The Secret Life of Walter Knitty

There has been a big upheaval in my personal life this week, so blogging is going to be sporadic for a little while.  Sorry, I’m not in much of a place to go into details right now.  I still have a job, a place to live, the naughty cat, and the garden.  Some changes are for the worse, some are for the better.  This change falls into the latter category.  It is definitely a change for the better but, with all big changes, until things sort themselves out and get back in place again, it’s stressful. 

No pictures for a while unless I can borrow a camera. 

M. took me out last night for some much needed talk and drinks.  I’ve known M. as long as I’ve known Donna, I met him through Donna.  He and her husband at the time were in some of the same classes in college.  M. is my gay boyfriend.

We’ve been asked if we’re brother and sister (you’ll see why in the picture.  That’ll have to be later, when I have my own computer.  The one at work is being dumb) and right now, he’s being a big brother for me.  Sometimes it’s nice to have an older brother.  Last night we went to Crush for drinks and Skip-Bo. 

Saturday I leave for the beach to get some much needed quality time with Donna.  She may not be my biological Mom, but right now, I couldnt ask for more.  Work gave me Tuesday off (I work with some really awesome and understanding people) I may not be back till then.  Unless I can borrow a camera to take some photos.  The coast here is wonderful.

It’s Mothers Day and I have no kids so I thought I’d post something a little different today.  It’s kind of a Mom story, and kind of not.  I moved to Oregon 10 years ago today and this is how I got here.

Waaay back in the late fall/early winter 1997 (time before the Internet was such a big deal and we had to make fire by rubbing two sticks together) I was living with my now ex-husband  Hawkeye. (we werent married yet then)  We had such a terrible winter that year, it started snowing 2 weeks before Halloween.  It may be Iowa and all, but that’s ungodly early, even for Iowa.  Anyway, he was adopted at 6 weeks.  His Mother was only 17 and couldnt care for him.  He always knew he was adopted, but never had the desire to look for his birth mother.

He got a card in the mail saying “If you are the Jim Clark born on 02-11-73, please contact me I have important information for you”  He started shaking and broke down saying “It’s from my Mother”.  What we found out is the card came from an intermediary with the State of Oregon.  His adopted parents were none to pleased with the developments when they found out.  Even though Hawkeye was 24 at the time.  I can understand their feeling threatened.  After all, they did adopt Hawkeye, raise him, and support him throughout his life and now, there was this woman who gave him up, out there looking for him.  What I cannot understand is their reaction later.  (That part is coming.)  Even with their feelings, they did go ahead and get Hawkeye the papers he needed to send to the State to verify his identity: a notarized copy of his original birth certificate, copies of his adoption papers, and a few other things.  He sent in the papers and a couple of weeks later got a call from the same woman who sent his card asking how he wanted to be contacted.  Did he want a letter or a phone call.  The prospect of a phone call was a little too much so he asked for a letter.

A couple of weeks later he got a letter and pictures from his birth mother, Donna.  She was a hippie and a trouble kid who was sent to WA to live with an Aunt.  She started hanging around with a boy got pregnant.  She talked about her time being pregnant with him and how because she was so young, her Mom forced her to give him up, that it was the best thing for both of them, even though she didnt want to.  She talked about how she would take a bath and splash water over her belly, poking where ever he would kick or poke to “play” with him.  She saw him but didnt get to hold him after he was born, she could hear him cry, and was heartbroken when he was taken away.    A few years later she tried to do what she was raised to believe was the “right thing” to do.  She got married to a very Christian man and had a little boy, Jay.  The marriage didnt end up working out and they got divorced.  She went on being a single mother before eventually getting pregnant and then getting married (by a justice of the peace) again.  Again, she had another little boy, Trevor, who is the brattiest boy I have ever known.  She included pictures of herself, her husband, her two other boys, and her folks.  She talked about how she always knew she would search for him but waited until after he was 18 to do so.  That way he’d be an adult.  She talked a little about the different searches they did.  A couple on their own, and the last one, the one where he was found, through the State, and how she and her family named him Jeremy though the search.  She decided to find him on Christmas.  She is not a religious woman, more pagan and pantheistic, than anything else, but had gone to mass on Christmas, saw a woman with 3 boys, and felt it was the right time to search for her boy she had given up so many years ago.  She included her phone # if he wanted to call, and her address if he wanted to write.

I think he ended up calling, after receiving the letter.  She was thrilled to hear from him and he cried.  We ended up exchanging letters and phone calls over a few months.  She worked at the Oregon State Bar (lawyers) and some of her co-workers helped pool money together to buy us plane tickets to come and visit in March, 1998.  We left Iowa, it was cold and snowy.  We landed in Portland, after a long and arduous flight (being late because our ride to the airport was late and couldnt drive the speed limit, we ended up getting re-routed on a different flight because I almost flipped out on the lady behind the counter [um I hate to fly, it freaks me out.] the flight from MN to Portland was delayed because of ice and break problems, finally got on the plane and sat on the runway for nearly an hour because of problems with the breaks on that plane) got to Portland at midnight.  Donna had gone to check our flight and almost wasnt able to get back in the terminal.  It had been locked.  The only reason she was let back in was because the woman working was an adoptee and had always wanted to find her birth mother.  When we were leaving the airport it was 60 and everything was green.  I was pretty much sold then.

We got to the house, she was renting an old farm house on a hazelnut farm, outside of Sherwood.  A couple of days later they had a party and her folks were there.  We learned at first her Mom didnt approve of her finding Hawkeye, but then was grateful.  Her dad is a dyed in the wool liberal and one of the first things I heard him say was “Bill Clinton is the best President we’ve had and they should sew his zipper shut and run him through for 4 more years!”  We met her sister and brothers, their kids, her neighbours, which were her husbands ex-wife, her husband, their daughter, and her son from her previous marriage to Donna’s current husband.  (FYI, this is why it’s referred to as the family bramble bush).  We got away to the beach for a few days, and spent some time in Portland.  Portland was the first large city I’ve ever been to that didnt feel claustrophobic, and once I saw the Ocean I knew I didnt want to live anywhere else.

We came again during the summer.  No humidity, no mosquitoes, I was totally sold then.  It’s August, it’s 85, and you can go outside without feeling the atmosphere pushing down on you?!  It’s summer, you can take a shower, go outside, and not immediately feel like you need another?!  Totally sold.

We decided to move.  We also decided to get married because we thought his adopted parents would take the news better if we were married, than if we werent.  PSA moment: Never get married because you think the decision will please someone else or make a big decision like moving halfway across the country easier to take.  It doesnt work.  We got married on Halloween.  Even before the wedding, I knew it wouldnt last.  But I was young, and dumb, and did it anyway.  Um, always listen to your instincts.  We told his adopted parents we were going to move to Oregon.  They were very upset and felt like we were making this decision to hurt them on purpose.  His adopted Mom sought my Mom out at Target (where she works) and told her they all needed to get together and make us not move.  Talk us out of it, do what it took to get us not to go.  My Mom, (to this day, I’m still give her props for this) told Carol that even though she wasnt thrilled about us moving so far away, and she would miss me, and even though she’d rather have me close by, I was an adult, we were married, and it was our life to live.  She couldnt and wouldnt tell us what to do.  Carol was none too thrilled.  Hawkeye’s parents refused to talk to him for several months after we moved.  Donna sent his adopted mom Carol a letter thanking her for adopting him, loving him, and taking care of him (he has several medical problems: psoriasis, severe psoriatic arthritis which is a severe form of rheumatoid) giving him a good home and upbringing.  That Carol was and would always be Hawkeye’s mother because she was the one who raised him and loved him throughout his life.  Carol wrote a hateful letter back.  When she passed away about 4 years ago, she died hating Donna.  I dont know how someone could die with so much hate in their heart.

Hawkeye, me, and my Dad left Iowa early in the morning on May 10th, 1999.  It took the better part of 3 days to get from central Iowa to Portland.  After Lincoln, NE, until you get to the Rocky Mountains in WY, there is nothing.  Seriously, the landscape is completely flat and there is nothing for miles.  Driving through the Rocky Mountains was pretty dramatic.  We drove around Salt Lake City, UT.  When we were driving through ID we went through a canyon that funneled wind and rocked the truck so bad we had to stop or I’d've thrown up.  Idaho has a lot of dramatic scenery.  Oregon does too.  There is a big difference between Eastern Oregon and Portland.  Once you get to the Cascades and through the Columbia River Gorge, you leave a landscape of dry scrub and into lush greenery, waterfalls, rivers, and trees.  It’s a dramatic change.  Hawkeye was driving through the Gorge, I was in the middle, my Dad was on the passenger side.  He could see a waterfall on the driver’s side, so he stood up, and tried to stick his head out of the drivers side window.  At that point, Hawkeye and I were done with having him in the truck for 3 days and were glad to nearly be at our destination.  My Dad stayed for a few days before flying back to Iowa.

Married life with Hawkeye didnt work out.  We ended up getting separated then divorced.  I stopped taking care of his every need and he didnt do anything to take care of himself.  His arthritis got out of control, he was living with a very dark man, moved out of that place into one that was better, but still got very sick, and his adopted Dad, basically had to come to Oregon and rescue him.  If he hadnt, Hawkeye probably would have died.  When he got to Iowa he spent the better part of 2 weeks in the hospital and in the years since then has been doing what he can to get better.  And in the years since then, he and I have discovered how to become the best of friends.  If I had to go through everything my relationship with him put me through again to receive the boon of a wonderful, reciprocal friendship, I’d gladly go through all the hardship and heartache.

His birth mother is still in the picture.  The two of them still talk.  I hang out with her in her new home at the Coast with her new boyfriend.  She says I was the boon that came with Hawkeye.  That she’s so glad I stayed because she got a daughter.  She only had sons and always wanted a girl.  She says I’m not her ex-anything.  Her mother refers to me as her granddaughter.  Hawkeye wants to move back to Oregon.  Donna wants all her boys close to her.  It’s nice for me because in some ways she’s more like a Mom to me than my own Mom.  And, she’s close by.  It’s an hour and a half bus trip from Portland to where she lives.  I’m glad she adopted me into her family and into her life.  Her two boys look at me like a sister.

That’s it.  It’s how I got to Oregon.  Not the way most people end up in a completely different place, but it worked for me.  I feel very fortunate things ended up the way they did.  It could have been very different.  My parents are glad things turned out the way they did, even though at first they thought it was weird.  They are glad I have someone who defaults as family close since they are so far away.  They are glad I have someone to spend the holiday’s with and someone who fills a parent role for me, who is loving and caring, and accepting.

I went for my 3rd mammogram today.  I’m 31 years old.  A little background:

One November day when my Mom was 38 she found a lump on her left breast while she was taking a shower.  She and my Dad were pretty freaked out.  She went to the Doc, had a biopsy, and ended up having her left breast and some lymph-nodes removed.  She went to chemotherapy every 2 weeks for 4-5 months.

It was a difficult time for me and the family.  My Dad explicitly told me I was not to talk about it.  I didnt know what was going to happen.  I’ll never forget hearing her throw up at night or waking up in the morning to find gobs of her hair in the waste basket.  She lost a lot of weight.  I was 12 and very insecure about everything and wanted to be as thin as she was.  Dad was working 3PM-11PM.  When Mom was too sick or worn out I had to make dinner, clean up, help take care of my brother who was 9, etc.  That Christmas Dad and I were sitting in the car outside his younger brothers house.  He looked at me, put his hand over mine, his eyes teared up, and said that he needed me to be strong for him.  One day after her shower Mom called me into the bathroom.  She showed me her scar, still red, from where her left breast had been removed.  I touched it.  She also had me touch her skin just above where her breast had been, there was a button where she got her chemotherapy.

There are other things I’ll never forget though.  That Easter, Mom had just finished chemotherapy.  Their Church (Zion Lutheran Church) service was broadcast on the radio.  She didnt feel she could attend because her immune system was weakened by  chemo so she listened to the service over the radio.  It was sunny that morning and for some reason I have a very clear memory of her hand on the dial knob, her fingernails, her hand dialing in the AM signal, the morning light, the sunny sky . . .    There was another sunny afternoon, after school, when she called me to her.  She wanted to know if I could feel peach fuzz on her head.  She wanted to be sure her hair was growing back.  That it wasnt just her imagination.  She wore a bright purple paisley scarf to cover her bald head.  She had others but that one she wore most often.  Once a month for 5 years she had to go down to the Quad Cities for continuing treatment.  She got a shot in the stomach, that always came with a bruise afterward.  This was part of a study to see if this would keep the cancer from reoccurring.  In the summer when I was out of school, before I was working, I would go with her.  I’d go with her to the Genesis Clinic.  She’d get her shot sometime between 10-11.  We’d go out to lunch then go shopping or do something else.  There were afternoons where we’d spend a couple of hours at Trash Can Annie’s because I was obsessed with old clothes.  At that time I was obsessed with women’s fashion from the Civil War.  I was 12 and was going through a “Gone With The Wind” phase.  I read the book twice, had seen the film several times, and thought it was very romantic.  There are still periods of womens fashion I’m very attracted to.  The Empire dresses of the 1820’s and 1830’s, the flowing Edwardian dresses and hats of the early 1900’s.  The  freedom  from corsets, short dresses, and experiments with boys fashion in women’s clothes from the 1920’s, the cut of jackets, skirt length, and shoes from 1930’s-1940’s.  I could take or leave women’s fashion from the 1950’s.  Not so into the Donna Reed thing.  I didnt like fashion in the 1980’s and have absolutely no idea why it’s coming back.

I digress.  Anyway, with all that being said, I found out  (I was at the Doc for a completely different reason) that if your Mom was under 40 and diagnosed with breast cancer that you’re supposed to start getting mammograms when you’re 10 years younger than your Mom when she was diagnosed.  It’s suppose to give baseline reads over time and is supposed to make it easier to see any change in breast tissue.  At 29, I had my first mammogram and was scared half to death.  I didnt know what to expect and was convinced that the tech would find something.

I’m here to tell you that mammograms arent so bad.  Not to say it’s the most fun experience ever and I’d have one every day if I could.  It is uncomfortable, and does make me feel vulnerable.  But there are worse things.  Stitches for instance are worse than a mammogram.  For any girls who are curious here is what happens:

Dont wear any under arm deodorant, anti-perspirant, or perfume your pits.  Check in 15 minutes before your exam.  You get to keep your pants and socks on!  You get to put on a lovely cloth gown that opens in the front.  If you’re lucky your tech will be a woman (imho I’d rather have a girl than a boy).  You step up a machine that has a table your boob gets put on and a plastic piece that comes down on top of your boob to squish it.  The tech takes your boob and puts it on the table and adjusts it to make sure it’s just right.  Then she goes over to the computer to take a picture.  Then they do the same thing but squish your boob sideways.  Now, I’ve been very lucky and have had techs who have told me they will not give me more pressure than I can stand and if I get too uncomfortable just to say so and she would back off.  This doesnt happen to everyone.  You do get red marks on your chest from the machine and your boobs will be a little sore but, that goes away after a little while.  Sometimes if you ask you can see the pictures  of your breast tissue.  I know some anatomy and know that your boob tissue is full of glands, ducts, blood vessels, veins, etc.  But it’s pretty neat to see the inside of your boobs.

You’d be surprised at how long and flat your boobs get.  Each time I have one I’m surprised at how flat and long my boobs get.  I’m not well endowed, my chest measures 33 inches around the fullest part.  My boobs arent much more than mosquito bumps on my chest.  But they get really flat, like 1/4 inch tall.

Girls, dont feel like you’re a weenie if you ask someone to come with you.  Either because you are a little afraid or need emotional support, or for whatever reason.  It doesnt make you a weenie.

Even though mammograms arent so bad I am absolutely CONVINCED that if men had to stick their penis’s in a machine that squeezed them flat medical science would come up with something else awfully quick.  I dont think men would stand for having their willies squeezed until there were flat as a pancake.

If you have a weak stomach or are easily grossed out please dont read this post.  You have been warned.

There are certain rights of passage one experiences as an adult.  After today, I would argue that cleaning the refrigerator is one of them.  Today, I have learned the importance of refrigerator cleaning and maintenance.  It’s been quite a while since I cleaned the fridge.  Today just happened to be the day it got done.  There was ice in the top right hand corner.  Lots of ice.  Chris used a hammer and screwdriver to get it out.  After that was done I thought I’d wipe it out.  You know, just to have the job done proper and get things clean.  I will admit that there was some pinkish/orange slime mold that I had neglected for a while.  That did not in any way shape or form prepare me for the foulness that was lying in wait under the crisper drawers in the bottom.  The bottom layer was comprised of water and onion skin.  Above that was a layer of mold, black as a black hole, finally, above that, was white furry mold, floating like foam on a sea of moldy foulness.

I was horrified.  I had no idea that was lying on the bottom of my fridge.  It was beyond imagining and I’m very much surprised it didnt attain sentience, come alive and try to come after me and the cat for a late night snack.  There was much cursing.  Fortunately, the Universe smiled on me and it had no smell.  A couple of towels I decided I could part with took care of a portion of it.  Then hot water and bleach did the rest.

Never in my adult life have I experienced something so foul and I have experience some foul things.  Once when I was a kid my brother refused to take the garbage out.  Every day for nearly a week in the summer (this is Iowa remember.  90 degrees and 90% humidity) my Dad told him to do it and every day he refused.  Finally, after it started to smell to high heaven, it finally was thrown out.  In the bottom of the bin was garbage water full of maggots.  I couldnt take it and had major dry heaves, which my Dad and brother promptly laughed at and made fun of.  (Oh the scars of childhood).  I’ve also lived with boys who did not feel the need to clean up after themselves.  Use your imagination for that one.

I sincerely hope in my adult life to never have such intimate knowledge of disgusting foulness in my fridge again.  Hopefully, I can keep to it and not go through this again.  It’s nearly 2 and I’m waiting for 2 more hours for the bar around the corner to open so I can get a nice Bombay Sapphire gin martini, dry, slightly dirty as liquid aid to get over this right of passage further into adulthood.