!) but the next best thing is LOOK ALIKES. How about this for amazing....
Angelina? James Dean?? NOPE! But how about that for eerily similar? Wander on over to Gina Marie's Entertainment to be flabbergasted by the VAST ARRAY of famous faces, new people wearin' 'em. The pictures go on and on. (With my dial-up connection, it took about 47 hours) but if you have high speed cable, you should be wowed in no time at all. There are sound files, short films.....granted, many are simply a clever ensemble of wardrobe and wigs, but the really good ones are mighty plentiful. I LOVE THIS STUFF! Enjoy.
July 21, 2010~ 5:15pm
Three days into this work week, and each day has progressively made me testier. It's the heat (of course)- and yes, by all means, the loss of someone close-- grawing away in the background like a sore unhealed. I need (we all need) some beauty to balance things.
Sound can play a huge role in seeking out some small space for yourself that promotes serenity. (Lord knows, modern office sounds or traffic won't do it. LOL!) If you click on the picture below (which is once again, a part of a LARGE photo snapped by my boss in her 'butterfly garden')
you'll be just like those golden-winged beauties....finding a place of bliss for yourself. The link will take you to "NATURE SOUNDS"--AND....you can compose and SAVE your own! (Mine is a mixture of rain, thunder, waterfall -and 'leaves in wind'.) I had to create mine at work, since I have no 'Flash' on my home computer. LOL! Yes, Flash is occasionally 'welcome'.
If you need more....I've found TWO MORE wonderful links for you. Click below and go to a photo blog of 'weather images'....some of the most incredible images of scenery and sky
(like that 'birdbow' above) you'll ever find! Wow! What wonders!
And if you're like me, and love to browse sites where artistic folks make marvelous doodads and gewgaws (a place such as Etsy features) --please pay a visit to....(yes...click on the fantastic tableau below) to enter
I LOVE that place! If you're looking to buy something truly unique, I'd suggest picking out a 'one of a kind', right there.
(Here's hoping these three lovely places put you in a saner mood. They've done that for me. Hooray for those with the eyes and the talent to change the world for a while. Hip, hip, hoo-ray!)
(Return To Weekly Archives)
...
. or pay a visit to my Audio site to hear things
I've written- 
Some are just 'jotters', thoughts as they fly- going
nowhere but where they are. If you stop and read a few~ or post a
few~ thanks for
the perusal. Last of all, if you've a hankering for rants and raging,
try making a stop at my other blog- 
