Fathers Day

Yesterday was Fathers Day. I sent my dad a card but I didn't call him. It was probably wrong not to phone, but truly the card said everything I felt for Pops, basically saying thanks for raising me and having patience to let me fall in my own mess, all the while loving me no matter what.

My dad gave me some great memories growing up. Right now, I am the same age he was when I was little. I now understand the stresses and the pressures he was under. Dad never (well almost never) pushed it off on me and my sister. The little things we went through are hilarious now, even if at the time I thought I was going to be in trouble for at least a couple of years.

Here are some of my favorite memories, good and bad, so indulge me as I ramble about my Daddy.

Early memory.... Dad raised hogs and cattle on the farm. We lived in town, so for me it was cool to get to go to the farm and hang with my dad and grandparents. (Who might I add were beyond cool for a kid) I remember going into the farrowing house when dad was docking tails and clipping teeth. He made me his helper (I thought I was the true shit at that point) and I got to catch the pigs and hand them to him. Understand these pigs were maybe 3 pounds soaking wet, so to a five year old, I had arrived. I caught them by their little curly tails and drug them to dad with his waiting nippers. I remember him laughing at me as they squealed and I fretted. Thinking back on it, and having raised pork for many years myself, my god I was not in a safe place, those sows were on the edge of attack, but I always felt safe when my dad was around.

We took a vacation to Colorado when I was seven. My little sister didn't go so I know I was very young. Dad was a wonderful person to travel with, and he took me and mom to a campground deep in the mountains. We took a hike up to a crater (damned if I can remember where this was, only that it was a crater we hiked to). Mom..... hold the story, little sis might not have gone because mom was still pregnant, that would make me six..hhmmm.... I think that is the way it was... ANYWAY, dad and I hiked up the mountain and mom hung back, the altitude was getting her. We found the most wonderful patch of alpine strawberries. I remember the intense sugary strawberry flavor in each and every berry. We hunted and picked like a couple of bears. The berries were warm from high altitude sun but tiny as can be. Not these flavorless giants that are pretty but taste like crap, no, these were the size of sugar cubes and twice as sweet. Pretty cool for a kid to experience.

The same trip a cougar visited the campground in the night, knocking over the trash cans and spreading junk everywhere. We had a pop-up trailer and somehow a tin can got lodged where it had to fold to put the top down. Mom and Dad both tried to get it out, but alas, their arms were too big. Dad called me over and said, "Kid, stick your scrawny arm in there and get that can." He always called me kid. Still does in fact.

I was so damn proud to retrieve that can. I was helping my daddy.

Then there was the time I was getting ready for school. Dad was getting ready for his daily trip to the farm and without heat upstairs, everyone opted to dress in the living room to avoid frostbite. Dad dressed, drank his coffee, kissed us goodbye for the day, and out he went. I had brownie scouts that day and had to wear my mandatory uniform. Dress, sash, tie, socks. Crap, my socks are gone. "MOM! My socks are gone!" I knew I brought everything down. I was in deep shit now because my socks were nowhere to be found. Mom was getting madder by the minute and then we saw it. There laid dad's black socks. Anger erupted into rolling laughter as we realized dad had worn my brownie scout socks instead of his own. Yes, we jabbed him good about that one when we all got home for the evening. Dad, you little cross dresser.

Dad had his times of stress also. It could not have been easy living in a house with three females, but it couldn't have been that bad either. I was laying on the living room floor in front of our living color TV watching a show titled "It's a free country". Dad came home after a long day at work and asked me what I was watching. I nonchalantly answered, "Its a free country" and the fight was on.

"By God no damn kid of mine is going to talk to me like that in my own home!" He was truly pissed at me. He thought I was lipping off to him. I tried to explain it was the name of the TV show, but he was furious. I really don't remember dad ever being that mad before or since that incident. It's funny now (Yes dad, it really is funny to remember the look on your face) but at the time I thought my dad was pissed at me. Nothing in the world made me feel worse than the feeling of my daddy being upset with me. Yeah, I know, I was a self centered little shit, but I was daddy's little princess, and loved every minute of it.

There are the times of life lessons too. Dad, for as long as I can remember, even into adulthood, has told me,"You can do anything you set your mind to." Good advice dad. I have used that one hundreds of times. When the dream seemed out of reach, when the load got too heavy, when I just wanted to quit here would come that voice from the heart... you can do anything you set your mind to.

Dad, I have tried to give that one to my children. I hope they know it came from you.

As I write this, not all the memories I have a sweet ones. Some of them are hard to deal with, some of them are embarrassing, some of them are just down right uncomfortable.

As a little child I would run to dad and give him a kiss before he left for work. I remember the day I decided I was too big for that mush anymore. Dad stood there waiting for me and I informed him in my too-grown-up voice I was a big girl now and couldn't do that anymore. The look on his face still sticks in my memory. I am sorry Daddy. If I had a do-over in life, I would choose to do over that day for sure. I missed it after I stopped, and wish with all my heart I could do it every day now. At the time I didn't know how to fix it. I still don't. I just remember how hurt he looked as he stood at the door. As soon as he left, I knew I had done something wrong. I ran to the door, but he was gone. A moment in time for us had passed and I blew it.

Dad was brilliant in math. It was a gift he didn't pass on to me, I could do it, I just didn't like it. High school algebra was a class I hated, my teacher was entirely too strange for me to deal with. (she never shaved her arm pits or wore deodorant. Now I understand she was just a free spirit, but then she was just weird) I was failing the class, well, ok, I was getting D's, and my dad took it upon himself to visit with the principle about it. Oh my god I thought my life had ended. I now know he was trying to get a handle on a child who was bucking the reins, but at the time I was so embarrassed. None of my friends parents visited the school. I just wanted to blend in and be a teen clone to all the "cool" kids. What an idiot I was. My parents grounded me for six weeks until my grade came up (I thought I was in hell) but it worked. My grade got better, and realized I had to tow the line at least a little bit. From that point on, I was sure that Dad, Mr. Erwin, and Mr. Schultz were watching my every move. They probably weren't but I was 'scared straight' so to speak.

I went through a really really tough time in my life when my marriage broke up. Dad came over everyday to just sit with me. I think he was making sure the kids got fed and I actually got out of bed. There were lots of days when neither happened if he didn't come over. It is all hard to remember, a bit like looking at a movie through the bottom of a beer glass, but Dad would sit there with me in the kitchen, and just let me rant. Now I can see how important it was for me to have him there. It would have been much much harder had Dad not come over.

We have had our fights. We have had our funny times. No matter what, I love my Daddy. He has been a rock for me when I needed it. At times that rock smashed my fingers, but I needed it. He gave me enough rope to hang myself when life had a lesson to teach me, and I have the rope burns to prove it, but I needed those too. And through it all, he was always there to scoop me back into a pile and tell me.....

"You can do anything you set your mind to."

I love you Daddy.

A banner day

Sunday was one of those banner days in a mother's life. It was the type of day that needs special recognition yearly, it needs a plaque set out in a power spot in the garden, it will be most certainly committed to my memory for all my life.

Sunday June 13, 2004.

My son called me from Durango. Jake is a wildland fire fighter, based with the Durango Hot Shot crew. He is livin' the life, and loving every minute of his 16 hour days in the soot and heat. He has made a true success of himself, by himself, with only his wits and charm to work the game. And let me tell you, Jake is loaded with the charm. I have seen him just schmooze the pants right off of people and make them love every minute of it, all the while they think they are doing him a favor. When he was little, parent/teacher conferences were always the same....

"How is he doing in school, is he where he should be academicly?"

"Well, he certainly is social."

Always the same answer. Always.

Then he hit his puberty years. Oh my god I was sure he was really not my child and the hospital had made a serious error in the switch. Where was my sweet social child? Who the hell was this moody little stink who seemed to delight in making my day hell just for the sheer joy of it? I swore when I became a mother my children would not go through the terrible teens. What an idiot I was.

Side thought.... maybe that is why people should not start having babies until they are in their 30's. I certainly was to stupid and arrogant to realize I was not going to re-invent the wheel in the parenting department.

Anyway, Jake was moody and bitchy and really just unpleasant at times to say the least. But, he was so very typical, and only an experienced parent would have recognized it. At the time, I thought he just hated me and I was a horrid mother.

Then he went to college.

Then he graduated and went to work for the US Forest Service.

Sunday he called me and visited for a while. We were discussing his little brother who is now 15. I was laughing and explaining how mild his moodiness was compared to Derek. His poor brother is really going through it as far as the terrible teens go. Experience now tells me .... Hey, not my fault, he will grow out of it and become the fantastic person God created him to be, but for now... jeez we go around and around...

Here comes the banner part...

Jake says to me... "mom, I am so sorry for being such a little bitch when I was growing up. When I think back to when I was 13 to 19 and I think of the shit I did to you and put you through... I am so sorry."

I am not a failure. He is a good man. His brothers and sister have all the potential of being as successful as he. I have decided if I can just get through the next 11 years, by then Ian will graduate high school, and as long as the Loreal company keeps making color 5G, I will be set, grey free, and most importantly, know in my heart I was a good mom after all.

It only takes one

One. Tiny little word with more meaning than size.

My front yard is a bit on the rough side. Steve spaded an area around the mailbox for planting and I try to do something in it everyday. Today as I was crawling on my hands and knees, communing with nature as much as possible with a paved street six inches from your toes, it only took one damn red german shepard known for biting to ruin the entire experience. I planted mandeville vines around the mailbox and lantana for a back border, all the while peeking over my left shoulder making sure that villan was still on his tie-out. Yes, he has crapped in my yard more than once, and frankly I don't like rogue dog doo on my flip flops.

One damn dog. One damn pile left. Just stepped in it once. The reputation is made.

We have a hot-tub in the back yard. I think I will really enjoy using it when I catch onto the chemical addidtion/adjustment it requires, but for now, I am at odds with these little creepy birds insisting they will live the high life over my spa. They dive-bomb you when you are soaking away your cares and readjusting your karma. They leave colorful, mulberry stained calling cards on the cover and on the railing. Why couldn't they have been song birds like cardinals or oriels?

One hot-tub in my back yard. One set of starlings that refuse to nest anywhere but in the northeast corner of the gazebo. One nest down. One more to go.

Steve left this morning for work as usual. Lately, he is having a love/hate relationship with it, but he keeps going even when it is wearing him down physically and challenging him daily to keep a good outlook. As he left the house, he calls back "love ya baby". I hear the van start in the driveway and I am alone for the rest of the day. Through all the mistakes and all the triumphs (damn few of those) of my life, one thing stands out more clearly each day. It's the little things that really do make the entire difference between horrid and awesome, between mundane and exciting, between ... well just between every opposite. It very well could be just one little thing. He could just leave, just go on and not bother to pass out a bit of sweetness for the day or he could just say the little things. Today, it was just that one thing that made my morning more than just boring. It gave me something to mull over while I was battling angry dogs and renegade birds. Maybe we should sweat the small stuff just a little more. After all, it only takes one.

I have to go check my fences, because good fences make good neighbors.

Wednesday, June 2

Today my leg is bothering me. The dull ache and mild numbness is a joke compared to the memory of the mind-numbing pain from a couple of weeks ago, but it hurts like shit just the same. Its the nag of a new companion called Ms. Chronic Pain that pisses me off the most, but her bitch of a girlfriend, Ms. Vicaden Withdraw is not a relaxed kinship in anyway. Between the drugs, the pain, the rearrangement of life to accommodate these two new unwelcome companions, and watching my best friend and children endure it all with me, sometimes a person just wants to get the hell off this ride and go home. Exactly how many times can a body whirl around on a carnival ride before the feeling of blowing chunks gets to be too much?

I want off. It's time for me to go home. It's time for these two crazed bitches to leave me alone and let my life resurrect from the ash pit it has become. I don't really know where the path back starts, or if I can even end up in the same place I left off, but the journey must begin just the same. As we all had to face the dark as children who stayed out too late and wandered too far from the safety of lit streets, I have now been dropped off in the dark, very far from home, and must outrace these companions to return to the safety of what once was.

Holy crap someday I will learn to write and stop this rambling shit.

I have to go check my fences, because good fences make good neighbors.






Merchant Accounts

Isn't that what they say?

Good fences make good neighbors. Right? Well isn't that what they say? Good fences... Good fences ... just what the heck is that anyway?

I just bought a house in a little town surrounded and consumed by a metro hell-bent on exploding (or imploding, whichever the case may be) and even though I got rooked on the acreage department, it came complete with sturdy tall fences. So I am thinking, I bet I am gonna get good neighbors. Logical process?

Nate has turned out to be a gem of a neighbor, but he sure wouldn't need a fence to reinforce it. Joe is like a non-existant neighbor, works weird hours, parties at odd times, things like that. I think I like that fence.

Growing up as I did, with my grandparents an intergral part of my life, fences were not important. Fences were boundries and boundries meant restrictions and restrictions were a burr under my saddle. Fences were meant to keep something in, not keep something out. Now my life has changed so dramatically, from tiny-town farmers daughter to bored/secluded suburbanite, fences have become entirely normal. Don't forget these fences are built for the specific reason of keeping the rest of the world out. Is this really a good idea?

I miss my days of wandering aimlessly through the tall grass on horseback, wondering if gramma was going to fix fried chicken or baked steak for supper. I miss my days of no fences between me and whatever I wanted to go see, go do, go experience with very little or absolutely no restrictions at all. This all sounds like a whimsical farce, but it is truly how I grew up in this strange changing world. Don't think I didn't have responsiblities. Don't for a minute imagine I was raised by wolves or gypsy troops. When we worked, which was sun-up to sun-down every day during the spring into early summer and all fall into winter, we worked hard. But when we played, we were free from fencing.

There was something magical about listening to my grandfather tell stories about being a cowboy in west Texas in the early 1900's. There was a mystic quality to both of my grandmothers describing there lives as they grew into womanhood during the invention of cars and the devaluation of horseflesh. There is a distant but constant tug on my soul from the ancestors who trekked to this country from a place where fences had become commonplace and accepted. Ireland took the bit in her mouth with more than one fight, and the fight rages on. But don't good fences make good neighbors?

Isn't that whay they say?