I just got off the phone with the lady who says she is my Mama but that isn't her. That is a whisper of my mother in a body that used to look like her. That was a sick complaining old woman who can't remember from minute to minute who is coming with me for Christmas or most days when Christmas is. That woman was whining about nobody helping her do the housework when everyone does everything for her. Where has my Mama gone? Even last year at this time, Mama would apologize and say, "I'm just not myself today." We could then kind of laugh and I'd repeat what I had said and she would get the idea into her mind and we could go on with a conversation. In the last year though, she has failed to the point that we can't do that any more and any reference to the fact that she might not be perfectly all right infuriates her.
She has no concept of time or travel and that makes living across the country quite difficult. Mama doesn't understand why I can't just pack up and come over every time she needs me and then go home again like my brother Dean does. Dean lives 26 miles away. Poor Dean. He is hounded daily to come over and do things that people in Russell are perfectly capable of doing. He does hold his own pretty well and manages to keep it to one or two trips a week.
My son is getting married a few days after Christmas but I dread the entire process. My mother has become so self-centric that I fear she will be terribly uncomfortable in the crowd of new people. Even though there will not be many there (about 50), she will need someone by her side at all times. I won't be able to watch out for her as I usually do. She is going to get her feelings hurt and will end up withdrawing and lying down. If she could just come back for a bit and follow the proceedings and join in the fun and be Mama.
Everyday I think of things I would like to talk over with my mother. I have been fortunate to have the kind of relationship that allowed me to talk to her about nearly anything. When we talk now she still wants to have that sort of intimacy but when she can't even remember that my husband and I are separated some days, it is kind of hard. I try but I always come away with a crushed heart. The conversations are like talking to someone else in a Mama costume.
So sometimes I just cry. And since this is Christmastime and I do believe in miracles, maybe I ought to ask Santa...."Could I please have my Mommy back?"
18 December 2010
13 December 2010
I have been a bad girl
I have been a bad girl so I am not looking for any presents from Santa. I haven't been blogging and I haven't felt the least bit guilty. I have been out there living life and getting through each day as it comes. There have been some fantastic ones and some really terrible ones but we are all still here. Well, nearly everyone is.
Elizabeth Edwards has lost her battle with cancer. She has long been a role model for me in how she has gone on picking up the pieces of her life after each time she has been knocked down. She was the true power behind the politician and glue that held that family together. I'm sure she has stayed alive by sheer will for this long. I know there are those that thought because she was strong willed and may have shown her temper on occasion, that it somehow diminished her life. In my estimation, it did not. It made me admire her more. She gave up everything for John Edwards. She bought into his dream and all she asked was that he stay true to their family and dream. He couldn't even do that. My heart breaks for their children with a father like that. (No, I won't talk about the scum sucking, etc. things that I feel about him.) This is a tribute to one of us. Those of us who stay and try to live the dream until we have it thrown back into our faces just one too many times.
Speaking of which, my son and his lovely fiancée are getting married in a lovely destination wedding on 30 December 2010. I still believe in true love and family. I just think that it takes work and a lot of outside counseling. After all my parents have been married for 59 years and they love each other deeply and without reserve. I know there is someone, somewhere like that for me. I just wish I could find him before I dry up into a prune.
I have been plagued by learning to use my new and improved phone. I was supposed to be able to blog, write emails, post pictures, post to facebook and twitter and text more easily. I have so far gotten the texting down and can retrieve emails. The blogging and other interactive things are beyond me. Maybe after the wedding when I have more time to figure it out. I just feel so stupid that everyone else knows how to do these things and I can't figure it out.
Meeting of ANC tonight so I need to get going. Last one with the defeated and retiring commissioners.
Elizabeth Edwards has lost her battle with cancer. She has long been a role model for me in how she has gone on picking up the pieces of her life after each time she has been knocked down. She was the true power behind the politician and glue that held that family together. I'm sure she has stayed alive by sheer will for this long. I know there are those that thought because she was strong willed and may have shown her temper on occasion, that it somehow diminished her life. In my estimation, it did not. It made me admire her more. She gave up everything for John Edwards. She bought into his dream and all she asked was that he stay true to their family and dream. He couldn't even do that. My heart breaks for their children with a father like that. (No, I won't talk about the scum sucking, etc. things that I feel about him.) This is a tribute to one of us. Those of us who stay and try to live the dream until we have it thrown back into our faces just one too many times.
Speaking of which, my son and his lovely fiancée are getting married in a lovely destination wedding on 30 December 2010. I still believe in true love and family. I just think that it takes work and a lot of outside counseling. After all my parents have been married for 59 years and they love each other deeply and without reserve. I know there is someone, somewhere like that for me. I just wish I could find him before I dry up into a prune.
I have been plagued by learning to use my new and improved phone. I was supposed to be able to blog, write emails, post pictures, post to facebook and twitter and text more easily. I have so far gotten the texting down and can retrieve emails. The blogging and other interactive things are beyond me. Maybe after the wedding when I have more time to figure it out. I just feel so stupid that everyone else knows how to do these things and I can't figure it out.
Meeting of ANC tonight so I need to get going. Last one with the defeated and retiring commissioners.
11 September 2010
9th anniversary of 9/11
This is the ninth year we have had to remember the awful day that literally changed all of our lives. It ripped my life apart and threw it in the ash can even though I didn't know it at the time. In addition to our whole way of life being stolen from us by increased security and vague threats, my marriage has been stolen and my son's college experience forever scarred by the loss of friends. I don't just blame the terrorists who planned and flew those planes that day. I blame the way our namby pamby country reacted and showed their yellow undies to the world and continue to do so to this day. They think that by being the biggest bully on the earth, that they will scare the terrorists into staying away from the U.S. No attempt has been made to understand or carry on. We have just put our heads down and charged forth like an angry bull stung by a wasp on the snout. We have punished ourselves far more than any terrorists ever could have. What a sad, sad, commentary on all the loss of life and sacrifice.
05 September 2010
You can't always get what you need
What is it that they say about deprived people? That most of the time they don't know they are deprived until they get the thing they have been deprived of? I have recently been given back an activity that has been withheld from me for the past five years. It is a pleasurable activity that makes me feel attractive and young. It makes me feel things that I had forgotten existed on this earth and now all I want to do is this activity. All I think about is this activity. I could care less about anything else. I could care less about anyone else than the ones in my life who can help or facilitate this activity. I dream about it and I fantasize about it. When I leave, I come home and wish I will find a purveyor of it in my apartment.
Since I did completely without for five years and practiced it sporadically about five or ten years before that, I feel like I need to make up for wasted time. After all, at 57, I don't have that much time left to practice this with optimum participants. Somehow I feel cheated out of all that time when I could have been enjoying myself with the right people. Instead I was miserable and sad...in retrospect that is. At the time I guess I thought I was fine. I thought I was just fine and dandy and fulfilled and all the time there was a huge hole inside of me waiting to be filled. Yearning to be filled. Screaming to be filled.
Maybe that is why in all the old westerns they used to say, "Hold it, Partner...don't drink it all at once. Save some for later." Maybe this is just the beginning of something wonderful and I need to relax and save some for later.
Since I did completely without for five years and practiced it sporadically about five or ten years before that, I feel like I need to make up for wasted time. After all, at 57, I don't have that much time left to practice this with optimum participants. Somehow I feel cheated out of all that time when I could have been enjoying myself with the right people. Instead I was miserable and sad...in retrospect that is. At the time I guess I thought I was fine. I thought I was just fine and dandy and fulfilled and all the time there was a huge hole inside of me waiting to be filled. Yearning to be filled. Screaming to be filled.
Maybe that is why in all the old westerns they used to say, "Hold it, Partner...don't drink it all at once. Save some for later." Maybe this is just the beginning of something wonderful and I need to relax and save some for later.
31 August 2010
Why are all Washington Men Liars?
Why are all men in Washington liars? Is it part of the cult of personality or is it something in the water? I personally know men who have come here who came as decent honorable men but after working here in the atmosphere have been overtaken by the lying bug. It starts slow and about little things like missing the train or forgetting they had taken lunch so they had to eat out. Then it begins to escalate to things like, "I told you I wasn't going to have a vacation this year." The worst is when you are doing business or negotiating with a Washingtonian man. You think you have a deal that includes the parking space grandfathered in on a handshake and you get to the settlement table and get the old "No, we never discussed that."
It has even carried over to machines. Yesterday I was called by a computer to do a survey about the upcoming election. At one point I was told I would be able to make comments at the end of the survey and not to worry if in the multiple choice section, my answers were not perfect. Guess what? The computer lied. Programed by a man and of course, narrated by a man. No chance to comment and several answers left very ambiguous. Like "where did your children attend school? 1.Public School 2. Private School 3. Charter School 4 Other." There was no provision to be able to say a combination or homeschooling or talk about the fact that DC has no program for high school IEP's for college bound kids with learning disabilities and you have to sue them to get them to pay for private tuition to send your child to a school that will prepare him for a life not flipping burgers or selling dope. Because they are all liars.
I won't even go into management at my building....
It has even carried over to machines. Yesterday I was called by a computer to do a survey about the upcoming election. At one point I was told I would be able to make comments at the end of the survey and not to worry if in the multiple choice section, my answers were not perfect. Guess what? The computer lied. Programed by a man and of course, narrated by a man. No chance to comment and several answers left very ambiguous. Like "where did your children attend school? 1.Public School 2. Private School 3. Charter School 4 Other." There was no provision to be able to say a combination or homeschooling or talk about the fact that DC has no program for high school IEP's for college bound kids with learning disabilities and you have to sue them to get them to pay for private tuition to send your child to a school that will prepare him for a life not flipping burgers or selling dope. Because they are all liars.
I won't even go into management at my building....
30 August 2010
I'm still learning
I tried to post a picture today from my face book link but I couldn't do it. I feel like a I can figure out anything but every so often I am reminded that I can not. I suppose it is just as well. You all really don't want to see what I look like any way. Then you can imagine what I look like for yourselves. But doesn't it make you feel really stupid when computer things defeat you? I am an intelligent and rather handy person. Why can't I figure this stuff out? My 8 year old neighbor can figure this stuff out.
I should be obsessing over the fish kill in our water feature or what they are going to do with the 144,000 gallons of algaecide infused rotten fish stinking water. But no, I am trying to figure out why I can't just get a picture on my blog. Nature Gods please forgive me .
I should be obsessing over the fish kill in our water feature or what they are going to do with the 144,000 gallons of algaecide infused rotten fish stinking water. But no, I am trying to figure out why I can't just get a picture on my blog. Nature Gods please forgive me .
23 August 2010
What a Stupid F**k
I am a roof gardener. That means I go up on the Harbour Square roof which has been designed with 14 private terraces for the privileged people who have connecting stairways from their apartments and the other third of the roof which has been left for the commoners of which I am one. In the common area, there were a number of brick planters built to hold 24x24x24 inch boxes. There are three planters that hold 8 boxes and one that holds 4 boxes. I farm 2 of those boxes on the northwest side. This spring of 2010, I have branched out into 4 empty containers that showed up last summer on our roof one day. They are fiberglass and are about 30x20x10 inches and floated around from the east end to the west end and back again. One day this spring I decided to buy some potting soil and peat moss and amendments and plant them as well with a couple of apple trees that would be espaliered and some flowers that could be enjoyed by all and used for cutting. To keep with an edible theme, I added blueberry bushes.
Roofs are wonderful places to garden. They are sunny and there are no squirrels and few birds for some reason. The rats aren't up there and even the bugs are fewer. There is always a nice breeze and I like to think that I am helping to eliminate the heat sink effect by planting the roof instead of just letting the concrete pavers soak up all that heat and letting whatever rain falls on them go into the sewer waste water run off. I thought there hasn't been much demand for gardening space on the roof of the north building at Harbour Square when I moved in. When I went to the roof to look it over in October of 2008, there were a few scraggly weeds and a couple of conifers in the northwest box to help mitigate the wind and a couple in the southwest box to do the same.
By the time I went up in the spring of 2009, someone had cut down the 2 conifers on the northwest side because they had disappeared. I later found out it had been the man who I shall hereafter refer to as the Stupid F**k or "SF" for short. Although this man is only a part time resident of Harbour Square and has 2 other homes where he can garden, he decided that he was going to turn the roof of the 560 building into his own little truck garden. On first examination, this is a fine noble undertaking. He would grow vegetables and feed his neighbors. Only he didn't consult anyone. Not the grounds committee. Not Verna , the adminitrator who had always overseen the roof garden allocations. Not the other gardeners who had put out a few tomatoes on the east end of the building. Not the people who had the private terrace boxes above N916. He just planted every box on the roof after he cut down the two windbreak conifers on the northwest side and who knows what else he got rid of.
By the end of March 2009 when I went up there were 2 boxes left unworked and unplanted. I checked with Verna and she said to go ahead and plant and mark them with my apartment number. They were in the Northwest planter next to a magnificent old rosemary bush. I had some wheat I wanted to put out. I also had some chives and marigolds that I always put as companion plantings for my heirloom tomatoes. Everything was OK until I got my first note of challenge from "SF" asking what I was doing in his garden. I replied on the message board that I had been told that I could have the space. "SF" then told me it was first come first serve and he had claimed it in January and cut down the tree and planned to plant cucumbers in the boxes I had planted. I didn't understand why he couldn't put the cucumbers in the pea boxes that would be finished by cucumber planting time but maybe they don't double plant in England where he is from. I made that suggestion and he thanked me and I thought everything was OK. He decided to "help" me with my plot. I would come up and find weeds had been pulled. That was fine. Then I went up and found my entire wheat crop had been eradicated. I left a note asking him not to help me any longer.
We met some time during the winter face to face and he seemed a harmless old coot. We had many mutual friends and I learned of his other homes and gardens. I also learned of his hatred of flowers and other nonproductive plants. He thought all plants should produce an edible or aromatic crop. He let the rosemary and lavender by because they could be "used."
So the spring came and he once again claimed all the boxes by January but left my 2 alone and he even complimented me on my tomato cages. There was a HUGE blowup when a new owner bought N916 and actually wanted to plant her own boxes! "SF" practically had a heart attack when he went up and she had planted tomatoes in his pea bed!!!! Of course, he had opened her gate and planted peas in her private planter to begin with. He was incensed that he had brought manure from his farm to improve those boxes! How dare she pull up his pea seedlings! N916 hadn't even seen the seedlings when she planted. She thought the previous owner had cleaned the boxes out for the sale.
Then there was the soil theft after I filled the fiberglass boxes at the west end. "SF" had a few boxes on the southwest end where he usually planted cucumbers that were kind of low on soil mix. When I filled my planters with a VERY distinctive soil mix to a very specific level, did he think I wouldn't notice that he took several gallons and moved it over to his cuke boxes? Like I said he is a "Stupid F**k".
Despite that and in spite of my better judgement, I agreed to water "SF's" boxes for him while he was at his other homes during the summer. I did so faithfully even on the hottest days. His cucumbers grew very well and he always managed to come back on just the right days to pick them. Did he ever offer to give me one? Did I ever take one? No, on both counts. Then at a committee meeting in late July he accused me of stealing his cucumbers. After he has taken my soil and several of my tomatoes. I lost it and slammed my notebook on the table and told him he was a "Stupid F**k" and that I would no longer be watering his plantings in his absence. Just because he was a Stealer (I was trying to keep the alliteration going), that does not make everyone else the same.
I did not water from that day to this. After a week of no watering everything looked pretty sorry. So he ripped everything out by the roots his next visit. He even ripped out the tomatoes someone else had been watering with all the tomatoes on the vine and threw them away. The next time he came to visit, he wasn't content to let things be. He ripped out all the moss rose (portulaca) from the cutting garden at the west end that Nancy and I had planted and looked so beautiful. He made sure I knew who did it by leaving little drippings of moss rose over by my little boxes of tomatoes.
Today I went up water and he has been back for another visit. This time he pulled up all the bulbs I had planted around the conifers in the southwestern planter. They were coming up and would have been fall bloomers. What is wrong with this guy? Why is he so vindictive? He would rather have dead dirt than see something he didn't plant. He has the other 2 houses to garden. Why can't he let people here grow things that are pretty as well as useful?
Reading this has been a long journey to no reward I am afraid. Kind of like gardening with "SF".
Roofs are wonderful places to garden. They are sunny and there are no squirrels and few birds for some reason. The rats aren't up there and even the bugs are fewer. There is always a nice breeze and I like to think that I am helping to eliminate the heat sink effect by planting the roof instead of just letting the concrete pavers soak up all that heat and letting whatever rain falls on them go into the sewer waste water run off. I thought there hasn't been much demand for gardening space on the roof of the north building at Harbour Square when I moved in. When I went to the roof to look it over in October of 2008, there were a few scraggly weeds and a couple of conifers in the northwest box to help mitigate the wind and a couple in the southwest box to do the same.
By the time I went up in the spring of 2009, someone had cut down the 2 conifers on the northwest side because they had disappeared. I later found out it had been the man who I shall hereafter refer to as the Stupid F**k or "SF" for short. Although this man is only a part time resident of Harbour Square and has 2 other homes where he can garden, he decided that he was going to turn the roof of the 560 building into his own little truck garden. On first examination, this is a fine noble undertaking. He would grow vegetables and feed his neighbors. Only he didn't consult anyone. Not the grounds committee. Not Verna , the adminitrator who had always overseen the roof garden allocations. Not the other gardeners who had put out a few tomatoes on the east end of the building. Not the people who had the private terrace boxes above N916. He just planted every box on the roof after he cut down the two windbreak conifers on the northwest side and who knows what else he got rid of.
By the end of March 2009 when I went up there were 2 boxes left unworked and unplanted. I checked with Verna and she said to go ahead and plant and mark them with my apartment number. They were in the Northwest planter next to a magnificent old rosemary bush. I had some wheat I wanted to put out. I also had some chives and marigolds that I always put as companion plantings for my heirloom tomatoes. Everything was OK until I got my first note of challenge from "SF" asking what I was doing in his garden. I replied on the message board that I had been told that I could have the space. "SF" then told me it was first come first serve and he had claimed it in January and cut down the tree and planned to plant cucumbers in the boxes I had planted. I didn't understand why he couldn't put the cucumbers in the pea boxes that would be finished by cucumber planting time but maybe they don't double plant in England where he is from. I made that suggestion and he thanked me and I thought everything was OK. He decided to "help" me with my plot. I would come up and find weeds had been pulled. That was fine. Then I went up and found my entire wheat crop had been eradicated. I left a note asking him not to help me any longer.
We met some time during the winter face to face and he seemed a harmless old coot. We had many mutual friends and I learned of his other homes and gardens. I also learned of his hatred of flowers and other nonproductive plants. He thought all plants should produce an edible or aromatic crop. He let the rosemary and lavender by because they could be "used."
So the spring came and he once again claimed all the boxes by January but left my 2 alone and he even complimented me on my tomato cages. There was a HUGE blowup when a new owner bought N916 and actually wanted to plant her own boxes! "SF" practically had a heart attack when he went up and she had planted tomatoes in his pea bed!!!! Of course, he had opened her gate and planted peas in her private planter to begin with. He was incensed that he had brought manure from his farm to improve those boxes! How dare she pull up his pea seedlings! N916 hadn't even seen the seedlings when she planted. She thought the previous owner had cleaned the boxes out for the sale.
Then there was the soil theft after I filled the fiberglass boxes at the west end. "SF" had a few boxes on the southwest end where he usually planted cucumbers that were kind of low on soil mix. When I filled my planters with a VERY distinctive soil mix to a very specific level, did he think I wouldn't notice that he took several gallons and moved it over to his cuke boxes? Like I said he is a "Stupid F**k".
Despite that and in spite of my better judgement, I agreed to water "SF's" boxes for him while he was at his other homes during the summer. I did so faithfully even on the hottest days. His cucumbers grew very well and he always managed to come back on just the right days to pick them. Did he ever offer to give me one? Did I ever take one? No, on both counts. Then at a committee meeting in late July he accused me of stealing his cucumbers. After he has taken my soil and several of my tomatoes. I lost it and slammed my notebook on the table and told him he was a "Stupid F**k" and that I would no longer be watering his plantings in his absence. Just because he was a Stealer (I was trying to keep the alliteration going), that does not make everyone else the same.
I did not water from that day to this. After a week of no watering everything looked pretty sorry. So he ripped everything out by the roots his next visit. He even ripped out the tomatoes someone else had been watering with all the tomatoes on the vine and threw them away. The next time he came to visit, he wasn't content to let things be. He ripped out all the moss rose (portulaca) from the cutting garden at the west end that Nancy and I had planted and looked so beautiful. He made sure I knew who did it by leaving little drippings of moss rose over by my little boxes of tomatoes.
Today I went up water and he has been back for another visit. This time he pulled up all the bulbs I had planted around the conifers in the southwestern planter. They were coming up and would have been fall bloomers. What is wrong with this guy? Why is he so vindictive? He would rather have dead dirt than see something he didn't plant. He has the other 2 houses to garden. Why can't he let people here grow things that are pretty as well as useful?
Reading this has been a long journey to no reward I am afraid. Kind of like gardening with "SF".
20 August 2010
I'd like to introduce myself
My name is Di and I have lived in DC, the city not the area, for about 15 years this time. I have always been opinionated and instead of alienating my friends and making enemies, the time has come for me to become more circumspect with those opinions. I am neither young nor old but I have lived several lifetimes. That means I have a lot of experience that no one gives a rat's ass about. I know a lot of things about many things but not enough to actually make any money at it. I have lived in the mid west US, southwestern US, New York, Maryland, England, Germany, and France. I have traveled to the Caribbean and Canada and would love to go to China and Burma (which I think is called something else now).
I was married to...we won't go there. He isn't around any more. He decided to go back to his college girlfriend. Even I think that is romantic...If I hadn't been the wife who was still crazy in love with him. We do have a wonderful son who is engaged to be married himself.
So, we'll see how it goes. I also have face book and twitter accounts. I like the discipline of the Twitter account. I like having to state my case in exactly 140 characters. Is that weird? Maybe so. I have been trying to limit that to mostly marriage, weather and Harbour Square Coop where I live. We are one of the largest coops in DC. We have 427 units from studios up to historic 7 bedroom town homes. It is quite the place.
Let me figure out how to get this posted and all that.
I was married to...we won't go there. He isn't around any more. He decided to go back to his college girlfriend. Even I think that is romantic...If I hadn't been the wife who was still crazy in love with him. We do have a wonderful son who is engaged to be married himself.
So, we'll see how it goes. I also have face book and twitter accounts. I like the discipline of the Twitter account. I like having to state my case in exactly 140 characters. Is that weird? Maybe so. I have been trying to limit that to mostly marriage, weather and Harbour Square Coop where I live. We are one of the largest coops in DC. We have 427 units from studios up to historic 7 bedroom town homes. It is quite the place.
Let me figure out how to get this posted and all that.
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