Aunt Argie's Serenity & Owen's Caress
Warning...whining ahead!Fearless Husband is doing well, and his schedule hasn't changed (yet) due to the theatrics in N. Korea. I hopefully will head for Hong Kong to visit him in a couple of weeks. Then I'm off to Okinawa a couple of weeks later to see FH again and also my cousin...FH will be in port for a couple of days, out to sea for two days, then back in port for two days...then family members can board the ship for the two day cruise back to the home port. I'm not crazy about the idea (I am claustrophobic and get seasick easily) but I think it's important to FH, and it's important as the president of the Family Whining...err Support Group that I go. We should arrive back home on T'giving afternoon. I have an opportunity to go to Kyoto in between Hong Kong and Oki, and the price is fantastic...but I'd be going alone, and I don't think I can fit it all in and stay sane. Guess Kyoto will have to wait.
I may not be officially working full-time anymore, but I feel like I can't breathe sometimes, and have never been so busy, between a lovely plethora of paying work (yay paying work!), pro bono work, the Family Bitchfest...err Support Group, the volunteer work for the base newspaper and website, being an unofficial "sponsor" for new folks here (picking them up at the airport, making lodging reservations, taking them out to eat and to the grocery, etc., to find a car, whatever--I love it, but it takes time) and a woman from the OSC, for whom I am designing several pieces! The doc has finally decided that my swollen legs must be due to stress (my legs, feet and ankles are so swollen the skin hurts all the time, it's stretched so tight, and I can't wear any shoes except my beat up sandals). I've been on diuretics for three months, drinking water like crazy, walking, and watching my salt, but the swelling won't go away.
And of course, a client (and dear friend) whose been fighting brain and breast cancer is suddenly back at work, and doesn't understand why I can't drop EVERYTHING RIGHT THIS MINUTE and do her stuff...at least twenty hours of work and she wants it done within 48 hours, and it's only twenty hours of work if I guess right as to what she wants, so I have to read her mind while I am at it...and thanks for pulling that ad out of my ass for her for free while she was in the hospital, but why did I choose such ugly colors...and she'll consider sending me the money she owes me but not right now, could I please just hush and do what she wants me to do, which is to be creative and colorful and she doesn't know exactly what, but she will know when she sees it...? But can I say any of this to her? NO! She just got out of the hospital. With BRAIN cancer. And BREAST cancer. For the SECOND TIME. And I'm evil and bad and selfish and horrible for even considering being mad at her!
Jeez...I can't stop whining! Maybe the other Navy wives have rubbed off! The Family Stupidity...err Support Group is another issue entirely, with women completely and totally misunderstanding (or making shit up!) but not telling me, oh no, instead e-mailing their officer husbands who then e-mail the Command Master Chief, who e-mails me to ask if I really said that and if so, why? Luckily, I got two e-mails from kind women who praised me for all the tapdancing I've done so far, and so I put away the gun ( that is totally in my imagination folks...I don't have a gun!) and poured a drink instead (which is currently sitting, undrunk and sweating, beside the book I've meant to read for a week....)
And although I absolutely love Japan, I'd really counted on coming back to the US this fall, and now it really is out of the question, financially and time-wise. And I discovered that my annual storytelling festival will NOT have its seventh year if I am not there to headline it, which makes me very, very sad. And all my friends who came to my wedding are going to Homecoming at our college in November, and I will be the only one of the gang not there.
And my Great Aunt Argie has brain cancer, and is going very, very fast. She's quite elderly, and she's serene and happy about it all, but I really would like to see her and say goodbye. She's a tiny, bright-eyed bird of a woman, still driving a land yacht around, and giggling with "Suh-stah", which is southern for "sister", and what she calls her sister Evelyn, my step-grandmother, who everyone thought woud be the first to go by years and years. And I don't want either of them to go anywhere.
SO.
I can't tell you how grateful I am for my friends, and their presence, even if most are half a world away, and the glimpses I get of their spectacular children--my brother's daughters and the children of my friends. Today I held a woman's chubby, grinning, GORGEOUS, smiley baby boy. He reached out one fat little fist, but instead of grabbing my earrings or my glasses, he gently stroked the back of his little hand across my cheek, back and forth, as he grinned into my face...and even though I want a GIRL, I suddenly was seized with the desire to run away with him forever! Lucky for me, Owen's mommy, and little Owen, I gave him back before I fell apart!
Hmmm...world events, selfish people, PMS, and the fact that I ran out of OCD meds a week ago? Could be...could be...
A couple of rays of light...Mom and my brother have bought their tickets to visit me next spring. The Public Affairs Officer at the base thinks they might be able to find a small chunk of money to pay me for coming in 10 hours a week or so for the next few months and helping them with the website (which I am doing already for free, but if they will pay me, YAY!) And, it looks as if FH will be home for T'giving, and then for Christmas, with two weeks to spend alone with me the first two weeks of January...we might even come to the US to visit his grandparents during that timeframe!
I want to visit Mom, of course, but his grandparents are amazing people, they are in their 80s. I want to make sure we spend whatever time we can with them while they are still on the planet. Watching his Grandpa Conrad beat the hell out of everyone in Whist from his wheelchair, shouting happily in Norwegian when he gets excited, or seeing his Grandma Betty grab the spoon and giggle like an eight-year-old, her eyes alight when we play Spoons...it's an episode of Prairie Home Companion come to life! And Grandma Betty has a need to teach me as many Lutheran "hot dishes" and Norwegian cookie recipes as she can..and I have a need to learn! I LOVE it!
Hmmm...good thoughts to end this on. Aunt Argie's serenity and anticipation for whatever is next, Grandma Betty's gentle joy and culinary skills, Grandpa Conrad's competitive spirit and camaraderie, and little Owen's fat-fisted caress.
Thanks for listening.
posted by Carolie @ 12:26 AM
2 Comments:
I was raised on Lutheran hot dishes, although we called them casseroles.
Make sure she teaches you to make lefse. I don't personally know how to make it, but I sure do know how to eat it! (With butter and sugar, of course.)
Oh...I had lefse when I was there for Christmas! I liked that MUCH better than lutefisk, I assure you! :) I think I have to get a special lefse pan, but she's given me three recipes for it! (The Right Way, The Quick Way, and The Cheater's Way)
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