Memory Well: The Times I Was Beside Myself

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There's a thing going around Facebook today that examines your name and tells you "approximately" how many people in the US are named the same as you are.  Oddly enough, there aren't a lot of Deci Reynolds out there (1 or fewer, it says), although if I go with Denise Reynolds, there are 308 of us.  But today's post is about my name prior to Roger - Denise Humphries.  Distinctly more uncommon, in fact, there are (supposedly) only 28 of us.  And yet, I've had run-ins (of a sort) with two of them.

First one - back in the 80s, I was in Job Corps in Astoria (for non-Americans, it's a sort of live-in occupational training type thing).  I had gone home to Springfield for a week for home leave, and when I got back to the base, I was getting funny looks from the guards when I checked back in.  When I finally tackled one by himself and asked what was up, he showed me a newspaper article from the Eugene Register-Guard that mentioned that a Denise Humphries had been arrested during a bank robbery, and was being charged with assault for pistol-whipping one of the tellers.  I, of course, said "Come on - can you really imagine me pistol-whipping a teller?"  I was secretly a little gratified when he said yep.  He could.  Fortunately, it turns out that the Denise in the article was also 35 years old, so I was in the clear.

A couple of years later, I was in Fairfax, VA, working for a Government contractor in a mixed use complex called Circle Towers (offices in the front, apartments in the back.)  I kept getting personal mail (electric bills, phone bills, etc...) addressed to Denise Humphries at work for accounts I'd never signed up for.  Turns out that there was a Denise J Humphries who lived in the apartments in back of us - very nice woman.  We went out for drinks a couple of times after I tracked her down and dropped off her mail.

Once Google took off, I tried googling my name a couple of times - turns out there's also a dog trainer in Australia.  So, two out of the three other Denise Humphries seem to be a good sort - but I think I'll stick to using Deci outside of work. 

Me And My Shadow

My guys - I think I'll keep them

A friend posted today about a dream she had - her doxie had jumped out of a hot air balloon over water, and swam to shore.  It made me wonder why I never dream about Moose, but then I realized - I'm not entirely certain anymore that my subconscious registers him as a separate entity.

He's always been a lap dog extraordinaire - but ever since I have been mostly working from home, he is always there.  It's almost like I had a procedure - an addapuptome, if you will, where he was surgically implanted.  Not that I'm complaining, you understand.  He's generally twirled around my midsection like a comma of love, a furry brown tutu generating warmth and oxytocin molecules in equal amounts when we're sitting down, and if we're laying down, he's cuddled up at the small of my back, or the joint of my knees (or occasionally vulturing from the top of the pillow over my head.) 

So even when I'm dreaming and he's not the star of the show, his warmth still anchors me to reality - the lifeline that lets me wander as far as I want, knowing that there will always be a beacon back home.  His father does the same thing for me emotionally - when I'm wandering off into the fields of frustration and despair, Roger brings me back, calms me down and reminds me of all the good in the world (and how lucky I am to have found it.)  I am truly a blessed woman. 

So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye...

Me Receiving A Desk Set From Lieutenant General Flowers - I wanted a Commander's Coin, but I settled.

After lots of fits and starts (and delays, and turnbacks, and…)  Ok, let’s start again.  I’m finally doing it.  My paperwork is in, and it’s official – my last day with the Corps is April 30^th.  Right now, they’re planning my retirement party for April 25^th – not sure where or what time, but the date is pretty firm.

I just realized that I’ve had the same phone number (three different offices, two different buildings, but the same phone number) for over half of my life.  That’s definitely the longest constant in my life by far.  (It also explains why I get all the weird phone calls – not sure where they’re going to be sending them now.) 

I’ve been going through and cleaning out my desk, throwing out the detritus of a long career.  Date stamps that only went up through 1999, dried out Wite-out bottles, rub-on letters, 410 business cards of a 500 business card order (somehow, I just never seemed to be the business card handing out type.)  Enough pens to sink your average battleship, only half of which ever worked properly (and the half that didn’t work always ended up in my hands when I needed to take a message).  A bottle of WD40 and a couple of rolls of duct tape.  My carefully collated list of NAICS codes and size standards (let’s face it, no one uses the notebooks anymore, but I started here before this stuff was available online – pre-AOL, even.)

There are some things I’m taking with me – the nameplate that my Grandfather carved for me from a chunk of wood from Zion Canyon, various moose memorabilia that my friends have given me over the years, my Group W Bench sign, many coffee cups… which is odd, considering that I don’t drink coffee, but I think they automatically populate in any office environment.  I’m giving away more stuff – passing down my quilted art to Patty, some vases to Jim, my snark sign to Farrell.  I’m not sure who is going to inherit my Mt Hood keyboard – whoever calls dibs, I suppose. 

But mostly, I’m throwing out and getting rid of.  Heck, I’m even getting rid of my “Let go of the banana” sign.  That sign has gotten me through a lot of tough situations – it was a reminder that you can trap any monkey by putting a banana in a box with a hand-sized hole, as long as the monkey involved (and yes, I was usually the monkey) didn’t remember that some rewards just weren’t worth the pain of sticking around.  Which sort of wraps this whole thing up nicely – it’s been a wonderful home, but it’s time to let go of the banana and head off to other pursuits. 

Moose - Nature's Birth Control

I love my boy, but he is rather determined to make sure that the world revolves around him.  For example, when we go to bed, I can generally count on one hand the number of seconds between Roger laying down next to me and snuggling in, and Moose's shoving on in between us.  He's not subtle about it, either - he will stomp his way up our bodies and shove his nose in under Roger's hand, if necessary.  His preferred sleeping spot is right between us, making sure that any contact includes him.

But today, Moose took it to a new height (or possibly depth, depending on how you look at it.)  He was asleep on my lap, snoozing away on my right side.  Roger and I were watching Elementary, and I got a little sentimental.  The episode had an incidental story line about a man sticking around when things got problematic (MS in the case of the story), but I had to thank Roger for being such a mensch - not all men would handle Hank the way he has.  But anyway... I reached out to hold his hand (this would be on my left side), and suddenly Moose almost levitated around to the other side of my lap, nose at the ready.  If there was any affection being given out, my boy was going to be in the middle of it. 

That's one of the best things about having rescued Moose (or having him rescue us - whichever way it went.)  Even when things are sappy and dark, he can still make us laugh.

Oh... Coffee!!!

I saw a link on FB today that reminded me of my early dating days...  Something about how 4 of the Zodiac signs (of course, including Aries) were not hint-takers, and that you have to be direct with them.  Oh, boy is that true...

So, this was back in the early '90s - Mom had moved out of the house (ok, ok, she took a job in Denver, but I decided to stay here in Portland.  Even then, I knew that Portland was going to be my long-term home.)  I had mostly been taking a break from dating, but I had a crowd I hung out with (the Rocky Horror crowd - love you guys!) and that was filling most of my social needs (and keeping me out of my studio - it's amazing how lonely a studio apartment can feel, sometimes.)  I'd like to think that I was welcome in the crowd because of my wit, attitude, charm... but it was probably helped by the fact that I had a job and car as well.  (Amazing how much social cache' a car and gas money can give you.)

Anyway... I was still thinking of myself as basically sexless, until one day I ended up bumping into a friend at a coffee shop downtown (I think it was the Blah Blah, but that's beside the point.)  He was a nice, cute guy that I'd spent time with before as part of the group, and I offered him a ride home after we sat and talked for a while - he had coffee, I had a diet coke, we argued over songs on the juke box. 

Once we got to his place, I was getting ready for him to say goodbye and jump out, when he asked me if I'd like to come up for a cup of coffee.  Now, I don't drink coffee - it's one of the few vestigial Mormon traits I have, plus the stuff tastes like dirt, and he had just downed several cups of the stuff, so I said "I don't drink coffee."  At which point he grabbed my leg and said "No, do you want to come up for a cup of COFFEE???" 

Lightbulb finally exploded in my head - What can I say?  I didn't know that coffee was early 90s for Netflix and Chill.  It was kind of a mental whiplash, suddenly realizing that oh - I'm not sexless after all.  Someone actually did think of me as a sexy lady. (Well, as it turned out, several someones - but this was the burst of confidence I needed to get back in the game.)  And as it turns out, he made a pretty good cup of hot chocolate...

Memory Well: First Dance

Lately, they've been playing a commercial with Beth by Kiss as the background (it's actually a really cute commercial, with a dad taking his boys out for a guys' day, ending up with him texting his wife with "Beth, what can I do" and her texting back "Pick up milk".  Really smart commercial, really well done, even if it is for Volkswagen.)  Anyway... brings back memories.

The first school dance I ever went to was at Franklin Jr High in Pocatello, Idaho.  I was in 7th grade, new in town (as always), but I had an "in" - I played trombone, so I was in the band.  It gave me a group of people I belonged to.  We had a sock hop - literally a sock hop, it was held in the gym and you had to take off your shoes when you entered the room to avoid tearing up the new basketball court, and the band all decided to attend en mass.  

I spent most of the evening dancing with a mass of girls, the way that you do when you're young and herded together, but finally the last song of the night came on.  Slow song, so group dancing is not possible, but then Marc sidled up to the group.  Marc played bari sax, and had the most fascinating eyes - green eyes except for one quarter of his right eye that was orange.  Anyway, he asked me to dance - at least, I think that's what he said.  He was mumbling so low I couldn't really hear him, but he held out a hand and pulled me onto the floor, so I assume that's what he said.

Now, just as an aside - I was always the tallest person in my class, up until 8th or 9th grade.  I spent my youth in the back row of class photographs.  At this point, I'd hit 5'7", and frankly, I always took it as an insult that I stopped growing and suddenly everyone shot up past me.  Marc, on the other hand, was maybe 4'9" on a good day at that point.  Not optimal for a slow dance, but hey...  we made it work.  Revolving around the dance floor, his arms reaching up to my shoulders, me looking over his head, and "Beth" playing over the creaky loudspeakers.  My first slowdance... I'll always appreciate Kiss for that, if nothing else.  

I'll Give You Workplace Violence

Pic borrowed from Clyde_Dale at Deviant Art

Today was probably not the best day for me to be taking a mandatory class on workplace violence.  Don’t get me wrong – most days I’m not that bad to work with, I’ve been told.  But today…  for the third time in 6 months, one of two programs I’m forced to work with has managed to wipe my entire user database.  All the users, all their warrant info, everything.  And despite the fact that this is happening at midnight (when the programs interface, and there are NO FREAKING HUMANS anywhere near the system), the sweethearts are refusing to admit that it could possibly be their program’s fault. 

I’m not buying it.  Once is accident, twice may be circumstance, three times is definitely enemy action.  The only things stopping me from going medieval on someone is that a) they’re located in Mississippi, I’m in Oregon.  Slight logistical issue, but I’m almost at the point where I would be willing to conquer it.  B) The knowledge that it wouldn’t do any good – they have no more control over things than I do, but at least they could be referring this up the channels faster, drat it!  C)  the training that I just took indicates that me threatening them could be considered “workplace violence”, and advises me to temper my tone, and work with my co-workers rather than going triple-dog-dare on them.  I suppose that the adult thing to do is to go ahead, fold my computer and go home to snuggle Moose.  Boy, should they be grateful that I’m too bone tired to not be an adult. 

Oh, well… tomorrow is another day.  One that might involve some concerted retraining on someone’s part, and perhaps a reminder of just who it was that purchased their computers and/or monitors, and the dangers of pissing off Contracting.

Grandma and Dixie: Two Post Mortums

Grandma is in the middle here at Grandpa's funeral

It's taken me over a year to really write about this, but I'm hoping that the wounds have scarred over sufficiently by now.  We'll see... and fair warning for those in my family who loved either or both of these wonderful females.  There will probably be crying involved, at least on my part.

Grandma Lova was an incredible woman.  She was strong, smart as a whip, dedicated, and she had a will that burned.  If you had a task you needed accomplished, you gave it to Lova, whether you were family, the community or her church.  Her community needed funding, so she was one of the founders of the pie committee - thousands and thousands of pies.  Really incredible pies, too - flaky crust, incredible filling, welcomed a fork like a lover and melted on the tongue.  I knew that there was starting to be an issue one year when she forgot to put salt in her pie crust (she was in her 80s at this point).  (I know, it's a little thing - but you don't understand Grandma's pride.)  Then there was the time she went to make tea and put the kettle on the stove - the electric kettle, with the plastic base.  At first she moved in with her daughters once Grandpa died, but finally, she had to move into a home (and that was a lot harder on the daughters than on Grandma, I think.)  Last time I talked with her, we had brief moments of conversation, interrupted every 15 minutes or so by "How old am I again?" (This was her 95th birthday party), followed by "My, that's old.  I guess God doesn't want me."  How do you reassure a good Mormon woman about that?  I honestly believe that the last 10 years of her life were just her waiting to be with her beloved Dewane again, wasting away until her body gave up and finally allowed her some peace (after a horrible, painful urinary tract infection or two.)  I love my grandma dearly, and I miss her horribly, but I am so grateful that she's finally able to rest now.

Not sure what Dixie was winking at...

Dixie, now - Dixie was my fur-sister, my mother's dog.  I've written about her before, but she was also a force of nature - a born crone, who might not like you, but if she did, she loved you absolutely.  She was a pirate dog - she'd lost one of her eyes a couple of years back to glaucoma, but that did not slow her down - she could still take out a chicken twice her size (and did - Mom used to joke that Dixie was the only one on the ranch with the will to kill a rogue chicken.)  She spent 12 years as Mom's constant companion, but by November, we noticed that she was losing sight in the other eye, and she was starting to be confused - she got lost under the kitchen table, she was having a hard time going outside, and she slept pretty much constantly.  So, just before Thanksgiving, I called our local vet, made the appointment, pre-paid for the service so that Mom didn't have to deal with anything.  We fed Dixie her favorites for her last meal, wrapped her up in her favorite blanket, and took her to Dr. Matt, who helped her cross over while she was lying in Mom's arms.  Again, I love her dearly, but I'm grateful that she's able to rest now.

I know that of the two deaths, I would vastly prefer the second one.  It was relatively quick, definitely painless and so much less confusing to her and us than the 10 year ordeal that Grandma had to go through.  I know - very different circumstances between a dog and a human, and there were moments in that 10 years that were special - certainly I cherish my last conversation with Grandma.  I just don't know that it was worth the pain she had to endure to give it to me. 

Let It Snow (Part 2)

Now I have my own house - my own place.  In Portland, Oregon, so we're not talking a heavy snow area.  We end up having to close the schools if there is more than a sprinkling of snow, but fortunately, that happens about as often as the Trailblazers win a pennant, so...

The first snowfall after we bought the place, though - that was sublime.  You see, there were a number of factors that convinced us to buy the place, but two of the big ones were the back yard landscaping, and the hot tub.  The tub is right off the back porch, in the middle of this:

Picture that, covered in snow, with flakes gently falling, and you in a hot tub, up to your shoulders in 102 degree water and a flake landing on your nose. 

Right at that moment, the whole mortgage thing seemed totally worth it.  And then Moose came along, worried that the demon plastic duck that inhabited the hot tub was threatening his mama, and ruined the moment.  But I did have a brief moment of zen.

Memory Well: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

One of the advantages of my peripatetic childhood - my experience pool is really wide.  Not necessarily all that deep, but definitely wide.  I've had a lot of different snow days, from a lot of different viewpoints, and seeing my friends on Facebook talking about the blizzard coming in reminded me of a few of them.  

Washington, Utah - I saw snow there once.  I think it was 2 inches and it shocked the community - snow plows?  What the heck is a snow plow?  118 in the shade we can handle - anything below 32, don't even try to talk to us.  However, this was back when practically everyone there was still a rancher, so the animals were still taken care of, and everyone had a year's supply of food in their basement (or in the freezer), so there was no run on Quentin Niessen's mercantile.  Anything short of nuclear winter was not going to phase them - they were pioneer stock.

Salmon, Idaho - The only place I've ever lived where it was necessary to plug your car in at night to keep the fluids from freezing solid by morning.  I remember stepping outside and feeling the snot in my nose freeze.  This was back in the early 70s, when elephant bell bottoms were popular (don't judge me - I was 7!), and I used to love the way that little balls of snow would collect around the hem of my pants, so I sort of jingled when I walked.  There was snow on the ground pretty much from October through April, but I don't remember them ever calling a snow day - it just didn't happen. 

Washington, DC, however - I was working in Fairfax and living in McLean, and we got an unexpected 3 inches of snow.  It ended up shutting down the Metro, and I had to wait 11 hours at the office for a cab, but I was stuck with three other guys, and we made a party out of it, with boxed wine and sandwiches we got down at the corner deli.  (more to come later)

Ignore the Woman Behind the Curtain

This one I’m writing just for me – I’m not going to be publicizing it because (let’s face it) this is not a fun read, but sometimes I have to write my fears down to get them out of my head.  You’ve been warned.

Nightmares have been creeping in. I think it’s the anniversary – almost three years now, and for three years I was able to ignore it.  I survived, hell, I thrived.  Why dwell on unpleasantness?  But late at night, when my brain is trying to shut off, memories come back and mess with me. 

It all started as I was leaving the office.  I could feel something going wrong the minute I stood up from my desk.  By the time we got home, there was a huge puddle of blood on the car seat.  I tried to get into the house and get cleaned up, but it just got worse and worse (I think it was Daniel who called it a scene out of Carrie), and I knew that we needed to go to the emergency room right then.  And that’s where the nightmares start…

First off, there’s the sheer humiliation… although for me, that’s almost the least of it.  After dealing with the sheer inconvenience and shame of Hank’s pressing down on my bladder for the past three years, a bloody mess is nothing anymore, really.  But laying there for close to 24 hours, unable to get clean because anytime the blood was wiped away, a new batch would just plop out 5 minutes later, soiling me and the sheets and gloves and mats and everything in that wretched emergency cubical – ok, yeah, the humiliation is still there.

Then there’s the fear… blood, after all.  So much blood – plate-sized clots of it falling out of me every time I sat up or shifted position or breathed too heavily.  Enough blood that they eventually had to pump three pints into me, and they didn’t seem to have any clue as to how to stop it, or even be trying all that hard to stop it.  It felt like I was just left there, bleeding away, having the sheets changed occasionally.  Somehow, I doubt that a gun-shot victim would be left bleeding away on the table like that.  But then again, that’s just it – when you’re a patient, you don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes.

Then finally, Dr. Scott coming in and telling me that they were going to do an emergency D&C, almost exactly 24 hours after I had started to bleed out.  Figuring it was fibroids and the worst was over – once they let me out of the hospital in a couple of days… and then getting the Saturday phone call that meant everything was going to change.