Little Boys Never Change

I took the boys to the card and comic store last week.

Mr. 11 got off the bus as I was two cars behind its yellow rear.

He stopped to get the mail and to pick up the blue recorder Miss Texas had dropped that morning, thus saving it from The Schnozz's tires entering the driveway.

He wondered what adventure I had planned for his little brother; he was thrilled to be invited to join us.  "Just send him in to get me," he said, and I did.

 

The little one was very happy to share the joy with his big brother.

It's part of what makes him the kindest kid I know.

 

We drove down Campbell, looking on the east side of the street.

We knew it was near the old Coffee X-Change but we weren't precisely sure.

"There it is!" "NO"  "Uh-oh... keep going" "YES!"

Who needs Google Maps when there are little boys in the back seat?

Walking through the door was a blast from the past.

Messers 9 and 11 were easily interchangeable in my mind with Big Cuter in his youth.

They had the same determined stare.

They knew exactly what they were seeking.

Their smiles were contagious.

 

With a little bit of encouragement, Mr. 9 requested the boxes of football cards from the clerk.  He was happily perusing the plastic encased oldies but goodies until his big brother walked by and dismissed the whole endeavor.

"They don't have any good ones," Mr. 11 informed me.

 

Sadly, his little brother took the condemnation to heart and left the remaining boxes untouched.

There's so much power invested in siblings.....

 

On they moved to the comic books.

There were a lot of them.

DC and Marvel were boxed next to more obscure publications.

There was nothing overtly scatological or salacious, so I relaxed, leaning against the wall, watching.

Aquaman, Superman, Green Lantern.... those were the ones I recognized.  There were so many more that were new to me.

 

The collectibles were stacked on shelves.

Though The Simpsons are fun to watch on television, snuggled up next to Mom on the bed, there was no need to bring a plastic Marge home with us.

Decisions were not easily made.

"I'm going to collect some and then decide," was Mr. 9's plan. 

We left with six plastic wrapped comic books and two gigantic smiles.

I'd spent the time in my own head, remembering my little boy reveling in the smells and the textures of similar stores in California.  The details were different, but the feeling was the same.

 

I am so lucky to have generous friends who are willing to share their children with me.... and even luckier to have children who want to spend their afternoons with an old lady and her credit card.

 

Color Dash - 5K Redux

It's getting to be a regular thing for us.

Brenda Starr and I decided on Monday to do the Color Dash on Saturday.

Somehow, a 5K doesn't seem that daunting any more.

We're each walking with poles, which elongate our stride while providing just enough reassurance. They are equipped with curved rubber tips; Nordic walking poles rather than hiking poles, to be precise.

 We arrived early, secured perfect parking, and had a picnic.

The System, a gift from Basil St. John, had plaid cloth napkins and real plates and cutlery and with lox for protein and Simply Orange juice in the tiny china coffee mugs for Vitamin D, we feasted.

 There were food trucks, had we been less prepared. 

I was introduced to the concept of the poutine, and was left wondering about the person who would eat fries and gravy before exercising. 

We arrived ridiculously early, and had plenty of time to watch the pre-race festivities.

There was Simon Says and Macarena like line-dancing 

and there were many tutus. 

There was only one yeti (lurking at the right edge of the photo). 

 

The emcee introduced Ben's Bells, the charity reaping the benefits of our participation, and we were off.  Pink clad volunteers (like these) 

 were stationed every half mile or so, cheerfully tossing brightly dyed corn starch as we passed by.  The sun was out, the breeze was cool, the path was flat and paved, and we only paused twice for water breaks.  We never rested.

 

The course was a bit shy of the promised 3.1 miles, but we calculate that we covered that much between the rest room and the picnic table and the pre-game and just getting to the starting line. 

 

We were tired and ready to be done and very proud ... and colorful. 

Dealing With the World

It's been one of those weeks.  The celebrations are finished, the decorations are boxed and stored.  The house has a curiously empty feeling; it's waiting for Valentines Day to make an appearance.  For now, I'm using up all the half burned candles in the pantry, making a drippy mess on the end table, not worrying that the dark green pillar looks pretty creepy next to the deep purple pillar beside it.

TBG and I are concentrating on getting our lives in order for the next era.  He turned 65 this month.  That means Social Security and Medicare and pension decisions must be made.  These require the computer.  He made an appointment with me, his secretary, to work on the applications.  We spent the morning filling in little boxes, answering security questions, deciding whether to take it all or spread it out, whether to kill trees and get those pieces of paper which warm the cockles of his heart or to have things delivered electronically, through me, to him. 

He made phone calls, following up on applications submitted but not reviewed.  Medicare's website says the turn around is three or four days.  It's been a month.  The woman on the phone told TBG that everything looks fine and that there is nothing else he needs to do and that it's all okay.  There was no mention of the discrepancy between the expectations set up by the website and our actual experience.

There is no further recourse.  His insurance is in the hands of the bureaucracy.  Let's hope he stays healthy until it is resolved.

My pool company seems to be going through a divorce.  I received a poorly constructed letter from the General Manager of the new company informing me that

Due to the difference between the Owner of (my current provider) and some of his employees in the direction he wants to take the Company, I have decided to form a new company that will be totally orientated to providing excellent customer service.

Run-on sentences make me anxious.  Orientated is not a word.  There is only one difference? It must have been a doozy.

I'm curious.  What direction can a pool cleaning company take?  There are chemicals, there is scraping, there is skimming.  The pool doesn't change location. The requirements remain the same.  Customer service is all they provide.  There is rapid turnover in the industry; we rarely have the same technician for more than a month or two.  A quick survey of other pool owners tells the same tale; no one is thrilled.

Do I worry about the random capitalizations in the letter?  Thank You in Advance has the grace to put in in lower case, but there is no comma before the following signature line.  It is our goal to put our customer's first led me down a merry path of wondering what belonged to me which would be put first.... my pool, my wallet, my ease with the person doing the work?

I love the bookkeeper at my current company.  I've left her a message.  I've decided to follow her where ever she goes.  It's the best decision given the paucity of information available at the moment. She's the only one who's been consistent over the last eight years.

No matter how scattered or overwhelmed I am during the Holiday Celebration Tour, there's an underlying joy which carries me through.  Now, though, it's January.  Time to confront real life head on. The mundane..... there's a comfort to it, for sure.  I just miss the frisson of happy I felt last month.

More Stroll and Roll

The pictures warm the cockles of my heart.

These were taken by Margo who brought Miss Sugar

and Sara, who brought Earl,

 

 to the Stroll and Roll.

 

While some of the kids couldn't wait to start chalking the path,

others couldn't get enough off the dogs.

The girls were interested in the free t-shirts, but Miss Sugar found a friend all her own.

She was about as soft a pooch as I'd ever felt.

Being so low to the ground gave me an excuse to sit in the watching-kids-play-soccer chairs and rest.

Mr. 9 thought that Miss Sugar was a lot smaller than his Staffordshire Terriers,

and therefore would be much easier to walk.

Earl, on the other hand, was a much sturdier creature.

This little girl is keeping all her body parts close.

Earl, being a Therapy Dog, knows to give her space.

So, nose to nose, they became acquainted.

Tentative but brave brings gentle hands to Earl, who's resting comfortably on his mat.

The ground is pretty cold for naked butts.

It's hard to tell who is more grateful, the petter or the pettee.

And then there was Violet, who pranced and presented herself and was a quiet companion as the artist worked.

She went on a walk later on.

                                 It gives new meaning to this picture.

Withholding

Connections are tricky.  Families are complicated.  Personalities get in the way of conventional relationships.  Expectations are raised and dashed and often it's the youngest of those involved who are hurt the most.  There's almost nothing that can be done.... or so it seems.

There are people in our lives with whom we are bound to interact. Siblings.....Parents...Aunts and Uncles and Cousins and Grandparents.... society expects us to know where they are and what they are doing.  Holiday celebrations are designed to bring us closer together, to show our faces to one another, to relive and rehash and reconvene.... often with disastrous consequences.

An aunt reaches out, shares her children and her experience and her love... such as it is.  She creates an attachment, she sets expectations for the future, she becomes part of the extended family.  The littlest one is thrilled.  His family is small and this is a fantastic expansion.

And then, as she always does, as she's done since she was a little kid, as she will, no doubt, continue to do as she enters her dotage, the aunt creates a scene.  She's right.  She's always right.  She knows best.  She always has and she always will.  Her opinions are golden, her plans perfect, her advice solid. 

No matter if you come at the issue from a slightly different perspective.  No matter if you think the issue is none of her (DAMN) business.  No matter if you weren't looking for counsel on that particular matter. 

Agree, or lose the relationship.  She's very clear about that.  You're on her bus or standing on the sidewalk watching it drive away. 

That's easier to deal with when you are a grown up, even if it tears at your heartstrings and puts you in a sad space.  But when you are ten, when you've just begun to explore family outside the four walls of your house, that loss is devastating. 

There are cousins attached, cousins you'll no longer see, even though they were quite interesting to you.  Circumventing the grown-ups is tricky when you are ten. 

I can try to replace what is lost, but the larger issue remains.

Those of us on the outside, connected but not involved in this particular piece of her drama ... although we've all had our own personal share of her drama ..... try to reassure.  "It's her loss."  "You are just the next in a long line of those she's alienated."  "It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her."  Coming from experience - long, painful, awkward experience - we know our words are true but ultimately useless.

The loss is there.  She cannot be retrieved unless she's willing.  She's not..... not without an apology and an agreement that she was right and you were entirely in the wrong. 

What she gets out of the tumult remains a mystery.  Being at the center of the drama is certainly a piece of it; it's something to talk about, to rage against.  With drama comes attention, comfort, solace, conversation.  If life goes smoothly, the phone won't ring.  If there's An Event, people will come running.

I'm sure she thinks she was doing a service and was poorly repaid.  That's the problem with those who are so convinced of the rightness of their position.  There's no conversation.  There's no discussion.  She can't hear it because she's firmly dug into her position, and she's not budging. 

I've watched this play out for decades.  It's an awful quandary.  I try to remove negativity from my personal space, but this little slice is permanently attached.  Family is family and the ties bind tightly.    She cannot be avoided, but she can be marginalized.  That leaves the angst, and the possibility that her personality will overflow the boundaries accepted in normal society and her venom will spread. 

I've had relatives I couldn't invite anywhere, relatives I couldn't take out in public, because there was no filter between brain and mouth.  It's harder when the trauma is fresh, when you've invited the toxicity into your house and then have to wait for her to decide to go home.  She's left behind vitriol and unhappiness and a sense of loss mixed with confusion.

It's the confusion that's the worst of it. 

She's awful.  Why would I want her around? 

She's my cousin.  I miss her.

It's a predicament, that's for sure.

A Snippet

I spent last week trying to take care of myself. I decided to lose myself in literature.  I went to the library and took out the last five books of Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone mystery series. 

Muller has a great sense of place.  I turn the corners with her.  I recognize the buildings she describes.  I've sat on the grass in the parks she traverses.  I was delightfully invested in the characters and the surroundings.

I wasn't thinking about anything Tucson related at all.  That was the goal.  I was happy,  I went through one, two, three and a half books reveling in my new companions' travels and travails in San Francisco until Sharon McCone hears about the shooting in Tucson... where "Gabby Giffords was shot.... and six people died.... one of them a kid"

NO. That was my kid. I was there.  And that's not where I wanted to be again. 

The best laid plans.......

Stroll and Roll, 2015

 

 

 

This was the third time GRIN invited the community to walk on the path named for my little friend.  Part of BEYOND!, designed by Gabe Zimmerman's family to get the community focused on moving past the tragedy, into remembering those taken and damaged by moving in the great outdoors. 

Ross, Gabe's father, likes to say that Tucson has more hiking trails in its immediate environs than any other city in the USA.  Even if it's not true, it feels like it is. We used the path along the Canada del Oro wash.  It's paved, with bridges and underpasses and a fence separating the walkway from the sandy wash.  Shared by cyclists and walkers and dogs and scooters, it's a well-used exercise venue on the northwest side of town. 

On Saturday, friends and strangers joined the Humane Society's VIP Pets

and GRIN volunteers as we moved BEYOND! and shared the love.  Free sidewalk chalk let participants give free reign to their thoughts

their talents

and their hearts.   

 

I photographed most of it later in the day.

I spent the morning hugging and laughing and remembering.

Yogi Marsha came and told me I was strong and brave.

Ms Magic Hands and her son rode his fantastic new bike and ran and delivered more chalk to those too far to restock themselves.

Fellow shootees came, as they always do, with their grandchildren, who are no longer the babies who began Strolling and Rolling in 2012.  Their big girl, eschewing her scooter, was the subject of a lovely (copyrighted) photograph in the Sunday paper.

 

Those who were 9 in 2011 have a special relationship to Christina-Taylor.

 

 

They have heard her story and have helped me heal and they have shared that with those they love.

They brought their mothers and their fathers and their sisters and cousins, because part of the Stroll and Roll is to share what you love with others.  The Prince Mustangs had earned the right to ride the bus that morning by spending the semester walking around the track in the morning, before school. Their laps were recorded by  Student Council members, who were justifiably proud of their own efforts. 

They surrounded every person they passed - including our Arizona Rangers, with love and joy.

 

 God was there 

and so were

 

 

and

and

There was artistry 

and encouragement 

and exhortations

Some caught my heart. 

 

and some made me laugh 

and all of them were this:

Someone wrote this 

and I'm happy to say "You are welcome" because it's true.

You are all welcome to join us next year, when busloads of kids and their someones will, once again, show the world what Tucson is made of.  We are not defined by tragedy, but by how we live in the aftermath. On Saturday, we lived outdoors, with smiles and love and family and friends. I wish you could have been there.