Caught in a Landslide

I watch my world crash around me in a slow motion that has taken five years to build into this landslide.  Am I strong enough to fight my way free or will it engulf me and drag me down?  I feel my identity disappearing as I try to make the man I love understand that the path he has chosen isn't mine.  I have swallowed my feelings and kept them locked up inside to try to develop the same love for the ocean that he has.  When it finally broke loose before Christmas I thought he was finally listening to me and I thought that we could make a compromise.  But within days of my saying it he went back to planning 'our' life on a sailboat together and it was as if I never protested the loss of everything that I wanted to do.    Inside I am screaming, but on the outside I just listen to his words with a sinking heart, as I realize that there is something inside of him that just switches off.  It isn't that he doesn't love me - he has shown me in so many ways that he wants me with him - he just can't accept that I don't want to live on a sailboat for the next five or ten years.  All of the things that I want to do will continue to get pushed back over the years until it doesn't matter anymore - or I am dead.

Tonight I listened to the man that I love more than he will ever know accuse me of not caring that he was risking his life to support me.  So it is time to let him off the hook.  No more supporting me.  I will support myself.  And I hope that one day he knows how much I love him.  And how much I struggled, trying to figure out how to be happy in places that I felt like I was drowning.

Best wishes in fulfilling all of your dreams my love.

The Lasting Effects of Alzheimer's Disease

   The other night Shawn and I were watching a show where an elderly lady with Alzheimer's was serving a prison sentence.  She had become a problem for the guards and had hurt herself.  Towards the end they packed her up in a van.  Someone asked where they were taking her and another person said, "The bus station."  They were giving her a "compassionate release".  It hit me - hard.  I was indignant, turning to Shawn and asking him if that is what they (meaning prisons) really do.  Next thing I knew I was crying so hard it didn't seem I would stop.  

Lately anything that brings back memories of my grandmother and my father have affected me deeply.  Is it because this year marks 25 years since my grandmother died and I still don't know exactly what happened to her in her last days or where she is?

My father died from complications from Alzheimer's in 2011.  In his last months we had to take him from his home, against his will, to come live with us in Nevada.  It was the hardest thing I have done.  I felt guilty for taking him away from his home, his dogs, the things that were familiar to him, and knowing that it was the only choice other than a nursing home didn't make it any easier.  And there were also the days where I was so tired, so depressed with the struggle of his care, that I thought of giving up and putting him into one.  But I didn't.  And on his last day I sat with him and held his hand until he slipped away, thankful that I was able to be there and hopeful that it meant something to him.

My grandmother's story is much more complicated, but she had Alzheimer's as well.  Unlike my father, who was obstinate and ornery as hell most of the time, my grandmother was gentle and meek all of her life.  After her death I remembered trying to take her out in the spring to see the flowers and get her out of the house, only to have my mother put a stop to it, saying it "agitated her."  I didn't see how, but as always, I gave in to my mom, as I had most of my life.  And to this day I wish I had stood up for myself, and my grandmother, who I never knew was fighting for me in everything she did until it was too late to tell her thank you.

So this disease haunts me.  Not just because I am scared as hell that I will end up with it, but because of all of the questions, and the guilt, and the hope and despair that it imprints on those of us who watch it ravage a loved one.  Our elderly deserve better - our parents and our grandparents who end up unable to live their last days as they had wished because this disease takes it all away from them.  We need to push harder to understand Alzheimer's and we need to push harder to find solutions, and cures.

We need to make Alzheimer's disease go away, to be forgotten and wiped out just like the memories of its victims.

Social Conscious and My Responsibility

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I had written on my blog.  I thought for sure that I would write something deep yet entertaining when I turned 50 last April.  When the day came though my heart just wasn't it.  There were too many things going on in my life that had turned it upside down, but that is not a story for this blog but my other one "Stories From Someone Who Isn't Famous".

What brings me back today was a presentation I heard recently.  It was about saving our beaches and the wildlife that makes them home.  The garbage that washes up that will be there for years is almost unimaginable.  The figures that she presented just from one areas' cleanup efforts were in the hundreds of thousands in terms of trash - 466,000 cigarette butts in the Monterey beach area alone.

She also discussed the different ways that local wildlife is affected by the garbage that we produce.  Nothing I can say here can get the point across better than this video:  http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2013/03/28/midway-film-tells-story-of-plastics-in-our-ocean-through-plight-of-albatross/

It will break your heart.

So what can I do?  What can WE all do?  Maybe it doesn't seem like a lot, but along with my camera I took a couple of other things to the beach: some gloves and a trash bag.  And as I took my pictures I picked up the items that littered the beach and carried them off of the beach.  And I made a more conscious effort to avoid plastic water bottles.  Because of where we have our house in Nevada, we have to drink bottled water.  So we have always taken our gallon jugs and refilled them as long as it was sanitary to do so.  And when I bought the smaller bottles of water I made an effort to reuse those bottles as well for a couple of days.  I even looked for ways to reuse them AFTER I reused them - cutting the tops off and using them to cover seedlings in the garden - like a miniature greenhouse.  But we still have to do more.  We have to cut out plastic getting into our oceans or land areas where birds will mistake it for a food source and end up dying a slow death after ingesting enough of it.

Then, the saddest part of all.  This seal had been on the beach for months, but the closest I had been to it was to try to keep Kiri and Ryker from a close inspection of the poor creature.  But this time I did get closer and I found that it too, had been a victim of men.   Maybe even intentionally.  And I am angry.  Are you?

NOW:

These are the only things that we should find on our beach.  Please consider becoming part of a cleanup - a beach, a desert, a park, a river, a highway.  Anything.  And think about keeping a pair of gloves and a trash bag with you when you go out to enjoy these places.  I am.

This and That

After the purchase of our sailboat we spent our first available weekend picking up a few items for her and to take her out on a checkout run together.  It was a beautiful day for it.

Ryker and Kiri went along too, wearing their very own doggie life jackets.  Kiri doesn't really care for hers - maybe it isn't in the right princess colors for our spoiled little girl.  Both dogs did great though, eventually settling down on the cushions and watching the sights.

Never having sailed before, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous at the thought of all of the freighter traffic that travels through the bay area.  It was right around this time that a sailboat tried to make it between a freighter and its tug.  The sailboat lost.

On our way back in we were able to assist another couple in a sailboat that had become disabled.  Strangely enough, they had also just bought their boat two weeks before (paying a bit more than we did) and it was their first time out that day too!  We towed them back to their slip and they kindly thanked us with a very nice card as well as a gift card for a meal at a steakhouse.  It was much more than was necessary, after all, who knows when we might be in need of help?

Even though the wind wasn't very cooperative on our first day out, it was a fantastic day with a great ending.

Here's to Friends, Family and Starting a New Year

 At the holidays nothing is better than spending time with family and great friends.  We were blessed to be able to do both this year -  and since the Mayan calendar ended and no one knew if our time was up it was another reason to celebrate!  Shawn came home for the holidays and we had a whirlwind week of getting a tree and getting it decorated, dinners with friends and of course Christmas.  These are the times that are cherished.

Shawn had to be back at work on January 2, so we headed back to Monterey on New Year's Eve.  We didn't go out and party it up, so we were up early enough and had the energy to take a hike up Fremont Peak with the dogs on New Year's Day.  Much better than nursing a hangover all day!

Shawn's love of the water has re-emerged with his assignments on the coast of California.  After seeing a friends' sailboat he got the itch to sail.  I have never sailed but spent plenty of time on Daddy's speedboats and love the water.  Although I didn't expect to actually buy a boat so soon we found the Corlis - a 27' Catalina that was well-loved by her previous owners, who were selling her since the father is no longer physically able to handle her due to illness.  We had her hauled out and she checked out beautifully.  We had considered keeping her name to honor the family that we bought her from, but Shawn's grandmother passed away soon after, so in her memory we will hold a ceremony and rename our little beauty "Elenore".  May she show as much spunk as her namesake.

Splittin' My Time

 

  

Since I quit working full time in early summer of this year I have tried to balance my time between Nevada and California.  It can be quite a juggling act, leaving me feeling guilty sometimes no matter which way I go.  Brandon has been great about taking on the job of taking care of the dogs while I traipse around California, and Erika has filled in occasionally even though she now lives with her boyfriend, Jordan (pictured above).  So when I am in Fallon and one of the kids invites me to take part in something I try to do it.

In September Jordan took part in a roping event in Reno with a horse he has been training, Callie.  I have never been to anything like this and it is a new "culture" exposure for me.  I really enjoyed myself!  I took a LOT of photos of this new venue, and to be honest, not a lot of them were noteworthy.  It was good practice, though, and something I would like to explore.  The "cowboy" life seems to be full of hard-working people who all know each other and greet each other as old friends.  The first photo above is of Jordan warming Callie up before their event, the event itself, and then of Erika and Callie outside the arena.  I think that this straightforward lifestyle seems to suit her and she and Jordan seem to be good to each other.

One of the opportunities I am trying to take advantage of while in California is to visit the various Spanish missions up and down the coastal areas.  During a trip back to Monterey with Shawn the transfer case on our Dodge came apart right as we got into San Juan Bautista on Hwy 88.  While waiting for the tow truck I noticed signs for a mission there.  After doing a little bit of research I decided that this would be the first one I would visit and went back a couple of days later in the Volvo while Shawn was working.  San Juan Bautista is a very cute little town, but I will have to go back again when I don't have the dogs with me.  I did get to explore the mission and surrounding grounds though.  I love the architecture and the simplicity of these old buildings.

The next weekend Shawn and I went to Carmel to see the San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo mission or simply, Carmel Mission.  This was the second mission built in California, and one of the more well-known to tourists.  This mission was almost completely destroyed when restoration was begun in 1921, and is currently undergoing more work as well.  I will hope to return after the scaffolding is gone!  For more info on this mission see:
http://www.missionscalifornia.com/keyfacts/san-carlos-borremeo-de-carmelo.html

TIme at Home

Over the summer Shawn and I divided up our time between California and Fallon.  As much as I love the ocean our place in the desert is where I feel peace.  I love the wide-openness - the light as the sun comes up over the Stillwater range or goes down to the west, especially when it is cloudy and it gives that special light to the trees behind the house.  And then the stars!  Walking out on our deck at night and looking up at the sky where no city light dims the show, while the only sound is a slight breeze rustling the leaves in the cottonwoods.  

Fallon has a fabulous arts council and we have concerts here that are extraordinary.  I am sure that people are surprised at the variety of high quality performers that come to our little town.  They also have wonderful exhibits.  One of these was a collection of antique gas pumps.  Maybe that doesn't sound like art - but some of these machines and their workings are extremely interesting.  This was one of the first times that Shawn was able to attend a show in quite a while.   

As summer drew towards its inevitable end Shawn and I had our first job as Silver State Blasting Solutions!  In September we spent a week in Oregon at the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge doing experimental field trials to determine if we could successfully build a section of river through the marsh.  It was a success!  It was FUN!  And best of all - we did it together.

Wanderings of the Summer Part 2

Shawn working in San Francisco was a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of all that the Bay area has to offer - beautiful beaches and coastline, fantastic food, historical areas and good weather.  It was also nice that it is only a 4.5 hour drive from our home in Fallon, so that we could alternate weekends with each other.  

One of the most popular paragliding areas on the West Coast is located about twenty minutes from the hotel - Mussel Rock.  Hwy 1 and the houses at the top of the cliffs are slowly falling into the water, and  there is a visible demarcation where the San Andreas fault moves right through here.  The beach was a great place to hunt for shells and sea glass while Shawn soared above me in the afternoons, and the sound of the waves brings me to one of my favorite "happy places" in my mind.

As Shawn's job at Hunter's Pointe was drawing to a close we headed to Clearlake, CA to his grandparents house to meet up with his mom, her boyfriend and his aunt and uncle for a weekend of sleeping out under the stars on the deck, skiing and hanging out by the pool.  A number of wineries are located in this area now and we took a Saturday morning and visited a few.   Our favorite by far was the Brassfield Estates Winery.  All of the wines were estate wines, and the owners have put a lot of thought into using recycled items with a lot of history behind them into the structures and grounds.  The olive trees on the grounds are 80 year old specimens that were going to be bulldozed to make way for a shopping center.  The chandelier in the main tasting room came from the old Bank of America building in San Francisco - and it goes on and on.  By far the most interesting winery we have ever visited - and the wines are amazing as well!

Wanderings of the Summer Part 1

 After I quit working full time in order to spend more time with Shawn we have been to a number of great places, spending time with great people and having a great time.  Earlier in the summer Brandon was able to go with us to Crescent City, CA to visit Shawn's brother Damian and his wife, Jennifer.  Shawn's mom met us there as well.  

At low tide one morning we all went down to gather mussels among the rocks.  Not only was there an abundance of mussels, but so many other wonderful sea creatures were hidden among the rocks!  I could have spent hours looking for them and taking pictures, but low tide only lasts so long.

Of course it isn't just what's living that can capture my attention.  I grew up near water and rocks and driftwood on the beach have always drawn me.  Shawn is so very lucky that most pieces are too large to haul back to the car and bring home...

When we got back to Damian and Jennifer's house the guys went fishing and brought back what we needed to make a delicious seafood pasta for lunch.  There was also enough to make cioppino for dinner!

 

The next day we did something that Shawn remembered from his childhood - we took a jet boat up the Rogue River.  This fun-filled adventure is designed to get everyone on board as wet as possible, and a fun time was had by all!

 

Damian and Jen have turned their home into a beautifully self-sufficient haven set among redwoods.  They have provided us with an abundance of food that they have either grown, raised, hunted or fished for themselves.  We look forward to another visit.

Next Phase

 

Today marked the beginning of a new phase in my life.  Two weeks ago I was out alone in the Toyota above locating and marking camera spots for an upcoming test at work.  Beautiful day, and, yes, lots of fun to be able to do this kind of thing and get paid for it.  Last week I was at a living dune outside of Fallon (Sand Mountain) doing more camera work on another test.  It was windy and dusty and gritty and hot, but once again, I loved it.

But now I get to move on to something that will be more fun and fulfilling, because I quit being a full time employee and will now have the opportunity to spend more time with Shawn while he is working out of town.  Since January he has been "stationed" (sorry, it's the military phraseology coming out) in San Francisco, living in a hotel and working six 10 hour days with one Saturday off per month.  Doesn't really allow for a lot of time together, so we are taking steps to make that better.

The other benefit will be that I will have more time to take photographs, spend some extra time with Erika and Brandon, exercise, work in my garden and, hopefully, finally beat the critters!

As I sit here looking out at the ending of a beautiful Nevada day, I reflect on the people that have been a part of our lives since we moved here.  They all support this next phase, and helped give me the strength to know that it will be great.  I am so excited thinking of all of the sights and places that Shawn and I will share together and of the wonderful memories that will be created from them.

Memorial

Shawn and I took a week of our vacation time to head south. We were long overdue to meet our newest granddaughter, Madison Chanel Lynn Ridings, who was born April 1, 2011, shortly after we began caring for Daddy. More on that part of our visit in another post.
We made it into Grant, Alabama and my brother's house on Thursday evening a little later than we planned. John now lives in a beautiful spot up on a mountain, surrounded by trees and with just enough seclusion to make it peaceful. I am happy he found the place.
We decided that to just put Daddy's ashes in the ground was not right. We had the funeral home separate some out into two containers for the two places we knew were special to him: his birthplace of Blanket, Texas and the lake in Guntersville where he spent so much time in various boats on the water. Especially after his wife Micki had passed he was happiest when he was out on a boat. So Friday evening we headed to his favorite boat launch and left a part of him there where we had seen him so happy. The first photo above was from the dock. It was a perfect night - warm with a slight breeze, gorgeous light and calm water. I hope he smiled when he saw what we were doing.
On Saturday morning we held his memorial service. Pastor Rick Bell, who had answered many of Daddy's questions about life, death and heaven and hell, spoke of the man that he had come to know. He told us stories to make us smile and remember the man that Daddy was before illness took him away from us. The people who Daddy loved and respected were there and we were able to hear new stories of the man that they had come to love and respect in return. We laughed and cried in turn as the past came back. Then Daddy was laid next to Micki, with the heart shaped locket that holds their pictures inside.
After the service my brother's church had prepared lunch for us. Since the church was near Daddy's house, we drove by. I wish we hadn't. Daddy had put his home into a reverse mortgage after Micki passed, refusing to accept help from any of us. It kept him in his home until his illness made it necessary to bring him to live with us last January. The bank has now taken it back and it truly looks deserted - the yard he took such pride in overgrown and desolate, the fence falling over with the weight of ivy that has grown out of control. My only consolation is that the bank that charged him such high interest on his mortgage will never get their money back with the house in its current condition.
It was hard to come home after such a short time with the rest of my family. Our next trip will hopefully include meeting my brother in Texas at my father's birthplace. I only wish that we could have gone there with him while he was still alive.
Rest in peace Daddy.

Chinese New Year in San Francisco (or "Oops I Did It Again")

"It" being not taking my tripod to the parade.

Shawn is working in San Francisco for a while, affording me many more opportunities to see him, at least on some weekends. In early February Shawn's mom and her boyfriend traveled down from Oregon and we all met for the weekend of the Chinese New Year parade. I like San Francisco because, even though it's a big city, it doesn't make me feel rushed like other big cities normally do. There is so much to see there! This post could go on and on, but I will try to keep it limited to the subject and come back to the other items in another post.

We started our Saturday by heading into Chinatown for dim sum. This is nothing like what many people think of as "Chinese" food - including myself, at least until now. The restaurant was packed, but soon we had a table and the feasting began. Dim sum is similar to tapas in Spain - not a huge meal, but two or three morsels of something delicious to share. We spend a leisurely two hours or so enjoying the food and the company, then we hit the streets to take in as much of the excitement as we could before the parade that night. I had to remind myself over and over that I would be back and could return to see all of the fascinating shops.

Then there was the parade. The clothing, the elaborate floats and of course the dragons! There were countless dragons! And of course at the very end the biggest dragon of them all - the Golden Dragon, whose year this is, and who announced his coming with many firecrackers and lots of smoke, but who despite his fierce appearance hopefully breathed his "auspiciousness" on all in his path for the coming year.

(Almost) Ghost Towns, Vegas and Thanksgiving

I was supposed to fly to Cleveland the week before Thanksgiving and help Shawn drive the truck to San Diego for Thanksgiving but they shut his job down early due to the winter weather. So I cancelled my flight and he drove home a week early. We took advantage of the couple of extra days that gave us to stop along the way at the old mining towns - Tonopah, Goldfield, etc. - and then spent the night in Vegas before heading to SD for the family Thanksgiving. The biggest bonus to this trip was that we were able to get both Erika and Brandon to San Diego for Thanksgiving too!

The old mining towns are fascinating. The things that can be found with just a little extra effort have so much history behind them - old cars, trains, mines and mining equipment, shacks...the list goes on.

Then there was Vegas - and I didn't even gamble. Never had the desire to. But we stayed in a resort hotel with an amazing jacuzzi tub. Those that know our house know that we have a small bathtub that is not ideal for long relaxing soaks. And it is almost a joke now that if Kori stays in a hotel, Kori is going to take at least one nice, long bath, so this one was heaven - and romantic too. We had a great dinner, saw the fountains at the Bellagio and headed back to our room. The hotel (the JW Marriott) was so nice in fact that we decided to take our time leaving instead of driving through Death Valley as we had planned. We had an amazing breakfast next to a pool and waterfall, and wandered the grounds.

Thanksgiving dinner followed normal Meyer clan get together fashion - it was chaotic, noisy, confusing - and the best time families anywhere could possibly imagine! We had over 30 this year, so it just keeps getting better.

The photos are of an old rail car and Dodge, the night lights of Vegas and of course the aforementioned Meyer clan at Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Escape

After my father left us in August Shawn found another one of those spots that he has such a talent for sniffing out - the Old Pioneer Garden Bed and Breakfast in Unionville, NV. Unionville was once a mining town and Mark Twain even spent a couple of weeks there in a miner's shack. We loaded my Jeep with our gear and the two Shepherds, Ryker and Kiri, and set out (no top and no doors!!! YEAH!) across the Stillwater Wildlife Range to get to our destination. By the time we arrived that afternoon we were literally covered in dust - the dogs were gray, we were gray but what a great ride! So much so that when the owner of the B&B pulled up and saw us I think he was having serious regrets for taking our reservation. But Mitzi and Dave Jones were the most gracious of hosts, and they have painstakingly built their cabins to reflect that time period when so many came with dreams of striking it rich. Unionville is an amazing oasis in the desert. We spent the next two days exploring the mountains, hunting for fossils and of course taking photos. Then, heartbreak!!! I realized that I had taken my card out of my camera! I know, stupid, but I have taken it so for granted that it is just THERE and I was so exhilirated to be out, with my husband, exploring areas where few people go that I didn't even stop to check. So now - we will just have to go back to get more than the 80 or so that I did get.

The first photo is of the dogs and my Jeep on a trail that had ended. The next one is of the shack that Mark Twain is supposed to have stayed in, and the last is of our "cabin" at the Old Pioneer Garden B&B - look it up and go stay if you have the chance!