Misha Day

My father had been agitating to see his grand-daughters after almost 3 years, and while my sister-in-law tried to propose something in Las Vegas (as being close to him in New Mexico), I convinced her and my brother just to let him come up for Easter weekend and then I was going to put him to work helping me fix up the condo. He, of course, was delighted to be of assistance, especially after the year I spent in NM, and he also had 7 boxes of beads and some other art stuff of Mom's that I'd dibsed when we packed up his house.  

Se he drove up with the boxes and a few power tools. 

Then the Family Drama commenced because he left early to beat the snow and my brother calls me: Dad's early, I use the guest room when I'm on call and Niece #1 is getting braces! So I played go-between, told Dad to slow his roll, and Dad still gets to Bend a day early, but spends a night in an AirBnB, has a blast chatting with the host and everyone is happy. (I don't think my nieces really know what to do with Distant Grandpa, but I'm still holding Favorite Auntie status)

Dad showed up here Sunday night. He spent the night at an apparently HORRID AirBnB and I proceed to put him up at a local hotel instead for the rest of his stay. The front desk gal was awesomazing and got us a discount AND free parking even without us asking for it all. I would have taken AAA and been happy! Really pays to be nice - a little bit of commiseration over flooded apartments and BAM!

I took Monday off. We headed to Kitsap and cleared out the last few things in his storage unit in Belfair (the remnants of an attempt to move to the PNW 15+ years ago) There were three large boxes of Christmas ornaments that I hadn't found the spoons to deal with at the appropriate time last year, and of course, at Easter no one wants them. We might have left them on a table in front of the one thrift store that was closed. I felt so naughty, donating and dashing. Realistically, they'll get tossed, but the onus is no longer on us. 

The rest of the week I've been attempting to put in at least half days at work, and letting Dad work on things he can do himself, and lending the extra hand where needed. We've replaced the old track lighting in three places, the dining room fixture (I took it down months ago so as not to knock my head on it every time I stood at my standing computer desk) and the three baseboard heaters, tore out the old drop-in stove, cut the countertop and shoved a shiny new stove in its place. Dad patched and I painted the ceiling where some of the track lighting was and the old incandescent bulbs had scorched the old paint a bit. 

The stove I got at the Best Buy outlet up in Lynnwood. It was sort of funny - Dad had already cut the slot for a standing stove, as drop-ins are a dying breed of stove, and I had selected my replacement standing stove when I saw it: a drop-in stove! One, solitary stove. (At a steep discount, too.) But the cuts had been made, and the standing stove was STILL cheaper. So. 

Today we finished it all up with replacing one of the thermometers that was broken, shoved my books and my big-ass green chair into storage, and went for ice cream. Whew!

I still have a long list of Things Which Must Disappear, so as to genericize and blandify my space enough to fool people into buying it, but the tasks which required power tools, three hands or the willingness to puzzle out a wiring diagram have been done. 

 It's been months, and today I finally emptied the last box... only it wasn't. 

Today I emptied and broke down the two big wardrobe boxes. One of them held two lamps, a spinning wheel and eight pillows. (Sadly, I have replaced all of those with newer pillows whilst in New Mexico, and pillows are frustratingly hard to dispose of. I hate putting them in the garbage, but NO ONE wants them.) Now, this WAS the last of the large cardboard. On the other hand, all of my books... ok, 95% of my books are still in their boxes, with the boxes tucked away on the shelves. Mostly for lack of space in which to unpack, but let's not go there. 

And yes, I've been back here three months now. It gets complicated. I keep going... Wait, it is too much. Let's back up. 

Mom and Dad tried to move to the PNW 15 years ago. Failed. But the attempt involved a 10x20 storage unit in Belfair filled to the brim, which is about a 2 hour drive around through Tacoma onto the Kitsap Peninsula. (Or involves a ferry trip. There are several options, but in summer it's usually with an additional wait.) Trips to visit the children and grandchildren would sometimes involve a trip to the storage unit to fetch some such another thing. (and then my brother throwing away half of the box of old plastic toys because the plastic had degraded so much.)

But what is left... ah. I'd sort of been chipping away at it over the years, but it's hardly convenient. More recently in New Mexico,when I had got my head around the parental finances, I took over the storage unit payment. Yeah, they could not afford it last year and right now Dad is... well. It also gives me the incentive to Get It Done. I didn't want my brother to do it because he'd just consign everything to the trash heap. I agreed that 90% needed to go, but dammit, let me at that 10%!  Also, I'm closer, and it does help shield my brother from Dad's attempt at gifting. The latest is 'oh, he'll want the two giant boxes of LGB train sets!' No, Dad. No he won't. 

So while I've been going through my own belongings, and trying to mindfully address things that I'd heretofore squirreled away, I've also been going over to the Kitsap Peninsula and weeding through my parent's shit. My first estimation of a time or two has since been hit upside the head by the Reality Bat. Months and several trips later, an end is in sight. I have had a few sidetracks, like two weeks ago, when I spent an hour waiting for the ferry, and only realized while we were docking that I'd forgotten the storage unit key. 

Saturday was the redo of that aborted trip. Bookcases, tool chests and some very nice blanket chests went off to Habitat for Humanity, while a carload of art came back with me. Half of that, (the crappy watercolors my grandparents produced in retirement) went to Goodwill. But I had to open and review all of that giant pile of nicely packed up (and numbered. Mom had it all numbered and in a spreadsheet, bless her heart.) art to see if any of it was something I'd want to keep. There was one sepia-toned watercolor of a tree that Mom had done that I really wanted. 

And the kicker is: some things aren't simple trash. There were so many boxes of really nice china that I took to the local thrift store. The furniture to HH. Friends of SPL took 22 boxes of my parents books in July. Today, I brought a crate of old propane bottles to the household hazardous waste. And two weeks ago I finally brought a couple of boxes of old ammunition to Lynnwood Gun. There's a box of my grandfather's photo albums I want to ship off to my uncle. Can't just trash that stuff. 

I mean, not gonna lie. The whole process is exhausting. There's only so much sorting I can do over there before I just bring it back and then sort here. In my tiny little space. Or out on the loading dock. And I'm limited by car space - which is not a bad thing, since it does make me sort what's in the car and empty it before heading back.

But all of that - I really haven't been focusing on my own home beyond making sure I can work and eat and sleep. And working from home means pants are optional. 

One more day of work. Two more days of packing. Three more days in New Mexico. Thursday is closing, and we head out on the road to Seattle. 

One of my anxieties is somehow fitting all the shit I've acquired down here in the last year into my car. I have a little waterproof rooftop bag which will be much stuffed, but there's more computer and suitcases and other stuff that needs to be packed around the dog crate that the cats and their carriers will be stuffed into. 

Then my brain is already planning into next week for my own pods to be delivered, and unloaded into my condo. Just unloaded, then I can sort things out at my leisure. My too many things in a small space, dreaming of a larger condo or house, leisure. 

This morning, Dad's real estate agent came by to take pictures. She admitted to me that she didn't think we'd get it ready to sell in the two weeks since Dad okayed the listing 

I mean, there was some frantic-ass floor scrubbing this morning, not gonna lie, but it's been pretty steady neatening and cleaning and Dad sorting out his way too many paper files into fileboxes and shifting them into the garage. The real trick of keeping it all pristine (or nearly so) for showings is still to come. 

Well. 

So that happened. 

New Year's Eve last year I was at work for the full day instead of taking off early - I was on the phone with one of my customers getting their site setup and getting the very first e-commerce site up and running. It was a good day of Getting Things Done and a great end to a fantastic roller coaster of a work year. 

This year was a personal year. March to May for me was learning how to work from home. For years my attitude was that it would be good, especially on the occasion of needing to be home for packages or other personal stuff, but I needed the social connection every day. Well. I was wrong. It took a little adjusting, and I definitely had high and low days, but overall, my team pivoted like champs. 

Then in May, Mom had a seizure, and I rushed down to New Mexico. That was terrifying, but instead of a quick end, what I got was seven months of uncertainty, doubt, and grief. We lost her two weeks ago, and it's been. A relief in some ways. We never discussed death - her memory was such that it would have been a very hard conversation just to remind her of her weakness, and with no guarantee that she'd remember anything the next day. We'd talk about her and dad downsizing to a smaller place, but never mentioned that she'd never live to see the move. 

I had to pull way back from social media. I had to be careful on tumblr, and Facebook was... ugh. My writing stopped again, and I managed to channel some creativity into mask making, which has recently morphed (Thanks, YouTube) into a revived interest in historical costuming. 

This next year I want to work on clawing back some of that creativity, re-engage with work, and upsize my condo. Here's hoping. 

Last night my mother's rings fell off. She still wore her mother's wedding ring and her own, even though she had lost so much weight that they threatened to slip at any moment. When I washed her hands for her, she would joke that I wasn't allowed to steal them. They would be passed to me, but not until she was dead. 

I was tending to her care last night, and found them: one on the bed beside her, and then other had fallen to the floor. I put them in her jewelry box.

This morning she was gone. 

Biggest blessing is the election results. Whew!

I went for groceries Friday morning before I knew, but the first stop was a liquor store, and I got me some bubbly. (I had been hoping!) I also got my hands on a bottle of Empress 1908 gin, because it CHANGES COLORS! (It's distilled with butterfly pea flower, and is this gorgeous indigo in the bottle.) So far I've mixed it with a few different citrus seltzers and it's very tasty. 

I also made an order with NM Tea Company - support a local business and taste some new teas. I thought about going down to the store itself, but it's in Old Town, and wasn't terribly convenient for my errands, so I went online. They had a deal for free shipping for folks who were struggling, and another option to pay shipping forward. So I did the latter, and the tea arrived the next day! I got 8 or 9 1oz packets to try their various teas. Current sipper is a light Darjeeling, though I think I'll switch to a breakfast tea in a little bit. 

I took Friday off since my boss has been urging us to take time, and it was a delightful lie in after the stressful days of waiting for election results. Work has been going well - I've developed a routine with time built in to check in on mom: lunch is blocked off entirely, so I can make her some wee sandwiches and sit with her for a little. I need to renew the FMLA paperwork, but that shouldn't be difficult - the nurse who signed the last round was delighted at how short the form is: only two pages! My student intern has just gotten her first real job, GO HER! I'll be sad to see her go, but I'm so happy we were able to keep her an extra quarter to give her the time to find this. And ok, I didn't have to train someone again just yet while I'm dealing with the situation here. In the meantime we've stolen away another fantastic person from a department who have had to put her on half-time, and it's looking like we'll be able to keep her full time once all the paperwork is mangled. I mean, handled. Right. 

I've managed to lose a little weight since coming down here, but not much, since Dad's got a super sweet tooth and keeps ice cream and cookies on hand. More importantly, I've been walking almost every morning, either 2 or 3 miles depending on my time and energy levels, and I've been slowly getting faster. I'm up to a slow jog that's getting faster: when I started, my splits were about 18 and a half minutes, and this mornings 3-miler was entirely under 16 minutes. I go first thing, as soon as it's light enough, and it's a good time for me to noodle on fanfic or plan my day. Gets me out of the house while Mom is still sleeping and I can have some time alone. 

My condo is finally completely fixed as of last Friday. (For those counting, the leak was in mid-June. So, four and a half months.) I just signed the paperwork last night to list it: my real estate agent will get someone in to clean it this next week and it will go on the market the week after. Here's hoping it will sell quickly. My plan is to buy another, larger condo in Seattle. There is a specific complex I've had my eye on, but their available units have come and gone before I could offer. But, with the situation as it is, I'm not in a rush, and can bide my time waiting for the perfect place. I have a set of search terms and a couple of real estate tabs open. Wherever I end up, it will need to be very close to someplace I can keep up this running habit. 

The cats are happy and healthy - Dad is delighted that little shy Darlene allows him to pet her. Mom's not as much of a cat person, but they give her something to watch: Mocha loves perching in her window to watch the back yard. 

I'm feeling energized this morning, so I'll get some cleaning and crafting done this morning while Mom and Dad listen to their church service. 

Two weeks ago I was in Seattle again, ( and boy howdy, did I Get Shit Done. )

( Meanwhile, back in NM. )

When last I blogged, I had a leak in my condo, 1400+ miles away. They've torn up some flooring, torn out some drywall and were about to put everything back together... so OF COURSE they found asbestos. And a) the condo board needs to approve the expense and b) the abatement company is scheduled a month out.

I HAD been planning on driving back to Seattle this coming weekend. I'm rethinking that. Instead, I'll fly back (fully masked, yay), deal with all the things (like my mail, which I forgot to hold... oops?) and fly back to Albuquerque for another bit.

I mean, on the upside, I'm get to avoid Salt Lake City and its horrible roads.

I'll continue to work from 'home' down here, navigate trying to get home health care for my mother (whose stunning lack of documented health history is a major roadblock for arranging care) and assist Dad in getting their house saleable so they can downsize. (We painted the kitchen this weekend, yay!)

Over a week ago, my mother had a health event (what exactly, we won't know), but I packed up my car and my cats and hoofed down to New Mexico.

( It was quite the journey )