On a different note

Today's walk to work was wild and windy. I don't know how fast the wind was moving, but it blew my laptop case off my shoulder twice (don't worry, it didn't hit the ground, and I'm typing on it right now), and sometimes it didn't feel like I was making very much progress. It was quite a workout. I was out of breath when I finally reached the doors of the ad building. Also, there were little snow/ice (snice) pellets hitting me in the face. I'm ready for spring. Also, I've decided that for today, I won't draw any analogies of my walk to my life. It's just too depressing to put into words.

So in other news, I gave Pounce her first and second baths. She did not like them. But she looks funny when she's all wet. She's much scrawnier than she appears when she's fluffed out. Also, I took a bath last night, and when I stood up, I fell over. Hit my elbows on the rim of the tub. That's kind of disturbing. I'm like an old person who falls in the tub. I should get some of those railings to steady myself or something. Also, my elbows are bruised now.

I have a knot in my back that constantly feels like someone is stabbing me there. It almost feels electric. I haven't been to the massage therapist in a month and a half and I'm falling apart. It could also have something to do with sleeping on floors, air mattresses, airport chairs and several different planes. And one long and interesting night in LaGuardia airport in which I tried to sleep on a luggage cart. Mostly unsuccessfully. So I'm ready to get a massage and sleep in my own bed for more than a week at a time.

The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. - Robert Bloch

"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

(come on!)

This weekend we had a surprise birthday get-together for my brother. He turned 30. How did that happen? So it was a Nashville extravaganza. It was really good to be together for a happy reason. Although it was good to be together at Christmas, it was still sad, and then we were together for the funeral, but... yeah. So it's good to celebrate. Good to commemorate the good times as well as the bad. So we made lefsa, had good food, long talks and walks. And really, that's about it. And looking back, that was just about perfect.

Lately it seems like we only see each other for funerals. In the last year and a half I've lost four grandparents and a great-grandmother. All of this has prompted me to work on my family tree. There's some sense of urgency in me to know where I came from before it all disappears. I sure wish I had kept all the information from when I made family trees in high school. But what-ifs serve little or no purpose.

So I'm back to work. But only for three days, homeleave begins on Wednesday, and even though I haven't really been here in the last week and a half, I need a break. Some time to sit at home and rest and to be with Michael, who I haven't seen much lately. Some time to catch up on grading. And maybe on reading. I've only finished one book since the beginning of December. But I've also lost about 10 pounds since Thanksgiving. My medication has a lot of side effects-fatigue, lack of focus, loss of appetite... Some are bad and some are not as bad. Losing ten pounds is not so bad.

A few recent quotes of note:

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. - Mark Twain

If I owned Hell and Texas, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell. -U.S. General Philip Henry Sheridan

Loss

I've been talking to my mom everyday. Wondering what the lastest update on my grandma is. Waiting is hard for me. I'm a planner. So when she called on Thursday to say that it could be minutes or hours, I bought my plane ticket and flew to Florida on the same day. I felt better just to have a purpose and to be together with the people who knew and loved my amazing grandmother.

She held on longer than we expected. She was always stronger than she looked. A little lady who walked on glaciers and the Great Wall of China. Who rode the log flume just four years ago with Kirk. Who lived through the depression, two hard marriages, and who lived her unfulfilled dreams through her children and grandchildren. Who made us many blankets and dresses and nightgowns, and poured her creativity and love into every gift she gave. She died around noon on Friday. I didn't go to see her, I said my goodbye at Christmas. I didn't want to remember her in pain. The woman that she had shrunk to, who could no longer speak, walk or eat was not my grandma. She's been leaving us for years. She was still a wonderful woman, but she was disappearing.

When we left the viewing tonight and I looked at my grandma for the last time on this earth, it was hard to walk away. This is not how it should be. It's wrong to leave a woman alone who would have so loved to be with all of us. Who would want to laugh and joke and play with us.

Tomorrow is the memorial service. Tuesday I go back home and my mom and aunt go to Lincoln to bury my grandma with her parents, her younger brother, and her niece. It's good to know she's at peace. When I see her again she will be herself, not the shadow. And I'll miss her until then.

quarter

You know how when you have a dollar and then you spend a quarter-like for a gumball or something, the rest of your 75 cents just seems to get lost. Maybe you get a candy bar or lose a quarter through a hole in your pocket. Then your dollar's gone. I'm trying not to believe that turning 25 is like that.

Despite that sneaking suspicion, I had a really good birthday. Michael had a quiz in his Junior Bible class where all the questions were about me. If they got a question right they got to bring me a rose. So I got 25 roses from my students. Then Michael gave me five to grow on. The art teacher said that Michael must be the sweetest husband ever. I pretty much agree. Especially since he doesn't really care about birthdays-but he knows I do, so he always tries to make it special for me. So other than that I got a lot of books. Which, of course, I liked. We went out to eat with some friends then watched Charlie Wilson's War, which I thought was well done. By the time I got home I was too tired to have ice cream cake.

Did I mention that I'm on the highest dose of antidepressant that they give and it makes me reeeaaallly tired? Yeah. I'm working through that.

In other news, they finally delivered our luggage on Monday morning, around 3:30. So far, everything seems to be where it should be. That was a good birthday present-just to have all my stuff. I didn't want to lose all of my clothes twice in one year.

My new favorite thing is when Pounce comes up to me and pushes her little wet nose into my face and licks me. She's been very sweet since we came back. She missed me.

My grandma was released into hospice care, and the doctors said it could take up to 2-3 weeks for her to die, but it could be any time really. So that's a little stressful, we're all trying to figure out when we should be there and feeling guilty about not being there. But we can't just stop our lives indefinitely. So I'm trying not to live in fear. God is good.

Home again

We're back in PA. We had a really nice vacation in Florida with my family and then Justin and Shelli. I didn't want it to end. 80 degree weather sounds good to me. It made me think I could live in Florida. To get home we traveled by rental car, airplane, moving sidewalk, airport tram, train, subway, bus, our own car, and of course, by foot. It was quite a trek, and we don't have our luggage yet. We're crossing our fingers and hoping to see it today or tomorrow. Hopefully before I have to go back to work, or pack up and go back to Florida.

My grandma is dying. It's probably a matter of hours or days. She had kidney failure that cause a heart attack. So she's been in the hospital, but we'd like for her to be able to go back to the home she's been living in to die there. We had some nice time with her while we were there. She knew all of us and could respond to some of our questions, which was really more than we had hoped for. She has always been a generous, loving, self-denying woman who lived her dreams through her two daughters and three grandchildren. I will miss her, but I'm glad that she won't have to live in pain much longer. God is ministering to me through music, Michael and Pounce today as I wait for the phone call.

It has been a very blessed break.

This is me today.