30 Days and Counting

Well, that was a long break.  Longest I've taken in quite a while.  It's been hard, when the only thing I can really think to blog about is my dad.

My dad, who is still on a ventilator, and whose magical "30 days in ICU" coverage is about to expire.

Just like that, the financial security he's worked so hard for is gone.  His wife is talking about selling the house, except they've (mostly he's) hoarded so much stuff that it's not likely the place could be made sellable. Between cats, cigarettes, and junk, I can imagine just how bad it is.  Plus, it's not a great area.  Their mortgage is paid off, but refinancing won't touch this--at 14 days, they were already over 200,000 dollars in medical bills.  I don't say "medical costs" because we all know there's a big difference between what that shit COSTS and how much they BILL.

Medically, he's not improving as much as I wish he would.  They've still got him zonked out of his gourd with Versed, and still have him tied to the bed to keep him from tearing things out. Apparently, he keeps squirming down to the end of the bed, which has caused a large friction sore on his leg where he keeps pressing it against the railing.

What a mess.

I haven't told anyone in the family, and that's by request.  I'm not happy about it, and yet I can totally understand.  The fear that certain relatives would descend upon his wife and take what they can while he's incapacitated is not unreasonable.  Fact is, I'm the only child of his he wanted informed.  There's a reason for that.  I'm torn, I admit--part of me wants very much to tell people so they'll have their chance to make peace, if that's the way they want to go.

Except they can't--he's drugged to insensibility and on a ventilator.  There's no communicating anything, no making peace.

I'll find out in the next few days what happens next.  After the 30 days in ICU expires, he's got coverage for 45 days in a long-term care facility.  The nearest Veteran's place is 2 hours from his home.  What a total cock-up.

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 Spent Christmas day and the day after in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.  Had Christmas dinner at the Publick House, then hit Higgins Armory Museum the next day.  Today is Higgins' last day ever--they close their doors for good tonight.  That is a tragedy, it's devastating.  If you never got there, you missed something amazing and magical.  There's never been another Higgins-type place in the States, and there likely never will be.  Thankfully, we got there early--the crowd was amazing, and the power went out in Worcester ten minutes after we left.  Imagine if we'd shown up late and had the power go out!  That would have broken our boy's heart.

I nearly cried in the gift shop.  Higgiins wasn't just a museum, it was an amazing mix of classroom and training, history and play, and the people who've worked there have really put themselves into it fully, and they're hurting.  I'm hurting for them.  And I'm hurting for the grandkids I don't even have yet who won't ever get the chance.

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In addition to Higgins, we spent a little time in the Old Burying Ground in Sturbridge.  Would have spent more time, but it was 20 miserable degrees.  Who knew it got so cold in Massachusetts?  My first time there in the winter.  Now I know why I've stayed away.  I actually managed to hit my stride and warm up while photographing, but hubby wound up frozen to the core and hiding out in the car with the heater blasting.  I don't blame him--usually it's me, but when outdoors, I get that cold, then BURN of the extremities (Reynaud's, I believe it's called), which actually serves me pretty well in some situations.

On our way home, we hit two more cemeteries--East Norwalk and Mill Hill, though Mill Hill was a mistake--we'd meant to hit Pine Island, but missed.  Both cemeteries were for genealogy/family history purposes, as my mom's ancestors were original settlers in Norwalk.  Got a lot of good pictures, and even more bad ones.  Sad we missed Pine Island, but it turns out we're related to half the folks in Mill Hill, too.  Stopped in Philly on the way home for Pat's King of Steaks (our boy finally had one, after years of eating hot dogs there, and he loved it!), then wound up in traffic hell on the 95--all southbound lanes closed, they detoured us at a snail's pace in a huge loop out and around the accident.  Had to stop in DC for hubby to hit his office for something, then home.  Didn't get home until after midnight.

Tired.

Here are some graveyard and road pics:

I figured her out, but it took some work!

NYC

Sturbridge Old Burying Ground

Frigid beach near Norwalk

Pretty nice for a rest stop parking lot near Hackensack.

And that's about it, I guess.  Well, except for a HUGE thumbs up for the folks in Utah who've managed to get married this past week!  Yes, the governor and his skeezy new AG will drop millions into fighting "gay marriage," but they are totally on the WRONG side of history here. Congratulations to my friends who've been married, and to my friends who've performed the marriages.  You're blazing new trails my friends.  Love you.

Chronicling the Dead Keeps my Mind off the Living

I've been doing all things grave-y lately.  A lot of family history stuff, including scanning old family photos and letters.  I've probably said this before, but I'm going to say it again:

Mark your photographs!

Seriously!  We have stacks of unmarked photos that we'll NEVER really know who they were. We've had a little luck comparing them with records on the LDS Family Search site, but most of them are of folks whose identities are lost.  DON'T do that!

Here are a couple examples:

Zero clue, probably taken in Camden or Philly, 1930s, maybe?

Zero clue--we all agree the lady down front right looks like she could be related.

And my husband's side of the family is no better.  Most of them are more easily traced than mine, but they, too, have a crappy habit of not marking photos:

Mormon Missionaries, one of whom is a relative 

So we know where it was taken, but not who it is.

And then there's this amazing gem:

An actual tintype.  It's not in good shape, I had to "fix" her cheek in Photoshop because a chunk is missing.

So I'm saying it again--MARK YOUR PHOTOS SO YOU DON'T LEAVE FOLKS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS AND WISHING THEY COULD PUT NAME TO FACE!

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In addition to the family history thing, we've been visiting local cemeteries.  Some of the stones, especially the hand carved ones, are really wrenching.  All backward letters and misspelled words and heart.  So much heart.

Plus, I've been cataloguing some English and Welsh cemeteries as I come across the headstones online.  I started in Herefordshire, hoping to come across something related to my husband's family, but got caught up in the history of it.  I now know that the Caroline Spooner was the largest Barque ever built at Aberystwyth.  That's "A-bur-uh-stew-uth."

If only someone would pay me to archive stuff like this.  Because I'm good at it, I love doing it (I do it for FUN), and it's important.  Except most folks don't think it is important.

Sadly.

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Speaking of cemeteries, headstones, and the like, I've been noticing how, even in death, women are marginalized, they're minimized, they're lost to history because, so often, their "maiden" names are not included on the headstone.  So Margaret Griffiths gets married, becomes Margaret Davies, but her headstone only reads "Margaret Davies," or worse "Margaret, wife of Hugh Davies."  

Like she's just an aside, an afterthought.  As though she never was anything but an extension of the man she married.  Descendants run up against brick walls when trying to trace the women in their family's history.  Maybe, if they're lucky, they'll find a church record or census that relays the woman's birth name, but, often as not, that doesn't happen. 

That's got me thinking just how incredibly sexist the whole idea of "maiden name" versus "married name" really is.  Like a woman belongs to her father until some man takes her, renames her, and turns her from "maiden" to "matron." The historic meaning of "maiden" makes this glaringly obvious.  

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A big "I wouldn't piss on your face if your teeth were on fire" shout out to those teabaggers on Capital Hill who have, once again, decided to slash my husband's transit benefit.  That's another 50+ bucks a month gone, though they've INCREASED the parking benefit (which we don't receive).  In other words, they're doing what they can to reduce ridership on mass transit so they can then claim that mass transit, which isn't supposed to "turn a profit" anyway, isn't turning a profit.  So they can slash mass transit funding.  So their buddies in the oil industry make more money off the increased number of cars on the road in an already devastatingly traffic congested area.

And they think we don't know what they're up to.  These are the same guys who squeal about some dead birds at wind farms, while protesting the fines levied against British Petroleum for oil spills that killed millions of birds and fish.

Luckily, they're going to give my husband his first raise in four years.

NOT!

Mmm hmm.  You can torch your damned teeth any ol' time, guys.

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Still wandering around with a temporary crown in my face.  Which has the other side, where I have no molars, raw and sad because that's where I've been chewing.  Scared to death that, despite all the assurances that we have enough credit with the dentist's office to more than cover this, I'm going to go in on the ninth and be told I owe.

We have no money.  Seriously, none.  Which is why I was so careful to confirm, repeatedly, that this would carry no out-of-pocket cost to us.  But I'm scared.  Scared I'm going to utterly explode on them if they try to hold my permanent crown hostage in return for payment they said wouldn't be due.

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I'm going to close with a picture of a tree.  Because we live in a place with great trees.  Trees that dwarf and put to shame those sad, scraggly things in Utah.

Family History Fraught with Grief

I've been doing the family history gig a bit lately.  It hurts me that I know so little about my parents' families, and I don't want my boy's kids to feel the same way about me, so I've been telling him stories, plus gathering information about my family for him.

If you've been hanging around for a while, you know that it's not easy getting truthful stories out of my Mom.  It's not that she's malicious, but rather that she's an odd blend of fanciful and forgetful, with a need to seem interesting, to have her life appear exciting.  It makes for unreliable tales.

But it's more than that.  I'm not sure what was going on with my Mom's family, but those people, including her, were so emotionally disconnected.  I have a few generic stories from her childhood, but nothing meaty, nothing that seems sincerely personal.  Even the tale of her firstborn, illegitimate and given up for adoption, smacks of untruth.  The details change, the story shifts, and I have no way of knowing--do I really have an older brother out there?

Today, I was talking to my Dad.  I had come across a story online about my Grandfather (his Dad), and I hadn't ever known.  It turns out my Grandpa and his younger sister spent time in an orphanage after coming to the States from Italy.  Their father had died, and their mother couldn't take care of them.  She was able to take them back after a time, but the idea of them being left in an orphanage because their widowed mother couldn't afford to feed them?

Sure does bring the whole Food Stamp debate home, doesn't it?  If those are the "good ol' days," I don't want 'em.

The conversation wandered from my Grandpa to his wife, my Grandma.  Her family was from Ireland, and her father died in prison.  I'd known that, known that he was locked away and died there.  What I didn't know?

Why he was locked up.  It turns out he'd sexually assaulted his daughter.  My Grandma.  The trial was hell on her, involved being examined in the courtroom for signs of "violation."

Suddenly her abusiveness and lifelong alcoholism make sense.

Upon reflection, I realize these are awful stories.  Orphanages and molesting fathers and dying in prison and grandmas drinking themselves to death and possibly make-believe siblings.  And I think maybe there's a good reason I was lacking family stories as a child.  And that begs the question:  do I share this stuff with my son?

I think the answer is "absolutely."  If nothing else, it gives him a solid understanding of how, exactly, the "good ol' days" weren't really all that good, and people we love can be pretty solidly flawed.  And we can love them anyway.

Except for Great-Grandpa Joe, the child molester.  I don't think we love him.

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On the subject of family history and memories, I'm feeling weirdly short of time.  Having a growing lump in the soft tissue of your arm does that, I guess.  The blood sugar issues don't help.  I want to sit down with our boy and start labeling photos.  We have so many photos that aren't labeled, and I know just how frustrating that is to, years later, come across pictures from mom, dad, grandparents, etc., and not know who is in the picture.  So I need to get on that.  It's important.

Thirty-some-odd women in this picture, and I know who exactly ONE of them is.  

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Impending government shut down.  Next month can either rock our world (in a good way) or devastate us.  We have no savings.  I have looming medical appointments that may well turn tragic (or not).  Hubby is EITHER looking at the first overtime pay we've had in two years OR being put out of work by those greedy, grubby, scuzzy wingnuts in Washington.  Either we'll finally be able to breathe again OR we'll be utterly toast.  And NOTHING I do will in any way influence the outcome.  

And that is SO hard for me.

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Speaking of those asshats in Congress, here's Bernie Sanders giving a good review of what, exactly, it is those creatures are up to:



Yeah, that's about all the politics I have for tonight.  Too pitched and stressed to really get into it.

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I've run across a gang of really crappy baby names lately--happens when you're trolling the obituaries for fellow high school alumni.  Names that make me want to scream.

Names like Wonzie LaShae and Tru-Jake.  And Apathy-Ann.

Yes, Apathy-Ann.  

Say it with me, would you?  THAT'S NOT A NAME!

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Oh, and a quick note to the guy who found my husband's iPod in the gym at the office in town? Thank you.  My husband was devastated, he has 60+ gig of music on that thing (every bit of it paid for over the years, thank-you-very-much), and replacing it is out of the question right now.  He was very sad, and I was terribly sad for him.  Much like my iPad (which I won in a contest), if it breaks or is stolen, that's it--it's not going to be replaced.  So thank you for returning it.  It means a lot.