Alden's Diary

Every Sunday for a few weeks now, the Boy and I have been walking to a restaurant for brunch (it is probably only a small walk for the Boy, but for me it is difficult because exercise and I are not friends), and on the way we visit a very strange plant.

We think it is a giant agave, and at first we thought it was the same kind as the little normal agaves you sometimes find in people's yards here, so we were sort of frightened.

Here is a photo:



See? It is crazy-tall!

It seems to be an extra-big variety of agave, instead of just a mutant (there is a very cute article here, about an astonished lady whose agave grew a huge flower stalk all of a sudden).

Still, the first couple of times we visited the giant plant, I didn't want to stand too close in case the stalky part bent down and grabbed me (the top part with the bud looks very like a mouth waiting to open up).

Apparently, in a few weeks the stalky part will flower, and then the whole plant will die. This makes me sad. It will disperse lots of little tiny new plants, though, and I would like to take one and plant it somewhere.

It would have to be somewhere BIG, though. Hmm.

Anyway, that is my small adventure which involves a giant agave plant.

Absolutely hating my Dad right now. I phoned him to ask about Mom's hospice arrangements (he said he was 'heartened' because she doesn't seem like she's going to die anytime soon, even though she can't walk or talk or feed herself), and I said I would like to plan Mom's funeral/memorial service when it happens.

...and Dad said no, it's all taken care of, and Mom will be 'cremated immediately' and her ashes will be scattered at sea.

Um, what?

I know that's not what Mom wanted, and in fact I am certain the idea would've horrified her, but when I said that to Dad he f-r-e-a-k-e-d out and hung up the phone a couple of times (I called back) and then said never to contact him about it again.

Fucker.

Just had tearful recounting-of-conversation with the Boy; he was good and said Dad = wrong, and we will just have to get hold of the ashes and bury them somewhere with a marker.

It makes me so angry with Dad, though, because he isn't respecting my Mom for who she was. He's just hanging on to this horrible wraith-version of Mom, even though she isn't in there anymore, and he only sees what HE wants. It's like he doesn't remember her at all. Not the real her.

Anyway, I am all sniffly from crying but I am GOING to knitting group ANYWAY. I think.

Have just found out Mom is going into hospice care. Nothing 'imminent,' apparently, just... she's mostly immobile now, and becoming less responsive to everything, so her care facility recommended we enroll her in the hospice thing.

Just noting this here, you know. I still feel like if something isn't on LJ, it's not momentous. Weird.

Anyway, no idea on how I feel about this. Not sure how to tell the Boy, either. I phoned him and asked him to call me back, because I'd just had some bad news, and then I felt all dramatic.

It's not phone-me-back-right-away (or even when-you-can) Bad News. It's just news that gave me a twinge in my stomach before my feelings went back to the usual Numb setting.

It's quiet, thinky, news.

Do I want to cry? Am I *going* to cry? For a minute, there was that edge of tears rising up, but now nothing.

It feels like, when I cry, I'll be crying with relief. It's time for her to go; it's time for my beautiful, infuriating, fantastic, terrible, sometimes best-in-the-world mother to stop suffering. Yessir, it is.

We saw Jill Bolte Taylor yesterday, doing a lecture about her experience having a stroke & then recovering from it. She says we could all benefit from trying to use our right-brains a little more, instead of getting caught up in overly left-brain-y worrying and anxieties.

It's hard! I don't really even know how to start, but I tried taking a walk by myself the other day, refusing to let myself think about anything except what I saw and heard and felt. I wasn't entirely successful, but I did ok, and I hardly felt the usual social anxiety at all. It was a bit like... being in the world, instead of trying to be separate from it, scared, trying to shut it all out.

It was nice.

Arse!

I am up TOO EARLY, and the Boy has already left for work (his new job, which he is not fond of but it pays well, has really long hours and really inconsistent scheduling) so I am at a loose end a bit.

Mostly because I am awful at Not Taking Work Home with Me, so I pretty much think/worry about work stuff from the minute I get up until well after I finish my shift. I am trying to learn not to do this, but it doesn't help that I have work-related DREAMS as well. Taking classes and working fewer hours helps, though. :D

Um, what was I saying?

Oh yes. I was going to say that living with the Boy is great, and I *adore* our apartment even though it is tiny and full of my clutter-y possessions that I don't probably need, but living with someone is strange. I've let it make me too dependent on the Boy and his company, which worries me.

I have to remember that things like friends and knitting group and LJ are very, very important, even if I feel socially anxious about them sometimes. They help me feel like *me* instead of like a depressed little no-fun housefrau who thinks about her dumb job all the time.

So, I am here, babbling at you. And, knitting group is tonight! Huzzah!

And now:

What All I Am Reading:

• Just finished The Forgotton Garden, by Kate Morton. ★★★★★
• Reading Q&A/Slumdog Millionaire after seeing the film. Book is very different! Liked the film, liking the book. ★★★★?
• Read Another Me, by Ann Montgomery, and loved it. Memoirs make me very happy sometimes, and this one was so interesting--about a young woman living in the 1950s with a mentally-ill mother and controlling father, and then she runs away to Paris to escape and she hopes she'll find a job as a receptionist, but it turns out very hard for a young American woman to find proper work in post-war Paris, so she sort of accidentally becomes a fashion model! Seriously, it was really good, and very well written. It's self-published too, and I can't think why... I'd have thought a 'real' publisher would've picked it up, it's so interesting and honest and somehow very friendly and makes you feel like you know (and like) the author. Anyway, unfortunately Ann Montgomery is a local author, so her book isn't widely available in shops. The link above says you can buy Another Me at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but really if you want to buy it for some reason, you ought to buy it here. (Just saying. You know, in case.) ★★★★★
• In the middle of Blackthorn Winter by Kate Reiss. Lovely American-in-England mystery, and usually I don't like the American-in-England stuff. This one's good, though. I am well and truly tired of typing out the code for the stars now, but I will still give this one a 4. ★★★★

Ok, must shut up now. Have to eat oatmeal and get ready for work. Wish me luck!

I have totally not been reading about historic royal jewelry all day on the Internet.

Is anyone else getting weird "this site may harm your computer" links underneath, like, EVERY search result on Google this morning.

Is it a thing? I lovely computery joke of which I know nothing? Hmm.

P.S. Being able (well, *feeling* able) to post on LJ about something silly? Makes me SUPER HAPPY. <3 the friendslist!

This week, I dropped down to part-time at work (I cannot say "OMG YAY" enough about this, believe me!) and started three classes at the community college in my town. They're mostly online classes, but I'm still nervous! They're graphic design classes, with a web/digital focus, with the aim of eventually leaving shopgirl status and doing web design or similar.

Also started doing a little bit of yoga, to counteract recent depression and weight gain, and am feeling better already.

Wedding plans have me a bit confused, like I'm not myself and maybe haven't been for a very long time. I find myself wanting to do *nothing* for the wedding... just go to the courthouse and sign some papers, but the Boy wants his family here, and so hmmm... I don't know! Must think.

Have been very antisocial, despite talking to people all the time and being friendly because of work. It's so strange, how retail can make a quiet, introverted person pretend (and appear) to be otherwise all day. Exhausting, though in a way it pleases me that I can do it. My boss can't stand me (and has said as much; she even said I have a big mouth once, which was so funny because I am never actually speaking to her in a sincere way... just babbling so as not to appear sulky. Clearly, sulky = better), nor I her, but the Boy reminds me to think of the job as just part-time money while I acquire some practical job skills.

Probably should friends-lock this, eh? Well, maybe tomorrow.

I probably say this constantly (and I know I *think* it), but I miss you all very much. I am so excited to catch up with your LJs, and I'm working on responding to comments.

Thank you for still being there.

Am being treated to a dramatic reading of Once Upon A Potty. A 12-year old boy is reading it aloud and mortifying his mother.

Heeeeeee.

Lovely little engagement party/dinner last night, thrown by a co-worker/friend. So nice to get to see people, and see favored co-workers outside of work.

Now, alas, am a bit hung over. Am not looking forward to working until 9pm.

The Boy is having a medical appointment in our apartment right now! I am in the other room (there only IS one other room, aside from bathroom & kitchen, really) but I can hear them, and the nurse is making ridiculous chatter about apartments and various other things that are NOT MEDICAL THINGS. Maybe she is filling out paperwork whilst she talks?

Get on with it, lady; I want my breakfast.

Ok, now she is asking him about his job (which is odd, because this appointment is FOR his job, so he can get disability insurance, and his company hires a firm that sends out nurses for insurance tests), and... goodness, I think she is flirting!

Cow. I am going to have to go in there.

If only I were not wearing flannel jammies, I might be more devastatingly gorgeous and threatening to horrid cow-nurse who is flirting with my fiance.

Hmm. The other nurse (the one they sent out for the health/life insurance tests) was much better.

Ha! Now they are discussing the urine sample, so he will have to come out, and I will go in and frighten her with my jammies. :D

Back in a moment.

[[ Edit, 10:10am : Ok, so, I have returned from totally intimidating the nurse. Actually she was kind of friendly and nice, and not very much a threat. ]]

I miss you guys! So, making [another] very tiny test post to banish the Coming Back to LJ anxiety.

All is well here, but now that I am logged in and writing, I don't feel there is much to say. Or, maybe there is too much? Who knows.

♥

Just posting (for the first time in FOREVER) to say we're ok (the Boy and Bundle and I, I mean) in terms of the big fire. It's smoky here, and watching the red & orange areas on the Fire Map expand is a bit scary, but so far we're not in the evacuation warning area.

Dad is well out of it this time, but he is being a bit melodramatic since his last health setback (he fell, & now has a walker) so he is possibly getting one of his work friends to help him 'evacuate.' I am doing my best to detach and not have an ulcer over this.

Um... in other, happier news, the Boy and I are getting married! No date set yet, but I will actually post & update about it when the stupid fire stuff calms down.

Right. Must go stare obsessively at map now.

There's a fire here, very close to town this year (fires seem to happen every summer now), so we had to evacuate Dad tonight. He's fine, holed up in a motel down by the beach, and he had good news about the tumours in his pancreas (they are not growing, or at least they haven't grown at all in a two-month period, so he has to go back for another scan in a little while to make double-sure).

So, that is good. I couldn't catch Wednesday the cat when I went to get Dad, though, so she is maybe going to have to fend for herself if the fire gets to the neighborhood. This is worrying, but...

...everything is sort of blocked out, emotion-wise, because when we got back to my apartment and were getting Dad out of his car, a car came speeding up the street and hit a girl on a bike. It was dark, and I didn't see it happen, but I heard the crunch as the speedy scraped and hit a parked car* and then almost at the same time, it hit the girl on the bike.

She was thrown quite a ways, up to the corner, and when she landed she hit her head. Her boyfriend was with her, and he gathered her up and held her while she moaned and pushed on the ground with her feet, trying to scoot herself somewhere safe. The Boy [mine, I mean] called for an ambulance just about instantly, and my Dad's friend ran over to help while some of our neighbors stopped traffic and I stood about being useless and realizing that the girl's hair was not dyed a pretty, shiny, punky deep red. Head wounds and blonde hair = particularly disturbing.

The ambulance took her away, and the police blocked off the street and took information from witnesses. Nobody saw the car clearly; we only saw tail lights as the car sped away after hitting the girl on the bike.

I hope she will be ok, but there was so much blood, and she hit her head so hard on the street. The Boy thinks she will be all right, and that we should be encouraged because the ambulance got there so quickly. So, I will keep hoping.

Good night, friendslist. I am glad you are there.


* Which was, as it happens, actually *my* car, but I am finding it difficult to care much. There's a scrape and the driver's side is missing its wing mirror, but whatever. For a while tonight, it was official crime scene evidence! I'm allowed to move it, now, but... yeech.

Sitting at the medical clinic while Dad has his second scan. This one will show how much the whotsits in his pancreas have grown, so we will know more about whether or not it's cancer and how bad it is and how long Dad could have left.

Scared, but holding it together. Only *almost* jumping out of my skin.

Must go before posting causes me to think too much.

Thanks so much for all the lovely birthday wishes!

Am home again, in the tiny but wonderful apartment I now share with the Boy.

Dad is on the mend, it seems. His fever is down, and I took him home and tucked him into bed (he was grumpy and I was grumpy, but in the end we were ok) and threatened to brain him if he does not drink plenty of water and take two Tylenol capsules every 4 hours.

In the morning at 10am, he will go see his doctor. I will possibly drive him; I think work will be understanding about this. They had BETTER be.

More to write, but must sleep.

Now the gallbladder ultra-sound is finished but they have taken Dad away for a chest x-ray.

Everyone is very nice here.

As we walked back from the ultrasound room and back into the ER proper, I saw into a room where doctors and nurses were gouped around someone on an operating table. White plastic support brace and bare midsection, and someone asked, "Did you hit your head?"

I guess people lose loved ones here all the time. I suppose each one is a shock; nobody expects to leave a little more alone.

Not making sense. Back to reading The Satanic Verses.

In some sort of waiting room, very sparse, wooden floor, fluorescent lights.

Waiting for Dad to have an ultrasound on his gallbladder.
A co-worker/friend brought him to the emergency room a couple of hours ago, and now I'm here, and Dad has a fever that keeps getting worse. 100 when he arrived; 102.1 a few minutes ago.

I don't feel much. Dad seems scared.

"Hold my hand," he said, and I did. Later, I said he might just rest and close his eyes since he's tired, and he said he would. "But hold my hand."

Not sure what to do. Do I call my brothers now, or wait until I know what's going on?

Before Dad's friend phoned, I was building a door for an Ikea wardrobe. Had to take it apart before I could get out the front door.

I want the Boy here. I am ok, but I want him here. He has been so helpful and strong and I don't want to burden him with my dissolving family, but... well, maybe it's best that he isn't here?

Maybe I would fall apart if there were someone to lean on? Bah! Who knows.

I want my father to be ok. (I wanted to write "daddy" instead of "father," but am nearly 31, so must not regress into helpless child mode. No.)

I bought a new vacuum cleaner last week, and it arrived today, and oh, how I sing its praises!

~sings praises~

See? I can breeeeeeeeathe!

And that's only with MOST of the room vacuumed! This weekend, when I clear out the REST of the room and vacuum, I will be floating and dancing about!

Ok. Bit tired from crazy-stressful workweek and vacuuming extravaganza. Must go to sleep.

Happy New Year, friendslist!

I wanted to do a New Year's-y update this morning, but I have frittered my morning away and now I have to get ready for work.

BOO.

I looked at the New York Times homepage on my lunch break today, just because I wanted to click on the "Books" link and see which books people will be asking for, and... ugh.

Spent the rest of the day feeling shocked over Bhutto's assassination. So disgusting and wrong.

I don't have anything coherent to say, as per usual. I am going to go curl up in bed.