Treasure

Last week I went to GA to visit Mom.  She's still doing pretty good health-wise.  Every time I go visit she has a little more trouble walking around and she has a little more trouble hearing.  It's gotten to the point where I have to repeat myself several times every time I call her on the phone, so it feels more important to go visit more often.  I can't easily just talk to her on our daily phone calls, if she has no context to guess what I'm saying and it's unexpected, sometimes she never does understand me and it's just painful and frustrating for both of us. 

We had a nice visit.  We went to IHOP and Mom got her usual: the senior special with one pancake (strawberries on top but hold the whipped cream), one egg over medium, and one piece of bacon extra crispy.  She always eats it all, too, which is unusual for her.  She doesn't go out very often anymore.  My brother and his wife and my sister met us for lunch there.

The way Mom looked at my brother really touched me.  She looked up at him like seeing him made her purely joyful, and she clasped one hand in both of hers and just smiled at him.  Now that I think of it, I guess she looked at me like that too, when I arrived mid-afternoon on Sunday.  (We'll assume she looked at my sister similarly even though I didn't notice the moment.)

My sister is primarily in charge of Mom's finances, paying her bills online and keeping track of her checking account.  I don't have access to the checking account, but I'm in charge of her mutual fund, which is what remains of her (and Dad's) life savings.  Based on my math she has enough money for about another year of rent payments at the assisted living home, and then I have no idea what will happen.  I need for someone to tell me exactly how things will go and how long she'll live and what her health will be like and then I can make all the right plans and decisions.  I'm trying very hard not to be consumed with dread about it.  I just love her so much and I want so badly to make her happy and make sure every single thing is taken care of for her.

I feel so far away.

Mom actually has money coming to her from the VA, but the forms my brother and sister filed last January still haven't been processed.  If that comes through it'll help, especially if there is retroactive money from when it should have started a year ago.  The VA is notoriously behind, though. 

I'm from a very rural county in the Appalachian mountains of southwestern Virginia, and recently someone started a Facebook page to share old photos from there.  I'm amazed and fascinated by the photos people are sharing.  I've seen beautiful landscapes from as early as the 1800s, photos of old homes and barns and schools and churches.  Some are not areas or people I'm familiar with, but even still they are interesting to see.

But then a woman posted some photos that just floored me.  She is apparently a descendent of a schoolteacher (and amateur photographer) at the small wooden schoolhouse near my father's family's house.  It was very unusual to even own a camera, and this guy seems to have taken photos of area families and children.  He even saved the negatives, so he clearly took it very seriously.

These pictures are from before my father was born in 1915, I'm going to guess they're from around 1912 or 1913.  I have never seen photos of these relatives as children until now.



This is my aunt Mamie Sue, the oldest of the children.  She was the opposite of my mother; she was not sweet, comforting, or nurturing.  In my memory she was pretty severe, one of those women who would describe themselves as not willing to put up with any foolishness.  She was not unkind, at least to me, and I liked her but I was always a bit afraid of her, too.

This is Ralph and Kathleen.  I have never seen a photo of Ralph, although I'm sure some others must have been taken.  Are these the only ones that still exist?  He was killed at 18 in a coal mine.  My mother never met him, he was already gone when she met my Dad.  I can't get over this photo.  What a cute little face he has.  These photos must have been a big deal to the family, photos were so very rare.  I imagine their mother despairing over her lack of control over his hair.  Mom told me that she made all their clothes, I'm sure they are all dressed in their finest for the occasion.

Baby Kathleen is the only one who still survives, and she turned 100 last year.  Everyone calls her Hun, I have to say I am one of the few who know her given name.  Hun (short for honey, not like Attila) is to this day a very outgoing, friendly, social, flirty woman. 

Greg, going up to her at my father's funeral:  Mrs Hun, I'm Greg, Ellen's husband.

Aunt Hun (grabbing his hand): Oh, Greg!  Of course I remember you! 

And they walked off without me.

She has made arrangements at the family cemetery to have her fictional birth year engraved on her headstone.  (Why honey, she said on her 50th wedding anniversary when they tried to throw a party, you can't tell anyone I've been married for 50 years, there are people who think I'm barely 50 years old right now!)  They tried to make a big deal over her 100th birthday, but she wasn't having that either.  The local news even came by and filmed her surrounded by family on her big front porch, and she laughed and flirted with the reporter and refused to admit her age.

Aunt Mamie Sue looks a little less cranky in this one.  The other girl is my Aunt Cleo, who never married and was an independent career woman, living alone and supporting herself.  She went to nursing college and spent her life working in VA hospitals.  She had retired and lived next door to us when I grew up, and I was closest to her than any of Dad's other siblings.  She was very smart and looking back on it with an adult perspective I can appreciate how much she liked me.  Before he passed away Dad gave me her watch, which was a very pretty and sturdy pocket watch that she used for decades the hospital.

Look at Ralph, sitting like a prince in the little chair, his feet not quite touching the floor.  I love their black leggings and their scuffy shoes and their fancy clothes.  What must their lives have been like, living on the farm, only rarely going into town, no television or computer or car.

I miss Dad a lot, I think about him frequently, and it is purely painful that I can't show him these pictures and ask him to tell me details about their lives and about his childhood.

Six Years Ago Today

I grew up with a father who was impressive.  I grew up watching other adults treat him with respect and admiration.

He grew up in a very rural area on a road that had just a few years earlier been a cow path.  He was born in his parent's house and had three sisters and two brothers.  When he graduated high school he decided he wanted to go to college, and he got a job and joined the ROTC and made it happen.  He was the first in the family to go to college, and the last for decades.  Actually, counting immediate family… until me.

The nearest university was Virginia Polytechnic Institute, which was two mountains away and might as well have been on the moon.  He went to the only car dealership around and talked the salesman into giving him a car to go to college.  He promised he'd pay for it as he could, and he did pay it off.  He was then the first person on that mountain road to own a car.

From what I understand, he was kind of a terror zooming around in his car, but then again it may have just been the fact that there was an unfamiliar loud machine roaring around and scaring everyone's horses and mules.

He graduated college and joined the army and married my mother and they went around the country on Army bases.  During World War II he worked for the Adjutant General's office in Texas, and he told me once that he would sometimes go over the border into Mexico to find the men coming back from the war, who would be drunk in bars and in danger of missing their discharge processes. 

He and mom had a son and a daughter, and he left the military and went to work in a department store.  If it's true that people sometimes get stuck in one particular style, that 50's era was my dad's: he wore suits and ties and hats his whole life.  He eventually opened up his own ladies clothing stores, and went on buying trips to New York. 

He and mom had me in 1966, and decided, after spending their whole adult lives living in various cities around the country, to move back to that little road in the country.  The house he was born in had been torn down, and he bought land and built a little brick ranch house right next to where it had been.  One of his sisters lived next door, another lived down the street, and another lived a few miles away on a different mountain.  One brother lived nearby, and the other had died young in a coal mine.

By this time everyone had cars, but dad was (as far as I know) the only one who had moved away.  A lot of them had barely been off the mountain.  Dad would often drive people who needed to go into the city (Roanoke, more than an hour away) and weren't comfortable driving themselves.  What must that have been like for him, coming back after so many years?

He became a broker, and worked with companies setting up retirement plans and stock portfolios for their employees. He knew he would be retiring and wanted to have a job that would continue to provide income.  Despite the drastic career change, he was very good at it.  We shared an office in the house, filled with legal pads and giant leather books of tax codes and copies of the Wall Street Journal; he would use it during the day and I'd do my homework in it at night.

He was social and loved to be around people. Even when he was in his 90s and had lost a lot of his hearing and eyesight, you would never have known it; at his 92 birthday party he made the rounds, laughing with the adults and the children alike.  He was unfailingly kind, always turning the other cheek and looking for the good in people.  He didn't like music. (Who doesn't like music?)  He read all the time, financial newspapers and magazines and Bible studies and Western novels.  He had many lifelong friends who were exceedingly loyal to him.  He loved his family.  He never spanked me.  I literally never once heard him yell.  I also never saw him laugh until he cried.  He always gave me good advice about clothes, and taught me how to look for good quality fabric and stitching and fit.  He gave me good financial advice, about saving and retirement plans and taxes.  In retrospect I can see that he tried to teach me how to get along with people, how to make them like me and how to be social; but my shyness and introversion prevented much success with that.

That was my dad.  He and my Mom were happy together for so many decades, and I was happy to have him for a father.  He had a long and seemingly happy life, dying suddenly with no illness and, I hope, no pain at the age of 92 at my mother's side.

The world is emptier without him.

My Life, Full of Stress and Parties and Pain and Love

I'm fairly stressy lately.  Things are changing.  I am fine during the day, but then I wake up in the middle of the night and immediately terror and panic charge towards my poor sleepy brain.  Even if I fight them off and force my head to think of other things (if I were a crew member on Voyager, what would my job be, and would Chakotay and I end up dating?) enough panic gets in through the chinks to keep me awake for hours.  

Jaw pain doesn't help.  I'm going back to the dentist tomorrow to have my nightguard adjusted. My bite is uneven, hitting primarily on the right side, so I get more pressure there, and my teeth and jaws end up aching if I clench my teeth in my sleep, which apparently I do frequently.  I guess it's a sign of being too stressed out that I want to punch everyone who tells me to relax.

Greg and I did have a really nice long Memorial Day weekend, and I relaxed, at least a little.  We have friends who are moving to Georgia, and they had a going-away party on Sunday.  Despite occasional rain showers courtesy of Beryl, it was a fun party, a celebration of our friends.  Kids running around and splashing in the pool, adults making alcholic Butterbeer and grilling chicken wings and bacon-wrapped shrimp, lots of picture-taking and laughter and hugs.  We've known this couple for a long time.  Since before they were even a couple, much less married and with a son.  It was a nice party and a fun day.

Then on Monday, Memorial day, I open up the laptop and pull up Facebook and the first thing I see there on my screen is my father's grave.  My cousin in Virginia visited the family cemetery for Memorial day and she posted a photo for me.  Despite how unexpected and kind of shocking that was (I may have cried a few tears, just for a minute) it was a very sweet thing for her to do.  Mom said she'd like to see it, too, so I'll print it out and mail it to her. 

Yesterday a pretty cool thing happened:  We made the last payment on my car.  What a good feeling!  Plus, next month we will make the last payment on Greg's car.  No more car payments at all!  Boy, that'll make a huge difference in our monthly bills.  It's a relief.

So overall my stress is manageable.  Most of the time I'm fine, I am even hopeful about the future.  I would say 94% of the time I am looking forward to the next phase of my life, and 6% of the time I am terror-stricken and panicky. 

But I'm glad I have nice, thoughtful friends and family.

Childless Heathen

I'm 46 years old and I never had children.

When I was a teenager, I couldn't imagine myself as an adult woman at all, much less married and taking care of children. I wanted to grow up and be a writer or an artist, traveling around on planes and seeing exotic lands and wearing glamorous clothes. Yet at the same time, in the back of my mind I kind of figured I'd probably end up like everyone else and get married and have a baby or two. It seemed like the default position.

Before sending me off to college, my mother gave me one uncharacteristically intense piece of advice: Don't get pregnant. I could see the sense of that. I was careful not to, even though I fell in love for the first time and spent many hours daydreaming about a future that included marriage and a house and babies.

But it didn't work out with him, and the next guy who came along had gone through a divorce and had a baby of his own. We lived together for several years and became engaged, but instead of getting married... we broke up.

So I was in my mid 20's, and kind of liked the idea of getting married and having children. But having gone through two relationships that ended, I was in no hurry. I moved into a little apartment of my own and enjoyed being single.

I always liked having my period, the introspective, hormonal, creative changes that come with it, and the break in my routine that it forced. I loved the idea of being pregnant, and who doesn't love the idea of smelling a baby's head and playing with the tiny toes? But actually raising a child and being a parent seemed overwhelming and exhausting, and really not appealing in any way. Maybe everyone feels that way, I reasoned, and tried to imagine little arms hugging me around my neck. Probably some sort of instinct would kick in when I met the man who would be a good candidate for fertilizing my sad, unused eggs.

Then all of a sudden a decade had passed, and along came Greg. A few months after we started dating, we went to St. Petersburg and stayed at a hotel on the Gulf of Mexico for a little vacation with my mom and dad, my brother and his wife, my niece and her husband and their baby daughter. The first morning we were in my niece's room, and the baby, who was not yet a year old, wobbled over to Greg, who scooped her right up. He held her in his arms and tickled her and talked to her, and I just stood there watching, waiting for an alarm to go off in my uterus. "She's never like this with strangers," her parents gushed. "She sure likes you!" Despite my silent uterus, Greg went up a couple of notches in my already-besotted estimation. He's so good with kids! Babies love him!

At 38 I got married to Greg, glad I waited for the right guy. No baby-wanting instinct kicked in, though. Since my mother had given birth to me when she was 45, I figured I had a few years left to think about it, and discuss it with my new husband.

We had many, many conversations that all went like this:
Me - How many children do you see yourself having?
Greg - None, I don't want any kids.
Me - I don't know what you mean by that. One baby?
Greg - I like our life the way it is, I don't think it could be improved by bringing a baby into it.
Me - But you love babies.
Greg - I love other people's babies.
Me - But you want one baby.
Greg - Do you want to have a baby?
Me - Not really.

Greg - Okay, then! No babies.
Me - But are you SURE?
Greg - YES!

After Greg and I had been married a year or two, I spoke about it to my parents. When they told me that having a baby is certainly not something that I should feel pressured to do, that it was fine with them if I didn't and that they would not be a bit disappointed if I didn't present them with a grandchild, a big chunk of the weight lifted off my shoulders.

Despite the fact that it's a pretty personal decision, a lot of people asked. One friend with a small child told us how we just had to have a baby, it's the greatest thing ever, it completely changed his life for the better. He pushed parenthood with all the fervor of a Christian pushing religion. One person wanted to know who would take care of me when I'm old, if I don't have children. While I can kind of understand the logic of each generation taking care of the previous generation, I don't think that's a good reason to bring a human into this world. A few years ago when I had my episode of existential questioning (we won't call it a crisis, particularly since it led to a novel) I felt real sadness about my family photos, knowing no one would want them after I die. If, right then, I could have been guaranteed to have a baby who would grow up wanting to painstakingly preserve and document family history (particularly about me), I might have been tempted. But no one knows how things will work out, and it's entirely possible the baby would have grown up to have normal interests.

And with each passing year the idea of getting pregnant also got more and more medically questionable. I began to have an irrational fear that, at age 44 or 45, suddently Greg and I would realize that we actually did want to have a baby, very much, and then I'd be unable to get pregnant, and then we'd be sucked into the depressing vortex of attempting painful and expensive medical treatments.

Greg - Aww, look at this picture of the new baby, isn't she cute?
Me - You want a baby.
Greg - Oh my god, there is something wrong with your brain.
Me - Seriously, it's almost too late now, you have to tell me!
Greg - I have told you! No baby!
Me - But are you SURE?
Greg - YES!

During the year that I was 45, I thought a lot about my mother giving birth to me at that age. I began to have a whole new appreciation for how hard it must have been for her. Greg said that he likes our life the way it is, and even if it's kind of selfish, he didn't want to change it by having a baby. But really, is it selfish to decide not to have a baby? Our planet is overpopulated, maybe it's selfish to have a baby. But what if our baby was smart, and we raised our baby to be kind, and forward-thinking, and to, on a large scale or a small scale, make the world a better place? There are certainly a lot of babies born to thoughtless or abusive parents that grow up to make the world a harder place, shouldn't those of us who would focus on nurturing and loving do our part to at least even things out? Of course, the best thing to do would be adopt a baby. Or better yet, a child. But then that would be giving up the one thing that I think I'd actually like, the being pregnant part. But if all I want is to be pregnant and not actually be a parent, should I even be considering it?

And finally, at the age of 46, I am putting all these thoughts behind me. I am not going to have a baby, I am not going to adopt a baby. Greg and I are our little family of two (or four, if you count the furry family members). And, whew! All I feel is relief. No regret, no questioning. It was the right decision.

Now what am I going to do with the part of my brain that has been worried about whether or not to have a baby for the past 25 years? All of a sudden my head feels roomier.

Old

My mom got some bad news:  Her hearing loss is being made much worse by a problem within her inner ear, which is distorting the sounds she hears.  The doctor said her ability to understand sounds went from 90% two years ago to 20% now.  There's nothing that can be done about it.  Her hearing has gotten noticeably worse in the past few months, even with her hearing aid, but we were all hoping that a new hearing aid or an adjustment would help.

Every now and then on the phone she has to ask me to repeat myself, but mostly she can still understand me when I speak to her. It's harder for her if there is any background noise, or if the person speaking isn't clear.  Sometimes she holds the phone up to her answering machine to see if I can hear her messages, because she has so much trouble making out what they are saying.  It was tremendously upsetting for her to find out that it wouldn't get any better.

Overall, at almost 90, she is in pretty good shape.  Everyone at the retirement home just loves her, she is the "sweet" one who tries to help out and be kind to people.  Her mind is fine.  She walks perfectly well with the aid of a walker/rollator, which is really only there to keep her steady in case she needs it.  Her vision is good enough to do crossword puzzles and read the newspaper.  She gets tired easily, and her back hurts because of her osteoporosis, but she is in better shape, I would guess, than the average 90 year old.

I'll be driving up to visit her next week on September 28th, and we'll be going to a birthday lunch celebration with other family members on her birthday, Friday September 30th.  I know she misses Dad so much it's hard for her to celebrate anything.  Some days I can tell she just feels tired of living.  I hope her birthday celebration cheers her up, at least a little.

Just Missing Dad

And the Watch More Movies initiative continued with going to see True Grit in the theatre this past weekend.  I was really looking forward to seeing this, it's getting great reviews and several friends saw it and loved it. 

 

The original, which I've never seen, was one of my father's favorite movies.  When I was in my early twenties and had just moved to Florida by myself and was trying to make a life here, he wrote me a letter and said that he was proud of me and that I had "true grit".  And yet I never watched the movie.

 

I know without any doubt that my Dad loved me, and I know that he knew I loved him.  With the spectre of sudden tragedy never out of my fearful neurotic mind, I really try hard to tell people that I love them, and to spend time with them; I don't want to have any regrets.  But what I didn't know would pluck at my tender heart are the missed opportunities, the things that seem so clearly vital now but didn't even occur to me at the time. 

 

Why didn't I watch the movie and talk to him about what he loved about it?  Better yet, why didn't I think to sit down and watch it with him during a visit?  I try not to beat myself up for things like that, I can't go back in time and change how my head worked and plant the idea, but it hurts to imagine what a wonderful thing it would have been.  It really, really hurts.

 

So I sat in the theatre and watched the movie and wondered what Dad would have thought of this new version.  I liked the movie very much, and when it was over Greg and I stayed to read the credits, like we always do.

 

And all of a sudden I just started sobbing.  I was aware of being kind of sad, but honestly I had no idea that tears were coming.  Greg held me and I cried for a couple of minutes.

 

A few days ago a friend's father died.  In tribute to him, she got a tattoo, and posted photos of it on her Facebook page.  My sad heart hurts for her.  Last week my co-worker's father passed away, tonight I'll go to the service at the funeral home.  My heart cries for her, too.  It's just too much sadness.

 

Here's a favorite picture of me and my sweet Daddy:

 

Golden Years

I took a few days off work last week to drive to north Georgia to visit my Mom.

Mom lives almost at the very end of a long hallway, and next door to her is an empty apartment.  A few years ago, The Barefoot Lady lived there, infamous in our family for using the retirement home's laundry room barefoot (we all agreed that was a little gross).  She was a larger lady, she was boisterous and friendly, and she had a big family that were always coming to visit her.  When her sons figured out that Dad was a cigar smoker, they brought him some actual illegal Cuban cigars.  Or so they said, anyway.  Dad loved sitting on his balcony, overlooking the woods, and smoking them while reading large print western novels (or, after his eyesight faded, listening to western audio books); genuine Cuban or not, they were good cigars, he said.  They were all very kind to Mom after Dad passed away.  Late last year The Barefoot Lady went into the hospital, and never came back.  The apartment has been empty since then.

On the other side of Mom's apartment, at the very end of the hallway by the big window that lets in the afternoon sun, is The Whistler.  He and his wife had been married for many decades when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and they moved into the retirement home soon after.  She began to get confused, and would wander away.  Sometimes he'd have trouble getting her to follow him to the dining room for meals, and sometime's she'd get lost.  He discovered that she responded to his whistling, she liked to hear him whistle little tunes, so he started whistling all the time.  He'd whistle down the hall, and she'd stay right with him, and he'd whistle when searching for her if she was missing, and she'd come looking for the whistle and he'd find her.  After a couple of years her condition worsened, and she moved into a nursing home.  The Whistler stayed in his apartment at the retirement home, and he still whistles when he walks down the hallway.  Mom says she doesn't know if he is starting to get a bit senile himself, or if possibly he just got so used to doing it he doesn't even notice it anymore.

This retirement home does not have any medical facilities, so technically the people who live there are expected to be able to take care of themselves (although some have home health nurses come in to assist them, especially during an illness).  However, with the economic decline there are more and more empty apartments, and more and more new people moving in with serious problems.

My sweet little mother is just exactly the type that people to go when they are looking for help; she's friendly but soft-spoken, observant and sympathetic, and watches out for her fellow residents to see if anyone does need help.  Several times she's had to put her foot down, when people ask her to help them physically do something they can't do, because she can't do it either - she's 89, walks with a walker, and can't hear too well.

Last year a lady positively attached herself to Mom, and there was nothing, short of being genuinely rude, that Mom could do about it.  This lady waited outside Mom's apartment for every meal, so they could walk to the dining room together and sit together.  She was physically fairly okay, she could hear and see and walk, but she had some sort of dementia.  When the time came to order her meal, she'd pull out a little piece of paper she'd written her reminder on: "Peanut butter and jelly sandwich".  And she'd have that for every meal.  Sometimes she'd forget to look at her paper, and Mom would be there to gently remind her.  She was very nice and very cheerful, and smiled a lot, and seemed happy.  Mom said that honestly, in some ways she was quite pleasant to be around.  A lot of the old people who live there are pretty cranky, Mom says.

The lady remembered Mom, and she seemed to remember me, a little bit.  She remembered her whole family, and could recite their names and where they all lived (and she had a big family, many of whom came to visit her quite frequently).  She had played piano in church her whole life, and could no longer remember how to read music, but if someone reminded her of the title of a hymn, she could play it perfectly.  She was utterly mystified by Christmas, though, asking Mom, slightly alarmed, why the big man coming through the dining room was dressed in that strange way, with a big red suit, and why was he giving presents to everyone?

Earlier this year she developed some sort of illness -- Mom spoke to her daughter, but never did really get an answer on what was happening -- and she moved out of the retirement home to live with family.

Some of the people who live there are so active and healthy, you have to wonder why they are there.  They drive cars, and participate in all the activities, and don't seem to need any help with anything.  One such woman is the nice lady who came and sat with Mom, in her apartment, during the morning of Dad's funeral.  Mom showed her pictures of Dad, and told her about when they got married and what their life had been like, and the woman stayed with Mom all morning listening and keeping mom company.

I know it sounds weird to say that I enjoy staying in the guest room there, and having meals in the dining room with Mom's friends, and hanging out with everyone, but I really do.  Obviously I love seeing my mother and being able to spend time with her, but I kind of enjoy the retirement home, too.

Teeny Tiny Update: The Marigold Project

I planted the old marigold seeds on Sunday, July 25, so it was two weeks yesterday. Today I spotted this:

Now, this little dude is extremely tiny (literally the size of the head of a pin), so tiny that it's really impossible to tell at this point whether he's a marigold or a weed.

Stay tuned!

The Marigold Project

One of my mother's very favorite Ellen As A Small Child stories happened when I was three.  My father grew up on a farm and always spent a lot of time planting flowers and tending his huge gardens (yes, that's plural).  I grew up surrounded by peach trees, strawberry patches, potato plants, rows of tall corn plants, vines full of watermelon and squash, and many many types of beautiful flowers.

One day when we lived in Roanoke, VA, my dad went to plant a row of marigold plants along the front of our brick house.  I followed along to help, but my help consisted of pulling up each plant right after he planted it.  He'd plant one, move along to the next, and I'd pull the first one up.  (In my defense, I'm sure I had seen him pulling up weeds, and my three-year old brain must have thought I was helping.)  He kept telling me not to, and I kept doing it.  Until finally, he turned to me and slapped my hand.

Oh no, the trauma!  I went screaming and crying into the house as though I'd been whipped.  Mom was sure that it upset me so much because my dad had never, ever spanked me in any way before (and he never did again, actually), or really disciplined me much at all. So my little feelings were tremendously hurt by the terrible slap on the hand.

I eventually quieted down, and Dad got the marigolds planted, and for the several years we lived in that house we had giant gorgeous yellow and orange marigolds in the front yard.

So recently, I was cleaning out a drawer, and found a packet of marigold seeds:

I actually can't remember where they came from, or how long I've had them.  They say they cost ten cents.  I have no idea how much seeds cost, but that seems suspiciously cheap.  It does say on the back, sell by 2008.

Strike one -- they are old seeds.

Here's the back of the package:

That little chart on the bottom shows what month you should plant in.  Since I'm in Florida, I should plant between September and February.  

I am going to do it now anyway, so -- strike two.

I got some Expert Gardener potting soil, and clay pot that my Dad gave me when he moved to Georgia.

I don't know how good my chances are, but I planted the little seeds according to directions, and then gave 'em a little water.

If this works, it'll be my little flowery tribute to my Dad.  If it doesn't, then I'll go to Target and buy some actual little baby marigold plants, and that'll be my tribute.

Wish my two-strikes-against-them marigolds luck!  I'll keep you updated on their progress, or lack thereof.  

Birthdays and Needles

Tomorrow morning I am driving to Georgia to visit my parents. It's my Dad's birthday, woo! We (my brother and sister in law, my sister and brother in law, my niece and her two daughters, my nephew and his wife, and Mom and Dad) are going out for lunch on Saturday to celebrate Dad's birthday. :)

I have no idea where we are going, apparently my brother in law was going to make reservations at Outback, but as they are not open for lunch on Saturday, I am not confident in that plan. Mom and Dad love Red Lobster, though, so maybe we'll end up there.

I am looking forward to seeing Mom and Dad, but I am not looking forward to the drive. I am going to burn a bunch of cd's to take with me -- including all the Harry Potter soundtracks. And possibly some Amy Winehouse. Maybe Psychedelic Furs... maybe Missy Elliott... definitely that Lip Gloss song by Lil Mama that has been stuck in my head for two months now.

So: my husband has a terrible fear of needles. It's funny, because he will watch really awful, disgusting, bloody, disturbing things in movies (I won't go into detail -- you're welcome) but if someone gets an allergy shot he has to look away.

Last week he had to have a blood test. He was very brave, I went with him and he did great. He did less great when, later in the week, the lab called to say that they had messed up the test and he had to go back in to have more blood drawn. Gah! Did I mention this is one of those fasting tests where you can't eat/drink anything for 12 hours prior? Geez. So he fasts and goes back in.

This time he decided it was time to get over his fear, and he watched everything. He watched the nurse/technician/whatever she's called get out the needle, and realized that it's not one of those little get-a-shot needles; it's a hollow pointy tube to suck his blood out. He watched her find a vein and insert the needle, and he watched her fill up a small tube with his blood. It didn't take as long this time, he said (I wasn't with him) so maybe the first chick hadn't been very good at it, anyway.

I was so proud of him! He called me from the parking lot and he was fine -- not woozy, not nauseous. Woo hoo! Then, the next morning, the phone rings... The nurse/technician/whatever she's called had actually NOT taken enough blood, and they weren't able to do all the tests. He has to go in AGAIN to have his blood drawn. And fast, AGAIN.

I said this is wonderful! The forces of the universe are helping you get over your fear of needles, yay! Poor thing, he is not so happy about it. :(

On a different note, here is a picture of my Yankee Candle tart burner: