Chester's memorial

I found her this morning next to her kitty bed - she seems to have gone fairly peacefully. It's a relief in a number of ways, but I'm still sad and upset. If there is such a thing as kitty heaven, I'm quite confident that's where she is now. She was a very loving cat, and she will be missed.

Someone has hurt my Mom, and I am absolutely livid about it. I can't remember the last time I was this angry. I've spent a good deal of brain cycles over the past 24 hours composing really nasty emails in my head which I have to keep talking myself out of actually sending. I want to throw things or punch someone in the nose. I'm having difficulty concentrating at work, and have a hair-trigger temper right now.

Mess with me, if you want, but don't ever mess with my Mom.

This is a particular favorite of ours for a holiday party. The beau monde in the dish is the secret ingredient - you can omit it, but the dish is much more tasty with it included. I got to bring a whole container of this home with me this year. Yum! This can be made with low-fat yogurt, cream cheese, milk, and mayo if preferred. Also, from my research online, it seems that both French's and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauces are gluten-free - in the U.S., anyways.

Maryland Crab Fondue

1/2 cup plain yogurt
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 T mayonnaise
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. beau monde
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
2 T milk
1/4 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 lb. blue crab meat (claw meat is fine), cartilage removed
paprika for sprinkling

In a double boiler or electric fondue pot, combine all ingredients except crab meat. Stir over medium heat until cheeses melt. Gently fold in crab meat and heat thoroughly. Sprinkle with paprika. We usually transfer this to a chaffing dish for the duration of the party, but stir it once in a while so it doesn't burn. Serve with raw vegetables, crackers, or party breads. Yield: 2 1/2 cups.

I promised before Christmas that I would start sharing some of my family recipes, so here's installment number one. But first, a little back story.

Growing up, Mom was always a talented cook, but she worked a lot and thus didn't have much time to teach me how to cook. She taught me to follow a recipe, and how to make cookies, but after that I was pretty much on my own. Every holiday, however, Mom would cook up a storm, and we developed some traditional favorites that we would eat every Christmas. I never learned how to cook any of these since Mom was the one cooking and I was probably otherwise goofing off doing holiday things.

Then when I went off to college, I started to want to cook some of these dishes, but Mom was very reticent about giving them to me. "If I give you the recipe, you'll never come home for dinner!" was what she actually said. It's only been in the past five years or so that she has relented and given me the recipes for these dishes. Also, now we spend more time in the kitchen either making things together or with me writing down what she's doing, which is something I think we both wish she and I had done with Granny while she was still alive, since Granny never wrote anything down.

Last year, Mom gave me the recipes for most of our holiday dishes. I decided to keep them private for a year out of respect for family tradition, but now I'm making them public. I hope that you enjoy them as much as we have. And hopefully Mom won't kill me for posting them on my blog. :)

Shrimp in a Pickle
This is actually a recipe from a dear family friend, but we've adopted it as our own. Makes 10 servings.

2.5 quarts water
3 lbs. unpeeled large fresh shrimp
5 small red onions, thinly sliced
8 bay leaves
1 (3.5 oz) bottle capers, drained
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup tarragon vinegar
1 T sugar
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. hot sauce
1/4 tsp. salt

Bring 2.5 quarts of water to a boil. Add shrimp and cook 3-5 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink. Drain and rinse with cold water. Peel shrimp, leaving tails intact; devein, if desired.

Divide shrimp, onions, bay leaves, and capers evenly between two gallon-sized Ziplock bags.

Stir together olive oil and next 7 ingredients in a small bowl, and pour evenly over shrimp mixture in each bag.

Cover and chill 8 hours, rotating bags occasionally. Drain before serving.

I got a treat on Christmas Day: Mom took me out to see Freedom, the star of her new documentary film.


Mom with Freedom, and Napoleon hanging over her shoulder. Click for the full set.

The story of Freedom and her trainer Emma is the subject of Mom's most recent documentary film effort, Freedom's Choice. Emma has chosen to move away from a natural horsemanship approach to the techniques taught by the Nevzorov Haute Ecole in training Freedom. The latter style gives the horse an equal footing in the relationship, and the horse can choose whether and when to train. Much more information is available at the Freedom's Choice blog.

I had never been this close to a horse before in my life:


Napoleon is hoping I have apple slices or some other treat.

I must admit it was a bit scary. They are large beasts. Also, I didn't know how to interact with them. I tried to be as open as possible, and talk to them soothingly, but not in a belittling manner. I have this problem where I basically treat all animals like they're cats, but they all have very different signals that they react to. When I was a vet tech, I learned how to handle / communicate with dogs, but I never dealt with large animals. This was an interesting experience. I can see how getting to really understand a horse would be a marvelous experience.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the film progresses. Mom is facing all kinds of challenges with getting funding for it, developing a sales pitch, and figuring out how to apply for film festivals and which ones would be the best for her piece. I wish her the very best in pursuing this effort.

I also got to spend some time with Dad and Faye, and enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner. Here's hoping the next year is good to all of us.

Mom has done something incredible - she's produced her first documentary film. The idea started as a project for a course in Digital Audio/Video Production at the Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where she has been taking courses for the past year. At first, she wasn't sure if she wanted to take this particular course, but shortly after starting it, she found her calling.

Mom started out with the idea for this project that she wanted to talk about friendship, and particularly friendship with her friends. She has the rare ability to make and keep friends for long periods of time - 20 years or more. She decided to come up with a list of questions to ask her closest friends, and to record their responses in an interview-like situation. She filmed five different friends. But in the end, for this film, she decided to focus on the interview with her oldest friend, Ann Cruse.


Ann and Mom at the film premier.

Mom and Ann have been friends for 34 years, and have had many cycles in their relationship and trials to overcome. Ann responded in the interview with perfect candor and great feeling - her responses and willingness to participate are what made this film as powerful as it is.

The project turned out so well that Mom, with the help of her instructor Ken Nohe, decided to focus on making it a full-fledged documentary film called "My Friend Joan". She has spent countless hours working on it since April. This culminated in the construction of a website for the film, a trailer on YouTube (both of which Mom constructed personally), and lastly the premier of the film at The Lantern Theater last night. The Lantern Theater is a privately-owned, 75-seat theater in Annapolis, MD.


Mom warms up before the premier at The Lantern Theater. Click for more pictures.

The evening started with a pre-film social gathering, then introductory speeches before the film itself, which is 30 minutes long, then a Q&A session with Mom and Ann, then a reception. About 50 people were in attendance, although some were unable to come due to Tropical Storm Hanna, which came through earlier in the day. Fortunately, the weather was clear by the time of the premier.

I was delighted with the reception of the film. Having seen an earlier cut of the film, I knew what to expect, although I teared up almost immediately when I saw some of the old photos she has added that brought back poignant memories for me. I wasn't sure if the film would be as powerful for others as it was for me, as the conversation between Ann and Mom dealt directly with major portions of my childhood. But it seems that it struck a chord with everyone on some universal themes, which is what we were hoping for. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you're navel-gazing or really getting to something important. I think that Mom and Ann did the latter for this film.

Attendees were surprisingly animated after viewing the film. The Q&A session saw some very thoughtful questions and insightful observations. Conversations in the reception consisted of people reminiscing about their own relationships with loved ones. I heard many comments about how brave both Mom and Ann had been to participate in this, to reveal so much of themselves on camera. It was a great success.

I will be bringing back spare copies of the film (and I have to say that I don't think the trailer does it justice.) If you're interested in seeing it, let me know. :)

I grew up watching a lot of movies with my Mom and Dad. We didn't have access to cable until I was about 13, so we would wait for TV showings of our favorites. For instance, when I was little, The Wizard of Oz would air on TV once a year in March. We would make a big production out of it with popcorn popped on the stove in a pot the way it should be. Many of my fondest family memories come from watching a movie with my parents.

Eventually we got a VCR and we were able to record our favorites and watch them over and over. We developed a set of favorite films that we would watch frequently. It's hard to imagine that being appealing these days in the world of constant new media, but at the time it was great. We eventually invented a term for a favorite family movie: the Copeland Cult Classic.

I'm going through my movie collection now and trying to come up with a definitive list of the CCCs. Some of them are movies that are very mainstream and well known, but some of them are more quirky. I think this list is getting pretty close.

Copeland Cult Classics
The Long Hot Summer
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
It Happened One Night
The Philadelphia Story
His Girl Friday
Camelot
Excalibur
I, Claudius
The Lion in Winter
Young Frankenstein
My Favorite Year
The Princess Bride
What's Up, Doc?
Funny Girl
Funny Lady
My Fair Lady
Paint Your Wagon
South Pacific
To Kill a Mockingbird
Pretty much anything by Hitchcock, but especially Rear Window and Vertigo
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Annie Hall
The Goodbye Girl

Addendum: Thanks, Mom, for reminding me to include Breakfast at Tiffany's. :)

Ack! And how could I have forgotten The Sound of Music?

Oops! I forgot Moonstruck, too. You gotta hat? Use your hat.

Do other folks have family favorites, too?

with friends or family: politics and religion. Over the past two weeks I've violated both of those guidelines, and it almost never goes anywhere good. You'd think I would learn.

I finally got to see my Grandpa yesterday, since I'm finally over the flu. He had emergency cranial surgery on Friday because his subdural hematoma worsened dramatically on Thursday, affecting his speech and his level of consciousness. They could not have waited another day to do surgery.

When I saw him, I burst into tears. I had been warned about his injuries and how bad they looked, especially the golf-ball-sized knot over his left eye, and the large purple birthmark-looking bruise all over the left side of his face. And he's been in a hosptial bed for 17 days. But seeing it in person was something I couldn't prepare for. I know Grandpa didn't need to be seeing me in tears, and I was trying to hide it, but, well, it was tough to do that.

I think the worst of it was how hard it was for him to form sentences. Before I understood how difficult this was for him, I asked him how he was doing and what had been going on. He seemed to want to answer, but he couldn't find the words to say anything, and his eyes were agitated like it was taking him a great effort but that he wanted to try. He would find bits and pieces, and he would point to his arm (which went through surgery earlier in the week) but couldn't say what he meant. At one point he even cussed with his frustration, which is something he usually wouldn't do around me.

I asked him if he needed some water, and he pointed to the cup, so I was able to give him that and feed him some applesauce, but beyond that, there didn't seem to be much I could do except tell him that I loved him and I would be back to see him in the afternoon.

I talked with my Dad's wife Faye about him, and she's the one who finally gave me the straight dope (the nurse was arrogant and completely uncommunicative.) Apparently, they had to take Grandpa off of the Coumadin that he's been on for many years in order to allow the hematoma to heal - the bleeding was made worse by it. So they're playing a very dicey game about when to put him back on the Coumadin. He's not out of the woods yet.

Beyond that, the story gets worse. This accident was actually the fifth time that he has fallen in recent weeks. He gets light-headed when he stands up. They're going to send him to some physical therapy to help him recognize when he's feeling that way and to sit back down before he falls. But the reason he is feeling that way is because his blood pressure is so low, and the reason for that is that his heart is on its last legs. And there's nothing medical science can do about it.

So, basically, he has 6 months. If we're lucky.

<moment of silence/>

Once one has absorbed that, the question really becomes, how can we make his life more comfortable for the time that he has left? How would he like to spend it? The answer to that is that both he and Grandma would like him to be at home instead of in the hospital. So we get him better and get him some rehab, and see where he's at - is he mobile enough to walk from the bed to the bathroom? Can he make it to the living room and kitchen? There are some things which we can do with the house which will aid him, like railings in the hallway and the bathroom, ramps to the front and side doors, etc. If he's not that mobile, the questions become different. In any case, someone needs to be checking in on the two of them frequently. Then, once his time is done, we worry about longer term solutions for Grandma.

None of this is easy to see. Grandpa is the patriarch of our family. He was a lion of a man, who raised his kids with a bit of an iron fist, but who loved us all and provided us with the good lives that we have today. If you've ever seen The Long Hot Summer, Grandpa was Daddy Varner to us all. If you haven't seen it, go rent it - it's a Copeland Cult Classic. Another, slightly less apt comparison might be to Big Daddy in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (although, actually, that comparison might be more apt in this situation since Big Daddy was having serious health issues).

It's very sad to see this lion of a man reduced to his current lamb-like state. But we're lucky to have had him in our lives for as long as we have.

Get well soon, Grandpa.

Addendum: If you do rent The Long Hot Summer, make sure you get the Paul Newman / Joanne Woodward one, not the terrible Don Johnson / Judith Ivey one.

So my temperature is still hovering around 99 (with meds), I've gone through two boxes of kleenex and my nose rivals Rudolph's. I have too much to do at work to keep sitting around like this, but it's not like you can will this stuff away.

Grandpa seems to have passed out of the main danger zone, and should be moving out of the ICU today. Then he'll have surgery on his arm and will (most likely) be moved to a nursing home facility for recuperation / rehab. I've been to nursing homes before when my Granny (may she rest in peace) broke her hip, and they are really non-fun places. I hope he doesn't have to stay too long. In any case, once I'm well I'm planning to visit him often - visits can help keep one's spirits up in such places.

I really hope that they're planning to seriously consider assisted living after all this. Both he and Grandma had the stomach flu for about a week before his fall, and hadn't let on to anyone. I can certainly understand the value of independence, and I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to give it up. But there comes a time when it's dangerous to be too isolated.

So I was going to go over to Greensboro today to visit with Grandpa and help my Aunt Linda out - Grandma's stomach flu is worse. Only today, I've come up with the bug that's going around. I think I have a fever, as I'm getting chills, but my thermometer ran out of batteries and I can't find my mercury one. My head feels like a mushroom and my throat like sand paper. In any case, there's no way I'd be admitted into an ICU like this.

Roof update: Apparently, whoever did the current roof put the shingles on wrong somehow - or so says the roofer's voice mail. I can do a quick fix for the current issue relatively cheaply, but the problem is bad and needs to be redone. I'm going to get a quote from my roofer soon on that. Can't handle it today.

Sigh.

Update: I appear to have a fever of 102 F. I guess I dont have to worry about going to urgent care until, say, 104, but this is completely miserable. :(

... it pours. Which is almost literal in my case.

This has been one of the cruddiest weeks I can remember having in some time. I am completely overloaded at work, I'm having roof problems and will probably end up having to replace a good portion of the roof, and my Grandpa is in the ICU due to a bad spill he took on Wednesday. He shattered his ulna, which rammed into his metacarpals, screwing up his wrist really badly. It'll require surgery to repair that, but that's on hold now as he also hit his head really hard and has some internal cranial bleeding. We're waiting for more scans of this to see if he'll have to have cranial surgery.

Anyways, here's the roof, which looks less scary in the pictures than it did when I first saw it. A bunch of shingles came loose during one of the wind storms we had this week. The problem is, most of the rest of this section of the roof is equally ready to cut loose.



The good thing about this week was the wonderful support / assistance I've been getting from my friends and neighbors. I live in a great neighborhood.

I got to do some family things this weekend, since folks were in town for my Grandma's 78th birthday celebration. Today, I got to visit with my Aunt Linda. We toured around her alma mater, NC State. We had a nice visit, and it was a lovely day for driving around.

One nice thing I found out about is that my Grandpa was recently awarded the bronze star for his service in the army, and in particular, in the Battle of the Bulge. Go, Grandpa! Many thanks to Retired Command Sgt. Major Steve Foust who spends a lot of time doing the paperwork to get medals to WWII vets.

It's good to see family. It's one of the things I love about living in N.C. - I'm close to Greensboro, where my grandparents live, and High Point, where my uncle Joel and his family live. My aunt Linda came up from Alabama with her family this weekend, and we had a cook-out over at Joel's. Unfortunately, my grandparents weren't able to come over from Greensboro, because Grandma was having tummy issues (they run in the family.) So I'll have to make a point of visiting them individually soon.

I got to meet my newest cousin (first cousin once removed) Mallory, daughter to my cousin Jennifer. It's really odd that Joel, who is only 6 years older than me, is now a grandpa!! Family photos linked below.

I just heard about this thing called Catster, and decided to make pages for my girls. Unfortunately, the "badge" software they provide is seriously not working for me. In any case, here are the profiles for Chester and Zoot. Oh, and I added one for Scooter, too.

So, after waiting around all day for a prior surgery that had complications, Mom went into surgery about 1:30pm, and after 2.5 hours we got the news that the procedure went well, that it could all be done laproscoprically, and that she would have to stay an extra day but that everything went as best as it could. So I got all upset over nothing.

Can we all please breathe a collective PHEW!!!

So, I spent a good deal of time crying in the bathroom this morning. I think sometimes that it's quite appropriate to let out your emotions, especially when you're feeling helpless and afraid and could be faced with something very difficult. On the other hand, it's made me kind of a wreck for work today.

You see, my Mom is having major surgery today, and I'm not there. Mom and I are very close, as anyone who reads this blog knows, and for a long time we both were single and we relied on each other a lot. Now Mom has Mel, who is great, and she has more support, so this time I decided not to go up to Maryland for her surgery. I regret this decision now.

It's not like I could do much if I were there. I know from the last time that it's a lot of sitting around in a hospital with no internet access, bad tv, uncomfortable chairs, what have you. Mel and I would be staring at the walls. But there's something about being there that all on its own makes it worthwhile.

I think the uncomfortable experience was one of the deterrents for me to go this time, plus the idea that Mel would be there, and that, among other silly things, my vacation is running low right now. Plus, I was thinking that because this is a redo of her last surgery that things would be more familiar and expected since she'd been through this before. Well, in the past few days it's been brought home to me that this surgery is actually much more risky than the previous one. I think what sealed it is when Mom sent me a copy of her will.

This morning I had the experience of truly picturing what my life would be like without Mom. I mean, we always know that as a younger generation that we'll most likely see our parents go before us, and that that's the way things should be. But this morning I regressed to the most infantile mentality and just let myself sob.

It occurs to me now that the place I went to this morning is very much related to the first time I ever saw Mom in the hospital. I woke up one morning to find a note on the wall that Dad had written describing how I needed to get dressed, make and eat breakfast, and walk to school, because Mommy and Daddy were away, that Mommy had gotten sick. As it happens, Dad was back in time to help me, but he made me go through the list as though he weren't there so that I could learn to do all those things by myself. Mom had had an attack of appendicitis in the middle of the night and Dad had taken her to the emergency room. As it happens, Mom was sick for some time because she had complications after the surgery. I remember visiting her in the hospital, and seeing her so sick. I suppose that fear is still in there somewhere.

I know that in general it is a good thing that we are able to let go of our need to be in control of one another's lives, and that stepping back a little is a good thing in a lot of ways. It means we let other people into our lives. I wonder if Mel and Mom would ever have met if I still lived in Maryland - in some ways we weren't forced to find other people to be with. I think we've both grown a lot over the past few years.

But I still want my Mommy to be well. I'm not ready to lose you yet, Mom. I'm sending every possible good vibe your way today.

There's something that happens when a loved one dies. Pets are included in this group. The initial shock and upset is replaced by a deeper sense of grief, of sorrow. And it brings up all the other people you have known and loved that have passed on. There's a certain baseline level of pain that never quite goes away when you lose someone.

This week I have been ruminating on people and animals in my past. In actuality, Scooter died in a horrible, horrible way that would have turned my stomach - and I saw some awful stuff in the five years I worked as a veterinary technician. I am sorry that Mom had to go through that.

What is a good death, though? My Granny lived 92 years and was still working on her farm, cooking, cleaning dentist's offices, teaching piano, and going to church when she died. Unfortunately, she was also still driving. She had two minor accidents before the one that killed her - which overturned a logging truck and made the front page of the Wilson Daily Times. But she died instantaneously, which is how she would have wanted it - picturing her cooped up in a nursing home unable to stay busy like she always had been - that would have been a shame. So I guess that's a good way to go. But a violent death of any sort is a lot harder on the relatives than something where you get to make peace with a loved one's passing, and say goodbye.

The story of one's life is a complicated thing, but the way one exits this world is a significant portion of it. How do you want the story of your life to be told? It's like being a professional baseball player - do you want to end your career by pitching a no-hitter in Yankee Stadium? Or do you want to make an error that gets played on ESPN for the next decade? There's something in us as human beings that loves a story. It helps us to make sense of the unfathomable.

I will be turning 36 years old in a week. I had a big birthday party for my 35th last year, so I'm not planning to do anything special this year (aside from getting my new furniture delivered, yay!) Birthdays mark a good occasion to see where you are in your own life's story. And I find that I'm not very satisfied with how mine is shaping up.

This isn't really where I thought I'd be at this age. Half my life ago I was a freshman at Duke. I thought I would be married pretty soon after college, have one or two children, and a career as a veterinarian. None of these things have happened.

On the other hand, I do have a career that I enjoy and that pays me well, friends I never would have met if I'd married that jerk I was dating in college, and a large amount of personal freedom. I am so much more fortunate than 9/10ths of humanity that I have no real right to complain. Although it doesn't really stop me from doing so.

Still, if I try to peek into my own future, which is pretty much impossible to do as witnessed by my 18-year-old self's prophecies, I am concerned about where my story may end up. There are ways in which I have not been taking care of myself sufficiently. I smoke. I'm overweight. My exercise program is down the drain at the moment. I am not very active. I spend a lot of my time staring at the computer monitor or the television, ass firmly planted on the couch. And this is not the way humans are designed to live. If I really admire my Granny's way of living and dying, I need to change how I behave in my own life.

I guess the thing that is really hitting me this year is that I actually do like living, and want more of it. I don't want to miss out on the things that I wanted when I was young and untraumatized. I still want those things! I still want marriage and kids and all of it. And I can't fritter away the time I have left. So I'd better drop the cynicism, get off of my ass, and go get it.

Hope springs eternal.

My Mom has just told me that Scooter, the bestest cat in the world ever, died last night.

Scooter came into our lives right before I went off to college. It was August of 1988, and I was working as a veterinary technician. My life was more than a little topsy-turvy, as my parents and I had just moved into a new house, leaving my only stable home in my life, where we'd lived for nearly five years. Also, since I was heading to college in about three weeks time, my mother (and father too, presumably) were getting worried about my leaving the nest. I could particularly tell with Mom, who's always been very protective of me.

One day at the veterinary hospital, somebody brought in a little, funny-looking, orange and white kitten, saying they'd found him in the roadway and wanted to make sure he was okay. They left him at the hospital, and he was immediately fawned over by the entire staff. People took turns carrying him around in their smocks. He seemed quite happy to be there. I'm not sure how I won, but I got to take him home.

I remember bringing the cat home, and the look on Mom's face was "You are *not* going to bring a new cat into the house." I said I'd take him back in the morning.

But something happened overnight, and I can't attribute it to anything but what a wonderful kitten Scooter was - he was so friendly, and cuddly, and funny, too - he was named Scooter because he used to scoot around the place, pretty much skidding to a stop on the wooden floors. And so Mom kept him, and he became her special cat. I think it was a time when she needed a pal, and Scooter came along to fill the position.

He was about 18 1/2 years old when he died last night. But he will always be the best, softest, friendliest cat - I can't expect to ever meet another one like him. I know that if there's a kitty heaven, he's romping through the grass in the sunshine right now.

Here's a photo gallery for Scooter: