9-1-2007

I started this blog on August 2nd of last year. I had just learned my father was dying of lung cancer. The bridge in Minneapolis had just collapsed, or was collapsing - I cannot quite remember the order of things.

One year ago yesterday, one year and 12 hours ago, my father died. I was on the road, desperately trying to get there before he passed on. I did not make it.

One year ago today I was helping with funeral arrangements, trying to transfer airline tickets for our daughters and granddaughter to fly in from Las Vegas, and trying to arrange a ticket for our son, Eli, to fly down from Winona (he stayed home since we had more people than would fit in the station wagon and we never dreamed my father would die that night).

Eli's ticket was not a problem. Transferring the girls' tickets was a nightmare. In the end we ended up spending nearly $3,000 for the airline tickets we purchased that day and the ones we had purchased two days before, since they would not let us transfer the original tickets without paying fees and the difference between the ticket prices. That would have been more than buying new tickets, so we bought new tickets. After that we learned that the initial ticket order had been duplicated and so we owned 8 tickets. Nova and Taylor would fly in from Vegas that night. Aluna would fly in the next morning so that she could work her shift (it was impossible to get a substitute at that late notice). Eli would fly down from Minnesota that night, just a couple hours ahead of Nova and Tay. Eli doesn't drive, didn't drive, so Princess and Matt took him to the airport - a 2-hour drive from Winona.

I am amazed now, looking back, that it all worked out.

Starting again

Okay. I've been busy, or maybe just lazy. At least lazy with this blog. Time to get back into then habit of writing here.

Now for a quick synopsis of what the last month has brought.

Currently I am putting together my CV, so that I can send out some applications to a few universities. I would like to be able to teach for real, rather than just being an unofficial faculty member. Right now other faculty members ask me to help teach their courses, but the university will not consider hiring me as faculty. I am fed up with it.

Abelisto is also fed up with the university too. His sabbatical was turned down, and not for a good reason. Read here, and here, and here. We need to find a school that needs a sociologist and an artist.

The website redesign at work is just now getting started. This past week my fellow team members and I filled out a fairly detailed questionnaire for the discovery phase. We meet with the Atomic Playpen team on the 3rd.

Daughter-2 has gone back to Las Vegas, enrolled in UNLV and hopes to get the 7 credits necessary to finish her BA there. The registrar at our university was wonderful when daughter-2 went to speak with her about the options.

Daughter-2 was due to fly out of La Crosse on Christmas day - at 6:30 pm on the last flight heading to Minneapolis/St. Paul. I love flying out of the La Crosse airport - it's 25 minutes from our house (unless we get stuck on the wrong side of the railroad tracks). All flights go out of gate 2... I don't think there is a gate 1. I know there's not gate 3... It's great - they actually have an area where you can wait with your loved ones up until maybe 20 or 25 minutes before their flight leaves. Then they go through a short and quick security check and get on the plane. No more driving two and a half hours, dropping someone off and giving them a quick hug on the street, trying not to get hit by the crazy drivers or yelled at by security.

Anyway, when we got to the airport around 5:30 on Christmas day, we stood outside for a little while (it was not very cold, compared to the previous few days) while daughter-2 and daughter-3 shared a last cigarette together and then wheeled, dragged, carried the luggage into the airport. They ended up coming back out, dragging the luggage with them. Turns out the flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul was canceled, not due to weather - which was our first assumption - but due to a mechanical problem with the plane. Since it was to be the last flight out that day, the best we could do was come back at 4 am for the first flight of the next day. Daughter-2 was not happy at all, and actually I did not relish getting up at 3 am to make the trip all over again. The clerk, seeing our faces, said "what a shame, the only ticket left on that flight is in first class..." Daughter-2 promptly stated that she would take it. So she got to fly not only between La Crosse and Minneapolis/St. Paul, but all the way to Vegas in a first class seat.

Since she left I have been a bit sad. I really did not get to spend much time with her while she was here. All her old friends kept her quite busy. I had forgotten (and I think she had too) how many firends she has here and what a social creature she was (is). I am hoping that everything works out in LV school-wise. She really wants to finish her BA.

I have a few projects in process right now

• a 4 yard swath of linen/rayon/cotton fabric that I am weaving. It will end up being a garment of some sort. I have about 2 feet of it woven as of tonight.
  
  
• two encaustic projects - one on driftwood and one on heavy watercolor papers
  
  
• a quilted vest for Abelisto. We keep our house between 60 and 62 degrees and sometimes a sweater, sweatshirt or jacket is too much, but a turtleneck is not enough.
  

I think there is something else, but right now it escapes me...

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Been a while

The last two weeks have been tough in many ways.

Over Thanksgiving we went to Indiana. My brothers and I went through my father's garage and parceled out the items that each of us wanted, sorted and organized the things we felt my mother needed to keep around, and bagged/boxed/stacked the things that should be given away or hauled away to be recycled or trashed.

Abelisto and I made the 600 mile drive home on the Monday after Thanksgiving. We were in the middle of Illinois when we got a phone call from daughter #2. She was crashing emotionally and the end result was that at 5 am on Wednesday (just 36 hours after we got back from Indiana) I flew out to Las Vegas. Once there I helped her pack some things up and we flew back to Minnesota yesterday. She is here at least for the month, and perhaps for the spring semester so that she can finish her BA. She needs 7 credits or an internship to finish it up.

The temperature difference between Nevada and Minnesota was amazing - we both spent the evening shivering. Today she begins making some concrete plans for what's next in her interesting life.

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Pepin Wisconsin

This weekend Abelisto and I went beachcombing. We like to go up and down the Mississippi and gather interesting debris (natural and man-made) for art, and for just collecting.

We ended up stopping at several gravely beaches. Abelisto found the best agate that I have ever seen come out of the Mississippi. It was over an inch in diameter and this translucent deep red color.

We found bones, river glass, and interesting rocks. I do not know exactly what I will do with it all, but something will come from it, I am sure.

We found some interesting driftwood too. That I will likely use in my encaustic work. I recently attended a show at SMU of an encaustic painter that works on weathered boards which was inspiring. She did not work on driftwood, though. I think that the wood we found will make interesting foundations for a different sort of painting than I have been doing.

We ended up driving up river on the Minnesota side of the river, and back down on the Wisconsin side. It always seems strange to me to be able to look across the river and say with certainty, "That is another state, right there, those hills that I see..." Usually borders like that are much too arbitrary to say those kinds of things. Even at the Grand Canyon, I could not be certain what state claimed the territory I was seeing across the gorge, since the Grand Canyon twists and turns back on itself so much. Not so the Mississippi. I know which state those bluffs I see are.

Anyway, we went across the river at Red Wing Minnesota and headed back downstream. We stopped in Pepin Wisconsin (near the birth place of Laura Ingels Wilder, if you were curious). We found a very interesting and vibrant arts community in Pepin. They were all so friendly and interested in us - we were, of course, driving the art car. We ended up being invited to join their fledgling arts association, urged to dine at the local eatery before it closes for the season, and to attend a music performance next Saturday.

I think we will do all three...

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My mother called again last night...

My father is dying right before her eyes, a little bit each day.

Yesterday he only had about a tablespoon of water - no food, no other liquids. He seemed to not know my sister.

I called my oldest daughter in Las Vegas and told her she needed to get to Indiana if she wanted to see him while there was any possibility that he would know her or her daughter.

We spent all day today trying to get airline tickets we could afford for her, my granddaughter, and my second daughter. We thought at first the hospice foundation that is associated with the hospice company that is taking care of my dad might be able to help. The people that come to the house to care for him and counsel my family said that there should be funding available.

However, with the increase in airline prices (partially due to the holiday weekend) and the less-than-stellar donation levels this year, we were told that they could only help us with one ticket. One ticket would not do, not at all.

So we kept hunting. Finally my daughter found tickets with US Airways, a red-eye flight that shortens their visit by a day, but is going to cost us considerably less than the $2000.00 we first thought we were going to have to spend. We bought the tickets directly from the airline, which usually costs more, but this time it did not.

So they will be flying out next Tuesday. I hope he is still alive by then. I hope he at least recognizes them at some point while they are there. I hope he does not die while they are there. I do not pray much, but I am praying hard for just those things, nothing more right now, nothing more.

We thought we would have more time with him. All the doctors said months, not weeks, not days, when he was diagnosed earlier this month with metastatic lung cancer. I think he is surprising everyone with his rapid decline.

Perhaps it is not a decline, or at least not a decline in his world. Since when is it a decline to be at rest, at peace, unafraid and calm. I think that is closer to an uplifting than a decline.

I would surely like to think about it in that way...