I've Given Birth!

Last night I gave birth. Not to a kicking, screaming, diaper-wetting baby, mind you, but to a business that I have been struggling to launch for almost a year. Last night it finally made its Web presence known to the world. Finally, finally, finally, after much hang-wringing, a whole lot of time, and approximately $4,500 in hosting fees, Web design, business cards, an ad on the back of my truck, and T-shirt printing costs, gnomesense.com has entered the world.

I had the idea early last year to start a business with Aaron using his artwork for artsy, edgy T-shirts. So I brainstormed ideas and came up with a bunch of good ones. But I wanted to launch the business with Gnomeland Security, an authoritarian-looking gnome with his hand in his pocket ala Napoleon. A spoof on the whole Homeland Security bullshit. My way of chiseling away, if ever so slightly, at the fear that has gripped this country. Yes, I am a big believer in calling your congressional representative and the White House comment line and in marching in the streets, but sometimes humor is even more disarming. This is my way of telling the government that I will not buy into its comic-book drama and manipulation.

So, I am asking each and every one of you who reads this blog to please visit gnomesense.com and order a T-shirt or two. That would mean so very much to me and my "baby."

The Magic Lamp

I flew to Wisconsin on Wednesday to sell my mom's car and the rest of her furniture and to pack up what was left. While I was there, I also shipped the toilet seat with safety bars that she wants in her new place, the framed map of the United States that had always hung over her desk, and the brass floor lamp with a night light in its base that I considered a magical world when I was child, playing on the floor in its glow.

Well, truth be told, I still consider it a magical world, and so I fretted and stewed over that lamp more than anything else that I had wanted to keep from my mom's household. I wanted to check it as luggage on one of my plane trips to California, but the dimensions exceeded the maximum 62 inches. I thought of asking my former mother-in-law to store it for me. I even thought of driving my mom's Camry back to California just so that I could transport the lamp. The pictures of the lamp and me that are featured in this blog were taken by Aaron when I thought I might never see my lamp again. That was before I hit upon the idea of unscrewing the top and the arm, duct-taping them to the pole, and shipping the lamp via UPS.

I felt so good after I made arrangements for the lamp. There are very few things in my childhood worth remembering, but for some reason, that night light in the base of that floor lamp captures a sense of wonder and mystery that I did not want to give up. I told Aaron of the fondness I had for the lamp, but he brushed it off. He thought I was wacko for wanting to drive 2,000 miles just to provide for its safe passage.

I made my strongest case to this scoffing son of mine: "Some day you'll have kids who will play on the floor in front of this lamp. They'll turn the night light off and on and peer into the slits at the base of the lamp where the light shines through and they'll think, too, that this is a magical world. How can you deprive your future children of that wonder, that adventure, Aaron? What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of a lame-ass father are you going to be?"

That, of course, made him smile widely and say, "I guess the kind of lame-ass father who doesn't let his kids get obsessed with night lights."

But you just wait. When I get the lamp in my apartment, guess who will be sitting on the floor, drinking a beer, and turning the night light off and on. Only he probably won't do it when I'm around. Only when he has a few of his beer-drinking friends over when I'm not there. I bet they'll all be switching the light off and on and wondering about the wondrous world contained within the base of my magic lamp.

And some day, some day, Aaron's kids will come running to me, shouting, "Grandma, Grandma, get down on your belly and look while I turn on a magic world for you." That's right. That day will come, for sure.

Mom Fantasy

Strange thoughts have been popping up in my head lately. Not often, but once in a while, I get this flash: Perhaps Mom was saved from the grips of death in order to have time to develop the relationship with me that we have never had.

I get these images of her and me spending the last few years of her life bonding like we never have before. She is a different person, open to new ideas, interested in other people, ready to have fun.

I have not nurtured this fantasy; I simply observe it when it arises in my brain. Whether it will manifest in reality is yet to be seen.

Spiritual Experience at the Museum of Jurassic Technology

My very favorite place in Los Angeles is the Museum of Jurassic Technology. For its strangeness, its eccentricity, its wonder. It's hardly a museum at all, if by "museum" one means a place where one goes to find out about the world. You see, in this museum not everything is to be taken as a fact, or it might be some fact, some whimsy, or just that someone had too much weed when he was writing the copy for the information plaques. You never really know.

First off, you have to be buzzed into the museum; you can't just walk through some grand entrance. The exhibits don't change, but that's OK because you have to keep going back to soak it in. There is an exhibit about folk remedies, like eating mice--fur, tails, and all--on a slice of toast to ward off bed-wetting. Then there's the Napoleon library and the wing devoted to the cat's cradle, yes, that string game you may have played in elementary school. Miniatures figure prominently, micro-miniatures, to be exact, teeny weeny sculptures balancing on the eyes of needles and delicate crystals fashioned into baskets of flowers that can only be seen under a microscope. And don't miss the trailer homes of the mid-1930s with two maps of the world that are lit up where trailer parks and trailer-home manufacturing operations were located in 1936, or so the map contends. If you didn't know, there was one of the former in Greenland and one of the latter in Mozambique. Hmmmm...this is precisely what I was mentioning earlier--authentic-looking photographs from the era showing families happily preparing meals within their tin homes juxtaposed with fabulist maps.

Upstairs is the Russian tearoom, complete with silver samovars and staffed by a Russian woman in her mid-30s. Next door is the theatre, which shows bizarre flicks, and between the two is a beautiful water closet with a toilet that has a silver handle that you pull in order to flush it. When I was at the museum last night, I used the toilet, only to find that others who had gone before me did not know what the silver handle was for.

Last night at the museum was a spiritual experience for me. I heard, along with friend Bob Martinez, a concert by Aurelia Shrenker and Eva Salina Primack, two beautiful young women who were backlit by candlelight and sang like angels or gypsies, take your pick. Bob and I sat in the front row, near enough to touch them. On my right sat two ladies adorned in costumes of the 1800s with touches from other time periods thrown in. Aurelia played the dulcimer, and Eva, the accordion. Both sang Georgian, Albanian, Greek, Corsican, and Appalachian tunes, some so painfully sad and beautiful that I was close to tears.

As they sang, I fell in love with them, there's no other expression that describes the way I felt. They were so beautiful and their souls, which poured forth through their music, were so beautiful, and I wanted to be as close as I possibly could to that beauty. Isn't that a good definition of "being in love"? I hugged and thanked both of them afterwards and told Aurelia that this had been a spiritual experience for me. Bob and I then wandered about the museum, but returned for the 10 o'clock concert to hear the same songs once again.

Ah, what a magical evening! Two angels at my favorite place in LA. It just doesn't get much better.

Friday Night with Heidi, Rudolph, and Special Banana Bread

It's been a long, hard couple of weeks. I needed a break, so I watched the DVD I had ordered from Netflix prior to Christmas but had not been able to view because of the mom drama. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was tonight's fare. Yes, you heard right.

How many years--nay, dare I say decades--has it been since last I saw "Rudolph"! But recently I had heard a segment on NPR about a puppeteer who had rescued the original Rudolph from the trash bin and was restoring him to his former glory. This prompted me to put the DVD in my cue.

What a perfect complement Rudolph was to a few slices of "special" banana bread. This, too, was supposed to have been enjoyed on Christmas Day, but instead I froze it, knowing it would not be a good idea to pack it in my luggage. Those darned, working-overtime German shepherds!

I noticed things about the movie that I had not noticed as a child. Top of the list is that the male elves wore coats but no pants. And these coats covered their bums alright, but they were cut high in the front, revealing not only their crotches but the bottoms of their tummies too.

If you don't recall, the major theme is "Misfits have a place too." Remember, there's Rudolph whose nose precludes him from participating in the reindeer games but whose blinker comes in handy during a blizzard on Christmas Eve. Then there's Hermie, the elf who longs to be a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, the prospector who never finds silver or gold. And there is the Island of Misfit Toys, a sad assembly of boats that can't float, a jack-in-the-box named Charlie, a bird that can't fly, and a train with square wheels--all abandoned by children who preferred conventionality to novelty. Even the abominable snowman is a misfit who finally finds his true calling--placing stars atop Christmas trees without the aid of a ladder.

All these misfits got me thinking: Why is it that the misfit story in all its multitudinous machinations is so common when there are truly so few misfits in our conformist society? It seems every coming-of-age story is about a misfit who saved the day and was embraced by his fellows for his inner beauty and his courage against the odds, yet, truly, how often have real misfits been so lauded? Perhaps after they're dead, sure enough, but when they're breathing? It's hard to come up with a single example.

Well, maybe this is all just the banana bread talking.

Looking for a Place for Mom

During the past few days, I have been visiting assisted-living facilities in Long Beach. I have stepped into places that each one of us pass on our way to the office or the store or a bar, but never venture inside. It's a world I knew existed but never cared to explore.

First off, these places ain't cheap. Not by a long shot. To get anything decent and private, you're shelling out between $2,500 and three grand a month. That includes three meals and three snacks a day, emergency pull cords in every room, and more activities than you ever had at summer camp. Exercise classes, yoga, current events, shopping trips, breakfasts and lunches out on the town, church services, card games, bingo, crafts, sing-alongs around the piano, book discussions, excursions to the Getty Museum and to Catalina.

But looking at the sign-up sheets for these events, I saw few names. Most residents, it seems, choose to nod off in the lounge or hang out by the front door. Are they waiting for a daughter or son who never arrives? It's a chilling thought I couldn't get out of my mind.

One place I visited yesterday, the Crofton Manor Inn, reminded me of cheap motel. Everyone from the housekeepers to the director to the woman who grabbed my hand and wouldn't let it go seemed a bit off-kilter. The carpet was worn, the halls were dark, the rooms were even darker. The "deluxe" one-bedroom looked down onto a wall of razor wire and vibrated with rap music coming from the apartment building next door. My tour guide also showed me a studio shared by two women whose beds were lined up, headboard to footboard, against one wall that barely left room to walk to the toilet. I couldn't leave this establishment fast enough.

In the end, I have decided on Healthview's Pine Villa. The staff are friendly and professional. Everyone from the maintenance man to the cook to the director seem genuinely happy to be there. The dining area looks like a restaurant. And best of all, my mom's room is sunny and cheerful. As it's the model apartment, it's nicely furnished, and the director said she would let my mom use everything that's there at no extra cost, since she's moving from Wisconsin and doesn't have any furniture. She'll have a small bedroom with a twin bed, dresser, and night table; a breakfast nook/kitchenette with table, chairs, microwave, and fridge; and a living room with couch, end table, and rocking chair. Both the bedroom and the living room have an eighth-story view of downtown and a slice of the ocean. If this apartment were in a non-senior building, I sure wouldn't mind living there. Though it's $400 more per month than my second pick, the room is so warm and inviting that I am hoping this will make my mother's transition easier.

Each day I talk with her on the phone, she seems more and more anxious, frenetic, yet the physical therapist tells me she's doing well. I wonder if this anxiety is part of the whole getting-unhooked-from-the-pain-meds syndrome. She's basically going through withdrawals. My mother is the only junkie I've ever had close contact with, so I'm not sure about all this, but it sure seems that's what's going on.

The only subject of concern now is whether the skilled nursing home where she is currently residing will mark "dementia" on the forms that must be filled out and faxed back to Pine Villa. If that's the case, then my mother will be confined to a locked floor and given a roommate. No sunny, cheerful, private room. No privacy. And another $600 a month. I would hate to see this happen to her. Surely, it would be the death of her.

Caring for a Mother Who Never Cared for Me

When I was a child, my mother never told me she loved me. A few years back, when she saw how alone she had become, she began saying she loved me in a whiny voice that pleaded to me to say the same back to her.

I have never had a good time with her. No spontaneous hugs. No silliness. No belly laughs. No connection. Everything has always been about her. She doesn't even know what I do for a living, though I've told her hundreds of times.

During my childhood and young adulthood, her distance and disconnection upset me. But once I came to grips with who she was and what she would never be, I eased into a relationship of duty. Sending her greeting cards and flowers to cheer her. Visiting twice a year. Calling several times a week. Somehow it's much easier to know that she will never know anything about me, and by knowing this, I can give up vying for emotional intimacy.

But now that she is helpless, bonkers, zoned out on pain meds, deemed incompetent, I am now the best thing in the world because I am the only thing in her world. I am the life raft, and she's drowning.

This is not a pity-me diatribe from a 49-year-old slighted daughter. It's just that now that my sense of duty has to come into full swing, I sure wish that a loving bond or at least some good memories came along with the package.

So on Monday, the day after tomorrow, I'll be winging my way home to find a home for my mother.

I have been in Wisconsin now for almost two weeks, getting rid of her things, closing up her apartment, sorting through the mountains of unpaid bills and paperwork. I've seen her deemed incompetent and put in a skilled nursing home, where she is receiving rehab.

I am stressed, as this whole job is placed in my lap (though my dear son was here for a week to help). My brother in Milwaukee, just 25 miles away, wants nothing to do with her. He hasn't called or visited during these past two weeks. I also feel financially burdened, as I had to fly with Aaron out here on a moment's notice. Also, when she moves to Long Beach, I'm stuck there once again. My plan was to leave So Cal in May and begin anew. Now that doesn't seem to be in the cards. I feel trapped.

I've got to find a way to make this mountainous task a bit easier. I have no pleasant memories to reflect back upon, and her current state does little but produce pity, impatience, stress, a sense of being manipulated and used, and, yes, anger in me. I keep all this under wraps, of course, under the polite smile of duty. I am duty-bound to care for my mother, but, oh, how I wish my care for her were rather based on the love I have known for my son and he for me. But the opportunity for that was lost long ago.