family

That’s Twenty-Eleven Not Two-Thousand Eleven


Postcard picture for New Year's; eBay store We...

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I bring this up only because I was recently reminded that the last decade was fraught with “two-thousand this and that year” as people balked about the “aught” they ought to have employed.

For the fourth year running, we did nothing at all to mark the change-over. I haven’t gone out on New Year’s Eve since 2006 when I ended up at a local restaurant with a couple of girlfriends, one of whom – my BFF – tried to pick up strangers for me.

I had a little black dress for the occasion that I ended up not wearing because the evening was bitterly cold and icy. I think I was in bed by midnight and if I remember correctly, I chatted via email a bit with Rob. He’d gotten a midnight phone call from some widow on the board, who was stalking him with increasing intensity.

Aside from that low-key ringing in of 2007, the Aught’s weren’t noted for festivity on New Year’s Eve for me. I think 2000 was the last party I attended and I am pretty certain I haven’t had a raucous birthday celebration since that year as well.

Oh, I am dull.

Being stricken with colds from the depths of Tartarus, Rob and I cuddled up and watched the last few episodes of season four Tudors and then listened as the neighbors ran up and down the back alley blowing paper horns and shouting.

Fortunately, there were no gunshots trumpeting the new year as well. Back in the day, when I lived in Valley Junction, shotgun blasts cracked the midnight hour along with illegally obtained fireworks from just over the Iowa-Missouri border.

Sleep eluded me a bit due to congestion and an overall inability to find a non-awful position to sleep in. About five or so, I stumbled to the bathroom for pharmaceuticals to relieve blocked airways and some ibuprofen for the aches and pains and then slept til nearly noon.

It’s 4:38 as I type this and very little has been accomplished by me though Rob is grimly stripping sixty year old goo off the stud walls and wiring the front room for future awesomeness.

For Dee I created a knife and a lightening bolt out of paper towel rolls. She got the latest Rick Riordan novel from her great-auntie and we’ve been burning through it every evening before bed. The child desperately wants to be a child of a god and fight monsters. She’s torn between Zeus and Hades – don’t ask me why.  She’d rather be a child of Athena, I think, but she can’t bear to give me up as her mother.

I did manage a bit of online shopping for proper wedding wear. Though I prefer to try things on, between the driving and dealing with humans, online is easier and quicker.

We are flying to the Okanogan in a few weeks for Rob’s mother’s nuptials.

The Fiance is a nice man. Retired Air Force. Former drag-racer. Current collector of coins. Both Rob and Silver got on well with him as they found that easy language of men who reno and tinker. I noted that he and MIL don’t have many shared topics. Whenever one was talking the other’s eyes glazed, but what brings people together and holds them goes beyond laundry lists and hobbies – in my opinion. They held hands, shared knowing looks and somehow weathered a few revelations that I imagine would have torpedoed a good many couples when combined with family meet/greet and holiday stress.

Last year, aside from Spring Break in Iowa and a couple of camping weekenders, there was precious little vacationing. This year there is the upcoming wedding jaunt followed closely by Spring Breaking w/fam in the States and not long after – a week at the time-share in Fairmont. And all before summer, with its camping, arrives. Bounty indeed.

But I went casual for the wedding with Dee and I in a tunic and shirt dress respectively paired with leggings. MIL’s first wedding to Rob’s father was a Protestant church affair, so she is going all out Catholic with the trimmings this time.

“Have you ever been a to Catholic wedding mass?” I asked Rob to which he replied with a “have we met?” look.

“They can be … lengthy.”

He grimaced but with a “I’ll man up” undertone and I have to admit, I am less than enthused myself. I haven’t been to mass since dad’s funeral and before that I hadn’t bothered with church for several years.

For Dee the exotic nature of Catholic mass has worn off. When she was wee, she loved going with her Grandmother and cousin, but that was when wiggling, non-attentiveness was cute. At nearly nine, she can’t roam the pew, climbing and scooting without irritating or reflecting poorly on our parenting skills. Would her DS be beyond bounds of acceptable distraction or would a book be better?

I sometimes tried to sneak a novel along when I was in my young teens. Mom wasn’t that observant but Dad was a hawk. Most of the time, I read ahead in the missals. As a result, I am extraordinarily well versed in the bible for a Catholic.

As a treat, we’ve booked a suite at a resort hotel on the lake. Dee is elated. I am a bit paranoid about bedbugs and lice, but there’s a saltwater pool at least. We swam a bit at the Hampton, where MIL and Fiance stayed this last week. The water was so heavily chlorinated it gave me a semi-rash on my legs and scorched my sinuses. I haven’t tried saltwater and am hoping for the best.

Rob’s sister and her fella might be at the wedding too, so it has the makings of a family “do”.

The older kids would have a hard time getting time off and throw church into the mix – not much incentive to try.

Off to gag down  a cup of herbal tea and find a sweater, ironically, the warming trend here makes the house colder.

It’s twenty-eleven. Remember that now. No good to look stupid in the opening days of the new year after all.

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Two of Three


Graves at Old Holy Cross Cemetery

Image by Fritz Liess via Flickr

Last Thursday, the ghost tickled the crown of Rob’s head while he stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes. Not an “attaboy”. Rob performs housework without the need for warm affirmations or pats on the head. It was a “heads up”.

So, when the call came later that evening to let us know that his uncle had passed away, the ghostliness of the day made sense.

But it was hardly the only sign this month, lights have been on that shouldn’t have been and there was that incidence with the shadow in Dee’s room. For myself personally, it’s been this persistent feeling that someone was going to die soon. It’s caused me no end of anxiety. First with Dee’s class taking a field trip into the city during the icy weather earlier in the month and then Edie and Silver driving through the mountains to and from Vancouver on their vacation.

It’s not as if we didn’t know about Uncle Francis. He had lung cancer and recently went into hospice, but death comes in threes. It just does. What’s true for the rich and (in)famous holds true for we lesser mortals.

This morning I awoke from a bad dream about a dinosaur trying to bite me (long back story that I’ll go into another day) to see Rob sitting up next to me. At least, I thought it was Rob. The room was Devil’s Den cave midnight. I couldn’t see my own hand when I reached up and then had to bring my hand down to find Rob, who was lying down and asleep next to me.

It was frightening. I sat up and noted that there were dark shadows ringing the bed and then I lay down and went back to sleep.

Tonight, we returned home after depositing Rob’s mom and future step-father at a hotel near the airport. They are heading home on an early flight. A message was waiting on the machine from my mother. My Aunt Peach died last night sometime.

You might remember Peach. I’ve written about her before. She would have been 103 this coming March. She was my grandmother’s youngest sister and the last of the Fagan siblings alive.

Gran lived to 94. She might have gone longer but for the dementia. Uncle Fran and Auntie Anna were 102 and 104 respectively when they passed on. The ones that cancer didn’t get young lived to 75 at the youngest and if they didn’t have bad hearts 90 and beyond. Remarkably long-lived, my dad’s relatives. If Dad hadn’t queered the deal with his drinking and smoking, he’d have cleared 100 easy, I’m sure. He still has two siblings – though I fear for not much longer – who are in their mid-80’s.

Will one of them be the third?

I really hope not though I know many folks who would roll their eyes and say that living to extremely ripe to bursting old age is long enough for anyone, so what’s the big deal?

It is a big deal to die, regardless of when. Death is one of the milestones. It represents fruition – which is a big fucking deal – and opportunity, which is nothing to sneeze at either.

Aunt Peach always made me a bit uncomfortable as a child and teen. She was forceful and larger than life though I towered over her even as a 10-year-old.

The last time I saw her was on our visit to Iowa last spring. She was playing bridge. It took us a good twenty minutes to track her down. No one knew where she was though everyone in the nursing home knew who she was.

She gave Dee a doll and probably more of her interest than she’d given me since I was that age myself. She barely acknowledged Rob or my mother, who was with us.

There’s quite the family reunion going on, if I know my dad’s relations – and I do.

I wonder if they are waiting on anyone?

Christmastime


Christmas Eve in Bulgaria

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After the last family member packed up goodies and said goodnight, Rob and I snuggled up in a delicious hug and he complimented my fine turn at hostess, a role that hangs on me like a Snuggie made of sandpaper.

“We haven’t done too badly, ” I agreed, “for two people who are as anti-social as we are.”

He just laughed.

Inadvertently, we find ourselves in the midst of a blizzard of relations that is slowing but not completely stopped.

My mother-in-law and her fiance arrived on Wednesday and will not leave until tomorrow night. Shelley’s ex-brother-in-law’s sister hosted us for Christmas Eve after the nephew she shares in common with Shelley invited us.

It is an odd thing for some to wrap their mind around – family that is not family – but one I grew up. Many of my “cousins” were actually the children of my parents’ friends.

Dee wanted to know how everyone at the Christmas Eve gathering was related to her. Because her older sisters are related, she believes she must be as well. My attempt at explaining the metaphysics relationship just caused her brow to crinkle so I said,

“They are cousins.”

Cousins is a handy term with elastic possibilities.

Shelley’s older sister, who drinks a bit and has the convenient memory thing to boot, couldn’t attend, so the evening was stress-free and enjoyable.

Christmas Day couldn’t have gone any better. Really. There is nothing to top “perfect”.

The older kids arrived promptly for breakfast despite having outlasted us the night before and not getting to bed themselves until 3.

The Fiance fit in well. And food, presents, Wii, lunch, movie, more Wii and dinner later found us still companionable and pleasant.

Rob’s younger sister twisted the tension knob and amp’d it last evening with her arrival and we are having lunch with them today, so the fun will continue.

Oh, it wasn’t a trailer park death match in a cage. More like kitty claws.

Her older sister was much the same. They both revel almost in telling tales on their mother, who apparently could have used a book or two on the topic of parenting.

It’s not that I don’t understand having a mother who didn’t have natural instinct for it, but I don’t personally think that it does anyone any good to beat a horse that died long ago or keep its stinking juicy carcass in your main living space.

I tried to coerce Edie and Mick into coming for dinner last night in the hopes that they could steer conversation. Lord knows that the boyfriend my SIL brought along was doing his level best to deflect and distract, but Rob’s siblings are like dogs with new chewies when they see an opening. Give up a chance to rehash a miserable childhood? Not happening.

My own family managed a bit of shared time on the dysfunction front.

N2 and his father are moving back to the hometown and N2 is in full emo regalia. The likely outcome of this move is his finally dropping out of high school because the world needs another can’t-tell-him-anything skill deficient half-assed educated teen pounding the pavement for employment.

“Just don’t let him suck you into funding the beginning of his wasted life,” I cautioned my Mom – not that any advice I might have given or ever gave her she’s listened to and acted on.

“Oh, I won’t,” she assured me.

Of course that remains to be seen. The likeliest scenario – because N2 is an emotional carbon copy of his mother – is quit school, be a burden, knock up his white trash girlfriend and be more of a burden.  But some people need to be forty-four and burdened with children of their own before they catch the clues of the universe instead of head-butting them. I refuse to be drawn in and will send a baby gift when the time arrives and coo at appropriate times.

Family is like too much curry though. Spicy eventually numbs and dampens the appetite.

Despite the scary success of the holiday, I am ready for it to be over.

In the word’s of Bilbo Baggins, “Don’t adventures ever end?”

Last night in the quiet of what will be our awesome new living, I told Rob,

“Next year – no big family things at our house.”

I want the neutral corner.