The Percussive Nature of Aging

My fingers sound like castanets, my toes they follow suit.

My hips, each step a metronome, keeping time for creaky bone.

My ears they ring, my teeth they grind

And my knees are kettle and snare.

On occasion the music startles me, 

Who left  that duck call there?

What's That Growing In Your Head?

For various reason, none of them having to do with common sense or regular health care checks I went to a neuro-ophthalmologist so that I could get an official letter which says in short "She really, really, really can't see worth a damn. She has not been faking for 54 years so cut her a break."

I HATE going to the eye doctor. I have a rare genetic condition so they always get all excited, put me through a multitude of test to prove yet again that my vision is laughable, charge me an arm and a leg, demand follow-ups and gleefully rub their hands together in a Simon Legree sort of way while they say "Whoa Nelly, your eyes are horrible and there is no fix. Sucks to be you!" If I hadn't needed the letter for work I would have happily gone on, staying in familiar places and firmly holding on to my seeing eye people for the next forty or so years.

I arrived begrudgingly, agreed to a test that maps one's vision with a curt nod, sat in a horribly uncomfortable chair with my chin in a cup and my head in their machine and waited for tiny lights to start zooming around, clicker in hand. When you see a light, you click the button. This is simple.

The woman helping me was sweet and quiet for a minute and then asked did I not see any at all. 

"What? What? You started?"
"Just click the button when you see the light flash."

Crap. No lights, I stare straight ahead willing the little points of light to appear. As if by magic three or four bright flashes appear in a row, top left, click click click. Then, nothing.... 

Quick! three or four bright flashes appear in a row, bottom right! Click click click.... I do an extra click just in case I miss counted.

Nothing! I can't cheat since I do not really know where or when the flashes will appear, but I would, if I could. Test over. The lady is now smiling at me with a touch of pity. 

"You did real well."

Liar! I want to beg to do it again. I stare balefully at the machine, sitting there like a piece of modern sculpture, taunting me. I want to cry.

The last time I did this test the map it made of my eyes looked like a target, circles of no vision radiating out like waves from the center. This time it looks like a butterfly, with the wings and body having no vision at all. It looked bad, and dark and absolutely terrifying to me.

My vision sort of resembles this Rorschach ink blot

The doctor, wasting no time, not being gleeful and not rubbing his hands together says, "Yep, you definitely have  genetic neuro-scatomatas. HOWEVER..." 

I feel myself shrinking.

"Usually when we see this 'tubing' it is caused by something pressing against the optic nerves"

I shrink more. I feel like I am six.

"Usually an enlargement of the Pituitary glad. Maybe surgery is an option. We can't fix the genetic defect (No shit Sherlock) but sometimes reducing the pressure can help to return the vision to it's pre-swelling state."

I feel like a toddler walking out, lost and alone, looking for my sister who has driven me here. Everybody in the waiting room is acting like nothing has changed. Everybody in the waiting room is reading, toe tapping, finger drumming, waiting to get their new prescription and get in their cars and drive off into their normal life. 

The right side of my brain is saying "This is bad, this is serious, this is NOT GOOD" The left side of my brain is saying "Oh look! A butterfly! (Here the left brain shrieks and makes an about face. I suddenly do not like the looks of butterflies) I want a cookie, maybe a couple of dozen. Isn't the sun nice! What shall we cook for dinner? I like red, it is such a pretty color. That machine has a nice rhythm. Doodly doo doo doo doo doo."

By the time I got home my right brain was speaking in a much firmer tone of voice... "THIS IS BAD, THIS IS SERIOUS, THIS IS NOT GOOD!" and the left side had retreated into a corner, fingers in ears saying "LA LA LA LA I can't hear you" but had given up the good fight. I turned to Dr. Google and looked up swelling in the pituitary.

I read a lot of articles, spending roughly three hours on different sites but the end result was always the same. TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR. Oh crap and eff me.

The good news? Tumors in the pituitary are self contained, not malignant. Bad news they can only be treated by radiation or surgery, and the underlying cause can be treated, sometimes, depending on what it is. I was not a happy camper.

I am having two MRIs this Monday, one with contrast, one without. I am hoping (Yes, with my left brain) that this has all been a giant scare and that the next time I take the test from hell I will once again have lovely targets of blindness and the evil tubing will be gone. Wish me luck!

After the Storm

Clouds, yellow green and ominous cover the sky in its entirety. Five columns of black descend destroying everything in their path. They are thick, heavy, solid, dark and bent on destruction. I watch them, rooted in place and horrified by the damage they wrought. As the biggest, the blackest, the most solid bears down directly on me I wake with a start; my heartbeat shakes the entire bed. My breathing is shallow and I feel frozen to the bone even though I am well covered.

I turn toward the rock that is my husband, wrapping myself against his warm back, tucking myself into the curve created by his bent knees. As he reaches in his sleep and pulls me nearer still I begin to relax. Once the pounding in my chest and the blood rushing in my ears subsides a bit I can hear the steady loud chug-chug of the air conditioner a scant three feet away. I hear the noise of people that wander the darkness outside the window with its stiff bright orange, yellow and green curtains. The heavy covering for the old mattress a thousand people have slept on is folded and wrinkled and uncomfortable under my skin. The pillow is flat and not soft, not welcoming as a pillow should be. Instead it is a harder by the minute brick on which my head lays. Tear soaked and smelling like someone else’s laundry it is the pillow that finally drives me from the warmth of the bed and into the cold white tile of the hotel bathroom.

I realize I haven’t got any clothes except those I had on when the tornado destroyed my home, turning me into a weather refugee. The Red Cross had given us coffee and dinner and called around to hotels for me. A $75 dollar gift certificate redeemable just about anywhere had been pressed into my hand but I was too distraught and could literally not let go of my husband to go shopping. I feared if I did he would blow away, dancing in the sky waving to me as he rotated and flew off just as my wedding dress, my pajamas, my winter coat had.  

I drew a hot bath, scalding water, pouring the teeny bottle of body wash in it to make it feels smooth on my skin. I rolled up a towel and stuck it under my neck as a make shift pillow and sunk chin deep into the tub. I couldn’t hear the rattling AC unit in here, nor the whores outside, nor my husband snoring, sleeping well cocooned in the wrinkled and bleach smelling bed. I closed my eyes and began to drift off, again and again, each time being jerked awake by the wind, the malevolent wind. After the water cooled I rose, pulled on  my dirty clothes and slipped outside for a smoke.

Conundrum

I find myself, not for the first time in my life, with a conundrum (a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma). I thought I would take the problem to my readers, my friends and family, and find out if what seem to be questions without answers for me is a simple matter with a clear solution for all of you. In short, I am picking your brains, I am ASKING for advice and we all know that doesn’t happen too often.

Allow me to set the scene.  As you probably all know by now, (I do, on occasion, whine about it) I am legally blind. ‘Legally’ because there is a clearly defined and recognized range of vision (or lack thereof) that makes life a pain in the patooty. In my case I top the charts at 20/400. 20/400 is the top range they measure because, really, after that point what difference does it make? 20/400 means that if a person with normal vision can see, say, a rampaging elephant, at 400 feet, that same elephant would have to be 20 feet in front of my face before I would notice it was there. Even then I would not say, Gee an elephant, but rather, What is that? Is that a building?  No, it moves! A dear? When said elephant was about 15 feet away I would be saying Holy cow! That’s an elephant! By the time the fact registered and my brain figured out I was about to be mowed down by an elephant on the little dirt road by my house where I almost never even see a car, said elephant would be scraping me out from between his toes and looking for some other blind sucker standing in his way.

I try to maintain a strictly controlled environment and lifestyle in order to live with this ridiculous issue. I can avoid furniture not in its place (most of the time) and unless I am having a really bad day I don’t walk into walls or anything. Stairs have an irritating way of turning into ramps and vice versa and I look at signs as a personal attack on me by whoever hung them in the first place. I do not drive (you can say ‘whew’ out loud, I know the thought of me controlling 1500 lbs. plus of metal and plastic at high speeds is terrifying) I do not go into strange places by myself, I avoid crowds because I do not want to lose track or whichever kind soul is my seeing eye person at that time. When company is coming I vacuum in all the corners because I just assume that cobwebs have invaded that space.

My family is invaluable to me when it comes to living a mostly normal life. They read print that is below 14 points, they either vacuum or offer to in a kind and gently way that lets me know my house is turning into a pigsty. They point out steps, ramps, and cracks in the sidewalk. They describe things to me without being asked. For example, one of them would say ‘Holy cow, that is a rampaging elephant! Run!’ And the best, the very best thing they do is act like I don’t have an issue at all. They assume that I can do anything I want to, until they see otherwise.

One of the things they have always assumed I can do is work, hold down a job and do it proud. And I have! I have worked so called real jobs since I was 19 and moved back to the United States. I have done just about everything a person could do. Before I went to college I held down jobs as a maid, a fry cook, a telephone sales person. I cut grass, and stocked store shelves. I worked in a gym, I typed up lunch menus for the local paper. I babysat, and cared for and walked dogs. Once I got a college education I worked on computers.

Working on computers, for me anyway, is much easier than say wrestling a neighbors one hundred pound dog into submission while keeping track of three toddlers on a 100 degree day in August in Georgia or cooking 2000 pieces of chicken in a hot as hell fryer in an eight hour shift. Computers are inside, in air-conditioned buildings and computer jobs pay enough that you can finally pay someone else to walk your own 100 pound dog. If I pull the screen to my face, leaning hunched over about two inches from it I can see everything I need to, to do my job and do it well. Of course I can’t get to where the computer jobs are without help from my loved ones, or complete strangers on occasion, and public transportation.

I have ridden with FBI agents in rattle trap old cars held together literally with wire and duct tape. 

I have ridden with Health Department officials who spent the whole long commute trying to tell me how to fix my eyes because they assume, I guess, that I stay blind for the fun of it (so annoying, I can’t even describe it). 

I have ridden with co-workers who have alternately spoken to their mistress and their wife on the phone while speeding and shouting invective's at passing motorist. Do you want to know what is scary? Having the person whose hands in which you have placed your life out of necessity screech to a halt on the interstate while cursing and threatening some other jackass who also screeched to a halt. Blind woman, never driven, sitting in a lane of traffic while cars zoom past at eighty miles an hour honking and yelling watching two fools duke it out on the roadway in front of her.

As I am sure you can imagine I have not always been able to get a ride into work. My employers, a state agency much reviled by the general public, have worked with me without question and without too much resentment for 15 years on this issue. Oh happy day when I was allowed to do my work at home. I could log right into the system and write my code, run my queries, design databases and develop mailings, make calls, email, everything that I do at the office. Being at home means that when my eyes start to burn and water from fatigue I can walk outside for ten minutes and give them a rest. Being at home means that I can work late or log in early.  Being at home means that I can work nights and weekends if necessary. Being at home means that I can work when the office is closed due to inclement weather or water main breaks or bomb threats (much reviled agency). Being at home means that I can avoid the flu when 2/3rd s of the office staff is sneezing and snorting and coughing and choking all over each other.

And now, finally, we reach the crux of my conundrum.

Three weeks ago I was notified that no one would be allowed to work from home any more. This turns out to not actually be the case but I guess they thought it sounded better than your particular group will not be allowed to work from home anymore. Being reasonable I went to my boss and said, boss, you know I need to work from home sometimes for many reason, all relating to my (Lord I HATE this) disability. I can’t drive so unless the stars align and my husband can get me to and from my bus I can’t come in. (I was still smiling at this point.) NO. Boss, you know I have 15 years of good and excellent reviews with this much reviled agency, I am always available when teleworking (duh, I can’t drive dude, where else will I be?) and always get my work done. NO. Boss, you know when I am in the office I sit at my desk because roaming around is a bit difficult when you can’t see. I never deal with the public. I always deal with my users by phone or by email just like when I am home. NO.

At this point, I admit it, I lost it just a wee bit. What the hell? I demanded a reason and got the following: People think it isn't fair. Oh really? You want fair? Let them all coat their eyes with petroleum jelly for 54 years and try to manage. That would make it fair for me. The final result is NO NO NO NO NO. If I can’t work from home, I will not be able to keep this job.

Okay. I can quit and apply for disability. I qualify too, due to the whole rampaging-elephant-toe-picking thing. I mean, let’s face it, I really do have a disability, as much as I try to deny it. Working is a pain in the behind and eye balls and just getting me there and home involves a lot of people whom I do not really give a choice to. I would have some income and a lot of people could quit organizing their schedules around me.

On the other hand, I have always worked. I started babysitting and dog walking when I was 12 for God’s sake. I pay my own way, and except for in the very worst of times I manage to do it pretty well. I don’t like working but I do like getting that paycheck which I earned, despite my handicap. I am terrified of being utterly dependent; it goes completely against my grain. I have paid into the Social Security system all of these years but somehow I thought I would be old and (more) gray before I had to collect.

What to do, what to do? I am asking here for advice, for possible courses of action. What would YOU do in this situation?

Its that time of year again!

Join us in Piedmont Park November 3rd for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Atlanta Community Walk.

Team Henry Roger Gramme

PTSD Or, As I Like To Call It, Hell On Earth

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not for sissies. Imagine the worst, absolute most horrific moment of your life. Now imagine living it over and over and over. Living Color, smells, sounds, the whole 9 yards. The movie you never want to see again on an eternal loop in your brain. This is my best explanation for PTSD as I know it.

I am not speaking for anyone but myself. I hope it isn't like this for others but I really do not know. If it is high five and a shot of tequila to all of you. You deserve it.

The source, or sources, of my particular hellish state of mind are the death of two of my children. 34 years ago I awoke lazily, the sun shining through the blinds across my face. I stretched luxuriously and then realized something was horribly wrong. I jerked up, ran to the crib in the corner and touched the stiff cold back of my 2 1/2 month old son. I saw his purple face, frozen in a grimace, white spittle on his chin.

I was in a state of shock for four days. Family was called, arrangements were made, leave was taken. I could not look at my daughter without crumbling but I felt split in two. The part 'dealing' with it, and the part that was frozen in a block of ice that I feared would never melt. Not sleeping was my only option. If I closed my eyes I found him again, and again, and again. I never knew a head could hurt that much. I never knew there were that many tears. Every night for years when I lay down I would see him swimming in front of me, my glorious little fella his lively smiling self and then he would turn blue and cold. I woke to that same panicked sensation every day. Every single day for about four years I knew no peace.

From time to time throughout the years that little blue face would come back to haunt me. I would wake in the middle of the night, that vision in my head, my heart pounding so hard the bed would shake, tears streaming down my face and my own choking sobs sounding like the wail of all the dead in my ears. My life was busy, my other children growing and changing and LIVING kept me occupied during the day but the nights and early mornings were a descent into a painful swirl of dread and fear and pain all over again.

Who do you discuss that with? Psychologists wanted me to talk about it. I would sit there and say yep, I feel terrible, I feel worse than terrible. I still see him, I hear him, I feel him but he turns cold every time. What is there to say after that? What do they want to hear? Talking about it doesn't change it. Bringing it out in the open did not lessen the terrible sense of loss and overwhelming fear that accompanied the visions. I knew why I felt the way I did and it didn't take a lot of education for me to decipher it. Over time, with the help of my growing brood the fears and panic attacks eased bit by bit. I still saw my boy, still saw the grim blue visage ut I had wonderful images too, they swirled together making the awful ones easier to bear.

In August 2008 my youngest son took his own life. He put a gun to his head, right in front of me. He looked at me with the saddest, most sardonic smile, he shrugged, and he pulled the trigger. I had turned away I couldn't reach him, my husband was trying to get there but we were both mired in the quicksand of tragedy while he seemed to be in fast forward. I will never forget his smile at that instant. My husband begging and crying, my son's girlfriend shrieking and screaming and falling to the ground. I made the call to 911. I remember the lady asking where he shot himself, and I kept screaming his head, his head. She wanted a location.

It took him two days to die. Two days for us to say our goodbyes. He was conscious but on a ventilator, his spine shattered just below the base of his skill, his poor destroyed head and face swathed in rapidly bloody bandages as he tried to nod in answer to our questions. do you want to die? Do you want to turn off the machines? Repeating over and over that we loved him. You really cannot say it enough, ever, and certainly not under those circumstances.

I found out that the hospitals have Ethics Committees. We can't get congress or our state legislature to go for ethics committees but hospitals are all about it. The question was, basically, is it ethical to let someone who tried to kill themselves die.

We explained how tortured he had been, how his mind was so far in another dimension most of the time that to leave him with the only truly alive thing being the one thing that made his existence sheer living hell would be the cruelest thing any human being could do to another.  I still thank God daily that the doctors listened to us. They spoke to him, they gave us the go ahead. to remove the machines.

We were a crowd. I couldn't touch him. Not because I didn't want to, but because he could not feel anything and I did not want to touch him without him knowing. It seemed almost criminal so I didn't. We spoke to him, we told him it was okay, that God and his grandmother and his big brother were waiting for him. We watched the monitors as his heart went crazy for a minute or two, then slowed and stopped. I ran away.

The moments that haunt me are not these, not his dying moments, but his last truly alive moments. The gun being raised and that horrible sad sad smile. They come to me morning and night. They come to me in the darkest nights and the sunniest days. They come to me when I least expect them and bring me to my knees with such loss, such sadness, such hatred for the moment that stole my boy away from me.

I can talk about it, but like before, it doesn't change the fact and the fact is a soul killing one. That image twists like fog in and around all the good memories, all the good times, all of the pleasant moments in my new normal.

I wrote this because today someone made an offhand remark and I found myself fighting the demons again. One second everything is fine and the next I am fighting to stay afloat in the sea of despair that is my loss. That image comes unbidden and I just want to run away but I know I can't. I wrote this instead, to allow my children to walk this earth for a moment again, and to help myself to breathe.

The Wheels On The Bus

A comment on a popular social network site made me think about all of my hours spent on buses and trains and car pools and van. I have used mass transportation all over the world and I came to realize that people who use mass transport are always the same. It doesn't matter if you are in Europe, the South or in megalopolis areas like New York. We all fall into certain categories with very few, if any, exceptions.

First, and it wouldn't be a bus ride without this fine example, you have the Talker.

The Talker generally sits right behind the driver, leaning forward so that his mouth is in the closest possible proximity to the driver's ear. He rambles on and on about one of two things; Politics of which he knows nothing but thinks he knows everything, or sports, of which he knows just enough to be annoying and thinks he knows everything. The bus stops and starts, doors open and close, people talk to the driver yet none of this stops the Talker from droning on and on and on. On occasion, an Antagonist will have boarded the bus, sitting as far away from the Talker as possible and interjects a few statements that he knows will irritate the Talker no end and make sure that the ramble never ceases. At first the other passengers are always happy that the Antagonist irritates the Talker as badly as he is irritating them. If this goes on for more than a stop or two, however, the other passengers either put on headphones or yell "shut UP!" or get off 6 miles early because walking in the heat, rain, snow, chill has got to be less painful that the two annoying creatures going at each other in full voice.

Similar to the Talker is the Self Conversationalist. In the good old days people gave the Self Conversationalist wide berth because it could only mean one thing, i.e. CRAZY. A city bus is a confined space and being next to a verified lunatic is not pleasant for someone just tying to shlep their groceries home from the store. With the advent of cell phones and Blue Tooth devices the Self Conversationalist is now often confused with the Rude Asshole. I actually feel bad for the crazy people who now must wonder is the Rude Asshole hearing the same voices they are? Does everyone now hear voices? While the Self Conservationists voices are talking murder and mayhem the Rude Assholes voices seem to be saying nothing at all, just listening to the constant ramble about doctors visits and evil relatives, sort of like the bus driver. Are the voices simply passed away Talkers who feel they must leave their mouths close to someones ear and ramble on and on about sports and politics for eternity?

The Tired Mom is a fixture too. Aged looking women anywhere from 16 to 56 surrounded by wide eyed children who don't want to sit together take up several rows of seats. One is always crying, one is always sniffling and coughing, one is asking questions of the Somnolent Drunk (Another fixture. Could also be Jittery Addict, closely related and more and more common) next to them about why he isn't shaven, hey mister you smell funny, and why do your hands shake like that. Sometimes Tired Mom totally ignores her brood, glad to have them in an enclosed moving space and therefore confined giving her a short respite from constant vigilance. Sometimes Tired Mom looks on in pride as they terrorize the other passengers. Sometimes Tired Mom yells at the Self Conversationalist for terrifying her offspring but usually Tired Mom just dozes in and out and thinks about everything she has to do once she gets home and wishes, how she wishes, that she had a damn car.

What I like to call Thug Lite is next in this line of characters. Thug Lite would be really really scary except, well lets face it, he has to ride a bus. That means he isn't old enough to drive yet (Thug Lite Junior) or isn't a good enough drug dealer or burglar to afford a car. In other words he is often caught because while many people think public transportation brings a bad element to their neighborhood, it is a bad element who face thirty stops and starts on their omnibus getaway. Thug Lite is also often holding up their britches so they don't fall off in front of people they are trying to frighten. Seriously? How scary is someone who can't run without their pants sliding down and the whole world seeing their Mickey Mouse drawers? Thug Lite tend to travel in small herds and take up the back seat because even on mass transport the wanna be cool, bad kids sit in the back of the bus.

Thrill Seekers are an annoying fact for those of us that ride every day. Thrill Seekers ride a bus once, maybe twice in their life. They ride to say they have, they ride to give the kids a life lesson, they ride to prove that they are the same as Somnolent Drunk, Jittery Addict or Thug Lite, no better, no worse, all God's children after all. Thrill Seekers always look excited, sweaty palmed, red faced, benevolent shaky smiles as they clutch each other, sitting three to a bench seat and avoid eye contact with everyone except Tired Mom's kids. They ride a few stops and then hop off, relief coming off of them like a sickly sweet perfume as they hail a cab to finish their journey to wherever.

Freaking Liberal comes next. He boards jauntily after taking five minutes to hook his 2,000 dollar bike to the front of the bus. He is wearing all wrinkled cotton shorts and a defunct bands' t-shirt and shoes that are buy one, give a pair to some stranger in Africa. He has a reusable bottle of water which he clutches like a sword, waving it about as he gets into a discussion with the Talker about bicycles and the economy of road repair and the flat tax. Freaking Liberals all have facial hair, just enough to make Tired Mom want to yell at them to get a damn razor, were you raised by wolves? Freaking Liberals are doused with cologne from Abercrombie or Gap, mixing it with the sweat pouring off of them after biking through the city in the heat and the residual aroma of Starbucks. This effectively creates an envelope of odor that surrounds them, blocking out Somnolent Drunk or Thug Lite and their strange and quite uncomfortable scents compo;ed of malt liquor and cheap cigarettes  lack of soap or an abundance of cheap cologne and weed.

The Rider is another common figure. He is on when you get on and on when you get off. He is on day after day after day. He is quiet, looking out the window of nodding off, never seeming to notice anything going on inside the bus unless the Self Conservationist, Tired Mom and the Talker start going head to head. He hums on occasion, he smiles or makes faces at Tired Mom's children. He will on a rare occasion give up his well worn seat to an elderly man or woman and always to a pregnant woman, sliding quietly back into it when they depart. His description is that he is nondescript, white, brown, black or yellow he is always dressed innocuously and never interacts unless he has too. He could be a serial killer, a modern day hobo, an international spy or someone riding the bus for warmth and a few hours of protection. He is boring and intriguing at once.

Last but not least there are people like me, The Havetas. I haveta ride because I can't see well, I have friends that haveta ride because they have lost their license  they crashed their car or don't own one, sociology experiments, college students haveta ride to get to and from class because their taxi money went to beer and books. We get on, smile, wrinkle our nose at the smell, greet the Rider expecting and getting no acknowledgement, chuckle at Thug Lite, ask Tired Mom to move one of her kids and slide into our regular seat as we make our way back home.

Grace Is My Name

The house we bought has a pool… at least it will be a pool after we clean it up and have it repaired. That is our goal for March and April

I can already envision coming home and sliding into it at the end of a long frustrating day. I imagine cook-outs with grandchildren jumping and screaming and laughing out loud as they play like seals. I imagine moonlight swims with the man I love as the deer walk through the yard softly snuffling their greetings at us and the night birds sing. 

I love to swim, my husband loves to swim, the grandchildren love to swim, and their parents love to swim. It was inevitable that eventually, if I ever had the money and the time we would have a pool. I am planning on many, many glorious days spent sunning (yes I know it is bad for you and have the scars to prove it) with my SPF 1000 on, lazily floating around like bit of flotsam, dipping and diving and frolicking about. Heaven is a backyard pool.

As far back as I can remember the act of going to the swimming pool has been synonymous with good times. My sisters used to take us to the swimming pool in Fort Leavenworth. We had patches sewn on our swimsuits that said FLOOM which allowed us entry, a magical pass that let us into summer and youth whenever we wanted to go. The pool was huge; the water was deep and was always full of handsome young men showing off for the teenaged daughters of the commanding officers. I didn’t understand nor care about the clumsy rituals of pubescent mating. I just got to be by myself in a blue and white world with the sounds of laughter coming to me, distorted by the water as I swum about until I was starved and sun drunk.

When we lived in Belgium we would go the pool in Zaventem. It had both an outdoor and indoor pool. Most of the young people sat outside around the water, more flirting and sunning and diving. For this reason I always swam inside, alone, floating in the quiet, the echo of small children crying and mothers shushing and old women murmuring as they stood in the water not moving but enjoying the company just the same. There were always one or two old men, scrawny, chicken necked, serious, doing the breast stroke up and down and up and down the pool, taking up a center lane and wrecking any cross pool swimming I chose to try to do.

I learned how to do a perfect dive here, I learned to back dive here. I learned how to stand on my hands in the moving water and do somersaults front and back, strings of them over and over until I was dizzy and out of breath.  I certified for a life guard’s badge here, for the fun of it. I had no intention of ever actually being one. Too much drama, too much exposure to the crowds of people I was so uncomfortable with. 

The one time I was convinced to go with friends I didn’t know what to do. I listened to their prattle, followed them outside as they strutted their newly formed stuff and felt utterly uncomfortable and more alone than I ever had. I did my share of flirting, strutting and ogling, just not here, not at the water covered by next to nothing, not in my quiet wavy place. My body was perfect in the water, I was free and limber and graceful. Outside the water I was awkward, had huge heavy embarrassing breasts and couldn't see where I was going. No contest, I always went alone after that.

We lived in a condo complex when my children were babies. I would load up the playpen and cooler and floaties and towels and bottles and toys and, making two or three trips cart the whole kit and caboodle to the pool every day it wasn't raining. I put the brightest ugliest floaties on my kids so I would be able to see them and they wouldn't drown. I splished and splashed with them, teaching them to dog paddle, to not be afraid to jump in, to go under, to hold their breath. Remembering my concave gut after hours of swimming when I was a kid I always had apples and Kool-Aid and crackers which they would scarf down and head right back into the water. They were nut brown, strong, thin, and oh so social. 

They played with their friends by the hour. Other kids came and went but we stayed, all day, every day. On mornings when we woke up and it was raining we all were grumpy, nothing was better than those free hours together yet separate and happy. Sometimes cousins would come and I had a few minutes of peace while my brother threw them all up in the air and chased them through the water like a shark.,

One time I jumped in and saved a little boy from drowning. He was autistic, hated being touched and easily frightened. A neighbor had decided that taking him into the deep end was all he needed to see what fun it could be. Unfortunately, she had passed the point of no return, her feet no longer anywhere near the bottom when she let go of his legs and touched his face in a loving gesture. He screamed and started swinging at her. She was completely taken by surprise and they both were going under and quickly. I had been talking to a friend and we heard a strange noise, weird hollering that made no sense. We both realized at once what had happened and jumped in, me going for the kid and her for the poor drowning lady. As I scooped him up he thrashed and screamed, clawing at my face until he finally latched onto my hair, a safe hold with no skin to skin contact. His trunks fell off in the struggle and this terrified him even more. We had the attention of the entire pool community now. I finally got him to release me from his death grip, latched his little stiff arms onto the ladder and swam into the deep to get his trunks back for him. As we struggled in the water to get them on he wouldn’t look at me, his legs stiff as boards, realizing that I was helping I guess, but not being able to deal with the nearness. I heaved myself out and took the next thirty minutes convincing him to let go of the ladder and touch me so I could help him out. His mother finally appeared out of nowhere, yelled at me, yelled at him and took her cranky bib-butted self back home where, it turned out, she had stolen a half hour to be with her boyfriend who had a slight problem with her kid not being a perfect normal little boy.

Other than those few times the days of summer run together for me in a haze of Coppertone and Kool-Aid until a tornado took away my roof, my clothes and sadly my lazy hazy summer days.

I went years without a pool before finally buying a house in a neighborhood that had one. I loved it, my husband hated it because there were rules and regulations and he has an issue with them in general. The kids had little children and somehow all of those years of letting them be children didn’t transfer and they were terrified of letting the kids get near the water or out of their sight for a second. I reminded them of our good times but still they balked. 

Except for the few times I managed to go by myself and be sun glutted I did not enjoy it. I was back out in the open, exposed in my swimsuit, now with an awkward body and big heavy breasts and not being able to see anything. If others were there I avoided it. It was not all in all a pleasant experience. In a few years as the grandchildren got a bit older and their paranoid parents let them go a little bit some fun times were had but we were already on the hunt for a new place

.

In the end we found this house, surrounded by nothing with a pool of our own.  I look out at the board covered hole in the ground now and I can’t wait to be deep in the wavy blue and white world where grace is my name.

Loose In The Kitchen Again...

I have had a great weekend, surrounded by my kids and grand kids, sons-in-law and darling husband o' mine. The weather has been perfect, the laughs roll freely, the kids run and shout and play and fight and whisper and hug and have a wondrous cousin time together. I went on a cooking binge, which is good for all of us. I tried a bunch of new stuff but had one unmitigated total success. (Okay, more than one but I am not one to brag... seriously) My grand daughter told me she liked this dessert better than birthday cake. How could that absolutely not make a granny who bakes happier than a pig in....  stuff that is gross and slimy and might be unmentionable.

Anyway. With such rave reviews I thought I would share this one. This is really rich, almost brownie like so don't make it and have no one around to help lighten the calorie load.  I mixed up several recipes. This wasn't done on purpose, I had the recipe up on a computer in the other room and had to keep interrupting the kids and their games to check it. About halfway through I realized I had three recipes going. Sigh. The only thing I would do differently is maybe add a bit of baking powder to lighten it up. Oh, and maybe add a cup or so of chopped walnuts or pecans if the kids weren't here, too. What is it with kids and chunks? Other than that it is perfect.

1 cup (2 sticks)  butter or combination of margarine and butter
1 1/2 cup sugar (2 cups if you use tart apples)

Cream these two together

1 tsp vanilla extract
a good shake of cinnamon if desired (hay I am winging it here, I forget some things on occasion and I am terrible at measuring stuff too.)
3 eggs

Beat until blended. Don't over beat as this causes an emulsion between the eggs and butter.

2 heaping tablespoons Hershey's cocoa powder. I was cooking in a  perfect storm of kids, football, and walk by tasters so honestly I may have added a bit more. I am not sure so we will stick with two.
2 cups +-  of grated apples. 

I used red delicious. The original recipe had chunks of green apples and 2 cups of sugar but A). I had red delicious in abundance and B.) I was serving this to kids and chunks would have freaked them out and C). I like having the apple all through the cake and it was my kitchen so I could do what I wanted (insert stomping foot and protruding tongue here followed by nanny nanny boo boo).

1/2 cup water
1 tsp Baking soda
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour

Beat until well blended, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of bowl 

roughly 3/4  cup chocolate chips. I used store brand semi sweet.

Mix well.

This goes in a well greased and floured Bundt pan at 325 for 60 to 70 minutes. I have a dark pan and a teeny electric oven, and it took 70.

It is super rich, freaking delicious and has fiber so you can sort of justify it. :) Enjoy!

Poetry of Public Transportation

My work week inspires me (insert maniacal laughter of civil servant after Holiday break) and I prove once again poesy in not my forte!

Seven tired people, riding on a van. Six of them are ladies, one of them a man. Ages vary widely as do race and creed. We are all brought together by our transportation need.

One has lost their license, one can’t see for shit. One has to share with wifey because his own car was hit. One’s afraid of traffic, one can’t drive at night, one is only interested in  the latest octagon ring fight

We doze, we nod, we snore and fart, we read, we chat all in our cart. There is anger, prattle, happy talk. Phone calls, messages, long necks like stalks.

Coffee, soda, water too, tea and red bull and orange juice splash, most are wearing breakfasts masks. Eggs and biscuits, beans and grits, butter, jelly, chicken bits, poptarts, croissants, strudel too, all the frozen stuff they make for you.

We sigh we heave we move our butts…. Work again work again -- oh shut up