Mariner's Log

She passed away at my sister's house, in hospice. She had been there just two months, released there from the hospital after falling and breaking her lower back in her care facility. She was gone in the moment, awake, and aware, then not. I wasn't there, that's just what my sister said.

The official cause of death will probably be listed as respiratory failure. But, really? She died from the four horseman of her generation finally catching up to her: COPD, diabetes, congestive heart failure, and advanced dementia.

Her dementia was different than my friend ben_mouse's mother. Mine's was due to micro-stokes, brought on years of smoking in her youth, and poor diet after. She had lost most of her memories, but could still remember who and where she was, and who we were. She died somewhere she felt safe.

We've known this was coming for about 4 years. In early 2006 my brother found our parents at home on the floor unable to help themselves. They both had pneumonia, and spent some time in intensive care. My father, who is 10 years older, recovered enough live on his own, but not enough to care for her. He's always taken decent care of himself, but always indulged her failure to do so, and so he couldn't help here at home. So, although she hated it, she agreed that it would be better in an assisted care home. And it was. Until she fell and hurt herself.

It was obvious in the hospital that she was nearly gone, and the best kindness would be for hospice. My younger sister, the baby, stepped up and said she would take care. Her life best allowed for it, and of all of us, was closest to her (my mother.) She did a wonderful job. Far better than I would have, or my other sibs. IMO. Thank you.

I mentioned I wasn't there. As it happens, I was sleeping, having an odd dream. Dreams for me generally come in two flavors; those I remember in detail, and those I don't even know I had. This one was different, one I remember with no detail, just some emotions and some vague sensory feelings. I felt I was with someone, someone scared, but I was not. It was dark, but not inky. We both had trouble breathing. Then the someone was gone, past some barrier. And then I woke up. About 10 minutes later my sister called with the news. Was I really there? I will choose to so believe.

The family all went out to my sister's house. To see each other, and my mother's body. The corpse reminded me of a mummy, but still flesh colored. Mouth open, eyes fixed, skin drawn. Not at all like I had seen her earlier this week. Her eyes were dark, pupil's dilated, I think. The older of my sisters closed her eyes.

My mother was not composed in death, not peaceful. But dignified. She was already shrunken from osteoporosis, so did not look physically different. But with skin taut, I could see the resemblance in her facial bones to my uncle and grandfather. Classic Plains Indian features. Strong. I will not, in general, remember the death face, but I will remember that resemblance.

The rest of the scene was simple. My sister called the hospice nurse, who came, and did a final check. The funeral home was called. Being Sunday night, the help was off, so the owner came. He had been out on family errands, and called ahead to see if we would be offended by taking her while he was dressed in jeans and a casual shirt. Somehow, this struck all of us as one of those incredible little gestures that make things right. Anyway, none of us had any problem, so he came by. We, led by my sister, explained our final wishes for her burial, and he took her away, after we all trooped by her corpse, kissed her forehead and said goodbye. Then we had pizza.

It wasn't surreal, it was extra-ordinary, in the most definitive sense of the word.

The service will be a Catholic Mass, then private burial in the Veterans Cemetery. My father is a WWII vet, and wishes to be remembered that way, and my mother wanted to be near him.

Where have all the flowers gone?

My mother died yesterday. Her name was Sharon. She was 73.

last i posted, i wrote of the grief, the empty spot left from letting go of my first love. after letting things settle for what, a hundred days? i will relate what caused that feeling.

i called her, asked her out to lunch. she said no and hung up.

simple, yes? very.

but in that 'no' was a mixture of emotions i have never heard directed at me. shock, irritation bordering on anger, or perhaps controlled anger, and fear. fear? of me? what did i, could i do to cause fear? mind you, this woman is a black belt in shotokan karate, and while it may not be the most effective combat technique, it is highly regarded for its discipline. why would she fear me?

regardless, that 'no', that single word delivered with those emotions forced me to realize i would never have the opportunity to explain myself, to ask for forgiveness, to make amends for what i believe were the deepest mistakes of my life. not ever.

realizing i would never have that opportunity left me empty.

since then, i have worked to 'forget' my desires regarding her. it's working, slowly. i nearly made it through yesterday without thinking of her, and of course, i saw her. and her husband in the grocery store. i am reminded of Alanis Morisette's 'Irony'. the good part was i only barely recognized her, and then ignored her when i did. the bad part was the same.

that's it. i'm about done grieving. it's about time. but the scar will always be painful. like my knee.

Grief can be loud, or quiet. Today, it's very quiet, but hurts just as much.

I've finally accepted the loss of my first love. 30 years on, that spot is now empty. And quiet. The silence of death.

I'm sure I'll write about the details, and consequences later, but for now, it's just an empty ache.

I have been spending a lot of daydreaming time about the economic concept of scarcity and how increasing populations make every other resource scarce. Such as fresh clean water. Open roads. Frozen pizza.

It's all a jumble in my head, and I see no end to the chaos there. But widespread scarcity is a key concept for the future, the same way the wholesale adoption of computing resources into industrialized life was.

The title line is actually a possible title of a book, one exploring this concept of whole resource scarcity, and its future impact.

And there's no doubt some serious economic growth to be made. At someone's expense, of course.

I'm guessing nothing is this post is particularly unique, but the conclusion.

The conventional wisdom is paper publications have been declining in sales for the past few years. It's most noticeable in newspapers, but other print media are showing weaknesses as well.

Where does this lead? Especially with devices like Amazon's Kimble, or the one I worked several years ago that never made it out of research.

Literacy is not going away. It's too necessary for our society, it's just going to be delivered electronically. Look at how user manuals for electronic items are delivered: on some electronic file. My classes are (were) split evenly between conventional textbook and hybrid paper guide and electronic delivery. True, it may be a while before an ax has a pdf user manual, but maybe not that long.

Where do books fit in all this?

The codex format of a book (that's your standard cover and leaf book, btw) has lasted about 2000 years. That's the approximate date of the invention of paper, and of the codex format. That's a long time, and is easily explained because of its utility and durability.

Electronic literacy will last as long as we have power and communications. That could be until tomorrow, or it could be a permanent thing. My guess is it will be at least a hundred years. That's long enough to leave printed books a backwater relic. I can't even begin to guess what a public library may look like.

But I can guess what a private library will look like: More like the libraries of the old monasteries and the wealthy; treasure of printing and binding. Collections of the books the owners find important, much like private libraries today, but without the mass production resources.

Perhaps, like vinyl records.

And that's the point. I can see quite a little cottage industry developing about books. I have an acquaintance who has a tidy side business buying boxes of records from yard sales and reselling them on auction sites. I know there has been interest in reviving vinyl record creation especially for collectors.

A book store a century from know, may be as much jewelry store as cultural source. And there are always jewelers.

Since part 0 was interrupted earlier - work called.

From the Moody Blues: "Isn't life strange, the turn of the page..." etc. It's a bit of a love song, but this isn't. Maybe in part 2.

As you, dear reader, have no doubt picked up on, I'm currently a student again, and have a student job, that pays barely above minimum wage. Which means it's more of a sop against the various costs of having a Real Life (tm), than a real job. So the only way to make it work is to take our student loans to cover the cost of school. No rocket science there.

Except when you get turned down for financial aid (read: student loans, and hereafter abbreviated FA.) That's right, the wonderful rules for FA now make me ineligible. So, I'm on my own to pay for school on a student wage. Except that doesn't work.

So, what am I going to do? Drop half of my classes, keep the relevant ones, keep working, not pay tuition, and hope I can find a better job / way to pay for them before I get 'F's for non-payment.

As near as I can figure, it's the best thing. If I drop out completely, I'm in roughly the same position I was last year at this time; no progress. If I continue with all classes, on the balance sheet I end up with @$1300 after four months, not enough to take care of Real Life (tm). Both of those alternatives are worse than part time debt.

Meh. Wish me luck.

In the meantime, two of the three vehicles are down, and not responding to first aid. Bah.

More later. It's late-ish and I'm getting dizzy.

The purpose of the unanswerable questions is the same as a zen koan.

The Previous Question was "Why was hope in Pandora's box?"

The New Question is "What is the Essence of Romance?"

Your answer points your way.

more later. Stuff just interrupted.

Back yesterday from vacation. Went to Yellowstone, *just* ahead of the First Family, and just as glad to not have to fuss with all the security.

In all, a darned good time. The family all worked hard on being nice to each other in close quarters. Yes, there were the odd tense moments, like when I yelled at a driver who had pulled out into my lane with me RIGHT THERE to get around the bike taking a picture of the Yellowstone Arch, but all in all a jolly brilliant time.

This was the first time the kids had been to Yellowstone, and they liked it. They made a game of taking the obligatory pictures; the geysers, the animals, the continental divide, and so forth. But the boy is a child of his generation, and was more interested in getting home to play games and text, and the girl thought it was a lot like home, just with geysers. Which it is, and the nice park staff get irritated no end at being told so. The only sad part is that this will probably be our last family vacation as a family. The girl will probably move out this winter, and although we may take trips together in the future, it won't be the same.

This was my 5th time touring in Yellowstone, and each time there's something different to experience. Two things stood out for me. The first is the Park Service is making the experience more visual, and discouraging tactile experiences. Multiple *millions* of visitors each year means more 'keep off the grass' approaches to everything. I suppose it's an appropriate policy, but it's also sad in a way. It turns Yellowstone into a sort of zoo, not the glorious celebration of the outdoors I experienced as a teenager.

The second is something I can unequivocally call a joyful experience. On the North Rim, is a feature called the 'Red Rock Overlook'. It's an observation platform about 1/4 mile from the lower falls, and it's about 600? feet below the rim. We had already hiked down and up some of the other overlooks, so my family passed on this one. But I still had a little starch in my legs so I hiked down.

OH MY.

I had the fortune to have about five minutes to myself there. It's about 20 ft in diameter, built on an outcropping. You can feel the coolness from the waterfall, there's a few trees scattered around, the canyon walls rise around, and the sky covers everything. There's a breeze from the waterfall, and the weather was changing so it was more than a breeze.

It was like standing on a mountain top, being at the top of the world, and still having giant mountains ringing you, with a wind blowing you off your feet. And I had it to myself briefly. I laughed, with nothing else in me for just that few moments except joy.

Wow.

This is sort of the opposite of Lissa's 5 joys posts.

Yesterday,
I had a flat on the bike when I went to go home after work. Ok, no real big, but annoying.
I had to file an appeal for financial aid that I was indirectly told would be denied. This is much bigger as I have no way of paying for school out of pocket, *And* will lose my student job. On or about Sept 4.
The clutch died, no, came apart, in my car. I don't know if I can replace it myself. Said clutch had 186K miles, so I'm not terribly surprised, but still. Fortunately we have one vehicle still working. For now...it's having a nasty front end judder at 45 mph.
Killed yet another lawnmower. That's three this year, including a non-motorized push mower.
Went to get a beer, and found I was out.

Damn.

Today, so far
I tried to get onto LJ early, and couldn't connect. Did now, about 2 hours later, but still.
Was going to go to work early, while I can, and had a noisy and wet thunderstorm roll through. Since I'm on the bike, I waited the rain out. I like thunderstorms, and it was a nice opportunity to cuddle in bed listening.

Much better, at least the dark clouds have silver linings today.

So, Dear Reader

I have a question for you: What things, knowledge, wisdom, would you choose to remember if the clock were rewound back to a time of your choice? Just to keep it simple, no more than 5 items.

I would return 30 years. I would remember what love feels like; why I was so angry toward the world; and computers would be a Big Thing.

There are several more, but I don't want to choose only two of those. But those first three are solid.

The idea is a variation on 'would you go back?'. Many people wouldn't, but some, like me would. Although to go back with no retained knowledge does seem potentially futile. At the same time, we don't remember everything, and of what we have remembered, much would be irrelevant. So, the underlying question is which few life lessons have you learned that would be important to take back?

The air is stagnant, every woman you see is ugly overweight (that's a single attribute) and dressed poorly, work is just a pain in the rear, and the world has only a Titan AE future.

But not today.

The air seems clearer, work seems easier, the girls seem cuter, and it almost feels like there's a positive future ahead. I'm sure it's just an illusion. :-)

Y'all have probably noticed LJ puts a location link in posts. Mine is typically 'The Desk', which is the table with the computer on it in the living room.

But! LJ claims 'The Desk' is a feature in the Katmai National Forest. Park and Preserve in Alaska.  I hear a road trip coming on.

Snicker.

I'm not usually one to post about a movie, but we just returned from The Half Blood Prince. It's a powerful movie. And that's all I can say right now. I'm still struggling with its impact.

It's week later. The computer crashed right then, and I haven't been back until now.

I can say more now. I spent most of the movie all emoted up from reliving a lot of high school and early college emotions. Not just the budding relationship parts, but the mentoring, and loss, and looking for answers, and ... I'm sure we all had them, and in those years. I just had never seen so many put together in one movie. Are there others? Any takers? And what, in the nerd idiom? Where it's not Ridgemont High? Just too much.

Enh, maybe more later, or maybe not.

1. My daughter enjoys doing chalk drawings on the park sidewalk, somewhat like Bert in Mary Poppins. Today, someone called a local news station, and she had a spot on the news. She is ever so pleased, and embarrassed. Apparently, it's good stuff, and not just from a dad's point of view.

2. I enjoy a good bike ride. Mine today was perhaps mistimed, but there is something ridiculously fun about getting caught in a thunderstorm.

Of course, the thunderstorm also washed away the girl's chalk drawing, but she's used to that. And she has pictures. And a friend recorded the news spot.

I'm in my little corner at work. Not even a cubicle, just a table with a laptop on it. But I have window, and that's not a bad thing. Except today.

Maintenance is pressure washing the building with an industrial strength, gas powered sprayer. It sounds like a jackhammer and the closed window does little to muffle the sound. OK. That's one ear. Tolerable. The other ear is hearing a poorly balanced HVAC fan, laaaHHH, laaaHHH, laaaHHH. Also tolerable. Singly. But, imagine having a bad drummer in one ear, and a bad chorus in the other.

Between the two my logical problem solving is going out the window. I really don't know why the nice folks at Guantanamo bothered with waterboarding. Out of phase sounds can do just as much, if not more to disorient as any tactile sensation. And, you don't even need to give them earbuds.

Ack.

Fireworks! Fire and Ice, Purple Rain, forgot the rest, for now. But, Fireworks!

As in two truths.

There are some things I will not (and probably can not) tell my wife. These would hurt her, something I absolutely desire to not do.

There are some things I desperately want to tell my first love. But I can not (and thus will not) because she would (will? What's the right tense?) not give me the time to tell.

And both of these truths eat at me. One because its a kind of deception, the other a frustration. And I do not have the tools to resolve either.

Three strange dreams last night; one to do with work, one to do with the home, one to do with weather, and traveling.

I woke up during the second one trying (sleep paralysis) to yell warnings. Unusual for me.

The work one conflated themes I have no conscious idea of why my mind is trying to connect them.

The weather and traveling one seems strightforward.

But I mention these because of two reasons; first, remembering 3 separate dreams (as well as the waking sleep paralysis) is unusual for me. Second, my lovely wife and I are having a more (!) difficult time than usual, and I'm unable for other reasons to get any kind of sexual release. More information than you want to know, I'm sure. But. The point is I remember as an adolescent having stronger and more frequent dreams when similar situations happened.

I don't find anything direct in the on-line literature, but I'm wondering if there is a link between hormonal imbalance and dreaming.

Ah, one more for Ro to shake her head in wonder at the strained logical connections I come up with. (Hi! ;)

Speaking of Ro, I am unable for financial reasons (duh!) to go to Pennsic for her wedding. Drat! Double and Triple Drat!

Enough. Back to work.