Full of Grace

I was going to write some thoughts about moving forward after this election but, I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of burned out and will save that for another day. So even though there is much to be concerned about today I will center on my gratitudes.

• My almost 25 year old social worker daughter is now working with kids. She has asked for children’s games to use in her office for Christmas. So I am now buying CandyLand and Chutes and Ladders and it makes me very happy.

• Sharing food, football and great (no political) conversation with long time friends. And the Cowboys win didn’t hurt either.

• Unseasonably warm weather that has allowed me to do fall yard work in shorts. Although I am concerned about global warming, this little treat before winter comes (and it will come) is much appreciated.

• I bought new potting soil in preparation of seed planting come January. The reminder that Spring does come and life renews itself is much need right now.

• This.  

A Nutella “burger” at McDonalds.

I have never eaten a burger at McDonald's but that could change.

It is only available in Italy right now.

I have never been to Italy. But that could change too.

Life is a little scary right now but life is also amazing. Don't forget the amazing.

Be the Change

Like the majority of Americans I am grateful that election day has finally come. I have been avoiding the presidential race news for quite awhile as I found it so negative and decisive.  Unfortunately, because I work in government, I couldn’t avoid the local races which were becoming even nastier.

I will work for a couple of hours this morning and then vote.  I live in a state with no early voting. Polls are located in churches, libraries and firehouses and you must go to your assigned polling place.  There the girls scouts or some other civic group will probably be having a bake sale and neighbors will be chatting with neighbors, no matter who they voted for.  It’s all very friendly and civilized. As it should be.

Then I will spend the day shuttling senior citizens and those who cannot drive, to their polling places. In my youth I only worked for one political party to get out the vote. These days I am happy to drive anyone who wants to vote, no questions asked.   I particularly like driving the seniors and listening to their opinions, which are usually about all the ways this country has gone to hell in a handbasket. I can’t say that I disagree with them. Nor can I imagine what this campaign must have looked like to the greatest generation. Oy.

I will most likely go to bed before the results are in. When I wake I hope there is a clear winner. My worst fear is that it will be close, or there will be some controversy that forces it to the Supreme Court. A tied 4-4 Supreme Court.  I don’t even know what happens after that.  Either way our government has become so dysfunctional that neither candidate will be able to advance their agenda very much.  We are approaching a failed state.

Still I do hope that we, as a nation, will begin a healing process from the ugliness of the last few years. Surely we have much more in common than those things that divide us. When the election is over and done we will be in desperate need of more advocates, reconcilers, and peacemakers. We’ve got a lot of healing, loving, restoring work to do my friends.

No matter what happens today  - be the change you want to see in the world.

Walking a Mile

A couple of weeks ago a former colleague’s mother died. Besides working with this man for 20 + years, we also had daughters the same age who had become good friends in middle school and have remained friends since. I held Allison when she was first born and later had numerous conversations with her when she came out as gay. We lost frequent contact when she went away to school and found a job in a faraway city. Then she emailed me a last year ago to say that she was transgendered and was going to have top surgery and did I have any advice. The news did not surprise me as for all the years I knew Allison I watched as her hair got shorter, her clothing more masculine and her interests shift.  Beaner recently told me that Allison was now Aidan on FaceBook.

When the mother’s obituary came out I noticed my colleague’s children were listed with his oldest son and “Aiden” which made me smile that the immediate family was obviously acknowledging the transition. But then Aiden called me. He was very concerned as this would be the first time coming home and could I explain to people the different name in the obituary ahead of time and maybe hang with him at the wake as a buffer.   He told me how hard it was going to be for him to face all these people he knew from his youth.  How people would look at him like a freak. He has started a new life, in a new city, as the gender he identifies with.  He is trying to be happy there. In fact, he was telling me how incredible it is to experience the world as a man, or rather how much differently the world treats you as a man. But also how different he is treated when people know he is transgendered. Now he was faced with the first time reactions of friends and relatives and was terrified.  I hung with him at the wake and I could see it.  The strange looks, the groups of people whispering while glancing his way.  How very uncomfortable to be under that microscope of judgement.  I even heard one person say “well, of course 8thday knew about this, she is queer too.” I have not felt uncomfortable in my sexuality for a long, long time and yet here I could physically feel the tension his presence was causing.  I can only imagine what transgendered folks feel ALL. THE. TIME.

And Beaner has a new boyfriend.  I knew that this was serious when she asked if we could meet him after only a week of dating him.  She has always told me that meeting the parents was a big deal and honestly, we have met very few from her world of revolving door dating. She also told us that he was a paraplegic, and that we needed to find a restaurant that would accommodate his wheelchair.   

Having worked in site development approval my whole career, my initial reaction was “all public buildings have to be handicapped accessible.  Or so I always thought.  Turns out that older businesses are not required to be accessible if doing so is not readily achievable.  The sidewalk I use to walk to work has heaved in many places - impossible for a wheelchair. Entrance doors are often so heavy as to be impossible for a disabled person to open. Everywhere I go I am now looking to see just how “accessible” accessible really is.  And I have become much more aware of the barriers her boyfriend faces every day.   Way too many barriers.

Yesterday my friend plufrompdx posted an excellent story about her frustration with men’s unwillingness to see how dangerous the world is for women.  And it has me thinking about just how much we all don’t see because we have never stopped to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.  Or maybe we just don’t want to "see" because then we would feel morally obligated to do something about it.  It is so much easier to stick our heads in our own comfy world of sand and ignore the challenges, feelings, barriers of others, especially those not like us.

I don’t know how to end this except to say that my eyes have been opened to different people’s lives in the last few weeks in ways that were, well, eye opening. I hope to train myself to be more conscious of the different perspectives and challenges every person has and why. And then I hope to find the courage to help.

Full of Grace

Two weeks of R & R after surgery.   I admit to being a total slug and enjoying it immensely.

The steri-strips have finally come off.  Wow, those things are itchy. Major relief.

Meeting Beaner’s new love interest who far out shines all who came before him. Or as her sister said “she is finally growing out of her shallow ‘must have 6 pack abs and dark hair’ to even be considered.”  Here’s hoping.

Removing my daughters from my family gym membership for a huge savings. Ever so slowly they are taking over their own bills and will gradually be out of my wallet.   

I just watched the movie 11.22.63 based on the book by Stephen King.  Well, I sort of watched it. It was extremely violent so I often left the room.  But this poem ended the movie and I was quite moved by it.  

We did not ask for this room or this music

We were invited in

Therefore, because the dark surrounds us,

Let us turn our faces to the light

Let us endure hardship to be grateful for plenty.

We have been given pain to be astounded by joy

We have been given life to deny death

We did not ask for this room or this music

But because we are here, . .

Let us dance

-  Stephen King

Today I am grateful for plenty.

Skunked

I am one of the few people I know who doesn’t mind the smell of skunk.  That was until recently when my dog got skunked in the back yard.  There is a big difference between the far-away, just passing through smell of road kill and having an up close and personal experience.  Wow, it gets right into your pores.

The first time it happened the weather was still warm and the windows all open. The overpowering smell of skunk permeated not only the dog, but all the rugs, curtains, and bedding. We took the dog to the groomer who gave her a special bath ($55) and began washing everything in the house.

We also called a pest control company who came and told us that it would cost $900 for them to set traps for 5 days, with no guarantees.  Thanks, but no thanks. We went and bought a trap ($35)  and got all sorts of advice about what to bait it with.  Every night we put out the trap at dusk and got up at dawn to an empty trap.

Unfortunately one morning we let the dog out before the sun was fully up and yes, she got skunked again. And this time, really bad.

We left her in the garage until we could get an afternoon appointment with the groomer. (another $55) Fortunately we could walk to the groomer because putting the dog in a car was not an option.  The shop is in a small strip mall and I was not there 5 minutes before we heard fire sirens and the firefighters telling everyone to leave the premises.  Apparently my dog’s odor was so strong that someone in another shop thought they smelled a gas leak.  Yeah, not too embarrassing.

Home again and we began doubling our efforts to trap the skunk.  Apples, peanut butter, marshmallows, cat food.  We began trying them all and in different combinations.  And then one morning we looked out and saw the trap door was down.  Of course we had no idea what to do next because we certainly didn’t want to get skunked ourselves.  So slowly and carefully we approached the cage. (We couldn’t see in it because we were told to cover it with a garbage bag before putting it out.)  Martha tried poking at it with a very long stick and was convinced that we had caught something weighty, as opposed to the occasional chipmunk we found. But when I looked from a different vantage point I saw something with a long white snout.

Yes, we had caught a possum.  A possum with very nasty looking teeth.

Honestly, we don’t understand why this is happening. We live on a very busy street in a very suburban setting, with a totally fenced yard, with a dog.  Why any wildlife makes our yard a home is beyond me.

Anyway, there was no way either of us was going to pick up this creature, or lift the trap door to let him out.  So another call to pest control to have the possum relocated. ($162)  

And the saga continues. Every night we set the trap. Every morning we look, both hopeful and terrified that we caught something.  As the days get shorter and the nights longer, my dog is confined more and more inside the house.  In fact, we are all being held prisoner and we are not very happy about it. Plus the house and yard still have a faint odor of eau d’skunk.  It’s impossible to get rid of.

Anyone know a skunk whisperer?  

Full of Grace

Peachie came home the weekend before my surgery and stayed for a few days to help care for me. She is such a good kid.

So once again we were all together for our traditional apple picking and fall foliage hike. I love traditions and I’m happy to hold on to them for yet another year. I know it won’t last forever.

Because a frost was coming everyone helped me close up the vegetable garden. What usually takes me days only took hours. This was the last of the harvest.  

Surgery went well enough. Like trauma exposure therapy, I think I’ve now had so many surgeries that I have learned how to deal with it.  Anesthesia is still hard for me but I’ve learned how to cope with the anxiety of it and how to reduce most of the ill effects.

When my sister had her gallbladder removed some 20 years ago it was a 5 hour surgery. She had to stay in the hospital for 8 days, has a 10 inch scar down her torso and contends that it was the most physically painful experience of her life.  By contrast, my surgery was at 8:30 am, was about 45 minutes, I have 4 small incisions in my belly held together with steri strips, and I was home the same day at about 2:00.  I am both grateful and amazed at the advances in medical procedures.

Full of Grace

It seems that after a rather rough July/August, the universe has decided to make amends and present me with glorious moments and ear to ear smiles. First was being able to share the Adele concert with my whole family. Then as soon as I returned, I packed to take a short vacation with my oldest daughter. She had called to say she would have a week off between quitting her part time jobs and starting her first full-time, professional job where she would not accumulate vacation time for at least six months. Could we please do something relaxing . . .

• So very grateful for the internet which allowed me to find incredibly cheap, spur of the moment, non-stop flights to Florida.

• Being able to wake up to this every morning

• Spending one-on-one time with Beaner. Truth is, she is much closer to Martha than me, mostly because of the basketball connection. Having 5 days together, just us, was really fun.  And a little frightening - did I really need to hear about all those boyfriends???  

• Kayaking through Floridian canals.  Beaner choose a paddleboard.

• And leaving Florida before the hurricane hits but not before seeing the sun set with a beautiful rainbow.  

But lest anyone think my whole life is one big bowl of cherries - this past week I got so pissed off at my boss I wrote my letter of resignation. (I did not submit it . .  .yet), my dog got skunked for the 2nd time - yup, right after we finally finished washing all the drapes, bedding, walls and carpets from the last skunking, and next week I have to have surgery to have my gallbladder removed.  

Life.  Never a dull moment.