THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

My mom has Alzheimer. She's somewhere in the middle stages where here short-term memory has faded away. She still knows who we are and can remember events from her past but she'll pick up the salad spinner we put on her kitchen counter, the one we brought with us from New York, and ask, ""Well what the heck is that?"
"Mom, it's for cleaning lettuce. You put lettuce in the basket and wash it under the sink. Then you put it back in the bowl and press the knob on top. It spins out the water leaving you with clean dry lettuce." I give the knob a push and set the spinner spinning.
"You don't need to plug it in? Well how does that thing stop?" I pull the top off and stop the spinner. Mom shakes her head in amazement and walks over to another counter, a rag in her hand, and wipes away some imaginary mar. I remain at the sink rinsing the evening's dishes. Two seconds later she's back by my side staring at the salad spinner, "Well what the heck is that?" and the explanation begins again. Eventually, if we repeat it often enough, she'll remember or become comfortable with the spinner sitting on her kitchen counter. We have good days and bad ones. My mom is now a creature of habit. Everything has its place and change is feared. Thank God for what my family has been  able to provide for her.
For years mom has worked at my brother's stained glass studio. Being idle is my mom's biggest fear. After my dad died she took up residence at at my brother's studio, cleaning new windows, running the till, joking with customers, and keeping the store organized. As the dementia began to creep in, her ability to first run the till, then to clean the windows slowly slipped away. The studio is now more elder care for her where she goes and wanders from room to room, a cleaning rag in her hand, looking for imaginary dirt, proud she has a job. The smiles continue to cross her face as she jokes with customers and tickles the heads of the little kids who come in at the hands of their parents. She still has her laugh and her pride.
I now am the one who takes her to work in the morning. She is still asking, "Do I go to work today? When's Bonnie coming to pick me up?" But lately she's also been saying, "Are you taking me?" She's putting us into her routine, becoming comfortable with our presence in her world.

Yesterday Bonnie had to work late so I picked my mom up from work. First, I had to get Emmy from school and the two of us then drove to Light Haus, my brother's studio, to pick mom up. It was one of those perfect early September summer days in the late afternoon. The beltline in Madison can be brutal at rush hour so we decided to drive home through town. Traffic was slow but moving. We drove with the windows open, the seventy-two degree breeze floating through the car. I drove, my mom in the front seat beside me, and Emmy in the back. Rick was back at home preparing dinner. We had gotten to the corner of Atwood Avenue and Fair Oaks where the traffic had been reduced to single file. We were stuck in line at the red light when this woman approached the car. She had a cardboard box in her hands, "We're just closing and I didn't want these cupcakes to go to waste, would you like to take them home?" She handed the box marked Daisy Cafe & Cupcakery through the window to my mom, smiled and waved good-bye as she walked back to the cafe. We were too dumbfounded to do more than say thank you as the light changed and we moved ahead. Emmy opened the box and inside were four amazing cupcakes, two with raspberry icing swirls, one with blueberry and the last dusted with chocolate sprinkled over its crown of mocha frosting. Why she picked us was what we all tried to figure out as we drove on toward home. Was it my mom's startling beauty, it was Wednesday her day to have her hair done? Was it our newly washed eight-year-old Ford Escort that caught her eye or was it fate that made her hand over four beautiful cupcakes to a quartet of poor souls who wouldn't have had any dessert that night but for the kindness of a stranger.

LESSON SIX:

Karma is real. All good deeds will eventually be rewarded

ONCE IS A MISTAKE, TWICE IS STUPID

Dreams seem to be holding sway over this transtion from prosperity to poverty and hopefully back the other way. In prosperity dreams mostly came and went before I could get a real handle on what they were or where they were tying to take me. Like wisps of smoke they came and evaporated before I had a chance to remember their form. Now in poverty they come like beautiful paintings in a museum that I can go and revisit and look at with new insights as I examine their nuances. Last night's dream was one of those instances of clarity.

It was Bloomingdales men's department. I had picked out a pale blue shirt and was now trying to select a tie. The bright lights beat down on the glass topped display counter where I had laid down the shirt. I had picked out about a half dozen ties in various patterns and combinations of blues and browns. Everything centered on texture and geometry. I have never been a big fan of literal inspired pattern. Then this salesman pranced up to the counter flitting around, his bald head gleaming from the same bright lights that had lit the display case. His head cast a shadow on the shirt and ties I had picked out. He was carrying this perfect ochre and cream stripped shirt cradled in one arm like a newborn and in his other hand he held a nubby silk tie, golden with soft strands of silk sprouting out like peach fuzz. My head snapped back in joy dripping with desire. I so wanted this shirt and tie. The salesman angelically curtsied laying the shirt on the counter and then with a sweep of his other hand and a gleam chasing across his face he laid the tie on the shirt and slowly pulled back. The overhead lights revealed the combination of shirt and tie making them sparkle sending glints of light in all directions. Then the price tag attached to the tie slipped from its hiding spot and I woke up.

LESSON FIVE:

Learn from the mistakes that got you were you are. If spending was your downfall...STOP! Think about what you need right now and what you need is a bank account with money in it.

REALLY HOMELESS

Today came the realization that we are indeed really homeless. I never gave our situation a true moniker but the truth is we are homeless. Our home of almost twenty-four years in the country was lost to foreclosure and went up for auction at the end of July. At the end of August we were evicted from our apartment and after more than a decade at our office in Chelsea we had to terminate our lease and walk away. We didn't even have a car we could live in. I think this qualifies as the definition of true homelessness. We are completely at the mercy of the kindness of friends and relatives. Home for the time being will be my mother's basement. It's a difficult thing to wrap my head around but there is a strange clarity that comes from being so completely without. There is no longer any doubt about our circumstances, so come what may we'll start at the bottom and try to climb back up the ladder of life, one rung at a time.

LESSON FOUR:

No matter how dark your situation may seem, never give up on your dreams. When dreams disappear the evaporation of hope is not far behind.

THE TRUCK

Sometimes things happen that you don't plan on and don't want but in the end you see someone had been watching out for you even if you weren't. I decided to turn over a new leaf in my approach to the beginning of this new adventure. I'd actually researched things and looked for the best option instead of closing my eyes and jumping in unaware and unprepared. I got on the internet and began the search for the perfect truck to get us to Wisconsin. I found all of the sites on goggle for truck rentals and began filling in the information for each one getting a printout of their rates and deals. Then I compared what I thought were the best three: U-haul, Budget and Penske. I had done this in advance of the move and since we still clung to the hope of not having to make this move I stoped my search just short of making a real reservation. When the "It's-time-to-leave-New-York" ball finally dropped I got back on the phone with my top two choices: Budget and Penske. I had been leaning toward Penske. They had the best one-way price and they "guaranteed" a truck. I had set my mind on a sixteen footer, being a sissy boy the thought of driving anything larger gave me stomach cramps. When I called Penske back on the way to completing the final reservation the cost of the truck had jumped another hundred dollars. Not happy with the jump or their steadfastness in not wanting to negotiate, I called Budget to see what they would do. Budget was surprisingly happy to negotiate and willing to pull me in as a proud big rig customer. They beat Penske's price by a couple of hundred dollars and in our situation a couple of hundred dollars meant a lot. I rented from Budget and thought I had snuck a fast one past their professional sales force.
When Monday arrived, and we had still not completed all of our packing, my best friend, Jim, and I dashed of to the Budget rental lot on the Westside intending to get our truck. I needed Jim for moral and technical support. There were the normal unplanned for issues to deal with, the insurance, do we need a dolly, or do three foot by four foot packing blankets really cover anything. When all of the decision making had finally been put into place; insurance yes, dolly yes (although we never used it), blankets no, we went out to inspect the truck. I had this nagging thought in the back of my mind all night the night before but I chose to ignore it and instead back-stepped into my former mode constituting leaping without looking. I seemed to remember from past buying trips for our store that some of the trucks had bucket seat cabs meaning only two people could fit safely secured with seatbelts and airbags in place for the ride across country. Sure enough, when we looked inside the sexteen-foot Budget truck it had only two seats. For the briefest of moments I contemplated seating either Rick or Emmy on the consle, or leaving one them behind , or better yet running as fast as I could out of there and away from all of this misery. Instead, I did my best to calm down, walk back into the rental office and declare, "But it's only got two seats!" The salesman replied, "Yup." Putting back on my tough-as-nails negotiating hat I came back with, "Oh please, please, please you've got to help me!"
They had three-seater sixteen-foot trucks but they were only used for local or round trip rentals. There were no sexteen-foot or under vehicles for rent equipped with three seats. Then we spied the looming twenty-four footer, standing there sparkling in the sun, its three seat cab bellowing, "Take me, show 'em all what kind of man you are."
Knees quacking, I turned back in to the office one more time. Either compassion for my situation or an extreme pleasure in seeing me reduced to a whimpering little boy made the salesman offer me the big twenty-four footer for the same price as the little sixteen-footer I thought I wanted and felt I could handle. Providence had stepped in giving us what we really needed even if I thought it wasn't what I wanted. There would have been no way in hell a sixteen-foot truck would have held everything we took to Wisconsin. As it was, we packed the back of that truck from front to back and top to bottom without an inch to spare and I drove that truck from New York City to Andes, New York and all the way to Wisconsin without having to go in reverse once.

TIP:

Do your research and do it in advance. Ask questions. Negotiate. This goes for truck rentals and everything else you need.

Then rent Budget. They're really nice.

THE CAB RIDE

The packing began in earnest today with me as team captain at the studio and Rick back at the apartment. Without insurance, his Zoloft prescription is running out and he has decided it's time to wean himself off of the medication. The side effects for him have been very debilitating and he feels as if he has reached a plateau where he doesn't feel he is getting any better from the drugs. The weaning has had its own problems but our hope is the weaning side effects will subside as the medication leaves his body. In the meantime, there has been a great deal of sleeplessness, dizziness and upset stomachs. The upside has been a new outlook on life. This puts everything on the plus side of the balance sheet for me.
About halfway through the day Rick came into the office to deal with some plans for a cleint he was going to have our assistant, Amy work on in his absence. At one, the door to the office flew open and in bounded our cock-a-poo, Buddy, off his leash and madly making the circuit of everyone in the office. Rick was right at his heels, sweat dripping from his forehead but a big grin careening from ear to ear across his face. Outside it had turned into one of those ninety-degree days you butt into in the dead of August. Inside the blue of Rick's eyes danced with a cool joy I haven't seen for years.
After his meeting with Amy we discussed what we needed to do next. There were some packing items we wanted to get at Home Depot. We decided to take Buddy, get the plastic wrap and the construction bags we needed and then put him, the purchases and Buddy in a cab and send them home while I went back to the studio to finish packing up. Living in the city we have to travel with a carrier for Buddy whenever we have to take a cab or the subway with the dog in hand. He knows when the carrier comes out it means it's his time to travel and he hops right in.
I'm not sure if it was the heat of the day or the reduction in medication or a combination of all of this and the stress of our situation but by the time we finished at Home Depot, Rick had reached his limit. The shine in his eyes when he arrived at the studio had been replaced with a dullness that told me he needed to get back...fast. We hailed a cab and Rick, our cock-a-poo and the purchases all piled into the backseat of a cab and off they went.
An hour, maybe more, had gone by. I had told Rick to call when he got home. When the phone rang I was hoping it was Rick.
"Studio"
"Well, I guess when it's time for me to leave New York I have to do it with a bang," The pixie had returned.
"So, what happened?"
"Well, the minute we stepped outside at Home Depot I knew I wasn't feeling well. My stomach was starting to get queasy and the energy was draining out of me." Fortunately, the cabbie was very understanding. This was the cabbie's first mistake. If he had taken the time to look in Rick's eyes he would have seen trouble a brewin'.
"The cabbie and I talked about the pros and cons of leaving the city and getting around with a dog in tow." Rick felt compelled to let the cabbie know he wasn't traveling alone as soon as he got in the taxi. Many cabbies might have told him to get out. Most cabbies don't like to let dogs into their cabs. This one seemed fine, so in a spurt of compassion Rick decided to unzip the top of the carrier to allow little Buddy to stick his head out...mistake number two.
"About halfway down Seventh Avenue I knew I wasn't going to make it. I had to tell the cab driver he had better pull over to the side of the road because I didn't want to throw up all over the inside of his cab. He pulled over just in time for me to open the door and lose my lunch without getting a drop on his black leather interior, but I had forgotten about Buddy. Sure enough, the screeching halt of the taxi, the door flying open, and my concentration on vomiting into the curb gave him the idea he was home and with the unzipped carrier he was out of the cab before I could even wipe my nose. All I could think about was how was I going to explain to Emmy I had killed her dog the day before we were to leave New York. Before I could utter that first cry of despair, the cab driver was out of the cab chasing poor Buddy down the street and catching him by his leash before any car had a chance to turn him into road kill. "
Rick and Buddy are safe at home along with our Home Depot purchases and the cabbies safely on his way with a vomit free taxi and a twenty dollar tip, one we could hardly afford but one that karma wouldn't have looked kindly on if we hadn't handed it out. Rick definitely does know how to leave the city with a bang.

LESSON THREE:

Never give up your sense of humor.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH

August 15, 2009

"Where'd I put the scissors, has anyone seen the scissors?" Instead I find the bottle stopper Stefania gave us on our last trip to Italy. I wanted to pack it in the black leather box it belonged in, the one she left on the dining table in our room as a welcoming gift, but I have no idea of where the box went. I run from one end of the room to the other looking for everything and finding nothing.
Rick told me to sit down, take a deep breath; "You're driving yourself crazy with all this worrying." This is a case of the kettle calling the pot black. He walked over to the desk and dug out two tiny notebooks, mine was green. He handed it over and said, "Okay, write down everyhing you think you have to do. Put it down on paper and then start crossing out what you've done." In less than three minutes I had filled three pages. I could have gone on but I decided the probability of completing even a small portion of the list was highly unlikely, why add insult to injury. For the next thirty minutes I seemed more focused, a little calmer, a little richer for Rick's thoughtfulness, but after thirty minutes I misplaced the book and still couldn't find the scissors. Chaos is endemic to moving and when you're trying to load up a house you've lived in for over twenty years, an apartment that has been your home base for two and an office you've inhabited for over a decade, chaos is inevitable. I just want the next forty-eight hours to be over.

TIP:

During the beginning stages make sure to allot time to sit down to discuss what's really important and needs to get done that day. Talk about what each of you would like to accomplish. Set aside time where you work together to formulate a schedule for the day and designate tasks that can be accomplished together or individually. Then don't fall apart when the plan doesn't work out because something unexpected threw everything out the window. Pick up the pieces and start again. It's always two steps forward and one step back.

LEGACY

Numbness. A lack of animation. Loss without tears. A rush in the beating of my heart concealed by my outward calm. I took down the mirror in my bedroom so I could no longer see the dullness in my eyes. Friends rushed through the house collecting furniture, loading it on the back of pick-up trucks, hauling it off to storage in a neighbor’s barn. A group of several women stood around the dining room table wrapping collections of stemware and vintage pottery, putting it in boxes and labeling it for storage on shelves in the barn. They talked and laughed and joked about the number of depression glass tumblers or the quantity of jadite plates. Things collected over the past thirty years all going into hiding behind reams of newsprint shrouded in boxes labeled Roseville and cream pottery. Pieces of glass and ceramic that once stood proud on the mantle in the snug or in the china cabinet Rick had designed and built with arched leaded glass doors my mom and sister had built back in Wisconsin and delivered one Christmas in the back of their car. Each piece carried a memory and it wasn’t until you held it in your hand and rubbed it like Aladdin’s lamp that the memory appeared. It’s the magic a piece of stemware, a toy, a family photo tucked on a shelf can possess. I watched the ladies’ nimble fingers picking up each piece and swaddling them in wrapping paper before gently placing them in packing boxes and closing the lids on a life lived. Packed away were the green glasses with the swirled pattern Emmy used to serve lemonade the summer she turned six. The ironstone bowl I used to make my watermelon salad with the black pepper, Bermuda onions and feta cheese was packed away with the pair of pitchers we bought at an antique store located down the street. A portrait of Emmy I had a street artist draw one sunny afternoon on the crowded streets of Montemartre got carried out to the truck with a painting we bought in Montelcino, a Tuscan hill town, near where we stayed on many a summer holiday. We had insisted that the airline allow us to carry this painting on board with us and store it in the closet designated for coats, an advantage to traveling business class. Rick loved the painting. We hung it at the top of stairs suspended by a lavender ribbon.  The memory it held was ours, a memory of driving through the Tuscan countryside lined with poplars casting dramatic late afternoon shadows across the dirt roads. A little line of dirt remains outlining the wall where the painting hung. I know I should be packing with everyone else but instead I go to the scullery to get a fresh bucket of water to wash off the line of dirt on the wall,, the telltale reminder of what once was. I feel as if everyone is staring at me, wanting me to grab everything, take the house apart. I can hear the undercurrent,  “don’t bother to clean, let the new owner deal with that” but I can’t. I’ve spent my life searching for beauty and this house was the result. It is a part of me. It represented who I am. It’s where we played hide-and-seek with a bunch of thirty-year-olds at a surprise birthday party Rick threw for me. It’s where we made dinner for sixty in a ramshackle kitchen when JoHannah and Adam got married on our front porch. It’s where we huddled together for a long winter waiting for the phone to ring with calls from desperate young women looking for someone to adopt their child. It’s where we brought Emmy for the first two months of her life. The bassinette still in the attic filled with pillows waiting to come down with the rest of the things on their way to storage in a neighbor’s barn.

LESSON TWO:
Know that friendship goes a long way. No matter how far you think you have fallen, there are friends who will be there to break your fall.

TIP: 

If part of starting over involves moving and you really need to watch the budget get your boxes after dark from the back of your local grocery, liquor or drug store. Then buy a roll of plastic wrap to wrap around loose items. The plastic wrap was a Godsend. It cut wrapping time in half.