Little things that are big things

Last weekend I wrote about not wanting to go to church. Well, I did anyway, because it's not about me... I'm a mom with kids who need it and love it... so I have to hitch up my big-girl-panties and deal.

Church services at the New Place are actually a respite. I don't feel pressured or "on display" or even obligated. I didn't lead worship. Didn't want to. I just enjoyed it quietly.

After we wrapped it all up, I was gathering up the Offspring when a kind-faced lady sidled up to me and handed me something. "This is a Wal-Mart gift card. There's $150 on it, for you to go get your kids' school supplies."

I wanted to melt into a puddle of butter.

God is so good. And He doesn't seem to mind when I'm tired and cranky; He keeps loving on me through it.

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Rick brought home some seedless green grapes from the grocery store yesterday. I hadn't really even taken them out of the sack; we'd just stuck them into the fridge as soon as he got home with them. I pulled them out tonight for a snack and HO. LY. COW. these grapes are the giant economy sized softball grapes... more like grapeFRUIT in size, maybe. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But they ARE enormous.

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Pop came home from the hospital tonight. A few days ago, I hadn't been entirely certain that he would. I really want him to get better; it seems brutally unfair that he's worked so hard all his life, that he's so young, and that he doesn't even get to enjoy it. I know, I know... lots of people don't get to have even the enjoyment that he's had... but I can be petulant from time to time, no? I want him to feel really good again. Mom got her second chance seven years ago. I'm hoping Pop gets his now.

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Tomorrow is Saturday. I am tentatively planning to do something unusual... I'm going to go to a Saturday vigil at the St. Maximus the Confessor Orthodox Church. Not because I particularly want to become a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, per se. No, it's just because I want to connect with God in a different way. It was suggested to me by a longtime friend, and I think it's a good idea. Or it could be just awful; I may accidentally desecrate something and get struck by lightning. Either way, it will be a change of pace.

A good shellacking

It's been about three years since I've had a professional manicure, but last week I had some time to kill while I was in Fort Worth for an education workshop, and my fingernails were actually sorta grown-out and healthy, and I'm in-between piano gigs, so what the heck... I had heard that the new manicure rage is "shellac", and that it's super-durable, so I thought I'd try it.

I don't want long, fake fingernails, not now and not ever. It's just not ME. And they get in my way; everything I do that I'm good at, I do with my fingers and hands, so I have to be able to use them. Anyway, it's been a few days, and I have to say -- this stuff is AMAZING. Not a chip, not a scratch... they look exactly the same today that they did when the tech finished with them.

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I've been driving back and forth to downtown Dallas every day now for about four days in a row to check on my Pop. Mom's with him down at Baylor, of course, but things are pretty delicate right now with his health. His cancer is in remission, but the ensuing graft-vs-host issues and childhood infections like chickenpox all over again have just taken a very heavy toll on him.

It's not about me, obviously, but this is MY blog, so yes, this WILL be about me. I have to have somewhere to decompress.

I am busy. And tired. I'm not sleeping well anyway, because I'm worried about my dad.

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In times of family stress, the cracks tend to show more readily. Old wounds, imagined slights writ large, visit us like nighttime hallucinations, and no-one can make us believe they aren't real. If only there were a way I could gently wipe the filmy residue away from the hearts of the ones I love most, so they could leave behind the fear and isolation that is SO. UNNECESSARY.

But I can't change any of it. I just have to navigate it. And try not to let any of it stick to me.

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I'm going to go over to my mom's to sleep tonight. She normally comes home from the hospital at night after Pop goes to sleep, but he had a really awful night last night, so she wants to stay with him this time. They have a little dog at home, though, so Alice and I are going to go take care of Coco.

Tomorrow, assuming all is well with Pop, I'm going to meet my best friend from college, Emily, at Grapevine Mills Mall for a couple of hours.

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I think that, sometimes, the gifts that God gives us are the actual struggles and hard things... because without having been through the struggles and hard things, how can I be of any help at all to others enduring the struggles and hard things?

It may be Christmastime now, but...

It is still FALL around here:





Saw lots and lots of blazing Bradford Pear trees today, most with all three colors (brilliant green, brilliant yellow and brilliant red) on the same tree at the same time.

Today was spent at the Baptist Retirement Village near Madill, Oklahoma, sharing a Thanksgiving meal with most of the members of my dad's family, the Young clan. The food, as usual, was beyond wonderful, and there was lots of laughter and snarky humor and goofy children.

My dad has five siblings in all. Here's me with his two sisters, my precious Aunty Lea and Aunty Sookie:




Tomorrow we'll have ANOTHER fantastic Thanksgiving meal, this time down at my mom's with Grandmother and Granddad (mom's parents). I love Thanksgiving! Hopefully on Saturday we'll get to put up our Christmas tree. Wheee!!

My lil' sistah

Ain't they cute? This is my sister Beth, her husband Brian, and their daughter Ava. I took this pic in my parents' backyard on my birthday.

My birthday supper was phenomenal. Of course, we had my traditional carrot cake (which was exceptionally moist and tasty this year, and I have no idea where my mom bought it, but I've been meaning to ask her because it might just have been the best-tasting carrot cake I have ever had), but we also had Thai takeout that blew my mind (and pegged my heat-o-meter... doggonit, that stuff was hot and spicy and yummy).

All in all, it was a very happy birthday weekend. On Saturday, my bestest co-worker girlfriends Andrea and Leslie took me out for a birthday lunch and then we went to Leslie's for a while for some beer and gossip and to meet her new Basset pup Nellie (who is just the sweetest, floppiest, lovey-est thing ever). I work with some of the awesomest folks in the whole wide world.

On a more serious note, I have a very dear friend who lives a long way away and who is battling some major health issues right now. I'd give my right arm to be able to be there and help run errands and clean house, and it's killing me to know that I can't... but I'd appreciate it if you'd pray anyway. For privacy reasons, I can't talk about it any more than that, but it's really important to me.

Grandmother & Granddad

They're celebrating sixty-five years together!

Martins celebrate 65 years of marriage

Mama Alice Flowers

My regular readers may realize that my daughter Alice was named for her great-great grandmother, Alice Lewis Poindexter. She never met Mama Alice, but I grew up knowing my great-grandparents and wanted to honor their memories.

On my way up to the Poindexter family reunion this weekend, I noticed a large stand of Ipomopsis rubra, or Standing Cypress flowers. These were Mama Alice's favorite wildflowers, and they always bloomed right around her birthday, so we always tried to stop alongside the road and pick a bouquet of them to take to her. We never knew their scientific name or anything, we just always called them Mama Alice Flowers.





Aren't they gorgeous? They're not terribly common and seem to prefer the poorer, rockier outcroppings... we don't always see them, but we love it when we do. I was glad all the way down to my toenails to see this batch on the highway north of Tishomingo, Oklahoma.

She got the looks AND the brains

I've always teased my little sister by telling her that she got the looks in the family while I got the brains. It's actually not true... she got the brains, too. I know this because she passed 'em on to her kid, who's freaky-smart:

Little punk is one and a half years old and can name all the letters on her wooden blocks. I'm serious. Forget that old saying about "walk at one, talk at two." Doesn't apply.

The kids and I went down to Mom's this evening to see my AuntyLea, who's visiting from Okrahoma. She's quite literally one of the sweetest, kindest-hearted people you could ever hope to meet. And she plays the piano! I like to think I inherited that aptitude from her:



Pop's still really, really weak, but he seemed a little better tonight than the last time I was with him. He'll be visiting with a hepatologist on Monday to map out a plan to combat the cirrhosis. It's funny; you always assume that people with cirrhosis are lifelong alcoholics, but that's just not the case with my daddy. He doesn't drink at all, actually. But I think that his liver was already sort-of sensitive from him having been overweight for so many years, and when the chemo-assault came down, it finally did the deed.

I am grateful to still have him with us, though. I told him he could have part of MY liver if he needed it. :)

Pop

At the Baylor University Medical Center's world-famous hookah bar, my Pop tokes up on their finest bronchodilators in an effort to clear his lungs and increase his O2 sats.

We sailed down the Dallas North Tollway toward downtown Dallas, Texas to go see my Pop last night. He hasn't been doing so well, you see... fluid is building up in his gut and in his lungs. They drew off 2.4L of fluid just from one of his lungs last night. No wonder he couldn't breathe!

The myeloma is in remission right now, but the other terrible problems that come along with a stem cell transplant are definitely causing him major major agony. I'm hoping they're going to get to the root of this fluid buildup thing SOON and get him the medications to fix it. I need my Daddy to get better NOW. This picture you're looking at? This is not what my Daddy looks like. Yeah, it's how he appears right now, but it's not HIM. He's supposed to be whittling in the backyard, puffing on a fine Dominican something-or-other, or cleaning a big bass... not sucking on a hospital bong.

Get well quick, Pop. I love you so much.

Dialogue

ME: You gotta go outside. It's raining, and the smell is incredible.

HIM: Oh, yeah. That IS your favorite smell, isn't it? Wet dirt?

ME: I don't care what it actually is. I just know that that smell is what heaven is going to smell like for me.

[going outside onto the front porch]

[breathing in the rain smell]

ME:

HIM: Did we just have a moment?

ME: No. Go away and let me smell in peace.

Chinese dumplings

I've done steamed dumplings for my own brood several times and had a blast doing them. Tonight I got to share them with the extended family.





Ingredients in this mega-batch: a pound each of ground turkey, ground pork and ground beef... minced garlic... chopped fresh spinach... black sesame seed... sesame oil... soy sauce... beni shoga pickled red-thread ginger... grated fresh ginger... chopped water chestnuts.

This was a particularly tasty batch. I loved the extra little bit of pungency from the double ginger commingled with the garlic and the sesame oil. They weren't overly greasy at all, since I used very lean meat in it, and the spinach added lovely color as well as nutrition and flavor.

The whole family agreed, these are GOOD EATS. Beth & Brian also now have a new skill in their culinary arsenal, and they intend to use it. Beth was already plotting some filling ideas using cilantro and jalapeno.



The one thing I wasn't hugely happy about was that I had to use a different brand of wonton skins and I didn't like them as much as the brand I usually like to buy. They had too much dusty stuff on them. I know, it's necessary to keep them separated and unstuck, but it's also kinda messy and yucky to work with. Live and learn. And eat. Because they still tasted so good, hardly anybody could quit noshing on them.

Whass happenin, hot stuff?

My sister's little punk kid, Ava, was sporting her brand-new pink boots on Christmas Day. Every little girl who grows up in Fort Worth, Texas oughta have a pair of cowboy boots. And she instinctively knew how cool they were, because as soon as she opened the box, she began trying to put them on. Girlfriend's got style and fashion sense, that's what, even at one-and-a-half years old.

Birthday #62

Okay, so we didn't have a "6" candle. So we figured you could add "2" and "4" together, right?



Happy birthday, Pop! We love you!!! And we're looking forward to enjoying sixty-two more of them with you. You're gonna beat this cancer thing.

Piano pals

Another family holiday tradition involves music. I've been playing the piano for nearly forty years. My niece, Ava, joined me on the piano bench to assist, and together we made some beautiful music together with a few Christmas carols to serenade the rest of the family.

Keep praying for my Pop, please, won't you?

Me, my Pop, and Manita

Pop's having a hard time, health-wise, lately. I don't enjoy seeing my Pop as a frail, grey, shaky shadow of himself. It's just not right. If you're the praying type, I would really really appreciate it if you'd pray for my sweet Daddy. His myeloma isn't active at the moment thanks to the stem-cell transplant from his brother, but now he's battling Graft vs. Host Disease and something else that's invaded his GI tract and is causing terrible havoc. He needs to get his energy and stamina and oomph back.

Family fun

My dad's the oldest of six kids, and his mom always has us get together on Thanksgiving Day for a ginormous feast of turkey and ham and all kinds of yummy stuff like that. And except for my mom and dad and my sister and her husband, the entire rest of the family made it to the celebration this year. Isaac had a great time playing with my cousin Kasie's son Christian and my cousin Steph's son Courtland.


Here's the whole crew (minus Steph's husband and my husband, who were taking the photos):

I don't know what possessed me to allow the photos to be taken out in the middle of the broadest, brilliantest sunshiny day... and of course, I didn't have the camera set correctly, so all the photos were totally blown. I'm totally bummed about this.

But it was fun to get together with everyone. This year, lots of us have been able to keep up with each other via Facebook, which has been a real blessing. Not all of us see one another that much during the year, but it always amazes me how much we look alike and our personalities are so similar despite the distances. I can see re-peats in each new generation and it cracks me up.


The family matriarch, Doris. The other grandkids and great-grands call her Grandma, of course, but when I was born, she was still really young and just couldn't bear the thought of being anyone's grandma, so I grew up calling her Doris. Which was fine with me; I didn't know any different and didn't care overmuch. This woman can cook like nobody's business, I am not gonna lie.


And this is my uncle Carroll; he's my dad's next youngest brother. The two of them used to be holy terrors for the entire neighborhood, from what I've heard. Carroll recently donated his stem cells to my dad. He also sends me funny jokes and stories via e-mail, most of which I wouldn't be able to publish here, but which give me a lot of great laughs nonetheless.



My aunty Susan ("Sookie" to most of us), the baby of the family, with her husband. Bet y'all didn't know that Sookie Stackhouse (of Charlaine Harris' novels and HBO's True Blood TV series) isn't the only Sookie out there... I got one too!!

My uncle Donnie, with Miss Alice. Donnie's always been a character...

My aunty Lea, who plays the piano beautifully, has the prettiest eyes you ever saw, and the kindest heart of anyone you ever met, and my uncle Tommy, who's a registered nurse and loves to play golf.

I got me some cool relatives.

Tessa

This elderly white Schnauzer is Tessa. She belongs to my parents, but since Pop's in the hospital, Tess has been staying with us.

Tessa is a special-needs dog. Ten years ago or so, she had a litter of adorable pups, and not long afterward became very ill and nearly died. During that illness, her brains and her eyes were damaged permanently, leaving her mostly blind and very definitely retarded.

She has a teeny bit of vision at the edge of one eye, so she spins in circles to orient herself. Her perceptions are skewed, however, so she loses her way and can't go in a straight line anywhere. To go outside, she has to be carried to the door and placed in the yard.

She isn't able to eat enough, so we supplement her diet with some moist dog food in a pouch. She loses track of this if you put it down too quickly, and Bijou would reeeeeaaaally like to get her jaws around this yummy stuff, so we have to keep a close eye while she's consuming it.

Mostly during the day, because she's elderly and infirm, she just sits curled up on her bed pad in the living room. We have long joked that she's really just a step beyond a stuffed-animal dog, and that's kinda true. She does have a little bit of her sweet and funny personality still left, though. Once in a while she'll get out of bed and walk in circles around the living room... usually this means she needs to go to the bathroom, but sometimes she does it even when she's been outside. This is my cue that she wants some snuggles and attention, so I walk over there and she stops turning circles and actually jumps up on me. Mom and I have very similar voice-boxes, so we think that I probably smell and sound close enough to Mom that I'll do in a pinch. She likes to smell your breath to find out what you just ate. She never EVER barks unless she's really quite excited, which doesn't happen often because she's an old lady dog and not much excites her nowadays.

The cat has been humorous about her; he sits in wait and tries to alarm her by sneaking up on her, which usually works. He's got a tremendous sense of humor for a kitteh; he knows she's "not all there" and takes full advantage of this fact when it suits him. Fortunately for Tessa, he's also a lazy kitteh and doesn't bother her too much.

Mom says they might be letting Pop out of the hospital this week. Keep your fingers crossed! Tessa isn't much of an imposition on us, but I know that it will be a relief for Pop and Mom to be in their own home and sleeping in their own bed.

Visit with Pop

The kids and I drove to downtown Dallas after church today to visit Pop in the hospital. He's looking pretty good, although his abdomen is still severely distended because of the internal swelling that the Graft VS. Host Disease has wrought on his innards. His tremor is much improved, though.

We sat with him in the Family Visiting Room, where we watched the Cowboys game on the tee-vee. We do have our priorities, you know.

They're giving him TPN (which means that all his nutrition is coming intravenously) because of his severely inflamed GI tract, plus all his meds are going through the IV as well. He gets pretty tired out, but seems in good spirits. The kids and I were really glad to get to see him; it's been a long, LOOONG time since we've gotten to see him because somebody's been germy every weekend.

The kids also enjoy the drive down to Baylor because we go through downtown Dallas, which is a huge culture change from our usual rural digs. Plus, we get to go through a drive-through to eat -- and that's a major treat. We got McDonald's this time, one of our very favorites.

Keep praying for Pop, would you? He's just got to beat this. GVHD is such a PITA.

Funeral

Tomorrow, the Wood family will be traveling to Dallas to our Uncle Bob's funeral. He was Rick's sister's husband; I blogged about him recently a couple of months ago.

I would've liked to have stayed home from school today because I still wasn't feeling totally steady, but because I'm going to be absent tomorrow, I figured it'd be better if I could try to stick it out for the day. Ended up, the cheerleaders needed me to help drive them somewhere after school, so I'm glad I went anyway.

I'm going to go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow's likely to be exhausting, just from a traveling standpoint. The funeral's in Dallas, but the graveside service is in Fort Worth. We'll be attending both.

The big game!

Okay, so the game result wasn't QUITE what we would've wanted... although it was not as bad as it could've been... but we had a nice time nonetheless.

I brought the yummy Pumpkin Dip stuff that I posted about the other day:

I added a lot of red food coloring, but that burnt-orange pumpkin stain is difficult to remove once it's present. [sigh] I did my best.

I also made a bowl of guacamole... but by the time I got a photo of it, it was almost gone:

I put six avocadoes in this batch, plus some cumin, fresh garlic, fresh onion, tomato, cilantro, lime, salt, and Cholula hot sauce. That's it.

I love guacamole! Rick went to a lot of trouble hunting down ripe avocadoes for this batch, even though he wasn't going to get to enjoy it because he was feeling sicky-sick and stayed home. So I made sure there was a little left over and I brought it home to him. Don't know if he's even going to be able to consume it, but I was thinking of him anyway.

Being sick is no fun. I actually pushed it a little too hard today, really... I am exhausted just from the drive down there and back. But it was fun anyway, and one hates to dispense with tradition unless it's absolutely necessary. We knew Pop and Mom wouldn't be able to celebrate with us, so we felt a renewed sense of urgency to keep up the normalcy of how things go in this family.

Miss Ava was quite fond of the gingersnaps (wearing them AND eating them):


And we made the traditional Giant OU Cookie:

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-YOU!! We love our Sooners!!

Haircut Saturday

While we were all there last Saturday, Mom got out the clippers and trimmed up Isaac's hair, then turned her focus to my brudder-in-law, Brino. Talk about trusting your mother-in-law! It ended up looking pretty decent, too.

I have been cutting Rick's hair myself for well past a decade now. While we still lived in our hometown, he went to the same barber he'd always gone to since he was small. After we moved to Iowa, however, he bought some clippers and told me it was now my job. So I learned how.

I refuse to cut Martha's hair; she gets hostile if something isn't to her liking, and she seems to enjoy whacking on it herself, so why get in the way of that? The only one (besides me) who gets professional trims is Alice, because she's got such straight, thick, Asian hair -- it's very unforgiving. Even the professionals usually get it wrong; I haven't found very many folks who can do a good job on hers.