"Hi."

When Gary got his transfer to the Southern California branch of Heartland Industries in January 2003, I started scrambling to try to transfer as close as possible to finish out my last 4 years before early retirement age.
Gary was thrilled with his new branch.  Busy, problematic, challenging; it was perfect for him to become immersed in.   I worked hard on getting a transfer to the nearest locale of my company to southern California: Sunny Phoenix. I did eventually land a transfer to graphics in Phoenix and arrived in April '03.
For the next 4 years Gary and I commuted back and forth from Colton, CA to the house in N. Phoenix and then from my Phoenix studio apt to our house in Redlands.
Gary's friend and admin assistant, Liz was a constant support for Gary. Sister, Mother all rolled into one, Liz was Gary's right hand in all ways. She told me how Gary always told her he had to race home on Thursdays to clean if I was going to be coming from Phoenix for the weekend.
Gary and I fell into a pattern I devised.  I would fly or drive over for 3 weekends per month.  He would drive over 1 weekend a month and we would each stay put one weekend every other month.
Always, we would do something on Friday evenings; a late happy hour or just dinner, and most likely on Saturday morning and afternoon. Saying goodbye on Sunday afternoon was a bummer.
Of course the majority of our time was spent apart.  Yes, we could call each other during the day and we often did.  I got Gary's diagnosis(from Gary) of Parkinson's over the phone as I stood just outside my office in April, 2006.
No matter what the day had been like, we always called each other every evening.  Most of the time the call would occur when each of us was eating dinner.  Gary usually called me:  -ring ring-  I'd answer, "Hi" "Hi" the voice from California would say.  Sometimes I would be watching such an interesting episode of Dr Phil while eating my salad or soup, I wouldn't have much to say.  Neither would Gary, although I think he was watching Wheel of Fortune with equal abandon.
Good thing long distance is no longer cost prohibitive.  Our 'conversations' often ended with me saying, "Well..... I got nuthin'."  "OK then", California voice said.  "I love you"  "I love you too. Talk to you tomorrow. bye." "Yep. 'bye"

I have a philosophy about marriage.  I've voiced it to most of my coworkers so they've heard this before.
Marriage is about constantly changing phases. The two(unless you're in Utah) people in it are also in phases that most often are not the same place at the same time.
I feel a person falls in and out of love, even in a marriage.  Sometimes you can't stand the guy. Then at times you can't get enough of him.  Sometimes you don't want to be in the same room. Other times, you've missed him so much when he's been out of town that you can't wait to hear firsthand what he's been doing and where he's been and what he's seen. The phone call just isn't the same as hearing and seeing that person tell you himself.
Sometimes marriage is incredibly exciting, but often its a real yawner.
Sometimes you're married to the most interesting person in the world and other times you'd swear you live with your brother.  (Love you Leland!)
All the time though, there's this anchoring thing called commitment.  No matter what, you've got someone who is in your corner, one who won't give up on you or on US.

The last 11 years since Gary and I moved from Sioux Falls were the "Salad Days" of our marriage. Our weekends when we lived apart became very special and very FUN. 
When I did finally get to move back in with my husband, we were best friends, we did everything together.  Going to Target was FUN if we did it together. Going to Jack In The Box for a weekend breakfast or meeting him for lunch at Wendy's was a treat. But the ultimate adventure was going up through Tehachapi to Bakersfield to Porterville, over to Visalia, Hanford to Paso Robles. Once we stopped in Morro Bay overnight!  We would pass through Atascadero, San Luis Obispo, Pismo and come back down through Ventura, Santa Barbara, maybe Simi Valley and back through the Grapevine. 
Without anyone to answer to for our time, we traveled and got to see things we never knew were out there.
To drive along such beautiful highways together, the rolling green hills out one window and the sparkling ocean  out the other, was very special to both of us. Even though we didn't talk about it much at those times, we KNEW we were such lucky people!
Now when I am sad, these are the lost times I am sad for.

When Gary was so sick he could not leave the bedroom, I told him how much calling him had meant to me when I lived alone in Phoenix. I knew that I could call him day or night and some nights I did call him even though I knew he'd be sleeping.
I told Gary how much I loved being able to call him and that I would continue to call him every day even after he was gone.  He just smiled and said, "OK".

Now that he's gone and I had his cell phone disconnected,  I can't call Gary, BUT I do write to him every single night.  I have pages of 'conversations' I've shared with Gary, and I make sure to say more than just "Hi."


"I Love you"..................."Love you too".........................."Talk to you tomorrow."

YES!!!

Exciting things are happening at the casita de AZ.  Rich, my new best carpenter friend is refinishing the kitchen cabinets.  He is turning them from their fugly yellowed, no longer natural oak state into a dark espresso finish.  The new color next to the Dakota granite counter tops is stunning.  Rich is making our kitchen look rich!
I need Rich to stick around and build the deck floor for the pergola out back next.  I told him to just do it the simplest, cheapest way. Gary had in mind of doing it like a parquet look using short boards, but Rich's time is not free like Gary's so I need him to just go fast and get 'er done.  Rich comes to me by way of Seth, a Backyard Products builder who is working up in Sacramento now so Seth pretty much ditched me and foisted me onto Rich.  Rich is definitely a good guy though. He's originally from Valencia, CA and I'm glad I found him.

The other super exciting development  is....

Navajo Brown rock is being wheeled into the backyard as I write this!!  It is a thrilling moment indeed!  The fine powdery dust that seeps into the house via the screens and doors is finally being covered up.  I will be able to let Robbie go out to perform his daily ritual sun worshiping without having to beat his hide of dust and and wipe/brush him down before he is allowed inside.  Unbelievably, this house has never had any landscaping in the backyard in its 12 years of existence.  As usual, Gary and I chose a house where we are having to compensate for previous owners' lack of care and completeness.

I have the makings of an asian meditation garden in the backyard next to the pergola structure. Next step is to locate some Buddah figures and a pagoda or two to complete the look. I am going to make one of those rakes that you rake the little pea gravel into swirls and designs to symbolize the movement of water. Its a form of meditation.
Stepping stones, when I can afford them, then, a bridge and planting vegetables and herbs in the two garden spots will occur as soon as I get the soil prepped.  The cold weather crops are in the garden centers waiting to be purchased, but I have to buy chicken wire to keep the RABBITS >:o/  out.

I wish that Gary could see it.  He wouldn't say much probably, but would have been gratified that it is on its way to being a pleasant place to gaze out the window at, instead of the hot dry dusty dirt patch we kept the shades pulled on for so many months. Gary truly thought he would be the one to build the backyard structures and gardens.  He planned the watering system and had all the materials lined up.  His goals will be achieved by others but I know he would be happy with the results.

When Will I See You Again

 Please take a listen:

For me, this song is not just one of those where, upon listening to it,  you are put back into a place and time.
This song IS Me and Gary.
In 1974.
In his new Ford Explorer truck.
In the winter.


Gary rarely ever referenced songs, but this was playing on the radio one time when we were out and he said, "This song reminds me of you".  I asked why even though I knew.  He said, "Because you always ask me, 'When will I see you again?'"  I said, "That's because I don't think I see you enough."  He replied, "I see you as often as I can and it has to be enough." 
Gary wasn't one of those guys who would come get me every day.  For one thing, he didn't have the money to take me out somewhere every night.  Plus, he had to work every morning at 7am. Well, I did too, but I was more willing to give up sleep to see him at night.
I remember him leaving some nights really really late and I would hang onto him as he backed toward the door.  He would have had his coat on trying to leave for an hour. By the time he made it out to the truck, he'd have to scrape the windshield and warm it up so he could see out the windows to drive.

Come to think of it, I guess I must have just worn him down.  When Valentine's Day 1975 rolled around, he was asking me to put a budget together to see how feasible it would be to live together.  I believe he simply wanted to get some sleep and not have to take me home at 2am!

Gary's hankies

hand·ker·chief

[hang-ker-chif, -cheef]

noun 1.a small piece of linen, silk, or other fabric, usually square, and used especially for wiping one's nose, eyes, face, etc., or for decorative purposes.

 Who uses hankies anymore?  My mom does, of course.  But then, she doesn't leave the house without a hat on her head either...
Hankies are kind of old fashioned.  My grandpa used them, my dad used them, but the custom went by the wayside in the 60's I think.

Well, Gary did use hankies.  He always had one available to snort loudly into.  He carried a fresh one every day to work on his jobs in construction, the cabinetry business and in management.
In all these positions, he was a hands on kind of guy anyway, so he exposed his nose to stuff that irritated it and made it run.

Of course construction meant working outside in every kind of weather.  Your nose runs a lot.  You need to blow it.  What better than a hankie to whip out of your back pocket? Dust and dirt in the nose and face? Again, the hankie is what you want instead of wasting time hunting down a rough tiny paper kleenex.

Those hankies really came in handy when the boys were little.  More often dirty little faces left their mark on Gary's hankies than did his. Spit into a hankie, mop the mess up and your kid looks pretty presentable again. 

I used to carefully fold the hankies out of the dryer for him in the way he requested I do it.  Later, he did his own folding along with his underwear.  Soon he was just stuffing them unfolded into his pocket.  "They just get all wrinkled anyway" he'd say.  

Gary used hankies instead of kleenex by his bedside.  The last time I remember him asking me to get him  a clean one, I did. I handed it to him but I stayed thinking he would blow his nose and hand it back to me.  He asked me to leave because, he said as he turned his head and held the hankie close, "I want to be alone. I just have to cry".  I left.

I have most of Gary's hankies still.  Some of them became so thin you could see through them.  I tossed them.
The nicer, mostly cotton hankies I kept and I use them. There is nothing nicer than a soft white hankie to blow your nose into and soak up tears.   I have a hankie in just about every room now.  They are rumpled and in various states of dryness depending on how I feel and how often they are called into action.

I think about Gary when I use his hankies.  I smell them and I remember always being able to ask him, "Can I borrow your hankie?" and always having him dig one out of his pocket and hand it over to me.  I'm glad that Gary had this 'old fashioned' custom. I'm using one right now.                    

Hi Gary! Well, Hi Bill!

I've been told that my blog makes people sad.  I don't mean to intentionally write sad stuff, I do write what I'm feeling obviously.
Like Popeye says, "I yam what I yam".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I have been thinking about my dad a lot lately.  I'm sure its because of Gary's death. And the thought of them meeting up again is interesting to imagine.
My dad's name is Bill (William), but all us kids ever heard my mom call him was Bob because that's the nickname he lived under all his life from his family.  I guess it comes from his older sister not being able to say 'baby' clearly.  It came out more akin to 'Bobby', so Bob he was to his family.
Professionally he was Bill of course, and I am trying to think if I ever heard Gary address him as Bill or Bob.  We always said, "my dad", "your dad".
My dad liked Gary and Gary liked my dad a lot.  Gary never gushed over anyone by saying, "I LOVE that guy!"  Nope, the highest praise I ever heard him give another man was, "He's a pretty good guy".  My dad was a "pretty good guy" per Gary.
Lung cancer took my dad in '93.  I remember lying in bed in our house on Dudley Lane.  Neither Gary nor I were sleeping because it was the day that my dad's funeral had taken place.  I was crying and I said, "I realize now that the ONLY important thing in life is FAMILY".  Gary had tears running down his face too.  He said, "I know." and we just held hands and we cried for the loss of my dad and his father-in-law.

So I imagine Gary and my dad meeting up again after Gary makes it  through Peter's TSA security screeners. What a relief that he doesn't have all of those irritating implanted tubes, the port, or a metal cane to deal with for the x-ray anymore!

My dad sees Gary first:
Dad: Gary! Wow! Never thought I'd see you here so soon! Man, you were too young, but hey, you sure got a lot done while you were there!  Great to see you!
Gary: Hi Bill, so good to see you too-You are looking great!  I never expected to see you again and especially not this soon!
Dad: Damn that cancer, huh.
Gary: Damn is right! At least I didn't have to drag it out at the end.  The last day, I was soooo ready.
Dad: I know what you mean.  So many people here with that pancreatic cancer.  Its almost like they don't want to cure it down there.  Companies are making too much money off of the people!
Gary: Exactly. Marsha always said after it took you that she thought lung cancer was the ugliest cancer.  We both found out otherwise.
Dad: Sorry you had to leave Marsha down there so early.  I know its gonna be tough on her, but...
Gary: I agree, I felt so bad for her.  I used to cry for HER, not ME.  I really didn't want to leave her. We just didn't expect it to end so fast.
Dad: Well, your worries are over now.  You can rest assured Marsha and Darlene and everyone else will get along without us in the best way they know.  The other kids and your family; they'll all look out for each other.
Gary: You know, we found out months ago, how great they are.  My family has helped a lot and you have some great kids, Bill. Marsha and I are so grateful to have them.
Dad: Yep, I'm pretty happy with them at that! Those boys of yours sure did turn out great, huh! Sorry about Nathan, though... maybe he'll still come around.
Gary: I hope so, but I like told Marsha, You've gotta quit living in the past. Its gone and you can't do anything about it. Anyway, so what do you do here?
Dad: Whatever I'm told. But I gotta tell ya, I have a cherry position  God has a job for everyone, and you KNOW he's going to use your many skills, but you'll love it.  I get to sing.  I always loved to sing when I was in the Elks Men's Choir and I have a much better voice up here.  I also get to do what I do best: play practical jokes on the other firemen up here.  We have a competition on who gets the other guys the most often and its a hoot!
Gary: I don't know very many people here yet.
Dad: Don't worry, because time doesn't run the same way here.  You won't be waiting very long before you see some of the guys you've worked with start to Peter in--get it?
Gary: Hah! Bill, that sounds like something I'd come up with!
Dad: I will tell you that Mother, or Gladys, you know, she'll be excited to see you and Marsha's grandpa, Date,  he will be coming around too to get reacquainted.  He always thought the world of you when you both were IN the world!
Gary: Good! I suppose Gladys is still 4 feet tall?
Dad: Oh yes, and its a good thing you don't have to worry about your back going out on you up here when you bend over to hug her.
Gary: I've got to find my dad first thing too. Oh yeah, I've got a cousin, Jim and my aunt... Oh and a concrete contractor who used to do work for us. Hmmm, wonder if they have male dancing up here? Well anyway, I guess I do know some people here!
Dad: I can point you in the right direction and I guarantee you, everyone will be happy to help you and guide you around.
Gary: Thanks Bill, I feel so much better now. I'll be seeing you.
Dad: You too Gary, so very glad you made it.  Oh hey Gary! Let me run this past you first:
Did you hear about the time Ole walked into the bar and saw Sven with Lena.......?

Now, if our loved ones who have passed over can read this, they are probably laughing their heads off at my writings. "Hah hah, she has it soooo wrong, but I'll give her an A- for trying to imagine it."  I'll take their criticism, because I think my imagination is probably making the afterlife much less wonderful than it actually is.  That's what I'm hoping for. Don't we all?

Two-fer

You Urned it, Gary


Before you read this, let me qualify you: Do you believe in an afterlife?  If not, then just stop reading and move along to the next entry because you'll just blow me off on this one anyway...

OK. They're gone.

About 6 weeks ago, I walked into the bedroom where Gary was lying in bed watching TV. Our TV is in a converted armoire.  When we moved in the house in late July, I put a picture and an urn shaped vase on the top of the armoire.  Every day I would open the doors and shut them. The armoire is a primitive Mexican piece that Gary converted and painted black.  The clasp is kinda tight and you have to push hard to get it shut. I opened and shut this thing every morning and every night for the last 4 months or so.

So, as I was saying, I walked in the bedroom and Gary asked, "That urn on the top of the armoire-- can my ashes be put in there? I really like that thing and it'd be nice to be put in it." I got the urn at Hobby Lobby about 18 months ago to go into our bathroom in Mentone.  Its just the right shade of aqua blue and brown to go with our bedspread and bathroom still. It has a bronze metal top and bottom(much prettier than the picture above) and I thought it was one piece when I bought it.
I told Gary, "You can't be put into that because its not a real urn.  The lid doesn't really come off.  Besides, I am going to make you into a diamond."  "Oh." was all he said as he looked at the urn some more. 
Now I have learned more about the ashes into a diamond process.  It only takes about 10 oz of ashes to compress into a diamond.  I have much more than I need to do that and still spread Gary's ashes into the Pacific sometime.
Day before yesterday, I walked into the room and shut the doors on the armoire.  I was startled when something thumped and fell on me.  The picture had fallen to the floor but was unbroken.  I got the stepstool out to put it back on top. While up there,  I looked carefully at that urn again.  I saw that it is made kind of like a lamp with a center rod that screws into the base and the lid.  The center is hollow.  PERFECT for ashes!  I put a zipper sandwich bag of Gary into the urn where he wanted to be.  Part of him can now overlook me as I sleep. 
How many hundreds of times have I shut the doors and nothing happened!? 
Gary's spirit is out there, obviously.  Isn't that cool?

Its whats inside that counts.

Remember when cereal almost always had free crap inside to get kids to want it so badly that moms gave in and bought it for them?  This was especially true of the sugar sweetened stuff that WE kids could never buy.

The outside of the box alone would attract shoppers' attention so much that you would want to buy the product for that reason alone.

I have 'marketed' my house for the season in this same way.  I don't want to appear as a Scrooge so I have 2 Christmas flags,  3 wreaths, red flowers in pots and a planter full of poinsettias by the front door under the green porch light. On the outside my house looks completely 'normal', like a happy snowbird couple is inside making wassal and decorating sugar cookies for the season.

While inside, Oh Holy Night It Ain't.  I'm not going to put a tree up or get out any of the boxed Christmas crap that is stored in the hanging storage rack which Forrest helped Gary install in September IN the 110 degree heat! Am I being black hearted? Who cares!?  Robbie doesn't give a sheet if I put that stuff out and I am too lazy to put it up and take it down just for myself, so why would I want to do it? 
Maybe next year?  I don't know. WWGD?  I know he'd say, "Do what you feel like.  If you don't want to put it out, then don't."  Gary, I like the way you think.

a Little Golden lesson Book

Lest you think that I do nothing but sit around on the computer all day, I will tell you how wrong you are.
Remember the story, The Little Red Hen?  You know, one of those Little Golden Books that you could pick up at the grocery store or at Bel Aire Drug for 19 cents?  Mine had the cover pictured above.  Later when I bought the story for Nathan, I think the cover had changed, but the story inside was the same of course.  My mom read it to me and Gary and I read it to Nathan and Forrest.

I am having Little Red Hen complex these days.  Lets face it, for the 37 years I was married to Gary, I didn't have to do much.  Need something built? Gary will do it.  Need a jar opened? Gary will do it.  Put a suitcase on the top shelf? Get a suitcase down from the top shelf?  We don't need to drag out no stinkin' step stool!  We wait until Gary gets home to do it for me then he could go on to fix the fan, or the toilet or figure out what was wrong with the sprinkler timer and garage door opener.

Hah!  I just thought of something that he did not fix:  Back in our first house, we had a worthless Eureka vacuum that had sucked up its last fuzzball.  I knew we needed to buy a new one. But Gary just knew he could fix it and messed with it for 2 days.  He got so enraged at the thing when he could not make it work, he opened the door to the lower basement of the 4 level house and pitched the vacuum to its death.  I thought, I'll be damned if I'm going to pick that thing up, HE can sweep up that broken plastic and metal carcass.
Days went by, until I caved in and did finally load the thing into the garbage can.  I went out and bought a Hoover to clean our (by then) very dirty carpets.

The well known story of The Little Red Hen casts a barnyard full of lazy ass animals who love to sit around all day talking and waiting for their meals to be delivered to them.  We all know how industrious chickens are, so we identify with Hen rather than Pig or Horse. Hen wants to make bread but there are so many steps involved, she asks for help in the jobs to cut the wheat, grind it into flour and make the dough into bread. After hearing "Not I" when asking each individual colleague to assist her, Hen says, "Then I'll do it mySELF."  And she did.
The predictable outcome occurs when the finished loaf of bread lies in the kitchen sending luscious smelling wafts out the window to the noses of the barnyard deadbeats. "Who wants to help me EAT the bread?" Hen asks.  "I DO!!" they all say to a one.  Her response, "NO, I will eat it mySELF!"  And she did.

When I have come to an impasse on getting this house done, I am trying to think like a normal person, sans Gary, about how I can do it.  I need the cabinets refinished.  I need to tile a backsplash, I need to refinish the vanites, landscape the backyard. I need to replace electrical outlets, put up drapery rods yadda yadda.
Most people would call a handyman.
I have called 4.  One says he would come back and do it in December.  X -'not I'
One says he would refinish the cabinets for $1500, this price even after I told him I already have the paint kit to do it, and I can BUY NEW cabinets for that ridiculous price!    X -'not I'
Another guy came, he saw, and he said he'd call me the next day...     ???   X -'not I'

Over the course of the last month, I decided, "Then I will do it myself" And I did.  A lot of it anyway.  I did the landscape layout by hauling and moving rock to form borders and a creekbed. In the course of this job, I had to refill the tires on the yard wagon.  For the first time, I found the tire chuck to put on the hose, attach it to Gary's compressor and put air in tires at home--mySELF.  After watching a youtube video,  I did the outlets all except one which the neighbor guy helped with.  Without help, I chose and bought the glass tile, the grout and the edging for the backsplash.  I can do this job except for making the miter cuts on the Schluter edging.
I just finished the 2nd coat of paint on the master bathroom vanity. I will rehang the doors on it tomorrow.

A guy is coming Tuesday to do the kitchen refinishing for $500.  More than what Gary would have been comfortable with, but he is not here so...  This guy will also cut the Schluter miters for me so I can get the backsplash done.

I now know I can do more than what I used to do, and part of it is that I actually learned HOW to do this stuff by sitting on my butt while watching Gary over the years.  I just never had to DO it myself.

In the end, the fresh warm bread that the little red hen made tasted so much better than if she had all the others do the work to make it for her.

Maybe I will have to make bread when the house is done.  I think I will buy the frozen dough though...