Solitude

I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote.. but life gets busy and well...meh.


Since last I made an entry there have been some pretty big changes in life.  When I embarked on this country adventure I was well aware that my prince charming had two dogs.  I accepted them and cared for them and grew to love them. 

Pooh was Lynny's princess, she was a lovey chow mix,  he brought her home as a puppy and loved her unconditionally. She and I got along very well.  She grudgingly accepted me as long as I brushed her and gave her pizza crusts regularly.

Tigger was Lynny's rescue puppy. He rescued him from neighbors who were mistreating him.  Poor little Tigger ended up with some emotional issues as a result.  He was always afraid there wouldn't be enough food or cuddles... so we made sure to give him lots and lots of both.  He ended up being very loving.

My cat, Boo never really got close to the dogs, though he and Pooh had a kind of silent understanding.. he would allow Pooh to sniff at him..and he would endure the injustice.  Tigger liked to chase him.. until he couldn't move so well anymore.

Over the past months... we've lost all three.  Tigger's health had been declining slowly over the past year,  when it got to the point that he couldn't move anymore... It was time.  Lynny was up north and was devastated that he couldn't be there for him, but I made sure he felt loved and protected up until the end.

Pooh wandered around the house seemingly lost for a few months, but I think her heart was broken.  Tigger had been her constant companion for the past 10 years..  she was lonely and her health too became bad.  Lynny was home and he noticed how she had deteriorated since last he saw her...  He decided it was time.  He held her the whole time... broke my heart.

Just two weeks ago I gave Boo a bath(yeah..I know but sometimes even cats need one)  I had given him many over his 8 years.  I used the same products I always used... he was pissed off at me, just like he always was after a bath.  He was sunning himself in front of the living room window then he made a weird sound and tore off across the living room...leaving me and Lynny stunned.. he bonked his head on the coffee table, fell over into a seizure and died.  It was over in 2 minutes.  I was in shock...we tried to revive him. but it was no use. 

And now... its just me and Lynny.  The house is very quiet without all the little paws.  Lynny is on a jobsite and for the first time in 30 years... I have no children, ex husbands, pets or boyfriends to care for.  For the first time in a long time.... I have only myself to care for. 

I know there will probably come a day when we will maybe rescue another dog... maybe two. I cant do it yet.  I have 3 pieces of my heart missing now and it still hurts a lot.  I need this time to just take care of me...and learn how to be in solitude.

Every damn time.....

I don't remember the exact day it premiered, but some 10 years ago I watched the very first episode of Grey's Anatomy.  I saw the relationship between Derek and Meredith start.  I grew to know and care about the denizens of Seattle Grace Hospital(now known as Grey-Sloan Memorial).  I have watched every episode and have been caught up in the spell that Shonda Rhimes and company have woven with their words and pictures.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past week, you know that Derek Shepard, brilliant neurosurgeon, died last week.  It was a brilliantly written episode and it was absolutely heartwrenching to watch the last few minutes as that was when all the monitors stopped beeping and Dr. Shepard took his final breath.  I watched this week's 2 hour long episode and they rehashed a lot of Derek and Meredith's relationship as well as his untimely death. . 

Every time he takes his last breath.... I'm transported to another hospital room.  This happens anytime there is a death scene in a hospital.  It happens every time.  Everyone suffers loss.  Everyone loses people they love.  It's the natural order of things.  It's the way things work.  I still remember the smells and sounds of that other hospital room.  I still feel it in my chest when she takes her last breath and tears still slide down my cheeks.  I remember having a last conversation with mom.  Just the two of us.  I was the only one talking.  I told her it was time to go... her work was done.. we would all be ok.  There was no more she could do, we would all miss her, always, but it was time to let go. Time to rest.   She passed a few hours later.

I remember how tired I was later that night.  I remember not sleeping, so I talked to Lynny.  We weren't 'official' at that time...I can't remember what we were,  but he said he would leave the job he was working in upstate Illinois, and be with me.  It would have been a six hour drive  That impressed me.  I thought..."this is a good guy.  He's a little rough around the edges, but when it matters, he's the guy you want on your side".  I fell into a dreamless sleep after that.

I told him not to leave work, I didn't know what the arrangements were going to be.  I should have taken him up on it.  It would have been nice to have someone to lean on. 

I know there will come a day when I won't feel it.  I know that.  But when that happens, will that mean that I've become cold, cynical and apathetic to the pain of another? I'm not looking forward to that day.  It's much better to live fully and feel a little pain.

I'm back....and reading Fifty Shades...

I would like to begin by saying that reading, any reading, is a good thing and should be encouraged.  When the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series by E. L. James came out, I didn't pay it a lot of attention.  The books were fan fiction novels written with the Twilight series novels by Stephenie Meyer as a template.  I had read the Twilight series and I liked them, but wasn't really interested in reading them again... in another form.

I have always loved reading and books, from the moment I discovered that letters formed words and words formed sentences and sentences could be formed into whole paragraphs and stories.  Stories can take you to whole other lives and explore the world without ever leaving your house, and opening your mind to new ideas.  How can you NOT like that?  My sister never got the reading bug, because she had some difficulties with spelling and reading, so it was a real struggle for her.  I always hated that and felt she was missing out on one of the real joys of life.  This is where Ms. E. L. James and her books enter the picture.

My sister was so enraptured by these stories, she tore through them in no time at all.  She moved on to other books by other authors and finally caught the reading bug.  I think it's wonderful that finally she's found the magic of the written word like I have.  Her experience is not unique, as billions of women the world over have finally discovered the joy of reading, and apparently erotic literature.  

I have no problem with erotic literature, PUHLEEZE... if you could only see the bookshelves of the home I grew up in. My mother had books that would have made Ms. James blush, many of which found their way into my teenage hands when I ran out of stuff to read. Erotic literature, romances, bodice rippers, whatever you choose to call them have been around for a long time. I confess to a rabid teenage crush on Fabio, the cover model for a lot of mom's books. I'm over it now.  I think.

So, back to the Fifty Shades books. My sister told me how much she loved them and I naturally had to read them to see what had finally lit her literary fire.  Well, all I can say is... ugh.  The main character, Ana, irritated me from the first page .  She is incredibly naive and whiny for a modern day college student with a 4.00 grade point average, and her relationship with Christian Grey(misogynistic, control freak) is dysfunctional and abusive yet framed as romantic and sensually adventurous.  The books aren't all that well written and that irritates me too, but I think the main appeal is that the subject matter- Dominance and submission are so mysterious to a lot of the women now reading these books. I have heard that the movie is a little better...  I may have to watch it just because the actors cast in it are yummy to look at.  I won't be paying full price... I'll wait for the DVD, thanks.

Ladies, in the name of all that is literary...read some GOOD erotica, please??  D. H. Lawrence, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Bertrice Small, these people KNOW how to write.  They build great stories and interesting characters and the sensual scenes... um... grab some ice to cool down with, because you're gonna need it.  My friend, James Lee Nathan III has some great stuff on Leanpub.com. Look him up and you can thank me later.

Please read responsibly...  erotica is NOT reality, it's not meant to be.  As long as you keep that in mind, you'll be ok.

More Time.....

Four years ago(give or take a few days) my mother died.  I had planned a very profound post to mark the occasion, but the words that had always been there for me, failed me.  It seems I've already used them all up and now I can't quite capture the things as accurately as I once did.  The point I want to leave you with is this.  You don't have enough time.

When mom was in the final stages of her cancer battle, we all(me, sis, mom) sat around her kitchen table and we talked about life, and death and how hard the battle had become.  What we didn't know at that time was, she had already stopped fighting.  This was in February or March. 

Did you know that there is a lifetime maximum amount of chemotherapy that a person can have?  I didn't.  Mom had fulfilled her lifetime maximum for chemo sometime in the previous months. We knew none of this, of course.  She and her doctor were now into the pain management and maintenance part of her cancer, which was now terminal. She opted not to share the information with the rest of the family...but I knew.  I knew that time was running out.  In my head I figured she had until Christmas.  How I came up with that ...I'm not sure. It just seemed like the furthest date from where I was, so therefore it was more comfortable to me.

After that it seemed like we visited mom every month... either I or my sister would make the trip down for a weekend... sometimes we both would.   She was fading before our eyes and still telling us it was the treatments that were weakening her.  There were some scary incidents where she passed out and then there was the time that she lost her way going to bed one night.  She couldn't remember which bedroom was hers and she stood in the hallway and cried because all she wanted was to sleep.... but she couldn't remember which room was hers.  Her husband heard her crying...and asked her what was wrong.  He told her everything would be ok, and he got her into bed.  In the morning she didn't remember the incident.  Must have been her medication, we all thought.  She was in the hospital a couple weeks later.  I can't even remember why. My daughter and I came down to visit and she assured us she was fine, just her medication needed regulating.

In June the whole family came down to visit. There was a wedding and luckily my children came too.  It would be the last time they saw her.  She didn't go to the wedding.  She didn't get off the couch all weekend.   

We had planned another trip down  a few weeks later, the weekend of July 17th... but my aunt called my father and bonus mom and told him we needed to come sooner.  We left the next day. 

Nothing in this world can prepare you for the end stages of a life.  She had been responsive the previous day, but fell into a coma overnight.  When we got there she was unresponsive, laying on her side with a respirator.  She looked like a baby bird.  Her hair was like soft feathers on her head, her once deep green eyes were not fully closed, they were the slitted eyes of the deeply asleep...but the color was a cloudy grey.  I expected her to be sitting up in bed, chastising us for our unnecessary worry. Not this. 

The death you see on television and in the movies is not what its really like.  Its not a pretty process.  Its a natural process that everyone will go through.  There was a very nice ex-hospice nurse that took my sister and I aside and told us what the next days would bring.  Signs to look for, things that a human goes through.  She told us that sight is one of the first things that a person loses, hearing the last.  So we talked to her, said our goodbyes, had private conversations with her...  We stayed in her room with her.. trying to stay awake.  I passed out on the other bed in her room(the hospital refused to put another patient in with her because they knew that these were her final hours and they gave us that privacy).  at 1 o clock in the morning a nurse came in to take blood and it agitated mom... she whined and moved a little in her sleep.  It woke me, and my sister was livid.  Why did they need to cause her that unnecessary pain?  we couldn't stand it.  It was over quickly but we found the nursing supervisor and asked her if anything like that was necessary.  she apologized profusely and said that no further incidents like that would occur.  They would just check vitals and keep her medicated, pain free and comfortable. 

Family members came and went, said their goodbyes.  None of us had a real meal so the next day a bunch of us went out to the cracker barrel across the street for dinner.  We checked with the hospice nurse and she said we would be safe to leave for a bit.  A few more family members stayed behind.  We had a really nice dinner...strangely enough we told stories about her growing up and heard some stories and mom would have loved it.

My aunt had made arrangements for her pastor to come and visit with us when we got back to the hospital... As many family members as would fit in the room formed a circle around mom... and the pastor led us in a prayer.  We held hands and the room got very peaceful and warm and there was a big gush of air...and it was over.  All I could say was... "but I thought there would be more time..."  But there wasn't any more time.  

Her time was over and I thought about all the time that I had wasted..  All of the times I let someone else tell me what was important to do with my time and how I should spend it and all of the times I let someone else ruin the plans I had to visit with her and the things I missed out on with her because of that someone. 

I can't believe I let myself be manipulated and controlled like that. Never again did I let that happen to me.  I wish someone had told me what I will tell you now.

Don't do it.  Don't give up on something you want to do some day.  Don't wait.  Don't let relationships die because you don't have time.  Don't let someone come between yourself and your family.  Don't think there is more time to make things right or heal a hurt or tell someone how much they mean. There isn't any more time.  

It runs out long before you're finished counting the grains of sand in that hourglass and then...it's just over.

pimpin some joy

So, I realize I've not posted in a long while. Since June of 2013 to be exact.  Well, it's a new year and a lot has been going on in my life and world and that's my story and I'll be sticking to it.  Never fear, I'll update you I promise, but right now I want to bring attention to something other than myself.  

Since some recent life changes, I now have a longer commute to work. During my commute I listen to a couple of different st. louis radio stations.  My musical tastes are eclectic so I tend to bounce back and forth between classic rock, to alternative, to pop and usually settle on country in the morning because it seems to have less commercials and more actual music.  The station I listen to 93.7 THE BULL airs a show called the BOBBY BONES show.  The crew of the show have all been going through some health issues lately and one of the cast members has a mother that is undergoing cancer treatment.  This woman has faced this horrible disease head on and has decided that no matter what comes... she chooses JOY.  Period. 

This philosophy has inspired the crew to create a hashtag on twitter, #pimpinjoy.  Post your good deeds or ideas for good deeds using that hashtag.  They even had #pimpinjoy week where a lot of country stars came into the studio and played new music and shared some good deeds and that sort of thing.  It's all about inspiring joy in others and just choosing to look towards the light.  No matter what.  All in all, not a bad message. Pay It Forward, with attitude and a twitter handle.

They've been sharing stories about people paying for the person behind them in line at fast food places and at Starbucks.  People adding money to parking meters and giving extra large tips to their servers at restaurants, rescuing animals, helping the elderly, all sorts of good things.  The whole thing gives me hope that maybe, just maybe this world can be saved after all.  

In that spirit I'll share with you what I did today.  I was out running some errands and exploring my new environment.  I found a little diner and decided to have lunch.  The place was not all that busy and it was just me and one other table.  The other table was a woman of about my age, maybe a little older and an elderly woman that I found out was her mother.  It was quiet in there, just a television for background noise and it was relatively easy to pick up pieces of their conversation.

The mother was an Alzheimers patient who was living in a nursing home. She and the daughter were spending the day together and the way the daughter dealt with her mother was really something.  No matter how many times her mother repeated questions or asked for clarification of answers the daughter was incredibly patient and sweet.  while I sat there I thought of what I could possibly do and I remembered that it was still officially #pimpinjoy week... so I took action.  I asked my server to bring me their ticket and I bought their lunch along with my own.  I'm not a rich person.... this isn't something I do all the time.  I just figured it was something I could do today to make someone else feel like the world is a little better place.  

It made my smile a little brighter for the rest of the day too.  SCORE.  

It's not just food...it's way more important...

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm trying to eat healthier and have added more physical activity to my life.  When you're trying to be a healthier person, your relationship to food gets complicated.  Most trainers will tell you to think of food as fuel for your body.  It's not a reward, it's fuel.  Nothing more.

Sounds like a great idea, right? I just can't do that.  I'm Italian, and as such food is way more than that.  Italians tie their whole family experience to food.  You don't feel well? Have some pasta, you'll feel better.  Something to celebrate? Have everyone over for a meal. Someone died? I'll send a lasagne.  Cooking for someone is taking care of someone.  It's nurturing.  It's also bonding.  A lot of the best conversations of my life have happened while cooking and cleaning up...not to mention the actual meals themselves.

My dad's family(the Italian side of my heritage) lives in Pennsylvania and even though we didn't get to visit often, when we did come into town it was an event.  The whole family would gather at Aunt Mame's house and there would be Holiday soup(italian wedding soup) and pasta and veal parmigiana and bread and people I didn't know pinching my cheeks and telling me to" eat...Eat... you're so skinny!.. Anthony...what are you feeding this child? What do you mean you don't want gravy on your pasta? That's just not right...."

So now, I continue the tradition.  I make up events to cook for my kids and their friends.  When TrueBlood is on HBO we have Truebloodfests.  I make dinner... we all watch the show, make snarky comments, discuss life.  When Walking Dead is on ...it's Walkingdeadathon.  Same process...different show.

Food is so much more than fuel.  Its the whole experience of nourishing your body and nurturing your family.  Cooking is texture and taste and smell and experimenting with all those things.

Love and cooking should both be approached with reckless abandon.

Caprese pasta salad

ok....so THAT didn't happen, but THIS did.....

I realize that I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping this up to date. Well, a lot has happened since last we met.  The house thing.....eh..didn't happen.  Alas, it was just not meant to be.  Between the two of us...I think me and 'The Accomplice'(at this point...he's more than a BoyFriend and more like a partner in crime)dodged a bullet on it.  It was a beautiful place, it had glorious potential, but I think we were a little ambitious in our aspirations.  eh, it happens.  

So, we adjust our sails and sail on.  While he searches for another likely abode, I have developed a deep need to punch stuff.  I kickbox at least 4 times a week.  I had begun my journey into better health with Pride Fitness... and I enjoyed it and all the people there, but I needed more.  I found Bodyfit kickboxing and I go 4 nights a week now, and Saturday mornings too.  You may not see the changes above....but I do.  First of all, the picture on the right is the first time I've ever liked a full length picture of myself. Wanna know why?  Because it shows how strong I am, it's not a passive picture, I'm an active participant.  

Change is so much more than what's on the scale.  Change is attitude and finding the strength to work at it every day and knowing that eventually...you'll get where you are meant to be.  It's a slow process, and that's ok. I'm in this for the long haul, I'm not looking for a temporary fix.  I signed up for the Warrior Dash on September 28th, 2013....that's a couple days before my 49th birthday.  I 'm not going to be the fastest participant, and I'm ok with that.  I am going to be a participant... and that's the important part.  

Participate in your life. Don't just let it happen to you. MAKE it happen FOR you.