Well, we hauled ourselves back up to Iowa because today is the Celebration of My Dad’s Life. That’s sort of what I dubbed it early on & it’s stuck. Basically, 40 people at the house, appetizers & drinks, and two hours of who knows what. People like funerals because they’re scripted, often have a set formula they follow, and they are a ritual, have order. Since my dad didn’t want a funeral, but instead a party, we are all busying ourselves with getting the house ready, making food & avoiding thinking about what anyone might expect or be wanting when they get here. No speeches, that’s for sure. I can already feel myself shrinking & wanting to stay upstairs away from everyone, which is not an option, of course.

Last night, we had birthday cake (for me!) and I cried later as well. I’d heard from many people all the “firsts” you have after someone you love dies; it hit me hard last night, first birthday without dad. Grief manages to get in all the sucker punches, huh.

Brenda got out some old photos and envelopes, and I was fine until I saw the photo of my great-grandma Hattie, I know I’ve referenced her here before, and I burst into tears. There were a couple of her letters in the mix as well, peppered with admonishments, advice, updates on her life, and always a complaint about the price of gas or fuel oil. What a gem. Reading her letters made me smile, and dry my tears. It’s how we live on in the hearts of others, I suppose, that determines your legacy. I know my father touched so many lives, and today is about allowing everyone who loved him to celebrate their own memories, their relationship with him. No script, no formula. It’s how he lived his life.

Well, thanks again to everyone for the b’day wishes, emails, and general good vibes & karma that were sent my way. I’m pre-publishing because I just uploaded a few pictures, and I absolutely adore this one of Miss Suzy. Even though I was lying on the floor with her, it’s the same look I see just as she nuzzles up under my chin to give me a snuffly small lick each night. (Opposed to Polly, who tries to exfoliate every inch she can lick.) A magnificent guardian, her growl would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, but in the end, a gentle giant of a lab-chessie mix. Love & affection surrounds me, both from humans and canines, and I am basking in it. Thank you, friends.

I always think of birthdays (even more so than New Year’s) as a fresh start.

Looking over my shoulder at the last month, I think it’s an understatement to say there’s nothing more necessary right now than a start so fresh, daisies grow out its butt.

And that’s just a Hallmark image for ya, huh? Well, it’s my birthday. We’d always hold back some sparklers from the 4th for me to light & burn my hands with on my birthday as well. I can still smell ’em. Did I ever tell you about the time I thought it would be smashing to put sparklers, instead of candles, on a birthday cake for a guy I dated (briefly) in college? Yeah. That’s not advisable. It sets off smoke alarms….. Just an FYI.

I have no interest, ever, in being shot into outer space. The very notion makes me claustrophobic. Not even if you sent a monkey or a dog with me.

Criminals are uber-stupid. UBER. If I could put the umlaut on that word in Blogger, I would.

Private investigators are tres cool. I can’t put the accent mark on that one, either.

When you go to Detroit for a five-day backgammon tournament, you come home and use the qualifiers “uber” and “tres” a lot. We’re still researching why.

When JWo is home, the dogs stop barking at everything.

I have started being able to sleep. In fact, just took a three-hour nap.

I keep discovering things they’ve taken. That part really sucks.

I read the Wikipedia summaries about the Book of Job. Because last weekend, I kept thinking, “Huh. This is starting to feel a little like I should maybe change my name?”

As a kid, I read the play “JB”, by Archibald Macleish, a hundred times; it is a modern-day parable of Job, and how he cries out for God, even on his dung heap. Thankfully, I haven’t a dung heap. Or boils. But if the locusts come? I have a big flyswatter, and I’m ready.

I am blessed with wonderful friends and family. Blessed. And grateful.

I turn 38 in two days. I feel like the month of June aged me, rapidly, but I don’t mind. It won’t always be this hard. And, as I said just a couple short months ago, in answer to the question, “Will you be ok?”: “I don’t have a choice.” Of course we have choices, we choose our paths, and while I’m prone to falling down and tripping, I am always and forever going to choose the path through, towards the sunshine and stars, towards the voices of friends, a black dog at my side, knitting in a bag, and whether it’s today, tomorrow, next year or seventeen years from now, I will always be ok. The reason I bring up all this Job stuff is not that I believe my life is a parallel, for it has not been destroyed, but to show we have the choice, to have faith that life will get better, rather than allow ourselves to become mired in sorrow and anger and bitterness. The subconcious of my mind brings it to the top, because even though it’s been 20+ years since I read that play, the lesson remains.

But I still want to punch the burglars in the nose. Hard. Actually? I decided putting cosmetic lip plumper? Like “Lip Venom”? On all areas where there’s sensitive skin? Would be a really satisfying revenge.

And then after all their skin’s drenched in Lip Venom, we’ll put ’em in a space suit & shoot them into outer space. With monkeys. And locusts.

In the wake of the burglary, I’ve had a houseguest each night, in addition to both dogs sleeping in the bedroom. Sadly, not one night was spent doing hair, makeup or nails. However, last night, my friend Jimmi & I got caught up on the Grey’s Anatomy finale, still on the DVR that was NOT stolen, and while it was good, it was oh, you know, a frickin’ knife through my heart. The heart patient dude dies, the resident who loves him stays on his bed curled up with him, just like Brenda did with my dad after he died, one of the other residents carried her off the bed, just like her oldest son did to her – and let’s just leave the trip down memory lane at that. I snuffled. But I didn’t fall apart, because right now, the last thing I can do is fall apart.

James gets home today (he has been in Detroit for five days) and I expect I’ll fall apart then. I will at least start getting more than 5 hours of sleep. Then, the alarming of the home commences. Outdoor siren is a GO! I wonder if there’s an extra service charge to get dudes rapelling from a helicopter & ninja ass-kicking would-be thieves. I was hoping for some sort of Raiders of the Lost Ark booby-trap, like a thousand nail guns firing if a trigger gets tripped, or a giant net falling from the ceiling and releasing a million fire ants on the trapped pigfuckers. Perhaps I’ll need to form my own security company to install those measures. Evil suggestions are welcome.

I’m feeling a little like George Costanza’s dad, walking around & shouting angrily “Serenity NOW!”

On the other hand, I feel a strange sense of calm. There are only so many things worth valuing and wringing your hands over, and all of them are still here. Of course, except my father, but I also recognize reality.

We are going to turn the abode into one level below Fort Knox, and I’m still debating on the outdoor siren. For whatever reason (probably the same reason I love me a megaphone), it speaks to me. I guess it comes down to whether I want my neighbors to speak to me after the first false alarm?

The dogs are maintaining the front lines, and Suzy especially is not having any time for the security people coming in with their quotes. This morning was especially eyebrow-raising, just how pissed she was. I have to admit, I love it. They did this last time I had a scare, picked up on my anxiety & stepped up their own guard-dog levels. They follow me everywhere and it’s a great feeling. Polly might try to lick someone to death, but I have complete faith that Suzy would take someone’s arm or face right off. Reconstructive surgery: a bitch.

My task at hand is to have some serenity, and to enjoy as much as I can, the time off. So, if you’re in the metro area and you see a round red-head marching about in her off-road crocs, muttering SERENITY NOW! hey – just say hi, I’ll tell you my life story, I did it to a stranger at Target yesterday, and we’ll have good times. Just keep your hands away from Suzy.

That’s a camera-phone shot of the interior of the safe at the bank. I’ve never done the whole safety-deposit box thing, and it’s always had mystery and intrigue around it. It was on my list of things to do today, but instead I started out my day closing accounts, opening new ones, blah blah blah. Then I did the safe thing.

We were burglarized yesterday, and while some fucknuts are out there pawning all our shit, I’m spending time out of my life cleaning up the wreckage. At least good friends came over and cleaned up that wreckage, because these people went through EVERYthing and dumped them out on the floor. It sucks getting burgled. I know, you thought it would be fun, right? All the electronics (my precious big tv!), all the PS2 games, all of it just one big vacant hole in the living room. Then my computer, all the electronics upstairs – ugh. It just is one big list to turn in to the insurance company at this point. For, if we were going to reflect on the month of June and all her evil fucking lessons, we know that this, while an invasion and a cause for angst, is just stuff. Stuff can be replaced, forgotten about, paid for and rebought. Stuff that can be made more secure (and oh yes, it will, I’m going to have an alarm system that will make the dogs belly crawl around the house). And our dogs were padlocked in their kennel, and oh-so-thankfully not hurt or stolen. We might have avoided the break-in had they been in the house? But it could have been worse, too. So I’m trying not to spend all my time running down dead-end thought roads that will only make me more tired than I already am, and just focus on having some normal life stuff this weekend.

I could not be more grateful for the friendships, the work that was done, the help and support that was offered up, yet again, on my behalf. I started crying last night, in front of four people, which for me is already really pushing my limits, and I told them that I’ve spent most of my life fighting any need to rely on other people, avoiding asking for things, not wanting to lean too hard, and I guess what I’m getting right now is a huge lesson in humility, to accept the kindness and love and help and friendship and to not give it back in equal or greater amounts right now, and realizing that it is, after all, ok. My father was a proud man, and he never wanted to be beholden to anyone, he never had debt of any kind – monetary or otherwise, and he always made sure he gave more than he received. I learned a lot of my value system from him; it explains my extreme discomfort and awe at the outpouring I have received. May it come back to everyone tenfold, for I am just one person. Without a lot of stuff, energy, or strength right now.

Hour 8.

I expect by 5:00 I’ll be feeling this way on the inside:

Good news for my knit night buds! Tonight’s fun is hosted by PREDATOR. Mind you don’t lose a hand or a nose and for god’s sake, don’t come between this woman and her food.

Yeah, I had a great big post about the horrors of being awake at 4 a.m., and then my computer froze up, further reinforcing the horror, and then Li’l P decided to explore the entire neighborhood when I let the dogs out, so I stomped around for half an hour, until I spotted her and dragged her home, which also reinforced the horror of early mornings, actually for both of us.

Let’s just try, in a quick recap, to gather the essential nuggets before my head blows off my body. I do not like early mornings, and now I’m mothertrucking wide awake. I also referenced a desire to buy the Time-Life Superstars of the 80’s CD set, because Huey Lewis was telling me how awesome it was, and I also saw this commercial for fatherhood, because the only other commercials on that early are PSAs (for me and the dairy farmers). But that commercial was damn cute. There was another one about a woman who fought a company to get them to stop dumping in streams and their waste was causing cancer and she got the company shut down but it put half the town out of work and all the kids are sick with NO insurance now. The message payoff? Give blood (instead). WTF???? Give blood, and let the motherfucking polluters run rampant ’cause Lawd knows we’re better off having a job, insurance AND cancer than just cancer. Whatever truth may lie in that statement, doesn’t support the ad. And I still don’t like 4 a.m.

yours,
H.R.G.
(Her Royal Grumpiness)

That’s Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. Yes, he’s a stud.
But we have a new stud in our life, named Mike Rowe.

Star of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery channel. Holy Toledo, this is an awesome show!!!! We’ve been DVR-ing them and catching up on all his escapades. I have to say, the pig farm outside of Vegas that uses all the buffet leftovers & cooks the refuse into slop is still the worst one, ever. Though the cockroach-infested home comes a close second. I told JWo if that were my house, I would just burn the motherfucker to the ground and never look back. I’m still itching at the thought of all those hideous roaches, everywhere. And the funniest episode (so far) has to be the ostrich farm. I could not stop laughing at the ostriches & their changed behavior once their little heads got black hoods pulled over ’em. It was like all up-in-your-grill angry-could-kill-you-ostrich maneuvers and then whoosh, a little blindfolding and they’re all, Heeeeeeeey, duuude. Where ya wanna go? Like stoners smelling pizza.
Anyway, if you haven’t seen this show, and you work at a desk job, it’s good to remind you of all the other things out there that you could be doing and maybe wouldn’t want to – and you learn stuff, too. Plus there’s Mike. Funny, fast, and charmingly handsome. Sigh.

But I wouldn’t wanna do his laundry, that’s for sure.