pop goes the weasel and the weasel goes pop

Boys come and boys go.  I have always dealt with heartbreak with bravado, picking myself up and moving on like an Olympic champion.  The constants in my life have always been my family, my son, Luke and more recently Alex.  I know that I always have my sisters, no matter what, they are always there along with my parents.  They have redefined unconditional support with an intensity that goes unchallenged.  I don't have a lot of memorable heartbreak, just one.  The worst heartbreak I ever experienced was standing in the corner of a hospital room watching my grandmother say goodbye to my father before he passed away.  Her eyes bared an unbelievable sadness that mirrored what my heart couldn't put into words.

My father was a people person.  He gathered everyone, he fed everyone, he wined and dined....and had an insurmountable love for his four daughters that went on for his lifetime after each of us was born, despite his concern for the sons he really hoped for.  He loved taking us out on his boat on hot summer days with coolers full of food and drink, sunscreen, and so much enthusiasm for the things he loved in life.

He knew that his days were numbered and ran from it.  Coming to terms with his vices was not an easy task, but he eventually did when he had a series of heart attacks in February of 2009.  He was given a new lease on life when he was placed on the liver transplant list.  A list that he thought he would never qualify for with his past lifestyle, but he did it and deserved it.  His hospital stays became more frequent as he fought bouts of lucidity towards the end stages of liver disease.  He kept bouncing back and it was hard for us to differentiate between a serious hospital stay or a pre-bouncing back of a temporary setback.

He would be gone one sec and you'd be sitting by his bedside holding his hand and he'd wake up and say "hey baby!", and be himself again.  Such relief.  It would be our jobs to clean him up and get him on track.  We would look for things to help brighten him up and give him something to look forward to.  I remember one time going into his hospital room and finding him unshaven.  I loved helping him clean up and shaving him because Danielle was on her way and he wanted to look good for her visit. Maybe I knew I had to soak up what I could, while I could.

When it came time for him to go to Strong Memorial in Rochestor, NY for a critical moment in his life, his place on the list was very near the top and his health was declining quickly, my sisters and I rushed to his side.    His side, where we stayed for days, around the clock.  We put all of our will power and faith into the fact that his eyes would open, he would say "hey baby!" just a few more times before the moment of reckoning came, but it never did happen.  He was number one on the list and his kidneys were failing and it got to the point where they were not going to ever function fully again.  We were forced with the fact that we would have to take him off of life support and give up.  We just weren't the type to ever give up on anything, especially him.

We got to spend time with him, intimately, holding his hand, praying...praying...and the doctors and nurses walked by his room looking in on us sympathetically, because they knew what we didn't want to accept.  We made the decision everyone was waiting for us to make and took him off of life support.  He left us peacefully.  It was the biggest heartbreak and almost too much to bare.  We said goodbye and let him go.

a loft on the hill

In 1994 we moved to Boulder, Colorado.  Simply stated, it was one of the best experiences of my life.  It was a hard decision to leave the place where I grew up, but I am so glad I did.  My mother had visited prior and had an apartment rented and ready for us when we got there.  The trip across country itself was a story.  A story for another time.

After arriving in Boulder after a very, very, long drive, it was very apparent that we were no longer in Kansas (or New York...whatever).  The atmosphere was different, the people were different, even the grass was different.  The weather was unbelievably beautiful, it was a daily postcard.  I was in a place of meditation, that is what happens when you strip away the familiar everyday life, childhood friends, and any stigma from a small town girl. I didn't have high school to secure me a social circle, but that was ok, I never had a problem in this department and welcomed the opportunity to create my life from scratch.

It was my mother, her boyfriend Steve, my sister Jaime, and myself.  Steve...I should discuss Steve's very short lived relocation briefly.  We had been in Boulder for approximately three days at the time.  We went to Safeway to get some groceries and Steve had ants in his pants.  For some reason he was really antsy to hurry up and get our groceries and back to our apartment.  We were women not to be rushed.  In a huff, Steve decides to leave Safeway half way through our grocery trip when he realized we were not going to give in to his crabby patty attitude.  When we got home an hour later, Steve wasn't there and neither was the moving truck.  If you're thinking what I think you're thinking...you're right.  Steve went home.  I mean home home, back to New York.  Never saw the guy again.  I loved my mom's reaction to the situation, a good laugh and a  shrug of the shoulders.  Ah well.  Guess I wasn't the only one ready for a new life.

I got a job waitressing during the graveyard shift at Denny's and made some pretty good money.  Denny's was a place that attracted many interesting personalities, it was good money and good life experience.  A year into our life in Boulder, Colorado, an opportunity to room with a fellow co-worker presented itself and I took it.  Another co-worker owned a condo and he was planning a backpacking trip through South Africa for a year and offered his place for a ridiculously good price while he was gone.

A few months after being on my own, my bestie from high school, Mandy, moved to Boulder to live with me. Mandy also got a job at Denny's and we worked, lived, slept, and breathed together...in unison.  The best time of my life.  I loved our walks home at 6am from work, watching the sun come up, not really knowing if I was getting enough sleep, my sleep schedule was screwed at that point.

One afternoon, Mandy and I were sitting on our balcony breathing in the fresh Rocky Mountain air, when a third person walked out on the balcony.  Uri was home (this was Uri's condo)...6 months early!  I was so worried that Uri was going to be mad that a third person had taken residence at his house, he wasn't.  I was then worried that he would cut our stay short...he didn't.  I think he really liked having us around and for awhile it was kosher.  But, Mandy and I decided that we needed to get a place of our own when another friend of ours from high school decided to move in with us.  Shannon.  Shannon moved to Boulder and it was the three of us in my tiny room at Uri's condo.  Shannon got her obligatory job at Denny's working the graveyard shift (apparently this is a Boulder initiation ritual), and the three of us started saving every penny...literally.  We saved every dollar, rolled every coin, and got enough money together to find a decent place.  We put down the first, last, and deposit on a beautiful loft on the hill.  It was a one bedroom plus loft with a cute kitchen in the middle of all the excitement of Boulder.  We were one block from the Fox Theatre, three blocks from Pearl Street.  We couldn't have had it any better.  We spent a year or so at our loft before Shannon decided to go back to New York, followed by Mandy, and eventually myself, except I went to Boston, MA.  Many, many good times were had in Boulder, Colorado.  I didn't go back to visit for ten years, as soon as the plane touched down for my return, I instantly started mourning the time when I would have to leave.  Boulder is magic.  If you have a chance to go there in your life, you should, you would never regret it.

don't mess with your eyeballs...ever.

In an attempt to keep up with the age of innovation, I decided to have my eyes fixed.  Last summer, I made the big step of getting Lasik eye surgery.  On recommendation of a couple of my co-workers, I chose to have the procedure done in Kingston, Ontario, also it is much less expensive and only 45 minutes from my house.

After a pre-op appointment and all of the financial logistics were taken care of, the big day came.  My mother came with me to drive me home (and she kept insisting on moral support, but I am a big girl and really didn't need it...or so I thought).  

I remember when I was diagnosed with lack-worthy eyesight.  I was 20 years old, lived in Boston, and was pregnant with Luke.  My friend Michelle came to visit me and we were driving down Commonwealth Ave. when  I jokingly picked up her glasses and put them on.  Instead of my expectation of having everything magnified ten fold like I was looking through a set of magnifying glasses, I was welcomed with a pleasureful crisp view of Boston, it was absolutely amazing.  I can't even describe it, my eyes were bad?!?!?  I didn't want to give Michelle her glasses back.  I immediately went to an eye doctor, who proudly explained to me that he knew why I was there.  He explained that my pregnancy slowed me down and made me read more, which made me realize I needed glasses...ummmm ok.  I got to pick out new frames and went for a set of sexy librarian dark framed glasses.  Through the years I've experimented with many different eye glass frames, styles, etc.  It became my identity.  It's crazy how much you can stand out from the crowd with a brazenly awesome pair of eyeglasses.

Back in Canada, I am getting ready to have my surgery.  There was myself and two others (a woman and man) that were scheduled for the same surgery at the same time.  We were brought from a bright, cheery, waiting room and shuffled into a tight little elevator.  Next, we were shown into a dimly lit waiting room and told to put surgical caps over our heads.  Kind of awkward, we all looked like factory workers.  Prior to the surgery I was offered anti-anxiety medicine, which itself scares the crap out of me, but I wasn't scared of eye surgery.  I already had a c-section, a breast reduction, and many psychotic ex-boyfriends, eye surgery would be a piece of cake.  We waited in the waiting room for 20 minutes or so, striking up small conversation.  The lady was nervous and told me that if I started screaming during my surgery, she was "out of here", the guy was quiet and didn't converse at all.  

The surgical assistant came out of the operating room and called my name.  Here goes nothing.  I walk in and crawl up on the table.  They ask how I feel and I feel great!  For the zillionth time, they explain the procedure step by step.  The doctor comes in and introduces himself.  He starts to show me his tools which look they came off the workplace of a medieval torture chamber.  "I'd rather not" was my response to looking at his tools for slicing my eyeballs..."but thanks".  He puts a spring in my eyelid...so far so good.  Then he takes a round metal thingy and explains that he is using it to open my eye wider so he can expose my cornea so will enable him to make a small incision.  Now, I have pain drops in my eye, so the eye is numb, but the orbit around my eye...not so much.  He is explaining to me that my eyes are kind of small so I'm going to feel some pressur....OUCH!!!  He is pressing this thing around my eye hard!!!!  I start deep breathing and suddenly am feeling slightly panicky.  I am going to my happy place...happy place..."hummmm...hummmmm".  When I was having my C-section, my midwife told me that if I was feeling scared while not being able to move any of my body parts (paralysis is slightly scary), I could just sing.  So I reverted to the old method of calming myself and start singing angel from Montgomery by John Pryne.  The surgical tech starts laughing and asks if I want a stress ball to squeeze.  I ask for two.  When is he going to stop pressing down??  I am double armed with stressballs and am pumping away like crazy to the beat of angel from Montgomery, when he finally stops pressing.  He explains that I can look at the laser, it will automatically go off if I move my eyeball....great.  It smells like burning hair (did someone bring my hairdryer?), and a few minutes later...waahlah!  The second eyeball was much easier now that I know what he is doing, I left the room shaky, but intact.  

The lady in the waiting room is waiting for me to say something.  I mutter "well....that was interesting...", it was the best I could do.  The pain meds are still in full effect, so I have no pain.  They give me a set of terminator style sunglasses and instruct me not to take them off, open my eyes, or rub them.  Not rubbing them is no problem since I'm starting to feel like Mike Tyson punched me in both of my eyeballs.  Mom and I get in the car and start exiting the parking garage.  The parking attendant asks mom if she needs directions, she says "yes...ummm we are going to Alex Bay?", he says "huh?", she says "La Fargeville?", he says "ummmmm, lady, your in Canada, those places are in the states, I have no idea where those places are...".  That was the highlight of my day.  By the time we make it to the border, I am in full effect crisis.  My eyes feel like I had a major poking from a woodpecker.  Even the border patrol agent told me to immediately put my sunglasses back on after asking me to take them off.  What I didn't realize was that I had blood spots all over the whites of my eyes.  I get home, lay down, and recover...after a few days.

One thing I never realized about getting lasik eye surgery is how much it effects your identity.  For quite a while, I just didn't trust my eyes, I only trusted my glasses which are now obsolete to me.  I didn't need the glasses?  Why is this a surprise to me?  You mean I can walk into target and buy a pair of sunglasses off the shelf??  Strange... It took me awhile to get over the horror that I let someone do that to my eyes.  What if they messed up???  What if the blood spots didn't go away?  They did.  I am used to it now...a new me.  Back to taking my eyes for granted and armed with a story to tell.  Would I do it again?  Nope.

Glasses

No Glasses!

red lobster boy

I worked with Mark at Samaritan, he was in the accounting department.  We met at a meeting that I was taking minutes at, I couldn't get over the 17 year age difference enough to ever consider a relationship with him but we had great Seinfeld-like conversations.  He had two sons he was raising alone, Mark Jr. and Nick.  He brought them into the Hut, where I held a second job, and I waited on them frequently.  Mark Jr. was about to graduate high school and was really quiet, Nick was a football star, way to cool to converse.

Whenever I come across someone painfully shy, I seem to always feel the need to take them on sort to speak, bring them out of their shell.  This trait seems to usually result in two things, either discovering an awesome personality or inviting a stalker.

I left the hospital to attend college full-time, so my visits with Mark's family became very rare until one day at college when I came across Mark Jr.  He was on campus, slumming around, waiting for his dad to get off work to come pick him up.  I offered him a ride home rather than wait four hours and put out the free standing offer of a ride here and there when he needed.

The next time I see Mark Jr., I am on my way out to lunch.  Naturally, I offer to bring him along, he is quick to tell me that he doesn't have money so I offer to buy his lunch.  We go to Coleman's and sit only to have the pleasant surprise of my Grandmother being sat simultaneously.  I am thinking "Oh great, she is going to think I'm dating this kid.", she asks us to join her and we comply.  After lunch, Gram picks up the check and gives Mark the wink, oooh boy.

The next week, I see Mark Jr. again, he approaches me and asks me if I want to go out to lunch again, and I agree.  We get in my car and start towards Arsenal Street.  "Where do you want to eat?", I ask.  "Red Lobster!", he replies.  I explain to him that I have class in 40 minutes and Red Lobster is probably not going to fly, so he follows with a request for Pizza Hut, which is great because I get a discount.  We are seated quick and start looking at the menu.  He says "I want ALOT of pizza!!!", I am like "ok, cool.", we ordered a large stuffed crust super supreme.  Mark adds breadsticks and wings and I am thinking this boy is hungry.  Midway through our meal Mark explains that he needs to go call his dad to arrange his ride for after school.  He then says something that is the question heard around the world.  He says "Do you have a quarter?".  Huh?  Did he just ask for a quarter????  With the smile pasted on my face, all I can squeak out is "uh huh..".  The rest of our lunch consumed in silence (since I did 99% of the talking most of the time anyway).

This boy.  Thiiiiisss boyyyyyy.  He asks me to lunch.  He wants to go to Red Lobster?  He wants ALOT of pizza?!?!?!  He does not have a freaking quarter????  Yes, a learning lesson.  What did I learn?  Avoid Mark.    The term "Red Lobster Boy" was coined, and I never spoke to him again.  Probably not the most mature way to handle this situation, but it felt right at the time and I am sticking by it.

happiness defined

whose your favorite aunt?

Where did this phrase come from?  We are up to the magic number of seven children between the four DeMarse sisters.  We torture each other's kids with this stressful question...they are learning.  Just answer with the name of the Aunt that is asking...duh.  Let me tell you where this phrase came from.

Luke was the first.  Born to me (oh...how lucky I am).  Luke is the first so he had a very spoiled life early on.  Spoiled rotten by my sisters, cuddled, coddled, dressed up, redressed up, that poor child.  I would develop rolls of pictures only to find that Jaime had taken a picture of Luke as a baby with a sign next to his head that looked like a thought cloud that said "I love my Aunt Jaime!"...but this is NOT where the phrase came from.

My sisters realized early on how fun it would be to get back at each other if Luke would say that one was the favorite over the other.  Tracy started this.  She watched Luke a lot in his early years, when he was beginning to form words that were understandable she would spend hours upon hours training him.  She would just repeat over and over "Whose your favorite Aunt?  Aunt Tracy!  Whose your favorite Aunt?  Aunt Tracy!".  He would suck on his hands, listening to her...saying nothing.  She was relentless.

As a baby, Luke slept with me every night.  I feared he would stop breathing, even when he was 2...then 3.... I would sleep with a constant awareness to his chest rising and falling.  When Luke started speaking...it was the end of all quiet.  Before this...he didn't talk much at all.  Matter of fact, my earliest memories of Luke talking happened on a quiet night at two in the morning.  I woke to find Luke sitting up in bed chanting...at first it was hard to understand...and then...I realized the chant was almost zen like.  He was rocking back and forth whispering in his tiny baby voice "Whose your favorite Aunt?  Aunt Tracy!  Whose your favorite Aunt?  Aunt Tracy!  Whose your favorite Aunt?  Aunt Tracy!...", he was a child possessed.  It took me an hour to get him to stop and go back to sleep.  I thought of a zillion ways to kill Tracy!  Or...I could hold on to this and wait until Tracy had kids herself one day.  She did...and the competition was on.  It goes on and on...with every child that is born, it is the tradition when you first hold the baby in your arms to say "Whose your favorite Aunt?"

happiness defined