Dear Grandma

Whenever I get a new cell phone, I scroll through the ring tones to find the absolute happiest one, and that’s the one I set for family members. On this latest LG phone, it’s a jaunty piano tune called “I’m Fine”. My phone sang out that cheery melody yesterday morning, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if it were Mom with sad news?” Sure enough, it was her, and she said you had passed away Friday night.

It wasn’t a surprise—a few days ago, the hospice lady said you probably had less than a week—but now I find myself so tremendously sad. I’ve had episodic crying bouts, sudden and forceful, over the last week, strangely not after the strokes or when you were so agitated and tried to pull out the tubes or when they transferred you to hospice care. It was when Mom said that she, Grandpa, Uncle Matt, Cousin Jan, and the minister stood around your hospital bed and sang your favorite hymns. And every time I’ve thought about that moment since. That image just gets me.

I’m going to miss you. You were my grandma. My friends and cousins have always referred to “Grandma (insert name)” and “Grandma (insert other name)”, but I never had to differentiate. Granny Scott died when I was 2. I don’t remember her. You were it. And the truth is we were never terribly close, yet you loved me and I loved you, and who you were in the world, how you occurred to people, was truly lovely.

You were kind and gentle and warm and humble. You were active and thoughtful and social and thrifty.

I remember when recycling became a phenomenon in this country, my first thought was, “Oh, right, what Grandma does.” I thought you had invented it. After all, a Cool Whip container was good for ten years of food storage, and then the kids were allowed to fashion it into a water-balloon launcher; tin foil got rinsed out and reused; you darned socks. I guess a lot of people who lived through the Great Depression were thrifty or careful, but I didn’t know. I just knew you, and you taught me how to reduce, reuse, recycle.

You were surprising too. I was chatting with you one day when I was about to graduate from Carolina. At that point, I had watched you make Grandpa’s bed and serve him supper for my whole two decades, while he did the handy-man stuff. You were the picture of early 20th century gender roles. You knocked me over when you said, “I didn’t want to graduate from college because I didn’t think there was life after basketball.” Turns out you were point guard at Pembroke.

I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. You cross-country skied, you swam in Buzzards Bay every day from June to October, you learned to windsurf when you were 58. But you darned socks!

Grandma, I’ll think of you often. Swimming laps off Churches Beach in your swim cap. Sitting in your special spot at the table on the porch, savoring your blueberry cake while the rest of us would sit, envious, wondering how you could makes yours last that long. Singing, your voice soft and sweet, in the church choir. Sipping your gin & tonic—well, your tonic with a splash of gin—on the deck, and looking out over the harbor. Sailing Tursiops, and when the breeze picked up, your holding onto the tiller and the main sheet and defying your ever-vanilla mouth by saying, “Damn.” Twice!

When Nate heard the news that Great Grandma Flora had died, he said, “I don’t like dat.”

Me neither.

Damn.

Damn.

I love you, Grandma,

Amy

“Give three cheers for Cuttyhunk—          our spirits all are free.”

Mama Said There’d Be Days Like These

Yesterday at 3:00pm I learned that I would not be closing on my new house at 4:00pm. My buyer’s bank had screwed the pooch on her paperwork, thus she had not yet bought my old house, therefore I did not have the 10% that I needed to put down on my new place.

Fantastic.

This, after I agreed to pay twenty-eight hundred bucks for her closing costs. This, after I replaced the water heater and the sub floor that the leak had rotted through for over a grand. Then the $985 termite treatment and the mold guy who came and said, “Well, I don’t see any mold, but I’ll spray the stuff they probably think is mold.” For $125. And after that, when I, like an asshole, put a kitchen chair cushion in my washing machine, and it shredded it to bits and blocked up the pump. That’ll be 80 bucks for a service call, thanks.

This, after packing up all my shit over the past month and renting a truck and getting my crew to schlep it out on a 100-degree day last weekend. This, after living out of a suitcase at my lovely friend Erika’s house for four days.

They think they’ve got her loan package redone, and they think we can close tomorrow.

They better think that shit into existence because I don’t know how much more I can take.

And as if I wasn’t stressed enough…Erika and her girlfriend left for the beach this afternoon, and when I came home, I accidentally set off their house alarm. Christ Almighty, it was like I was peeing on an electric fence while someone smashed wine bottles in my ear canals. Like, it actually physically hurt.

I called Erika in a panic and somehow finally got it shut off. Right then, E’s friend came to the front door with her dog. My dogs were going buck-wild so I stepped onto the stoop. And the door shut, thipp. Locked. My key—the spare key—was inside. My phone was inside. My wallet was inside. Most disturbingly, my dogs were inside…with all of Erika’s lovely things. Things they could shred in a hot second.

I fucking lost it. I sat on the steps and sobbed into my hands.

One of E’s neighbors was lovely enough to look up a locksmith’s number and let me use her phone. The dude said he’d be twenty minutes. I called my sister and asked if she’d come sit with me to wait, and she left her 8-year-old and her 5-year-old and her 9-month-old at 9:00 on a weeknight to come listen to me boo-hoo and rub my back and say Shhhh.

The lock man arrived. Sixty bucks and three minutes later—two of which I think he was just pantomiming so it didn’t look like he was getting paid sixty dollars a minute—I was back inside. And the only thing Redford had eaten was my sneaker.

Well, hell, what’s another fifty bucks on new Nikes?

Can You Use It in a Sentence, Please?

Having always been a champion speller*, I find kids who can’t spell fascinating.

Today we were discussing class jobs. I wrote them all on the board, and we talked about what each one entailed. Then I gave the kids index cards and told them to write down their top three job choices.

This is what I got (and remember, all the jobs were written on the board):

  • sweper
  • bord worsher, bored washer (Ha—what would that person do?)
  • pencil sharpiner, pensel sharpiner, pencil sarper, pencel shapener, peneil shanpener (That last one sounds like a burning sensation you should see your doctor about.)
  • libraren, liydeary (Oh dear, someone has dyslexia.)
  • resekliler (Can you guess what this one is?)

*Cove Creek School champion, 7th grade—beat out my eighth-grade brother and cried because I didn’t want him to lose. Went to the district spelling bee, and got out on the word ‘abstain’. I didn’t know what ‘abstain’ meant (go ahead—make your funny jokes), and the way the lady pronounced it, it sounded like ‘obtain’ to me.

Revive

I’m about to go on vacation, which means that posts may be infrequent and sporadic for the next twelve days. Headed up to Massachusetts, or as they say where I’m from, Massatoosis. (You know, I was born and raised on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, and I heard many a folk from Watauga County talk about chewing food and dining room sets. I don’t know why they couldn’t say Massa-chew-sets.)

Everyone who has ever traveled I-95 knows that, to quote Obi-Wan, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than the highways surrounding the Metropolitan DC area. Last year, my then-seven-year-old niece, Violet, the four-month-old Redford, and I spent four hours in that bitch of a parking lot, and not at rush hour either. I called my brother to have him Matrix me out of that mess, but the signs were so confusing I ended up driving right into the zone that his Googlemaps had marked red.

On the way home, I got wise—threw my niece (gently, of course, Wa) and dogs into the car at 8:00pm, set the cruise to nine miles an hour over, and hit Durham at 8:00 in the morning. Then I passed out, natch.

So I’m going to try the all-nighter on the way up this time. I seemed to remember having a sample of Vivarin in my first aid box, so I just dug it out. Stamped on the side of the pouch was “EXP 04 99”. Meh. I’ll try it anyway. I mean, the worst that can happen is that it can not wake me up, right? It won’t make me grow chest hair or anything, will it? Or rupture my spleen? Or give me some sort of palsy?

On second thought, maybe I’ll buy some new.

Cause & Effect

As I said a few days ago, after a two-year experiment with SSRIs, I gave up on them and began seeking alternate remedies for my long-lived depression.  On top of that, I was getting really sick of being tired all the time and wanted to treat that problem too. I didn’t think I had Chronic Fatigue, but I definitely had chronic fatigue, and it really had my knickers in a twist. Every afternoon, from about 3:00 to 6:00, I could barely pick my head up.

My mom had wondered aloud a while back if I might have Celiac disease. Her evidence was compelling:  First, I’m a lactard, and lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance often go together. Second, last year, my iron was deficient, and there was no real reason it should be. I eat a lot of iron-rich foods, and (boys, close your eyes and ears and go “lalalalalala!”) I don’t have particularly heavy periods (OK, guys, it’s over). And last, ethnically-speaking, I come from a long line of potato-eaters, and my mom wasn’t sure if our ilk had the guts to process wheat.

A little on-line research revealed to me that Celiac-sufferers frequently have digestive issues, but occasionally, the only symptoms are fatigue and/or depression. Hmmmmm. I sat and I thunk.

That’s when I went to see an osteopath. I wanted to get his take on things. He had his nurse draw eleventy billion vials of blood from my minute veins, asked me to pee in a cup, and told me I should try a gluten-free diet to see if I felt better. I told him I’d just as soon jab my eyes out. I mean, everything that’s delicious in the world has wheat in it. I would wait to see what the blood work said.

Alas, I was positive he was going to tell me I had Celiac, and the next day, I resigned myself to my baguette-less fate. I started transitioning into my horrible new life by avoiding wheat.

And guess what. Remember that crushing fatigue? Gone. I mean, like that (snaps fingers).

The next day, meh, probably a fluke, I’d just have a little wheat…3:00 rolled around and clunk, couldn’t move. Since then, every day I’ve eaten wheat, I’ve crashed; every day I haven’t, I haven’t.

On my next visit, my doc pronounced the following:

  1. I was low on B12 and would need to get a shot every week for six weeks. Boo.
  2. My D was also in need of topping up, so I should take 5,000 IUs of that a day.
  3. Thyroid function was borderline low. He prescribed a thyroid med and told me to start with a daily half-tablet.
  4. I didn’t have Celiac disease.

Wha?!

More research! Ah, there’s such a thing as NCGS. That’s non-Celiac gluten sensitive.

There you have it, folks. I’m a lactard and a glutard. Could I be more ‘tarded?

P.S. I haven’t been able to be consistent enough to see if it’s the Magic Bullet that’s going to knock out my depression.  Keep yer fingers crossed!

Amy, the Lionheart

I got the impression, as I was sifting through the scads of comments on my post about my freakishly small veins, that some readers might come away with the impression that I was “strong” or “brave”.

Alas. That is not the case.

I didn’t mention that the second nurse passed on the foot vein because I was shaking so bad and doing some really unattractive deep breathing exercises. I don’t know what it is, medical shit fucks me up. I see empty vials and I feel woozy. Needles bring on heart palpitations. The clanky sound of a speculum being wound out literally makes me cry.

One time during sophomore year of high school, my biology teacher started talking about horse serum, and I found I couldn’t grasp my pencil. My lab partner forced me to go to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. When I looked in the mirror, I almost didn’t recognize myself. You know that scene in ET when the poor little bastard is face-down in the river? That’s what I looked like, all pale and translucent.

Why am I such a wuss? My mom thinks it’s because I had a bunch of invasive stuff done when I was a wee lass…stomach pumped twice (once I ate rat poison, another time a peach pit), tubes in my ears, surgery to remove calcium deposits in my thumb, yadda yadda. She cites the time she had to take me along to a Lamaze class that she was teaching, and when I saw on the reel-to-reel film a dude in green scrubs, I pointed at the screen and said, “Dat bad daddy hurted me!”

All right. I’ll buy it. But I’m 34! When am I going to get over this bullshit?

Not today, apparently. When the nurse tied the rubber tourniquet around my upper arm and inserted the needle, and I could hear a sound emanating from my elbow not unlike the sound Hannibal Lecter made after he said he ate some guy’s liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti, I broke into fits of ridiculous, weepy giggles.

Not cool, Ame.

I Continue to Amaze Myself

Week 1 CSA update!  Are you all aflutter?  (I mean everyone besides you, Margo.)

My goals in paying too much money for weekly, non-negotiable produce:

  1. Support local business.
  2. Support sustainable agriculture.
  3. Have a constant supply of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
  4. Be forced to try things I won’t pick up in the grocery store or farmers’ market because I’m scared of them.
  5. Learn to cook vegetables.
  6. Give my money to people whose political beliefs are diametrically opposed to mine. (OK, that wasn’t really a goal, but I’m one of those people who adds tasks to my to-do list even after I’ve completed them, just so I can cross things off.)

First impression: that does not look like $25 of produce to me. I mean, they call this a family-of-four box. Maybe, they meant a family of four smurfs. (Oh my god, ‘smurfs’ does not show up as wrong on spellcheck…but ‘spellcheck’ DOES!)

Here’s what I got: a bag of mesclun, some baby bok choy, six baby turnips, eight radishes, some rainbow swiss chard (I think), and a little bit of butterhead letttuce or baby green romaine (I’m not sure which). Are radishes $15 a pound these days?

Anyway, the cooking. Have I mentioned that I’m a complete idjit when it comes to my stove? My parents both cook delicious foodstuffs; my siblings, also very talented with a spatula. I don’t know, I guess I just never had to prepare meals.

Well! I. Am. Cooking.

And by that, I mean, I. Have. Cooked. Three. Times.

First up, bok choy, sauteed in butter and olive oil with garlic and soy sauce—delicious!

Next, rainbow swiss chard (I think) and radishes, prepared same as above (did you know you could cook a radish?!?!)—magnifique!

Tonight, baby turnips…well, I tried to braise them…ended up—let’s call it—burnaising them. But whatever, butter and brown sugar! Yum!

The mesclun…ick. Made a salad with pineapple and cheese, but the lettuce is so bitter! I think I’m going to have to throw it out.

There you have it. I’ve pretty much killed my first week’s box with four meals. That don’t seem right.

Fourth Percentile for Capillary Circumference

I’ve never been accused of being a waif.  In fact, the Scotts are an ample clan.  Not huge, by any means, but solid.  Round.  Rubenesque, if you will.

(All except my brother, who’s always been built like a professional rock climber.  Asshole.)

I had boobs when I was, like, eleven, and my big, black ex-boyfriend used to effuse about my “sista booty”.  My thighs are thick, my fingers like lovely little sausages…Vienna sausages.  Everything about me is a bit bigger than it needs to be.

So imagine my surprise to find that I have tiny

tiny

tiny

veins.

I went to have blood drawn, and the nurse tried my right arm, my left arm, and my left hand.  Then she called for back-up.  The second nurse had me take off my shoes so she could try to tap a vein in my foot.  No dice.

I have to go back on Monday.  The second nurse told me to drink a lot of water, and she would try to procure a pediatric needle for the next whack at it.