Quirky Mom, Quirky Family
I’m really missing my mom today.
I’ve had “Love” from Robin Hood (the DIsney animated one) stuck in my head since this morning, as it came on, on the iPod.
“Once we watched a lazy world go by,
Now the days seem to fly…
Life is short, but when it’s gone,
Love goes on and on.”
I made chicken tonight. I hate touching raw chicken. My mom always did it for me when I made chicken here. Not anymore.
I feel like I spend a lot of time waiting. Why don’t I spend more time doing? Waiting for things to happen, waiting for someone to be interested, just waiting.
Well forget that!
We’re going to go visit my grandparents today. I need to talk to them about the floors. I have a list.
My uncle sent a big surprise box of goodies to the kids. Stuffed animals, hats, cars, and oddly, checks for the five of them. There was no letter of explanation. We wrote a thank you note this morning.
My camera is MIA. I am hoping someone in WV didn’t “find” it and aquire a new camera. It is not where I know I put it (I know, because I put it there so I’d know where it was). So my nice camera, my half gig memory card, and the photos on the camera, are currently missing. I really hope I find it when we get the garage cleared out.
We need to get a bed frame today. We brought one. We can’t find the extender bar to make it go from queen to king sized. No one remembers bringing it off the truck. I do remember it going onto the truck. Weirdness abounds. Perhaps the extender bar is where my camera is.
My dad took Buffy for a walk yesterday (or Buffy took him for a walk). She likes him now.
Apu, the large white koi, keeps nibbling on the large parrotfish (who has no name). I wonder if Apu is like a vulture and the parrot is going to die. Or maybe he has a crush on the parrot. Either way, the parrot doesn’t seem to mind.
Pocho the puffer is back in his own tank, which has found a home on the kitchen counter.
We looked at new kitchens the other day. They don’t cost as much as we thought, and dad said if there is any money left over, we might redo the kitchen. Then he said “you are getting a whole new house and I am footing the bill.” I smiled. I’d trade anything to not get the house, because when we get the house, it will be because I have no parents left.
There is a tear on my left ear. The bottom of the lobe is swollen, and it was bleeding yesterday. I took the o-ring off the back and I think it’s stuck to the jewelry I have in there. I hope it heals soon.
B’nai B’rith came today to pick some stuff up. In addition to the kitchen stuff we got rid of, we had about five or six other boxes, and two bags of bedding. I put the bedding together this morning. Most of it was stored in their closet. My mom never wore a scent, so it isn’t like I can go sniff her clothes or whatever and get a scent memory, but for some reason, some of the bedding smelled like her. Maybe it was the soap (which is strange, I generally hate scented detergents) or maybe it was something else, but it made me think of her.
Anyway, I kept a bundle of vintage sheets. My dad will kill me, but I see it turning into summer dressed or tops (or both!) for Eshiva. Big floral prints, awful plaids (I love them!), you name it, it’s a 60′s/70′s sheet bonanza. They are sheets I grew up seeing on my bed. Call me sentimental, I couldn’t bear to give them away to be thrown out or tossed aside. I feel like I am hanging onto a memory of a past I could never forget, so why need the reminders?
Last night I made a list of chores around the house. I am going to use permanent marker on the whiteboard to make a grid and label the days/weeks (I haven’t planned it out yet). It needs to list daily chores and weekly chores. Each will have a monetary value, and either myself, my dad or Michael has to verify it’s been done to specs before anyone can initial that they have completed the chore. This is in lieu of an allowance. It truly needs to be earned.
I feel like I haven’t really had much to say lately. My uncle called me … yesterday (I had to think for a minute). We chatted. He said my kids are bright and well behaved. I choked back a laugh. But he’s right, they are usually reasonably well behaved, within the confines of being 4 and 6 and my not being of the mindset “children are to be seen and not heard.” He mentioned that my other uncle showed him the thank you note I sent and said it was well written. I had sent a note thanking him for hosting shiva (again), and that even though he said “no thanks were necesssary, this is what family does,” that sometimes it is nice to be acknowledged for having done something.
I also sent one to my other aunt and uncle thanking them for the hotel rooms, to a friend I haven’t seen in years (or spoken to) for coming out to see me/us, and a few others.
I think the art of the thank you note is a dying one. It’s a shame.
I need to call DHL. I was supposed to get a delivery yesterday, and the website said “attempted delivery” and they would come back tomorrow. Well, no delivery was attempted. I was home all day, and we are in the middle of nowhere enough that I hear any and every car that goes by, and certainly every van/truck. So I phoned. The guy said the code for “attempted delivery” and “we don’t know how the fuck to get to your house so instead of calling and asking we said we attempted delivery” are the same. As if we didn’t already know DHL was the worst delivery company on the face of the planet. The guy I spoke with gave me the number that is supposedly the direct number to the PKB dispatch station. It rang and rang. And rang some more. I need to call back soon. I am beyond livid, but especially because when the order was placed, I paid for UPS (which was the only option given), so I need to call the company I ordered from as well.
I was thinking about joining the Spin to Knit swap (hosted by the same people who did the One Skein swap) but I don’t think I am finish two skeins in two months. Well, I probably could, but not of any decent quality lol I got a very very cool bag from that One Skein swap, as well as a bad ass jewelry box and pair of earrings. Unfortunately my huge ears don’t allow for cool earrings any longer, but I know a certain almost 15 year old who will love them, and they aren’t too long for her to wear to school. My swap gals blog is blog-o-rama.blog-city.com and she spoiled me. She is the gal who also sent me that gorgeous green yarn and the black/pink sock yarn. I haven’t dug into it yet, but it has been sitting there tempting me something fierce.
Well now, this is a bit longer than I expected it to be and I need to let the dogs back in.
I lost my mom this month. Not like “I’m five and got myself lost in a store” lost my mom, but lost her forever. My mom died this month. I am still discovering that it’s real. It’s not some awful dream from which I will wake up. I called and cancelled her call phone. My dad is getting copies of the death certificate. I’m moving back in with him, and my brother and sister (yes, again) to help out. First I was helping out because Erin was sick. Then Erin and died, but I was still helping out, because mom was sick. Now mom is dead, and I am still helping out.
Where was I? Oh, I am half an orphan. If I feel this awful, me, with my husband and children to take up my time, how awful do my brother and sister feel? They are just 14. Babies. My dad lost his soul-mate. His wedding anniversary was the 24th. 28 years it would have been. He almost went to dinner alone. His mother and sister went with him.
My dad lost his father to cancer in 1982. My mom was buried on his dads birthday. All things are connected.
I have all these things I want to tell him. That I want to tell everyone. Hold your mom close. I know, I lost mine. I need her a thousand times a day for a million different things. My daughter was whiny and clingy and then sleepy the other day. I wanted to call her, so she could tell me it was just teething, or growing pains. And I couldn’t. My oldest wont sleep in his room now, ghosts fly out of the wall. I wanted to call her and ask her about it. I talked to my dad instead. It wasn’t the same. He helped just as much, but it definitely wasn’t mom. I want to tell my dad how much I love him, and how much I need him. I will, in time. I told my mom, and it just didn’t make a difference.
Cancer is such an ugly disease. It steals your strength. It steals so much away from so many. My mom beat it once, and succumbed to it a few years later.
I still need my mom, and I haven’t dealt with my grief enough to be able to just talk to her out loud. I even think about it, and I want to cry. Who am I kidding, it’s almost three years later and I can still barely talk to Erin.
I don’t know what I was going to write here. This is where it ended up, so I guess this is where it is supposed to be.
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