****

Ten Things About Me

A little while ago I was tagged by a few bloggers to write 10 Things About Me. Thinking of ten separate things about me that you may not know is not easy. One or two I could do. But ten? Nevertheless, I’m giving it a go. So here are ten things about me.

1. When I was young I was very agile and very fast. I don’t think Todd believes me when I say that, but it’s true. When I was in kindergarten I was playing a type of tag with a bunch of kids. The side of the cafeteria was Home and if you made it there without getting tagged you were safe. So I ran for that brick wall as fast as I could – which, as I’ve already told you, was pretty darned fast. I looked behind me to see where the closest “it” was and when I turned back to the wall, there it was. I ran full speed into it. Knocked me clean out. Once the goose egg on my forehead stopped growing I looked like a Klingon. I still have a tiny bump from that little adventure.

2. I have a floater in my head. Not a floater as in, “Ew! You backwashed and now there’s a floater in my soda!” A floater as in I-ran-into-a-brick-wall-when-I-was-five-and-most-likely-chipped-a-tiny-fleck-of-skull-that-has-been-floating-around-my-head-all-these-years-and-likes-to-rest-on-my-ear-drum. What’s fun about this little guy is that it causes a sort of vertigo. Nothing dangerous. Just when I lean my head to the left I get a little dizzy. And I like it. It’s fun. Kind of like a big dip on a roller coaster. Every night when I get into bed I say, “Whoo!” and throw my hands up into the air as everything spins around me. Good times.

3. I was born three months after the Watt’s Riots in the same general area. I suppose that’s not really very exciting since the riots were over by then. But what is exciting is that my pediatrician was the same pediatrician that some of the L.A. Lakers used, one of which was Jerry West. We know this because my mother saw him at the doctor’s office. Frankly, I don’t remember. I realize there’s no connection between the Watt’s Riots and L.A. Lakers, but my birth and infancy seem to run together so it’s all related to me.

4. When I was about 14 or so I nearly had my face split open in a surfing accident. What little bit of pride I have is telling me I should stop my story right here and let you use your imaginations. I’m sure whatever you can think up will be better than the truth. But the truth of the matter is it happened in my friend’s pool. She and another friend were trying to climb on her brother’s surfboard. I had my back to them and happened to turn around just as they both fell off the back, causing the surfboard to shoot straight at me. Thankfully I saw it and quickly leaned back into the water. The tip of the board just grazed my eyebrow, causing a totally gnarly black eye, dude.

5. My Mother-In-Law gave me a job at the law office she worked at when I was in college. The two attorneys in the office were less than human, but I enjoyed the job and MIL taught me a lot. Because of that I went into paralegal studies and ended up working as a Legal Secretary/Legal Assistant for eleven years until I quit work to nag my children full time. The last law office I worked at was the large law firm Bill Clinton partnered at before he became the governor of Arkansas*.

6. While most children my age were singing things like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Jack and Jill, I was singing Hey Jude. It was the first song I ever sang.

7. I still have the tonette I received in my 6th grade music class at school. I drive Todd crazy by following him around the house saying, “give me a song,” and then attempting to play it. Either that or “Name That Tune.” Periodically over the last 19 years the little flute has mysteriously vanished, only to be found by me in the oddest of places. Poor Todd. There’s no escaping me.

8. I have an older cousin who was a stunt girl. She did a lot of movies with Burt Reynolds and was Cheryl Ladd’s double in Charlie’s Angels, just to name two of her many credits. At that time I had a friend with a huge crush on Shawn Cassidy (I was a Parker Stevenson kind of gal, myself). So I told her I was sure my cousin could get a small token from him. That was a total lie because I never even talked to my cousin. But anyway, I took some of my sun bleached hair out of my head, taped it to a Tiger Beat poster, scratched a signature and gave it to my friend. She was so excited that I couldn’t keep up the lie. After about two minutes of her screaming I fessed up. I think that cold dose of reality was a favor to her. She went on to be a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.

9. In high school my friend, Cindy, and I used to go roller skating at the beach nearly every day after school. We went from Torrance Beach, down to the Hermosa Beach Pier and back again – probably around 8 miles round trip. Any wonder I didn’t have a weight problem at that time?? On one of our trips there was a volleyball game going on at the Hermosa Pier. Wilt Chamberlain was one of the players. He always looked big on television, but in person the guy was huge. Huger than huge! Enormous! Cindy is 6’2” without her skates, but she was a petite little thing next to him.

10. When I was a senior in high school several of my friends and I went to Pasadena on New Year’s Eve. We had lawn chairs, sleeping bags and coolers full of sodas and food and set up camp on the Rose Parade route. We had marshmallow wars with the cars cruising the boulevard and played silly games like charades and I think maybe even Duck, Duck, Goose. We got to see all the floats the next morning, but we were too far back on the route to see the bands. It was fun and a great experience, but not one I was willing to do again. I enjoyed sitting in the stands with my parents when I was younger much more.

* Please do not read as support for Bill Clinton. I’ve had issues with the man long before he was president that have nothing to do with politics.

1. Seven years ago today I woke up with butterflies in my belly because of what the day held for me.

2. Seven years ago today the surgical waiting room at Baptist Hospital in Little Rock was overrun with people praying for me, laughing and telling lies exaggerated stories about me and eating my peanut M&Ms.

3. Seven years ago today I sang “I Want To Be Sedated” as the attendant and nurse wheeled me into surgery.

4. Seven years ago today a cancerous mass, my left breast and several lymph nodes were removed from my body.

5. Seven years ago today somebody stole the breast cancer awareness car magnet from my van in the hospital parking lot.

6. Seven years ago today I began an unwelcomed journey, but one in which I learned a lot along the way.

7. Seven years ago today I decided I would not be bested by something as evil as cancer.

It may not be a perfect list, but I sure do love being able to say I’ve been cancer free for seven years.

Crossposted at Mothers With Cancer

A Star Is Born: Katie Performs

New York, New York, It’s A Wonderful Town: Catching Up In The Big City

 Back To Only One Teenager: Taylor turns 20

When The Right Thing Is The Hard Thing: Parenting Parents

Pretty Pictures: A Photo Journal of Katie’s Prom

Ingtrigued??

I leave you with this little anecdote. We DVRed Castle last night and Katie and I just watched it. Richard Castle + Kate Beckett + a zombie apocalypse = outstanding entertainment. Previews for the season finale came on after the show and Castle tells Beckett he loves her! YES, HE DOES! We watched it twice and we didn’t delete the episode so we can watch it again and again.

“Why in the world must you go to bed so early on a Friday night, Jenster?”

I’ll tell you why. Because tomorrow morning I’m waking up early, grabbing my iPod with a new Favorites playlist and Precious (my camera for you newbies), and heading for the Big Apple.

“Why are you going to New York City, Jenster?”

Because my very first bestest friend ever is going to be there. But wait! There’s more! Her sister and brothers are going to be there as well!

Cindy lived around the corner and down the street and we grew up together from preschool until we went our separate ways as adults – she to Canada and me to Arkansas.

I’ve been trying to remember the last time I saw her and I’m pretty sure it was when Katie was about 14 months old. That would be 16 years ago! So imagine my excitement when I found out that she and Diane and Rob and Greg were going to be a mere 3 hours away!

I can hardly wait to see them! So excuse me while I go get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s road trip and adventure. Pictures to follow…

Ever since New Mexico I’ve been like the Running Man and haven’t slowed down long enough to gather myself. First it was preparing for the women’s retreat and then it was a staff function and then I was speaking for a MOPS group and then it was a Kids’ Camp meeting, which means it’s time to work on the script, and Katie has a recital tomorrow night and then prom is on Saturday and then…

I keep thinking after that last thing I can stop and ponder what I want to ponder, but there’s always something else. Always. A need to ponder things that aren’t what I want to ponder. Misponderization, if you will.

Suffice it to say that I have a bajillion and one blog posts rolling around in my noggin, but no time to capture just one and do something with it.

Someday, though…

one gracious blessing after another.

John 1:16

This Palm Sunday morning is a quiet one for me. My dad is sleeping peacefully in his chair, good old Southern Hymns are playing quietly on the CD player and the rest of the family has gone to church. My brother-in-law ministers two churches so this afternoon I’ll drive up to Durango with him and attend the afternoon service. I’m looking forward to visiting with Gary on the trip (maybe we’ll talk about Michele since she won’t be there to defend herself) and also attending the Durango church.

But this morning I’m having my own private service. There is still a lot of uncertainty as to what the future of this family holds, but this past week has been one blessing after another. I know and I trust God to be “an ever present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1) and he’s proved himself in this way time and time again, and yet I’m always awed by the abundance of his tender love and mercy.

God is good, all the time.

All the time, God is good.

But take heart! I have overcome the world!

John 16:33b

A few months ago Todd purchased a roundtrip ticket from Philly to Durango so I could come visit my parents, sister and brother-in-law in Farmington, New Mexico. My other sister decided to drive out from Fort Worth so we could all hang out together. What was supposed to originally be a pleasant family visit turned into something else. A few nights before I was to fly in, my father fell in the parking lot outside my folks’ apartment, knocking himself out and requiring an ambulance ride to the hospital. Apparently this 85-year-old man is made of steel because he only required three staples in his head. No broken bones, no cracked skull… just a few scabs and an insanely large bruise from the top of his left hip down to nearly his knee.

The problem is that Dad has lost a lot of mobility over the last several years and, while he was doing really well before the fall, this accident set him back quite a ways. Another problem is that he has moderate dementia. Sometimes he’s lucid, sometimes he’s not and then other times he hallucinates. It might be Alzheimers or it might just be regular, plain old dementia. Alzheimers is very difficult to diagnose without an autopsy but the symptoms are very similar. So I say dementia/alzheimers – tomato/tomahto.

A third problem is that my mother, though a sharp and spry 79-year-old, is also only 4’8″ (I won’t mention the inch she says she’s lost as she’s gotten older). Caring for him 24/7 has taken its toll physically, mentally and emotionally and she just can’t do it anymore. At least not without some respite.

Some would call it luck, others coincidence, but my sisters and I know without a shadow of a doubt that Terri and I weren’t scheduled to be here at this exact time by happenstance. We’ve been able to help my mother with the physical aspect of caring for my father and, together with my local sister, Michele, have been able to get some practicalities taken care of. We’ve seen an attorney about how best to protect Mom’s assets and met with Dad’s doctor about what he needs at the moment.

Dr. Burns would have liked him to go to a rehabilitation facility, but that would have required a three night stay in the hospital before Medicare would pay for it. Unfortunately (or so we thought) the hospital only kept him for one night and we didn’t know the 3 midnights rule at that time.

But God, in his infinite wisdom, had this all figured out. Tuesday a hospital bed was delivered to Gary and Michele’s house and yesterday we moved Dad in. I’m not entirely sure when it’s going to start, but Dr. Burns prescribed physical therapy and a few other skilled nursing services and Dad will receive these services at my sister’s house.

He’s already doing much better physically than he was even a week ago and our hope is that, at a minimum, he will get back to the same level of mobility he was at before the fall.

This move and therapy and whatnot is what I think of as Phase I in Dad’s care. What Phase II is we don’t quite know yet. It will depend on how well he does with therapy and how quickly or slowly his dementia progresses and, well, a whole host of factors. Not to get all Scarlet on you, but I’ll think about that tomorrow.

I can’t write about this without bragging on my friends for a moment. I’ve had close to a bajillion people praying for my family the past week. Or maybe only a bunch. I’m not too good at math. Anyway, I have felt the power of those prayers on a daily, sometimes hourly basis.

When Todd and I went through the Great Cancer Debacle of ’05, God provided this precious pearl of wisdom: Pray for joy and laughter. Regardless of your circumstance, pray for joy and laughter. So at some point while requesting prayers I prayed for wisdom and courage, but also for joy and laughter. God has provided in abundance.

Please understand this has been an emotional week full of tears and anxieties and anger and unacceptance and, well, you get the idea. BUT it has also been a week full of happy reminiscences, delight in being together, pride in our ability to do what we need to do and, my absolute favorite of all, laughter.

Let me just give you a small idea of what’s gone on around here. For those of you who know my dad you’ll easily see Earl in these examples.

Terri, Mom and myself were watching a program on bullying. My father said something to my mom and she said, “It’s a show on bullying.” I was sitting in front of him and he said:

“I’m being bullied by a bunch of girls.”

********

I got up with the intention of: 1- going to the bathroom; 2- eating breakfast; and 3- brushing my teeth. Instead I went to the bathroom and then brushed my teeth. It wasn’t until I walked out of the bathroom that I remembered my original plan. I looked at my dad, smacked my head and said, “I’m losing my mind, Daddy!” He said, “Join the club.”

********

Mom and Dad were watching the Gaithers and Sue Dodge was on. My parents kind of know her and Dad was trying to tell Terri and me that her husband was “that Baptist pastor.” But what came out was “that bastard pastor.” Extreme hilarity ensued.

*****

Mom: Do you want vanilla ice cream?

Dad: Yes. And I would like butterscotch on it.

Mom: We only have chocolate syrup.

Dad: Well what I really want is chocolate on my ice cream.

****

After helping Mom give Dad a shower, getting him dressed and then out to his chair, he fell into it with a big sigh. I asked how he was.

Dad: I’m turd. Tired!

Me: Did you say you’re a turd?

Dad: (smiling) You noticed how fast I changed that.

******

Mom: (to Dad) You can go pee and then we’ll get your jammies on and after that you can go to bed and sleep alllllll night.

Dad: (dryly) Optimist.

******

Mom: (to Dad) Relax.

Me & Terri: Relax! Don’t do it!…

Mom: (to Dad) Your girls are silly.

Dad: My girls were good girls while they lived at home.

He will once again fill your mouth with laughter

and your lips with shouts of joy.

Job 8:21

]]> http://jenstersmusings.com/2012/03/29/life-and-other-troubles/feed/ 12 Jenster http://jenstersmusings.com/2012/03/17/setting-the-irish-record-straight/ http://jenstersmusings.com/2012/03/17/setting-the-irish-record-straight/#comments Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:29:32 +0000 Jenster http://jenstersmusings.com/?p=3216 Continue reading →]]>

Seeing as how it IS St. Patrick’s Day and I am known for my abundance of completely useless knowledge I thought I’d throw them together.

So you know how we’re supposed to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate our Irish heritage whether we actually have any or not? Well, the reality is we should only wear green if we’re Catholic. Protestants should wear orange.

The history of the Irish flag goes a little something like this: The orange represents Northern Irish Protestants and signifies when William of Orange (King William, III) defeted and deposed the Roman Catholic King James, II near Dublin, securing Prostestand dominance (1690). The green represents the Southern Irish Catholics and the republican cause – possibly because of the lush southern landscapes, but more likely because green represents revolution. And the white represents a hopeful truce between the two.

Now, seeing as how I come from good Scottish come Irish Presbyterian roots, albeit grafted here and there over the last 300 years, I should be wearing orange. But honestly, orange is a hideous color on me. I’m much better suited to a minty green or heathery sage.

As Todd would say, BAM! I just dropped some knowledge on you!

Aren’t you glad you asked?

I have a full plate today, but thought I might throw a few words up on the page while I have a minute or two. Taylor came home for spring break last Saturday. It’s been an enjoyable visit. I even took Wednesday off just so I could hang out with him for a bit. It was a glorious day and he and I went on a walkabout on one of our local trails. It was a beautiful walk and we just chatted and chatted and before we realized it, we’d been walking nearly an hour. One way. Which meant we had to walk back that same distance. All said and done we were on the trail about an hour and a half and our round trip mileage was somewhere between 8 and 9 miles. THAT translated into 7 Weight Watchers activities points so I had pie that night! All around great day.

Yesterday he drove about 2 hours to Carlilse where he met up with his girlfriend, Shelby, and her grandmother. She lives in Pittsburg and is spending the rest of the break with us. Shelby. Not her grandmother. Todd and I spent an enjoyable morning with them, getting to know Shelby a little better and drinking coffee. Not in that order.

Today they’ve gone into Philadelphia and tomorrow they’ll head back down to Lynchburg. And then Sunday I’ll be wishing it was closer to Easter so we could go down there and see him again.

Speaking of Weight Watchers activities points and all that, I am continuing to go down. Slowly, but surely, and that will work for me. I even pulled a pair of pants out of the back of the closet this morning just to see if they might almost fit. Guess what! They fit!! Perfectly!! Except they’re too short. But I’m okay with that. With spring trying to spring I now have a new/old pair of crop jeans!

On a sad note, my mother’s brother, better known to me and my sisters as Uncle Del, passed away earlier this week. He lived in Fresno with my Aunt Thea and I remember how excited I would get when they would come visit us in Southern California or when we would go visit them. They have two sons so Uncle Del was a bit protective of me and my sisters. The first time he met Todd he told him he couldn’t date me until I was 30 and asked if he had a problem with that. Todd probably said, “No, Sir” (with no intention of not dating me – smart man) and then we spent the evening playing Hearts with Del, Thea and my parents. Much laughter ensued. Of course, Uncle Del kept up the no dating thing throughout.

Here’s a picture that his grandson, Brian, scanned and posted on my Facebook Wall. It was taken in 2004 on a family get together in Durango, Colorado, which was the last time I saw Uncle Del. It’s now one of my favorite pictures. The man with the beard is my dad and the other man is Uncle Del. Brothers-in-law for nearly 59 years and two of my most favorite men. Don’t they both just say “huggable”?

As sad as it is to lose someone you love, I’m thankful he is at peace and breathing easy now. I also know I’ll catch up with him some day. Maybe we’ll play a rousing game of Hearts for old time’s sake. I would take this a step further and say maybe Jesus would play, too, but I think he probably has an unfair advantage. You know, being the Christ and all.