I have never had anyone really close to me die, yet I came really close to that this week. My stepdad, who, with my mom, lives in Cathedral City, a somewhat lesser known city near Palm Springs, has been fighting for his life over the past week.

This began somewhat abruptly two weeks ago when doctors discovered he had a small hole in his small intestine. "This is very bad", the doctor stated in that very matter of fact tone that doctors like to use.

Rather than exhaust you with the myriad of medical mayhem that my stepdad has endured over the past two years I will simply say that one surgery led to another which led to one heart attack and then to a second in the span of three days. The surprising discovery being that after these two surgeries and the ones previous no doctor had discovered that their patient was in dire need of a heart bypass until now.

No stranger to hospitals myself, I returned to Cathedral City so my mother would not be alone with what I know can be an overwhelming ordeal for anyone. I was not shocked or horrified when she led me into the ICU to see her husband attached to every possible mode of medical machinery that one could imagine. The scene at his bedside unnerved her and as the Critical Care doctor emphasized how very sick he was, her words seemed to weaken my mom's resolve even more.

So we sat in that room and waited for more information from more doctors, for at this point there were several. We distracted ourselves with strained conversations and feigned interest in the ESPN coverage of the World Cup. And then he arrived, the vascular surgeon, and he spoke of complications and to be honest the only words that any of us could remember were, "He could die." If that wasn't enough to draw the breath from your lungs or stop your heart, he repeated those words again.

As is necessary in life, you must collect yourself and not abandon hope, because if I have learned nothing from life with Andrew and his two kidney transplants, we were being fed a "worst case" scenario. I won't or can't accept those, that's a roller coaster I won't ride again and I encouraged my mother not to get on that ride either.

But in the quiet moments while I stayed with her in the home that she shared with her husband, as I sat in his chair and slept on his side of the bed, the emptiness that replaced his presence became palpable. I let myself feel the reality of what might be lost to her. What that might do to her very reason for being. Who is she, what is her identity if she is not the caregiver, and not the caregiver of someone who is ill but someone who is. For a woman who has never in her life been without someone to care for whether it is her children or her spouse, what would be the impact of being alone.

For myself, my mind would not accept his departure because I had just seen him, not less than a week ago and he laughed at me as jumped and down in his hospital room as we watched the Lakers win game 7 together. He felt fine, he was laughing, he was OK, wasn't he? I thought he was.

Each day spent watching him in his medically induced slumber as the rotating nurses constantly updated us with the ever so slight improvements in his condition each day. And that was enough, to know that each day was better and closer to reaching the goal of the bypass surgery. It felt like a lofty goal as the idea of the surgery and his surviving it was another mountain to climb. And then the phone rang, at 6:30 am. "Please be here at 7:00, the doctor is taking him in to surgery."

We arrive and there are papers to be signed and the once dark quiet room in the ICU is brightly lit and the patient is surrounded by OR nurses, cardiac nurses, an anesthesiologist and two doctors. It's a flurry of movement and chatter and the room is filled with electricity.

And then he was gone. The waiting room was deserted except for the TV that was blaring with a skateboard competition. The volume button was disabled an the remote was nowhere to be found. So we endured as we were instructed to sit by the phone on the wall and wait for updates.

We settled in for the two and half hour wait. After only one hour and a half the phone rang and the OR nurse informed us that the surgery was over and that they were closing the patient. Shorty after we were joined by the surgeon who announced that everything was fine and the surgery went well. Certainly a cause for celebration, but we were too exhausted.

I stayed another day to be sure he had a good night and he did. So now it is just a matter of time before he gets strong again and is back at home driving my mother mad, and she loves it. She is still struggling with being alone since he will not be home for at least another week and without someone at home to take care of she is bored, without purpose. She waits at home for her husband to return so she again, can fulfill her purpose.

Plagued on the Playground

It's not a news flash that my family is of mixed race, which is after all, the entire premise of this blog. So you can imagine how the new immigration law in Arizona has sparked some heated conversations in our home. Most of it has been by me, yelling at the television, which I will concede is not very productive.

Thankfully, and I think it goes without saying, that all members of this household are opposed to it. But what I find most interesting is how my daughter has found herself in a position of defending her ideals and beliefs among her classmates. She is not among like minded spirits in regards to religion, race, politics or economic status, yet she possesses the amazing ability to maintain friendships and associations with these same individuals when bombarded with their opposing views.

She and her classmates have debated religious beliefs as they relate to politics, gay rights, racism, and human rights as well. She has been called names and in one instance been told that "Mexicans were not allowed at their lunch table". Needless to say I was infuriated when told of these events but she assured me that she could handle it on her own. To her credit, she has diffused the animosity aimed in her direction and in effect inspired some to at least respect her, even if they do not like her.

She and I spent this weekend alone together and she told me of the many discussions she has with her friends about religion and evolution. She questioned her friends' beliefs, thoughtfully, and really tried to understand the contradictions of their beliefs. She was not swayed by their proclamations but it was my impression that she may have caused them to question themselves. I await the backlash from these parents.

Now before anyone jumps to the conclusion that I have indoctrinated my child, well, of course she is influenced by our beliefs and our experiences but she is always encouraged to question any issue. She is not encouraged to question our authority but certainly our knowledge. I can only speak for myself but I can only hope that her beliefs, whatever they turn out to be, are her own and not just because I
said so.

To have faith, to believe in something is to understand it, to feel its truth, not just to regurgitate it over and over again. As long as she continues to seek understanding, knowledge and truth then my job will be done.

Vacation

I'm back...I hope. Well, feeling healthy again. It has been a long road back from my last post because I wound up being ill for quite a while. Good ole pneumonia turned into a staph infection that required new meds. Well lucky me, I was allergic to the new meds which brought my misery to new heights. I'll spare the gory details because, well, it's a little self indulgent to be frank. I refuse to turn our relationship (writer-reader) into my own pity party.

Shortly after my recovery we took the kids on their very first vacation. My husband and I had been to the Caribbean a few times early in our marriage and we had always wanted to share it with the kids. We found a really affordable package for St. Thomas and we were on our way.

We arrived to our hotel late evening and they didn't have the room we requested. They upgraded us to an ocean view but they only gave us one bed! How were four people going to spend one week in one bed? After much insistence from my husband, we were finally given a roll away bed at 11:30 PM. We decided to grab some food while we waited and were quickly met with sticker shock by the $16 hamburgers. Oh my, what are we going to do for food for a week?

We managed by sharing meals, ordering kids meals for our 14-year-old and skipping meals. Determined to enjoy the one and only vacation we have been able to give our kids, we focused on the positive.

The tight quarters brought us a little closer and we decided that every night we would name our favorite person of the day. These people ranged from airport employees, fun waitresses, a really nice couple from Michigan and a very animated and determined jeweler in one of the tourist shops.

I should not forget to mention the very nice woman from Connecticut and her daughter that we met in the bar. As she stood up to leave, she said, "It was very nice to meet you, my name is Muffy!" I almost spit out my drink as I stumbled to reply. Upon her exit from the bar, I looked at my husband and laughed, "Did we just meet Muffy from Connecticut?"

The beaches were breathtaking. Unfortunately, some fellow hotel guests brought their city attitudes with them. There was lots of beach chair hoarding which soured the experience a bit. Many guests would come down to the beach at dawn, throw their beach towels down on several chairs and go back to bed. Therefore, there wound up being no chairs available for the people that were actually on the beach when the sun rose.

One morning my daughter and I sat on the beach to watch the sunrise. A disheveled, bleary-eyed woman came down to the beach, gathered up 20 beach chairs and scattered her beach toys, towels and magazines all over them and promptly went back to bed. We were appalled, I mean, really, 20 chairs!

In the spirit of all that is fair, my daughter and I scattered her chairs around the beach, collected her belongings on one chair and pulled that one to the back of the beach. I felt like a mischievous child as we giggled and then fled the beach.

There was one gentlemen who had 11 chairs in his possession. He saw that I had only one and that I was earnestly seeking more. He asked me how many I needed and I said that one more should suffice. He turned to his wife and asked her if they should give up one of theirs to us. She shook her head and blurted out a stern, "NO!" I am pretty sure they were from New Jersey.

All in all our vacation was a success. We spent a good deal of our time in the water, playing with the fish and exploring our hearts out. We all enjoyed good food, good drinks and good times. Of course, we had some challenges but how unhappy can one be while visiting the beautiful island of St. Thomas?

Got sidetracked....again.

I was doing pretty well there in November with the whole working out regimen, really getting back into it. That's when all the drama began and I got side tracked. We had to sell, move, settle and create a new plan for ourselves (which we are still working on). Oh, but I can get my head in the right place, really get focused if I start working out again. It always puts me in the right frame of mind. Oh, but where oh where are those damn workout shoe? "Honey, where are my workout shoes that were in the garage at the old house?" "I thought all those shoes were trash, so that's where they wound up!"

Please don't ask me to make sense of this man's logic because that is a futile task, after all, none of the soccer shoes that belong to him and his daughter had to make that perilous journey in those Waste Management containers, no, they made it safely to the new garage.

But, I digress, not a big deal, just go buy new ones, right? Right!

So after many days of watching it rain and rain and rain some more, I headed out to rid myself of the last excuse I could muster for being a lazy ass. I found the right shoes and was positive that I picked the right size, so why bother trying them on?

The next morning I put them on planning to run with my dog, but as soon as the last bow was tied, it was obvious that they were too big. Damnit, why do I always do stuff like this?

No worries, go out and get the right size. It was an easy task and I even found the right insole inserts that I use in all my athletic shoes.

The very next day, I feel a little tired but there is much shopping to do for it is Super Bowl weekend! Get the chips, dip, beer, snacks and all the fixings for that new pork pozole recipe I want to try. The whole family was in it together on this junk food excursion and as we walked up and down each aisle, I could no longer pretend my body aches and overall fatigue were an anomaly, I was getting sick! Really, I mean really? As I lay there in bed, looking across the room at the new Avias, looking at me with disdain, I felt defeated and they knew it! Oh God, I'm hallucinating, I must have a fever!

It only took a few days for me to realize that this was not a little bug so just to be sure I went to Urgent Care.

"Pneumonia!" said the doc. "And not to scare you or anything but Jim Henson, Bernie Mac and Brittany Murphy just died form it so be careful!" " Great", thanks doc! So he loaded me up on meds. It was all I could do just to walk downstairs and get a drink without feeling I had just ran a mile. The next day the weakness in my arms was so that I could not even play with my iTouch, which was really bothersome since I decided to obsess about dying like all those fallen celebrities. I needed to look up the facts on the celebrity deaths so I knew what was happening when my body decided to succumb to this sneaky little bastard that we call pneumonia. If a celebrity could die from pneumonia then I most assuredly, would die as well!

Never mind the fact that, there was more to their stories than was widely known but facts don't help when you are trying to obsess, they just get int he way and make you sane. Which is exactly what the second doctor told me on my follow up appointment. You'll be fine, just take your meds and rest and...come back in a week ...if you're not dead already! OK, He didn't really say that....but I know he wanted to...

I feel uneasy, as those shoes keep staring at me, just like that G&%#mn Geico stack of cash with the googly eyes!

Changes...

Moving sucks! Although, it is exciting too, bittersweet would be more accurate, in our case anyway. We did move on December 30th, which made for lots of chaos. Christmas this year was the abridged version, as was New Years. It rained on moving day. Apropos of something I guess. Maybe it was symbolic of a clean start, washing away the troubles of the past...ha, or maybe it was just rain!

We had so much stuff to move after ten years of living in the same place and watching our kids grow out of diapers, tricycles, cribs, pink walls in the bedroom, Dora and High School Musical. Now they have grown into cell phones, iPods, Wii, "Secret Life of the American Teenager", makeup, and little girls texting my son at 7 am. The house we are currently renting is much smaller than the old house so there was and still is, a lot to purge. Its funny that the more house you have the greater the need to fill it. We are streamlining our lives in this process and realizing that owning a house is not the key to our happiness.

We held onto that "American Dream" so tight that it came close to being our demise. Don't get me wrong, we contemplated selling many times over the past few years, ultimately believing that is was the wrong thing to do. We bought into the fantasy. Owning that house never felt like a dream, it felt more like a drain and I didn't realize it until we were out. It felt as the entire weight of that place was lifted off of our backs. When things got bad, a friend of mine said to me, " You have to think of this as a business decision and take the emotion out of it." In that moment, I realized she was right. She was an objective observer and she helped me see that the hope for the family's future did not lie in those four walls but in the strength that had held us all together over all the years of struggle. I called the real estate agent 5 minutes later. I am forever grateful to her for that little kick in the ass.

I was sad, we were all sad but knew that we had to move on. The kids were troopers. They were initially brokenhearted but they quickly recovered when they felt the strain lift. They saw how life could be when we all weren't cowering every time the phone rang or someone knocked on the door.

It felt good to write those checks to those family members who helped when they were able. To pay off so many things that I could never envision doing before.

It's time to reevaluate what exactly the next step will be. Hopefully this give us a chance to be clear headed and make choices. Choices that come from the pursuit of happiness and not from desperation.

We missed Christmas!

Andrew and I did not exchange gifts this year. Our gift to each other and the kids was to find a place to live, and we did. We signed the lease on Christmas Eve, swiftly made our way back home to open the champagne and let the festivities begin.

With time to relax and enjoy a nice meal, albeit, the roast beast grandma brought took 3 hours to roast, so dinner was late. Bleary-eyed from from the cocktails and no longer hungry, we all sat for dinner at 8:00. I have to say, even though I was no longer hungry, the food was delicious.

Grandma made the mashed potatoes ahead of time and they horrifyingly swam in butter, and they were to die for. The french beans were quickly blanched and then sauteed in a little fat from the roast and then promptly tossed with a little fresh Parmesan. Gabi never noticed any of these fabulous morsels because she ate the entire collection of crab legs.

Soon after the dishes were done, we all called it a night, and it was none too soon for me. My escape into slumber would have been effortless I'm sure but I decided to leave nothing to chance. I consulted the sandman from the little, brown pharmacy bottle to make assurances that not even Santa could ruin my respite from reality.

Christmas Day was fun but it made me realize that we came straight from Thanksgiving, right into Christmas morning. There was no shopping, no lists, no wrapping of gifts, no baking for fun, no secrets to keep, and no excursions with Andrew to make little dreams come true.

We spent the rest of the day at my brother's house and we were all together again. It was fun and silly, and for once, no tension between our siblings. I thoroughly enjoyed the shrill chaos that is my family. But it was time to go, back to our reality. On the quiet ride home, I was reminded again, that Christmas was over and we missed it. I felt a little sad yet still overwhelmed by the new chapter that we are about to open in our lives.

Gabi is getting excited about the move and I think Drew might be too. We worked all day yesterday, packing and purging and cleaning, yet it doesn't look like we've done very much. That's a little scary!

It's Monday now and we have much to do. I am not sure that Andrew realizes how much because he scheduled a fun parent/child soccer scrimmage at the park with our team and parents. He insists I come along but I can't help thinking that we have too much to do. Gabi insists that I go and I sure it will be fun, maybe I will give in and join the crowd, it might do me some good.

I hope you all had a great holiday, I did. I know that sounds a little hypocritical after my little rant but, I did have a good time and I do have so much to be grateful for....

Ta Ta for now and I'll keep you posted on the move.

It's Christmas Eve and we have 6 days to go

The in-laws are coming today and we are supposed to sign a lease for a house today. When the parents get here we will all run over to the house so everyone can see it and we can sign all the necessary paperwork.

We pull up to the new house again and Andrew realizes that our son's old baseball coach lives at the end of the street. It should be nice for Little Drew to see a friendly face. I decide that I like the house even more once I go through it again, even though it seems smaller than I had remembered.

It's a very nice house but we all chuckle a little to ourselves on how such a modest home has rather ornate and large chandeliers that take you aback for a moment. Maybe that is what made the house feel larger to me in the first place.

There are also 2 sizable wall mirrors in the formal and informal living areas. It makes it feel a bit daunting, I mean who wants see their full reflection in every room of the house. It could also be a source for good, I mean, if I have to look at this all day, I might be shamed into doing something about it.

So the other area of contention is the lovely mirror that covers the entire wall in the master bedroom where the headboard should go. The Realtor laughed, "At least it's not on the ceiling!" "Well, maybe that's where I prefer it," I replied calmly as his smile very quickly disappeared into silence. I saved us all from the awkward moment and laughed and I let him in on the joke. "After all," I told him, "no one needs to see that!"

The kids of course, began to do what they do best, fight. They fought over who gets what bedroom, who gets the television from the bonus room since this house has no such room. I began to daydream of all the 2 bedroom beach cottages I could have rented in Laguna for the same price that were completely unfit for families. I could hear the waves crashing every morning, the waves got louder and louder! My daydream came to an abrupt halt when I realized those crashing waves were, yet again, the children arguing incessantly. Those are the crashing waves of my life. I sure do love low tide.

Well, we've seen it all. Time to go back to the house and start the Christmas Eve festivities. Open the champagne immediately, put the rib roast in the oven and snack til it hurts. A bit of calm before the moving storm, a very welcome evening indeed.