A Tale of Two Cities - Part 1

It's been an interesting coupla years in Ladyland. We live about an hour from the Gulf of Mexico now, which has been an adjustment, to say the least. In Dallas we lived in a dry, moisture sucking, pizza oven, where we live now has moisture, vegetation, and steady tropical rains that are more akin to a sousvide water oven (look it up, kids). 

In other words, my skin looks amazing and hydrated, but my hair is a bit on the unruly side, and I'm in a constant battle with swamp ass. These days most of my outfits could easily be mistaken for swim suit cover ups, and I do not for the life of me, honest to John, remember the last time I wore socks.

This past year has dealt our family serious blows in the form of the deaths of two of my brothers in law. The good* ones too, Las Vegas and Syracuse. So I'm left with the two scarier ones, Miami and Knucklehead. Obviously this has been extremely stressful for MDH, who in the case of Las Vegas was left responsible for cleaning up after his god damned mess.

Last October, when my DH was in Austin with friends getting together and preparing to attend a music festival he got a call from someone from the Las Vegas police, to tell him that his oldest (and most seemingly normal) brother had taken an upscale suite with comped points from one of the swankier hotel casinos, where he stayed for 2 weeks before carefully laying out plastic lawn and garden bags on the sumptuous, king sized bed and blowing his brains out with a pistol.

Apparently his body laid there for 5 full days before the cleaning staff alerted hotel management. Apparently his head was, for lack of a better way to describe it, gone.

MDH upon getting the call immediately alerted Miami and Syracuse and it was decided that Miami would get on the next flight to Las Vegas to be with MDH and do things like identify the body, and sort out whatever needed to be sorted out, which turned out to be a fucking lot, and Syracuse would drive immediately to Boston so that the news of Las Vegas' death could be given to my MIL in person by someone she trusts.

So that happened.

Fast forward to November. Thanksgiving weekend to be exact, when I never wanted to run away and join the circus more in my life because Miami demanded that the absolute best time ever to have a memorial service for Las Vegas would be THE FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING. Of course the absolute worst time of year for traveling. Of course the absolute worst time for someone who lives in the tropics and doesn't even own a coat anymore to travel to FUCKING BOSTON, where it's freezing fucking cold. Not to mention that frankly I really didn't feel like memorializing Las Vegas. I went because it was important to MDH, and that was the end of it. 

Syracuse had pneumonia and couldn't make it, which made me jealous, (why can't I get pneumonia and skip this stupid thing?) and infuriated Miami so deeply that he declared it unforgivable and that Syracuse was "dead to me", and refused to take his calls anymore.

Anyhoo... somehow I survived that ordeal, and it WAS an ordeal, because anything involving MDH's family is never without dramas, death threats, ridiculous unnecessary complications and drunken brawls. Somehow we also always end up footing the bill for all of this shit, which only makes me more angry. If anything, I was glad to get to spend some time with my MIL, and hug her, and cry together, and reassure her that she didn't have to ever do anything that she didn't want to do, like go to this insane memorial service.

Fast forward to late December, when we learn that Syracuse does not only not have pneumonia, he as been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and has about 6 months to live. He died** the 2nd week in March.

In between the 2 deaths, MIL came down and spent almost 8 weeks with us in Texas. She had been home for just slightly more than a week when Syracuse died. MDH was with Syracuse when he died, and had been there for about a week and a half prior. He had flown home with his mother from Texas, because she can no longer fly by herself, and then rented a car and drove to Syracuse to be with his brother in his final days.

Then he drove back to Boston. Knucklehead had been given the responsibility this time of telling my MIL about the death of her son, but when he arrived at her apartment he found her barely conscious on the floor next to the couch. Apparently she'd had a stroke the previous day, but just chose to lay there, her cell phone in her robe pocket, because she, "didn't want to bother anybody". 

This is the part where I scream.

And I've pretty much been screaming ever since. Starting with finding out that she had out right LIED to me while she was visiting about what medications she was supposed to be taking. Medications which included pills to lower her cholesterol, which she told her doctor in the hospital after the stroke that SHE decided she didn't need anymore.

It's now almost August, and she's still in a rehab facility in Boston. We're not sure what is going to happen next.

In Part 2 of this story, which I will try and write tomorrow, I will explain to you the evil, conniving nature of Knucklehead, and the various ways that he has been nothing but a piece of shit since all of this has gone down.


*Tolerable and mostly polite to me, but still misogynistic and unpleasant to be around for longer than a few hours.

*People die. They are dead. They don't pass, pass away, cease to exist, or whatever other sugar coated phrases people like to use. They die and they are fucking dead.

Artsy Fartsy Wet Burrito

Hey. I mean good morning. I mean, you will get a good feel for what kind of day I'm having by looking at the time this post was created. Yeah. Fuckin' early.

I adore my husband in so many ways, but the snoring, oh god, the snoring.

It's lovely to wake up being spooned, but not when his mouth is centimeters from my ear and he's assaulting my senses with morning breath and loud blubbery jackhammer snorts. Right in my goddamn ear. Actually a jackhammer might be soothing compared to this noise. Anyhoo... I opted to get up and shower rather than jam my pillow up his nostrils. I'm up and showered at 4am. Almost perky too. Kinda scary.

My intention this morning is not to tell you about my marital problems, but to give you a recap of the two lovely days we spent with Frenchie and Nature Boy who drove all the way up here to visit us. I was sceptical about their timing, as March is an iffy month weatherwise in the Tundra. One moment it's clear blue skies and 50 degrees and the next you know you could be in the midst of a winter storm advisory getting 8 inches of snow dumped on your head - and that is exactly what happened.

When they arrived late Thursday afternoon it was clear and beautiful. I put out a spread, we drank some wine and it was still light out and we were still sober enough to go for a drive and show our friends some of what the Tundra has to offer. I complain about it a lot, but there are some cool things here.

The nature of Nature Boy being nature, we took them downtown to see our fishladder. There weren't any fish, but there were lots of fishermen. I would say fisherpeople so as not to be sexist, but there were no women fishing as we are way too smart to wear rubber pants and stand around for hours in freezing water. Besides, I can get all the salmon I want at the supermarket.

Anyway, between the glorious weather, the wine, the food and the wonderful company of Frenchie and Nature Boy, I would call the evening a great success.

The next day however started off with a whimper as Frenchie and Nature Boy contemplated leaving early due to reports of impending doom in the form of lots and lots of snow headed our way and affecting their exact route home. They decided to stay, much to my delight without any coaxing or begging on my part, and tough it out.

In addition to being a lover of nature, Nature Boy is also a lover of art so when he happened to notice the nickname of our town "Calder City" and we explained the city's connection* to the sculptor Alexander Calder and he mentioned that Calder happens to be one of his favorite artists the die was cast and we took them to a pretty amazing sculpture garden near our house that I declared was "lousy with Calder's". So that is where we spent most of our afternoon on Friday.

Our time at the sculpture garden was the most time that I have spent outside in the cold in the 4 years we have lived here combined. I'm being totally serious. I don't go outside when it's cold and/or snowing unless I absolutely have to. My ass was frozen but I have no regrets.

Before I start posting the photos, I should tell you the running joke of the visit was based upon an unfortunately named restaurant that we drove by during our brief jaunt thru the town of Rockford called Jodi's Wet Burrito.

My reading the restaurant's sign out loud caused Frenchie and Nature Boy to laugh for about half an hour and all the rest of the day, you only had to mention Jodi's Wet Burrito in passing with vague and sometimes not so vague references to girl parts to make us all bust out all over again.

Anyhoo... here are some pictures:

Nature Boy and a sculpture that IS a Calder.

Nature Boy and MDH contemplate another sculpture that is also not a Calder.

New unfinished installation - no artist's name attached and no title so I'm calling it "The Freaking Bunny People". I'm pretty sure it is also not a Calder.

This one either lost a contact or is about to throw up.

Nature Boy seemed pretty excited by this work. He correctly named the artist from far away, as Andy Goldsworthy.

MDH and Frenchie huddle together, slightly less impressed with the Goldsworthy than Nature Boy.

This one is by an artist whose name I don't remember. The title was something along the lines of "Lady Holding a Bird", but c'mon it's a smiley face...

Oh yes, the photo at the top is a bronze of Rodin's Eve. She looks cold doesn't she?

*I can find no evidence that the city actually has a connection to Calder, other than that it has a few of his sculptures peppered around here and there in public places. We do however have an abundance of places to purchase wet burritos**.

**Appears to be a regular burrito with enchilada sauce poured over it. I've never seen these anywhere but Michigan and as I've mentioned in previous posts - I've been everywhere man.