Spring Garden (de-) Planning

Well, spring is finally here.  Or it seems like it should be.  Because, even though, yes, it was snowing on Monday, it didn't stick, and it's warmed up to like 50 (ok 46) and the sun is...sort of out, so I'm calling that a win.

Yesterday I actually went out and spread some more black plastic on the last bit of empty dirt at the back side of the vegetable garden, and I'm ready to drag out our grow lights and plant vegetable seeds indoors next week.  That is...just as soon as we drag out the ten thousand carefully puzzle-stacked boxes of Christmas decorations in the hall closet to get under the house where the grow lights are stored.  Which will mean, I'll get in the middle of THAT and find something wrong with the tub of all the winter gloves and hats, and I'll go off all organizing THOSE, and then the coats will need to be rotated (winter in the back, light jackets to the front), and then I'll probably find that my scarves are in need of updating, and then--

anyway

Garden vegetable seeds will be happening next week.

The only thing about this year that will be a major change for us is that, if you read my empty nest posts awhile back...there's just two of us here now.  And our garden is, after just a hair over a decade of waiting for the fence around it to be finished...an enclosure of 5,000 square feet.  50' X 100' of enclosed potting soil.  It's like my own summer play area.  When there were four of us to feed, that space was great, and I've had years where I filled the whole thing to capacity with everysinglevariety of vegetables you can grow here (and some you can't).  I've filled it with things we eat (corn, carrots, beans) and things we don't (radishes/kale/okra/brussels sprouts).  I've wasted space on 46 tomato plants that I know will never fruit until Thanksgiving week, under my redneck-greenhouse covering of clear painter's plastic held down with pavers, no matter how early I plant them inside.

spring--covered with plastic and straw

Umm, yeah, lots of room here...

Now, suddenly, there's all this space, and there's just two of us.  I don't know how to un-plan my garden.  De-plan? Downsize?  I don't know what to do with less than half of a 25' row of carrots, 46 tomato plants, and 250 square feet of corn.  Two 25' x 4' rows of green beans.  12 mounds of potatoes.  A 20 x 24' area of pumpkins.   aieeeee

Most people's vegetable garden space would fit in the front corner where I grow medicinal herbs.

Kale seeding overdose.  Because yeah, no one eats kale.  Just saying-

Hmm.

Well...I have thought about adding more berries.  But God forbid, NOT more currants...those things are one of those plants where ONE is probably too many.  I mean, seriously, what do you DO with currants?  Sure, I make jelly (not jam, because they are basically composed of solid seeds), so now we have two bushes that fruit like crazy, and I have to sit there for hours picking them and THEN bring the racemes in and pick off the individual berries until I wish I'd never heard of currants, so yeah...no more currants.

Sam, helping with the currant situation.  

More blueberries would be nice.  Maybe I'll do that---add a bunch more blueberry bushes.  And lavender.  Or a cutting flower area, with just annual flowers for picking.  Hahahaaaa yeah right-- even with 85 or so roses here, I basically never cut flowers for inside.  Go figure...  So what would I do with a patch of cosmos and dahlias?  It'd be pretty though, even if I only see it from the window.

Or..since last year we added beekeeping to our list of Things We Do Now, But Not Entirely Together, I could add a bee-garden in part of it.  Not that they aren't already on flower-visiting overdrive with all the flowers and fruit we have blooming here all season.  But still, a bee corner would be cool.  Except no stinging.  I am anti-sting.  Like, Shane will go out and do the hive maintenance stuff, and I stay inside behind the windows and I still get little adrenaline rush chills thinking about 80 million bees (or however many in 5 hives) swarming all up in your stuff like "what's UP"...*shudder*

Actually our honeybees are pretty "mellow" (which is "bee speak" for  "they don't swarm out and kill you when you approach"), but still.  I just don't like stings.  Not even one from a cranky guard bee who forgets herself and is all "whoops sorry, had to do that".

So, I guess...stay tuned and see how we make use of our now-overly-large garden space, and I'll try not to can 115 pints of corn/beans/carrots/beets/tomatoes etc this fall, like I've done every year since like 1996.

I'd love to hear what you do with any excess garden space-- more fruit?  cutting gardens? Bee sanctuary?  And no...I'm not into selling at farmer's markets.  I'm too lazy to get up at 4 a.m. to pick, clean, and bundle, then drive to town, set up a booth, nicely display everything, then haggle with the uber-cool out-of-towners (I'm looking at you, Californians), who want to know if that's my "best price" for organic corn.  No thanks.  Actually, I don't get up at 4 a.m. for ANY reason...

And a Hearty GOODBYE to 2017

You guys.  SO MUCH has gone on since ...um...(counts on fingers) last June.  Let's review, shall we?  You can also almost just zoom through and see the pictures, for a quick update on my life, but if you like to read my scattered off-the-hip updates, well, yeah...there's that, too.

We've had:  *inhales* ...A bunch of yard renovation, a wedding followed by a beautiful reception, a graduation followed by a gift Jetta, an empty nest, a funeral, my first first-class seat on a plane (OMG THE FRONT OF THE PLANE, what is even happening?), a great Christmas party, a cookbook published(!), a hip replacement, an amazing vacation, and...a wrecked gift Jetta.  *insert super-annoyed-mom eye roll here*

Oh, and I managed to crochet our newly on-her-own graduated youngest daughter a super cool afghan in February, and knitted a new scarf for myself this weekend, in between cross-stitching everysingledayevenonvacation on my giant recreation of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry.  See?

I've literally taken this across the country in my carry-on, twice.

I also petted a MOOSE.  Yes, I know.  Dangerousssss.  I'm crazy.  Shouldn't have done that.  Etcetera.  But yeah, I totally did, and I was up on the porch safe behind a big pillar when I did it, and she couldn't get me, and she didn't seem like she cared, so I just went with it.  Since no one believes me that we had a totally tame-ish wild moose in our actual front yard (for like weeks, actually--the bushes barely survived it), I did manage to video the whole thing with my free hand while simultaneously watching her for signs of attack-moose mode so I could duck back inside and avoid being trampled or pummeled or beaten to death by her hooves, or whatever happens when mooses attack you.  Is "mooses" a word in that case?  No idea.  When "moose" attack you...that doesn't sound right either. Whatever.  Anyway, I totally petted her.  And I'm making "petted" a word, too.  I'd post the video but apparently it's not in the right format to upload, and I'm too lazy to figure that out, so here are some photos.  Maybe sometime I'll post the video in a separate moose-related post...

what are you doing?

Not sure that's a good idea...

Ok, whatev.  These bushes are too delicious.

We also had an orphaned baby hanging around a lot.  And, a whole other one (I hope!) who decided that our garden fence line would be a good place to...lie down and die.  (no photos of *that* but omg what do you do with a dead baby moose? No one wants to help you with that...)

Anyhoo...we're EMPTY NESTERS now, and it's hilarious how many people use that whispery-concerned voice when we tell them that, like we've just suffered a bereavement, and they ask "Soooo, how's *that* going? Are you guys, you know, doing ok?"  And we're like, "Ummm, yeah.  We're fine with it."  Why wouldn't we be?  We raised our girls to be independent, smart, capable women, and, voila---there they are; doing life, and rocking it.  Our oldest got married last April, and we hosted a beautiful evening reception in our back yard in June for them, followed by our youngest graduating from high school in June and moving to her own apartment in July.

Are they sweet or what?

Purple sky unedited and just...amazing! What a beautiful night!!

On a side note, I did totally finally manage to get that cookbook project published, which I promise I will write about in another post.

And, since Shane and I started out as best friends who also find each other incredibly hot (I know, awkward TMI), then took a detour into parenthood, we now find ourselves with all this empty house and free time together and, wait--what? --possibly some discretionary money that's just...for us?  What's THAT about?  When I find extra money in the bank account, I'm immediately glancing over my shoulder and wondering "Wait-what bill did I miss?" Still adjusting to that.  And guess what? IT'S FREAKING AWESOME.  It's like when we were in our 20s and we could just...get up and go out if we felt like it.  Out to dinner.  To the bookstore.  To Home Depot (yes, girls, we still do that on Sundays).  We may even take a road trip sometime.     

I know.  Crazy.

It helps that we still are best friends who find each other incredibly hot (even though we qualify as what my 80s-highschool self would call "totally super old"), and we still love to do everysinglething together and enjoy each other's company immensely.  I love that we have the place to ourselves.  I do love when our girls come and visit, and we have a houseful of young people hanging around, relaxing, eating and visiting (and yes, playing on their phones).  But then I love that they all leave and go home at the end of the weekend, too.  So, yeah.  Empty nesting is a revelation.

Ok, what else?  Oh, yeah-- I'll just state once for the record that 2017 MORE OR LESS SUCKED, in spite of some terrific bright spots.  In general, it was just like one punch in the junk after another.  Like, can we get a break here yet? And apparently the answer to *that* question was a resounding "no", for most of 2017.  Oh sure, it had its good moments, but seriously...2017 will be remembered as the Year From Hell, more or less.  Our youngest graduated and moved out, and we had about ONE WEEK of "whoopie, we're empty-nesters" before Shane was diagnosed with a destroyed hip joint that was rapidly deteriorating and would require a total hip replacement as soon as possible.  *cue Jaws music here*

For a guy who works outside, on his feet, in and out of equipment all day every day, this was bad news.  Bad, bad.  It also meant we skipped all the things last summer that meant walking anywhere.  No hunting.  No walking around the fair.  No wandering around Home Depot.  No walking ANYwhere that wasn't 100% necessary, because he was in so . much . pain.  And the narcotics and even the non-narcotics that they gave him for the pain made him depressed and super...cranky...to be honest.  Even he noticed it.  The hydrocodones also gave him terrifying nightmares along with the depression, so he mainly just powered through with Tylenol and Ibuprofen.  Not fun-- at all.  For either of us.

He dragged his leg around from June through December, barely able to walk some days because of the pain, plus his hip would randomly give out and he'd fall.  He did manage to work until December 13th, when he went in for a total hip replacement.  To make a long (long, long, painful) story shorter...he came through it with absolute flying colors and was back at work 3 weeks later, on his feet, outside, in the snow, moving logs.  My brother actually moved out and stayed with us for most of the winter, and was a huge help at the log yard and as a backup watchdog for Shane, which made me feel a little more at ease watching him go out in the snow to work.  I'd send them off to work in the morning and be mouthing to Jesse behind Shane's back "do NOT let him fall down!!"  So yeah...that's behind us, thank God.  I'm not posting any surgical photos, though.  You're welcome.

THEN we took a amazing and much-needed Disney trip to DisneyWorld with a cruise to the Bahamas and back, which was almost literally just what the doctor ordered.  Somehow we also rolled the dice with letting them assign our room category, and we scored the BEST stateroom ever, with like 40' of private deck at the back corner of the ship.  It was absolute heaven.  We've always gotten an inside-mushrooms-in-the-dark stateroom, but this was so worth it, just......so much yes.

our room was about 3 decks from the top, right side, upper corner.  HUGE wraparound deck...

And of course, I always get home from Florida and immediately start already planning the next time I can see palm trees because - duh - Idaho - palm trees.

As I write this, it is still cold enough to snow here (March 26th) and too early too cold to go outside and start on any garden stuff yet, though I do have my seeds and potting soil and trowel all at the ready, so I can get our vegetables started for this year.

We also bought a meat smoker, and I didn't think I would, but I've officially fallen in love with smoking our own meat!  So far we've smoked some salmon, our own bacon, and our own ham, and omg-- the taste...can't.even.  I die.  IT'S SO YUMMY.

My first smoked ham

Oh, and if you're still wondering about the wrecked-gift-Jetta from the opening, well, yeah...everyone's fine.  The Jetta's not.  So, that's probably about all we need to say about that...

Boyfriend: 1.  Jetta: 0.

Oh, and the Christmas party we sometimes host, where I make like 45 different appetizers that don't need a fork (no matter what Aunt Alice says..), and start baking in like October, was AWESOME.  We squeezed something like 64 people in our downstairs, and it was just a lovely time with everyone.  Shane's surgery was the following Tuesday, so we wanted to see everyone before he was down for recovery.  I'm already looking forward to doing it again this year.

The List

Anyway, I just thought I'd do a quick(ish) update.  Hopefully I'll start writing more often, now that 2017 is over and done, and it took its black cloud/punch-you-in-the-junk mood with it.

Plus, there are more of my hippie childhood stories that are too good not to share, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, and hope you're all having a lovely start to 2018.  It's gotta be better, right?

So--What's Next?

I know, I know.  I haven't posted for a minute.  I've been missing writing, but also feeling like maybe I've already said All The Things, but then I've also been having a sudden urge to ramble/journal for no apparent reason.  So I thought I'd pop back in and see if anyone's still out there.

You still here??

Having basically broken up with the internet and FB in October 2015, it's been lovely and quiet and fun and REAL around here, ever since.  Here are a few updates, because I KNOW you've been wondering:

1--We finished our garden fence last year, after just a shade under a decade of working on it...high fives all around.  Now the deer can only stand on the outside and wish.

2--We started traveling again...omg YES.  Just, so much yes.  That sentence will eventually morph into some thoughts on snow-bird lifestyles and not living in Idaho in the winter when we're old.

3--Our oldest is getting married, omg, yes, married.  In like three weeks.  So that cookbook project has taken on a whole new meaning and urgency.

4--Our youngest is graduating in June and already looking for her own apartment, because "omg mahm I can't WAIT to be on my own," which is kind of music to my ears, because (sorry) I am super against people being a crutch for their kids and talking babytalk to them when they're 19 years old and being all "ohhhnooomywittlebaaaayybeee...mommy doesn't want her little babyboo to leave her!"  What the heck is that?  Stop it.  Let them get their life started already.  Make their own budget.  Make their own mistakes.  Make their own dinner.  All of it.

Maybe that's what this post is warming up to be...a rant about parents who refuse to let go.  I tell people that our youngest is excited to get out on her own this summer, and I get this look:

"She's moving OUT?  RIGHT AFTER GRADUATION??"

And they're like, "Oh my gosh.  So soon?  Isn't that kind of young? Aren't you so sad? Won't you miss all this?"  And I'm all, "Not really.  We loved it all, but they're grown up now.  Shane and I are actually really FINE with the idea of having the house to ourselves.  We might even hang out semi-naked in the living room, drinking vodka and playing strip poker."  Wait-- of course I don't say that out LOUD, but you get the idea.  We're ready to be on OUR own, too.  We started as a couple of kids in love with each other.  We got married.  We spent about 9 and a half years hanging out doing all kinds of dumb stuff together, and then we decided, hey, this has been fun, but--why not have kids too, so we took a side trip to do that, and spent the next 20 years spending all of our time, energy, and every extra dime we ever could make or dream of making, on them and their needs.

Now it's our turn again.  We can go back to being those two crazy-in-love people doing dumb stuff together and finishing each other's sentences and thinking that hanging out in bed together on a Sunday morning is just fine with us.  We might even start spending our money on things we want to do again.

So, I'm sorry if this is you, but I'll never understand the people who are ooey gooey about having their grown kids move out of the house.  They are grown ups...let them go, and enjoy what's next.


*exhales*

It's good to be back, guys.

Survived RV-ing. Got the T-Shirt.

Make 2000-mile round trip in an RV with family and giant dog.  Check that off my bucket list.

no

You guys.  We got home at 1:28 a.m last Thursday, after driving straight thru for about 9 hours one day and 14 hours the second day.  Shane drove the whole entire trip, both ways, because he is the actual model that they used for Superman, except that now I think he needs a vacation from our vacation.  His superpower is that he can drive for two days straight and still smile.

At my prior post, I was packing the RV with our wholeentirelife, plus possibly some stuff we never use because what if we have a medical emergency and someone needs a wound stitched ON THE ROAD; plus enough stuff to have a yard sale to raise gas money for the trip home because we always have some financial crisis whenever we leave town and find ourselves scrounging under the driver's seat for cash for that last tank of gas; plus EVERY CRUMB of food in the house; plus EVERY SINGLE PIECE of clothing in the house, because what if it gets too hot/cold/windy/wet/dry or we need to go swimming in a river suddenly; PLUS my husband, our teenager, my mom and all of her luggage, AND a 70-pound English mastiff puppy for good measure, because who wouldn't want to take a 70-pound dog in an RV with no tip-outs, with walkways the width of your kneecaps? Bindi has added "knows how to back up while standing in a moving RV" to her short but growing list of handy tricks, so we feel like she's definitely special.

Who could leave this face at HOME?

We crammed all of this into a new(to us) RV that we'd never test-driven further than the nearest gas station, made sure the basic things worked like lights, water, and the generator, slammed the door, and drove it ALL THE WAY TO ALAMEDA, CALIFORNIA, because we keep pretty strictly to our code of living by the seat of our pants.  From our house, Alameda turned out to be exactly 1,006,000,000,000 miles away, but we thought we could take turns driving and it'd all be a hoot, right?  I pictured us playing Scrabble along the way and telling family stories as we cruised through Washington, Oregon, and California.

no

Oregon turned out to have A LOT more uphill climbs than I remembered.  After living there for 5 years and driving back and forth to Idaho a lot, I remembered, like, ONE.  There were actually about a thousand, give or take.  It turns out that I-5 through Oregon is JUST HILLS.  It's literally just...a freeway--straight through the middle of a mountain range.  I remember it being much more fun to drive when we were younger, in our (then) new BMW 328xi, but the whole experience in a 28' RV shaped like a giant SAIL was somewhat less exhilarating.

And we didn't play Scrabble OR take turns driving.

Because WIND.  Add to the nonstop hills, the fact that the wind blew, hard.  The. Whole. Way. Picture riding inside a breadbox inside a windtunnel inside a hurricane, pretty much all the way right up to my aunt's doorstep in Alameda.

I may or may not have seen this out the window at one point

Because of the WIND, we didn't switch drivers except that one time when Shane laid down in the back bed at a rest stop, in need of a nap, and I figured I could definitely drive this thing down a straight freeway in the Columbia River Gorge for awhile, because how hard can it be, right?  I think he lasted all of five minutes on the bed before he tiptoed up to the front, stepped over the dog, and said lovingly in my ear Pull over.  You're going to kill all of us.

In my defense, I was totally staying between the lines, even though I think I maxed out at a speed of like 47 mph.  No wonder the drivers of RVs always look like they're 100 years old, all hunched over and crabby.  The wind pushed us around so much that the only place that felt safe was the front seats.  The further back you got, the more it felt like you were in a shuttle launch, with all the crash-warning alarms blinking.  Every time any of us went in the back of the RV, we thought this is it.  This is how it ends.  We're just going to be blown out of control and roll over a hundred times and we'll all die.  I don't want to die in an RV bathroom in my pajamas.

We also ended up driving through northern California in the midst of a 3-year drought and a heat wave at about 5 p.m., so there were lots of OH MY GOSH HOT comments every time we stopped, which was about every hour, because the RV needed gas in every town to compensate for our 8 mpg fuel consumption, and the dog needed to get out at pretty much every single rest stop for the entire length of I-5.

Just kidding.  It was actually more like every *few* rest stops.

  

And as an aside, can I just say for the record that Oregon has some of the nicest rest stops I've ever seen in my life?  Like, you could live there.

OK, not THIS nice.  But still.

Then things started going awry.  About halfway down I-5, we realized the generator wasn't going to work for longer than a few minutes at a time before it died, even though on all our test runs at home, it had worked fine.  It was also so loud that we knew that if we started it up within an acre of any humans, we'd cause a evacuation, so we'd been hoping to run it while we were driving, to keep things charged and possibly use the air conditioner, because Sacramento.  Apparently there was an issue with the relay breaker flux capacitor fuel pump thingie.

So...no generator = no A/C + no charging of the things.

Having no way to charge our phones along the way, I realized that mine was at about 22% battery as we approached Sacramento, and we still needed it to navigate into San Francisco.  I can not even imagine how we all ever did this stuff with just...maps.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I turned my phone off and hoped that the battery wouldn't die in the dark, in the middle of San Francisco traffic.  Because the one thing I did NOT pack was a map.

Right about the same time, I realized that the wet spot on the carpet by the sink wasn't from the dog splashing her drinking water.  Our hot water tank was leaking under the cabinets, (yes, the same hot water tank we had spent an entire 98-degree evening struggling to fit back into a hole that was, I promise, not as big as the tank itself). The spot was spreading.  I looked under the sink cabinet area and assessed the situation.  All the cleaning supplies I brought...soaked.  All the dishtowels and washclothes we brought...soaked.  RV kitchen carpet...soaked.  Wait--Who puts carpet in a kitchen??  

stay focused

I stuffed a large towel under the sink to soak up the leaking, and we stopped at a rest stop north of Red Bluff and laid our motley batch of wet towels to dry out in the sun on a picnic table.  The staff at the rest stop gathered around to ask us, nicely, if we were doing our laundry?  Because if so, it's probably not really appropriate to lay out your laundry to dry on the picnic tables, ma'am.  We reassured them that they were just wet towels, and since the surface of the tables was 1,000 degrees, the towels dried in about 30 seconds, and we were on our way.

I also had an opportunity to actually YELL at my very first complete stranger, because Bindi is very shy around new people and dogs (as in: she panics if they approach too fast).  This woman pulled up in her Mercedes to a rest stop and let both her dogs out, unleashed, where they proceeded to pee everywhere except the area marked PET AREA.  She then watched unconcerned as one of her dogs ran straight for us, where we were sitting with Bindi at a picnic table, on a leash, like normal people do.  Bindi saw the strange dog and went into full panic-reverse mode, straight backwards up Shane's leg.  I completely forgot my diplomacy skills and shouted at this lady, "Leash.  Dog on leash please.  Leash your dog.  LEASH WOMAN!!!"

She huffed off to her Mercedes and drove away.  No apology.  Not even, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I'm just way too special to follow leash laws.  Those scratches look like they hurt."

I've never yelled at a stranger before, but it felt kind of freeing...

We continued on.  The wind never let up for the entire trip, but I speak for both of us when I say that the last 45 minutes into the Bay area at 9:30 p.m. that night ranked in our top 2 scariest road trips.  We paused about an hour outside the city to text my cousin and suggest that maybe we should spend the night at a campground and come into the city in the daylight the next morning. "Oh, no, you're so close! It's only another hour! Just come the rest of the way!" We were like, "Right.  Because, how hard can it be?"  So we headed back onto the freeway, checked my phone (19% battery), and hoped for the best.

Imagine trying to handle a giant box of an RV in strong gusting head-winds, driving 70 mph on a 19-lane 5-lane freeway full of crazy city traffic, while trying to navigate to an unknown destination in the dark.  Shane's a great driver and the calmest man I know, but I've literally never seen him so stressed.  It took all his concentration to keep us upright and also not run over the various insane drivers who kept cutting in front of the RV at 70 mph with like 3 feet of space to spare, without signaling.  

We were both getting tenser by the minute.  Our daughter gave up watching through the window and decided now would be a good time to face the back and PRAY.

Our conversation the last few miles consisted of fun stuff like this:

Him:  We're in the middle lane.  What lane do I need to be in?  What lane WHAT LANE WHAT LANE?!?  WHATLANE???

Me:  Hold on.  My phone's still powering on.

Him:  Hurry UP please.  The freeway forks in 1/4 mile.

Me:  Almost done...I can't make it start up any faster.

Him:  JUST TELL ME WHERE TO GO!!

Me:  YO, I DIDN'T BUILD THIS FREEWAY SYSTEM.  I'M AS LOST AS YOU ARE, SO--

Google Navigation Voice:  In 1/4 mile keep left to take the exit towards I-580 south Alameda/San Francisco/Mexico/Brazil and I-880 south San Francisco Airport/I-80 west Fairfield/San Rafael/Napa/blahblah.

Him:  What?? I just need to know which exit.

Me:  I think we keep left.  Ok--Yes.  This is good.  So...Stay left.  LEFT.  Change lanes NOW.

We find ourselves off the freeway under a tangle of what seems like all the freeways and overpasses ever built, driving in the dark, in the industrial part of Oakland.

Google Navigation Voice:  Keep left at the fork.  Keep right at the fork.  Slight right onto Jackson. Use the left lanes to continue onto Central Ave.

Us:  ...did it just say keep left AND keep right? WHICH fork??   AH MIGASH.

Him:  We're going to die.  Can you see any street signs? Where are we?

Me:  No, it's too dark.  Wait.  It says Jackson on the sign there, behind that tree branch.  I think.  No, wait--that's Santa Clara.  Nevermind.

Him:  Just TELL ME WHERE TO TURN, because there are four lanes here, and I can't get across all of them in one block.  Why can't we see any SIGNS?

Me:  I've never been here, so I know as much as you do right now.  Yes, wait-- OK, we're on Central. OK, turn left up here.  You need to be in the left lane.  I think.  Yes.  Move over a lane now.  LEFT.  LEFT LANE RIGHT NOW TURN HERE.

Google Navigation Voice:  Your destination is on the right.

We made it.  Then we saw the alley my aunt was directing us to drive into with this 28-foot motorhome.  C'mon back!  You guys.  It was the smallest alley I have ever seen.  Like the kind of alley that was probably installed when the milk man delivered milk with a one-horse cart, and it is used by apartment dwellers who drive those little electric hybrid city cars, very slowly.  It was lined with brick apartment entries on one side and a solid wall of hedge on the other, and it was exactly 8 inches wider than the whole motorhome.

On our first try, we went in at the wrong angle, caught the trees with the RV stair that had somehow slid out, and bent it all to heck.  When I tried to open the door to check out how badly we'd mangled the step, I could open the door about an inch and a half before I hit the trees.  The step was ruined, so it couldn't be pushed in.  Start over.

He backed up, out into the 4-lane street full of Friday-night traffic, straightened the RV more, and tried again.  This time we were lined up right, but the alley was so narrow that he literally was pushing through all the bushes the whole way back for about 100' to where the parking area was. One really stubborn bush actually broke off our exterior running light and left a set of 4 scratches the whole length of the RV.  As Shane passed one brick apartment entryway, he reached out the driver's window and gently pushed their potted plants out of the way so he could inch past it.

scrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The whole way down the alley, I was following him with a flashlight, wondering are we going to have to back out of this alley? Because if we are, we'll just have to sell the RV in pieces, right here in the alley and fly home.  I wonder if I can put Bindi on an airplane? We can NOT afford plane tickets.  It turned out to be a U-shaped drive-through, so we didn't have to sell the RV.

By the time he turned off the motor, I think my skin was the only thing actually holding me together.

Once parked, we knew we couldn't use the generator in the small space we were in without somehow building a new muffler for it, but we figured no problem, we'll just plug our 60' power cord into my aunt's storage unit outlet.   But no, because the outlet turned out to be 70' away.  Which didn't matter, because the outlet was the wrong amperage anyway.

Holding firm to our "wing-it" creed, we used the onboard batteries all week, got a jump-start when it was time to leave, drove out the other entrance to the apartments (which turned out to be much wider, thank goodness), and did the whole trip in reverse, in daylight.

About an hour outside of San Francisco, we realized we're out of water, so...no toilet, no shower, no washing dishes.  Also still no generator, so also still no A/C or charging of the things.  And why do I smell the septic tank??

Break time.

We found an overnight RV camp ground about half way home and were able to plug into actual electricity, refill our water, dump the septic, charge the things, and continued on home.  I won't even bother marveling at the small-ness of the camp spots at this lovely, shaded RV park by a river.  I stepped out of our door and nearly hit my face on the slide-out of the camper next to us.  Yes, they were that close.  On all sides.  Because:  Hey, suburban life is a drag.  I know! Let's go CAMPING, so we can live EVEN CLOSER to our neighbors. 

this is roomier, by comparison...not even kidding

Aside from the stressful trip getting there and back, it turned out to be a seriously awesome visit with a group of my family that have never before, and may never again, all be in the same city at the same time, so everything was worth it.

And we got to see some beautiful scenery.

Heading down the Gorge

Columbia River

Mt Shasta 

Cool hills outside Fairfield, CA

Unloading.  Because why not?

Shasta again on the way home

Mt Hood from Portland freeway, after going 21 miles in stop/start rush hour traffic. why

But hey--I had time to knit this sock...

If anyone's interested, we also have an RV for sale.

I Can't Remember What They're Called...but I May Have Just Created One

2010

You know, where something happens, and that causes something else to happen, which couldn't happen unless the first thing had/hadn't happened, but neither can happen without the other, and then you're back where you started?

One of those.  Worm hole? Time-space continuum? Time warp?  Chicken crossing the road?  No, wait--

Anyway.

It's time to decorate the house because CHRISTMAS.  Which is my favorite time of year, except summer.  My life pretty much revolves around "When's summer?" and "When's Christmas?"

2011

Guys.  To fully decorate our house, it means basically A TREE IN EVERYSINGLEROOM OF THE WHOLE ENTIRE HOUSE.  Seriously.  I think there are like 9 now, even one in a bathroom.  Two 6-foot, three 4-foot, one 3-foot, two 18", and one 12" which doesn't really count, but 9 sounds better than 8 when I'm making up lists of why I have too much to do or  making holiday predictions, right?  Let's just call it an even dozen.

The time warp/worm hole/quantum thing comes into effect, though, because, to decorate I need to have a plate of Christmas cookies.  And I haven't made Christmas cookies yet.  And I can't even HAVE Christmas cookies because I'm on a whole-food/one-ingredient/raw food type diet (which is working, but it's not like it's FUN or anything), so why make them?  And if I can't have Christmas cookies, which I haven't baked, I can't decorate, and I can't decorate unless I make cookies first and have a little plate while decorating the tree, and I can't make cookies because--

You can see where this is going, right? 

2012

Also, decorating means pulling some of the decorations and trees out of the attic, which means moving stuff out of the garage to get TO the attic.  And of course, while we're up there, we should take some stuff UP there that's been sitting in the garage since, like, August.  Try not to look around and find anything that I forgot about.  HEY! WHY IS MY PUNCH BOWL UP HERE?  OH LOOK, THEIR BABY TOYS!!!

Focus! You came up here for trees.

Actually, the bulk of our holiday decor is in the backbackback of the coat closet, in a dark cavern under the stairs, and that means pulling out EVERY SINGLE COAT, HAT, AND BOOT to pull out all the boxes, which in itself never thrills me, because then I start thinking we should totally give away some of these coats because for the love of God, WHY DO WE HAVE SO MANY COATS?  And then I start sorting gloves and wondering the same thing, except with the addition of why can't they stay matched UP, and why doesn't Shane have any boots?  I should have a cookie.

It also means trying to figure out where to put the big tree in the living room--there are only two choices--and either one means moving ALL THE FURNITURE around, which means OMG LOOK AT ALL THAT DUST, and then I have to sweep and vacuum and possibly look for a new house or at least fire the maid.

hahahAHAHAHAHAHAHA    ...yeah, no.  There's no maid here.

Anyway.  I HAVE to decorate, because we are also having The Christmas Party here this year.  Which means, like, 60 people and 10,000 varieties of finger food and lots of laughing our heads off, (and lots of cookies), and I can't start all THAT until the trees are up, and the trees can't go up because no COOKIES.  I don't even know if I can do this without baking first.

I could just bake some.  But then I'd have to do dishes first, and possibly go the store because I'm pretty sure I'm low on butter, which means I'd have to also get dressed (and find some cash), and that's just too much right now.  I've only been up for an hour, so this all seems like too much on my (cookie-less) plate.

*sighs*

Well, I guess I'll go stare into that closet now.  Thanks for listening.

Jack, enjoying the tree   2013

Adult Children of Narcissists: It's Not You, It's Them

I had this post rattling around composing itself in my head overnight, after talking to my mom last night, which means it's time to write it down.  Not everything is funny all the time, (actually, most of life isn't funny, most of the time), but I needed to write this one and get it out of my head and off my heart. 

I can already promise you, I'm going to go long on this one.  It's been hard to write, and even harder to hit *publish*.  

Where to start?

If you know me, and most of you don't, you may know that my parents divorced in 1988, after 21 years together, and about 18 months after our house (that we built) burned to the ground.  I was barely 18; my brother was 12.  My dad was, (and is) an alcoholic, womanizing narcissist with the IQ of a genius, the motivation of a sloth, and the wiliness of a fox.  He was born with the proverbial silver spoon, to wealthy parents who worshipped him and would have given him the moon, if he'd done what they wanted (Yale doctorate, the Air Force, marry a socialite, and live in a mansion on the beach at Ocean City). 

Instead he started drinking, smoking, and philandering in prep school, and he just never stopped.  Even after meeting my mom and spending 21 years married, he never stopped.  He pretended to be sober and even dragged himself to church for about a decade in the 80s with us, while spending exactly no time at any job, but lots of time scribbling new business schemes on napkins and rambling about black helicopters.  He never expressed any interest in us as a family or his responsibilities as a husband and father, unless there was credit to be taken.  He was good at showing up when we were getting awards for stuff.

When I was 16, our house burned down, while my mom was visiting back east in DC.  Three days away, by train.  In fact, it caught fire the morning she was getting on the train, so she got to sit there on a train for 3 days, knowing that she was coming home to:  Nothing.  Rumors abounded that he had set the fire in order to avoid a) bankruptcy and foreclosure or b) having to say that, hey, I hate being married and having a family.  Can you please go away now? So, maybe he did…no one knows but him.  Either way, it worked out pretty great for him, one might think, except for the part where we all still didn't go away.  We're funny that way.

After the fire, our family moved into a rental.  We had a fundraiser and got a bunch of lame second-hand stuff given to us so we could have clothes and shoes and chairs and beds and plates, and our family rolled along under the pretense that we were still a family, in the sense that we all still shared an address.  He started working out of town, which is code for…living a separate life in another town with his new girlfriend(s).  Mom made sure that my brother and I didn't see anything wrong for about another year and a half, until she finally took a hint that maybe this guy just doesn't want to BE HERE anymore. 

 She took my brother and moved back to Vermont, leaving me in Idaho to finish my last 3 months of high school and live on my own, one month shy of my 18th birthday.  I had been dating my now-husband/hero/best friend/soul mate for about 8 months by then, so she couldn't have dragged me with her if she'd tried.  I'm glad I stayed, but it wasn't an easy place to be at 18 years old, with a closet full of *nothing you recognize from your childhood*, a failed plan to get to college, no money or job, and my dad waving his new girlfriend in our face.

My POINT today is that, all these years, we have kept in touch with this man.  We have (and yes, I mean, EVEN MY MOTHER) actually met and accepted many of his various girlfriends along the way.  I truly liked several of them.  Nice women.  Smart women.  Women who were willing to listen to his BS story and carry his weight for awhile, until each one realized they needed to get away from this self-aborbed man before their lives imploded.

My mom spent her married life telling herself that if only he'd get sober, he'd be OK.  So, we watched him go through AA and get sober, after they divorced.  He stayed sober for 10 years, (for real), and you know what? Nothing changed.  He was still the same soul-less narcissist whose stories are all basically just lies…only he tells them in such a way that you believe them, and you realize that he seems to believe them, too.  That is when you realize you may be dealing with a mad man.

We watched him, after 10 years of sobriety (though still a narcissistic center-of-his-own-universe kind of guy), get involved with yet another new woman.  She liked to have wine with dinner, and she can have had no earthly way of knowing what she was encouraging, but he started having "a glass of wine with dinner.  We're all grownups here.  I can have a glass of wine with dinner.  I'm fine."  This fairly quickly escalated downhill.  Fast-forward to today, where it's more like a "glass of scotch with brunch".  Or two.  There have been years where I knew he was coming, so I stashed my Christmas-baking mini-bottles of rum and brandy in the back of my baking cabinet, and after he had gone home, they were all empty.  He did sneakily leave the ones at the front of the cabinet, still somewhat full, but the ones in the back?-- EMPTY. 

WTH? Really?  You have to sneak my rum?  Just ask me…you can have it.

We have all have tried to include him at various holidays through the years.  My mom, God bless her soul, has stayed in our home for the holidays with him here, and there is no crazy drama.  There are no fights, no tears, no recriminations.  They actually laugh together a lot.  They've known each other the longest, and she's honestly possibly the only person on the planet who has been involved with him, and yet still will speak to him, and she has the least reason of anyone alive.  If that's not grace, I don't know what is…

These days I usually go about a year or so without talking to him.  He'll call once a year, usually right before his birthday (and 3 weeks AFTER mine, but who's counting), and mention that it's his birthday coming up.  Me:  Oh.  Right.  Yeah, happy birthday.  Mine was 3 weeks ago…

I wouldn't expect him to remember it, though, because as the story goes…he wasn't even home the night my mom went into labor with me, and no one could find him to tell him she was in the hospital. Their parents were all frantic. Where is he? We are at the hospital! It turned out he was spending some *quality time* with one of the cocktail waitresses at the bar where he worked that night, so he couldn't be bothered to be there for something like the birth of his first child.  So, yeah…I can see why he'd have a hard time remembering that date.

The last few times I've called him, he has begun to sound like a weepy old drunk, which means I called too late in the day (4:30 p.m.? really?) and he's already had too many.  Our conversations will go for about five minutes, and then he starts mumbling and sounding slurry and then…wait.  ARE YOU CRYING RIGHT NOW? Do NOT be crying.  I can not even deal with crying drunk mumbling. 

I hang up.  Wait…no, I don't hang UP.  I nicely say-- What? I'm, uh..having trouble hearing what you're saying, so I'll let you go, Dad.  Talk to you later.  I love you.

Yes, I still say that.  Even so.  Even though I will have a hard time attending his actual funeral for just lack of effing interest, I still say that.  When I love someone, I just…do.  Which makes me sad to even write, because I know he probably doesn't.  Not that *I'm* not love-able, but that he's NOT CAPABLE of feeling it.  Maybe narcissists really can only truly love themselves.  Maybe they truly are missing that part of their soul or their conscience that can feel empathy or love for anyone but themselves.  What a sad place to be, never knowing what it is to love someone else, not even your own children.  What a lot of love to miss out on.

I can't change that for him, and he's running out of years.  He's already had an aneurysm repair and some heart stuff, and he's been smoking and drinking hard for almost 60 years, so yeah, NOW might be a good time.  But I'm not holding my breath.  

After a lot of years of anger, tears, frustration and pain caused by this self-absorbed, charismatic, intelligent, damaging man, the three of us have, indeed, forgiven.  We have all, in our own ways, given up hope of change--yet we stay in touch.   We don't forget the past, so much as we seem to paint our past with that hazy airbrush of time.  We smile and say 'water under the bridge'.  We remember the crazy fun of growing up in the 70s, in a cabin in the woods.  I remember a childhood I loved, where my mom kept the dysfunction carefully out of sight.  Through that hazy filtered light, we have been able to spend time this man, who destroyed our family and has left a trail of tears behind him all his life, and we can break bread and laugh together.  But somehow, I always come away from those times feeling battered and angry and cheated, all over again.  I can feel tears that haven't been shed, even now.

I woke up with that feeling this morning, but I had sort of a revelation, too.

After talking to my mom last night, I was reminded yet again that this man took himself out of this family (or never really joined it), A LONG TIME AGO.  I realized that maybe it's just *us* who aren't getting on board with the whole concept of:  Divorced And Moved On.

Leaving aside the fact that he spent their whole actual marriage and my childhood not being present in our lives, unless it was to take credit for me being a smart kid or my brother being the best soccer player on the team, we have somehow been blind to the fact that, when they divorced, he expected to actually be DONE with all of this parenting/family stuff.

How did we miss that?

Mom still sends him Christmas gifts.  WHOSE EX-WIFE STILL SENDS THEM FREAKING CHRISTMAS GIFTS??! This was not an amicable split.  He cheated with every woman possible, for the length of their entire relationship.  He overlapped the end of their marriage with the next woman.  He is not sorry that we're not around.  He doesn't miss us.  I'm beginning to think that he can't, for the life of him, understand why we still keep turning up.  He is getting to where he can't even remember our names--that is the extent of his familial warmth.

The last time he was in town was September 2012, when he called to let us know he'd be in the area (not to see US, mind you--he has friends here.  We just happen to also live here).  They were here for a long weekend, so he came to our house with his latest lady-friend (who I haven't bothered to get to know…I'm sure she's nice though).  He hadn't been here in about 5 years, yet he still managed to walk into our house, straight through the living room, and out the back door, where he lit a cigarette and wandered around my back yard, leaving me inside with…"I'm sorry, what was your name again?" Unbelievable. 

The kids were at school, so he and the lady-friend followed me over to our school, where our youngest had a volleyball game, so I thought, "Well, OK then.  Grandpa can watch her game."  We sat down, and my oldest girl showed up to watch (and possibly see her grandfather...)  He immediately mixed up BOTH their names and called them each the wrong name.  He was watching the game and was like, "Yay, Sabrina!" …Sabrina was sitting right next to us, so she's like, "Um.  I'm. right. here.  That's Sydney...on the court." 

He then managed to find a reason why they couldn't stay to see Sydney WIN THE FREAKING GAME, because "We really have to go".  I was like Where?? You're on vacation, and it's 4:30.  Stay and watch the last 8 minutes of this game.  Nope. Had to go.  

My kids looked at me like WTH Mom?  I can't even-- just-- nevermind.  It's not you.  Trust me, IT IS NOT YOU. 

It's taken me a lot of years to get where I believe that, without doubt.  I was blessed in that I didn't spend the after-divorce years wondering if it was my brother's and my fault, or what if I'd been a better kid, or what if this or that.  He wouldn't have stayed, no matter what was different, because his life is about him and what works for him, and nothing else.  It's not me.  It's him.  

I did spend a few years refusing to admit that all my uncontrolling midnight crying bouts and borderline suicidal thoughts could have meant I needed some help, but they passed.

I was also blessed in that Mom hid the crazy stuff from us.  I grew up liking my dad.  I didn't know there was a mess behind the scenes, until they separated.  I didn't grow up with abuse, or belittlement, or feeling abandoned.  He was never around, but I remember believing he thought I was pretty special, (except I was pretty sure he wished I was a boy).  

As it happens, I like how I turned out, thanks 100% entirely to my mom, and in spite of whatever he was or wasn't.  I met a man who I find smart and sexy and fun and honorable, who thinks I'm awesome, too, and we haven't carried these issues with us into our marriage, and I would thank God fasting for that fact, except that I don't really fast.  

Sadly, I have heard so many stories of people who grew up with a similar parent…and are in such a different place.  A harder place.  A painful, unhappy place that follows them around for years.  I wish I could hug all of them and tell them it's going to be OK, and that it's NOT THEM.  

I have to remind my own girls that they don't have a grandfather involved in their lives, but it's NOT THEM.  It's him.  He's the one who's missed out on some really amazing people, by not getting to know any of us.  That doesn't make us any less amazing.

My stories are always long, so if you're still here, thanks for listening while I ramble on.

My original point started with my conversation from yesterday with my mom.  She just got back from a visit to California to see her sister.  My dad happens, and I literally mean he happens to live less than 2 blocks away from my aunt.  What are the odds?  So, it is completely not unusual for my aunt to literally bump into him when she walks her dog.  Every day.  And of course, when mom visits my aunt, she will stop in at his house (because--hello, she was literally walking past his front yard) and go-- "Hey, I'm in town.  Let's get together for a quick visit."

Last night she told me that she did exactly this, last month when she was there.  They made a plan for her to come by at 1 p.m. the next day for an iced tea on the porch.  She went over there the next day, and she, his lady-friend, and my dad sat on their front porch for a total of about 20 minutes.  Then she said he simply got up and went inside.  She thought he was going for a drink and coming back, but when he came back out, they had this conversation:

Him:  Well.  It's time for my nap.

Her:  What?  You're kidding, right? I've been here 20 minutes.

Him:  Nope.  I'm going in now.

Her:  Oh.  Wow.  OK…well, I guess I'll see you maybe next year or something.

Him:  Yeah.  Unless the creek rises.    (whatever that means)

And he went inside, leaving her with the lady-friend.  Not like there's a lot to talk about THERE, so she left.

Listening to her tell this story made me start thinking about this whole thing with him over the years, and I realized something.  He really did check out of our family a very long time ago.  He really doesn't care what we're up to and doesn't need or want to be in touch with us.  Why we keep reaching out to him is beyond me anymore. 

The door closing behind him in that story, really just sort of clarified something for me.  I've been out of touch with him long enough to feel like it doesn't matter, and I'm not mad at him, but somehow it feels more final now.  I get it.  We should all get it, with him.  It's like a silent scream of why won't you people just go the heck away? And I finally really let myself hear it.

For anyone out there who has lived any variation of this story, I just want to offer you a long, hard hug and a smile, and these words.  IT'S NOT YOU.  IT'S THEM.  

It's. Not. You.  That's all.