Earlier, I posted news about my denied raise. Because I know how to process that. But it’s not at all the worst news of the day.
(And there have been five contenders for that title.)

My Daddy–my grandfather who raised me for several years when my mother couldn’t–has been officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

And he doesn’t know yet because my mom doesn’t want to tell him yet even though she told me I’d better tell her if it happens . . .
Anyway, I just can’t really write about this yet.
I can cry in my chiropractor’s office, but that’s different.

While I’m processing a bit, here’s a poem about him. I wrote it many years ago when he went in for heart surgery.

Atlas Has Surgery

They do tests
stress tests
which we joke about.
They schedule the time
and so you move
unfamiliarly
away from the burden
taking no relief
in the respite
of a short forced sleep.
This too is a burden
if you don’t do it,
you can’t get back to work.
You leave the earth to hold itself.
I don’t know if you trust it to stay
if you’ve read the physics;
even if you have
there may be little comfort;
Newton and Einstein are at odds;
better to do it yourself
so it’s done right.
Newton says we fall because of
weight and mass;
Einstein says we fall because of
the curve of time and space.
Either way, we start to shift
imperceptibly.
The issue is not the fall
but the landing.
In a picture of our fried egg shaped universe,
we do not think of above and below
we fall off the edge of the page;
in a diorama—the bottom of the box;
in a middle school science fair project—
we simply land on the table.
This is where most end up—
on a table
our gravity sinking hard
onto a surface
that does not yield
as your shoulders
sometimes do.

I haven’t been in the kind of contact that I want to be with most of you. Part of it is that I’m busy. Part of it is that I don’t necessarily want to talk about how I am.

I was really hoping that this year would be better than last. Last year was busy (no surprise), but also difficult due to my gall bladder, an amazing cervical spine headache that started in summer, and a car accident, which resulted in hours of physical therapy each week (it’s only ended last week).

This year hasn’t been easier so far. I’ve already written about my grandmother dying last month. What I haven’t said yet is that, while she was sick, this particular time of death didn’t have to be. What I haven’t said yet is that I’m angry about some of my mother’s decisions and angrier about her refusal to acknowledge them.

Next month, I will return home during Spring Break. My family is waiting to put the ashes in the ground until I get back. I need to try to have a calm conversation in which I explain to my mother that she can’t change my grandfather’s medicines, etc. without notifying the doctor. But she’s going to get defensive, and we’re going to have a fight, and I’m stressing about it.

The other thing I haven’t said is that it really sucks to be the only woman in the world with the middle name Jewreen. Before, there were two of us.

As for myself, three things are going on physically. Today I have a tube going from my stomach, out of my nose, and to a recorder. It’s testing the ph of my acid reflux and also checking to see if some of the reflux ix actually bile, now that we know I have some bile in my stomach. I am very uncomfortable, doubting I’ll be able to sleep tonight, and looking forward to getting it out after my classes tomorrow. Some of what we’ll learn will determine if the doctor thinks I need surgery for the hernia in my esophagus.

My inclination is not to have surgery; however, the drugs I’m on haven’t been controlling my reflux symptoms like they used to. And I’m on the highest dose of things.

I was finally able to see someone at the pain clinic for this cervical spine headache in December. We are looking at doing a nerve burn in my neck–pain medication isn’t doing anything, nor are the non-invasive things like massage, etc. Friday, I had a nerve block, a sort of test to see if the nerve burn would work. The very temporary block had wonderful effects, although I’m sore and swollen from the procedure. My insurance company wants me to have another test block done before they approve the burn, which would be longer lasting.

Lastly, one of the drugs I need, xolair, is expensive and weird. When my insurance changed at the start of the year, I had to try to get reauthorized for it. It’s now almost the end of Feb–I’ve been off my drug for almost two months. Both my nurse and I have spent hours on the phone with insurance and hours on the phone with the specialty pharmacy. It looks like I might finally be able to get back on the drug next week, though my copay will be lots higher. And then the insurance company wants to reevaluate in June. Every dose they can prevent me from having saves them thousands of dollars.

The other big news is that my aunt Mindy is not doing well. She is now basically too disabled to work. She has been living with my cousin for the past few months. My cousin’s husband, however, is getting transferred to Guam. My aunt has been unsuccessful so far in getting insurance, etc. (The Southern States have not expanded medicaid to poor adults.)

The short version of this is that Mindy will be coming to live with me at the end of Spring. It will be a bit tight–I don’t have the money right now to move us to a three bedroom. But I at least should be able to get her the care she so desperately needs.

Work is fine. The students are understanding about papers coming back two days late the week Gma died. They are understanding and sympathetic about the awkwardness of a tube coming out of my face today. My stand-up class is a joy.

I gave a smart and amazingly attended presentation at a Writing Teacher’s Conference in January. Had a good MLA. I’ve applied to be the coordinator for the Upper Division Comp exam. I’ve got a paper coming out on (a)sexuality in Sherlock. The Prized Writing Ceremony went swimmingly–the Chancellor was there for the first time, and she enjoyed it so much that we’ve already scheduled next year’s so she can be there. I’ll present at pca/aca in April (no more conferences for the year, though–too broke). The Margaret Atwood journal is going online. I’ve been contracted by Cambridge for an Atwood collection. The authors are writing now. Denise and I are putting together a Simpsons collection. Melissa and I are putting together a collection of best comp paper assignments. There are and will be plays and movies and, in April, Willie Nelson. Book group still gathers here for food, wine, and cats. When HBO or BBC is doing something good, there are weekly movie nights too. The boyfriend cooks for me and distracts me and pleases me. Alexander is generally in good spirits. He doesn’t love all of his classes. (His classes are part of me being broke.) But we get along well.

Just today, he reminded me that I wasn’t allowed to use the microwave (due to the weird machine I’m wearing). Then, when I thoughtlessly went to the microwave half an hour later, I got the same tone from him that the cats do when they jump on the counter.

My friends are lovely. I miss you and love you all.

I’m about to write a eulogy for my grandmother. First, I need to write this.  (I wrote about the renewal of her marriage vows here.)

My 85 year old grandmother (Winca Jewreen Graves Waltonen, who always went by Jewreen) died on Tuesday. She was married for 63 years, has 4 children, 9 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

Growing up, I only had one grandmother–her–though I had two great-grandmothers. My grandmother was more like a mother in my childhood, however, as she raised me for three years when my mother couldn’t and had me for every summer and school break thereafter. Granddaddy (whom I call “Daddy” since that’s what he’s always been to me) had just retired from the military when I went to live with them. They were building a house–all by themselves–on the land my grandmother’s ancestors had claimed in Bay County, Florida, before Florida was even a state. (She has certificates for being both a descendent of Florida pioneers and of the confederacy.) Although she had moved with her Air Force husband to various points in the US and Europe, now it was time to go back home. I was the first extra child to move in with them in a small, round, two-bedroom house in a Florida forest, but not the last. They have only rarely lived together without a child or grandchild who needed a soft space to fall. When I had nowhere else to go after Alexander was born, Daddy picked us up from the hospital and took us home.

My grandmother was a unique and strong-willed person. Granddaddy often teased her about being a savage, based on a homestead without paved roads, childhood pets that included a deer who was allowed in the house (and even to eat off the dining table), and a strong desire to never wear shoes (this is where I get it, people!). She met my grandfather on a blind date and married him the same year. When her first daughter was 2, she gave birth to triplets. She often had to raise them alone for long stretches, as my grandfather served in both Korea and Vietnam. Grandma is still angry about Vietnam protestors (she has no pity for the Kent State students)–she won’t watch movies with Jane Fonda or anything by The Smothers Brothers. (It was my grandfather, though, who introduced me to The Smothers Brothers via audio cassettes he was hiding on the porch.) Although she’s traveled, she never lost even a bit of her Southern accent, but would get mad at waiters who would bring her ranch instead of french dressing, even though what she said was invariably “franch.”

She was a great cook, a solid disciplinarian to her children, a sewer of matching clothing. By the time I lived with her, though, she didn’t do much sewing. She seemed to retire a bit when Daddy did, so she would mend, but not sew. She stopped canning and baking. When I was very little, she and Daddy would visit friends and go square-dancing, but, fairly quickly, they retreated deeper into the forest. The few friends who hung on had to visit them, as they only left the homestead for groceries and doctors’ appointments. Grandma, who was a great lover of nature, spent more and more time indoors. Daddy continued to work outside, to farm, to master computers so he could do extensive genealogical research, to read a variety of texts. Grandma read romance novels contentedly.

Her family became her whole life (instead of the maybe 85% they were before). She worried about us, prayed for us, praised and chided us to each other.

She was not as hands-on as Daddy with the grandchildren. He would read to us and play with us. She wanted us in her lap. I became a Daddy’s girl, following him around the property, having him teach me rhyming games, teasing and being teased lovingly. Grandma nurtured me with food. When I was very young, I was under weight, so I was plied with small amounts of beer to increase my appetite. When it was discovered that I would eat almost any part of a pig and any fish that was fried, they were produced in abundance. We shared a belief that the best thing about a fried chop was gnawing on the bones (Daddy didn’t do that with us). My trips back home always included fried fish–both from her kitchen and from my favorite fast food fish place–and lots of fried okra.

When I was a teenager and started becoming interested in cooking, Grandma and I were really able to bond. Her recipes were not written down, nor did she ever use a measuring cup. I followed her in the too-tight kitchen, writing down what she did with the most loved recipes. A few I adapted later, but most remain the same in my kitchen. Measuring cups are still unused.

She has not been happy with my life choices–I shouldn’t live in California, I should be married with more children, I should be a housewife, I shouldn’t like The Simpsons because it’s an immoral show since Bart talks back–but she has always been very proud of me because I can cook. It is what she brags about with me and what the men in my life who’ve met her always brag about to her.

I have to admit that it hurts to know how unalike we are. Our tastes differ in entertainment (except TCM), in politics, in social policy, in intellectual pursuits, in beliefs about equality/race relations, etc. There’s no way she would have liked me if we hadn’t been family.

It hurt her very much when I moved to California to pursue my PhD and, more importantly, my place in the world, which, frankly, was just not in Northern Florida. She wanted me to give up Alexander, so he would be raised apart from California values and in the bosom of the family. She said, when it was clear that I was leaving, that she might as well die. It was only a little easier when some of the younger grandchildren followed my example to be beyond a few hours’ drive away.

Even though I was out of her physical orbit, however, I was never out of her heart. And even though we were so fundamentally different, there were some very important things that link us: We both believe the moment when Yul Brynner puts his hand on Gertrude Lawrence’s waist in The King and I is one of the sexiest moments in movie history. We both know about the pleasure of a pork chop bone. We both laugh more than most people, especially when we’re in pain. We both know that the first thing you should do when coming home is removing your shoes. We both know that she is lovable–when she turned 80, I gave her a list of the 80 reasons why. We both know that my last meal will include fried okra if I have any say in the matter. We both give people recipes with vague measurements because we just “know” how much of everything there should be. We both believe her husband is the best man in the whole world.

I’ll put up some recipes of hers over the next few weeks. First, want to share her BBQ Meatloaf. It is the only meatloaf I’ve ever had. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why people spoke of meatloaf with derision, as it was one of my favorite things. What it was, of course, is that they hadn’t had my grandmother’s, which was never dry, never flavorless. When I first saw someone else’s meatloaf, I decided to stick with what was great. Here it is; measurements are approximate.

Grandma J’s BBQ Meatloaf

1 lb. ground beef

1 tsp onion salt

salt to taste

1/2-1 c. bread crumbs

1 8 oz can tomato sauce (my change in the recipe is to use a 16 oz can so I can have more sauce)

1 egg

2 TBS brown sugar

1/2 tsp dried mustard (Coleman’s)

2 TBS vinegar (I use a bit less)

a few ounces of water

Mix the ground beef, onion salt, salt, egg, and 4 oz of the tomato sauce. Form a loaf. Place the loaf in an 8 oz greased baking pan.

Mix the remaining tomato sauce (in the can) with the sugar, mustard, and vinegar. Add enough water to reach the top of the can. Pour over the meatloaf. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour. (No need for ketchup on your leftover meatloaf sandwiches–the sauce will be even better!)

PS–I tried for over an hour to insert a couple of pictures into this post. It’s just not working. However, you can see pictures of my grandmother at the link in the very first line.

Most women my age probably can’t say that they’ve been a bride more often than a bridesmaid. On the 22nd of June, I’ll break even, as I stand beside two of the most important people in the whole world to me.
Our story is a bit uncommon, however. I knew the groom, Chaz, first. In fact, Chaz and I dated when I lived in London for the summer of 2006.
Carmen was the woman who came after me. I used to tease Chaz that he’d replaced me with the Spanish me, especially since he kept telling me how alike we are. We’re both pale skinned, dark-haired, strong, intelligent, geeky, museum loving women. How could he resist us?
It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I actually got to meet Carmen, though. I was in London for a conference, and they offered me a place to stay. Chaz was right when he said Carmen and I would love each other. We became instant friends, spending many a late night drinking and talking (often about a problem she diagnosed–that I needed a man who would make me tea [and now I have one!]). Poor Chaz would come home to find us up and have to decide which of his girls to give a hello peck to first.
Carmen and I talk more often than Chaz and I do now. She is a great treasure in my life, and I’m so thankful to Chaz for bringing us together.
Part of the reason we’ve been able to bond so well is that Carmen was never threatened by the fact that Chaz had been with me. Early in their relationship, he’d explained that he wouldn’t be able to be with her if he hadn’t been with me. Our relationship was healing for and important to us both. And Carmen thus appreciated me before she even met me.
Some people still find this odd. For example, the day we went bridesmaid dress shopping, we ended up having a discussion about how we wouldn’t want to marry virgins.
“What if the guy is terrible?” Carmen wondered.
“Of course he’ll be terrible,” I said. “A man needs women to say,

Carmen drinks out of a Karma’s Bitch mug!

‘hey, stop doing that!’ How else can he learn?”
Carmen leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and said thank you.
The other bridesmaid then said, “And that’s why you two and your relationship are weird.”
(For the record, the women before me had Chaz all ready–I never had to tell him to stop it.)

Yes–we are weird. And that’s why we love each other so much & why I’m so honored to be a part of this wedding.

Here’s to the happy couple!

Earlier this month,Tiffany gave birth to our little Jack. “Our”? you might ask. Yes, as proven by the annunciation dream I had at exactly the moment of his birth, I am his fairy godmother. Well, maybe not fairy. Lecturer? Simpsonologist godmother?

A few weeks before his birth, book group and the book group hangers-on gathered at my house to decorate onesies for the baby. (Mindy later airbrushed two more.) Here are the results:

April; Kevin

Alex; Nathan

by Mandy Dawn

Earlier this year, my cousin told me that I would be going down to Florida this Christmas. She told me several times, in fact. It was important because my grandparents are in ill health. With few exceptions, we all headed down. Descending on a house made for two is never a good idea for a septic tank, but my grandparents were still happy to have every available surface covered in children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

On Christmas Eve, my cousin Kelly and her family decided we would do our first ever bonfire. This Christmas in Northern Florida was mild enough for it, and we live way out in the woods. How far out? We live in an unincorporated area without any official buildings (post office etc) right next to the Pine Log State Forest. That’s why home is called Pine Log.

Once we got the fire up, we got out the smore materials (I’d never had a smore!) and got the grandparents (although I was worried about grandma’s oxygen unit being at all near flame).

My brother, Granddaddy, and GrandmaMost of the Gang