etolix & a-lo taste testing

We are back at Jeni's ice cream in Columbus for our second taste test. This time we tried three flavors Queen City Cayenne, Strawberry Buttermilk, and Lime Cardamom. In the closing moments, Erin, the final taste tester show us how it's done.

p.s. etolix on the right, a-lo on the left

Learnin' the Chinese Yo Yo!

YouTube?

more Morning Dad...

so, i went home this weekend...AND i promised Morning Dad i'd give it a rest. i'd take a little break from writing about him. (whistle, whistle, whistle) was that long enough?

one Mississippi...two Mississippi...three Mississippi...

so, as i pulled into the driveway i remembered one 20oz. Diet Pepsi later that my house key is nestled somewhere deep in the Lost and Found bin at the Columbus Airport. In full bladder distress, i reached for my cell phone and dialed the number:

"Hello Unity National Bank this is "Morning Dad" speaking." : )

"Hi Dad, um i'm sitting in the driveway right now locked out of the house..."

"how about if i come home right away and let you in!"

"that would be great."

there is one stop sign between Morning Dad's work and home. i guarantee he did not roll through it. it took the full 5 minutes and lots of squinting...but soon i saw the unmistakable sparkle and spit-polish shine of Morning Dad's sedan.

he popped the garage and before i could land a foot on the pavement Dad stood at my side offering his services.

"here can i help you unload your car?"

it's taken a long time but i've come to truly appreciate the offer. funny or sad to think there was a time when peeing myself was the preferred option to accepting help (i'll show them what an adult i've become...hmm)

"okay, thanks." i opened the back passenger door and handed him a laundry bag struggling to pucker at the drawstring. There was one more bag. the simple overnight bag that for some reason weighed about as much as a small refrigerator. I never pack too many clothes just an assortment of curiously heavy items...study material for personal training, a Canon video camcorder, two unopened cans of pop, an unopened cup of yogurt, a trashed bible i've promised to repair...

i thought i'd try carrying this one in myself. ( i have a little wheelie cart this overloaded dandy had snuck a ride on during the car loading.)

but...it was a lovely spring evening so instead I stood stretching and enjoying the fresh lilac scented breeze gently dance across my face.

hmm, where's my help?

dad had gone inside with the laundry...but not returned. the only thing that might keep Morning Dad from completing a dad chore...

might there be intestinal trouble? i stood poised and worried about his health. i waited and waited...

one Mississippi...two Mississippi...three MississiPEE!!!!!!!

i could wait no longer. i grabbed my leaded load and started walking... at first toward the door, then INTO various items IN the garage. (my bag was heavy. IT threw me off course). i was quite certain the sound of the overturned recycle bin or the aluminum STOP sign banging into the wall would cause a flurry of tippy-tapping (tip-tap-tip-tap-tip) and an almost unhinged screen door as Morning Dad flew to my side!

four Mississippi...five Mississippi...

man he really must be sick! i started to worry and think of possible medical advice...what doctor he might call, which brand of Pepto Bismal he might take...

i made it to the door. now the kitchen door i was entering is directly across from the kitchen door to the patio. (it's a glass door). it was a BEAUTIFUL day in the neighborhood...

six Mississippi....seven Mississippi...

And...standing out on the back patio snipping sprigs of lilac off his lilac bush was Morning Dad. he snipped and arranged a few for the patio table. snipped a few more...for the inside vases. by the time i made it to the restroom we had the whole house smelling like lilacs!!!!

ooops! yes, he had forgotten there was a second bag.

okay, anyway, got to run. just wanted to say (love you dad)

Happy Monday!

Amanda

p.s. there's a video for mom : )

what is suffering?

I cannot fully grasp the suffering in China, Myanmar, or even in Oklahoma after the tornadoes…

I always have a sense that because I have suffered personal tragedy I do not want to turn my back. In a way it feels hypocritical to have cried out to the world in moments of despair to now stick my fingers in my ears and deaden myself to the fact that others are trapped and suffering. I cannot be there to pull anyone from the rubble. I understand that physically this is not my place in the world anymore. What I can do is to try to pull down or understand suffering at a human level. (current massive tragedies are at the global level).

Here’s what has been going on in my personal world. Something that has affected me and I still struggle with. My goal or purpose is not to preach, just to make you think. I will return to happier Mondays soon (next week?) but today I’m just trying to sit with the sadness.

I had been away from Melissa’s room for too long. There’s something about the smell of pee and human feces that will do that. There’s always a fan blowing those smells around and stuff stuck to the floor. This day was different. Notes for the staff had been re-written and lined up on the cork strip above the bed. There were fresh new photos of smiling faces, a little girl in a pool with her dog both wearing goggles. The nightstand always littered with handiwipes, straws and sponge swabs now it was decorated with flowers. Melissa’s Bible sat tattered and frayed keeping order. (Usually it had been overturned or inadvertently stuck in the fall-between places in her wheelchair or adjustable bed). Lying underneath the bed were boxes of Melissa’s favorite snacks; Oreo cookies, Nutter Butter cookies and a case of pop. Items hard to come by in a nursing home and general standing requests to anyone coming in from the outside world-“Could you bring me some Oreos?”

"Melissa have you had a visitor?" I couldn’t make out the words in her reply. Like I said I’d been gone too long. Melissa’s words are something that take time, patience, and persistence. They take practice to catch. My ability to catch them had atrophied away like a muscle. Counting the number of family photos I quickly guessed “was your mom here?” Melissa said nothing about her visitor from Georgia. She didn’t need to this sign said it all “Melissa’s teeth are to be brushed and flossed everyday.” I should have known only her mother would have the audacity to add the “and flossed” like a school teacher’s marking to the paper. Melissa was seldom visited, often forgotten. Something sad that happens when you’re 1,000 miles away and in a nursing home?

So much for mothers who lift the bumpers of cars off their dying children I guess. If I could have penned a note, here’s what it would say- Dear Melissa’s Mom. Your daughter is dying. How important is the floss?

Mom had visited.

There was an overdue notice from the public library stuck to Melissa’s side. She let me know that the social worker had taken her to the library. The notice read Crash. That’s not an easy movie to follow for someone struggling with focus and sometimes foggy thinking. I asked Melissa how it was, she said she enjoyed it. I smiled not for the movie review but imagining her moments of freedom in the outside world. "What was it like for you busting out of here for a couple hours?" Frustrated, I couldn’t understand Melissa’s response. Since I’d been away her speech had declined, the words were more garbled. In a panic, in a haste, I went to the TV to look for the DVD. I thought I might return it or stick it on the nightstand with the notice for someone to see. Maybe even a sign PLEASE RETURN ME.

I walked over to the TV sitting on top the second-hand dresser and looked up. There’s a Hospice certificate on the wall? Fear and dread stuck in my gut. Melissa had requested Last Rights. This request received and granted. Why did they only listen to this one and not the millions before?

Melissa is more at peace now. Not because she’s achieved this through spiritual practice or religious study but because her disease is progressing. She reached a point where her body has failed to provide her with the energy for her fight and struggle. Some folks say this is a blessing. It’s when the healing within the dying finally starts to occur. Their care givers feel relaxed as their loved one finally rests. No! (the word screamed in my head) I see this as a painful injustice. She never had the chance to be heard and actually live out what she was fighting for…What did she want? What was her struggle? She wanted to get laid. Wanted to shop and have people over for dinner parties. Wanted to be listened to when she expressed her intelligence. Wanted to be heard when she expressed a simple need or preference.

All gone now that her acting out behaviors left her without people around her who could practice patience before listening. She was left in a position of no adult intimacy or connection. Something I’ve tried to provide her with…one area of my life where I have clung desperately. (Where I have not failed!)

How long will this continue? It’s a frequently asked Hospice question. Thankfully they provide answers. Six months is a typical Hospice stay. With Melissa I wonder if this is true. It is just as likely that those in charge would have consented to Melissa’s request just to make her stop asking. This could be like watching a prisoner needing multiple zaps to die in the electric chair.

Melissa’s condition is worsening but she’s a fighter. only repeated ignorance and neglect seem to really take her down.

The lesson I’m learning in watching her death?


I’m afraid of her dying, I’m more afraid that this won’t happen.

(The above photo is Melissa's Bible. she's asked me to fix it before my next visit, uh any suggestions?)

morning dad has dating difficulties

*i thought I'd read this one to help smooth the transitions. (it's pretty rough)

http://homepage.mac.com/amv12/iMovieTheater37.html

If you'd rather read it yourself, the content is below
: )


Good Morning,

Last weekend only minutes before my fateful run-in with the po-po, I stood in the driveway and hugged my father good-bye. he said with an uncertain expression “you’re going to write about me again aren’t you?”

"yep."

okay, so... when I went home for my grandpa's 90th, I quickly learned Judy (Dad’s girlfriend) would not be joining us at the celebration.

Judy had had a surgery which as a woman made me shift uncomfortably in my chair and clench. she was thankfully at home and recovering.

I dutifully followed Dad’s tassel shoes laying fresh tracks in the carpet and smiled as he proudly held up the basket of GET WELL flowers he had tastefully arranged and displayed on the living room table.

"Wow that’s great dad, they’re pink."

I returned to the kitchen sat back down…squirmed and clenched.

Interesting question/observation:

What are the rules for dating? After 60, you’re likely to be disappointed because your significant other is more likely to prove to be fallible or human sooner than you’d like...

It’s difficult to watch with the simple return of one phone call a grown man’s (or woman’s) face go from

"We’re having a ball!" to "who do I call?"

Later that evening we learned Judy had been readmitted to the hospital (she’s okay now).

I stood concerned and clenched as i listened to my dad navigate a tricky telephone conversation with a harried nurse at the nurses' station

(Who are you?

I’m her uh…significant other )

anyway,

Some things that make sense to the thirty something generation those dating after 60 struggle with.

when two people are maintaining two residences it seems very natural for those with monogamous histories and intentions to move in together after a year of dating. the price of gas alone just about demands it.

this "move-in" suggestion made at a "father-daughter breakfast" halted the hash-browns trip around the plate (tippy tap food arranging)

I said, "why doesn’t Judy just move in with you? it sure would seem to make sense!"

Somehow this meant a marriage must occur first. Something to do with church, God, and men who get too comfortable...

anyway

it's hard. i never know what to say. Do you praise the morals they tried to instill in you? yes! "let the marriage bed be undefiled!..." (as such and so on for the Iraq)

or do you encourage the "sin?"

("because uh some people out there in our nation don't have maps and i believe that our education like such as South Africa, and uh the Iraq everywhere like such as and so on..." Miss Teen)

An interesting thing happened after the divorce. Things started disappearing from the Kid's bathroom. The soap dish was filled with decorative soap as the messy pumper action one was sentenced to crust and harden in the hall closet. The friendly Daily
Clarifying shampoo no longer welcomed a beleaguered first step into the shower. Instead it was L’Oreal reminding you that someone’s hair needs volumizing.

The basket with extra toilet paper? Gone.

The stool for magazines, the repository for bathroom lit? …gone.

The only item that seems to have stayed the course throughout this transition is the toothpaste. When packing the overnight bag, this is the one item I know there will be a reprieve for if it does not make it into the dop kit. Nestled deeply in a drawer
underneath the bathroom counter space is a lonely tube a Crest. It sits next to the flat purple comb I plucked from the bag of goodies in the beautician's shop one x-mas. I’ve come to truly appreciate its Spartan existence—(the toothpaste. The comb is still a puzzlement).

Although I could not be convinced to bring my dress up to standards, I did not want to arrive at the 90th with 90 year-old breath. That is, like any other reasonable person I went into the dimmer switched guest bathroom to brush my teeth.

I bent low to open the toothpaste drawer.

And... What?!!!!!!!!!!!!???

Something needed to be explained. (see photo). The Kids' bathroom drawer has NEVER looked like this before. I recognized my purple comb…but this drawer had a lot more in it than toothpaste. Lip gloss, eye-liner, mascara, lip pencils, little blush brush.

(Dad has a live-in girlfriend! or a new hobby we need to talk about!)

Dad was safely barricaded behind three closed doors. I opened the door to MY bathroom and politely knocked on his bedroom door. “uh, Dad, can I borrow some toothpaste? My er the other bathroom is all out.”

"Okay, sure," the muffle voice echoed through door and I heard the door open to his bathroom. The bedroom door cracked and out peeked Morning Dad’s head. He handed me the toothpaste. I gave him a sly little grin…”um, Dad, there’s a lot more in that drawer these days than toothpaste.”

Ooops. he’d been caught! He stood. His face lit up as he half-heartedly made the attempt to hide a shit eating grin.

I smiled right back. "You don’t need to say anything. I’m just sayin'. I think it’s great…or if you have something else you need for us to talk about (cross dressing, entering drag shows) I’m here to listen."

He laughed some more. Door closed.

Final investigative report. It had spread. Underneath the sink. It’s terminal. There’s razors (lady razors) and a plastic tub filled with all the unmentionables…nail polish remover, make up cleansing wipes…). In the shower, there's Dove moisturizing lady shampoo AND conditioner.

So, what I learned…

The Dali Lama has a medical condition that requires him to eat meat so he compromised with his doctor. he decided he would be a “part-time” vegetarian. He would eat meat every other day.

God told Stephen thou shalt not give appearances of committing adultery unless it’s on weekends.

Happy Monday,

Amanda
The used to be #1 daughter : )