Post-Mortum

This is the weekend I meet my 2 sisters in NC and we head to my Mom's small hometown to spread her ashes around her headstone. We are planting daffodils I have yet to dig out of my back yard. And I bought some Iris bulbs to plant. Guess we'll have to plant them close to her headstone so they don't get mowed over by the groundskeepers.

My older sister feels like this should just be us girls, since the memorial service brought friends and family together to remember her life. I'm of two minds. I feel that we should warn my Mom's closest friend in her hometown to let her know we are coming rather than just calling her out of the blue, so she can make plans. And two days notice is better than day of notice, right?

Anyway, my Mom missed 23 years of North Carolina springs while living in the Alaskan Bush. It's appropriate that we embrace spring for her this year.

Miss you Mom.

Dang (To quote my favorite soldier)

I meant to be better about writing this dang blog. [Sigh]

Maybe I'll even figure out how to post a picture on this thing. I am soooo not techno-savvy.

Short post today. Just gonna bitch about being self-employed. Ready or not, here it comes.

My 10 am apt forgot about me, so I had to run errands for a half hour. My noon apt cancelled at 10. My last apt is gonna confirm sometime today that he will be able to make his 5 pm time slot. I am driving to him and schlepping my stuff as well, which means my 1 hour apt will more than likely take close to 2 hours, minimum. (Sigh) At least I figured out how to use my phone credit card reader with a regular client who doesn't mind me making an ass of myself as I muddled through the program.  : )

I am in week 8 of an 8 week online poetry class. I am behind because I was running around like a muppet (Grover, of course) for 5 days. And my body betrayed me by succumbing to another effing sinus infection.  Damn auto-immune crap.

And so, I have 5 critiques to make up, need to write my last poem and have 5 more critiques to look forward to in the next week. I can do it!

Now, what lovely photo am I gonna upload now?

It's a iPhone closeup of a tree I turned around in order to photo, then realized I had left my Nikon at home.  Again.  So, it's not the greatest...

Ahem, it's been awhile

And I'm not going to apologize to anyone but myself.  'Cuz all this blogging stuff is mainly for me anyway.  I'm also thinking about changing what I do on this thing (not that I have a specific theme or anything), mainly because it's not that interesting to me to write about writing.  You can read all about that other places.

I think I'm going to do a couple of different things.  Maybe a science fiction book review, which would mean me actually getting back into reading them on a semi-regular basis.  Maybe a photo day, to get me back into playing with (& learning about) my digital camera.  And the maddening photo-shoppy programs that I persist in fruitless attempts to learn to operate.  [Sigh]   Not sure what else.  Guess links to little things which tickle my fancy.  But, maybe not 'cuz you can see LOL Cats on FB all you want.

I'm only 71 days behind my NY's Resolution schedule here.  

Feeling a little strange now

I've been at my Mom's for about a week and a half now.  None of us felt good about leaving her cabin in the "holler" unoccupied so soon after her obituary stated where all her children lived, ranging from 1.5 hours to the entire continent away.  Plus there's some other issues with her estate I won't go into here. 

I keep thinking that she'll come around the corner from her bedroom and give me hell for spreading all my crap out over the majority of the horizontal areas of the living room.  I tend to do that when I'm stressed.  Or mad.  Or sad.  Or all frelling three.

I slept on the couch for 3 nights, finally going upstairs to suffer through a bout of insomnia last night almost as bad as the night she died.  Won't go into that here.

Her memorial service was focused on her, her faith and her life -- though some thought her pastor mentioned her choir and Sunday School class so often that it came across like a commercial for them.  They were a big part of her life, as was her writing group, which I crashed yesterday.  It was a dual purpose visit, returning some things they had left with her -- though I forgot to ask about a strange pyrex dish which showed up in her kitchen -- and getting two of my poems critiqued.*

I have watched a lot of mindless Law & Order SVU reruns and some Netflix online -- might as well enjoy the cable TV and internet while I'm here, no?  And I've done some other professional things, like fulfilling the ethics requirements for my Va CMT renewal.  And finally getting all the poems from the workshop I took in SF revised to the point where I'm comfortable sending them out to the other participants.  Twice, because I forgot to put my name on them before I sent them out the first time.

I can't seem to focus for long periods of time.  Grief, I believe.  I did so much grieving for both my Weim and my Mom, before she actually died, that I feel pretty numb at the moment.  That's normal too.  Gotta go, as my blogging time is up.

 * I have found that very few writing groups know what to do with the rough drafts of poems presented for constructive criticism, so I've about stopped attending meetings.

I have a valid excuse this time...

My Mom had been fighting cancer since 2007.  It metastasized in her lungs last fall.  After two sessions of chemo, she called into the hospital because she felt horrible. And then spent several hours on IVs to get her electrolytes in-balance and re-hydrated, she and her oncologist agreed to stop the chemo.

So she focused on quality of life rather than quantity.  And focused her energy on self publishing a novel and a slightly fictionalized memoir of the 23 years my family spent living in the Alaskan Bush, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.  I read about 100 pages of it before my life exploded this past summer.  I also haven't read her novel.  Any of them -- published or unpublished.  It's like I am too close to her and them to be objective.  And I feel bad about it.  But I still haven't read them.

So, they are on my "to read" list.  Whenever I stop reading the head-candy crap I've been able to focus on lately.  Wonder why that is?  Dog died.  My Mom's dying.  I can hear her gasping for breath right now as I'm writing this.

I'm waiting on my younger sister to come back here to my Mom's cabin tomorrow.  I left a message on my older sister's answering machine.  Guess I should call my brother-in-law and see if he can get her a message at work.  Since I don't have that particular number.

I'm signing off and going to write my mid-afternoon pages, a la the Artist's Way now.

If I can focus on it, that is.

Another me!

OK, another blogger with the same blog name, across the pond.  Different font and different capitalization. And is mostly cat pictures.

I should leave a note on the cat's blog...or Dyoji, as the cat has been named.

: P

Crap, can't leave the cat a note...for I just tried.  Talk about synchronicity. How many other cats named "dog" are out there?

Vote for your favorite Olympic Poem!

Vote for your favorite Olympic Poem here on NPR. 

I'm not telling which one I voted for.

But I reserve the right to whine if mine didn't win.

Cuz I voted.

Hmm, maybe y'all should vote in November too.

Just saying.