This Earthly Life

I went to a party last night--a birthday party for the 87-year-old father of a dear friend. We gathered on a patio in the setting sun with frogs croaking in a creek down the hill. Next door in a grassy pasture, a deer grazed, its back to us, oblivious of the humans devouring cheese and conversation.

It was a small group--a dozen people, some of whom I've know since I moved to California in the 70s. Some I'm getting to know better and better each occasion I spend time with them. Others I'd met at a party or a dinner here or there over the years, and there was a couple I don't recall ever meeting before. It was one of those evenings where the light cast all of us in a glow and each morsel of cheese, each piece of fruit, each swallow of wine seemed more perfect than the last.

I frequently feel awkward in social gatherings. I sometimes drink too much or refuse to make eye contact or conversation with anyone who is not a trusted friend. I can't remember names and write off anyone I'm meeting for the first time while monopolizing the people I already know, following them around like a insecure rescue dog.

I don't know why exactly, but last night felt different. As if we were all there for a reason, intertwined whether we really knew each other or not, as if the ghosts of beloved departed ones were whispering in our ears, telling us how lucky we were to be at this earthly gathering in the company of one another's warm bodies, enjoying the creatures and fruits of this earthly life.

The Mystery of the Wine Thief, Some Wisdom from Ancient Rome, and the Rabbit in the Moon.

The Last Senate of Julius Caesar :: Raffaele Giannetti

The lovely M was in Margaritaville (her presence alone is enough to transform this place from Pillville to Margaritaville) this weekend. She arrived with plans to take me off to the theatre today, so from the moment I awoke, I began working toward our 11:30 departure time so that we could drive back to the L.A. area with plenty of time to make the matinee. One of my first tasks was to take last night's nearly full bottle of wine upstairs (I forgot to do this last night.) But the bottle of wine was gone. This discovery fell into place with the fact that I found my mom roaming around the kitchen and laundry room last night at 1:00 a.m. Aha, I thought, she's swiped the wine and hidden it somewhere in the laundry room. M looked for it. I looked for it. All the while, I wondered if I hadn't put it somewhere for safekeeping downstairs instead of juggling it up the steps with my glass of water, my phone, my book, my laptop. Maybe I tucked away somewhere. But where? All through this self-doubt though, my mom is my prime suspect. But off we go to the theatre.

The play we are going to see is Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar (probably the definitive play on power, politics, and war.) M, with her knowledge of the classics, plays podcasts about Julius Ceasar for us as I drive. We hear about Ceasar's return to Rome after his conquests in Gaul and over the Germanic tribes. So there Ceasar is, riding in his triumphal chariot with a slave standing behind him. It's the slave's job to remind Ceasar to look behind you because the future comes from behind. I insisted we hit the pause button right there. M told me about the Roman god Janus who has two faces, one looking forward, the other back, and we drove in silence for a bit before we went on to finish the podcasts.

M as Julius Ceasar at age 11
We happened to have dug out this photo album because of the visit from relatives last week.

 It was a fabulous production. Completely riveting, our brains swirling with past and present wars and political intrigues.

Then I drove back to attend my Sunday night dance class. I had a hard time focusing at first, but eventually my feet and my brain got together. The dance partner was entirely good humored. He's just happy to dance.

Afterwards when we walked out to the parking lot, the moon was a big yellow disk hanging low in the sky. He asked me if I knew about the rabbit in the moon. I did not. I'm 62 years old and I've never heard about the rabbit in the moon. I have, however, always felt that the future comes from behind. So, I tonight I saw the rabbit in the moon. And my dance partner gave me some beautiful homegrown lemons.

When I arrived back home, I was famished. And I wanted some wine. And there it was. On the dining room table just where we'd left it, untouched.

Good Morning, wine. Is that you?

I've been hoping to drink a bit less wine. I poured a third modest glass last night and then said hey, I don't really want that. So I carried it upstairs with me since it might have been downed by my mom if I'd left it in the kitchen. This morning as I got ready to brush my teeth, I thought, hmmm. Maybe before I brush, I should have that.

This is not a plea for help. (I didn't drink it until dinner this evening.) I'm just telling it how it is for me on the island of Pillville. I'm sure many caregivers find their escape in a bottle or think about it anyway. I have narcotics in the house too, and don't think that they don't occasionally whisper my name. They do. So far I have not indulged.

I'm reading an excellent dark and funny memoir about caregiving. It's called "Bettyville." It's odd to sit on the couch after my mom has gone to bed and read what writer George Hodgeman probably wrote after his mom was in bed.

Speaking of writing, I was inspired by my mom's conversations with the dead (mostly her twin sister) to begin writing a few daily lines to the man who loved me.

Tired of death, drink and drugs?

Let's talk about dancing. I'm dancing two nights a week now. Two hours each session. Swing, Foxtrot, Rhumba. Tomorrow I'm going to buy some real dance shoes. I'm dancing with the same guy. He still goes east out of the parking lot. I still go west.

Signs, Proof, and the Buddha Makes Lemonade

This is proof.

That this happened this weekend.

And this.

But I have no proof of what I saw this evening when I went for a walk around the block. Looking in my patio window, I saw my mother reaching behind my cookbooks where I stash my unfinished bottle of wine. Her martini glass had been drained just minutes before, and I mistakenly thought that her body had forgotten the sea of alcohol that it had been afloat in for so long. Of late she's been congenial about her two-ounce martini. She might have seen me. But maybe not. The bottle of wine was tightly sealed with one of those vacuum corks, and when I returned (just minutes later,) it was still sealed. "That sure was a short walk," she said. "It was," I said.

And this novel I'm reading, "The Debt to Pleasure," by John Lanchester---SPOILER ALERT---overwhelmed me with its darkness this afternoon. I have no proof, but there are signs that our narrator is a psychopath who has murdered his parents and caused the death of  perhaps two household employees. The book is a feast of language and wit and actual recipes. Not to mention a banquet of arcana that regularly sends me on a Google tangent. BUT. Either I've figured out on page 111 where this story is going or my prediction of where it all will end is a sign of my own darkness. 

And I'm not sure what's going on here in my iPhoto as it interfaces with Blogger, but for the second time in recent months, a photo that I have not selected--a photo from months ago--has appeared in this post. It's a photo from Dan's memorial. I'm going to call it a sign. 

Waffles. And what the yoga teacher said.

I've gone on a bit here about how I've been cleaning my room. The other day, shredding away, I was struck with a sudden craving for a waffle. Let's be clear. A waffle chez moi is a gluten-free toaster waffle--but I fancy it up a bit by gently heating some frozen blueberries in some real maple syrup and drenching the un-fancy waffle with that concoction. Add some real butter, and it's good. Honest. I mean who would drag out a waffle iron and mix up a batch of waffles for one person? (If someone out there reading this would do that, perhaps we should talk.) Anyhow, I was busy organizing, cleaning, shredding, i.e. subjugating my desire, when what did I find?
This:

Stuffed in a pile of stuff was the un-Christmas card Dan gave me one year. A clear message that I should have that waffle. Which I did, as evidenced by the top photo. I did not get drunk. If someone responds to the parenthetical message above, that waffles and wine thing could seriously happen.

Earlier that morning, I'd gone to yoga. This particular teacher likes to read to us from the Sutras (which, I think, is a regular Ashtanga yoga thing), and what she read was something about the tongue tasting the nectar of infinity. That probably explains the craving for a waffle smothered in real maple syrup, right? And also there was something about how the invisible loves the visible.

I love that.
The invisible loves the visible.

Oh, and can someone explain how it is that I spent a week going through all my drawers and filing cabinets, pulling things out, shredding them-- and now the last couple of days as I've gone through the stacks of papers on my floor and on my credenza, what I've done with those things  is stuff them into files and put them in my filing cabinet?

Probably the only solution is to get drunk and eat waffles.

Traveling the World(s)

Ideally, when one goes off for the weekend to stay in a swanky-ish spot, one would not be wearing pink flannel pajamas and be in bed alone. However, I survived. I even had fun. A lot of fun.

My godson's wedding was completely charming. The after-party for the older generation (plus the groom's brother as a representative of the younger generation) was delightful and involved a lot of wine, some really good goat cheese, and one of those irresistible confections from Trader Joe's involving chocolate and nuts and coconut. I have no solid recollection of what exactly we talked about, but I do remember laughing a lot. I was afraid I'd feel like shit this morning since I barely drink these days, but I woke early and hit the road. Driving does weary me though. More than drinking too much wine. I got off the road  for a while and went exploring in a beach town a couple hours north of where I live. It was full of tourists eating salt water taffy, and  fro-yo and the sidewalks looked as though they had suffered a lot of fro-yo and taffy spills. I like where I live better.

So it's lovely to be home. I took a long walk and met an acquaintance/friend for a glass of wine which turned into dinner with more friends of hers, and god, we older women are fascinating. There were five of us and the collection of life experiences was not for the faint of heart. But there we were.

I've been trying to prompt myself to dream of Dan this past week or so. A couple of nights before I left, I dreamed I was at a party and ran into an old college friend who'd heard that I had a wonderful boyfriend. Oh, he died, I told her. He's dead. Her eyes filled with tears and she seemed shocked that I'd been so blunt. I had another dream a couple of nights ago and it slipped away before I could solidify the memory of it. I remember only touching his face.

And so it goes, I move through these two worlds, communing with both the dead and the living.

Sunday Evening Beach Report

I've been away most of September, only returning to do laundry and re-pack for the next adventure. I haven't seen "my" beach in weeks. Usually, there isn't much sea weed here--not like on the L.A. beaches--but tonight it looked like the sand was littered with carcasses.

There have been high tides, too. Pools of water are still standing near the dunes. I've missed witnessing these daily changes. Things are always changing, and the beach is one place where that's readily evident.

So I'm home. My mom is still on the east coast. It's been great to have a break from caregiving, but I feel I could fall back into some of my old ways. Tonight's dinner was Brie and crackers, olives, chocolate, and wine consumed on the couch while watching a movie. If I have popcorn and beer tomorrow, I'll know I'm in trouble.

Unscheduled time without obligations is both liberating and a bit like being in freefall. But I feel I used my day well. Laundry, a serious cleaning up of my patio while listening to podcasts of This American Life, reading most of the last New Yorker, unpacking.

Tomorrow I will buy and cook some vegetables.

Report from Pillville: the pulmonologist, the vascular surgeon, the ultrasound, the foot doctor, and it takes a village...

See these birds? They hang out in a flock. Genius.

My mom's pulmonologist fired her today. That's right. When she arrived here two years ago she was still smoking, still taking breathing treatments that were required after a bout of pneumonia or something, still sleeping with a C-Pap, skinny as could be despite all the good food at my brother's house, and she was still somewhat frail from her lung cancer surgery that had occurred three years earlier. A year and half off cigarettes, she sleeps with oxygen, but that's it. She no longer needs a pulmonologist.

And that wasn't even the best part of the day. When we got home from the doctor, my friend Paula was making carrot ginger soup. That's right, I came in the door, and the kitchen had someone else in it making food, and my house smelled delicious. (And right now, this very minute, she's pouring us wine and bringing me chocolate.)

Tomorrow might go less well. My mom is having some leg pain, so the vascular surgeon is working her in. Later in the week, there will be an ultrasound of her neck because of her coughing fits which originate from a mysterious tickle in her throat, not her lungs. The ENT doc is stumped. Then next week, it's the foot doctor. Keep in mind, it's foot doctor number 3, and she doesn't particularly like him either. No matter how it goes, we won't come home to the smell of soup, and I will be pouring my own wine, so it can't possibly be as good as today.

I would like to belong to a flock. A village. A cooperative of old women taking care of their even older mothers. Or maybe I'd like to be a bird.

Local Author Moderates Discussion at Book Club

Artist: Belinda Jack

Yeah. I did.
Chocolate. Cheese. Divine wine served in exquisite antique goblets.
Oh, and did I mention the razor smart women?

When the subject of sealed birth certificates came up, not everyone knew how that worked. Go HERE. You might be surprised too.

What I Cooked

At the end of a week during which my mom seemed especially tired, and a week during which every conversation with the man who loves me contained the words cancer, or chemo, or radiation, this is what I cooked:

Artichokes. Pasta with pistachio/spinach/basil pesto. Heirloom tomatoes with basil and fresh mozzarella.

My friend Paula arrived with a lots of wine and chocolate.

And she brought her dog.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go eat some more chocolate.

If this past weekend in Margaritaville were an actual Margarita, it would be one of those fishbowl-sized ones.

It's Monday afternoon, and I'm still woozy with the wonder of it all.

White and whirling cloud of terns,

The man who loves me watching the white and whirling cloud of terns,

and later, gathered around the kitchen island, friends, wine, and ice cream with espresso poured over the top.

Over. The. Top. 

Les Portes de Bordeaux and Wild Night in Margaritaville

It's old news by now. But let me tell you how wild it was.

Last Thursday my mom had more work done on her root canal. Which meant that on Friday she tried out a new pain pill since the Vicodin did not work out the last time. Tramadol. Who names these things, and how can I get a job like that?-- because I love to name things. Tramadol is not a fabulous name for a pain pill, in my opinion. Trauma Dolls, however, might be a great name for a band. If you want great names for meds, read George Saunders's short story, "Escape from Spiderhead." It is a mind-blowingly great story. The names he invented for the medications induced in me serious naming envy. After reading that story, I damn near had to take some Nocovette, I was so sick with jealousy.

But back to the wild night. On Friday evening, we had dinner on a boat. Except that we were in our dining room. So not really on a boat.

Stay with me.

As my mom gingerly chewed her way through her dinner of soft foods, her head nodding, her eyes closing from time to time, M and I took turns waking her. I'm not sleeping, she'd say. Which is what she always says on these narcoleptic journeys. This, however, was a narcoleptic journey on Tramadol, and there was some serious tilting. More serious than usual. Starboard. Port. Starboard. Port. M and I shuffled our chairs closer and closer, at the ready to keep her from going overboard.

Which reminds me of a hysterical story one of my kids told me ages ago about a class of middle-schoolers who freaked out their teacher by quietly inching their desks forward every time the teacher turned to write on the blackboard.

So every time my mom opened her eyes, M and I were closer. Finally, we were all in a row. "All right," she said to M., "you do the dishes. I'm going to bed." And she did. And the next day, she was much better.

And somewhere during one our wild Margaritaville nights this past weekend, we tried cheap wine #2, Les Portes de Bordeaux 2009. Nice. Very nice. Did you know that portes in French means door. I love beautiful doors. The doors pictured in this post are on the Greek island of Naxos, not Bordeaux. But for some reason, I've been thinking of these doors.

And just to sail onwards on this random sea, if there were, as daughter C. would like, an entire channel devoted to footage from Russian dash cams, here is my list of show names:

Anna Kamerina

Brothers Kameras On or Off

Idiots

Crime and Punishment: Live!

Cheap Wine # 1

"So......"I said to M. "On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most fabulous bottle of wine you've ever had for 4.99, what do you think of this?" We were drinking Chiusa Grande Tommolo Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. It sounds fucking fabulous, doesn't it? Like you could whisper "Tommolo montepulciano" in a lover's ear, and things would just get more and more grande as the night went along. But, sadly, no. That is not what we thought of cheap wine #1.

There's always tomorrow. Right?

And since, in the Province of Pillville, things are a bit rocky at the moment after a visit to the endodontist, I have no business being lost in oenophilean bliss. I will sleep with one ear and one eye open, hoping my mom gets some relief from the pain pills she needs to weather the aftermath of her root canal.

There's always tomorrow. Right?
photo credit: lerevdr.wordpress.com

Austerity Budget: Margaritaville Style

I went for the vodka first. Both bottles had been in the freezer for a year. One purchased by me for a New Year's Eve punch, the other left by some house guest or another. Vodka and orange juice garnished with a twist of lemon and a slice of blood orange. Pretty.

The bourbon was next. There were two bottles of that, too. How do these things appear in my pantry? I haven't a clue. I used some of it to marinate prunes--like the French do with Armagnac. The rest I designated for manhattans. That went on for a night or two, but it seemed wasteful to dilute such good bourbon with bitters and sugar. The prunes were quite tasty when I previewed them, so I decided to save the bourbon.

My attention then went to a half used bottle of tequila--not really enough to save for a pitcher of margaritas. Sitting next to it in the far back corner was a nearly full bottle of cassis. I'm sure I was thinking of kir royales when I bought the cassis, but champagne is not something I'm likely to have on hand. I tried orange juice as the mixer, but it looked like mud with the cassis. On to cranberry juice which looked much better. Good-bye tequila. Um...hello, cassis...your're still here? My you're tall. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of that bottle. Has anyone marinated anything in cassis? Suggestions for cheap champagne that doesn't end in a headache?

Yesterday I bought four bottles of very inexpensive red wine. The tasting will begin Friday evening. I'm determined to find a cheap wine that I adore.

Austerity in Margaritaville is more like a party than austerity.

You're invited. But don't bring any bourbon or cassis.

How I Came to Have a Glass of Wine at 9:45 a.m.

Yesterday I washed all of my downstairs windows. I bored myself with speculating about how much it would cost to hire it done, and finally went to Home Depot and bought a combo sponge/squeegee thing on a pole along with a bucket a bottle of "professional" window washing stuff and just did it. Then when the closet remodeling guys finished I sped back to Home Depot and bought a quart of flat white paint and painted all the parts of the closets that needed re-painting. My closet is so fabulous I should throw a party in it. Girlfriends only. We should hire someone who does nails and sit inside at a little table with a white linen tablecloth and have tea and sherry while we get our toes painted.

But I digress.

After the painting I realized there was absolutely no reason for me not to move into the master bedroom now that the floor and the closet are both finished, so I hauled the airbed+dogbed (yes, I've been sleeping on the orthopedic foam that used to belong to my now deceased dogs) up the steps. I might as well move the rest of my stuff up there, too, I said, at sometime around 9:00 p.m., so I did--and mind you, it's not a ton of stuff. A bunch of sweaters, two pairs of pants, two skirts, my favorite cowboy boots, and a bunch of t-shirts and some workout pants that I have not yet worn here in my new location because who needs to work out when you're moving things up and down a flight of stairs? And finally, I vacuumed once again re-cleaning the leavings of a troop of workmen. Oh, they try with their fancy shop-vacs that look like tool-boxes, they do, but, alas.

Am I digressing again?

So after I breathed enough paint fumes for one day, I went to bed.

I woke early to the light that seemed silver as it came in my curtain-less windows and, I woke to the sound of water lapping, because unlike at my old place when one frequently wakes to a police helicopter flying in or out after a shift change, here it's the harbor patrol making their rounds, and after they putter by, the water laps against the boat docks. Invigorated by the idea of waking to lapping water, I hopped up and moved all the now very dusty boxes of books in my garage into the laundry room/entryway and stacked them on the counter while mourning their dustiness. Then I organized the crap (which is not really crap at all) that the former owner left. I have great squares of travertine or tile that looks like travertine; (how do you tell the difference?) I have extra stone tiles, and smaller squares of travertine, and now they are all in one  place, neat and tidy. After that I tore up dozens of cardboard boxes that the wood for my floor came in and fit them into the recycling bin. (I could have had the hauler haul them away with other debris last week, but gosh, no, maybe they would be useful, I thought. Arrgh) Then I thought about all the other things I wanted to do here today.

And I realized the bowl of blueberries I'd had for breakfast left me starving. So I poured out a mound of crackers, spread them thick with my favorite cheese, D'Affinois.....and, well, what does cheese need? Wine. And I thought of years ago, when I was in France for a semester, and how the proprietor/chef of the little hotel where I stayed took took turns taking each of us American students to the open air market  to shop for what he would cook that day, and how afterwards we'd stop in a bar for a breakfast of eggs and steak and red wine. That was how Monsieur Camarani started his day.
One glass, mind you.
It was perfect.
Then--and now.
I ate a yam with butter afterwards, and before I drive back to my old place, I'm going to work some more, and then make a fabulous salad with avocado and strawberries.

Gawd, I've become one of those people who use the Internet to tell the world what they're eating.

Which has some merit if your grow or hunt what you're eating. Or if you're a wonderful cook.

I Could Drink a Case of You

Saturday night after the super moon refused to show its face, there was more darkness. I pulled the mail out of my mailbox to find a "letter" from my attorney which wasn't a letter at all. What is was was a photocopy of the judge's ruling on my motion to recover attorney fees. Denied, it said.

 I'd been waiting since our day in court on March 2nd for the news. I'd emailed my attorneys asking for an update a week after the court appearance. The judge was out of town, they said. So I waited some more thinking I would email the attorneys again after the weekend. Maybe the beginning of Spring would bring good news.

Or not. But it wasn't the bad news about the money that was the worst thing. Instead of days of waiting, I could have used a prompt email last Tuesday when the ruling came down. Or a phone call. I could have used a tiny slice of personal communication--something like, "Dear Denise, We're sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but don't be discouraged, and here's what we'll do next..." I could have used a scrawled post-it note stuck to the corner of the blurry photocopy with some kind missive like "hang in there"--or even a crude little drawing of a frowny face. Nope.

I admit to dark thoughts. I have them. I'd been having them less. But Saturday night the dark thoughts had a party. They wore black and carried knives. They looped ropes over beams. They made tea and reminded me that the deranged husband in Tim O'Brien's excellent novel  In the Lake of the Woods killed his wife with boiling water while she slept. I didn't sleep Saturday night. I sat in my bed frozen with dread. I emailed Mr. Ex. I texted him. Then the sun sort of rose--or did what the moon did the night before--lurked somewhere behind the clouds while doing its job in a less than satisfactory way. And that's what I did Sunday. I skipped a good friend's fabulous First Day of Spring party and drank mimosas in my pajamas with M. while we watched basketball. Then I crawled to bed and slept the day away.

When I woke I felt stupid and lazy and realized I had a house full of people whom I love. I cobbled together dinner, took a shower while the chicken was in the oven, then lit the candles and sat at the dining room table like a human being. And somewhere in there I'd talked on the phone with the man who loves me. He was wrestling with his own First Day of Spring demons. "You'll know what to do," he said. "You always do." Or somethin' like that.  Maybe not, I thought. And maybe this thing between us could be going a little better.

I was putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher when the brass door knocker that nobody ever  uses announced that someone was at the door. Yup. "Someone's at the door," the daughters said without moving as if they knew it was for me. There he was, the man who loves me standing in the rain with a little cluster of daffodils in one hand and a case of wine hoisted onto one shoulder. You read that right. Not a bottle. A case.

I'm still on my feet.