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A Big Dump


When in purge mode we make dump runs. Sunday we hauled the remains of cement forms and more cast-offs from early reno dreams to the Cloverbar sanitary landfill which lies between The Fort and Edmonton off Yellowhead. We had Dee and her bff in the back seat happily gorging on Dairy Queen and the good fortune to be sent to the transfer station instead of up Mount Garbage.

The transfer station is where “clean garbage” and recyclable stuff is tossed. Mount Garbage is an ever expanding tower of dirt over crap that  no one wants but is too lazy to donate before it becomes worthless.

While Rob was tossing old wood and windows beyond reclamation into our assigned dumpster, a youngish appearing couple backed in next to us and proceeded to offload a truck bed plus a back seat’s worth of children’s stuff. Toys and clothes by the bag full and in decent condition, a serious collection of Disney movies on vhs and dvd and a hodge-podge of what might have been the accessories of a little girl’s bedroom.

Dee and her friend watched with horror as the women carelessly flung a jewelry box with nary a blemish that was quickly smashed to bits by a back hoe as it attempted to make more room in the dumpsters by squashing the contents.

One of the accessories the couple tossed was a beautiful wood framed full length mirror. The back hoe made short work of it.

The couple had unloaded without much conversation and were quickly back in their truck and gone as the sanitation worker directing traffic, Rob and our two little females in the back seat watched with interest that kept falling off the edge of disbelief.

Why would people throw away nice stuff? Why not donate it?

My mind fell to some horribly tragic scenario of  loss and indescribable pain. But that’s just me.

The old guy driving the back hoe parked and climbed up to get a peek at what we were all gawking at and shook his head.

“I never throw anything away,” he said. “My wife’s always at me about it, but I have a basement full of stuff I won’t get rid of.”

It’s the Oprah Intervention People who will survive the coming Apocalypse while the rest of us are staring blankly at our dark screens: computers, televisions and iPhones, they will be rummaging through their stash of ancient, but useful stuff, that doesn’t need a grid or even batteries.

The couple drove off. Him rather stony-faced and her all business. I still wonder about the little girl who is missing her stuff.

Talking with My Mother


I got into the habit of calling my dad in the late afternoon during his last months. It was a good time of day to catch him awake and it helped me feel as though I was doing something because his insistence that I not come effectively blocked me from action. One thing I learned during Will’s illness and after his death was that movement was a good thing. It helped. It’s kind of like taking a walk after eating, helps speed the crap through.

Sometimes I still call in the afternoon though Mom doesn’t appreciate frequent base touching. She is a grouchy old woman that way. Nearing 80 and indignant about the changing of the guards as DNOS and I are now treating her more like our children than our mother in some ways.

Calling was a risk. I had spoken with DNOS over the weekend. She reads my blog and called me wanting to express thanks for my sticking up for her while still trying to remain as neutral as possible. In the course of our conversation, I got her side of the story and wasn’t surprised to learn that Mom had overstated a bit of certain points.

DNOS walks a tightrope that I am familiar with but I am too far away physically to be much more than an ear for her.

“Don’t talk to Mom about this anymore,” she asked me.

Which is where the risk comes in. Mom knows that I talk with DNOS and when things are tense between them, she will casually question me about what I might know. Since I am way done with secret keeping, I tell her.

She didn’t like it. 

It’s my opinion – which I expressed to both of them – that they need to talk. Air out feelings. Discuss expectations. And on Mom’s part, finally bury the roles she assigned us as teens and young adults and start seeing us for who we are now.

Mom is one of those people who can’t forget. In the heat of anything, she will dredge up incidents from long past that she has relied upon to define people and set the rules for the relationships she has. She did this with Dad all the time, and while she had good cause to be angry about the wasted years his drinking cost their marriage, it was pointless and time wasting in its own way once he was sober and in declining health. 

I told DNOS that I thought Mom was dealing with a lot of regret and that Dad’s approaching birthday and then the anniversary of his death this coming October were going to make interacting with her less than optimal for a while to come.

I reminded Mom of a time when I was about 10 months out when I simply went off on her over the phone and then refused to pick up her calls for several days. It was DNOS who finally convinced me to relent. It was a stupid thing. I had called to just vent about Dee. I was tired of being her sole caregiver. Not like that was anything new. I had always been a single mom because of the circumstances, but I was under pressure at work because the statute of limitations was up on sympathy for me there, I was struggling with my inability to eat without pain and first anniversaries loomed. Mom tried to compare her struggles as a young mother with my situation. I wasn’t having it. I was totally out of line. It really doesn’t matter how much you hurt, lashing out is wrong. There will always be people who don’t understand or whose experiences don’t mirror your own or your philosophies on dealing. Grown-ups deal. They do not throw tantrums or pick fights.

Mom didn’t remember that incident, but I went on to explain that she might be feeling as she does because she is grieving hard right now and that her perceptions of the gift card incident and the sale of Dad’s car might be colored by this.

Of course she fell back on trying to make me feel guilty.

“I guess I am just a bad person.”

I reassured her as best as I could and pressed the issue of the need to talk with DNOS and let it go.

“Shaping up to be a great visit for us in October,” Rob commented when I told him. 

The October visit has the earmarks of stress all over it, but I promised to attend a wedding in Des Moines and I have a best friend there who needs a shoulder, so we are going. I feel bad for Rob though. 

I expect this will hit another dramatic high or two before it plays itself out.

The Wedding Crasher


Dee officially crashed her first wedding this last Sunday evening. Her father and I are so proud.

Our dear neighbor Char generously opened her home as locale for the wedding of a niece of a woman with whom she works. The bride is Canadian but the groom is from Mexico and there may have been residency issues in play prompting the haste behind the ceremony. We found out about it the weekend before this last when Dee came home from a visit with Char overflowing with wedding preparation news. There is nothing more interesting to my Cinderella story in any guise loving daughter than a real live wedding.

The ceremony took place in the early evening on the front lawn. It brought back memories for Rob who was also married on a lawn.

“Both of your weddings have technically been on lawn,” I pointed out.

“Best kind.”

It’s also best to be “foreign” too he concluded later that evening as he overheard the a conversation among the groom’s friends about the importance of not being “from around here” when picking up women.

“I was exotic both times too,” Rob said, “so there might be something to that.”

Dee attended the ceremony and the dinner as she somehow fanagled herself an unofficial invite from the bride’s father during the dry run a few hours before the wedding. Curly hair, wide blue-gray eyes and a smattering on freckles on one’s small Who-like nose will take a little girl far.

She had it in her head to attend the dance. Cinderella at the ball is hugely significant in her current understanding of love and marriage though she’s now also added pinata’s to the “must-have” list.

At dinner Sunday night Dee had questions about marriage.

“Why can you only get married once?”

And I tried to explain the importance of “once” based on current understanding of what making a promise is but her eyes glazed over with incomprehension. Rob’s explanation later included a treaty on divorce and a reminder of the fact that we were in our second marriage, but I don’t think she was satisfied.

In Dee’s mind, a wedding is such an incredibly wonderful thing that it’s silly not to have one more than once. Perhaps she is right. It might be a better world with longer lasting and stronger relationships if we went hog wild and partied to our unions more often than just once or twice, if we are lucky enough to reach one of those vaulted milestones of 25 or 50 years. Maybe we should don finery and have a ball every year?

The wedding dance took place in the driveway which was lined with evergreens awash in white lights. The happy couple tripped their first married lights fantastic to Aerosmith’s Don’t Want to Miss a Thing. Dee huddled in a sheepskin jacket atop a folding chair watching the scene as though it were a Disney princess movie. I sent Rob to retrieve her at about 9:30.

“I’m missing the candy,” she announced as she got ready for bed.

“I’m sure Char will save you some,” I said and she was mollified.

As I tucked her in she asked,

“Why don’t girls dance with girls and boys with boys?”

“Well, they can, ” I told her.

“But not like this,” and she placed her cheek against mine.

“Well, people who dance like that are usually dating, ” I said which is mostly the truth and all the truth a girl needs at seven at any rate. “And girls can date girls and boys can date boys if they want to.”

I added the last part because it is true and because it’s never really too early to introduce your child to the idea that love doesn’t recognize gender boundaries.

Dee made a face.

“I don’t want to date girls,” she said. “Ju’stn likes boys though.”

Ju’stn is the fourteen year old down the street who Rob thinks might be “special” and who Dee had a wild crush on at the beginning of the school year.

“He only ever plays with boys,” she said.

“I’ll send your dad up to tuck you in,” my teachable moments credo will only carry me so far.