Schmrrrr

It's 5:51 a.m.

I do not like being awake at 5:51 a.m.

*grumble*

Today is a computer training day at work. Yay. Eight straight hours of listening to some poor IT guy try and get a room full of basically computer-illiterate, middle-aged women to understand how to input vitals into the computer. Ugh.

Checklists

Fafsa filed - Check!

Tuition Reimbursement Submitted (for summer sessions) - Check!

Work schedule for July submitted - Check!

Nursing School Admission To Do List

• physical
• drug test
• buy malpractice insurance (no I'm not kidding, I wish I was)
  
• buy books/uniform/stethoscope (at registration)
• call financial aid
• check date on CPR certification, possible reschedule for new class
• submit reimbursement info to Norwalk

General To Do List

• Pay June Bills!
  
• Call Quest Diagnostic/stupid health insurance people and ask why they keep sending me a bill for $67 dollars when all this crap should have been covered
• Deposit paychecks
  
• Call Mother (daily!)
• Get thank you card for 6west family
  
• fold the damn 3 (soon to be four) loads of laundry and put them away lazypants
• Finish cleaning/organizing office
  
• take donations boxes to Savers
• send in cardboard from Ikea boxes to be recycled
• unpack the final box of books from when we moved onto new bookcase
• decide whether to keep/sell/donate our printer (really Jim's parent's printer, they gave it to us but we have our own with a scanner now) and same with Russell's stereo (he abandoned it, I asked several times if he wanted it, he always said no... now I just don't know where to put the monstrosity)
• enjoy beautiful spring day and upcoming beautiful spring weekend!
  

Turtles!

We finally moved the turtles to Connecticut! We also bought a new filter that is doing a much better job of keeping the tank clean. The above picture shows Michaelangelo (mini) basking on the wooden platform with Kai in the foreground and Ozzie's head poking up in the background.


Side view of the colossus basking... Feet out.

Ozzie. This is his way of saying "FEED ME FEED ME FEED ME" as if he was a starving waif and not a chubby, spoiled turtle.

Note to Self:

Dear Laurel,

When you buy furniture from Ikea you must put it together yourself. Since you are buying cheap stuff made of particle board a regular hammer is not a good idea. It will only chip and damage the shelves. Also not a good idea is USING YOUR HANDS TO SLAM THE BOARDS INTO PLACE. When you do this you will suffer severe pain in both hands for several days. Ow.

Buy a rubber mallet.

Dumbass.

Love,

Your sore, bruised hands.


P.S. It looks good though!

For my father...

I know not everyone was able to get down to the memorial for my Dad. After Dad died mom spent days trying to write a poem to him/for him/about him. She couldn't. The words just wouldn't come. I, on the other hand, have never been poetic, and yet words seemed to beat at my hands until I wrote them down. I never expected to be strong enough to read this at the memorial, but somehow on the day of the funeral I found the strength. I knew it would have made Dad proud to see me stand up and speak in front of all of those people. So I did:

It’s a dull ache, a constant hollow feeling;

The day we said goodbye.

We watched him take that final breath,

we watched my father die.

But hold tight to the memories,

and lessons that we learned.

My father taught me many things

and was not often spurned.

He has not left this world, you know

I see him everyday.

The land he loved and life he built

will not soon fade away.

He lives on in my brother’s eyes,

and in my mother’s tears,

he lives in all the heartfelt lessons

that he shared throughout the years.

I hear him in the chimes he loved,

and in the clang of steel.

The scent of grass, so freshly mowed,

reminds me that he’s near.

So don’t cry for me, he did not weep

when we first got the word.

He wanted us to carry on,

though at times it seemed absurd.

To live a life without the man,

who shaped my very being,

I could not begin to fathom how,

the future’s still unseen.

But I will try,

I’ll do my best,

to make my father proud.

For he’ll be watching over me

and I could not let him down.

Now get off your butt,

get out the door,

Go out and live your life,

for that’s what he would say to us,

his kids and loving wife.

Smell the roses

Ahh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day...

It was in the 70's this morning, so I sat out on the front porch and enjoyed a cup of coffee in the lovely weather.

Proud to say that my flowers are finally doing well! Who'd a thunk it, I have a green thumb after all!

Sonny came home!

Well... not sonny, Pookah!

Who is Pookah?

A cat. A 'foster-cat,' to be precise. A little over two years ago a friend of mine was going through a tough time and asked my parents to foster her two cats while she was in between apartments. Six months of animosity between the two foster-demons and the other 3 cats had pushed us to the edge of charity. Demon 1 and Demon 2 also had a nasty habit of shredding the wood trim around several doors in our house. I was done, Dad was ripping pissed, and Mom said enough. I called my friend and told her "That's it, we're done, come get them."

Much to our dismay she informed us that we'd have to take them to the SPCA because she couldn't take them back. My family has always rescued animals, we have NEVER been the people dumping them on someones doorstep. Well... we couldn't start now!

So Demon 1 and Demon 2 became cats four and five in the Ehrets house. Officially, and when I was feeling more charitable towards them their names were Pookah and Snuggles. Over the next year and a half Dad took a liking to them. He called them his 'dogs' because they'd follow him around the house and come when he called. Pookah in particular was devoted to my father. He'd lay in bed with him or sit at his feet when Dad was in the living room in his chair. He'd beg to be taken on walks so much that I bought a tiny harness so we could leash him and take him out with our real dog, Cedar.

When Dad got sick Pookah became even more attached to him. He never left Dad's side. In fact, he got so persistent with trying to climb into Dad's increasingly bony lap and kneading it into softness that we had to pull him away at times.

On the last day, Pookah hid. He was actively terrified of being near my father. Towards the final hours he finally capitulated enough to let us put him on the back of a chair in the same room. I don't know if animals truly sense death coming but he certainly was acting different. After Dad passed Pookah jumped up on the bed and kept rubbing his head against him as if he could wake him up and demand pets. It broke our hearts to see it.

For the next few days Pookah acted pretty normal. A bit subdued, but that was no different from the rest of us. Then came the day of Dad's memorial service. When we got home Pookah was no where to be found. The house was full of people and we were assured that he was inside and just hiding somewhere. By the next morning we knew that was not the truth. Sometime just after the funeral Pookah had disappeared.

We put out notices to the neighbors, scoured the fields and roads and yet nothing; he was gone. Dad's cat was gone. We lost him.

Sonofabitch.

Exactly one week has gone by since the memorial service. My mom just got a phone call from one of the neighbors, who sang out, "I think I've caught your cat."

She did! Pookah is restored! Pookah is an idiot! But Pookah is home!!!

I cant believe how jubilant we all are at the return of this fuzzy moron. Dad's cat is home.

Crying

Tonight I sobbed.

Heartwrenching, gutbusting, bawl your eyes out sobs. Until my nose was clogged and eyes burned with tears. Crying hurts, it physically hurts to cry that hard. My head aches and eyes burn with the pain of crying so hard. I don't remember it hurting to cry, granted... I don't remember ever having this much pain as the motivation for crying.

I've been surprisingly okay with my fathers death. I've cried silent tears, tears that course down my face unchecked and almost unnoticed. I shook with denial and grief at his deathbed, with a few hysterical tears and stuttering gasps. But most of the time, I've been fine, I can talk about it, I know I miss him but I've been fine.

Tonight I broke a little. I unpacked his leather jacket. The one thing that was truly his that I wanted. The one thing of his that I can hold on to and feel and smell that was a part of my Dad. That smells of smoke and grease and sweat and leather, that smells of road trips to Florida and snowstorms all at the same time.

I realized at 11:54pm that I forgot to call my Mom today. Today, her first full day home alone, no me, no Russell, nothing... just her, alone in the house Dad built for us. And I forgot to call her. People say that she would call me if she needed something but I know better, I know my Mom. She wont call and say she's horribly lonely and depressed and needs to talk to someone, anyone! She wont call and ask for help. I wont, and I'm just like her... And I forgot to call...

There's this pain in the middle of me. It wont go away.

I miss him so much.

Yes.

Tonight I sobbed.

Demon Cat

Stout bottom

Butt Butt

Bitchy Kitty

Dilly

Bushy-bum

If someone were to eves drop on our apartment these are some of the names they would hear over and over in varying tones of adoration or frustration. Occasionally in tones overlaid with PAIN.

Jim's cat.

Jim's delightfully neurotic cat.

Officially, her name is Willow. On most day's the appropriate name is Demon Spawn. Today is a strange kind of day. Being that it's a lazy Sunday afternoon I just took a late shower and am now lounging in my bathrobe. Willow climbs across my chest and begins kneading my arm and... well... boob... like it's a normal thing. When I remove her from my chest she growls at me! Like I'm the bad guy for removing 14 pounds of claw ridden snarling happiness from my chest.

Geez.

Monticello Motorclub has a heart too...

One week before my father passed we asked Monticello Motor Club if they'd considering letting my father go for a ride around the track. He loved Nascar and never got to go to a race during his lifetime. They quickly obliged and arranged to take Dad around the track. Here is the email that my Mom received when they'd heard of Dad's passing.

Carol,

I stopped by Southern Tier but they told me you’re still out. I’m very sorry to hear about your husband’s passing. Taking him around the race track was one of my most sincere pleasures since opening the place. It was a true honor to have meet him and to have enjoyed a few laps at speed. I only wish we had a Nascar stockcar to have run in as well…but the Ferrari wasn’t a bad alternative.

Again, our deepest condolences on your family’s loss.

Ari

_____________________________________________

Ari Straus, President

Monticello Motor Club

Fruit Basket

There is this fruit basket sitting on my counter. It mocks me, "eat fruit, eat fruit, eat fruit!"

It was a gift we got on the day of Dad's funeral. Mom had already gotten two other fruit baskets so this one became mine (after all, it was from my Landlords/Jim's cousins.)

We've been working on it, bananas in the morning, or today I had a pear. But it's maddening! It's a HUGE basket of fruit! Enough for 10 people! I could eat five pieces of fruit a day and it would still go bad.

Anybody want an apple?

Ikea

A day that involves a trip to Ikea is a full day.

Jim and I didn't exactly start out on time today. We slept in. That's kind of an understatement. I got up at 1pm, showered, and went back to drag Jim out of bed around 2pm. We meandered out of the house around 3pm, intent on hiking. Ahh hiking... it wasn't exactly a successful trip. We made it to the state park, we found the path, we followed the path in the wrong direction and then we followed an 'unofficial' path...which led into the words... along the side of a hill and then disappeared. The resulting pissyness on my part cut the hike short as I stormed back to the car.

What is the solution to pissyness? Shopping!

After hitting up a few consignment shops with no success we headed over to ikea to drool over a new bookcase/desk. As is my usual luck with ikea we get to the correct aisle and bin in the self serve area to find that they are all out of the bookcase we wanted and that they wont be restocking them for 7-10 days. Yippee. After wavering back and forth for a while about whether or not to just buy it in a different finish or the right finish but a smaller size I turned around to see an abandoned looking cart with the EXACT bookshelf we wanted on it! A quick few questions to the stockboy standing nearby showed that the cart was merchandise being restocked after having been abandoned on the floor!! Whoohoo!!! Victory is mine!

.....


It wont fit in the car.

Are you kidding me?

In, out, in, out, trunk, backseat, seat down, motherf*ck.

.....

What seemed like an eternity later we finagle a way to bungee the trunk closed around the desk portion. The bookcase fits in the front seat if we lay it flat. Jim and I were both frustrated and cranky but at least we figured out and got home. Tomorrow I plan on cleaning out all the random crap that's been piling up in the 'den' and finishing it's conversion to office/guest bedroom. We're going to look for a sofabed to make it so we have a place for company to sleep. But I at least want to get the office end of things up and running so I have a place to study in peace and quiet when school starts in June.

Fafsa is filed. Don't despair of the impending student loans. Learn to accept help and call your grandmother and accept the offer she made to help pay for school. It's help she wants to give and help you need. Don't wallow in self-imposed misery.

Pour filtered water into the turtle tank, dilute the chlorinated stuff. It's working.

Grateful. Be grateful. I have health insurance. It's life that you have to pay for it. At least I HAVE it.

Jim's mom is going to be alright. They've caught the cancer in an early stage. They'll remove the tainted lady parts and she'll recover. I wont say, "It could be worse" because I know for her, right now, this is the worse thing she's ever dealt with. I'm here though, strong for her, strong for Jim, strong like my father made me.

Cars are cars. They cost money. They break down. His has almost 200k miles on it, we should have been expecting a breakdown. We have no car payments right now, we'll manage somehow to get it repaired.

I miss my Dad. I worry about my Mom. I love my musclebound, Navy brother. I've lived a truly blessed life. My dad loved me. Somewhere in the universe he still does. I feel him still loving me, still guiding me, still telling me to be strong and to go on. He was an ornery, stubborn, son of a bitch half the time, but he always did us proud. He took care of us, he did what he had to do to make sure his family was o.k. and now we're going to make him proud and prove to him that we can take care of ourselves.

It's beautiful out today. I love you Dad.

Bad Karma

I'm stubbornly refusing to curl into a ball and admit defeat.

Lets list all of the things that have been going wrong. Then we can tackle them one at a time.

1. Dad getting sick and dying.

2. Edna needs a hysterectomy, early stage cancer.

3. Jim's car has broken down = $650 down the tubes

4. Still waiting for Orientation packet from Bridgeport School of Nursing, it's 7 weeks overdue.

5. Owing $186 to my job to keep my benefits going during the leave I had to take for Dad.

6. Missed my scholarship deadline, need to file FAFSA.

7. Turtle tank REEKS of chlorine which I'm sure is not good for the ploppers.

O.k. now lets get to work.

Those three little words.

My dad died.

Three little words, and yet they changed my life. The changed the world, well, mine at least.

I've spent hours obsessing about the final days. Unable to get the images of the gasping breaths he took out of my head. Unable to remember anything except how cold he felt when I went back in to say goodbye one last time, before the funeral home wrapped him in a shroud and took him from us forever.

One the day of the funeral I stared at the box his ashes were in. Stared at it, as if by looking at it I could convince myself that He was in there. "He's in the other room," I kept hearing my mother say to people. He's in a box, a tiny 8x6x6 inch box. Unfathomable. My dad cannot be in a BOX. He could not have died and his body burned until only ashes remained that could fit in a tiny insignificant BOX.

Now don't get me wrong, I was all for the cremation. The idea of his body rotting in the ground was absolutely repellent to me. But now that it's happened I still can't grasp that he was cremated and that all that left of him is ashes.

I'm trying to accept this. Trying to come to grips with "my Dad is dead."

It's going to take a while.