Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Dodger Game and A Near Death Experience
In the middle of September, we went to a Dodger game with Kelly and Bill. I can't tell you who played, who won or what the score was because that's what baseball does to me. It puts me in a boredom coma. Always has, always will. I start out fine and then 3 innings in, I spend the rest of the time questioning why I even came, playing "Where's Waldo?" with people in the audience and constantly searching for the cotton candy. Despite my near hatred for the sport, we had a great time with our friends and even had plenty of laughs.Earlier in the week, Ben's favorite college football team, the Ohio State Buckeyes played the Trojans, Ben's second least favorite college team (University of Michigan is his least favorite!!! 3 exclamation points!!!) and lost.
A funny thing happened on the field before the game, during the game and throughout Dodger Stadium. The USC marching band was EVERYWHERE!!! We went to get our Dodger dogs and they were even prancing around up there!
Now, although the game of baseball threatens to kill me with boredom, Ben had his own near death experience later in the week. Clearing out things in the rafters of Grandma's garage, Ben decided to use Grandpa's old ladder to really get up in there. Grandpa has been gone for 9 years and he must have purchased the ladder 50 years before that, and let's just say, it didn't exactly hold Ben up for very long. Because Ben was safe, we could laugh about it. Well, I can laugh about it.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Pismo: The Trip That Almost Wasn't
As you may or may not know, one of Marilyn's favorite places was Pismo Beach. She liked the weather: it never gets hot (or even warm). She enjoyed the food like clam chowder in a bread bowl or her bacon wrapped filet mignon at Mc Clintock's. But she mostly loved that the whole family was there: Keith, Danny, Jeremy, Jennifer, Trevor, Jake and Chad, sometimes Grandma, and Ben and I, along with Marilyn, would all make the trip. And even though we would each come to Pismo with our own plans for the long weekend, we would always meet up for dinner.
So every year we would book rooms at the Edgewater Inn and fight the often horrendous Labor Day traffic to do the Pismo family thing. I am so happy and grateful for the memories of our Pismo trips. Our little brother Danny started going up to Pismo as a baby and I have old video footage of us fishing on the pier when he was 4 or 5 years old. He will be 18 in May. One year, we had to dig the Durango out of the sand dunes and when we took breaks from our digging, we would slide down 30 foot walls of sand. That same year, Keith crashed the Durango at the dunes, broke the radiator and we had to get towed out. It was so scary the way he was driving that thing with sand in his contacts. I remember thinking I was going to fall out the window the way the the car was tilting and sliding! I saw sea otters in the wild for the first time, floating on their backs in Morro Bay and even saw a kid catch a fairly large shark off the Pismo Beach Pier. Keith tried to teach me to surf on his short board in the frigid waters in front of the hotel. Many of the memories overlap and Ben and I can't seem to figure out what year some of them happened. Like all the dinners... going to the same restaurants, always Brad's and Mc Clintock's. Rightfully so, the wine tasting trips blend into one another. Many of the fishing memories start with a long pier and end in the same way, with an occasional bullhead, crab or sting ray catch, and if someone was really lucky, a too small, and thus illegal, mackerel.
There are so many things that have happened in Pismo and because of Pismo. I think about it with both a happy and sad heart. Ben's mom has been gone for almost three years. And although we always made the trip, at times we even complained about it (the traffic!!!), we still made the journey. As you may remember from my Oahu post, we decided to go to Hawaii instead of Pismo this year to make a new memory and to do something different. And after Oahu when Labor Day approached, suddenly we were excited to go to Pismo again. And because we hadn't cancelled our reservation, made as we checked out the previous year, we decided to go to Pismo again!
Wine tasting in the Edna Valley.
Me, 28 pounds down! (Back up some since then...Grrrr.)
My doll and me.
Exploring the other offerings on the wine tasting route.
Mc Clintock's dinner. My nephew Jake and the blindfolded water pour.
Sarah, Michele's (Keith's girlfriend) daughter, trying it out.
Sarah and my nephew Chad found a naked lady on the beach.
Chad, Sarah and Emma (Michele's younger daughter) tried to keep the sun from setting.
Taking out my kayak, with my new paddle (Thanks, Kari!) at Morro Bay.
Pelican frenzy!
Seals
More pelicans in front of Morro Bay's big rock.
And finally a tattoo in memory of Marilyn.
Ben with the stencil on his arm.
Let the pain begin!
Grandma and Danny come by to check out the progress. Danny kept the stencil and may get a similar tattoo when he's of age. (Did you hear me??? When you are OF AGE!!!)
So every year we would book rooms at the Edgewater Inn and fight the often horrendous Labor Day traffic to do the Pismo family thing. I am so happy and grateful for the memories of our Pismo trips. Our little brother Danny started going up to Pismo as a baby and I have old video footage of us fishing on the pier when he was 4 or 5 years old. He will be 18 in May. One year, we had to dig the Durango out of the sand dunes and when we took breaks from our digging, we would slide down 30 foot walls of sand. That same year, Keith crashed the Durango at the dunes, broke the radiator and we had to get towed out. It was so scary the way he was driving that thing with sand in his contacts. I remember thinking I was going to fall out the window the way the the car was tilting and sliding! I saw sea otters in the wild for the first time, floating on their backs in Morro Bay and even saw a kid catch a fairly large shark off the Pismo Beach Pier. Keith tried to teach me to surf on his short board in the frigid waters in front of the hotel. Many of the memories overlap and Ben and I can't seem to figure out what year some of them happened. Like all the dinners... going to the same restaurants, always Brad's and Mc Clintock's. Rightfully so, the wine tasting trips blend into one another. Many of the fishing memories start with a long pier and end in the same way, with an occasional bullhead, crab or sting ray catch, and if someone was really lucky, a too small, and thus illegal, mackerel.
There are so many things that have happened in Pismo and because of Pismo. I think about it with both a happy and sad heart. Ben's mom has been gone for almost three years. And although we always made the trip, at times we even complained about it (the traffic!!!), we still made the journey. As you may remember from my Oahu post, we decided to go to Hawaii instead of Pismo this year to make a new memory and to do something different. And after Oahu when Labor Day approached, suddenly we were excited to go to Pismo again. And because we hadn't cancelled our reservation, made as we checked out the previous year, we decided to go to Pismo again!
So here it is, maybe for the last time, but then again, maybe not...
The morning after we arrived!
Wine tasting in the Edna Valley.
Me, 28 pounds down! (Back up some since then...Grrrr.)
My doll and me.
Exploring the other offerings on the wine tasting route.
Mc Clintock's dinner. My nephew Jake and the blindfolded water pour.
Sarah, Michele's (Keith's girlfriend) daughter, trying it out.
Sarah and my nephew Chad found a naked lady on the beach.
Chad, Sarah and Emma (Michele's younger daughter) tried to keep the sun from setting.
Taking out my kayak, with my new paddle (Thanks, Kari!) at Morro Bay.
Pelican frenzy!
Seals
More pelicans in front of Morro Bay's big rock.
And finally a tattoo in memory of Marilyn.
Her favorite flowers, a rose and gardenia and a sparrow holding a MOM banner.
Ben with the stencil on his arm.
Let the pain begin!
Grandma and Danny come by to check out the progress. Danny kept the stencil and may get a similar tattoo when he's of age. (Did you hear me??? When you are OF AGE!!!)
Pismo started and ended with Marilyn for us. Some of the memories of Pismo in the last years of Marilyn's life are colored by cancer and even though she is gone now, the new memories can still be seen in that light, affected, changed, different because of cancer. And although we may make our way north to the town she loved in the future, the traditional family trip may too be put to rest. Life is different now. Keith has a new love, with young daughters and is starting a new chapter. Danny will be in college next year, also creating a new future. The price of accommodations along with activities for the kids is going up and the town is getting more crowded. It isn't the sleepy town it used to be. So as things change in Pismo, I guess, so do family traditions.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
July
Shortly after our return from Oahu, I celebrated my 32nd birthday. We went to Ola's for dinner with Bill, Kelly, Madison, Brittany and Kari. Later that night, Kari and I met up with Brandy and Carly (who happens to be the daughter of my boss, Lisa) at J & H. And even though Ben had to work and said he couldn't make it, he showed up anyway.
A few days later, as if I needed to be reminded that I'm getting older, I began to feel a pain in my side. I tried not give it much thought, but when the pain remained, I decided to go to the doctor. It started to feel a lot like a kidney stone, so I was given pain medication and told to return if the pain did not go away over the weekend. The following day, Kathryn got married, and so, hopped up on pain pills, I sucked it up to celebrate.
Ryan's brother was the officiant. 
Below, the bride and me.
It was a reunion of sorts. Mandy and her husband Mark on the left and Amanda, my old teaching partner and her husband Drew on the right.
My old boss, Dave and his wife Bev (right) were there, too. (Dave was also Ben's soccer coach when he was 3 years old. Can you imagine 3 year olds playing soccer??? He was also one of Ben's teachers and, eventually, principal of his middle school.) Jamie (left) came with her husband. She also worked at Park Oaks taking on whatever jobs were available, like I did when we first moved to Moorpark. She now works at Intuit.
Concie from Park Oaks was also there, along with Kari. Ben was my date of course!
The bride and groom enjoying the night.
The girls dancing. I like how Jamie looks like she's listening to a violin concierto (and playing an air violin, for that matter) while Mandy and Kari rock out.
After the wedding, I was hopeful that I would start feeling better. I thought I would pass the kidney stone and life would be good again. But this was not meant to be. The pain didn't go away. I couldn't sit up, stand up, lie down, etc.,. I was extremely uncomfortable. I realized that what I had may not have been a kidney stone at all. It was confirmed when I was reading Sunday's Parade magazine and there was a full page ad asking if I had isolated spots of pain, alongside a burning, blistery rash. I lifted up my shirt, and there it was! The rash, the blisters! It was horrible. You may be thinking, "I've never heard of anyone having shingles." And up until I had it, I hadn't heard of it either. Shingles talk usually makes its way through older circles, like 70s and up. Everyone who I talked to seemed to agree that their "grandma had shingles" and so on. But if it's painful and leaves blisters and potential scarring, I'll take it!!! So for the rest of July and all of August, I was out of commission. It was awful. I sat in my back yard a lot and visited with friends when I felt up to it. I avoided people who had never had chicken pox or if they were pregnant, as shingles is contagious for them. Up until this point, I thought that it would be difficult to top the pain of a kidney stone I had years ago, but the shingles did not disappoint in the pain department.
When I was no longer contagious to the masses, I ventured out. Unfortunately the pain can remain for up to six months, which really worried me, so I kept plenty of Vicodin on hand. For a little over 2 months, shingles screwed things up, but I tried not to let it stop me.
I celebrated with Madison (far left) when she turned 7!
And kissed my sweet angel dove when we had our third wedding anniversary. Dinner at Two Guys from Italy. Delicious!
I took care of my animals. What a character Houdini was. I never thought you could see old age in a fish, but looking at this photo of Houdini now, I realize that even Bettas get old and look it.
Precious!
We visited with Nathan.
And were sad when Jason and Megan decided to move back down to San Diego. Megan had already taken Nathan down there when Jason packed up the last of their belongings. I drove the boys around on his last night in Moorpark. It was a wild evening!
July came to a close. And even though shingles knocked me out for a while, I still managed to have a good time and enjoy some of the last days of summer.
