Small Town Life (take 2)

I was attempting to write this post the other day, during the middle of one of those raging summer storms we had several times daily, for several days in a row, and the power cut out, but blogger somehow managed to publish the first word in my title. I thought it was kind of funny. Small. Hmmm. What does it mean? Am I feeling small today? Is the world a small place? Maybe I should just post a random word every now and then to contemplate!
At any rate, I have been feeling very thankful lately that I live in the small town that I do. It could be better, granted. There are lots and lots of things that are bad about living in a small town, any, or this one in particular, and it wouldn't take long to list them. Just ask my kids. They will give you a litany of ills regarding life in this town. It would closely resemble the same list I had 30 years ago when I was growing up in a similar small town 11 miles north of here.
This isn't necessarily where I want to live, if given my choice of any location in the world, but given the realities of life, complete free choice is not really an option right now. Nor has it been for the past 22 years, as the constraints of my husband's job "force" us to live in this particular county. And much of the time, it IS easier to see the "bad" of living here. The grass is always greener in Alaska, for example, and the snow is definitely whiter! And they have dogsledding in Maine, and blueberries, and whales. Western New York? Here? Not so much my favorite place on earth. But when I open myself to what IS good about here, about this town, I am often surprised, or at least reminded, that this can be a good place to live, as long as I have to be here.
Last week a "neighbor" who lives on the corner of our street, two or three houses down, sent over a huge, beautiful woven grapevine basket full of vegetables from her garden. The funny thing is, I have never actually talked to this woman, or "met" her, officially. But my kids are friends with her kids (actually, the small world aspect? My son used to date her daughter back three years ago when they lived in the town I grew up in, 11 miles away, and now they've moved here, to our corner of the world, and street.) He eats there more than here; she always makes sure to feed him. When we went on vacation, they kept my Bramble puppy, and put up with her, so that I didn't have to take her to the kennel with the big dogs. What a relief that was to me, to know she was being loved here, instead of left on her own much of the day on a concrete slab in a kennel. The vegetables were beautiful - celery, which I can't grow to save my life, and some zuchini and yellow squash, and some cucumbers. And the presentation was pretty too, all lined up in that basket. It just warmed my heart that this person who I only "know" to wave to when I pass by, sent that over for us. She keeps a beautiful yard, full of flowers, and her kids are nice, and she is such a nice person. If I didn't live here, now, I would not have had that basket of friendship to reciprocate, which I did - with yellow beans from MY garden, and a loaf of fresh zuchini bread!
The other thing that happened to occur on the same day? I left the fence gate to our backyard unlatched while I was out giving water to the chickens. It swung open behind me, in my carelessness. Anvik, my husky mix, took the opportunity she clearly thought I was offering her, to trot herself out the gate, down the driveway, and disappear (trot? No, I think not. Wrong verb choice. Bolt? Run? Fast as lightening? Yes, better description by far...) OK, so that's not what made me happy to live here. Actually, that really makes me sick to my stomach when she does that - escapes. Husky's live to run, plain and simple. And when they run, they seldom slow down enough to care about cars, roads, silly things like that. They also can't be "caught" or "enticed" to come home, until they are done running. I've tried. Over and over, for years, every time Annie or Moose, her brother, escaped, I would drive all over town, looking for them, trying to catch them, trying to lure them home with hotdogs, sausages, sweet talk, etc. I know I looked ridiculous. I'm sure I often looked like some kind of sicko stalker person, leaning out my car window in the dead of winter, holding a hot dog, trying to verbally cajole a dog that was lurking behind houses or bushes, unseen to any other passerby. But to not try to get them home seemed wrong - they were my responsibility, and regardless of their irritating personal houdini acts of escape, to protect them and keep them safe, I DID try. Eventually, I gave up. There is simply NOTHING I can do to get Annie home until she decides to come home. I'm just not fast enough. And Moose paid the price for that a year and a half ago - he was hit and killed down on the main road, two blocks away. The guilt of that will never leave me. And I miss him. Terribly. Still, and always. ANYWAY, now any time Annie does get out (and thankfully, it is MUCH less often, reduced down to maybe once or twice a year) she no longer runs as far, or as long, and seems to come home much more quickly without her partner in crime. But still, I worry. I am sick to my stomach the instant I know she is gone. And I don't stop worrying until she is back at the front door. And here's the good part: Mason knows this. Mason is one of my students at school, who happens to live on the street behind me, his house kittycorner to mine. I have had Mason for five years, in various classes. We have a relationship that is rare between teacher and student, one I've only ever had one other time in my 22 years of teaching, but those two relationships have made all 22 years completely worth it. Musings for another time. Mason and his cousin were walking past my house when Anvik tore down the front hill and out of the yard. In a split second, they made a decision I was totally unaware of: they chased her. All the way up to school, and around the block, and back to my house. In all, she was only gone about 15 minutes this time, and they chased her right back to the front door, where I just HAPPENED to be passing by and saw them, now in my front yard. I opened up the door to see what was going on, and Annie zipped in, and Mason, out of breath, filled me in. I owe them both cookies, promised for the first day of school. Mason, skinnybones that he is, is a typical teenage boy - he lives to eat!
And THOSE are the reasons I am glad I live here, today, this summer. Good neighbors, on the corner, and behind my fence. Good neighbors abound everywhere. I'm sure I'd have some in Maine, or Alaska, or Montana, or wherever I was lucky enough to live by choice, but it's good to know that if I HAVE to live here for now, I can still be grateful for the people with whom I share this little space.

Small

Back - sort of!

Arrrgghhh! Vacation. It was great, but my computer died the second day there. Well, the cord fried, which meant, no computer. That was fine - it WAS vacation, after all, but then, I put the camera/computer cord away somewhere, along with the camera charger, and now that I'm home, I can't find them. They're here, someplace. But now I have to search all over again, and I was SO proud of myself at that point earlier in the summer when I managed to get ALL of my cords all in the same place, so I could blog and post pictures. I am ADD enough that when I get up from my computer now, I will again, forget to make looking for them my priority. And then, last week was a conference for four days, and my father had some major issues again, and that week passed me by. And then (I feel like a four year old "and then..., and then..., and then..." - but that is how it has been for two or three weeks straight!), we have had SO. MUCH. RAIN. that we have not had consistent power and/or internet connection for days. Today, just as the cable was apparently hooked back up down the street, restoring our internet connection, the electricity went out. Again. I can't complain - if I lived just a couple houses down the block, where the next transfer lines are, we would have been without power for three CONSECUTIVE days, instead of just sporadically. Really - I more than wish I COULD send some of this rain to Fairbanks. I LOVE rain on the roof, I love rainy days in the summer here and there. They make us slow down, appreciate how it creates growth, forces us to stop and just be, instead of all the "doing" that happens when it is sunny - but this is bordering on absurd at this point. The rain has flattened my corn, nearly drowned my chickens who are wandering around in mud up to their chicken ankles, and we haven't mowed our lawn nicely for more than a month because it is either raining, or, too wet to mow and trim all at the same time.
ANYWAY, all of this to say, to myself! that I have tons of blog ideas and tons of things I want to get out of me and write down - good things that have happened, things I have appreciated, things that are interesting, funny, or good in life - and yet, yet, life for the past three weeks has seemed to be conspiring against that happening. On the other hand, with hubby out of town tonight, I think I will FINALLY be able to sit and write a few more things. Yay for me. And, if I can remember to search for the darn cords, maybe I can post a few pics, too!
In the meantime, it is raining. AGAIN. For the third time today. Sigh. I wonder if the Native Americans ever had an "anti-rain" dance. If so, and someone knows it, please share. My fat, lazy, golden retriever, does NOT like thunder, and I'm getting tired of having her glued to my leg this summer!

An Abundance of Gratitude Tonight

Tonight my gratitude is for:

• finally getting a parenting thing right! Made a decision that was "iffy" but was counting on the age-old wisdom that I have heard hundreds of times, and that my own parents used on me. It went against what I really wanted to do, but I was counting on it being the right thing in the end, and it was. Seldom do I EVER feel I get parenting right, so tonight, yay me!
• a 20 year old son whose philosophy of money drives me crazy ("easy come, easy go" - don't worry about saving for tomorrow if there is something you want today - grrrr) but who, when he knows we're in a bind, financially, willingly offers to loan us one of his summer paychecks to get us through and doesn't even blink when turning over 500.00. What a good heart he has.
• a clean house (relatively speaking!)
• someone offering, or rather begging, to keep Bramble puppy for the week we are gone next week, which means I don't have to take my baby puppy to the kennel with the big dogs. I don't worry about them for a week up there, but I didn't want my puppy to be without lots of love and attention and people to play with for a whole week. I felt like she would feel totally abandoned, and it was making me not want to go on vacation. Now, I feel SO much better.
• Looking forward to a week at the beach with my hubby and 8 teenagers - (2) 14, (1) 15, (1) 16, (2) 18, and 2 (20) year olds. OK, so technically the 20 year olds are no longer teenagers, but close enough. I think this actually might be one of our best vacations ever, because besides my own 4 kids, I REALLY like the other 4 who are going.
• The forecast for tonight as I am on my way up to bed: thunderstorms! As sick as I am of rain this summer, I love a good thunderstorm when I'm in bed. I love the way the thunder rolls in across the hills, slowly and in the distance at first, but then, gradually, comes closer and closer until it is right on top of you, then gradually rolls away into the distance again. Of course, it will mean a bunch of cowering dogs all trying to get as close to my side of the bed as possible, but, still, I'm looking forward to it. Good night!!
  

ALASKA ON MY MIND

Today was Day 2 of a three day literacy class that I am taking this summer, along with about 50 other teachers from around the area. It is a combination of the Writer's Workshop class I took last summer, and Ellin Keene's Mosaic of Thought for reading. As part of the class, teachers are expected to write on topics of our own choice, teaching us to model the same for our students. Part of the reason I signed up for the class is because I was hoping they would have us write. You'd think, since I like to write so much, that I could just stay home and write for a couple hours every day. But as much as I love writing, it isn't that easy. What I have discovered in the last few years that actually came as a shock to me is that writing is hard work, no matter how much I enjoy it. It takes a lot of self-discipline to force yourself to do it, instead of the laundry, or the dishes, or gardening or any number of other things that always call to me, needing to be done. Sadly, self discipline is one of the things most lacking in my life, in too many areas of my life. Yesterday, though, I knew I wanted to write either about my chickens, about the new puppy in my life, or about my dad, and his aging issues. I chose the chickens, and began a draft about them. There wasn't time to finish, and, lacking that certain bit of ...ahem, self discipline, I didn't finish it when I got home, either, although I WANTED to. Knowing we would have some sustained time to write again today, it would seem logical to have worked on it, and maybe finished it. But as soon as I got up today, and all the way to Olean, all I kept thinking was, Alaska, Alaska, Alaska. There was something about the feel of the air this morning, the fog rolling in off the hills, the colors - their certain early morning greens and browns, that sang the siren song of the land of the midnight sun to me. And even more distinctly, the music was not just of Alaska in general, but of a specific place and time and event. Last summer when I went to Kotzebue, I was lucky enough to spend some time out on the Noatak River, and was along on a sort of spontaneous caribou hunt. For who knows what reason, I was totally and completely back on the top of the tundra all day today, watching while Vic cut up the two caribou he shot, and helping to pack out the meat back across the tundra and back to the boat. I have never in my life before those moments, and not again since, felt so lucky to be where I was. And the best part of having been there then is that I get to go back again, in my mind, any time I want. I feel, today, as restless as the herds of caribou must feel when it nears time to begin moving. I feel like this is the time I should BE there. I have made several trips to Alaska now, only one of them in the winter, the rest have all been summertime, June, July and August. I love Alaska in the wintertime, truly I do. I don't mind the cold, I love the snow, and the total and complete highlight of my life is dogsledding. I could happily live in Alaska year round, I really think. If I had dogs. Or had access to someone else's dogs that I could scoop poop for, feed, love up, and take for an occasional short sled trip. No Iditarod dreams for me, not really. But as much as I love the winter there, it is summer there that my heart really craves. I have been there in the summer. I love summer in Alaska. I love the never ending daylight, the ravens and eagles spinning and soaring, the taste of fresh caught salmon cooked over a beach fire, the way the light dances off the mountains in the distance and on the river underneathe you. The silence. The wide, vast silence of sky and tundra and so few people. Today, this morning, I wrote about the caribou hunt, and I was there again, really there. I was there when I woke up this morning, I was there in the words I tried to craft about it in class today, and I am still there tonight. I love Alaska. It has seeped into my soul, and has laid claim to me. I belong there. I'm not sure it is something I can fight, or that I even want to. I think I'd much rather spend my time figuring out how best to return for longer and longer periods of my life so that I just don't have to miss it so much. I'm guessing that once there, New York really isn't going to lay too heavily on my mind. New York is just not a place to be missed. Alaska, on the other hand, well, I miss it every second of every day that I am not lucky enough to be there. And? Most of all? It's Fireweed time. Me? I LOVE fireweed with every fiber of my being. Favorite. Flower. Ever. Amen!

"Same Shit, Different Day"..or "Dad Gets Old" - take your pick of a title

So what do you do with an 88 year old man who THINKS he is able to take care of himself, but who isn't, really? He has medical issues for which he has been prescribed medicine, but he is so unreliable about taking it that it isn't doing him much good. And he swears up and down that he DOES take it, but yet, the prescriptions were written last August, for 6 months, and he has not needed new ones yet, which means he is taking his medicine AT BEST about 50 % of the time. He has memory loss, which has come on slowly, not like my mother's alzheimers was, just old-age memory loss. And while I'm sorrier than I can say about it, and it makes me sad, and frustrated for him, at what point can he please JUST ACCEPT THAT IT IS SO. He does not feed himself properly. He eats shredded wheat for breakfast, sometimes a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and then, I suspect he often does not eat dinner, but when he does, it is a frozen lean cuisine or similar frozen meal meant for dieters. He gets meals on wheels four days a week at lunchtime, but does not eat them. He claims he does, but he does not. There have been three delivered meals already this week, and there are three meals still in the refrigerator. It's the same with his medicine - when Dave and I used to fill his pill containers, you could come back a week later to fill them again, only to find much of it still full. And yet, yet, he would CLAIM that he most certainly DID take his medicine, just as he claims he DOES eat his meals. How can you refute the evidence??? HOW? He's depressed, and has been so since my mom died four years ago. He has been prescribed medicine for depression, but it doesn't help much IF YOU DON"T TAKE IT.
He doesn't bathe any more. He says he "sometimes forgets to" take a shower or "didn't feel like it today" when the truth of the matter is, he has probably not showered for months. My mom used to take what she called "sponge baths" by filling the sink with water, and using water and soap and a washcloth to clean herself occasionally. Even that would be better for my dad than just not bathing at all, but seriously, the man does not bathe. AT ALL. That is not healthy. That is a sign of not taking care of yourself. What about that doesn't he get? He wears dirty clothes, even though the cleaning lady who comes on Friday washes all his dirty clothes, he continues to wear the same outfit all week. On the night of C's graduation, I reminded him to put on clean clothes before he came down. Several times, I mentioned that. He wore dirty, stained clothes to her graduation. That made me SO sad. The doctor even told him today that he had a body odor, that his mind was not cooperating, that both his daughters, one of his sons,and his dr. all agreed that his mind was not remembering things the way it should, that he should no longer be living alone for his health's sake, that he should consider moving in with one of his childre. I had already told the doctor that I would LOVE to have my dad live with me. No, I don't think it would be easy, or that it would make me really, really happy. I don't think it would make him happy. But I do know I would be able to take care of him - wash his clothes, cook him decent meals, make sure he took his medicine correctly, bathed daily. And being able to do all those things for my dad would put my heart at ease. Instead, because he refuses to admit his weaknesses, because he is a stubborn, stubborn old man, I took him home, filled his pill containers full of pills he won't take, kissed him good night, told him I loved him, and prayed all the way home that he won't have a heart attack or a stroke that will rob him of ALL of his freedom and independence, or worse yet, kill him. My worst fear is that he will have a heart attack, and be laying on the kitchen floor, unable to get up, unable to get to the phone, and that we won't know for days. He is too stubborn to wear one of those 911 necklaces, too stubborn to stop driving, and too stubborn to accept the help he needs. I don't know what to do. Wait, I do know. I've been through this before, a million times it seems. There IS nothing I can do, except wait for the heart attack, the stroke, or the car accident, or the broken hip in the winter. There IS nothing he will LET me do, so all today became was "same shit, different day." Nothing new.
My aunt, who died at 104 with all her faculties intact, used to say "Old age is unlovely and not to be desired." She got that right.

"Kayaking" on Allen Lake

Can you see that dot, out in the middle of the water, right straight ahead? That is C and L, my 18 year old and her friend, "kayaking." This lake is about seven or eight miles from us - rough miles on bumpy, windy, curvy dirt and stone back roads. That's fine, if you really want to kayak, which I have done up here several times. It's not a very big lake, so it's an easy, enjoyable lazy kind of kayaking. But still, when I go, I DO kayak. At least once around the lake, sometimes more. I go in close to the shore on the far side, I go through the lilly pads, avoid some lilly pads, explore a little - maybe an hour or two at the most. But it's exercise, despite the easiness and enjoyability of it. So when C said they wanted to go kayaking, would I take them up, I said sure. She can't drive a standard, and the only thing both kayaks will fit in is one of the trucks, which is standard. So I threw in a book to read, drove them up, launched them,and then read for the half an hour that they SAT THERE. IN THAT SPOT. A LITTLE WAYS OUT IN THE LAKE. They never went any further than that. They paddled out there, and then SAT. For all 30 minutes. Then paddled back in. That was it. THAT'S KAYAKING? Silly girls. I guess it is if you are 18 and just lazing away a summer day. Or 30 minutes of one, anyways. Why strain yourself??