Snow

Today is a snow day for the children in Madison, West Virginia, and the neighboring cities and towns. There is an inch or possibly two on the ground outside. The calls announcing a snow day began soon after the first flakes began to fall last evening. Incredible. Having raised children in south Lake Tahoe, California where a snow day is called only if there were blizzard conditions during the night and there is at least a foot of snow still on the roads after the plows have gone through this Madison snow day is rather humorous. My son tells me that the snow will turn to ice in the bitter cold that accompanies it and then more snow will fall and that too will turn to ice. This causes many accidents. My humor dissolved remembering that last year my son was driving after a snowfall here and was in an accident. He didn’t anticipate the layer of ice that lay beneath the innocent looking layer of snow.

Madison, West Virginia is a small city of 2,500-3,000 people. For such a small town it has an impressive court house. That is where my son and his wife were married a year ago yesterday. Last night we went to dinner at the Peking Chinese restaurant in town, though really I think it was in Danville, the next town over. A small restaurant, we were one of two tables being served. The food was good, not excellent, but good and the company better. After dinner we left the restaurant, where outside it had started to rain, a rain that would turn into snow by the time we got back to the house. Outside the restaurant a border collie was wandering frantically around looking for his people. A young dog, with a collar, looking lost and confused, he was skittish around the few people who tried to reach him to read his tag and find him a way home. He reminded me of all the people out there in the cold weather, lost and confused, looking for a place to call home for the night.

What is it with people who revisit their childhood every time they feel left out or they get their feathers ruffled? Why does a 45-year-old man persist in arguing with three and four year olds? Or expect that the way that he was raised to be the final word in child rearing simply because it is the way he was raised when in fact he is always whining about the harsh way in which his mother raised him? He was made to salute, to tow the line, to be seen and not heard, and when he acted out the consequence was corporal punishment. Resentment and jealously fuel him in this regard. And frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn for his attitude, his behavior, in this matter.

Yes, Mike is back. He came back to the Bay last week from Tahoe. I am not sure how I feel about it at all. I don’t want to be in a “relationship” with him at this moment but I do care about him and wish him well. He does not have a family to go to; his mother is an unrelentingly cruel and uncaring bitch, and his father, the polar opposite of his mother, lives in the northern most part of Idaho and the weather makes the roads inhospitable for RV driving. Mike used to be such a patient and controlled man. Somewhere inside he still might be. But at the moment he is not. He is impatient, intolerant, irritable, angry, and bitter. I used to like being around him, he had a calming effect on me. But now I can only take so much then I want him to take a time out, sit in a corner, practice silence, and think about his actions. He doesn’t do this of course and so I am left with the desire for him to just go. There is too much anxiety, tension, stress, and worry in this group already without adding his stuff to the mix. But, he came to help drive the kids to school and pick them up in the afternoons while I am gone and if he can manage to do that and keep his head about him then he is welcome to stay. He loves the kids, would do anything for them, and has and does, and he saves his bad behavior for me, so hopefully all will go well in my absence.

I leave this post now with a hope and a prayer in my heart.

Leavin' on a jet plane

On Thursday, January 13, 2011, I am leaving for Madison, West Virginia to visit my son and his family and to welcome the birth of my new granddaughter. The baby, Noelle Olivia, is due January 26. The weather in Madison is frightful, cold, dry, harsh. Today the temperature is expected to reach 26 degrees. Since all of my winter clothes and boots are still in storage in Sacramento, I needed to find a few warm pieces of clothing to take with me and hoped that I could find a coat and a pair of boots. Toward this end, I went shopping at Ross, Macy's, and the thrift store. I found some jeans, a blouse, and a sweater-shawl at Ross; boots, a sweater, and slacks at Macy's; and a pair of slacks-with the tag still on-at the thrift store. I wasn't having much luck with a jacket until we spied a garage sale yesterday afternoon and found a down jacket, Jones New York, and talked the fellow down to $3. I could use a pair of gloves and possibly a hat but can do without them if I have to. I am ready to go.

2011

My wish on this New Year's day is to find a place to call home. Being homeless is hard, it is a constant struggle, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. As long as I was with Mike in the RV I felt safe, traveling from place to place, living in the moment. But then he relapsed and I was no longer safe and I we parted ways. Now, I am here with my daughter, her husband, and their six kids, sleeping on the floor of a friends house, trying in vain to be positive, checking rental lists everyday hoping to find something we can afford. As hard as I find it for myself it is so much harder for my daughter and her family. Her husband goes to work everyday hoping to make enough to pay for his transportation and to be able to put some away. The weather has made work harder to schedule but he keeps trying and taking whatever he can schedule. We drive the kids to school each morning and pick them up each afternoon because there is no school bus service in this district. I am flying to West Virginia in eleven days to visit my son and his family and to welcome the birth of his first child. I worry about when I am away from my daughter. I don't have a lot to offer her financially but I do try to support her and love her in any way I can. I pray every night that something happens to turn this around. 2010 was a year of struggles and I pray that in 2011 we can find a way to put those struggles behind us.