Page 354 of 524

My Brother


I hesitate to call him CrazyBrother now in light of my sister’s, DNOS, call to me this morning.

CB called our mother at about 3A.M. their time and told her he was heading to hell. He’d taken nearly all of his pills and just wanted to let her know. Mom is not usually good in a crisis but this time she called the local police for the number of emergency services in San Francisco.

By the time she got through to 911 there, he was already on his way to the hospital. It seems he had called 911 before he called her.

DNOS was in tears when she called me and I was/am my usual calm and stoic in the face of “death”. Useful? Perhaps. But not cathartic and sometimes you need the latter more.

Rob reminds me that CB wants help or he wouldn’t have called 911 or mom. Because he is mentally ill, it’s really hard to assess just how much “choice” he has. My days on the widow board with those widowed by suicide inclines me to the politically correct answer of “he can’t help himself”, but I wonder.

Regardless, he is safe and on 72hour hold and maybe he will finally be properly evaluated and get help for his long standing problems.

Somedays I wonder who I would have been had I been an only child.

Regina: Do You Want a Toy with That?


Note to self: a healthy husband and a well-rested child travel better.

“Nice,” was husband’s comment about my note. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m loaded up on pharmaceuticals. I’m fine.”

But his throat is raw and the heavy walkers overhead kept us all from experiencing restful sleep and consequently, we were all a touch prickly this morning.

Coffee, tea, pastry, a nap for the wee one and a couple of hours of putting road behind us and by the time we hit Regina, we were our usual well-oiled traveling machine.

Normally Subway is our only food stop when we travel. Totally my fault. The greasiness, ingredients never to be named and the basic “meat”eaters society in which we live make chain restaurants and fast food chains a none possibility.

On the last trip we allowed Katy a Happy Meal however because the child simply can’t be expected to survive on tuna subs or pickles/lettuce subs. And I have come to see the wisdom of the “toy included” meal when traveling. A kid trapped in a car seat for 8 to 10 hours a day needs something to look forward to, and a Happy Meal toy is good for 45 minutes of novel entertainment. It’s not like when I was kid and had the back seat plus the back of the station wagon in which to spread out.

The toy of the moment in the burger kingdom are replicas of the characters from the animated movie, Kung Fu Panda. Middle daughter, Jordan, took Katy to see it the other night and gave her the Tiger, which flips. It is important to note that the toys are “action” figures. Tiger, I have been told since, needed a companion. I saw the wisdom of this early on in our trip and decided that perhaps a whole hour of fun could be eked out of getting Tiger a “friend”.

We found a McDonald’s on Albert Street as we arrived and dutifully wasted gas in the drive-thru for the meal only to discover as we rounded the corner of the building that it was toyless.

“Do you really need the toy?” Rob asked smallest daughter.

So I took the offending box back inside and made an inquiry of a young drone behind the counter.

“Don’t these come with toys?”

“We stopped putting them in,” was his reply.

I think he expected me to meekly accept this lame and completely nonsensical reason and simply walk away chastened, but I am certain the look on my face told him otherwise. I mean, who the hell buys a Happy Meal for the food?

He handed me a toy.

Snake, which does nothing whereas Tiger flips and hangs by its tail, has joined us now for the duration of our trip and, if she is lucky, beyond. Between the meal and the Ku Fung paraphernalia, Rob and I enjoyed a good two hours worth of whine and other calm shattering incident free travel.

One Happy Meal? $5.84 (CAN)

Confronting Teenage Service Worker? Truly my pleasure

Satisfied and Silent Child? Priceless, people.

Road Tripping Thru Saskatchewan


Arrived in Battleford around 10 PM, Katy was exhausted but due to excitement and the lingering daylight had a hard time getting to sleep which was aggravating.

Rob was in the full throes of illness and is not a happy road tripper.

The room at the Gold Eagle was nice. A brand new hotel near a casino (which are literally everywhere up here) there was one problem. It’s a wood-frame structure so when people walk over head it has a ceiling fixture shaking effect.

At first I thought the people above had a small child who wouldn’t sleep but the thudding and running continued unabated the entire night. Even a call to the front desk didn’t help. In fact I think it made it worse for a while.

We finally turned on the fan for the a/c for a bit of white noise, but only Katy really slept deeply.

So, up for today is border crossing and a marathon to Minot. But thankfully it is a Holiday Inn Express, a little bit of sameness everywhere we go, and hey, perhaps I will be a novelist by Sunday given the inn’s ability to confer great career powers on all who stay over.