Don't Step on My Catheter

Don't Step on My Catheter
by Michael H. Schwartz

Don't even think about treading on
That tempting little hose of soft clear
. plastic lying on the floor
There are plenty enough ways to
Incur my wrath without committing
That most heinous act of barbarism.

Mind your step, you fool, watch
Where you put those uncoordinated
. blobs you call your feet.
Its not just the punishment
That should prompt alertness on
Your part, nor even humanitarian

Compassion to guide your steps aright.
But think on this, the balance
Of all the laws of physics and the
Cosmic glue that holds the
Universe together, lie at risk

Of total disintegration at
The touch of toe on tube.

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One Year Later

It was one year ago today that my father passed away. I'm still learning how to wrap my brain around this fact. I keep wanting to call or email him. His email address is still sitting there in my address book while his instant messenger icon keeps telling me he's not available.

So much has happened in the past year: I finally quit my job, I'm back in college, I'm pregnant. Dad would have been thrilled about all of these things.

At his funeral, a family friend stood up and told us about a time she went to visit him in the hospital. Before she left, she asked him if there was anything specific he would like her to pray for on his behalf. He paused to think for a while, and then, at a time when any one else would pray for the pain to stop, or a cure for cancer, or wisdom for the doctors or something else along those lines, my dad said this:

"Pray that my conversations will be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, and that I will have the strength and wisdom to answer any question that is asked of me."

Yes, my father was something of a poet, but this was actually a paraphrase of a bible verse.

This quote of my father has stuck with me over the past year. First of all, my conversations could most certainly use more grace. I've been told over and over and over again that I can only control my own reaction in a conversation. The truth is that there are ways to counter hate and bigotry gracefully. I just have to learn how to do it and then I need to teach my child.

The second part of that statement has stuck to me as well. My father was a quiet man and was not in the habit of drawing attention to himself or making himself the topic of conversation. I, on the other hand, was irritated that I didn't know very much about him and that he didn't just, unprompted, broadcast all his stories to us. How simple it would have been to ask him some questions rather that sitting there waiting for him to open up.

I'm not bringing this up for the purpose of beating myself up, I have something else in mind. Do you have anyone in your life who is quiet by nature? Someone who is humble and not at all likely to make the conversation all about them? When you talk to them, is the conversation usually about you? Or do you ask them questions too?

I wonder how many people out there would be open books, if someone would just ask.

I'm paying more attention now, to see who's waiting for me to ask them a question about themselves. I'm not advocating an interrogation, but a genuine interest combined with a couple questions could make a big difference.



Tune in tomorrow and I'll treat you to Dad's poem "Don't Step on My Catheter!"
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Re-creation of Doc McKinley's Dental Office

Last week my friend Sharon drove out to the Dorothy Page Museum in Wasilla, Alaska and sent me these pictures. Within that museum is a recreation of my grandfather's dental office. I didn't actually have any pictures of this installment so it was a great thrill to receive these pictures.

The dedication (pictured above) reads as follows:

Dr Lee L. McKinley

Dedication

This re-creation of Dr. McKinley's dental office in Butte is dedicated to his efforts in pioneering "Bush" dentistry and his selfless commitment to the people of Alaska.

For over 40 years "The Flying Dentist" faithfully practiced his profession throughout the entire state serving people from all walks of life. It has been said that Dr. McKinley would often render services free of charge for those who's circumstances called upon his generosity.

In the early 1950's, he was also instrumental in adopting legislation that limited the power of the State Dental Board thus allowing more dentists to practice in Alaska.

As a youth, Lee McKinley was one of four sons of an Arkansas meat peddler. It was his fathers faithful devotion to good will and hard work that would eventually create a solid foundation in each boy. Individually the boys sought public service in the fields of dentistry and medicine. All four have become professionals in their respective fields.

From this early beginning, Lee McKinley entered college on probation as he was without a high school diploma. Undaunted by the work that lay ahead, he pressed on to graduate and practice dentistry in Detroit in 1934.

By the mid-forties, Dr. McKinley and family became disenchanged with the city life. With his son Blake and another youngster, Dr. McKinley loaded up a Hudson pickup and started out for Alaska.

Thus began the illustrious service of Dr. Lee McKinley in Alaska.

We are honored to create a tribute to such a fine man that gave so much of himself to the people of Alaska.

(A complete history of Dr. McKinley is available through narrative and video tape in the museum archives)

And here's a bonus photo of the Matanuska Valley from Wasilla

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This is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta



A little more about Grandpa:

Meanwhile, Back at the Farm
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Serenity

Several months before my Dad passed away, my parents moved from their giant 6 bedroom house with no view to a tiny 2 bedroom apartment with this view.



Last August we had a family reunion in this little apartment with Mom, Dad, 5 siblings, 2 spouses and a herd of grandkids. We repeated the reunion in October for Dad's funeral. Both occasions I marveled at this view.

At times I was frustrated that the old giant house was sitting empty waiting for a buyer while we were packed like sardines in this tiny apartment. But mostly I was thankful. I was so thankful that my parents were able to find this little apartment close to the hospital and Dad's work. I was thankful that my parents no longer had to worry about taking care of the old house and that they were not knocking around alone in that big empty space. I was thankful my brothers and I get along well enough we were able to enjoy hanging out in the apartment together. Mostly I was thankful that we even had the opportunity to spend this time together.

Looking at that view reminds me of a time in my life where I was acutely aware of enjoying this moment right now. Not looking forward to something in the future, not happily remembering something from the past. Now.

Savor every moment.
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This is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta



Previous contributions include:

• Watch Out
  
• What I didn't know
  
• Featured Prefromers
  
• Falling in Love

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Meanwhile, Back at the Farm...

When my Grandfather moved to Alaska in the 40s, he needed to find a house big enough to hold his wife and seven children, and pronto. The Matanuska Valley had been colonized in the 30s as part of the New Deal. My Grandfather bought a nice little Colony House on a hefty bit of acreage from a family that just wasn't able to cut it as colonists (nothing against that poor family, but winters in Alaska were probably a bit more than they had bargained for).

Then he set about expanding the house to make it big enough to fit his kids.



It turned out plenty big.





The picture above shows my Grandparents and mom with her brothers and sister. Notice the airplane out the window to the left. Grandpa was a dentist and he used that to commute to work in Anchorage. He would also fly out to the bush villages to treat the villagers, often for free.

The fireplace was built with river rocks. The second floor windows on either side of the chimney (below) were close enough to reach out and get a good toe hold on the chimney, yet far enough away that falling was a very real possibility. Of course, I know nothing of this because I would never consider sneaking out of the house.



The lower roof, right above the ground on the picture above, covered the cold room. Aside from being a dentist and a politician, my grandfather was also a very skillful butcher (that's how he worked his way through college.) We didn't just have a cooler for keeping meat, we had an entire 400+ square foot cold room. We didn't mess around when it came to meat.



In my mind, the crowing jewel of this home was the swing set.

It was the reason my friends came to play at my house. And on hot summer days, we would drag a water hose to the top of the slide and turn it in to a water slide.

(That's me in front with the braids)



My Dad took the following pictures from the top of the slide, then pasted them together. The two little buildings behind the van were very important as well. The white building was the chicken coop and the little log building beyond that was the pig pen.



I lived in that house for most of my childhood. It was a pain to clean, we lived in the delta between two glacier fed rivers so the fine dust of glacier silt was always passing through the walls. Vacuuming and dusting were never ending chores. As was mowing the lawn.

And lest you think it was a mansion of some kind, I want to be clear that the bedroom walls were plywood, and we woke up many times to find frost on the inside of our bedroom walls. Oh, and the roof leaked so much when it rained or the snow melted that walking down the hall was an obstacle course of buckets and drips. I miss that house.

My family sold the house a few years back and since then it has fallen into disrepair. It looks so sad now.


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This is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta



Previous contributions include:

• On Alaska and Men
  
• Don't piss me off
• This Post Has Been Brought to You by the Number Four

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Don't piss me off

This is my dad with my four brothers.

Shortly after we got engaged, a friend of ours saw this picture, turned to Mr. H and said, "What ever you do, don't piss her off."

He's done a fine job of heeding that advice.

This post is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta





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Grandma tells it like it is

Grandma: It's been a long time since you checked my cholesterol. Don't you think you should check my cholesterol?

Doctor: Well that depends, how much longer do you plan to live? (?! - by the way, Grandma is 97)

Grandma: I think I'd like another ten years.

Doctor: Well then, we'd better check your cholesterol.



Go Grandma!

My Mother's Gift

In 1991 my mom brought home Matt; I was not happy. I was no longer living there, it shouldn't have been a big deal. But I still had a bedroom at the homestead, and I was asked to pack up my belongings in "My" room and either take them home with me or store them in the basement so Matt could have my room. But that wasn't really the issue either.

Taking in kids was nothing new in our home. I had four younger brothers and we had all, at one time or another, brought home friends to stay for extended periods of time. My parents took in my cousins, and kids who had aged out of the foster care system, and runaways (there was always a phone call to the parents to let them know where the kids were). My parents would not turn their backs on a child in need. Eventually they decided to start taking in foster children, and Matt was the first of many special needs placements my parents took in.

But Matt was scary. He was a 16 year old, severely developmentally challenged kid that had been held in a hotel room 24 hours a day for the past three months because they could not find a home that would take him. After a lifetime in the foster care system, Matt had an attitude, and he was very difficult to care for because of his medical needs as well. Along with an improperly formed brain, Matt had cerebral palsey and hydrocephalus; he functioned at the level of a two year old. He was difficult to look at. His hair grew in funny little tufts around the scars from all his brain surgeries, he shuffled along all bent over, he had a vocabulary of only 50 words and he was a head banger. By head banger I mean that whenever he was frustrated or angry or for whatever other reason he would haul off and slam his head on whatever hard surface was handy, often drawing blood. He terrified me. I did not like the idea of this kid living in my parents house.

Why am I using this Mother's Day post to tell you about Matt? Because Matt became a part of our family. My Mother would not give up on him. No matter how hard it was, no matter how many late nights she sat up wondering "what have I gotten myself into," she would not be just one more foster home that sent him back to that agency. He deserved better than that. And we learned a valuable lesson about acceptance and love, because we all came to love Matt. As he became more accepted and comfortable in our home he started to blossom at school, and at church where Mom took him every Sunday. By the time he passed away in 2000, he had touched so many lives that his funeral was standing room only. An entire community had learned a lesson about acceptance and love.

Mom has always been a caretaker. It's her calling, her gift, and she's very good at making people feel better when they are ill. When my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October of 2006, we were all devastated, but we all knew that he was in the best hands. While the doctors may be prescribing the chemo and performing surgeries, and the nurses attending to vital stats, it was Mom that cared for him and faught for him. She was the one that kept him going, and made sure he kept his brain active, and held his hand through the emotional rollercoaster of dying.

My Dad was never a big talker, that just wasn't his style, but Mom always made us talk on the phone together even if we didn't think we had anything to say. Dad and I would sit there on the phone, sometimes it felt like forever, trying to think of something to say to each other. We talked alot about baseball, we talked about mom, we talked about work - his and mine, we talked a little bit about the cancer and it's side effects, we talked about the weather, but most importantly, we talked. Don't get me wrong, I loved my Dad. It's just that both of us are kind of loners - and completely unskilled in the art of smalltalk. The point is, I had conversations with my dad, about nothing and everything, that I hold dear in my heart, and I wouldn't have had them if she hadn't made us talk.

She is the glue that holds our family together, and through the most difficult time of her life, she found ways to meet each of our needs.

In the six months since my father's death, Mom packed up and moved to Seattle. Sure part of it was to be near me. But really she's here because she's taken over as the primary caretaker for my 97 year old grandmother. And she's loving every minute of it, because helping people feel better is what she does, it's her gift.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. Thank you, and I love you.


Happy Mothers Day to the rest of you moms out there too.

Timmy is moving to Seattle too!

After the fiasco of transporting Mom's stuff to Seattle from Alaska via the ill-maintained U-Haul (see this post for the back story - we're still fighting U-Haul on getting a refund), my brother Tim decided to hang around for a couple days and see if there are any good job opportunities for him around the Seattle area. Wouldn't you know it, House of Harley needed a parts guy and my brother happens to be a Harley Davidson parts guy. Match made in heaven.

The new job starts on April 21, so Timmy has three weeks to give notice at his old job and pack up his house and drive his truck, his Harley, and the rest of his junk back down the Alcan. I'm hoping this time he wont go with U-Haul again. Is there any other option out there?

Slowly but surely my whole family is making their way to the Seattle area. Of course this is good news.

Alex and Timmy's Not-So-Excellent Adventure

My brothers, Alex and Tim, are stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere Canada.

They left Alaska Thursday morning in a U-Haul vacuum packed with my Mother's possessions and headed South to the Seattle area. The trip can be made in three days if you have two drivers and don't stop to sleep. That is also provided you are driving a vehicle that has been maintained a little better than a U-Haul.

This little adventure has netted the boys so far (on separate occasions): brake lights out, engine light on, lost power, fuel line failure, lost second gear, RPMs won't go over 200. Responses from U-Haul have included repeatedly hanging up on the boys and one assistant manager stating that U-Haul doesnt pay him enough to drive out there with a new rig to swap them out. They did finally send a tow truck so now I'm hoping they'll get moving in the right direction.

Apparently we're not the only one to have trouble with U-Haul. A quick google search came up with a list of sites like this:

http://www.uhaul-sucks.com/
http://www.uhaulstory.org/
http://uhaulisbad.com/
http://www.ejovi.net/2005/08/25/uhaul-is-the-worst/




Update: the boys arrived safely a little before midnight Wednesday night.

Deaver-Rosenfeld Wedding

getaway, originally uploaded by coffeejitters.

Jonathan and Rebecca just got married.

They're such a great couple. You never mention one without at least thinking of the other. They just belong together.

The wedding was beautiful. The Asian Art Museum is a great venue, the food was WONDERFUL (especially the little crackers with goat cheese wraped in grape leaves and topped with rosehip jelly - I Loved those things), the moon was full, and I was full of wine. Happy Day.

slide show of wedding pics

Count Your Blessings

Since Dad got sick, Mom's been going through a downsizing mode. She is seriously getting rid of just about everything.

She asked me if I could do something with the family pictures because she had never had time to put them into albums. "Sure" I said. It sounded like a good idea. I'll just scan them in and upload them to the family website.

Box after box after box has been ariving in the mail.

It's great fun to sit there and go through photo after photo. but somehow, when I add the additional step of placing the photo onto the scanner, it turns into a chore.

I know it's such a cool thing to have all these photos - many families dont have this many. And really, on the surface it sounds like such a cool project - and I'm looking forward to having the photos scanned in. It's the actual scanning them in part that's got me bogged down.

Maybe I need to move the computer and scanner into the living room so I can watch mythbusters while I'm scanning them in.
a pouty me with mom

the C-word

Two weeks ago my dad went in to surgery to remove his spleen because of a blood clot. when they got in there they saw that he had pancreatic cancer that had spread throughout his abdomen. they just closed him back up without even taking the spleen. they told us he has 3 months to live. Since then they've told us he could have as much as two years. two years never sounded so good. I dont know how to deal with this.

Pop

I am so lucky.

Happy Fathers' Day Pop

Mother's Day

My dad finally emailed me these pictures from Grandma's 95th birthday party, She turned 95 January 11, 2006. I thought they were fitting pictures to post on mothers day.

She's amazing. The day after these pictures were taken she set off on a road trip across the states.

I hope I look that good at 95. I hope I have that much energy.

Bebe's Book; progress

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had come up with (what I think is) a brilliant idea for Bebe's birthday - a book celebrating Bebe and the number four.

So I've been calling around to get people to submit photos for this project. My dad apparently had a great deal of fun coming up with somthing to submit for the book - he submitted the following:

For this picture, the caption will say:
"Grandpa has four hands."






His next submission for the project was this:



I still haven't figured out what the caption will be...

Any suggestions?



How scary is that orange wall?

36 years together

I got to talk to Dad today - he's back in the hospital again, but seems to be in good spirits. He joked about seeing if his wife would let him off the hook for going out to dinner tonight - which is when it dawned on me that today is their 36th wedding anniversary.

36 years - I think she'll let him get away with it this time...




This picture says - 'what have I gotten myself into?'

Dinner with Mom and Grandma

We had a great visit this weekend with Mom and Grandma. It's so good to see the two of them doing so well. On Saturday night we went to dinner at the Caspian Grill for Persian food. Bill's Judy joined us there as well so we had quite the little party. We had hummus, smoked eggplant and a yogurt dip to start and followed it with koobedeh, lamb kabob, tadeeg, gormeh sabzi, and fesenjoon (my favorite). Mom and Judy really loved all the food. I don't think Grandma liked the stews as much but she really enjoyed the koobedeh.

Alaska

We just got home this morning from our trip to Alaska. Neither one of us really wanted to come back. Before we left, Mr. H was a little nervous about spending a week with the in-laws, but he really had a great time. It's so nice to spend time around people that really like you. We so often feel like we are entirely on our own here in Seattle. We really don't have any kind of support network around here. In Alaska, we didn't even have enough time to see everyone we wanted to see. We'll definitely have to go back soon. In the meantime, we've got to get caught up with all the homework we didn't do while we were up there.

Dee's wedding was gorgeous. I'm so happy for her.

Grandma Candy

Grandma McKinley with Mom and Aunt Judy, approximately 60 years ago.
My niece and nephew call her Grandma Candy.