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!

Transition to Heaven

It has taken me a while to reach this point of readiness. To write about my father's death. On August 23, 2011 I sat with him and held his hand in the last hours of his life. I saw the brief look of what? Surprise, pleading, love, relief? on his face as he took his last breath. I felt he wanted to tell me one more time how much I meant to him and how proud he was of me, as he has done these last few years after he learned of what my life was really like before Shawn. And how much he loved me. When we were alone for a few moments I tried to tell him all of the things that I wouldn't get another chance at - how I was glad he had come out here, how sorry I was for the times when I was tired and didn't spend much time with him, how sorry I was that he wasn't able to stay in his own home for the last months of his life. I promised to take care of Andre, his dog, and to take him home to be next to Mickie, who passed away six years before he did.

Now I walk into his room and I wonder if there is still someone there. I tell him I hope that he found Mickie when he left us. I think he did. In the spring I will go to Texas, to the town where he was born when the bluebonnets are in bloom and I will leave a small part of him where he began and the rest will go home, where he will finally be next to Mickie again. But of course he already is.

Back on My Own Two Feet

After all of the funk that I have experienced over the last few months a few things have become very clear to me - but first and foremost is that I need to quit feeling sorry for myself. No matter what I have to get thru this mess and I will. I have been thru other bad poopy before and I survived, and I will survive this as well. I have learned that no one really wants to hear my calls for help, so I won't make them anymore. I thought that if I admitted that I was feeling lost and get over the fear of rejection that it would be better, but it didn't make a difference. So I will stand on my own, as I have done before, and I will remember that, no matter how bad things seem, someone out there has it a lot worse than I do. Despite what has happened lately the man I married is still the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. We are both going through big transitions in our lives and if we work hard to think of what the other is going through and not lose sight of what is most important we will make it.

I had to remind myself that I CAN do a lot on my own - it just takes the willpower to do it. I have that willpower back and I feel better about myself than I have in a long time - because I also realize that the only person I need to worry about proving myself to is me.

I will take that extra three minutes on the way to work to stop and take that photo of the lake that I keep putting off. I will remember to make myself a priority sometimes.

Loss

Today I had another argument with my husband. The man that I thought understood me, who used to know instinctively when I just needed him and would just come to me and hold me, is lost to me. Last weekend he came home from his job in Ohio to cook for a wedding and, when he wasn't ready to leave when I had to come relieve Daddy's sitter, promised me he would get a ride and make it home that night. He didn't - he chose to get inebriated instead. Now he has the Fourth of July weekend off to come home and he has offered to make an elaborate dinner at someone else's house and was impatient with me when I wouldn't commit, saying I needed to think about it - Erika had surgery on her ankle today and Daddy is coming back from another heart attack week before last. I just wanted something simple - maybe a potluck barbecue where we didn't have to prepare for hours. It is after all my three day weekend as well. When I told him he could do the dinner if he wanted to but not to count on my help he chose the dinner over his wife and family. I will be at home alone taking care of my 88 year old father and my daughter as she recuperates from surgery while he is out basking in the glory of his cooking talent and having to sleep on someone's couch again because he doesn't have the willpower to say no to a drink. I have decided I am tired of needing someone to lean on sometimes - because now if I were to do so I would fall down because there is no one there anymore. I am tired of being the "EOD-DD".

Another Phase

Yesterday Daddy had another heart attack. We didn't know it was a heart attack - just that he had been severely delusional and when he was still that way this morning with no change in his thought process I knew that there had to be something wrong. I thought it would be some sort of infection or dehydration, but I just didn't pick up the clues.

The hospital left it to me to decide to admit him for monitoring or to send him home. I chose to bring him home. If he is going to have another attack soon and leave us, it is not going to be hooked up to a bunch of wires in a strange place with a bunch of strangers coming in every half hour or so to poke and prod and ask questions.

So he is home. The medication they gave him that was meant to sedate him only caused more delusions and excitability, but at least this afternoon they were happy delusions. When I walked into his room and said hello, he smiled at me with surprise and said, "Kori, they've turned you into a frog!" I asked if I was a green frog or a brown frog and he said I was green.

Now comes the hard part - we move into the next phase of his care when he can't get to the bathroom any longer and can't remember how to hold a fork to feed himself, or how to clean himself up. He doesn't notice that I am here - he has a number of imaginary people from his past that he is talking with and doesn't really seem to hear me. And now, as I write this, he thinks that he is in the hospital with his wife Micki before she died from cancer. When I tried to help my heart broke a little more when he said, "Micki's here. She's dead, but they've made her ok, we just need to get her home."

As long as I'm a green frog I guess I'm ok with it. I'll just have to get my prince to come home and kiss me so I turn back.