Well, I didn't make it to the pub. Never heard from Kou. I suppose that's not a surprise. She called 3 or 4 times and nobody called her back. I was too busy and depressed to call her, so I didn't. I'll do so today if I don't hear from her.

On the bright side, Harry is back. He's blank, but it's kind of fun to reconfigure the system as I like. For those confused, Harry is my "good" computer who caught a virus that caused him to repartition his hard drive, thereby losing all the information contained on him. It's no fun. Lost a bunch of good writing and good ideas. But like I said, it's kind of fun to know exactly how things are going to play out, and where to put them. LOL.

I snapped right out of the depression yesterday. I just suddenly felt...better. I'm not sure if this was due to the purple candle, the Pamprin, or my silly husband and his ridiculous red and green striped elf hat, complete with elf ears on the side. Okay, he wants to be dentist, too. ;) He's a goof, but he's all mine.

So I guess I'll be rushing around the internet today, downloading my head off. I've a lot of stuff to put back on here to make it work right. MiRC and AIM and, of course, ZMud.

Then again, I have to find my sites again. Luckily, Sal and Theryn's were here on the blog. ;) Themiscrya was easy to find from my own Amazon site. Some things are just easier than others.

On the other hand, I don't know where I put that postcard history site, I didn't put the link in the blog as I meant. I have no clue where the ROM site I found yesterday might be, and I'm sure I'll be on the internet all day.

But the computer works, the cd works, and it's all clean. That's the important bit. Well, guess I'd better get back at it.

Deo

Well, I made it to Friday. Plans for tomorrow? Oh, yes, I should say so. I plan on going on down to my "local", which in American terms means I'm headed to the Moon and Sixpence tomorrow night. It's not close to local to me, but it's the only true English bar in Portland, to my mind. And I've been in a couple of them. Of course, that means I have to follow Kou around again, and I remember how that one turned out....(visions of the Cowboy of Love)

So, I'll have my own wake for Grandma. At least as much of one as I can. I don't drink, so I'll probably only have ONE Newcastle, but it's worth it. And I can toast my Grandma's divinity until the cows come home.

Thanks to everyone who has sent e-cards and well-wishes. It means a lot to me that you care that much. It's hard to know what to say to a "virtual" friend in a time of loss, really. You can't know what that relative meant to them, for example, or how they are feeling, or if they'd rather avoid the issue than deal with it. But the notes I've gotten are simple, brief, to the point, and sincere. And that's about all I can hope for.

Today's Ramble

For those that don't know me, I have a fascination with history. I enjoy pawing through the past. I suppose because I like to think of "what if's" and see where they take my brain. "What if they hadn't torn down the Multnomah Hotel? Where would Pioneer Courthouse Square be today?" That kind of thing. I like to see how things have changed, for better and for worse.

One of my favorite things to do is wander through my own geneology. This isn't always easy, there isn't a lot of information on the internet for some family names, that kind of thing. Luckily, this passion is something I share with my Aunt Claudia on my mother's side. She's done a lot of work gathering pictures and people through various resources. She created at least 2 huge books full of information, facts, figures and photographs. I can't get my hands on either of them, but that's a rant for another day.

So, for your enjoyment, here's a quick geneology of me.

ME (female born 1966) out of Cheryl Justice (f. b. 1945) out of Shirley Robinson (f. b. 1925) out of Bess Austin (f. b. 1892) out of Amador Hamrick (male, b. 1854) out of Jesse Calvert Hamrick (m. b. 1823) out of Nimrod (love that one) Hamrick (m. b. 1790) out of Margaret Calvert (f. b. 1770) out of George Calvert (m. b. 1743 or 44) out of George Calvert (m. b. 1715) out of John Calvert (m. b. 1610) out of George Calvert (m. b. 1668) out of William Calvert (m. b. 1643) out of Leonard Calvert (m. b. 1610) out of George Calvert, Baron I, Lord Baltimore (m. b. 1580) out of Leonard Calvert (m. b. 1550) out of George Calvert (m. b. 1525) out of William Calvert (m. b. 1510)

Which is where it peters out. Mind you, I've got cities, states and countries, wives and children for all those too, so that IS a brief list. I kind of felt like sharing that because, well, it's cool. And because when someone up the line dies, you remember all those who came before her.

When I was very small, my maternal Great-Grandmother (Bess) my grandmother Shirley, my mother, and I were taken together in a picture. 4 generations. I, sadly, don't remember Bess. Tragically, my kids won't remember Shirley. Such are the circles. But that one photograph is prized by my mother above all. In fact, I think she has a picture of herself, her mom, me, and my kids.

Someday I will get my hands on that book and scan in all the old tintype pictures and photo's of my gran in her black hose and 20's hats. :)

Today's Rave

Stupid Tri-Met trip planner got me lost again. Why am I the only person who can't tell which way is "SOUTH" when getting off the bus in Portland? Everyone I say this to thinks it's hilarious, but I get confused pretty easy. Why not just say, "Go to corner of X and X, turn right, go to corner of X and X" ... why say, "Go north to X and X. Go west to X." it's silly and confusing for those of us who don't travel with thier amazing Dick Tracy pocketwatches!

To my credit, I did stop and ask a policeman for directions and asked the bus driver if I was on the right bus. Too many lessons learned from not doing either of those things. To my (un-credit?) chagrin, it did take me from 2:30pm to 4pm on the nose for an hour bus ride. That's a tad silly.

Well, I think that's enough for now. Don't want to waste it all at once. ;)

Deo

Well, the day is at an end. I can see that according to the Blog calendar it's already tomorrow, but it's still the end of the day to me. Not my fault the day lasts most of the night.

Cried about Gran a little. I suppose the worst part is that there isn't going to be a memorial for her of any kind. No funeral, no wake, no services. Nothing. I feel a little robbed. I was speaking to Jeff and he asked why I felt that way. I explained that it was because there wouldn't be a chance for all of us who knew her to get together and talk. To grieve. To share stories and experiences. To remember. And, most importantly, to carry each other through this time, to share the grief of it, pass throught it, and come out on the other side. Instead, my Gran wanted, I suppose, not to bother anyone.

Theryn asked if I was going to do something on my own then. She meant writing-wise, of course. I'm not sure. I can kind of sense the story on the outskirts of my mind. About fragility and the way lives end, but not right now. Now, I'm a ball of grief and emotions, stress and depression.

"Whitebird" by Great Day In The Morning is on again. I just love this song. It kind of captures how I feel, too. Soft, sweet, harmonious. The words are about a whitebird sitting in a cage, alone, and about how she must fly or she will die. I used to know where the lyrics are for this, but that computer crashed. Sorry, you'll have to take my word for it. It's from the mid-1960's too, so don't expect to hear it on your local "JAM" station.

I wanted to write a brief thanks to Sal's candle spells page. Her directions on large-scale healing really helped me get through the day. I had a lot to do, and I wasn't looking forward to doing it all under this cloud of grief. It helped put it into a manageable form and keep it where it belongs; personal, private, and yet open and honest. So, thanks, Sal. As usual, I needed that.

Still deciding on how best to use Christmas money gift from my paternal Grandmother (Nonie). Hard to decide if the kids would rather have a cool big present, or a bunch of small ones. I think we might bite the bullet and go with one big one. I think they are old enough to understand. But you never know.

Parting Shot

In a final aside, I want to remind all parties involved in the current MIRE at TC that this is all about ONE friggin' word. I'm not trying to make light of anyone's feelings about it, but it was just ONE word. Good grief.

Deo

Well, my Grandmother, Shirley Bess Robinson, died this morning at about 7:30.

Pardon me if I don't say much more than that about it right this second.

Deo

Okay, this template and code is much more me. Blogger does let you edit the HTML of this blog, but HTML has always had me in kind of a vice-grip of ignorance, so this is the best I could do. Hope it looks as good for you as it does for me. If it doesn't, please email me.

Wanted to share my obsession of the day with you. Spent most of it over in history land. Take a tour of your state's postcard history over at History Through Postcards I had a lot of fun sifting through Oregon's history. There were facts as well as pictures, and links to other resources where I could find even MORE stuff. Including a picture of what I think is my Great-Great Grandmother, Bess Hamrick. But I'll have to confirm that with the family historian (which isn't me, yet!). Anyhow, it's a lot of fun.

Rants of the day:

Not having enough information to go to the state tomorrow, as needed. So, guess getting back on there swiftly and in good time is out. It's not really anyone's fault, bad timing all around. I should have read the original warning notices closer. Not sure what to do, so I'm going to go along and fake it and see what happens.

I'm going to attempt to send Matt to school tomorrow. I hope he does all right. I might call and ask to speak to his teacher, however. Another reason to have a car? Impromptu parent/teacher conferences.

Why do I always feel guilty if I'm on the computer "over time" ? I mean, what's it really matter if I'm on longer one day and shorter another? Sometimes, my own wierdness fascinates me.

Final Words:

Yesterday at TC chat we had an interesting assignment about what we would miss if we died. Well, it resulted in an interesting rave about life itself. So, for your pleasure, here it is. Remember it's 15 unedited minutes of writing, and forgive the mistakes.

What I’ll miss when I die, and another 15 minutes. Well, Theryn, you know, I’m sure this is a fine thing for most of the others, but with my Gran so near death, it’s horrible for me. I don’t like it, not one bit. I don’t want to think about death any more than I have to, much less my own. So I don’t think I will. Instead, I took a minute to fix some of the spelling errors above. Oh, fine, I’ll attempt it. 15 stupid minutes. I don’t know what to say about it for 15 minutes.

I’m too materialistic, and I’ll miss everything. It’s not even a stretch for me. My books, my kids, my DH, the computer, name it. There’s nothing I won’t miss. Of course, this kind of assumes that you’ll be aware enough to miss things. After visiting my Gran, I don’t think that’s possible. I doubt she’ll miss a thing. She’s just gonna be waiting there.

And besides, who knows, maybe you CAN take it with you. Since everything is a spirit, why not be able to take the spirit or shade of the items you love? Remember that part in Ghostbusters, where the floating librarian was putting away ghostly books? See, she had a shadow memory of a book with her. That’s what I think. That’d be cool. If you got to take all the spirits and shadows of everything with you.

My reality, of course, is that you go zooming off and one of two things happen, you are reincarnated and sent back down to learn the lessons you messed up, or you rejoin the cosmic consciousness and impart your wisdom and become one with the mire and muck that is the well of life and the beauty of creation. Like that Gaia thing last night. The spirit of the earth, that which binds the universe and holds it together, the force. Okay, that’s all very Star Wars, but hey, that’s what speaks to me. And who the heck knows anyhow? Nobody. So how can my ideas be wrong? Well, they can’t, no matter what anyone says. Not one person has any more shreds of proof than I do, so I’m not wrong. Of course, reality is what we all make it, as is heaven. So, perhaps Gran will go up to heaven in her mind, and remain there with Grandpa, sitting in their living room watching Jeopardy forever, and golf, and Wheel. Who’s to say.

Anyhow, I doubt there’s a way to say what I’d miss. Who’s to say I will miss it? I mean, in that movie, Bruce Willis could touch everything he came in contact with, couldn’t he? The floors, the walls, the doors, the tables and chairs, his sweater? See, everyone assumes you die with clothes on too, I wonder why that is. Just propriety, most likely. I’d assume you’d go out as naked as you came in. Of course, this is why there’s the whole “you can’t take it with you” thing, cause your clothes remain behind. But if the ghost then “sees” themselves as in those clothes, why not have their books or toys? Shadows of them, anyhow? Yeah, it makes sense to me, anyhow. But I’m a big odd ball freak, really.

Man, there is still like 2minutes to go on this thing. And I even stopped, paused, and did a bunch of correcting. God, I type a lot. Fast. So, anyhow…this was a fun topic, once I got past Gran. I still don’t like it much. Typing about death when you are already surrounded by death just depresses you. The third topic better be about something else. Something less “real”, I hope. Of course, Theryn is a literary fiction woman, so I doubt it. But hey, I didn’t have to come up with the exercises, either. Although I’m kind of the co-host, she didn’t ask me to. And I’m not gonna complain. It seems hard.

See you again soon. ;)

Deo

Well, this is the first post to Rambles and Raves, my own little BLOG. I know, I'm such a joiner. But I've been thinking about doing one of these for a couple of very good reasons.

The first is my son's therapist, Rachael. She asked if I had some way to deal with a lot of the crap going on in my life right now, and I said I wrote it down. Which wasn't exactly true, but wasn't false either. I do write it down. But only if I'm ranting to Sal in another email. I don't do that often, why bug her to death. But it got me thinking about BLOG's again.

Another good reason was to cut down on the whining in my chatrooms. I mean, who wants to hear it? Well, sometimes they do, but mostly I'm sure they'd like me to dry up. And some days you just can't do that without feeling like nobody is listening or caring about you and your problems, although you are always there for them. So I figured if I had one of these, I could rant all I like and only people who wanted to read it would.

That said, here's the first rant.....

I kept it to myself, but my baby son, Matthew, who just turned 11, told his therapist he wanted to throw himself in front of a car. Hurt himself. I mean, what do you do with that? We upped his medication, and his trips to the therapist, to say the least. I've all the hotline numbers handy, and had to remove all the sharp objects from his room. Rachael said not to let him be alone, much, either. Reasonable amounts of time are fine, but not long periods. Try to keep him engaged and busy. Well, that's not as easy as it seems when you are out of cash. But I'm trying.

I'm living in a horror movie right now, I swear it. I feel as angst-ridden as a female singer who lost her Prozac prescription. And when you focus on the bad, the bad multiplies. Right now, there's so much of it I feel like I'll never swim free and clear.

There's very little money. And I can't get a job because I homeschool Patrick. I can't send him to school cause the school doesn't think he works hard enough to even GO to their stuffy school. And who wants to go where they aren't wanted? Meanwhile, Jeff's hours shrink into oblivion, and we scrape harder and harder and eat more soup than one American family has a right to. You know it's bad when McDonald's is too spendy for you.

My grandmother is dying. I finally made it down to say goodbye to her last Tuesday. It was hard. She's fragile and frail, and faded. It was like looking at a crumbling picture of her, not her. She would fade in and out of consciousness as I sat by her side, content to just soak up her smell and listening to her breathe in and out. There wasn't a hint of pain in her. The only tube was her colostomy (spelling, oh well) bag. She was FINE. Hardy and hale and able to feed herself. She couldn't walk or move much, she didn't seem to want to. The drugs for her cancer sap the living out of her a little at a time. She thought I was my mother, she thought I was her, she thought I was me. She talked of cats and how I left food in the oven. It was sad. And all I could think about was how her hands looked like mine, how her voice sounded like my mother, and how I was never, ever, going to see her alive again. But I held on to the tears. I spent an hour in her world, until I knew I could delay no longer and stand no more. I left, tears streaming down my face because she said she would keep my place near her, and I said I would keep her ever in my heart.

So, where was the ride from father? The phone call to set something up? To not set something up? Nowhere. I am frustrated and annoyed at his lack of interest in me. I'm mad, and I never get mad.

My "real" computer isn't home. Bob is on his last legs, which is why he's the "game" computer. Still I stuff him full of what has to be here to function. Graphic programs and internet goodies. The CD finally just gave out, and now nobody can play cd games on here. Annoying to say the least. When, oh when, will it come home? Then, just to top things off, I spilled water in my fine ergonmic keyboard and rendered it useless. Now, that's the way to finish off a week.

I think that'll do for now. I'm working on paperwork so I can apply for food stamps and state insurance. Until then, I dig into empty pockets for bus tickets and food, and wish I could find a way to write a good story about all this.

Someone light me another candle.

Deoris