thanksgiving 2006

we went to duck, NC for thanksgiving at pam's beach house. there was a n'oreaster the day before and the walkway down to the beach was wiped out and wrecked. it wasn't the only one. the beach was littered with future driftwood. one look up and down the beach confirmed that everyone as far as i could see was going to be doing repair work. not only that, but the dunes were pounded pretty hard and i would say a good 5 yards of it just disappeared.i didn't get on the beach at all, but that was ok. we had good food and the boys all stayed glued to the tv all day on thanksgiving. on friday we came home and i went up to pam's friday night. we left there and went to roanoke and spent the night at tom and cindy mohr's house ("mohr mannor"). this morning we got up too late and got started too late and ended up in lots of traffic trying to get into blackburg for the tech-uva game. the new bypass i have decided is a joke when it comes to traffic. better to go down another exit and take the old way in on old business 460. we parked at the german club, where pam's son matt is a member. walked to the stadium and i was on sensory overload from then on.


first, i haven't been to a tech football game since before austin was born. secondly, i haven't been in blacksburg in about 6 or 7 years. much has changed. i don't think i would have been able to get around there now. it seems that every patch of grass or free space on campus has a building on it now. things have been changed around a whole lot! pam and i parked in the parking lot in front of slusher tower where we used to live and we went out in the back and had our pictures taken on the rock where we sat more than 30 years ago. all that was missing was linda!

we drove around blacksburg and out to the AGR house and around town. i just didn't recognize anything! certainly blacksburg is more cosmopolitan than when we were there! we headed out out town after 5:30 and about TWO HOURS LATER we were getting gas and coffee at the sheetz on orange avenue in roanoke. it took almost 2 hours in snail paced traffic to get there. at least an hour alone or more was spent trying to get out of blacksburg. some bypass...we didn't bypass anything, period! definitely learned a lesson there...skip the bypass, go the old way.


there was just so much to take in that i just pretty well shut down while there. i was struck by the amazing amounts of tech colors displayed everywhere. everyone had on something tech colored. i also was amazed that i saw no drunk people. as a matter of fact, i don't think i saw but one person drinking at all, and we were on the student side of the stadium! football is now serious business up there, and i guess when you pay $40 for a ticket, you don't want to miss it. people stand up every time the defense is on the field, and they all do this bow down thing to the defense, which deserves it. the defense has kept tech on the map, as the offense this year has been pretty mediocre.


after the game we found old friend karen togersen's tail gate spot and visited with her and her family for awhile. i hadn't seen here since before austin was born! she lived on the hall across from pam and linda in slusher and now, after being director of admissions at tech for a number of years, has remarried and is living in charlottesville working for UVA...:)

restless in mechanicsville

i can't figure out why it is that i can't seem to sit still...probably too much caffeine, but i am most definitely restless in mechanicsville.

it is a weird thing when the one thing you want to do, which is relax, seems to be the one thing you won't let yourself do. why is that? i sit and daydream about it a lot of the the time, but given the opportunity, i usually blow it. i sit in front of the tv and watch c.s.i. or a law & order and then flog myself for having succumbed to doing nothing useful.

yesterday i did do some useful shopping. i bought xmas gifts for daddy and austin and bought myself clothes. i was feeling a bit flush and spent the money, although i am sure sometime soon i will be sorry for having done it. hopefully, not. today i would like to go through my room and austin's and gather up things for goodwill. i am in the cleaning mode and right now i have a bit of energy, having been pretty much decked for awhile with the fibro. however, yesterday i felt a bit better and austin is at his father's house, so i was by myself and i like that.

it is raining harder than a cow pissing on a flat rock today. the yard is puddled and there is a huge stream of water sluicing down the driveway. i am surprised at how squishy the yard is. i went to church today and was a greeter and did the collection as well. i hadn't been in awhile, so it was good to go, although my stomach thought differently. probably that 20 ounce of coffee i slugged down. i took my hair out of the corn rows yesterday and today i am playing with it a bit with combs. yesterday i used headbands. tomorrow, who knows. i may keep it down for awhile.

i haven't done pottery in months and i just started back reading fiction. i am still reading the newspapers and i seem to be able to focus a bit on those kind of things. i am having some irritating physical problems, including periodic choking incidents and difficulty breathing. sometimes i feel like i have a 5lb sack of sugar on my chest and i have to concentrate on breathing. the muscular problem has always been irritating. i am dropping things, having trouble grabbing things and tripping and stumbling. i am also having problems coming up with names for things, like the hair combs. i sat here for a minute concentrating trying to remember what they were called, although i could clearly envision them. sigh.

we needed a printer, so i finally found one and bought it yesterday. this was the culmination of months of research on the internet and combing the sunday store ads. what a confusing mess! i don't think anyone can figure it out. there are so many different variations on a theme that they can keep you perpetually confused about what to buy. generally, i think it comes down to people buying what is in the store and what is on sale. i could only find one of the five on my list in a store, and fortunately for me it was on sale. it has yet to be installed. i will save that one for austin.

ducking out in duck, nc....

it is saturday night in duck, nc. pam has gone up to bed. taylor, tead and his friend jonathan are watching yet another football game on the tube. the wind is blowing, but it isn't cold, and we have just returned for the second outing of the day looking for supplies. all is well. what the hell am i doing in duck, nc?

pam has purchased her dream. she now is a part owner in a beach house here in duck, a nice one. she has five weeks out of the year to come here and hang out. she will be by herself this week, the first week. i have come down for the weekend, as austin is with bebo and i needed a break. the last time i was in nags head was when we went on vacation in 1991 with pam and taylor in whalehead junction. i thought i was just pregnant with austin (i was) and i spent the whole week trying to decide whether or not i should buy an early pregnancy test in the food lion in corolla...

a lot has changed, but then again, so have i. when i was here with bebo before, we were sort of bored...or he was. i think i was ok sitting around reading on the deck and going on the beach. bebo would have preferred going somewhere else, and after this week we never went back to the beach again. in any case, here i am 14 years later with no bebo and no kid...and i am enjoying myself. it is amazing how this place has changed. it is greatly built up, but it isn't, at least in duck, like myrtle beach or va. beach. i think when you head to nags head or kill devil hills (south) it gets built up, but i haven't been there, only this end of the world.

the drive here last night was also interesting, as the road is 4 lane now the whole way. however, i could not enjoy it as the rain was coming down and driving at night is a nightmare for me. i got here, but i was white knuckling it the whole way.

pam and i went shopping for food and supplies and then took a walk on the beach. the water wasn't cold and we did it barefoot. then we went back out and walked around the little subdivison she is part of, port trinitie. we walked over to the sound side which has a pool and a long pier to a gazebo on the water. the sun was setting on the soundside water and it reminded me of the episcopalian camp at the end of talbot hall road in norfolk where warnie lives. i was there last when uncle harry died. austin, toddy and i walked down there and it was very peaceful. this was too. i think i could just as easily live on the sound side as the ocean, although both are nice.

taylor and the boys are going back on monday and i am leaving tomorrow. i took the day off yesterday to get the windshield changed on my car. mom and dad gave me their 1990 acura legend, and i did the dmv routine yesterday as well. visited with the aunties and the parental units. we went to atlas diner for lunch (fried flounder day and a good deal) and then i had sandwiches with them for dinner while i waited for pam and taylor to get to our area. warnie is getting a little slow. she fell down the night before and messed up her arm, bruising herself a lot and scraping the skin in a couple of places. she is declining and i wonder how long it will be before she can't live by herself anymore. she is happy, however, still has a sense of humor and does what she wants for the most part. she isn't driving as much or cooking much and falls asleep a lot. but she still jokes and is very easy to be around. aunt grace worries all of the time and talks all the time, but she is just being herself. it is a little hard to watch them age like this, but they are 86 and 84 and what do you expect from people at this age? we are lucky to have had them this long, and i have been blessed to get to 50 and still have the elderlys around.

Doris Young 1928-2006

i am still trying to process doris' death, which was last wednesday. she fell and hit her head on the brick sidewalk in front of her house. our dog, chili, charged the door trying to get to the yardman and doris tried to stop her. she suffered a massive head injury, and her kids pulled the plug within 4 hours of the injury.

a lot of women bitch about their mother-in-laws and don't get along with them. this was not the case with doris. she wasn't the easiest person to know, or the easiest person to talk to sometimes. she was a very proud person, and she certainly was the rock in her family. however, she worked behind the scenes, and was never an interferer. you always knew what she thought, and she wasn't afraid to express her opinion. i was always pretty much intimidated by her, especially when i first was married. but as the years rolled by, we sort of came to an understanding, and she always treated me really well and i loved her. she was very upset when bebo and i split up, and i kept up with her and stayed in the family up until this past year, when it became pretty obvious that i needed to make a break. i hadn't seen her in several months, and i think i will always have regrets about that. yet i think she knew what i was doing, and she probably agreed and understood it. i felt that with all the problems bebo was having, and the ripple effect that it was having on both austin and i, it wasn't the best to be around. i didn't want her to feel like she was ever in the middle. she was bebo's mother, and her first loyalty has to be to her son, regardless of what he does. i know she didn't agree with all that he did, but she always supported her children, regardless of what they did.

doris took me to all of my surgeries. she came and stayed with me during the day for the first 2 weeks after austin was born. she took austin to doctor's appointments when i couldn't do it and all you had to do was call and she was here. i enjoyed her company and we shared gardening things in common and i used to bring her vegetables from the produce stand out here in mechanicsville. most of the decent shoes i have were hers, and she always put thought into gifts that she gave me. it was doris who paid for me to get my master's training in reiki and she did practice it and encouraged it. doris was the one who did all of my laundry and brought it to me when i was in the hospital last year for 2 weeks. she would come a visit for a little while, but she wasn't the type to come and hang around for a long while, and she only called on the phone when she had something to ask you or tell you.

bebo has moved into her house to live with mae for awhile. the irony of all this is that jaquie finally made a financial settlement with bebo over the house. he was getting ready to put a contract down on a house when doris died. i haven't asked, but i am sure that doris probably know that this had happened, and i am sure it was a great relief to her. bebo has always wanted to buy his mother's house, and that may be possible now. her death solved the terrible problem of where bebo would live, and how. there is also a lot of guilt, i am sure, about how she died. terre had kicked chili out of her house and doris was taking care of chili, although she didn't really want to do it. chili's directly contributing to doris' death is just awful.

doris said for years that she was not leaving a will and the three kids would have to fight it out. she was true to her word, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

i am still sort of numbed out and can't believe that she died. i don't think it has hit austin at all, and i wonder about that. i guess we all have to grieve in our own ways. bebo goes in and out of it, and austin says that kitty is still really emotional all the time about it. i don't think things will ever be the same for those kids...they all, in their own ways, depended a great deal upon her to guide them in the directions that they needed to go in. there has certainly be so much "death" in the family over the last few years...kitty's marriage to mike breaking up and being ugly; bebo and i divorcing; bebo and the drama with jacquie and the house; danny's cancer and death; terre, kitty and bebo all moving from their homes to be closer to their mother in their old neighborhood. so much change...but i don't think things happen just randomly...they happen for a reason. certainly it was a blessing that doris died so quickly. she had been very adamant about not wanting to be a burden or to be kept alive by artificial means. she had COPD and emphysema, and bebo said on the night she died that it was a good thing, that at least now she wouldn't have to drown to death in her own fluids, which is where she was headed.

so i have to believe that there is a bigger reason going, that we all will ultimately learn something and be stronger, better persons for having known her and survived her death.

easy update and assessment

tomorrow i begin a new part time job teaching advanced composition at j. sargent reynolds community college. i am a little apprehensive about it, as i really don't know what exactly i am supposed to be teaching, and it has been 15 years since i taught a college course. they gave me a book, and i did make a syllabus, but i still don't know exactly what i am heading towards. i guess that has a lot to do with my confidence. i am hoping i will gather a bit of that as time moves on.

this summer has been a good one and a changing one for me. i have done a lot of traveling and have rented a lot of cars! austin's team took 3rd in the USSSA national tournament in orlando, and he did pretty well. the team split up a bit, and he has stayed with the coaches and will be playing with older kids. i have seen a lot of maturity on his part this summer and he has started to be less of a pill and more of a person. i am still amazed that he talks to me about things, including sex and girls and not just baseball. he has been pretty cooperative as far as doing things around here, and he knows now what is required to keep his lifestyle afloat. he has also sort of come into his own socially. he hasn't heard all summer from any of the boys he went to school with, as i expected. however, he has had a very active IM, phone and visiting social life with haley, riley, caitlin and a few others all summer. he has gone to their houses and out to the movies. i ended up getting him a cell phone because bebo never got around to doing so, as expected. he has been pretty responsible with it and knows the rules. we have had it pretty much open around here all summer and he has spent a lot of time by himself here or staying with the hackers or visiting little mike or jordan. i feel a bit guilty about leaving him so much because i did it for selfish reasons...i was off doing my own things.

i spent a lot of the summer following pam around and doing things with her. truthfully, i spent the summer acting like a teenager with a best friend. that suited me, and i could do it, so i did. however, the summer is over and i won't be able to hang out with my playmate like i did before. we have been working with the plants, putting up cuttings and preparing for the fall. i have enjoyed doing that, as it was always something i wanted to do, and i couldn't think of a better person to do it with than pam. it has taken some getting used to being with someone and not having to feel that any silence needs to be filled. since we are so opposite, i spend a lot of time doing a lot of talking and prodding and asking of questions just to keep the frequency open. however, even i know there is a point where you don't have to talk. i haven't done so well at this, but i have tried a bit more. basically, you do reach a point where you don't have anything to talk about and all the old stuff has been hashed and rehashed over and over again.

in any case, i have made some good changes i think this summer, but it has been a summer of change, and now i have to learn to live with the changes or not. i am struggling again with the eating issue, but i do think a good part of that has been chemical in the last week or so. i was in remission for about 6 weeks, but started coming out of it the week we were in orlando at the first of the month. i pulled an all nighter driving down to florida, and that was preceded by a week of worry and stress over the trip, just the kind of things that will flip the switch on the fibro. financial issues have reared their ugly heads once again, and i know i have spent some money this summer traveling. now the cold reality of paying for it is hitting, but i know what i have to do. i have the j. sarge job and i am going to work the football games at school on friday nights as well as saturday school. this will earn me some money to pay off the bills and maybe help towards xmas which will be coming up sooner than anyone can imagine.

my biggest problem has always been having something to look forward to, and this summer i have operated on a daily/weekly basis which has been fine. however, i won't be able to take off to amelia at the drop of a hat as i have, and i am going to have to push myself out of my comfort zone with people. i know i have insulated myself from my "normal" daily life by hanging out and contacting only the people i wanted to see or talk to. i did this on purpose because it made me feel better and more relaxed. i haven't talked to my brother since june and he hasn't called me either. i haven't wanted to call him because he drags me down sometimes. i also have avoided a few other people as well. going back to school, however, will put me back in the stew that is the english department, and that does stress me a bit.

i have done some good things this summer, some productive things, and some creative things. i put together my R. E. B. proposal and got it in way before the deadline. i made two birthday videos for pam and linda. i wrote the whole "pam and ellen's excellent new mexico adventure" blog and put it up. (http://madridnm.blogspot.com/) i also turned it into a little mini-book on publisher for pam and linda. i also have a scrapbook of the new mexico experience that is almost finished. i have lots of pictures and have learned how to use the digital camera. what i haven't done much of is clean house, garden here or do the beds that i had planned to do. wood bought, rebar bought, beds never done. oh well. i also have done very little reading, which is unusual for me as well. i have been pretty restless and overly focused on what i wanted to be focused upon, good or bad. i haven't had too many temper tantrums and few arguments with austin. i have stood up for myself with bebo and my parents, all of which is good. i haven't exercised, but i do have a tan. i have learned about rental cars and how to get them!

what am i looking forward to now? losing some more weight, going up to tech for a football game weekend with pam, seeing how austin does in school this fall, seeing how i am going to balance school, jobs, socializing, the greenhouse and new stuff. the key is to take it easy while doing it i guess.

since i have been back from new mexico, i have found maybe 3 or 4 pennies. i think this is interesting and definitely a sign. i think the angels helped me while i truly needed the help. they kept me going and kept me strong enough so i could get where i needed to get to heal myself. the glow is off as time has passed, but i have to remind myself about how i felt, and hope that i can keep that flow.

a story from beliefnet

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/103/story_10399_1.html?WT.mc_id=NL24

this morning i got this article as part of my daily emails from beliefnet. the story itself is good, but when i got to the postscript, my heart almost stopped. what she experienced when her dog passed was exactly what happened to me when my cat santini died in 1999. i have never met anyone or read anything where anyone described this exact same event happening to them when a pet died.

santini was a reiki junkie, but in the last weeks before he died, he absolutely refused it. he wouldn't sit in my lap or let me do reiki on him. when it came time to put him down, i had my hands on him and he was again spitting and growling. i kept them there while they gave him the injection. all of a sudden there was a big whoosh, almost like a huge wind, and it passed through both of my hands and my right arm, in a left to right motion and out up to the ceiling. the vet hadn't finished completely with him, but i knew then he was gone. i took my hands off of him, and she asked if i wanted his body, and i said no, as i truly knew he was absolutely gone, and i turned my back, walked out of the room to the car and didn't look back. what i was feeling, more than grief, was an absolute knowledge that the spirit and the body are really 2 separate things. my mother always has said that the body is just the temple for the soul, but at that moment i knew it was true, and it has helped me a lot to deal with death, which is starting to occur more and more in my life.

i might have shared this story with some of you before, but i just felt like i needed to pass on the article "as proof" that i am not totally crazy with this angel thing. i am writing on my other blog about new mexico, and the more days that go by, the more i see a trail of angel pennies that led me there. those of you at school especially know that i kept finding them, over and over and over again when i needed them. it was almost on a daily basis. looking back, i think those were signs that i needed to keep the faith, that i wasn't by myself. i have to admit i was just about ready to throw myself in front of a train if my life didn't change. truthfully, i was just about out of faith and there was a lot of despair. but i think a higher power knew what i needed and what circumstances i needed to have exist in order for me to get to the healing i needed to get to, and i got it.

when pam and i were in new mexico, there were a lot of coincidental things that kept occuring, which made me think constantly that we were being watched and accompanied. there were several spiritual things that happened, many of them in places that weren't where you expected them...driving through the jicarilla apache reservation, driving out of cortez, colorado to 4 corners, driving the turquoise trail between albuquerque and santa fe, doing reiki on pam, linda and chuck while we were in the hot springs in pagosa (the sun was going down, and all 4 of us were standing next to each other at the lip of the pool where the water was falling over into the san juan river. chuck was to my right and i had my hand on top of his and my left hand on linda's hand. she in turn had her hand on pam, who was to linda's left, so the reiki was flowing between all 4 of us. it was very peaceful and quite a bonding experience for me.)

in any case, since i have been back, i haven't found many pennies, but i haven't been looking for them all that much either. i think that is because my angels have gotten me to the point where i can stand up on my own and not feel so beaten down. i don't need the pennies like i did before i went.

so if you want to see proof, spend an hour with me i haven't felt this good physically in a long, long time. i was able to do things out there that i didn't have any hope of doing, such as climbing in high altitudes and getting over my fear of heights. i was able to leap out of balloon gondolas at a single bound, climb 30 ft. ladders and squeeze through tiny tunnels, and fight with unwilling cacti on the side of the road! i also stopped eating, and have lost weight since then and have managed to maintain it. i have been a lot distracted since i have been home, thinking way too much about what went on, so naturally my transition back has been slow and hard at times. however, i have finished doing most of the things i needed to do to make this transition, and i am busy and happy. i can't say that i was before all of this, but i think i have had a lot of help in so many ways, including from my friends.

keep picking up those pennies when you find them!
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/103/story_10399_1.html?WT.mc_id=

mark twain

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."