Sue Fagalde Lick's Blog, page 25

Blessings Overflow During ‘NotMom’ Trip

[image error]I was sitting at the corner table at the Portland airport Radisson’s Lakeside Restaurant yesterday, devouring my pancakes, eggs and bacon when I saw someone who looked familiar a few tables down. As the woman and her companion got up to graze at the buffet, I realized I knew them from church. I had traveled across the country and was still 150 miles from home, and there were Ron and Sandi from Newport. After we all had a chance to eat our last pig-out meals before heading home to real life and diets, I joined them for a wonderful visit.

Ron and Sandi had been to Colorado and New Mexico. They were very interested when I told them I was returning from the NotMom Summit in Cleveland, Ohio. Sandi’s situation is similar to mine. She’s a stepmother, but never had her own children. I shared some of what I had learned.

It was a long and expensive trip, but worth it. I returned feeling stronger, prettier, and far less alone, with my notebook full of writing ideas. The high is fading a bit now in the rush of mail to read, bills to pay, clothing to wash, and work to get done. Rejections and deadlines loom, and I’m in charge of choir practice tonight. When I called Dad, he was full of the usual complaints—but he’s okay, and he was glad I had a good time.

This morning, the dog greeted me with kisses as I finally stirred in my warm, soft bed. Out the window, I saw evergreen trees and gray sky. No more big-city views of downtown Cleveland and Lake Erie out my window at the Hilton. What a beautiful city it is, full of   old buildings and fascinating public art.

There was a scary moment when I went walking Friday night. I was crossing a street at a crosswalk with a blinking warning light for oncoming cars. I walked right into the side of a car that had failed to stop. It took the breath out of me, but I was not injured. The driver apologized, and I staggered back to the hotel to sit shaking for a few minutes. It could have been all over in Cleveland before I even had a chance to give my speech. The picture above could have been the last one ever taken of me. But no, God was watching out for me. I took some deep breaths and went back to the conference.

This was not like writers’ conferences, where everybody is trying to get published. There, it’s all about what we do. But here, it was about who we are and how we live. I made about a hundred new friends as we sat around sharing how we happened to not have children. We came from as far as New Zealand and as near as Cleveland. I shared my session on aging without children with Gisele from Montreal. I met the fabulous Jody Day from the UK. Our accents varied, but we had this giant thing in common: we were all “NotMoms.”

God, how we talked. We discussed our families, our periods, our friends who are obsessed with their kids and grandkids, the stupid things people say to us, and so many other topics that we don’t usually feel we can talk about with other people. All the workshops were really discussions, with the women in the audience offering as much as the women up front.

We got drunk. We wore our pajamas to watch a documentary film called “To Kid or Not to Kid.” We ran around with giant bingo cards looking for women with various qualities to fill in the squares. I was the NotMom who played an instrument. Our keynote speakers taught us and inspired us. They made us laugh, and they made us cry. We talked about the hard stuff, the tragic stories of trying and failing to get pregnant or trying to get people to understand why some of us never wanted children. We asked each other whether having stepchildren means we’re not childless/childfree. It’s not the same as having our own, we agreed.

We gave standing ovations to Karen Malone Wright, founder of the NotMom organization, and her assistant Laura LaVoie, who made the conference happen. It was top-notch all the way. We pledged to come back next time and stay in touch in-between.

I also happily signed copies of my Childless by Marriage book and met readers I previously only knew online.

The hardest part was saying goodbye and walking out with our suitcases at the end. But I was blessed to spend the first leg of my trip home with Audrey from Olympia, Washington. We had met at dinner the first night, and now we discovered we were seated next to each other on the plane from Cleveland to Houston. I am so happy to have her as a new friend, along with so many others.

From Houston, I was finally on my own for the four-hour flight to Portland. That was a long one, with a lot of turbulence and a crying baby. But back in Portland, there were Ron and Sandi from Newport, making me see how the circles of my life intersect. I am so blessed.

In a bit of ironic timing, my step-grandson Brandon and his wife Ashley gave birth to a baby boy early this morning. Welcome, Kayden. I wish Fred were here to share the news.

Thank you all for being here.

In Spite of It All, We Still Have Hope

Sometimes our world seems hopeless as we watch people getting shot at a country music concert, wading in waist-deep flood water with no home left to go to, or fleeing wildfires that seem impossible to stop. Our government, however you feel about it, is in constant turmoil. We face so many challenges close to home. A friend just had a stroke. My neighbor just told me about a husband and wife who were both diagnosed with cancer on the same day. One of my father’s caregivers crashed her car into his garage door. It all seems hopeless, right? Let’s just go back to bed and stay there. But no. We still have hope.

It shows every time my father does his leg exercises in the hopeful belief that he will soon be able to let go of his walker and tell his caregivers not to come back. I’m not sure it will happen, but he has hope. It’s what keeps him going.

I thought about this the other day as rain soaked the chaise lounge cushions on my deck. I ought to admit that summer is over and bring them in, but no, I had hope that we would have some more sunny days. And we do. I see blue sky out my window right now.

I started making a list of the things we do that show we have hope that whatever the situation is now, it’s going to be all right. The list got long. I’m sharing some of my favorites here, and I invite you to make your own list and share it in the comments.

1. Hope is continuing to water the African violet although the leaves are turning brown and you haven’t seen a flower in a year.

2. Hope is buying two chicken breasts in case company comes.

3. Hope is showing up at a dance alone.

4. Hope is leaving the door unlocked.

5. Hope is casting your line out again.

6. Hope is planting two-year-old seeds in a muddy yard.

7. Hope is pruning your artichoke plants down to sticks.

8. Hope is unhooking your dog’s leash.

9. Hope is buying a lottery ticket.

10. Hope is calling him (or her) one more time.

11. Hope is getting a mammogram.

12. Hope is stepping on the bathroom scale.

13. Hope is going to get the mail.

14. Hope is pouring your heart out and hitting “send.”

15. Hope is taking your turn at a four-way stop.

16. Hope is buying jeans that fit a little tight.

17. Hope is putting a roast in the electric oven during a storm when the lights are flickering.

18. Hope is making a dentist appointment for six months from now.

19. Hope is buying a Christmas gift in August for someone who is very old.

20. Hope is leaving your jacket at home.

21. Hope is saying “I do” again.

22. Hope is stepping into the plane.

23. Hope is not defrosting anything for dinner.

24. Hope is leaving your birth control in your purse.

25. Hope is getting out of bed anyway.

Okay. Your turn!

Unleashed in Oregon blog book is born

[image error]Well, I did it. Soon I’ll be holding a paperback book copy of Unleashed from Oregon: Best from the Blog. It will have tangible form, unlike these weekly blog posts in cyberspace, which could disappear if something happened to WordPress, Wi-Fi or the Internet. It will also put together related posts from various times and places to create a new story.

What’s in it? You’ll find the answers to these questions and more. What is a Californigonian? What was waiting by the door that night? What possessed us to adopt two puppies at once? How is playing the piano like ice skating? Why stay in Oregon when it rains all the time and the family is still back in California? Chapters will look at the glamorous life of a writer and the equally glamorous life of a musician, true stories from a whiny traveler, being the sole human occupant of a house in the woods, and dogs, so much about dogs.

With over 500 posts published over the last 10 years, I had to leave a lot out. Frankly, many of those posts deserved to be left out. They made sense at the time, but now not so much. The photos in the book are black and white because the cost of color photos was prohibitive and this isn’t a coffee table book. I refuse to charge people $40 a copy. I wanted it to be fun and inexpensive. And it is.

Putting Unleashed the book together has been a challenge. The cover I loved for the e-book didn’t work for the paperback, so they’re different. Choosing the posts, finding the files, and finding the original photos (I need a better system!) took time. Remind me not to try formatting another book with pictures. Also remind me to use a real camera instead of my phone. Getting photos, page numbers, and headers to line up, yikes, but I think you’ll like the result.

The e-book is already available at Amazon.com. The paperback will be there soon. Click on my name and take a look at my other books while you’re there. It’s not too early to start thinking about Christmas presents. If you can’t wait, you can buy copies of the paperback right now at CreateSpace.com.

Here Comes That Good Old Oregon Rain

[image error]It was like God flipped a switch. Overnight this sunny beach town turned into the soggy Oregon coast, complete with hard rain, wind, and thunder. Note dog under the desk. Summer was so good it’s hard to be easygoing about losing it. I did not want to stash the lounge cushions or strap down the hot tub cover. I did not want to stock up on pellets for the pellet stove. I did not want to wake up to darkness and spend my day in storm-cloud gloom.

Tough, says God. Lots of people have it much worse these days, with earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. And didn’t I pray hard for rain to put the fires out? Yes, I did. I even cleaned out my gutters and stacked my wood in preparation. Before you know it, I’ll be making soup.

But I’ve already got two pairs of soggy shoes and two pairs of soggy socks and one pair of soggy jeans hanging up to dry from our recent rainy walks. Annie, my canine personal trainer,  does not cut me any slack for rainy days. Yesterday’s trek through the woods may have been our longest speed walk since her knee surgery at the end of May. That dog was truckin’. The rain soaking into her fur didn’t seem to bother her. Me, I could have done without it.

I wore one of Fred’s old hats, his old rain jacket (I wore mine out), and my own jeans and tennies. The rain soaked into the hat and cascaded down the jacket onto my pants. It leaked into my shoes. I shivered now and then, even though it was still 60 degrees. Wait till December when we go below freezing.

My hat knocking against my raincoat made a noise that convinced me a bear was watching us. No. Bears are smart enough to stay in when it rains. We saw the usual collection of dead newts, squashed mice, and discarded fast-food containers. The blackberries are gone, and the first mushrooms have sprouted up. The neighbors’ RV is wrapped up in a silver tarp, vacation time over.  The yellow school bus rolled by us, depositing its last passenger on Birch Street. School is in session. We have started religious education at church. I have traded sandals for boots. My online piano lesson featured the song “Autumn Leaves.”

The calendar says it’s the first day of autumn. But who cares what the calendar says? We need only watch the sky. These days, it keeps changing. When I woke up this morning, we had blue sky. Now it’s all clouds. Yesterday, before the sky turned black and it rained, I saw bright pink clouds above the trees. “Annie, look!” I said. She was too busy staring at her empty bowl to appreciate the sunrise. Nor was she interested at lunchtime when at least five different kinds of birds congregated in the back yard. Stellar’s jays, robins, flickers, juncos, and sparrows. The birds are getting ready for winter.

Grab your raincoat. Here we go.

***

The ebook version of The Best of Unleashed in Oregon is online now at Amazon.com. Only $2.99. Grab yourself a copy. If you prefer a paperback, that’s in the works. It should be available next week at the same place.

 

Unleashed in Oregon book coming soon!

The Unleashed blog has been going for 10 years now, with more than 500 posts. 500! No wonder I’m tired. In celebration, I am putting together a Best of Unleashed in Oregon book. I am revising and reorganizing my favorite posts so that you and I can find them all in one place. The text isn’t quite ready yet, but today I have a cover. Guess who’s on the front? Annie. Of course. The e-book will be available soon at a very reasonable price, to be followed by the paperback in plenty of time for Christmas. Thank you, readers, for sharing this journey with me.

The blog is not over. I plan to keep posting here, offering new stories and photos because this life in Oregon offers new revelations every day.

Drum roll . . . Here’s the cover.

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Choking in Smoke as The West Burns

[image error]As I get ready for church choir practice, it seems unusually dark for 6:30 p.m. I leave the porch light on for the first time this summer. The reason for the darkness becomes clear when I turn west toward Highway 101. “Oh my God!” At the post office, I stop the car and fumble for my cell phone to take a picture.

The sun hanging over the ocean is red-orange, discolored by the smoke from the wildfires burning in Oregon and throughout the western United States. Unlike the eclipse two weeks ago, I don’t need special glasses to watch it because the light is muted, not bright enough to hurt my eyes.

My photos don’t do it justice. I turn north toward Newport, frequently glancing left at this sun so like a harvest moon but redder and on the wrong side of the road. When I look again in the church parking lot, the sun, still an hour from sunset, is nearly hidden in smoke.

When we come out, it’s dark. I see neither sun nor moon. There are no stars. There is only smoke.

Unlike the eclipse, this sky show does not bring me joy.

We are over a hundred miles from the closest fire yet the smoke has turned everything gray since Saturday. In brief moments when the sun breaks through, it tints everything a strange orange color. My nose keeps running. I miss my blue summer skies.

But this is just the smallest taste of it. Inland, where the fires are closer and the temperature has been in the 90s and 100s, ash rains like snow. The smoke is so thick it’s not safe to breathe. Like heavy fogs, it covers everything but without the cool refreshment of fog. And the fires, my God. Judging by the photos, all of Oregon is burning. And not just Oregon. Fires rage in California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. See the map here. The fires are so big the only hope of putting them out anytime soon is a monster rainstorm to rival the one that flooded Texas and neighboring states with Hurricane Harvey.

Not long ago, my brother Mike’s home was threatened by such a fire burning around his home near Yosemite. His family was ordered to evacuate. They stayed with my niece in Merced, but Mike kept returning to his mountaintop home to check on its status and protect it from looters. At the same time, Mariposa, the town where he works as a superior court judge, sat in the fire’s path, evacuated but for a few people helping to care for the firefighters. The historic courthouse could have gone up in flames. In the end, his home and his town were spared, but the blaze, labeled the Detwiler fire, destroyed 63 homes and burned more than 81,000 acres. The miles of blackened landscape come within 200 yards of Mike’s property, a constant reminder of what could have happened. They’ll never forget the fear or the taste of smoke in their mouths. But fire season isn’t over. Another fire is burning today near Yosemite.

The biggest fire in Oregon right now is in the Columbia River Gorge. It is burning on the Pacific Crest Trail, around Multnomah Falls, and even across the river in Washington. It was started by kids playing with fireworks, a stupid, horrible thing. A cigarette reportedly sparked the Mariposa fire. Lightning started many of the other fires. Some say the fires are a natural process, designed to clear out the forests and start fresh. People and their buildings don’t fit into that equation. Nor do people help when they ignore firefighters’ pleas not to burn ANYTHING.

It has been a crazy year. After four years of drought, California experienced epic rains. So did Oregon. Day after day after day. Then came weeks of extraordinary heat. The result: wild growth of grasses, shrubs, and trees that make perfect fuel for fires. Now we’re burning.

Out my window, it’s as gray as any winter morning, but the grayness is smoke, not moisture. I like sunshine. I like to sit out in the sun, to bathe in its warmth. I dread winter. But today I’m praying hard for rain to put out the fires and clean the air, to give us back our sun and moon and to help all those people losing everything to the flames. If you are in the path of the fires, floods or hurricanes, you are in my prayers.

What is it like where you are? Are you or your loved ones in danger? How are you coping?

 

Eclipse: Sky Show Doesn’t Disappoint

[image error]I woke up Monday to fog. Great, I thought. I won’t see the eclipse, only the darkening and lightening as the moon passes over the sun. The naysayers were right.

“Come on, Lord,” I prayed.

He heard me. He heard lots of us. The sun burned it off just as the moon started taking bigger and bigger bites out of the sun. By 9:55, it was getting darker every second. As the shadows dimmed, I felt a physical thrill high in my chest that I can’t accurately describe. I wished my late husband Fred were here. I wished my neighbors were outside with me. I wished I were at a party with lots of people. But my plan had always been to stay home, and my back, out of whack again, seconded the motion.

As the moon slid over the sun, I walked down my street, seeking other people to watch with. I found only a flock of chickens and a black cat, all huddling in place. I noticed the fog hung very close, ready to cover our houses again. I went home, feeling like the last person on earth. No one here! Later I would learn that my neighbors had gone east to escape the fog.

So it was just me, standing in my driveway with my eclipse glasses. It got darker and darker till the sun was just an orange sliver around the moon. The street light came on, a slightly lighter orange. Cold, I pulled the red blanket out of my car and wrapped it around my shoulders. The chickens cackled then hushed. And suddenly . . .

0The moon lay right across the sun, a black disk with a silver halo. I heard people shouting. I shouted back. I grabbed for my phone to take a picture, although what I saw in the viewfinder was just a round glow. After my second shot, a blast of sun burst through. More shouts. It started getting light. The street light turned off. The sun began to show on the right side of the moon. The fog crept eastward. A plane flew over. Standing in my garage huddled in my blanket, I cried.

I went in to warm up for a minute. The dog followed me around, nervous.

“Come on.” By now the sun was above the trees, so we could see the rest of the show from the back yard. Little by little, the sun reappeared. I watched until the edges of the orange ball were completely round again. I felt the sun’s warmth on my shoulders. Reluctantly, I took off my cardboard eclipse glasses. Annie sniffed them and tried to eat them. “No!” I hid them in my pocket.

I will never see anything like this again. I wish I had remembered to look for Jupiter and Venus and for the weird shadows that were expected. But totality came and went so quickly.

Afterward, I look around at the trees and the grass and the sky. Nothing seemed the same.

While I watched the total eclipse in South Beach, Oregon, my father and my aunt were just arriving at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Clara, California, for an appointment with his orthopedic surgeon. (Some healing of his broken leg, but it’s very slow). Traffic had stopped completely. People got out of their cars. Doctors, nurses and patients were gathered in the parking lot with their eclipse glasses, looking at the sky. One of them handed Dad his glasses. He took a look. He was interested but not impressed. Ah, but he didn’t see the “totality,” that moment when the moon completely blocked the sun. That’s what I won’t forget. The rest was a lot like the lunar eclipses I have seen, but totality, oh my God.

The eclipse entered the United States on the Oregon Coast just a few miles north of where I live. As I wrote last week, thousands of visitors were expected. Stores stocked up on eclipse T-shirts and other souvenirs. Some asked their employees to stay overnight and work extra shifts. Police and fire departments called everybody in, and the National Guard was on standby. Signs went up: no beach access, no camping here, no fires anywhere. Stay off the roads, we were told. Traffic will be stuck in total gridlock. The Lincoln County commissioners declared a state of emergency in advance.

But it didn’t happen. The crowds did not come here. For us, it was another y2k, the disaster that didn’t occur as 1999 transitioned into 2000. The streets of Newport, Depoe Bay, and Lincoln City were deserted. Hotels suffered mass cancellations. Businesses saw fewer customers than they would on a normal day in August.

Now everyone is debating over why people didn’t come, why they went to places like Prineville and Madras in Central Oregon. Were they scared away by overblown predictions of horrible crowds and ridiculously high prices? Or did they simply decide not to take a chance on the coast’s ever-changing weather, the one thing no one can control?

We could easily have missed it. The day after the eclipse, we were fogged in all day. The rest of the week was a mixed bag, some fog, some sun, some clouds. Now when the sun is out, I keep wanting to look at it. I want another show. But it just sits there, glowing, while the moon finds its own place in the sky and the waves roll in and out as usual.

Besides the glasses, I have another souvenir. No, it’s not a T-shirt. As the world darkened, I walked through my garage and ran into my big steel dolly, leaving a cut and a bruise just below my right knee. I’m kind of proud of it.

Text copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2017

Photo Copyright: johanswan / 123RF Stock Photo

Eclipse-o-Mania hits the Oregon coast

[image error]I drove cautiously to the edge of Highway 101 as if driving into a war zone. Would I see an impenetrable line of cars? Would tourists crowd the roadsides, strewing trash and lit matches into the salal and blackberries? Could I possibly get to Newport in one piece? Judging by what I was seeing on the news and reading on my computer, no.

But yes. Yesterday, already suffering from cabin fever, I ventured to the post office and the jetty, and it was fine. The gulls and cormorants bobbing in the blue ripples of Yaquina Bay did not know or care that the solar eclipse is coming on Monday. The surf lapped against the rocks, fishing boats cruised in and out, and the sun peeked shyly through the morning clouds. The only unusual sight was a truck delivering portable toilets to the area where the jetty meets the beach.

Eclipse-o-mania. Depoe Bay, just north of here, is supposed to be the first place in the continental U.S. to see the moon completely cover the sun when the eclipse happens on Monday morning.  The “path of totality” will continue southeast through Oregon and on across the country. Over a million people are expected to come to this state, thousands of them to the coast, to see the eclipse. Officials predict traffic jams and shortages of food, gas, and cash. Eclipse-watchers will stream onto private property looking for places to camp. We may lose electricity and cell phone coverage. Or not. Will this be like y2k, when nothing really happened?

For weeks, we have been warned to stock up on supplies and plan to stay home from Aug. 17-21. The roads will be impassable, we’re told. Businesses and government offices are planning to close on Monday. Stores, restaurants, and motels that serve tourists are putting their employees on extra shifts and urging them to sleep over so they won’t get caught in traffic. Police and firefighters are working overtime. The National Guard is on standby. The county has declared a state of emergency.

It’s as if a tsunami, a snowstorm and Woodstock were all happening at the same time. The eclipse will begin at 9:04 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Totality, starting at 10:16, will last for two minutes. It will get dark. The birds will hush. Night animals will come out. And then it will start to get light again. By 11:15, it will be all over, except for the traffic jams.

Meanwhile, life goes on. When the moon slides over the sun, my dad will be on his way to Kaiser Hospital for a doctor’s appointment. Other people will be at work and not even see it. Me, I’ll probably retreat to my office and write.

We don’t really know how many people will come to the coast for the eclipse. If I were traveling to see it, I’d go somewhere else. We have a 50 percent chance it will be too cloudy to see anything. Whatever we can see, I’ll be able to watch from my backyard with the eclipse glasses I picked up at the community college. Don’t look at the sun without them, ophthalmologists warn. The glasses are so dark the sun is the only thing you can see through them. It looks like a little orange dot.

My father can’t understand why people would travel great distances to see the eclipse. Neither can my 96-year-old friend Doug, who says he’s seen them before. No big deal. The next eclipse will be in 2024, and it won’t be here. I hope to see it, but I’m not making any extra trips out of South Beach. I vaguely remember a previous eclipse in 1970. It got dark, it got light. No big deal in San Jose, not like the craziness happening here. I don’t even know if we got out of class to see it.

The mania had already started last week when I went to the Fred Meyer store to buy groceries. It was a madhouse, jammed with people stocking up for the big event. Yesterday, a friend posted pictures on Facebook of empty shelves where the milk should be. Did I stock up? I have bagels, grapefruit, tea and cookies. Annie has two boxes of Milk-Bones. We’re ready.

I have seriously thought about walking to town if I can’t drive. Four miles to the bridge, three more to church. News outlets are showing photos of bumper-to-bumper traffic, but not here. Not yet. Maybe not at all.

The eclipse will happen. But whether the crowds will come and whether it will be cloudy or clear, we don’t know. The human show may turn out to be more mind-blowing than the one in the sky. Meanwhile, the gulls bobbing in the bay and the dog at my side don’t know or care.

Has eclipse-o-mania hit where you live? Would you travel to see the eclipse?

Hanging out in the Alternate World of Nursing Homes

A world exists in the midst of our own that many people are not aware of. It’s a world none of us want to live in, but it’s not so bad to visit. I’m talking about nursing homes, assisted living facilities, memory care centers, whatever you want to call them. Buildings with old people in wheelchairs and walkers, staff in matching shirts, institutional meals and alarms on the doors. The kinds of places where old people land when they can’t stay at home anymore–if they can afford them.

Long before I had family living in these places, I sang in them with the Valley Chorale in California. We didn’t pay much attention to the residents back then. We just wanted to know where to dress, where to set up, and where to plug in our amps. We performed in our silky dresses and jeweled shoes to a sea of white hair and glasses, absorbed their applause, shook a few hands, changed clothes and went out to dinner.

It’s different when someone you love lives there. I started frequenting nursing homes when Grandpa Fagalde started living in one after a series of strokes. He was 94, and it was a shock the first time I saw him in a wheelchair, saying things that didn’t quite make sense. It was easier to sit at the piano and sing than to sit with him for the hour or two I visited at lunchtime or after work. But I came regularly and gradually became part of the family there. I greeted the staff and the other residents. They grabbed for my hands and sought my attention.

Toward the end, my grandfather didn’t know who I was. He knew only that I played music and that I would listen to him for a while. It was heartbreaking to see my grandfather this way, but while I was there, I could forget about my job as a newspaper editor, the errands I need to do on the way home, the teenage stepson who was driving me crazy, or the odd noise coming from under the hood of my car. It was just these old people in their limited world.

I never guessed that fifteen years later I would be visiting my husband Fred in a nursing home. He had Alzheimer’s Disease. He stayed in four different places before he died, but the longest was at Timberwood Court in Albany, Oregon, 70 miles from where I lived. Occasionally I played music there, too, but mostly I hung out with Fred and the gang. We watched TV, ate ice cream, batted a big rubber ball around, sang with visiting musicians, and went on field trips in the little bus. Some days, I would sit on the couch resting my head on my husband’s shoulder, even falling asleep sometimes.

I got to know the names of all the other residents and the family members who visited. I knew the staff. I would walk into the offices to demand things I needed for Fred—a haircut, his lost shoes, a doctor’s appointment. I was part of the Timberwood family. Yes, the residents had dementia. They screamed, they fought, they got sick and died. Some constantly begged to go home. But most made sense at least part of the time, and day after day, it was a beautifully furnished oasis from the rest of the world, unaffected by winter storms, summer heat, or the news on TV.

Beyond the coded-lock door, we were all safe and within shouting distance of an aide who would take care of everything. Fred soon forgot he had ever lived anywhere else. When his physical health failed, he moved to another facility that was not pretty at all. It was much more like a hospital. The hiatus was over.

This year, I found myself hanging out at another nursing home with my father. He wanted only to be back at his own house taking care of his own stuff, but I fell easily into the nursing home rhythm at Somerset. Here’s the living room, the dining room, the courtyard. Here are the aides in matching shirts. Here’s the office. Write Dad’s name on his clothes, hang them in the closet, make sure he has his meds. Get everything set up, then sit with him. Talk, listen, be. Meet the other family members doing the same thing.

Janet, the daughter of one of Dad’s housemates, arrives every day at 11 a.m. and leaves at 4 p.m. It’s like her job. She feels enough at home to go into the kitchen and help herself to coffee and cookies. She joins in the activities. Her sister handles the bills and such, but Janet is the one who has become part of the Somerset family.

It was different for me this time because I live 700 miles away. I visited in concentrated doses. Three days, a week, two weeks. But I got to know and care about the other residents and staff. I liked walking in to a chorus of “Hi, Sue.” I liked that there was someone waiting for me, even on days when my father was El Groucho, as my mother used to call him. While I was at Somerset, I could do nothing about work, home repairs, the needy dog or the emails calling for my attention. All I had to do was sit in the courtyard or the living room talking to my father. When it was time to leave, time to face traffic and take care of business, part of me didn’t want to go.

But of course I had to. These places are only pleasant to hang out in when you have the option of leaving. I didn’t have to eat their food, follow their schedule, or wait an hour for help going to the bathroom. I could walk out on my two strong legs whenever I wanted to. That’s the difference. For the residents, it’s a pretty prison which is eating up their life savings.

Nursing homes are a business where they charge a fortune and often give less than wonderful care. We can only hope our loved ones end up in the good ones. But sometimes since Dad went home, I find myself missing those people and those places where I could just sit and be. Also, I miss the Somerset dog, a white fur ball named Sonny.

When it’s my turn to move in, I hope I can be one of the ones who accept it with grace and smiles. I hope I still have enough working brain cells to make the best of it.

Just Give Me a Plate of Hash and Eggs

[image error]I seem to be a food peasant. A plebeian. Totally lacking in culture, even if do have a master’s degree.

I splurged on a slightly expensive hotel on my way to California two weeks ago. It was about a thousand degrees out, and I was exhausted from planning, packing and driving all day. I dreaded what lay ahead in San Jose, and hell, I deserved it. Too beat to leave the building, I ate dinner in the adjoining restaurant. Mostly I just wanted cold air and a cold drink.

A hostess dressed in a silky black dress and wearing far too much makeup for off-stage led me to a small table against the far wall, one of those places they put people who dare to come in alone wearing faded jeans and a T-shirt promoting a literary magazine.

A waiter dressed in black and packing a snooty attitude handed me the menu. Holy smokes. All the entrees cost at least $20, nothing included. And there was nothing ordinary. All chipotle this and cream sauce that. As I pondered, a different black-suited waiter brought me a basket of cold French bread, a tiny bowl of ground nuts, and a plate on which he poured olive oil and a swirl of balsamic vinegar. How are you supposed to apply them to the bread? Where’s the butter? Yes, I’m a peasant. The oil made my lips feel greasy.

A couple specials were written on a blackboard in chalk. I couldn’t read them. Glare, plus half the words were in French.

When a third black-suited waiter arrived to take my order, I asked him to tell me about the specials, and I chose the steak and linguine after asking, “How much?” $22. Fine. It came with steak slices carefully arranged in a half circle, the odd-tasting sauce decorated with peppercorns, bits of red bell pepper and flakes of aioli cheese. Laid across the plate was the big spoon in which I was supposed to swirl my noodles, something I never do at home.

Folks at the next table were all dressed up and raving about the food. I savored the memory of the hamburger I had eaten for lunch at the Apple Peddler in Sutherlin, Oregon.

I hate to admit it, but on the road I usually seek out the familiar chain restaurants: Denny’s, Apple Peddler, IHOP, Black Bear Diner, Elmer’s. I already know what they have and know I can read, write or stare into space and not feel out of place. Plus when you order pasta, you get a salad, too, even off the senior menu. Sometimes you even get dessert.

Maybe it’s how I was raised. Mom was not an adventurous cook. Slab of meat, potatoes, canned veggies, white bread. We went out to eat at the Burger Pit or got takeout raviolis from Pianto’s. I never tasted any kind of Asian food until I was in high school. A lot of foods—Swiss chard comes to mind—I never saw until I got married. Heck, I had never used a salad bowl. Kabobs? Tofu? Quinoa? Are you kidding? Homemade bread? Why? And booze? At our house, it was canned beer, screw-top wine or highballs, and only for special occasions.

As an adult, I like to create with food. I make some weird salads and Boboli pizzas and freely adapt recipes. But apparently, I’m not as sophisticated as I thought.

At the fancy restaurant in Redding—Redding, off I-5, where the locals still wear cowboy hats—you can watch the flames as a chef deglazes a pan with his favorite liqueur. You can order almond-encrusted halibut with apricot horseradish, pan finished pork tenderloin—free range, of course—with creamed pan jus, apple burrata crème fraiche and fresh sage, or pulled chicken with smoked gouda, carmelized bacon and onion jam on artisan bread. They’ve got peach bourbon bread pudding for dessert.

Can I just get a turkey sandwich on whole wheat with lots of mayonnaise and a scoop of vanilla ice cream?

Sigh. I have such a plebeian palate. On the way back to Oregon, I stopped at my usual place in Yreka, a little cheaper, best bed ever, and across the street from Poor George’s. The lone aproned waitress, limping with a broken toe, served me hash and eggs and biscuits and gravy–$11—and told me the saga of her pit bull who ran away and just came home. She even showed me the dog’s picture on her phone. That’s my kind of restaurant.

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For those following the Dad saga, I helped my father move home from the nursing home and hired a homecare agency to help him with meals, cleaning, errands and such. So far, he’s not getting along very well with his caregiver, but he’s happy to be back in his own house, walking very carefully with his walker.

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Text copyright Sue Fagalde Lick 2017

Photo Copyright: markstout / 123RF Stock Photo