Welcome to my Pity Party

So, here’s the thing. I am 67 years old and healthy. I have no heart disease or diabetes. My liver and kidneys work just fine, thank you. I’m not plagued with headaches like so many others. Organically, I’m in good shape, unless, of course, you count that I’m 20 pounds overweight.

The problem is that my infrastructure is crumbling. I have a “slipped disc” at the top of my lumbar spine. It has caused me to have something called spinal stenosis, which, according to Mayo Clinic’s web site is “a narrowing of the open spaces within your spine, which can put pressure on your spinal cord and the nerves that travel through the spine to your arms and legs.” 

I’ve been plagued with back spasms off and on since I was in my 30s. Every now and then, I get down in the back and have to take muscle relaxers and pain killers and prednisone to reduce swelling and pressure on the nerve that causes the spasms. About three days of treatment was all that was required to get over it. It used happen once a year or so, but in the last few years things have gotten out of hand, and I’ve had many more frequent episodes. 

About three weeks ago, I started feeling lightening bolts shooting down behind my right knee. Some of them even went as far as the bottom of my foot, and that were doubtless a consequence of my spinal stenosis. I let it go for a week, thinking it was something that could be resolved by taking it easy and treating my back with respect and doing the stretching exercises I have been doing for years. I positioned a warm bed buddy at my back and an ice bag on my knee and watched old episodes of West Wing when I wasn’t showing up to write. I already had the muscle relaxers on hand, so I started taking them. It didn’t get better, so I went to see my back doctor’s PA. 

Well, he prescribed a six day course of methylprednisolone, (medrol dose pack) a steroid that blocks the substances in or bodies that cause inflammation. I took the medicine, along with the muscle relaxer and a non-opioid pain killer. (Opiods make me fuzzy and I don’t like them.) He suggested that, if this conservative approach to my discomfort didn’t work, I might consider having an epidural injection of steroids. I’m still weighing that idea in my head. 

I lay around like a slug for a few days, running hot and cold, as it were. The dose pack served mostly to kick my cardiac rhythm out of whack, and the lightening bolts continued. My back never has stopped hurting except when I am stretched out on the red leather chaise, which perfectly contours my back as to take pressure off it. The PVCs stopped almost immediately after I finished the steroids.

But about that time my other (left) knee swelled up and became painful. I’m not making this up. I didn’t fall on it or wrench it or run into a piece of furniture with it. I simply can’t point to an event that could have caused it. I spent several days on the sofa with a heated bed buddy at my back and an ice pack on my knee. The lightening bolts went away. One problem solved.

Trouble is, when I get up and do anything at all, and I mean anything, it swells and becomes painful again. And my back hurts—all the time. So yesterday, I went to see my knee doctor’s PA. He ordered some x-rays that suggested a space in the joint that shouldn't be there, that maybe I have a tendon tear. Great. I had one in that knee about eight years ago, and it was successfully treated with an arthroscopic procedure to “trim it up and clean it out.”

Are you sick of this yet? Well, I don’t blame you but stand by because there’s more. The knee doctor’s PA scheduled an MRI for next week, put a brace on my knee and told me to continue with the muscle relaxers, and since I was getting no relief from the pain—in all its various places—he suggested I take two pan tablets rather than one. 

I did as I was instructed, and about an hour after I took the medicine, I started to itch, all over. No rash, just itching. My nose looks like Bill Clinton’s, I’ve rubbed it so much. I was like a worm in hot ashes, scratching all over and looking in the mirror every now and then for signs of a rash. 

And to add insult to injury, I couldn’t sleep. There I lay, warm bed buddy to my back, trying to go to sleep. When I had no success, I got up and watched some more West Wing, then went back to bed. Still sleep wouldn’t come. I dozed briefly, and when I woke and checked the clock, only a few minutes had passed. It was like that all night. And then there was the itching.

Finally at six o’clock this morning, I abandoned trying to sleep and decided to take a Benadryl for the itch. It worked. But my knee and back were still killing me. Exactly 12 hours after I took two pain pills, I took a single one. No itching but no pain relief either. What ever became of of Tylenol #3? It’s not too strong, and at least for me, doesn't cause itching.

So here I sit on my chaise, where I can write comfortably and birdwatch, heat to my back and ice to my knee, doing #continuouspractice to tell the tale. 

That’s the conclusion of my pity party. Thank you all for showing up and listening to my tale of woe. You see, I live alone and don’t have anyone except Honey to bother with this. And she’s pretty damned tired of my whining.

It's Still His Room - How Sophie Helped Me Donate Parrish's Clothes

Parrish was a clothes horse, and when he died, his closet was filled with more items than one man ever needed. I suppose I am partially to blame. His first sweater was a white cardigan with a baby blue monogram, and before he could walk, I dressed him in short overalls in soft cotton plaids with a white collared shirt or pastel turtleneck underneath. He wore white knee socks and miniature brown and white bucks. At two, he had his own style, and his blond curls topped off the look. 

As a teen, he rarely wore jeans, preferring khakis with polo shirts. Marnie used to tease him about it. He wore brown loafers, sometimes with socks, sometimes without. Later, he never got so sick he “let himself go”, and after money became a problem, he dressed himself from thrift stores and Wal Mart, and no one could guess his clothes didn't have designer labels. When he couldn’t afford regular haircuts, he kept a buzz cut rather than have scraggly hair.

    He, who literally gave the shirt off his back to a stranger more than once, would want someone to have his things. The time came to clean out his closet and donate his clothes. There are men who need clothes, who don’t have a pair of dress pants or khakis, who need a collared shirt and a pair of leather shoes and a good belt for a job interview. They need something to wear to church.

Last month, I tried to sort out his things and get them ready to go to Goodwill, and even though Sophie—the only person in the world who could help me with the sad chore—was here, I just couldn’t find a starting place. When I walked into his room, I was paralyzed with sadness and weak with grief. I clutched the full length of his body pillow and breathed deeply of his smell, then I turned around and left, shaking with sobs. Sophie, who loved and was dearly loved by Parrish, emptied his dresser and organized his things, with no help from me.

On the 15th of this month, I brought Sophie back for a two week visit. Having her near gives me strength and hope. Everyone should have a friend like her. She makes me want to be a better person, do better things, take better care of myself. She is, no doubt, an angel—my angel.     

     A few days after she arrived, boxes in tow, Sophie and I went into Parrish’s room to begin sorting and packing his things for Goodwill. After standing and staring at his bed for a moment, I put the boxes on it and began to fill them. I had to pull back from myself, almost as though I were watching from across the room. To focus on the reality was impossible. 

I stacked his white undershirts in neat columns in the first box. I realized I was holding my breath and reminded myself to exhale. Then I moved on to his tee shirts, the casual ones with logos—Salt Life, Livestrong, Patagonia. I couldn’t make myself pack his yellow SeaTow shirt and instead put it to the side to keep. Sophie helped me take his collared polo shirts off their hangers, and I carefully folded them and started a new box. I left his new sport coat on the hanger and hung it on the door knob.

Knowing the contents of the boxes would be unceremoniously tossed into a bin at the Goodwill drop-off, I nevertheless folded them deliberately and packed them as though P were leaving for a long trip. I pushed the fact he’d been for dead six months to the very back of my mind and did what I had to do.

Sophie helped me organize everything, and her peaceful presence is the reason I was able to continue. I folded P’s white linen shirt and placed it on top of the SeaTow shirt. I folded all but one of this ties and tucked them into a box. I folded the madras one and positioned it at the collar of his white shirt as though I were laying out an outfit.

Out of nowhere, the job almost complete, I froze. I gazed around the room at his golf trophies and his Alcoholics Anonymous book and the photo of me on his bedside table as though I had never seen them. I picked up the picture of him with my brother John and my nephew Wil, taken just a few months before John’s death in 2000. I kissed it and put it back. I riffled through 10% Happier, the book I gave him for Christmas.

“I have to stop,” I whispered to Sophie.

“Go on out then,” she replied. “You have done real good, so rest yourself and we’ll finish later.”

I plopped down on the red leather chaise in the sun room and silent tears morphed into choking sobs. Honey jumped up to comfort me and I sat there for a while and finished crying.

Three days passed before I could go back into Parrish’s room. I packed his trousers and belts and shoes, put some odd items into the boxes as well—two of his watches, his handkerchiefs and cycling gloves. I put his helmet on a shelf in the closet. I took the vase of dead roses and put them in the trash. Polly brought them to me the day after he died. For the first time since his passing, I noticed two boxes on his dresser. He must have found them in the hall closet, because they were mine. I saved every letter and card he sent me over the years, and many of them were in those boxes. There was the big white envelope with his baby things—his immunization record and baptismal papers, the baby bracelet they put on him in the nursery when he was born, his report cards and more. How long had those things been in there? Was he reliving the past by reading them? Was he trying to recapture the complete happiness of his childhood? He was searching for something, but I’ll never know what.

I didn’t start crying while we loaded all the boxes into the back of my SUV. I was dry-eyed as I told Honey we would be back soon and took my wallet and keys and walked out the door. It was only after I turned over the engine that tears started rolling down my face. I backed slowly out of the drive, sniffed and brushed them away. I sniveled as we traveled the short distance to the drop-off station. And when we got there, I couldn’t get out. I could not make myself hand over the boxes to the nice lady who dumped them into the canvas bin, so Sophie did it for me. 

The heat index was over 100º. I told you she’s an angel.

Yesterday, I drove her back to Macon, and the house is aching for her presence. The very walls seem sad. I know I can’t keep her forever; after all, she has a family of her own, and they need her loving kindness, too. She’ll be back, though, and I have that to be thankful for.

This morning, just like almost every morning, I went into P’s room and sat down on the bed. Sophie arranged his books on top of his chest and tucked his school annuals into his gray trunk before she left. I gazed at the paintings above his bed, portraits of our dogs, Boxers Baby and Belle, and the watercolors of quail and wild turkeys. The picture of his daddy waving from the deck of the pilot boat still sits in it’s place on the bedside chest. His childhood trophies are still on the painted yellow table where the cable box rests. I pulled his body pillow off the closet shelf and held it to me, breathed deeply of it. His scent is still there, but it’s fading.


© 2015 cj Schlottman

 

  

 

A Spirit Animal? Me?

     I spent last week on Tybee Island, Georgia, attending Rosemary Daniell’s annual Zona Rosa writing retreat for women. Since I met Rosemary in 1997, and became a part of her ongoing workshop for women writers that meets once a month at her house in Savannah, I have attended several Tybee retreats. I've always come away renewed in my writing spirit, and this year was no different.

     For a week, eight writers shared the nine bedroom “Happy House” Rosemary has rented for a number of years now. There were two other writers who joined us later in the week, and there were those who attended the sessions just in the daytime. Ages ranged between 33 and 70-something. Rosemary invited special guests, published authors who came to share their work and listen to ours.

     The wonder of the retreat is always in its students. Excellent writers all and ranging in experience from “just beginning” to published, we come together to share our experiences in writing and feed from the energy of our collective consciousness. The environment is conducive to creativity, with mornings devoted to writing and afternoons spent in session, reading from our works and receiving feedback and encouragement from Rosemary and the group.

     On Sunday, the day devoted to settling in and exploring, my precious granddaughter, Addie, came and spent a couple of hours with me. While others were out and about, we stayed at Happy House and were, well, happy. 

     I’ve had a memoir trapped inside me for several years, begging to be written. I wrote the first draft of the prologue before going to Tybee, and Rosemary read it to the group for me for me. Feedback was positive, and I felt empowered to start Chapter One. And, two days later, I did just that while sitting on the deck off my room. I don’t know what I expected to feel when I began the project in ernest, shedding all my excuses and rationalizations about not having done so sooner, so I was surprised at the sensation of freedom and that came over me. I felt ready. And I got excited. I haven’t been excited about much since Parrish died, and the feeling is heady and sweet. 

     That was the first time I saw the spider.

     Some of my readers may remember when, in August of 2011, I accidentally set myself on fire trying to incinerate a spider with a fireplace lighter. We know how that turned out, and it wasn’t the spider who suffered. On that muggy morning on Tybee, I looked up to see a huge spider web spun between a fan palm and the wooden fence. Right in the middle of the silky strands that glimmered in the sunlight was a creature that looked a great deal like my nemesis, all eight legs stretched to their limit. As the days passed, I watched as the web got bigger and more intricate. 

     Never having given much thought to what spiders might symbolize or that I might have a spiritual connection to them (or any other non-human being in the world), after a brief exchange with my fellow writers who knew of such things, I decided to do some research. 

     I offer this, copied and pasted unabashedly from Wikipedia:  “Totemism is a belief in which each human is thought to have a spiritual connection or a kinship with another physical being, such as an animal or plant, often called a "spirit-being" or "totem." The totem is thought to interact with a given kin group or an individual and to serve as their emblem or symbol.”

     Taking something from each of the several articles I read about the symbolism of spiders, I put together as simple a synopsis as I could. So, here goes: 

     In many cultures, the spider is a symbol of creativity, a spinner of delicate and intricate webs—engineering marvels of nature. It is often seen as the powerful female spirit, the giver of life. If the spider is your spirit animal, it may try to bring your attention to your own individuality and ingenuity. You may have an affinity for acts of creation and the ability to build your own fine patterns that are delicate yet strong. 

     Did I tell you I love to knit, that I knit lace?

     The appearance of a spider may serve as a reminder that you and you alone are responsible for what you build around you. It may also appear to remind you not to abandon your creative gifts and goals. 

     Did I tell you about my recent dream in which two spiders, the size of the back of my hand, were attached to my right hand, one atop the other? There was a sensation of suction but no pain, and I gently pried up their hairy legs and they walked away?

     The following day, another, smaller spider had begun spinning her web on the chair next to where I sat writing in my journal.

     Two spiders, and I made no move to harm either of them.

     When we checked out of the house on Saturday morning, July 11, I went with two of my long-time writing compatriots to The Breakfast Club for a final meal together. When I got in my car to leave, there was a spider, about the size of a thumbtack, sitting on the steering wheel. I gently nudged it toward the window with my parking receipt and saw it safely out the window before I turned over the engine and drove home. When I stepped into my bathroom to wash my hands and face, yes, there was a small spider sitting on the rim of the sink, just looking at me.

     Since I got home, I've been writing my ass off.

© 2015 cj Schlottman

Mother's Day - A Different Way

Last month, when my first birthday after Parrish’s death came around, I was unprepared, and the day was half over before I realized why I was so unaccountably anxious and tearful. That I should be turning 67, and Parrish would never have another birthday, I suppose, was wrapped in the denial for which I am so famous. A friend was here to help me set up Apple TV, and I could’t find the remote control. I rarely use it because I have one of those from the cable company that does everything except go to the kitchen for snacks. I am also famously forgetful, but it is unlike me not to know where essential things are, especially electronic stuff. Bob, my helpful friend, managed to set up Apple TV without the remote, and after it was up and running—I had to have it because I am addicted to Netflix, and watching it on my laptop was killing my eyes—he stayed around for a drink. I remember repeating myself to him several times and feeling frustrated and a little confused. It was less than five minutes after he left that I went directly to the drawer in the table upon which the TV sits and retrieved the stupid remote. Imagine that. 

That was when my denial unraveled and I sat down hard on my spot on the blue loveseat in the den and covered my face with my hands and wept as I did on the night Parrish died. Hell, I’m crying right now, just writing about it. I walked around the house and into his room, clutching a fistful of tissues. I sat on the edge of his bed, then fell over on his pillow to finish crying. It took a while. In fact, I had spells of weeping for the rest of the evening and into the night.  

So, you can imagine I was not looking forward to Mother’s Day. Parrish, even when he was hundreds of miles away and completely out of my reach, always made a thing about Mother’s Day. There was always a card and often a phone call. Last year, he brought me an African violet—which has grown so much I had to repot it last week—and brought me breakfast in bed. 

So, about two weeks ago, I started trying to prepare myself for yesterday. My mother passed away over 15 years ago, so I couldn't do anything with or for her. The thought of being both motherless and childless brought on a deluge of tears. I thought about leaving town for the weekend, checking into a good hotel with room service and a spa, but when I started checking rates, I decided I should save my money to pay to have the dead pine tree in my back yard taken down. I considered making plans with friends but realized that most of them would already be involved with their own mothers or children.

On Saturday night, I got a call from Gregory, my yard person, also known as Crab Man because he can often be found crabbing from the Village Pier. He wanted to come over yesterday morning at 8:00 to blow off the roof and do the yard. Since I’m not an early riser, we negotiated a more civilized time, 10:00. 

I scheduled my Mother’s Day, sort of. I planned to sleep until about 9:00 and let the day unfold before me. I promised myself a trip to the gym. I filled the bird feeder and ate breakfast on the deck, then read the news and did the crossword puzzle. The weather was perfect, warm but not hot, clear and cloudless.

Crab Man arrived on time, with his puppy, Two Spot, a six-weeks old bulldog, riding in the basket of his bike. You can’t tell from the photo I took, but his name comes from the two round black spots on his back, near his tail. Every other hair on his plump little body is white. I was instantly in love. Honey, who in general despises all other dogs who come near me, gave him a sniff and a once-over before turning up her nose curling into her spot next to me on the love seat. 

When Crab Man started blowing off the roof, Two Spot began to howl, that piercingly sharp sound of despair that only a puppy can make. So, I brought him inside with us. Honey gave him a cursory sniff and resettled herself. Two Spot curled his fat little body at my feet and went to sleep. And thus it was that I puppy-sat for several hours. I was his surrogate mother for a while, waking him every now and then to go outside and “Do number one,” as Crab Man says. Then we’d come back inside, Two Spot would drink a little water and go back to sleep. 

Meanwhile, I was watching “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix and laughing my ass off. My afternoon was punctuated with calls and messages from some of my most important people: Addie, Fonda, Marnie, Kristy and Gretchen, Nancy, and my darling Sophie. And I was “mothering” a living being, a little blessing to help me through the day. 

When Two Spot was once more situated in the basket of Crab Man’s bike, they peddled off, and I dressed and went to the gym.  

When I got back home, I cleaned up, and Honey and I drove down to the Village. Finding a parking space was almost impossible. Mallory street, which circles around to the pier and back, looked like a scene from American Graffiti—all manner of vehicles looping slowly, bumper to bumper. I finally found a space near the bike shop, two blocks from the pier. Dogs aren’t allowed on the pier, and Honey hates wind anyway, so she stayed in the car while I walked down to watch Lawrence’s ship pass on its way back out to sea.

Thinking how fitting a tribute it would be to Parrish, I went to BlueWater and climbed the stairs to sit where we so often did, overlooking the pier and Saint Simons Sound. I had some wine and a sandwich, and about the time I finished, I saw the pilot boat approaching  the pier, so I paid my check and went down to walk back out and see Lawrence for a minute. I ran into him just as I left the restaurant, and he walked me to my car. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him yesterday, but I’m glad I did. He was a comfort to me, another blessing.

When I got home, I watched some more “Grace and Frankie,” laughed some more and finally fell into bed after midnight. I didn’t get up today until nearly noon. Ain’t I something?

© 2015 cj Schlottman

Stepping Back in Order to Step Forward

     About a year ago, a few months after I moved home to Saint Simons Island, still staggering under the weight of the loss to my dear husband, Clint, I scheduled an appointment with my psychiatrist in Macon, where we lived for most of our marriage. I never loved Macon; I never even liked it very much. I had wonderful friends there and still do, but since we had a home here on The Island for all but four years of our married life, I claimed dual citizenship and never felt as though Macon were truly my home. It happened that I loved Clint more than I disliked Macon, so life was good there as long as I had him. In the years after his death, I began to feel like an exile, homeless in my own house. Riddled with an unrelenting and complicated grief, it would be four years before I came to the realization that I needed to move back home, back to the place where I attended elementary school and graduated from high school. My roots are here, and as you know if you read my last post, and I am again grounded and content.

     As the day of my appointment approached last November, I got so anxious that I cancelled the trip. I simply could not make myself go, so I began having phone visits with my doctor, and I relied on phone calls and social media to keep up with my friends and family.

     Several weeks ago, after what turned out to be a difficult summer and early fall with my son’s brain disorder and alcohol addiction, I scheduled a phone appointment with my doctor for November 13. 

     I was in the final stages of settling into my house, and one of the chores I had been putting off was going through the boxes of things that were in Clint’s desk when he died. As I sifted through the boxes and began replacing things in the desk, I had what I can only describe an epiphany, a moment of clarity and realization that most of the items should not be here with me. I painstakingly sifted through old photos and slides of Clint’s children, photos of him as a boy, his medical school class pictures, and newspaper clippings touting his youthful football prowess and his surgical role in the first kidney transplant in Southeast Asia. There were letters from his daughters when they were young, greeting cards he saved over the years, and all manner of memorabilia that predated our marriage. I came to the knowledge that these things to which I had been clinging so tightly are not mine - and they are not Clint. They predate the incredible time during which we fell in love and began a life together.

     Keeping only those things that are a part of my life with Clint, I began to repack the boxes with all those items that I wanted to give to his children, grandchildren and yes, his great-grandchildren. I broke down and wept, big chocking sobs that shook me to my very center, each tear representing the dissolution of an unrealistic and unhealthy tie to a past that isn’t even my own. There was freedom and healing in those tears. Will I ever be completely healed? I think not, but I am confident in the knowledge that my wounds no longer continually ooze emptiness and sorrow and loss. They are real but they are no longer white hot reminders of everything I lost on June 8, 2009. I am learning to accept them as part of me without Clint in my life, reminders of the devotion we shared, the love that bound us together.

     After tearfully rereading the dozens of cards and notes we shared over the years and the poems I wrote and dedicated to him, I tucked them into the desk drawer along with his love letters to me. I polished his brass statue of a laughing Buddha and placed it on an end table in the living room. His hole-in-one trophy is on a shelf in the den. Photos, some organized in albums, some not, of us traveling together to see Europe and watch whales in the Sea of Cortez and explore Alaska’s Southeast Passage as well albums of other trips - with and without family - are safely stashed away in the desk drawers. 

     Several days later, it occurred to me that I should actually go to Macon, to see my psychiatrist and deliver the family treasures to their rightful owners. But it was with some sense of dread that I changed my appointment to a face-to-face. In the days leading up to the trip, I became anxious, but I didn’t cancel. I had to revisit my past in order to move completely into the present.

     So, on Wednesday afternoon, I drove to Macon. I was there for two nights, and while I was in town, I saw my dearest and oldest friends, Nancy and Frances, and my stepdaughters, Gretchen and Kristy. I had time with Marnie and with Sophie, the Angel who has been looking after me for over 40 years. I saw my doctor. After literally being unable to make the trip a year ago, the time was right and my anxiety faded. I gave Kristy the boxes of memories with a sense of purpose and completion and even joy, and I arrived home having delivered myself of an emotional load I didn’t even know I was carrying.

     The parts of me that have been so locked down for five and a half years are emerging. I’m willing to venture outside  the safety of my widowhood, and I’m eager to continue my quest for a life well lived as a individual, not as half of a couple. I harbor no belief that my wounds will ever completely close, but then again, they probably shouldn’t. They are a big part of who I am today and who I will be in the future. They are part of my story.

     For today, Parrish is sober and stable, and we are looking forward to our first Thanksgiving in this house. Marnie will be joining us for our family tradition - a seafood feast of oysters and jambalaya with sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. We don’t really like turkey.

Copyright 2014

cj Schlottman

  

Home At Last

          It has been along time since my post back in June, but that doesn’t mean I haven't been writing. I’m in the organizational stage of my memoir and will soon be ready to begin to bring it together into what I hope will be a good book, a valuable book about the challenges and rewards of having an adult child with a brain disorder, it’s impact on all of those who love him so much. It was a long, hot and arduous summer, but it is behind us, and I pray for continued peace. But, that’s a story for another time. 

     Fall has brought with it the departure of the Hummingbirds who graced my deck from the time I first hung the feeder. We moved into our new house on August 8, and three months later, we are finally settled, art on the walls, furniture placed - after several false starts. I am happy here. Our street is quiet, nestled under a canopy of live oaks and flanked by the marsh and a lovely tidal pond where Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets regularly fish for their dinner. Our bird feeder is a flurry of activity. Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmouse (there doesn’t seem to be a plural), Pine Warblers and all manner of Sparrows frequent the feeder. At this time of year, even Red-bellied Woodpeckers feed off the seed, and the ubiquitous Cardinal is a regular visitor. As I write, the Chickadees are buzzing down, one after another and in pairs, sometimes landing on the top of the feeder hook to position themselves for a run to fish out the sunflower seeds. The squirrels are happy with the corn we provide for them at the other end of the yard. Honey takes a sunbath nearly every day in our fenced back yard, which is just the right size.

     On this chilly morning (50-something degrees), the sun is bright and the sky is a cloudless blue, shimmering like stained glass. After a windy weekend, the air is moving gently, just enough to ruffle the leaves on our evergreens. The neighborhood is rich in ligustrum, wax myrtle, oleander and old tall pine trees. It’s the perfect day for a bike ride, and we have one planned for later this morning. The Island is covered with bike paths, and we can pedal for miles on them.

     The summer tourists have departed and the Georgia-Florida football onslaught of students and alumni and other rabid fans is behind us. The Island is quiet and peaceful and the pace of living has returned to its languid norm. 

     With “The Holidays” looming, I’m in cooking mode and ready to take down the Christmas China and start baking cheese straws and wedding cookies. This house feels like home, and I, after a little over a year back on The Island, finally feel grounded and settled and dug in. It’s a wonderful feeling, and I am grateful for it. 

I Bend my Own Rules 02/08/13

After Monday’s call from Parrish, I didn’t hear from him until some time Tuesday.  He called to say he has a place to live and that he paid in advance for one month and that he paid his probation fees in full.  It sounds like he is living in some sort of boarding house.  I don’t know.  I think I heard a large bird screeching in the background.  

He said he was going to Social Security to change his address and try to get benefits in Georgia.  He said he would go to River Edge, the community mental facility, and get started there.  When he called (three times) last night, he asked for money and food.  When I told him no, he launched into a diatribe about how he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t help him, telling me he could not believe I would let him go hungry and broke, without enough money to take the bus to Social Security.  He ignored my every word as I repeated that he would have to make something happen, that every time I give him money, it leads to disaster.

The next call was worse.  He attacked me for not being willing to go to the store and get him some food and take it to him.  In the next breath he said he doesn’t need anything from me, accused me of being a Macon social butterfly who just wants him put away so I can go on my way and forget about him.  He told me he has issues ranging back for years, that there are many reasons he should hate me.  He denied being impaired and continued to ramble on, saying he is done with me, that there is no excuse for him to being in jail for 55 days, saying no one in his right mind would do that to him, that I needed to look into my dark self and see what I am.  He said he never wants to see me again.  There’s more, but these are the highlights.

My reaction to all of this blather was eerily calm. I am numb and disinterested in anything Parrish has to say.  I care about my son, but I have no inclination to help him go down the drain yet again.  Helping him is a planned disaster.  

This morning he called and wanted to come over to get the bag with his things.  I said I would sit it by the garage door, and he could pick it up there.  It was no surprise that he came around the garage to the kitchen  door and banged on the window.  

I debated going to my room and hiding until he went away.  I didn’t want to see him, but I was weak and opened the door and went outside to talk to him.  He was contrite, depressed and looked like hell. He said he walked from Riverside Drive, a few miles away.  He again asked for money and food and I immediately regretted the decision to answer the door.  He did not seem to remember his words of last night.  I offered to let him listen to them but he declined.  

He asked if he could have a cigarette and smoke it on the deck.  I let him.  The passive aggressive assault continued.  I remembered I have a money order made out to him that I sent him when he was in jail.  It was returned to me because he was already out when it was delivered.  I gave it to him.  He constantly complained of how tired he was, hinting that I should drive him home.  I refused.  I suggested he take the bus but he was not interested.  He brooded for a while and I told him to go home. 

PS - Those of you who are tempted to scold me, you have every reason to do just that.  I can take it.

© 2013 cj schlottman

Lucky in Real Estate

Last Sunday, after driving up to Speed’s Kitchen for lunch in celebration of Poppy’s life, P and I rode down to The Village Pier so he could see his daddy off. Lawrence was waiting there for the pilot boat to ferry him out to a large car carrier so he could climb aboard and pilot it into the harbor. We talked for a minute while we waited for the pilot boat to reach the pier, and then he was off. Honey was in day care at Puppy Paradise, and we drove toward mid-island to fetch her. I decided to go the old way and drive down Old Demere Road and through to Frederica Road by way of our old street, Broadway.

When I turned the car onto Broadway, I noticed a real estate company's “Open House” sign. Something moved me to follow the sign. Hell, it was late Sunday afternoon, and we didn’t have anything better to do. For a month I’d been trying to find a new place to rent because, for several reasons, not the least of which are the exorbitant rent and the aggravating view of a doctor’s office across the street, where, every afternoon at six-thirty, a white van pulls up and the driver allows a young child to honk the horn incessantly until the door opens and a woman walks out, I had decided to move. My lease expires on August 15, and with only two months to find something, I had been scouring the internet and the local paper for prospects.

The signs led us to Meadows Drive. I’m familiar with the street. It’s practically around the corner from where our old house on Broadway once stood, and it curves around a lake with a house built on an the island in the middle of it. When I was a kid, I always wanted to live in that house, and one of my best friends in high school lived on Meadows Drive. The houses, most of them red brick, some ranch style and some bungalows, date from the early 1960’s. As we continued down the short street that dead-ends at the marsh, I got the feeling that I was at home.

About half way down the street that only has six houses on each side, I saw the for-sale sign. The red brick bungalow sits back a decent distance from the curb, sporting a small white picket front porch and white shutters.  There are old azaleas planted around the largest of two huge oak trees in the front yard. I pulled up in front of it, and not knowing what I would find inside, went to the door and rang the bell. 

The agent, Robert Jennings, who was two years ahead of me at Glynn Academy, greeted me and showed me into the precious little house. I was in love before I completely negotiated the threshold. There are beautifully finished hardwood floors throughout - not a scrap of carpet in sight! Oh, how I detest wall-to-wall carpet. The rooms are small but charming, and the master bedroom suite has a sitting area between it and the master bath. There are two other bedrooms and two other full bathrooms, and a den (with a fireplace) as well as a living room. The owners added a sunroom, paved with the brick they took from the exterior wall, and it features sky lights and ceiling fans. 

And - drum roll please - it has an outdoor shower off the deck! When I saw that shower, I knew I was home, that the house was meant for me. If you’ve never had an outdoor shower, you don’t know what you’re missing. We had one on the deck off our bathroom on The Point, and we used it exclusively. It was never too hot or too cold to shower outside. Hell, even our guests all showered out there. It’s what I miss most about that house.

The back yard of the bungalow is fenced, which is a must for Honey. The house measures 2400 square feet which means there is plenty of room for our things. There are two attics and a storage room in the carport. The more I saw and learned, the more excited I got.

Without hesitation, I decided to make an offer. Unfortunately, Robert told me that a couple had just that day made an offer and the owners had accepted it. There was hope, though, he said, because the prospective buyers had attached three contingencies to their contract, one of which was that their closing would hinge on the sale if there current home. I'd never wish ill luck on anyone, but at that moment, I had every intention of doing my best to kick that couple right out of the sale.

It was Tuesday before The Inspector General (that would be Lawrence) could meet us at the house and give it his once-over. He inspected it thoroughly, checking all the important things like heat pumps, plumbing, the crawl space, and the roof. He loves that kind of shit. I was surprised he didn't arrive with a tool box. He was almost atwitter about the copper wiring. Pleased at the prospect of us finding a place of our own that’s in good shape at an excellent price, he advised me to make a clean (no caveats) offer of a little more than the existing one. So, on Wednesday afternoon, I went to the bank, got pre-approved for a loan and drove myself to Robert's office and started signing papers.

Then the waiting began. Once notified of the new offer, the couple who made the first one had 48 hours to decide whether to drop their contingencies or withdraw their offer. 

I’ve always been lucky in real estate dealings and had a good feeling about this little beauty from the moment I walked through the door. Not intending to buy a house at all when I arrived, I left with every intention of making it my own.

On Friday, the 13th, almost 48 hours to the minute after I submitted my offer, Robert called me with the happy news that the other potential buyers had withdrawn theirs.

We close on July 15, and all I have to do before we move is have the deck framed up and screened in. Ah, the prospect of a sleeping porch is almost more than I can bear. 


© 2014 cj Schlottman

A PVC Ain't Always a Pipe

Ever feel like there might be two small cats scrapping it out inside your chest, thumping and bumping and rolling around, making you feel as though someone has a little syringe of adrenaline and is popping you with it every few seconds so that you get that anxious feeling of being suddenly startled into a feeling of impeding doom? 

There’s a name for what causes that disconcerting sensation: premature ventricular contractions, or PVCs. Even the name is unsettling. They started tormenting me about two weeks ago, and I immediately knew what they were. You see, I’ve had them before and taken medicine to stop them. Cardiologists call them runs of PVCs. I call them a waking nightmare. Try to imagine feeling really frightened for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. It’s distracting and eventually leads to undue fatigue. Who gets tired just sitting at a keyboard and tapping the keys? It happened to me, and, believe me, for a while there, it was difficult to transfer my thoughts to the page.  

Okay. Let’s back up. I've had atrial fibrillation (A-fib) for about five years. It's a condition which causes irregular heartbeats that are generated in one of the upper chambers of the heart, the right atrium, as opposed to those that come from the ventricles, the lower chambers of the heart. Sometimes the medicine used to control A-fib can control ventricular premature beats. God! You didn't sign up for nursing school, did you? So, enough already. You get it. I have a history of rhythm problems in my heart. 

When this bout with premature beats started, they lasted only a minute or two, and having experienced them before, I knew to take an extra dose of the medicine that can hold them at bay. At first it worked. They went away. Then they came back - and lasted ten or fifteen minutes. So, I called my cardiologist in Macon to ask for a referral to a heart specialist in Brunswick, which is only five miles from my apartment via causeway. The nurse was no help. Rather than make me an appointment with someone near me, she chose instead to bitch me out because I missed my EKG appointment at their office last year. Some of you may remember that just about this time last year, Parrish attempted suicide for the first time. I was a little tied up. Then we moved. A one-eyed monkey could understand why I missed the appointment. Not only was I not symptomatic, I had other things on my mind.

Never mind that. I took it upon myself to call a reputable heart specialist in Brunswick. Scheduling the appointment turned out to be an orgy of miscommunication and phone tag. A less refined person than I would call it a cluster-fuck. I phoned the office and left a message with the appointment person. She called me back two days later, but I wasn’t home. Since it was after five o’clock on Friday afternoon when I received the message, I couldn’t return the call until the following Monday. When I did get through to her, the appointment person claimed she didn’t understand that I was having a problem. Believe me, the message I left with was not vague, but that is neither here nor there. 

When I explained to her what was going on, she scheduled me to be seem the next morning at seven-thirty. Still not seeming to understand that I was symptomatic and wanted help right away, she also offered me an afternoon appointment later in the week - in case I’m not a morning person. Seriously. I grabbed the seven-thirty. Where do these people come from?

I took extra medicine the night before the appointment and again that morning because I was having runs of PVCs that were lasting not minutes but hours. I was “in rhythm” when the nurse did my EKG, and I remained so throughout the echocardiogram they performed that morning. An echocardiogram is a sonogram of the heart which is diagnostic for decreased blood flow or a heart valve problem. Shit, I'm doing it again - lecturing. My echo' was normal, and I came away unscathed except for a hematoma the size of a silver dollar on my arm where the nurse tried to inject me with contrast medium. Medical people are cursed when it comes to health care. If it can go wrong, it will go wrong for nurses, doctors and their families. I’m used to it.

I left the office with a sheet of instructions and an appointment for a stress test in two days.

Not wanting to miss even a moment of art class, I dropped off P at the apartment and drove directly to the studio, where I finished my first painting since grade school. (It’s a still life of oranges and lemons in a bowl. What else?) Then I went home to get P, and we took Honey to day care at Puppy Paradise and went to lunch. Two bites into my cheeseburger, there it was: bu-thump, bu-thump, bu-thump. Great. My new doctor, like my other one, advised me to take an extra Betapace when symptoms appeared, so, ever the compliant patient, I had taken along an extra pill for just such an occasion. I popped it into my mouth, expecting everything to be better in a little while.

We ate. We went to Winn-Dixie and milled around in there for a while, and the beats just kept on coming. (Sorry. That just slipped out.) I dropped P at our apartment with the groceries and drove to fetch Honey. It was a few minutes after five when we got home, and my chest was still thuh-bumping. 

I was exhausted, took another pill. Remember that four hours had passed since lunch, and I was still out of rhythm.

When I got no relief from the extra Betapace, and my symptoms became worse, I, at Parrish's insistence, I drove to urgent care, where again my EKG was normal. But, the nurse there kept me on the monitor, and within two minutes, the dreaded PVCs showed their ugly faces - every other beat, every third beat, painting a graph of steep hills and crashing valleys across the screen. While we waited for the doctor to finish his coffee, Ella, the nurse, regaled me with her husband's A-fib story.

He’s a Merchant Marine and went into A-fib while at sea working long hours in an engine room. He was flown back to the mainland, where doctors tried to no avail to convert his rhythm back to normal. A couple of days into his treatment, he wanted to have sex with his wife. She demurred, but he insisted that if it killed him, he would at least die happy. When they were done, he was in regular rhythm and has remained so since, which bears out my late husband’s belief that sex is the treatment of choice for anything that ails you. Too bad I don’t have a lover.

Back to my story…

The arrhythmia continued in spectacular fashion…and the doctor came into the room and clucked over me. I was surprised when he didn't wring his hands. He, of course, insisted I go to the hospital, and he denied my request to drive myself. Hell, I had been driving myself around for days. I had seen a cardiologist that morning, and he didn't tell me not to drive. 

Parrish did well during this time of uncertainty. His fears can be unreasonable, which is normal for him, but he remained as calm as he could under the circumstances. The urgent care folks put me in an ambulance, and Lawrence drove over here to gather up P and Honey and meet me at the ER.

For an hour after I arrived, my heart was wildly out of rhythm. Then it converted to normal. The doctor, an adolescent who didn't look old enough to drive, kept me for two more hours and let me come home. On the way, the damned extra beats returned, and I had to take extra medicine - again. The next day was a long, marked by hours-long stretches of arrhythmia and its attendant chest fullness and fatigue.

The next afternoon, I returned to the doctor’s office for a stress test. It went well. My blood pressure responded normally to the stress and the test revealed no blockages. Yea! There were, however, plenty of PVCs, the first documented at the doctor’s office. Afterward, plagued with a headache, I was so out of rhythm that the technician had to reset the imaging machine to accommodate the irregularity. I left the office wearing a heart monitor and I was symptomatic the for rest of the day, through art class and up until bedtime - in spite of extra medicine.

I returned the monitor this Monday morning and have not yet heard from the MD’s office. My follow-up appointment is in three weeks, and not being willing to wait that long for some relief, I doubled my medication. The heart doc advised me to take extra if I needed it, so rather than wait for the PVCs to start, I'm taking a proactive approach to my own health care and comfort. Don't worry. I'm not all that stupid. I researched the maximum dosage of Betapace, and I'm taking a reasonable amount.

It took a couple of days, but I am back in rhythm, going to Music Night and walking. In this era of healthcare, when one has to be dying to get much attention, it's essential to thoughtfully make decisions for ourselves. 

No, I'm not advocating the abandonment of a doctor's care. If not for my cardiologists, I wouldn't have the medicine I need. My doctor would be treating me aggressively if he thought I were in danger. It's just that my symptoms, though not lethal, are mine, not his. I wish, for just thirty minutes, those cats would romp around inside his chest. I wish he had to work through that kind of distraction. I believe he would be more eager to treat unsettling symptoms in his patients, whether or not they are life-threatening. 

Any thoughts?


copyright 2014
cj Schlottman

Electric Icicles and Christmas Lights - Eating out at Shellman Bluff

This is a follow-up from my last post.

Our journey to Shellman Bluff last Sunday afternoon held its share of surprises. As we approached Ridgeville, my memory was refreshed. I was reminded by a marker on the side of the road that an entire portion of the community, The Ridge, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The three houses that compose The Ridge are Victorian (1837–1901), not Antebellum (1781–1860), and are closer to the road than I remembered. And the massive oaks I remembered on the lawns are actually on the sides of the road. There are plenty of magnolias and azaleas in the yards, though. Entering Ridgeville, it feels ten degrees cooler as the car passes under a canopy of giant oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

How is it that memory can be so faulty? I’ve driven through that place countless times during my 66 years, and I still had a little girl’s image of wide expanses of lawn in my head. When you’re small, everything seems enormous. The first time I saw “New” Casino - now long gone - on Saint Simons, when I was about five years old, it loomed over me like a white stucco giant, and the letters spelling out C-A-S-I-N-O soared 20 feet tall in my mind. The sidewalk leading to it was a wide as a paved road.

As we continued on Highway 99, we passed tiny houses, some made of cinderblocks, others of clapboard or aluminum siding with metal awnings. How could I have forgotten the periwinkle blues and mustard yellows and bright pinks of their paint? And what about the once-white ones, now faded to gray with rusted window screens hanging from single hinges? And the trailers? I purposely use the word trailer instead of mobile home, because there is nothing mobile about them. They have sat where they are for years, most secured by concrete block foundations. While some are still inhabited, others sit among weeds as tall as I am, oxidized to a dusty brown. Scattered about the sandy and barren yards of the houses that have people living in them are concrete chickens and other fake livestock - deer painted brown with white spots, ducks, a pink pig, some goats and the occasional forgotten reindeer crumbling in the humid air and harsh sunlight of the coastal plain. There are rusty old cars and pickup trucks with weeds growing up through their decayed bottoms and out the windows. One yard boasts a broken down shrimp boat, and there is no shortage of old mattresses and box springs. Sawhorses serve to support makeshift tables made of plywood sheets in front yards and on sagging porches - none of them screened and some sporting strings of Christmas lights made up to look like icicles. 

We arrived too early in the afternoon to bird-watch at the rookery, so we drove onto Tolomato Island and through another tunnel of oaks arching across the road. We have lots of those here on the coast of Georgia. We inched past the ruins of the sugar mill and rum distillery that operated there 200 years ago. It was thrilling. No kidding, I am that big a nerd. 

We followed Highway 99 back toward Old Coast Road, as I like to call US Highway 17. The roadside is littered with still more rundown houses and trailers with dirt yards sporting the occasional leggy rose bush or top heavy sego palm among the old bicycles and cars.  Then there are the intermittent manicured lawns strewn with camellias and fronting midcentury modern red brick ranch houses. Long abandoned service stations display rusty old signs advertising Coca Cola and Pure gas and Orange Crush. Night clubs in block buildings, some of them still in business and painted red or blue, pop up on a piney lot from time to time.

We didn’t move to Saint Simons until I was nine, and those sights were reminiscent of the roadways of my early childhood when we lived in Woodbine, about 30 miles south of Brunswick - except for the Christmas lights. I vividly remember the colors of those houses and the contents of those yards. Why were these suddenly so new to me? Had I not noticed them before? Surely, that can’t be true. Maybe I really did live in Macon too long.

In Eulonia, both of us needing to use a restroom, we pulled into a dollar store to buy something so we could use theirs. Right there in the middle of nowhere, is one of the best dollars stores I have ever seen, but they had sold their last wine opener the night before. I needed one to take to Speed's. If we hadn’t been so eager to get to Shellman Bluff, I could have shopped for a while, but we went next door to the liquor store only to find out that they also had sold their last wine opener the night before. I suppose there must have been a busy Saturday night in Eulonia. I finally settled on a bottle of wine with a screw top, as the selection was limited. 

The drive from Eulonia to Shellman Bluff was as I expected - only the roadsides are cleaner of debris and decaying vehicles. There are more plastic flowers in washtubs and real shrubs than the stuff of junkyards. One neat white cottage had window boxes filled with dark purple and bright yellow petunias, those hardy sun-loving flowers that will bloom through the summer. 

We turned onto Speed’s Kitchen Road and drove past where the pavement stops, and there wasn’t a single car in the dirt yard. I immediately noticed a “For Sale” sign stuck in the sandy yard next to one of the trailers, and there wasn’t a light on that we could see. P had heard from someone that Speed’s had closed, but since we checked their Facebook page before leaving home, we had dismissed the rumor. 

“They aren’t open!” exclaimed Parrish. “The rumor must have been true. Now what are we going to do?”

We sat for a moment and stared at the unlit windows of Speed’s. The blue and red neon “Open” sign hung dark on the side of the entrance. 

“Well, that’s the end of an era for our family,” I said, crestfallen at the loss of a family tradition that spanned 38 years. I wanted to cry, but I rallied.

“Well, there’s always Hunter’s Cafe,” I suggested.

Disheartened, we turned around slowly, bidding our old friend a sad farewell, and drove back past the Rehoboth Baptist Church and onto the road that leads down to the river. We passed an assemblage of little cottages and the ubiquitous trailers on our way to the one-lane dirt road that creeps along the river. The river is on the right, and Hunter’s sits across the road, facing it.

We parked on the side of the road facing the river, and walked across to a shack of a place strung with Christmas lights and some of those electric icicles. There are white lights spiraled around a palm tree beside the entrance to the screened porch as well as multicolored Christmas lights strung from the roof of the front porch. Without its adornments, it would look like just any old shanty sitting beside the road.  We walked across the yard through a blanket of leaves to the front door and were shown to a table on the screened porch. It was much too fine a day to sit inside.

If Speed’s is notable for its lack of decor, Hunter’s is its opposite. On the porch, where we joined two other tables of diners, the windows are draped in wide strings of shiny silver aluminum icicles that serve as curtains of a sort. They are knotted at the bottom, adding a certain je ne sait quoi to the ambiance. There are more Christmas lights hanging from the aluminum roof and around the edges of the ceiling. And there are dollar bills tacked on the walls and door, each signed and put there by a visitor. It is a sight to behold, as we say in The Deep South.

The food was outstanding, much better than I remember, but then we know how tricky my memory can be. Parrish feasted on a whole flounder stuffed with crabmeat, and I had fried shrimp. We learned that ordering a broiled flounder at Hunter’s means a minimum of a thirty minute wait, much like Speed’s, and we also learned that it is worth the time it takes. Parrish was in heaven. The shrimp were good, but not like Speed’s. 

We enjoyed the wait. The breeze was stiff but not cold, and since they have a bar at Hunter’s, I sipped a glass of wine as we chatted and reminisced about Speed’s and mourned its passing. We admired the Broro, a tidal arm of the Sapelo River, and it's view across the marsh to Sapelo Island.  

It finally dawned on me to ask our server the obvious question. 

“How long has Speed’s been closed?”

“I didn’t know it was closed,” she said with some surprise.

“We drove down there and it was dark and there was a for sale sign in the yard. My son heard a rumor that it was closed, but we didn’t believe it. What do you supposed happened?”

“I dont know. That sign’s been up for a long time, but last I knew, they were still open for business. Maybe somebody’s sick and they had to close for that.”

For those of you who’ve never frequented small towns in Georgia, the fact that somebody’s sick is a perfectly sound reason for closing a business. Remember in the movie, "My Cousin Vinnie," when the dry goods store was “closed for flu?” It happens, believe me. 

We shared a slice of homemade key lime pie for dessert, and when we left Hunter’s, full and happy, we drove back to Speed’s - just in case. 

And sure enough, there were cars in the yard and the sign was on. When we went inside to see Clint’s picture on the wall, we learned that they had forgotten to turn on the "Open" sign! Jubilant, we stood in front of the photo of Clint and Miss Virginia, admiring it and remembering the night it was taken and promising ourselves that we would soon be back. 

And we will.   


Copyright 2014 
cj Schlottman