Stories, Books and Life

September 2008--Nicholas Sparks. Got him for my birthday. A couple of his books anyway. It's been awhile since I read books--whole entire grown-up books--just for pleasure. I've read a lot of stuff I enjoy and found pleasure in, but not a lot of books just for the sheer joy of reading. I can't tell what Kevin is reading this month. The iTouch defies me.

Being Me...Or Not

Our cars became "Buckeyes" yesterday.

We purchased license plates for our cars. OHIO license plates. Front and back bumpers. We will now be publicly visible as visitors when we're "back home again in Indiana."

On the positive front, BMV workers in Ohio are not trained in that surly dog method of customer service popularized in Indiana BMV offices. The people here were not only accommodating and pleasant; they were helpful. They must have missed the inservice days required for Indiana BMV workers with topics like "Wiping the Smile Off a New Car Owner's Face," "Five Things You Can Do to Make a New Resident Sweat Blood" and "Welcome Schmelcome."

But, like most things post-9.11.01, getting Ohio license plates is a round robin of offices and fees. License office for vehicle inspection of VIN numbers. Clerk's office for title transfers. Back to License office for plates and registration. State police post to take driver's test for Ohio driver's license. Back to license office to actually GET driver's license.

And you have to prove everything. Being who you've been for nearly 50 years isn't enough. You have to prove it.

Turns out, I'm not me. Technically, I'm not married me, I am single me. It wasn't a total surprise. The IRS had let us know in the last year or so by rejecting filings with my married name. Now though, thanks to additional security measures post 9.11, my driver's license and the car I own solo have to be in my former, but still legal, name.

So I remain a card carrying Indiana driver. I'm going to fix my name with the Social Security office rather than affix my old name to my new life here in Ohio. The old convertible VW is ready to be tucked away for the winter so there's time to become legally me before it's plated again.

In the meantime, a friend points out that I am, for once, right in the middle of the current trend. I am an Undocumented Resident.

Soccer Season

Watching Joshua play soccer reinforces my total and utter bias as his grandmother. I am certain he is the most skilled, most team oriented and best looking kid on the field.

I'm his grandmother; it's what I do.

His team this season is the MetroStars in the under 8 league. I worked on elevating my status as a "cool" granny by creating a team graphic and ironing it onto a t-shirt for him.

It's ridiculously gratifying to have this 6 year old boy think I hung the moon. Just for him.

We can't make all of his soccer games. We can't even make it to most of them. But I don't think he's going to remember what we missed. I think he'll remember when we were on the sidelines cheering, the photos I took and the "way cool" t-shirts.

MOG

Mass on the Grass at St. Tom's. The ages old tradition of officially welcoming the return of Purdue's student parishioners with an outdoor Mass on the mall lawn at Purdue.

Rose brought Hannah, Andrea and Evan over to sit with us. We chatted with Patrick, Zelda and Charlotte afterwards.

I sat there this evening looking over the crowd, a mix of students and resident parishioners, and marveled at the diversity of the group. A young couple caught my eye as they wove their way through the groups sitting on the lawn. They looked like they had been plucked right out of a campus photo from the late 60's or early 70's. Long hair on him. An ankle skimming gown and band circling her head for her.

"THIS is what I love about the campus--it takes all kinds," I thought to myself.

Then I looked a little more closely at the couple.

"Oh! That's OUR kind" popped into my mind as Kate and James joined us!

It was nice to have them with us for Mass. A late summer evening outside. Friends and family gathered around. The wonder of the Mass.

How blessed we have been.

Kevin's now evicted cancer and I had another conversation today. We used to talk on a regular basis, Cancer and I. Not so much anymore though. It was a relationship I was more than willing to shelve at the conclusion of Kev's chemotherapy. I suppose the three of us, Kevin, Cancer and Lorri are forever connected at this point but Kevin and I see it more from a bad neighbor gone away viewpoint.

I had it in my mind that Cancer and Lorri weren't going to dialogue again until at least sometime in October when Kevin is due for a check-up and follow-up PET. And my plans had our future conversations being one sided affairs where I reminded Cancer that the big guns are all on our side. Sort of a mental raspberry blown in Cancer's direction.

So much for planning.

I had another appointment with my shiney new doctor today and she re-introduced the arch-enemy, Cancer. It's just a suggestion at this point, a concern, a worry. A possibility on the list of possibilities we are slowly eliminating.

Apparently she doesn't understand the rule about not saying the word lest you summon the demon.

So I have more lab tests, another ultrasound, another type of biospy, a hysteroscopy and D & C. THEN we decided what we're going to actually do to fix things.

All proof that the world is run by insurance companies. Only an insurance company could rationalize an approach where we spend twice as much money on a handful of relatively useless things to get to the point of spending money on what's actually going to tell us something.

And work down a list where the tests and results get exponentially crappier.

On the plus side, in my ever assbackward optimism, I'm not particularly worried. It is whatever it is. The last year with Kevin has taken the edge off that bit of panic.

Live the Moment

The doe and fawns were at the feeders this morning.

I slipped quietly into a chair on the patio, thought briefly about retrieving my camera from inside and decided against it.

A fawn wandered cautiously up the hill. He was curious about the drips from planters watered earlier in the morning.

He stepped closer and sniffed my feet, my legs, my hands. Our eyes met, nearly nose to nose.

For a fleeting moment I thought about my camera just steps away in the house.

In the end, I missed the shot. But without the camera between us, I lived the moment.

I wonder, how many times do I look at life through a lens that keeps me from living the moment?

Long Weekend

Joshua, Paige and Rob came over for the holiday weekend.

Saturday we ate lunch outside at a tavern in Covington and checked out a few of the shops. They walked across the Purple People Bridge and explored the levee area.

Sunday we visited the Renaissance Festival. Kevin and I liked the costumed participants and the music. Josh liked the jousting knights and, particularly, the broken piece of jousting stick he had autographed by both knights.

Monday we went to the zoo. Josh had fun showing Rob around one of our regular haunts although Josh wasn't willing to go into the aviary with us to feed the lorikeets. They headed back to Indiana from the zoo and we came home for a nap.