Sounds–and My Mother

There have always been sounds that I associate with my mother — and treasure. My all-time favorite from childhood to now is her banging pans early on Thanksgiving morning as she gets an early start on the big feast. I think what I probably heard was her getting the big roasting pan out to cook the bird. She was always in the kitchen, and certainly on weekdays she was there early. But regular cooking sounds never woke me like the banging of enameled steel, a kind of gong that signaled the start of the holiday. It was a fantastic feeling unlike any other, knowing Mom was down there beginning to work her culinary magic.

There were other sounds of course, the everyday kind that had a more subliminal comforting effect: the radio on school mornings tuned to WKRC and Stan Matlock. Often I couldn’t tell what was actually being said or the specific song on the air. Consciously it wasn’t necessarily even a happy sound: If Mom was working in the kitchen with the radio on, it wouldn’t be all that long until I had to get up for school. Subconsciously, though, I know the radio coupled with distant clinking of dishes and rushes of water from the sink faucet signified many precious things: security, dependability, care and continuity. If Mom hadn’t been down there, the silence would have awakened me with more, negative force.

Now, on my weekend stays at Mom’s house, I hear her sounds and embrace them as precious and irreplaceable — which they are. Sometimes it’s kitchen noises as Mom bakes biscuits or scones for breakfast. Sometimes it’s the tapping of her fingers on her computer keyboard, which I hear after I’ve lazily gone back to bed for a few more winks. She could be engaged in any of several activities: answering e-mails, typing up recipes, working with her quilting software, or writing up a post for her blog. Sometimes it’s the whirring of her Bernina as she sews busily on her current sewing or quilting project.

There’s a radio soundtrack to these activities as well, usually bluegrass from one of the volunteer public radio stations. I drift in and out of consciousness to strains of fiddle and banjo with the music of Mom’s activity layered underneath.

Yes, I feel lazy lying there when she’s up and around. I always was a night person, staying up till 2 a.m. on weekends, just doing needlework and watching TV, while Mom has always been an early riser, so we’re each being true to our natures. And I know she values her time to herself in the mornings, so there’s not really any guilt poking at me through the sounds I hear from my bed. I pull them up around my shoulders like her quilt that I sleep under, swathing myself in the comfort they bring.

First Health Challenge of 2009: An Ulcer

I suspected all fall I might have an ulcer. I had a duodenal ulcer, confirmed by endoscopy, about 14 years ago. I recognized some of the symptoms, and I mentioned it in regular check-ups with my doctor. However, I didn’t push. Having another endoscopy would have meant missing work when I was extremely busy, and it also would have meant someone having to bring me home because of the anesthesia. With all the hospital-related time the family had put in all year, I just wasn’t in a mood to add to that. And the discomfort came and went.

For some reason, though, last weekend the dull ache and pressure in my upper abdomen and across my ribs became constant. What’s more, even though symptoms from a cold-thing I’d had over the holidays had continually improved daily, I felt dreadful; no energy, sometime-nausea, the sense that dragging myself along required more of me than I had to give.

I finally gave in and went to the doctor on Tuesday. I told her everything. She listened to my heart and my lungs, asked questions, and looked confounded. While I was standing, she pressed the part of my abdomen dead center between my breasts. My knees almost buckled. I asked again whether my suspicions about an ulcer might be true, and she replied that I’d “taken the thought right out of her head.”

She decided to put me on Nexium first and see how that went. If there was no improvement, then we’d look into a specialist and an endoscopy. Fortunately, the Nexium worked extremely well and very fast. So fast that I was a little suspicious. However, I forgot to take it on Thursday, and by early evening the dull ache was starting to come back.

So it’s not an official ulcer, and I don’t know what kind, but my doctor thinks the impact of the Nexium probably confirms the diagnosis. I’m glad I don’t have to bother with the endoscopy. I’ll be on the medication a month; I’m just hoping I’ll still feel better once I stop taking it. Guess that remains to be seen.

I know some ulcers are caused by bacteria, but I’m sure this one is due to stress. I’m not sure why it got inflamed when it did — I wondered if something I was taking for the cold just pushed it over the edge. The big question is how to keep it in check. My job is extremely stressful. It may let up in a few months, but I told myself that all of last year. Everyone around is overstressed as well. I’ve often joked that the job/company was going to kill me someday. I’m not joking now because I do think certain physical responses are manifesting in response to the constant pressure. (Not that family problems don’t have their contributions as well; however, it’s the job that gets the acid flowing.)

I know the overtime and the day-to-day pace impacted my health all last year in a variety of ways. I often ate badly, especially if I’d been too tired to go to the grocery store after working late, then made do with stuff out of the vending machines next day at lunch. Both the bad diet and the stress impacted my blood sugar levels in a very negative way. Aching and stiffness gets worse, sometimes from fatigue, sometimes from tension, and sometimes simply from sitting at the desk hunched over or in weird positions through hours at the computer terminal.

I’d already resolved to put in less overtime this year, no matter what. I don’t know what to do about the day-to-day pace. It’s not a good time to resign, although I often think longingly of freelance copyediting or proofreading. Then the realization of health care expenses and the possibility of losing it when the COBRA runs out rare up like fanged monsters.

A therapist once told me that often ulcers are due to “swallowed anger.” I’ve often felt more overwhelmed or fatigued than angry, but here’s something that makes me really mad: When we had our company meetings about the changes in our healthcare coverage for 2009, there was a lot of emphasis on how WE had to monitor our health and take care of ourselves, as if it was ALL our fault (bad diet, lack of exercise, etc.). No one even brought up the impact of stress — and everyone in my workplace is stressed out to the max, as they are in most workplaces. Companies run their employees into the ground with overwork, then cut their medical benefits — and then lecture those same employees that they need to take more responsibility for the state of their health.

Makes me so damn angry! But anger’s not good for ulcers, so I’m better off not thinking about it. Instead, I’ll take responsibility for the state of my health — and work less overtime.

SOMEBODY has disposable income!

My sister, Diamondqueen, is nuts about 60s/70s kitsch: those flat daisy-like flowers that were on the “Have a good day!” posters and the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine; housewares in clashing hues of burnt orange, gold, and avocado green; David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman. And Volkswagen Beetles, which I didn’t know about until recently.

So when I saw an ad for Pier 1 in the Thanksgiving Day newspaper with a multicolored blown glass Christmas ornament shaped like a VW bug and decorated with flowers, I had to point it out to her. Of course, she went into ecstasy at the sight. Later that day I saw a Pier 1 commercial in which the ornament falls of the tree and drag races through the presents underneath. “Hey, I wonder if they’re selling a real ornament that looks like that?” I mused.

By now we ought to know how these things work. I guess we’re just naive. That Friday evening we went shopping, and we stopped in at the local Pier 1. Diamondqueen also wanted to enter a contest they were having for a real VW Beetle, but I said if they had an ornament, I’d buy one for her. There wasn’t a single one. Well, that’s lousy marketing, I thought. Wouldn’t people buy up those ornaments like crazy?

Later I had a hunch to look on eBay. People had bought those ornaments like crazy, all right — to sell on eBay. They had become as hot and rare as Hannah Montana concert tickets, and astonishingly pricey. That night, close to a dozen ornaments were posted, and the bidding ranged from $35 to $69 (the lower bidding reflected the fact that the auction wasn’t up for a few more days).

I e-mailed Diamondqueen about this. She was livid. I’d promised her that ornament; did she want me to bid on one? “NO!” she stormed in her reply. “I’m so f*cking sick of people doing this. I refuse to encourage them by putting one cent in their pockets!”

She has a good point. The speculation on collectibles, even something as innocent as a Christmas ornament, has gone into orbit. A decade ago I had a favorite gift shop that sold a whole range of things, including Beanie Babies. As I was purchasing some Mary Engelbreit treasure for my mother, the shop owner complained about the people who sat in their cars when they knew she had new shipments of Beanies coming in; she’d barely get the toys on the shelves before these folks would sweep in and clean her out. Even though it was good for her financially, she resented the feeling of being preyed upon, and she couldn’t build a faithful clientele because she couldn’t offer the solid range of stock she wanted to.

Throughout the Christmas season I checked back on the ornaments on eBay. I’d consistently see bidding in the $90+ range. I didn’t understand it. The economy was tanking, people were out of work. Even high-paying jobs were shutting down because of the financial and real estate crises. And yet someone — many someones, actually — were willing to overpay drastically for a Christmas ornament. Yes, there were still people in the world with wholly disposable income, who didn’t blink at paying $90 for an ornament they should have been able to buy for a fraction of that simply by walking into a Pier 1 store.

I wondered if the frenzy would die down once the holiday season was past. Tonight I entered “Pier 1 ornament” in the search at eBay (text and description option) and brought up a single VW Beetle ornament. With slightly more than four days left in the auction, the bidding is at $67 (11 bids). Want to bet it goes even higher?

Obviously there are people who have money to spare. Or they’re resolutely optimistic about their job futures and the recovery of the economy. Or they have the same stupid financial practices that got the country into the mess it’s in.

Resolution #3: Write more (especially poetry)

I used to get the most wonderful feeling from writing. Poetry, especially, was a lifeline for me. I loved that percolating, almost giddy sense of impending creation that meant I was ready to rough out the bones of a poem. The revising was even better, shaping lines and words like clay.

That feeling died over the years. A lot of it was killed off through sheer overuse after more than a decade of writing greeting cards nonstop. I also grew up, literally and figuratively, and lost the luster of naivete — instead of the lofty self-delusions that I could be a great poet, I faced the reality that I wasn’t even a good poet (at least not according to the standards I respected). That kind of gritty acceptance renders the effervescence of literary creation as flat as yesterday’s bath water. Editing Poet’s Market for all those years kind of sealed the deal as far as my slacking off on my poetry. Instead of being inspired by all those opportunities to publish, I felt overwhelmed by them and by the quantity of poetry that gets published yet goes unread.

I’ve never reached the point of understanding the difference between crocheting a piece of lace, embroidering a sampler, or quilting a wall hanging and simply writing for the pleasure of it. It never bothers me that few people will ever see my handiwork; yet the lack of audience has no impact on either my striving for excellence or my immense sense of satisfaction and enjoyment. I reach for a current needlework project as if picking it will save my life; I haven’t reached for my notebook that way in more than a decade.

Yet to create a poem that won’t be read or published, to do it simply for the enjoyment of the process and the fulfillment of completing a small work of art, seems like an act of futility. Why? It’s all wrong. It doesn’t help that the literary establishment doesn’t seem to encourage writing without trying to publish. God forbid there should be love of craft without ambition.

Since leaving Poet’s Market, I’ve taken a year off from poetry. I haven’t read much of it, haven’t visited the blogs or the zines, and definitely haven’t written a single line. That was partly due to my latent resentment at losing Poet’s Market, partly due to that futile, burned-out feeling; but it was also a deliberate choice, an act of literary fasting.

Maybe it helped. Because I’m beginning to miss poetry, both reading it and writing it. And sometimes I feel that little tingle that means I WANT to start working on a poem. I think it would be good for me. Whether I try to publish or not, I don’t know. I’ve been sending out work for almost 40 years, so it’s kind of second nature. Then again, maybe I’ll just post the poems I write here. Maybe update with revised versions. We’ll see. But it’s one of my resolutions for 2009 — I’m going to write poetry again. I’m going to write more period (that includes blogging as well).

Sharing Babette’s Feast

I have a personal holiday tradition that I’ve been practicing for about 20 years now. I usually wind up doing it sometime between Christmas and New Year’s; I’d prefer to celebrate before Christmas, but things just never quite work out because of lack of time and preoccupation with the upcoming Yule. Also, because I did this ritual for the first time in the doldrum period between the year-end holidays, it now seems a more natural part of my season to continue to do it then (i.e., now).

I’m in love with the movie Babette’s Feast. I was enchanted with it upon first viewing when it was released to theaters back in the 80s. Later, I rented it as a video, and the love affair became permanent, with an added twist: I discovered the viewing experience was heightened by actually eating along with the feast in the last section of the movie.

Since I don’t cook, I’ve never attempted any of the dishes in the movie, or even pathetic facsimiles. I just try to have something tasty, with enough of it on the plate to last me through the on-screen meal. The key element is wine. I must have wine with the food, preferably champagne, although I’ve made it work with a variety of wines, both red and white. No, I don’t invest in an expensive label comparable to the vintages served in the movie. My palate isn’t that sophisticated. Fortunately, there are a lot of nice wines that don’t cost very much, and they serve my almost sacramental purposes.

I confess I don’t watch the entire movie each time. I like to begin at the point where the boat arrives from France with all of the ingredients for Babette’s feast, from the live quail and hissing tortoise to the casks of wine. I love to watch the preparations of the food — even the remains of the butchered cow being hauled away in a wheelbarrow, the cow’s head sitting on a platter in the kitchen, and the young boy plucking feathers from the dead quail — as well as the setting of the table in the dining room, with the tablecloth being ironed on the table and china being carefully placed at each seat.

I’ve actually performed this ritual more than once per season in various years, but the “authentic” one is usually the first viewing. I used to refer to the “authentic” viewing as my angel feast, in reference to Cafe Anglais in the film and the line “How you will delight the angels!” I always saw it as a gathering of my angels to thank them for the blessings of the preceding year. I turn off all the lights except the Christmas tree, and I light candles. (First I make sure my platter of food is warmed and ready, the wine open and poured.)

Then I simply follow along with the film, eating tiny bites at first until the feast actually gets underway. I love the guests’ arrival in the sisters’ candle-lit parlor contrasted with the hum of activity in the kitchen as Babette prepares her cailles en sarcophage: slicing open the tiny birds’ bodies to receive slices of something enticing, then closing the breasts again and positioning the birds in nests of puff pastry (with the final touch of the little bald heads put in place as well, a flourish that gives me a chill even as the notion intrigues me).

I love the expression of the guests as they first enter the dining room and see the lavish table glistening with crystal and silver, with more utensils and glasses at each place than any of them could conceive of using in a week’s time.

With the General’s first astonished sip of fine wine, I feel free to delve into my own feast for real, savoring my own delicacies, whatever they may be, as well as the cuisine Babette is serving, along with all the details I’ve learned to treasure over the years: the way the guests’ pasty, dour faces become more rosy as their spirits open; the General’s driver, who sits in the kitchen and samples helpings of the feast in exchange for doing little chores for Babette — and whose wide face marvels at the wonders Babette achieves as he watches; the General’s speech about grace and mercy and our being granted even what we rejected; and, at the end, the jarring revelation of what the feast meant to Babette both as redemption and sacrifice. Finally, her utterance of what I claim as a personal philosophy: An artist is never poor!

Needless to say, the spiritual appeal of Babette’s Feast is as dear to me as the seductive physical details. That’s why it’s become a holiday ritual for me — a feast for the soul as well as the body, just as the General describes her dinner at Cafe Anglais in Paris.

My dream is to one day actually experience a recreation of Babette’s feast (assuming I could afford it). I’d love to know what each of those courses tastes like as well as the wine. I suspect, though, that I might not be much more moved by that extravagant experience than by my many angels feasts by candlelight, with budget wine and a platter of much simpler food.

Resolution #2: Get Healthy

Yes, that includes losing weight. I’m a realist; I know with the way my diets go that losing 10 pounds over the coming 12 months will be an accomplishment. So I can’t project a “brand new me” a year from now, at least not from the standpoint of buxom build and big hips.

A “new me” in the sense of being a healthier me is more than an attainable goal; it’s also an absolutely necessary one. Besides my weight problem, I also have Type 2 diabetes. Over the past several months especially, I’ve eaten horribly for any responsible adult, let alone one with high blood sugar. So my resolutions regarding health do involve diet and food, and if my vanity gets stoked by shedding a couple of inches of blubber, so much the better.

The point, though, is to get myself under control physically. Make the calories I consume mean something, and keep the numbers in line.

I do exercise almost daily (I have a total gym, although my workouts are rather brief — more than 15-20 minutes and I’m crippled the next day, for some reason), but I want to expand the ways I exercise. I need more movement, more stretching. I need to walk more.

It all goes back to discipline — a recurring theme in my resolutions for 2009.

2009 resolution #1: blog more

Despite my sketchy blogging over the past six months, I do not intend to abandon Salmagundi Express. In fact, I want to discipline myself to post again regularly, at least 2-3 times per week.

On NOT Looking Back at 2008!

Being retrospective by nature, I’ve indulged myself in reviewing the year just passed since I was a child. I actually enjoyed it, reliving the best moments especially, but also looking at challenges, failures, triumphs, and taking stock of what the coming year might hold.

2008 has been a BAD year. I’m in way better shape than so many people, especially in the financial area (I still have a job, after all) that to talk about my problems seems like whining in the extreme. And some of the worst things that happened hit loved ones harder than me personally (health problems in particular), but when the people I care about have troubles, they’re my troubles as well.

So I am NOT reviewing 2008. I’m all about moving on right now, and trying to rebuild. I’ve let a lot slide this past year, and I intend to do something about it. I can’t fix the economy or cure diseases. I can only put my little pinhole part of the world in decent order. So I’ll be posting some resolutions over coming days — not because I think anyone really cares, but because I want to put those resolutions out in public, as if maybe that will make me feel a little more accountable. I don’t know how much worse off I or my family or the world will be a year from now, but at least if I’ve met a few simple, self-centered goals I might have SOMETHING to feel good about as another year of our all-too-short lives winds down.

Okay, that came out wrong. I have plenty to feel good about as 2008 closes, especially where the people I love are concerned — and I have a roof over my head, an income and savings (for now, at least), food in my belly (too much, in fact). But I’m quite unhappy with myself. THAT is what I want to feel better about next year. It’s the one aspect of life I do have some control over. At a time when everything globally seems out of control, that matters.

Being Grateful for Thanksgiving

One of the reasons I’ve hardly blogged the past several months was a bad patch in September when my mother was ill and in the hospital for 10 nights. It started with what we thought was either food poisoning or the stomach flu. (A lot of people seemed to be having food-related problems because of the power outages during the recent windstorm, and there was also a nasty stomach bug going around at the time.) Mom was up about one a.m. Sunday vomiting, and I knew from personal experience she probably faced a bad night. What I didn’t anticipate was how many bad nights still lay ahead.

On Monday DIamondqueen had Mom taken to the emergency room by ambulance. They looked her over, gave her some anti-nausea and pain medication, and sent her home. In addition to going to work, I’d scheduled both a dentist appointment and an eye appointment that day, so I didn’t get home until after eight. There was no message from Mom, so I hoped that meant she was asleep and stabilized. I didn’t want to risk waking her up, so I sent her an e-mail asking her to reply or phone me next morning so I’d know she was okay.

When I hadn’t heard anything at home or at work, I called her. My heart nearly stopped when I heard how bad she sounded. I phoned for a doctor’s appointment, left work, and took Mom to the doctor by noon. To make a long story short, she was admitted to the hospital that afternoon.

She continued to vomit round-the-clock until the next evening, when they finally succeeded in getting a gastric tube inserted through her nose and down her throat. (It’s probably just as well I wasn’t there to witness that ordeal, and the tube was miserable to have in, but at least the vomiting ceased.) It was still a couple of days before we had the complete picture: She had a bowel obstruction caused by a portion of a ventral hernia that had been repaired twice before. We went into the weekend not sure what would happen — the surgeon had simply popped the obstruction back into place but it wasn’t clear if Mom would need surgery to decisively correct the condition — and clinging to some optimism that we’d still get Mom home for her birthday on Tuesday. However, around 9 Sunday morning Mom called to say they’d be operating in an hour. The silver lining was the hernia correction was the least invasive possible, and Mom didn’t suffer with the vicious nausea reactions to her anesthetic as she had with two previous hernia surgeries.

She didn’t make it out of the hospital for her birthday. However, I stopped to see her that morning on the way to work, vastly encouraged at the improvement. And after work, Diamondqueen and the Hooligans met me at the hospital with flowers and a balloon for a celebration in Mom’s room. We arrived just moments after a nurse had removed the gastric tube — the best birthday gift Mom could possibly want, although she was thrilled with her visit, too, including the pictures S. and J.Hooligan had drawn for her.

Mom finally came home late Friday afternoon, after a couple of days of being reintroduced slowly to regular food and getting “therapy” to help her get around again. (She didn’t feel she really needed the latter, but it was something to do to help the day pass.) The following weekend we had her delayed birthday celebration, and the following week Mom and I drove up to the Amish area in Holmes County, Ohio, for a few days of gorgeous fall foliage and all the usual delights we anticipate. All through Mom’s hospitalization we knew the trip, Mom’s only “vacation” all year, was in jeopardy; but something made me cling to hope and postpone canceling, even if it meant we’d wind up eating the cost of the nights we’d booked. Even Diamondqueen agreed with taking that chance, and it did pay off. Although we set forth intending to keep it all as low-key as possible, and with the option of simply going home on Day 3 instead of staying over a another night, it was all fine. Mom paced herself, but she did all her quilt shop-hopping, and she was able to enjoy her favorite meals.

However, I think we were all shaken by the whole hospital episode. Mom was to turn 76 on her birthday. There were moments when I wondered if this was it, if something was direly wrong and she’d never get back home; or if her body would simply tire out from the trauma. Mom seemed to emerge from the ordeal more cautious and vulnerable, too. It’s one thing to suffer through a surgery that was planned for; however, spending more time in a hospital than you ever have in your life for something unexpected that at first couldn’t even be identified can’t help but alter your perspective as you pass your mid-70s.

As if Mom’s situation hadn’t been bad enough, we had an even bigger shock. I’d stayed with Mom over that first Sunday night she was ill. Monday morning I’d spoken to Diamondqueen first thing, then hopped in the shower. I’d heard the phone ring and assumed my sister had phoned back about something. I nearly fainted when I played back a message from my younger brother (two years younger than me) calling from the CCU saying he’d had a heart attack and had had angioplasty the night before. Those weeks had a surreal, dark, world-coming-to-an-end quality; and I’ve never shaken the feeling of a giant tote board hovering in the air before me, with every day, hour, minute, second counting down in a blur — for my family, for me, for the world. (Oh yeah, the economy began it’s critical nosedive that week in September as well.)

Today we all gathered at Mom’s for Thanksgiving, as always: me, Diamondqueen and That Poor Man, the Hooligans, and my brother, looking much trimmer than he had the last time I saw him before his heart attack. We had a huge feast with all Mom’s beloved specialties; and she’d done every bit of it herself. She’d cooked and cleaned for days, and seemed hellbent on not getting assistance with anything, not even asking me to help her get the big bird out of the roasting pan (she announced proudly after the turkey was on the platter that she’d managed it all by herself). She’d had a couple of post-operative weeks when she couldn’t lift more than five pounds, and still had some limitations as November came. She’d gone days without solid food in the hospital, fed only through tubes. She lain there and thought about the coming holidays and wondered if she’d be able to cook at all, especially the big Thanksgiving meal.

She did it. It was a marathon she had to run and win, and she triumphed. To add to the sweetness of her victory, her own meal tasted better to her than it often does, from the turkey and trimmings to the pumpkin pie.

We both know there’ll come a day, even if she eases into it a little year by year. But THIS year she was still able to do it all herself. What I’m most grateful for this Thanksgiving is that there was a Thanksgiving, as I know it; complete with Mom’s cooking and Mom’s loving presence, my sister and her family, my survivor brother, my brother by phone from St. Louis, and even the phone calls from my aggravating father (who is also 76, has advanced cirrhosis of the liver, and who I wasn’t sure would still be here when I tried to look forward ahead from last Thanksgiving). There are numerous other blessings, of course (I survived a recent round of lay-offs at work; a year ago this coming Monday I lost my previous job), but this year it was enough for me that we, on this one day, are all still here.

The Windstorm (Part 2)

When last we spoke (already a couple of weeks ago), I was relating our experiences with the Ike-induced windstorm that swept through back in September. Already that seems like ancient history, although there are still signs of the damage everywhere: downed trees in places where it wasn’t important to move them right away, blue tarps on roofs, roofing company signs mixing in with political signs in yards around every neighborhood.

I’m one of those people that has to finish a story; so even though it’s been a long intermission in my narrative, I’ll continue:

I phoned Diamondqueen from Krogers to inform her of the D battery shortage and to ask if she had any to spare. She thought she might, plus she had an AM/FM radio to pass along, so I said I’d swing by before I drove back to Mom’s. Once I left the crowded Krogers gas station behind and was driving up Montgomery-Mason Road, I saw that Wal-Mart was open. I hate going to Wal-Mart but I thought maybe there would be batteries for the plucking (plus I had to go to the bathroom).

There were no batteries, at least not out in the racks that had been swept clean. I wondered about stockpiles in some backroom but didn’t think it worthwhile to pursue. I picked up a few more things from the food section as long as I was there, including a foot-long turkey sub. It wasn’t long until lunch.

When I arrived at Diamondqueen’s house, I found That Poor Man with his laptop hooked up to the PT Cruiser in the driveway, trying to do some work. Diamondqueen and the kids were in the backyard, cleaning up fallen limbs and general leaf debris. She’d left the batteries and radio inside for me to pick up, and I took it upon myself to invite her and the kids up to Mom’s to share the turkey sub and some Krispy Kreme danish-type things for dessert. I didn’t think she’d agree, but she was very grateful for an opportunity to get the kids out of the house for awhile. After all, there was no electricity–no TV and no computer!

I arrived at Mom’s after my 2-hour Oddysey to find that kind neighbors had finished cleaning the fallen tree from the lawn and driveway. I told her the Hooligans would be arriving in about a half hour, passed along the batteries, radio, and some magazines I’d picked up for our entertainment, and went into the bedroom for a quick nap.

Lunch was okay; the turkey sub wasn’t particularly good and the danish things were kind of wet and slimey, but it was nice to have some light and activity in the house. After lunch we went into the living room and listened to the radio for awhile. At least talk radio was good for passing along information and for phone-ins from people about their individual experiences where they lived.

Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to WLW, but it served its purpose, until one of the hosts went into a tirade about how people had acted at a local Meier’s the day before — dog-eat-dog panic buying, apparently — and the white host went on about everything that had been said about New Orleans after Katrina and weren’t WE supposed to be better? “Everyone acted like they were from Louisiana!” he fumed. His coded racism wasn’t particularly subtle.

Diamondqueen had brought the kids’ bikes along, so she and I took them (along with Rusty) on a long trip around the neighborhood to wear them out. As they continued to bike on Mom’s street, I started raking twigs and leaves into piles on Mom’s lawn. Later, after the Hooligans went home and while Mom and I were taking naps, a township truck with a wood chipper in tow came down the street, and soon the wreckage of the pear tree was but a memory.

Early in the evening I asked Mom if she wanted to go out to dinner. I trusted that the restaurants along Montgomery-Mason had power if the stores did. We headed for Carrabas and had a very nice meal. A distant TV was playing the local news when we first walked in. I gazed longingly from afar, trying to catch even a few snatches of storm coverage, until it became all football, all the time when the channel was switched to ESPN.

I overheard a server talking to a family who had just been seated behind us. Obviously others without electricity had the same idea we did, running to the restaurants that did have power for a hot meal. Our server was very unhappy. He’d lost power the previous afternoon as well. He and his girlfriend had gotten by watching a movie on the portable DVD player (until they wore the battery down) and digging out the board games. He’d just gone grocery shopping, though, and he was going to lose over $100 in food in the fridge. We sympathized.

Mom and I swung by my apartment just to check on things. Back up on Loveland-Madeira Road I realized there were signs on and the traffic lights were working. We cut up to Diamondqueen’s house and cheered when we saw their windows aglo. We stopped in briefly to visit (”Why didn’t you invite ME?” Diamondqueen wailed when she heard we’d gone to dinner.) Mom was concerned about the roasts and some other meat in the freezer, so we retrieved it from her house so Diamondqueen could store it for her until power was restored. Along the way, I saw that the line at the Krogers gas station on Loveland-Madeira wasn’t that crowded, so I popped it. It was cash only, so I was glad I’d hit the ATM that morning, but $20 worth of gas was enough to get me through the week and to and from work.

It was getting dark by the time Mom and I returned to her house. We took Rusty for another walk, then huddled around the kitchen table for another game of 500. For awhile we listened to the radio, Mom looking at magazines in the dim light of the candles and me hunched over my handquilting in the glow of the emergency beam. I stayed up for awhile yet after she went to bed and finally retired myself around 11:15.

I was roused from sleep by — something, and I opened my eyes just in time to see the bathroom explode in light. (I realized later the ceiling fan kicking on had awakened me first.) I heard Mom cheer from her bedroom, “Yay! The electricity is back on!!!” She headed downstairs immediately to check on the temperature of the food in the freezer. I hurried in and switched on the computer. Long after Mom was back in bed, I stayed up looking at e-mails, catching up on the news, and reviewing the blogs. It had been only about 30 hours, but it had seemed like a lifetime without power or connection to the world. It was almost demoralizing to realize how dependent I’d become on modern ways and conveniences, except I was so thrilled to have it all back again, I didn’t care.

The next morning I stopped at my apartment for fresh clothes for work. The electricity was back on there as well. Both the power and phones had been down most of the day at work on Monday, but everything had been restored by the time I arrived. It had been an adventure getting to Kenwood. I’d had to turn around several times because of blocked roads, and many traffic signals still weren’t working properly. On top of that, there was a water main break on the Interstate and all the area roads were jammed with re-routed traffic. Things were hardly back to normal.

However, we were lucky. Some people still didn’t have power that following weekend. I was grateful every time I walked in the front door and could simply flick on the kitchen light. I still am.