HopelesslyJoan

I have a beautiful bedroom complete with ensuite that I have spent two years making just perfectly “mine” after my partner moved out.

It took awhile to adjust to the expanse of lonely bed, but when I realized it was all my call, I painted the walls in soft colours of blues and greys and then I accented with pale pinks. I bought a floral duvet covered with beautifully scattered spring flowers.I also left the bedroom door open so that the cat could visit when the mood struck.

It is now officially “girly” and I have no one to make me feel guilty about it. There is a stuffy on the bed (white teddy complete with red ribbon) and perfume bottles, candles, bras and scarves on most surfaces.

Mine, mine, mine!

Well… mine and Innka’s. Innka is my 18-year-old cat. At that age, he’s the equivalent of a one hundred year old human gent. A recent $300 trip to the vet confirmed that he is very healthy, all organs just hunkey dorey.

He does have a few medical problems which we have learned to manage, through modern medicine and the miracle of VISA. He is a mostly blind, toothless diabetic with a thyroid condition that causes him to howl for no apparent reason. He is a black domestic shorthair, but I think there must be Siamese lurking (ever heard THEM complain?) in his genealogy.

When Innka lets go with one of his louder musings, it sounds very much like the demons of Hell are nipping at his heels. He usually saves this blood-curdling yowling until the lights go out, and I am comfy in the arms of Morpheus. Maybe he’s scared of the dark but doesn’t remember until I start snoring. Based on that assumption, I moved his food and water dishes into the bedroom, hoping to create a comfortable environment for him.

Soon afterwards, I moved the kitty litter pan into the ensuite, too. It just made sense…after filling up on a $70 bag of Diabetic Kibble all night long, he would need a nearby place to relieve himself. The bathroom adjoins the bedroom, just steps away from the food dish and my (our) bed.

That long walk through the darkened, sleeping house and out through the kitty door to the garage - it just seemed to be asking a great deal from an old, confused and frightened cat. No wonder he often howled blue murder when he ventured out the bedroom door and into the hallway, where his cries bounced from floor to ceiling like strident ping pong balls.

I tried three different sizes of litter pans after realizing that Innka, sadly, has very poor sanitation habits. He goes into an epileptic fury upon defecating, and spews dirty litter into the air. It coats walls like Spackle. A hefty twenty pound cat also leaves a very large deposit behind. Somehow, when all this was happening in the garage instead of the bedroom, it was less intrusive on my sleep.

Ignorance really IS bliss. It sure smells better!

One of these days, Innka won’t be a warm, furry lump on the bed next to me, purring softly or slurping delicately at leftover runa wedged between pink toes. I won’t wake up with black cat hair glued to my eyelids or stray grains of kitty litter stuck to my legs or the bottom of my feet. There won’t be a yellowish-grey fairball on the Mexican rug next to my bed.

One of these days it will be quiet all night long, and Innka will be gone. There will be no “surprises” between the sheets or on the floor.

I hope and pray he will be my bedmate for a few more years. How did that old joke go… something like “I wouldn’t kick him/her out for eating crackers in bed?” Innka’s tuna and litter debris fall into this lovely, sentimental view of sharing one’s bed with a less than perfect creature. On the positive side, he does not hog the covers or complain if I want to keep the light on while I read in bed, and he hardly ever snores. Execellent qualities, all in all!

When I think about it, Innka’s going to be a very hard act to follow for a human bed partner to follow.

Well, except for the litter box part…

I was a kid in the fifties. Back then cars were large, especially station wagons. We had  two, a green one and a white one. That was my extent of car knowledge then, and pretty much now.

Many families happily loaded their cars so full of kids and supplies for summer vacations that  rear bumpers hit the pavement when the springs bounced. Ours did, anyway! We’d be gone for a month and we needed to be prepared.

Invariably it was a late start, every time for our family trip. In addition to a tent a circus would envy, there was a hibachi and dishes, baby supplies and luggage  and a  twenty-pound grey tabby cat with his array of necessities. The litter box was always packed last and at the far end of the station wagon. Somehow he always clawed his nimble self up, over and through the tightly packed clutter (and we always knew WHEN, by the pungent odour) to find relief .

In the sixties, both my parents smoked. Between the various baby smells that my little sister produced, and the cat’s contribution, the cigarette smoke was almost pleasant.  It masked the other smells, anyway!

Invariably, also, would be a quiet tenseness in the vehicle as we got further away from home. Finally my Mother would mumble in a quiet, low voice and my Father would hit the steering column with the palm of his hand. Soon, we would be retracing the route and parking in front of our house.  One of them, usually my mother, ran inside. After a hasty return, off we’d go again. Once we hit the open road my parents would crack open a beer to share between them.  All the tension would subside and the fun of the trip would  finally begin.

This scenario was played out several times on a mini-scale, too. Sometimes my Dad wouldn’t get a block away before my Mom would start mumbling and muttering, and we’d have to go back while she ran into the house again.
The reason seldom varied. It was  almost always her sudden, slow growing  fear that she had left the iron plugged in. I think she actually HAD left it on once, but that might just be wishful thinking…..

Sometimes  she was sure was that the oven was still on or that a cigarette was  cheerfully burning away in one of the dozens of ashtrays scattered throughout  the house. In those days, cigarettes were so cheap, she’d often have a few on the go in convenient spots in different rooms.

I was about forty  years old  when this “burning down the house” type of panic attack suddenly turned me into my Mother. Not being a smoker nor an ironer meant I had to worry about other potential disasters. Luckily, I do use a stove to cook, drink tea and love candles- all three of which can  involve almost certain and devastating fire hazards if left unattended….

And, as  luck would have it, I am better at creating potential damage than my Mother was. Perhaps its because I do not have a husband anymore to come along behind me and tidy dangling ends- or reassure me later that all is well.

I actually Have left the house on a lazy little walk, only to arrive home to a wall of grey smoke pouring down the hallway from the kitchen because a pot of boiling water had been left on the stove. Flames  shot everywhere, but somehow cornstarch and water saved the day.

I HAVE  left a kettle on for that second cup of tea which  I needed so desparetely and then I forgot about in my haste to get out the door and to work on time. ( I tracked down a neighbour ,when I suddenly remembered  from work . She braved my large and rather scarey dog, and managed to get to it before it boiled dry).

Candles…well, I am sure my angels  have worked over-time on several occasions. When I was going through the  “too-much-wine might help a broken heart- time, ” I listened to a lot of sad songs by candlight. And woke up hours later to find candle wax  pooled in globs on carpets or even dripped down and over in colourful ribbons on stereo equipment and t.v. sets which  never worked again.

Now I have a new twist on “ Leaving the House “ paranoia,  though.  I have developed a key quirk. It goes like this-
I exit house, put key in house door lock, turn and remove. I get into car, pull out of drive-way and stop ( there, if I am lucky; other times I am blocks away). I feel that cold, clammy hand of fear and the fog of uncertainty as I try to recall whether or not the lock actually “clicked”.

Maybe it is still unlocked. A prowler could  just walk in ( and be attacked by Big dog, but still, not a good scenario!). Maybe door will blow open and Big Dog will go for walk by himself…also not a great thought.

I go back to door , check it and return to car in relief. Or somedays I just get it all over with and re-open the door ( it IS always locked, by the way). Then I can go in and check that appliances are unplugged, nothing is smoldering, and the burners are really off.

I think my Mother would be amused by all this, and possibly a little proud, too if she were still alive . My own daughter  still manages to dash out her door, jump into her car and disappear into the distance but I kind of think those care-free car trips days are numbered.  And SHE does iron…..

There is an old gag that has gone around for years, entitled “How to Give a Cat a Pill”. The advice starts off very enthusiastically, and optimistically. Simply slip a little butter onto the pill and pop it in the cat’s mouth. It ends very badly, of course, with advice on how to address wounds spurting blood ( in humans).

I have the good fortune to live with the world’s most placid and gentle of cats, Innka. He is also the one of the most ill but happy cats .So I keep forking out major money for all his ailments and he, in his lovely docile manner, endures each new indignity with grace and a certain air of detachment. He has eaten a lot of cat-nip, in his life so maybe that influences his out-look!

Anyway, here is what I now know NOT to do, to a sick cat, courtesy of dear , sweet, patient Innka. A cat who would never disembowel a beloved owner, no matter how tipsy or near-sighted that owner might be….

Innka has diabetes and requires a needle every morning. It used to be twice a day, so we have come a long way in recovery. There really is no good advice here, except to say that it does get easier! The first year I gave him shots, I managed to poke myself almost as often. I consider us “blood brothers”. I learned that bubbles in the liquid do not cause immediate death (for either of us).

Innka has a thyroid problem which requires medicine twice a day. It comes in a pen much like a magic marker, or liquid lipstick. You simply rotate it a couple of turns to get the proper dose, and apply to inner ear of (docile) cat. This stuff is TOXIC to humans, though and requires the wearing of gloves while applying. HONESTLY! You will drip it, at some point in time.

I got very cocky and being thrifty, decided I could skip the gloves. I was doing well till the day he flicked an ear and the goo went flying at my face. After that, it dripped down onto my fingers. I just stared in horror at it. I do not want to know what it has done to MY thyroid, but I wear gloves all the time now. ( Hint: your doctor always has an opened box in her office…)

Then there was the night I tried to put flea killer, “Advantage” on him. There is a spot just low enough down the back of the neck where they cannot lick it off, and poison themselves. I had had a couple of relaxing glasses of wine and felt up to this task, although I usually get a second person to help. The cat’s fur must be moved aside, so bare skin is exposed….have you got the visual? Well, even a bored cat like Innka does not like to be splayed out flat by a human arm, and poked with a smelly wet substance on his back.

He turned his head at an unnatural angle and licked furiously at the wet spot. I grabbed a wet face-cloth and rubbed equally furiously. This spread the poison all over his back, as the water seeped through the fur. Quickly.
In horror, I filled the sink and chased him down ( he had figured out that I was up to no good by then) . As he is eighteen, mostly blind and has only one tooth, he put up a very weak fight. I jammed his rear quarters into the sink water and prayed. I love this cat!

Once he was washed and dried off, I called my vet to confess and to see when he was going to convulse and die.
She was very reassurring, though. She comforted me by saying that I, at least, had put the Advantage on his exterior. Apparently, some REALLY stupid types have actually given it to their cats orally….and they survived!

Innka is an amazing cat. He is hanging on to Life by a thread. But he seems cheerful, always happy to see me, to get a pat or a treat and even a nasty poke with a needle .I don’t think he knows it, and maybe that is the secret to a happy old age. He takes the days as they come, trusts me to manhandle him as I see fit and is there in bed with me, night after night, purring and content and full of forgiveness.

I love my cat.

I feel like the saddest little girl in the world, at age 55, because my hero, my Daddy has let me down. More than let me down, he has emotionally drop -kicked me into irreversible woman-hood. I could believe in white knights before, because I still believed that My Dad was one.

Through a steady string of broken hearts and broken dreams, I cried into my pillow  (sometimes with Mr. Wrong still there) steady in my belief that at least one good man cared deeply for me. Somewhere out there would be another man , steadfast and honourable who would see me for the wonderful woman who I am…

Throughout many ill-fated relationship I always comforted myself with the idea that my Daddy loved me. When I was very young, we adored eachother. Simple as that. I was one lucky little girl, I had a father who cared.

He “Eskimo-kissed” me with his nose , held me on his lap and let me steer when he drove the car.ran in circles, pipe clutched between teeth, as he propelled me on the merry-go-round…. put cigar bands on my dirty fingers for “rings” . We read the Sunday comics snuggled in close and tight. I felt safe and secure in his love.

Just as I hit puberty, and Paul McCartney grabbed my interest in a deliciously new way,  things changed. My parents’ marriage had always been shakey. My mother  hit menopause, which added to the stress. The cold war moved into our house…and my Daddy became aloof and unreachable.

My father moved into their bedroom full-time. He installed a t.v. set , coffee perculator and lounge chair . Straight from work, upstairs and into his cave became the norm. I only saw him at dinner unless I felt that I had a sufficiently good reason to knock on his closed door. It was clear he was happiest alone. I was not sure how to handle this rejection so I decided , in classic adolescent fashion, to not care.

This soon transferred into a major crush on a teenage boy, who returned my affection with ardour! We fell “in love” and did everything but Eskimo kiss…. this love affair lasted only months, and I was shipped off up North to live with an older sister and to “cool it”. The sister ran a boarding house which housed several single young men who mined for their living and partied hard afterward, so, perhaps it was not the best plan my Dad came up with….that really is another story…

Recently, my Dad offered me some “Air Miles” to fly to Arizona for a visit. I love the heat and the sunsets, and the idea that I have a “home” of sorts in their home in Tucson. I have been there often enough to feel that the spare bedroom is mine, and in a silly sentimental “kid from a broken home” fashion, this means alot.

Over time my Dad and I have writtens, made calls, and had the occasional visit and slowly mended our fences. These visits I make are usually short and sweet, and we steer clear of  the later memories and focus on my happy childhood. Neither one of us ever got past the hurt we both experienced when I left home so young and  unexpectedly.

Now here is where it all went south. I have recently developed fibromyalgia. It has knocked me for a loop - I was always a well person and I am in a state of despair and depression over the chronic pain and fatigue I am living with.

I arrived in Tucson, exhausted and in pain after 12 hours of travelling. My Dad and his wife had not seen me since I was diagnosed.  I had warned them that I was not feeling very well, but was assured my visit was welcome.

Unfortunately, over the next 10 days, I suddenly started remembering why my Father and I had become so distant, before I left home. At 15, I had started to see the chinks in his armor. He sets very high expectations for himself, and others, and to be ill is viewed as weakness.

My invisible ailment drove him nuts. I could see him grinding his teeth in frustration, as I tried to explain why I was not at work any longer, why I was suddenly almost destitute because my insurance plan was so lousy.

The medication I take and the nature of the illness, cause incredible fatigue. He was critical in a quiet, slow-burning way of my need for mornings in bed. My appetite and choices of food are also affected by the above…he and his wife found me not only lazy, but a picky, un-appreciative eater.

The days passed slowly . I just wanted to be home in my own little cocoon where I could go about getting well on my own terms. Where I could remember a time when my Dad could comfort me when I was in pain, and make it better just by caring so much.

I am part of a small group of Fibro suffers who meet once a month. The hurt and pain that families inflict  emotionally on us , through denial or disbelief of our illness is a common topic. The ones we count on all our lives to kiss our hurts away, or give us a (gentle!) hug, often cannot offer that support. It adds to the sadness and anger that I feel every morning when I try to get out of bed, feeling that no body really cares. Not even my Daddy….

Over the miles, and some 40 years, my Dad and I have made our peace and shared letters, phone calls and the odd visit.  Lack of funds limits travel anywhere.

He, who has lots of disposable income, prefers to spend it on more exotic places than Canada. He and his “new” (now married some 30 years) wife used to be globe trotters. Now, with age and a little ill-health, they stay close to home.

I am a fibroymalgia sufferer - new to this painful condition and still experiencing the un-expected - it was painful to realize that my father could not relate.

Airport bathrooms can be very welcome places! Outside of the obvious, I have found several uses for them, over the years.

I have hidden from the masses and slept on lounges, once provided, when I couldn’t afford a hotel room. I would sleep until daylight and then hitch-hike into town, but that’s another story to tell one day.

I have washed myself and grubby children of varying ages, as the years rolled by. After my two-year old threw up hotdogs and ketchup all over himself (and me), on one particularly turbulent flight over the Rockies, I made a mental note to always carry extra clothing in handluggage for myself as well as any children…I still feel badly about the passenger I sat next to on the 4 hour flight to Chicago…

I have brushed hair, applied make-up and changed clothes for lovers meeting me at deliciously foreign airports. If its a lover, even the Toronto airport can feel somewhat naughty and exotic!

On leaving behind these lovers and loved ones, I have used the Women’s washroom as place to sob quietly, in a stall, ripping off handfuls of toilet paper for my tears .

I’d contemplate in relative privacy,the last shared moments with the one(s) left behind.

In the case of a death, time spent alone to grieve really did not matter quite so much. When my Mother passed away, I cried openly, all day and where-ever. I am certain, though, that I spent time in the Regina Ladies’ room at the airport, grabbing handfuls of toilet paper for my nose.

Which brings me to my latest airport bathroom, and my latest reason for finding refuge and solace there.

I say “solace” because, even without speaking directly to each other, the company of women can bring comfort.
We watch a young mom change a cranky, screaming baby on the change table and we say something soothing to Mom or baby, or both. Or we just send a glance of compassion their way, if we are too busy or too shy to speak.

We help each other get paper towels out of impossible dispensers, and we share the sink that actually turns on when you wave your hand under the faucet.

So, recently when I made a trip from Vancouver Island to Arizona I had to deplane in Seattle.

My first flight was a 20 minute jump across the “chuck,” to Vancouver.

The plane landed on the side of the airport farthest from International flights.

And so began my ordeal.

I needed to do a great deal of walking, and I have fibromyalgia. I am a newcomer to this condition and am only just figuring out what the restrictions are on my body.

I look normal to myself, as well as to others. There are no blotches on my skin, no twisted or missing limbs. I may use a cane on occasion, only in private, though.

I am only fifty-five years old, trim and (I’d like to think) youthful in appearance. I’d be self-conscious to be seen in public, leaning on a cane!

I am not a “little old lady”.

Yet, on the marathon walk to Alaskan Airlines and U.S. customs, I found myself glancing wistfully at parked wheelchairs.

By the time I boarded my flight, three hours of standing waiting for luggage, waiting for customs inspection and always more and more walking, I was toast. Done in completely.

I dozed on the short flight to Seattle, then struggled to get out of my seat and off of the plane. I had a destination in mind, and that was the Seattle Womens’ bathroom.

I made it around the curving door, pasts the row of sinks and straight into a stall.

Perched on the toilet-seat, I leaned my head against the cold metal wall, and I started to cry. Soft, quiet little sobs.
My knees felt like they were full of cement, I could barely move them. They ached with a dull throb. My right arm felt hot and swollen, just like the tops of my feet. They bottoms of my feet felt splintered- in fact, many of my bones felt as though t hey were full of minute breaks….and I was so very, very tired.

I had two hours to rest in a waiting room, before my flight out. Time to doze a bit and then freshen myself up.

On departure, from Seattle, I was seated in first class , by some act of mercy granted by frequent-flyer angels. There,
I braced my aching legs against the bulkhead, after removing my shoes.

The throbbing pain was relieved somewhat.

If you have had a bad case of flu, then you have an idea of how a person with fibromyalgia hurts. The ache is deep and fluid, throughout your muscles.

On top of that, there are pressure points of white-hot nerve pain on numerous body parts. Mine are especially agonizing along the insides of both my arms, the tops and backs (Achilles heel) of my feet.

When any prolonged activity is performed, exhaustion sets in out of the blue like a descending swarm of locusts.
At this point, all I want to do is curl up in a fetal position and try not to stop breathing. I am THAT tired.

I was healthy and pretty casual about it, until a year ago. I under-went a “routine” day surgery which left me in screaming pain. Pain, which was addressed by treatment with opiates.

These drugs did much to alleviate the surgical pain, and it’s resultant damage to my body, but they also created a new condition. One I was never warned about.

The body can actually create nerve endings that exist only to seek out more opiates. In response to these hungry- for- drugs nerves, the brain creates more pain in the body….which requires more opiates in the body.

At least, this is how my doctor has explained it to me. The result is pain all over the body, “fibromyalgia”.

I am angry. I was one of “those” who used to be slightly suspicious of a catch-all phrase like fibromyalgia, and it”s invisible symptoms. Now I am one of  “them”, and I understand !

I am not sure if I will ever recover. I would like to know that I was able to let others know, however, to be very careful when it comes to using prescription drugs. Be prepared for unexpected and serious side effects. They happen.

Be very kind and non-judgemental if you see a healthy looking woman who gets out of a car with a “handi-cap” sign- it does not mean she is sneaking someone else’s pass so that she can get a better parking spot.

She might be me.

When my kids were small, we were “financially challenged”, the result of my lack of marketable skills and my complete belief in my role as home-maker/nurturer…and my very poor choice in male partners…three husbands by the age of 26. I fell hard and fast into love and lust (3 children by age 26), with difficult men. They included a nickle miner who loved beer more than me, a perpetual university student and a country music musician. Hmmm. It was an interesting few years.

Always an optimist and and impressed by social activism, I decided to be a “back to the earth” type rather than “poor”. I bought secondhand baby clothes and furniture, and made my own preserves, shampoo and bread.

And cookies, of course. Peanut butter, shortbread and chocolate chip , my favourite, which my kids often helped bake. Well, “helped” may not really be an accurate description of what went on in our kitchen, but it was fun, educational and cheap!

Now, 30 years later, cookies still bring back happy memories of quality time spent in a hot kitchen in the middle of a Saskatchewan summer, deftly maneouvering around three small children all squabbling over who got the spoon first, bringing trays of yummy freshly baked trays out of the blazing oven. I fed my children healthy cookies, saved money and was a good Mom, to boot! I felt happy.

Recently, I started baking cookies again after a long hiatus. Life got better financially, kids left home (coincidence?), I learned life as a single woman was just fine. I was also fighting off mid-life weight gain.

Then I found myself with time on my hands after a surgery that left me in chronic pain. At home on pain killers. I started to crave chocolate; lots and lots of chocolate. I found a dollar store that sold large bars for a dollar! I was eating so much chocolate, I feared diabetes and malnutrition were waiting ’round the bend.

I decided I needed actual nutrients, like those found in eggs, flour and butter. I needed “real” cookies with “healthy” dark chocolate . So, I dragged out my Betty Crocker cookbook, the apron my son made for me for Mother’s Day 1993 ( he met girls in Home Ec and is happily married now and a father), and I bought a brand-new state-of-the-art cookie sheet. I was ready for baking delicious cookies.

Months later, I am still amazed at how awful my cookies are. I have made a batch a week for 12 weeks, and each turns out a little odder than the one before…sometimes, there is improvement, sometimes a relapse. I have tried two different recipes, so Betty C. is not the problem. On occasion, I have caught an error (too much wine while baking and using whole wheat flour instead of white) Me, drinking the wine, that is…not wine IN cookies.

One kind soul, while tasting a new batch remarked how “interesting” it was that I could bake cookies without the chocolate chips actually melting… sometimes the sugar doesn’t melt, either and they crunch. Sometimes they are so greasy, they burn into flat brown disks on the pan…sometimes I have to dip them in a cup of hot tea to bite an edge off.

I still eat them all, of course, because I am thrifty forever. Poverty will do that to you. Plus, I can always find the chocolate chips in them and they always taste good. And, of course, I remember the really perfect ones the kids and I made together in that hot prairie kitchen everytime I lick the spoon. Then I feel happy.

How about you? Have you got a favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe I can try?