Getting ready for my road trip next week!

Posted on August 13, 2016 by luckyotter

The Florida Gulf Coast before a storm (credit: my son)

I haven’t taken a long road trip since 2008! That’s WAYYYY too long. But after 8 long years, I’m getting ready for another one. Today I got my oil changed and my tires checked to make sure my car is road worthy for the 700 mile trip. I took Monday off so I’m going to Goodwill to look for an inexpensive travel bag. (I also have an emergency appointment with my therapist).

Next week, most likely next Sunday when the traffic on the highways is a little lighter, I’m driving to Port Richey, Florida, to visit my son for a whole week. I saw him in April when he came here to visit for a few days, but I’m dying to see his place (he lives in a nice apartment complex with a pool and a hot tub). I’ll be staying there to save money instead of staying in a hotel. He lives close to the beach, so we will also be hitting the beach a few times. He wasn’t able to get days off from work, but his hours are variable and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of time to spend together. He’s as excited as I am, and is planning to take me to a couple of his favorite eateries, of course the beach, and also fishing!

The water looks like molten gold.

Hopefully the weather holds up. The Gulf Coast can be iffy this time of year since it’s the middle of hurricane season. I really need this trip, not only to see my son but also to get away and just relax near the ocean and see some new sights. The timing couldn’t be better, since I’ve been so triggered and upset lately. I think this trip is just what I need and will help me regroup and get my head and my emotions together.

I’m bringing my laptop with me because I will continue to blog while in Florida, and will post pictures every day of my adventures with my son. Gosh, I can’t wait!

My son in Clearwater last year.

Gals’ night at home.

Posted on August 11, 2016 by luckyotter

My daughter and I had a nice time girl-bonding tonight. I’m not the type that gets into female bonding in general ( most of my platonic friends have always been male), but every once in a blue moon, I can get down with it.

So we shared a bottle of chardonnay and got just a little goofy. She decided she wanted to give me a makeover and do my hair. I rarely have my hair done professionally; usually I do it myself, which means either a blunt, easy cut (if I’m ambitious) or a ho-hum parted down the center boring 1970s look.

I did have my hair done by a real hairdresser back in March (you might remember that post), but it’s expensive, and my hair was getting boring and lifeless again (and worse, frizzes in the high humidity, so I told her to be my guest and have at it.

She used a color called Soft Black Violet in the deepest layer of hair(near the scalp) and and after letting that sit about 20 minutes (rather than 40 like the box said–I didn’t want it BLACK because I remember about 20 years ago when I dyed my hair jet black and I looked exactly like Morticia from The Addams Family, with my pale, almost redhead type of skin crashing into the blue-black of my hair like a cargo of black and white linoleum floor tiles after a truck explosion.

I asked her how much gray hair she could see (I have no gray where I can see it in the mirror). She told me just a little in the deep layer near my neckline in the back.

“That’s it?” I marveled. One thing my family did right with me was give me good genes. I hate sounding narcissistic, but I always thought I looked pretty good. Most other people did too. Hardly anyone on either my mother’s or my father’s side looked anywhere near their real age (until age finally caught up with them, usually around 70 or 80).

“Yup,” my girl confirmed. Then, “Mom, you’re done. Wow, you look great!”

The result is a color a little deeper than strawberry blonde, but not really red either, sort of a dark mauve (the mauve must be from the “violet” in the haircolors’ name). My medium blonde hair on the top layer remained intact, and the effect makes my hair look thicker and with more 3-D depth.

The choice of color might seem a little eccentric for a woman my age, but I never pretended to be anything but a bit off the beaten path. Besides, my daughter picked it for me. It’s true, I’m not much of a risk taker in much of anything, but when it comes to doing weird stuff to my hair, well…

“Bring it on!”

It will always grow out if you hate it.

Here are the final results, after the blow dry and the hair straightening my daughter did. I think I just saved about $80.00.

One last thing that made everything perfect. Here’s the song we cranked up and sang at full volume so it reverberated against the white ceramic tiles that cover most of the bathroom walls. It’s one of her favorite songs ever and it’s grown on me too.

In spite of our differences…

Posted on June 14, 2016 by luckyotter

My dad wasn’t perfect and I don’t idealize him or his memory. Lord knows, he wasn’t a great father. In fact, he could be a pretty lousy father and he even admitted it later on. But I loved my dad. Deeply. He was my rock, even though he could erupt at any moment like a volcano. And I still love him, no matter what kind of “baggage” we had together.

My dad wasn’t crazy about Catholics, even though he married a lapsed Catholic woman (my mother). I was sent to a Catholic school starting in 5th grade, for two reasons–the first one being that the public schools in my area weren’t very good and I’d get a better education at a Catholic school (Catholic schools are notorious for providing an excellent education and they do value a well-rounded worldview). The second reason was because I was being bullied in the local public school.

In my Catholic school, I found a refuge away from the dysfunction at home. I loved my school, and I loved the Friday masses, even though I was not allowed to participate in Communion. It sometimes felt like my real home. The nuns there took me under their wing. I thought they were angels and (except for one of two of them who could be mean) I was always in awe of their kindness and compassion. I loved the quiet and peaceful way they moved. I loved their softness. I loved the way they seemed not quite of this world. These were the qualities I was starving for, coming from a home full of anger, chaos and sharp edges.

Because of my positive introduction to Catholicism, I was always attracted to it, in spite of not agreeing with all of its doctrine. The Church has changed a lot over the years, since Vatican II, and embraces science rather than denies it. Science, too, is about the truth. I feel that the Catholic church is the “thinking person’s Christianity.” Of course, I know it’s not the only one. I know denomination doesn’t matter; it’s a matter of personal preference. I love the liturgy and the history and the mystery of Catholicism. But that’s just me.

I do have issues with their stance on abortion, birth control, women in the priesthood, and homosexuality. But these things don’t affect me directly. I believe with all my heart that the Communion wafer is not just symbolic. Every time I partake of the communion wafer, I feel filled with the Holy Spirit and know this is Jesus’ gift to his people.

In April of 2015, after nearly a year of preparatory classes (RCIA), I became a Catholic during the Easter vigil mass. My father, in spite of his misgivings about the Catholic church, gave me this Benedictine Crucifix, which hangs in my room across from my bed, so Jesus is always the first thing I see when I wake up.

Thank you, God, for giving me my new faith, and please help strengthen me in that faith, especially now when I’m in so much turmoil. And thank you for my Dad, who although we had our issues, was able to put aside his prejudices and give me such a beautiful gift from the heart.

22 things loving families don’t do.

Posted on June 12, 2016 by luckyotter

They don’t favor one child over another.
They don’t give their children “mixed” or conflicting messages.
They don’t teach their children that only material things or financial success have value and denigrate qualities like compassion, empathy, and love as “weaknesses.”
They don’t disinherit their own children. If an adult child is irresponsible with finances, they set up a trust or distribute it as income or through someone else who is trustworthy. But they don’t disown. That’s nothing but a slap in the face.
They don’t reward a child and then punish them for the same thing later.
They don’t threaten a child with “reform school,” being given up for adoption, etc.
They don’t squelch, punish or discourage the honest expression of emotion, even if it’s negative.
They don’t belittle a child’s talents or accomplishments
They don’t tell their child they are “perfect,” especially for things they didn’t have to work toward (looks, intelligence, etc.)
They never tell their child they are a “loser,” “will never accomplish anything,” are “hopeless,” “crazy,” “made bad life choices,” etc.
They don’t listen to a child or adult child’s difficulty in some life situation and then tell them or imply that it’s all their own fault they got into that situation.
They don’t tell an adult child they don’t have time to listen to their problems.
They don’t judge you and tell you you brought those problems on yourself.
They will always be there for you when you need them. Even adults sometimes need the support of their families (emotional or financial) when life goes badly. Families are forever, or they should be.
They don’t blame you for not being successful in life if they never provided the emotional and financial resources for you to ever become successful.
They forgive. They don’t hold grudges.
There are always second chances.
They don’t badmouth you to other relatives, especially where there is no chance of you being able to defend yourself.
They don’t tell you to check into a shelter or a convent when you are threatened with homelessness (that actually happened to me), ESPECIALLY when there are children involved.
They don’t demean and belittle the poor in front of you, saying things like “the poor make their own choices and they deserve their poverty” when they know YOU are poor and there is no intention to give you a hand up.
They don’t send commercialized, phony platitudes about positive thinking such as “inspirational” cards and memes (of the sort that appear in office cubicles) if there is no intention of trying to offer help to a child in any other way.
They don’t throw or give away family mementos and pictures that may mean something to a child or can make an adult child still feel a sense of rootedness. I have reason to believe my mother threw away all the old family photos of me and other things that meant something to me when I was young.

On losing my dad.

Posted on June 9, 2016 by luckyotter

Me and my father, Summer 1983, Dallas, Texas.

I’ve experienced a strange array of emotions since my father’s death on Monday, June 6th. To be more accurate, I haven’t felt too much emotion at all. I used this event to take two days off from work, but not really to grieve, just to reminisce and remember the good times my father and I had together. And yes, there were many good times.

I know the things I’ve written about my parents in this blog haven’t been too flattering, but that’s because of the subject matter of this blog. Essentially, I write it for myself and nobody else. I feel no shame in saying the things I have said, none of which were untrue. And I never identified them or used any real names. I can’t deny they simply were were not very good parents, but for this post, I’ll just leave it at that.

In recent years, my father and I haven’t been very close. Although my father was most likely a Covert Narcissist or a Borderline, he was not a malignant anything so there was no need to ever go No Contact with him. On many levels we were able to communicate and understand each other. I always felt deep down that he really did love me, or at least tried his hardest to love me. As a young girl and teenager I worshipped him (although there were times I grew very angry too, and would tell him I hated him).

During my teens and even into my early 20’s, we always got together on the weekends and it was always a fun, exciting event, no matter what we decided to do. He’d take me out to my favorite restaurants and let me order as much as I wanted to eat, without criticizing my weight or making me feel self conscious. He took me on road trips and all kinds of day-long excursions. I always looked forward to our time together and always felt he took a genuine interest in the things going on in my life. I felt comfortable talking to him about my problems and concerns, when I never felt that way talking to my mom. I knew my dad was far from an ideal parent in many ways, but I did feel his love for me.

In recent years, geographic distance, lack of funds to travel, my dad’s progressive Parkinson’s which made movement and speech increasingly difficult, and personal differences have caused us to drift apart. He remarried in the early ’80s, and his current wife hasn’t always approved of my lifestyle or values. The last time we spent any time together was in 2005. That is a very long time–a long enough time that any intensity of feeling you may once have had begins to fade, even if it’s your own parent.

I knew he hadn’t been well for a long time, due to his Parkinson’s and other problems. But my father tried to take good care of himself, and his extremely devoted wife did everything she could to help him. My dad always, always carried a positive, upbeat, can-do attitude about life and aging. I spoke to him on the phone every month or so (sometimes a bit less) and no matter what else was going on, my dad always sounded happy and contented, and always happy to hear from me.

When I got the phone call from my mother on Friday, I knew his time on earth was coming to a close. His kidneys began to shut down on Saturday and he was admitted to hospice, where he died on Monday. When the call came, I wasn’t surprised. I thanked my mother for letting me know, hung up and remember just feeling sort of…nothing. I went about my usual activities, albeit with a bit of wistfulness. I did spend some time thinking about him, and looking at old photographs of the two of us. But I didn’t feel anything resembling grief or bereavement, and I didn’t cry.

I went online to find out if this lack of feeling was normal. I felt a lot of guilt for not feeling more emotion, for not being able to cry. I read about Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief. The first stage is Denial, which is often accompanied by emotional numbness, similar to PTSD. But I wasn’t in denial! I knew my father was dead. I just wasn’t particularly upset about it. Of course I wasn’t happy about it; I just didn’t feel too much of anything. I thought there must be something terribly wrong with me. When I went back to work this morning everyone wanted to hug me and comfort me which was strange because I just felt…normal. I just wanted to get busy working.

Tonight I think I feel a little more emotion. Not exactly sad, but wistful and nostalgic which is close enough. I rummaged in my closets for more photos, and I found the lovely one of us taken at his home in the summer of 1983 when he was still active and in great health and I was young and sporting big 1980’s hair.

I feel grateful for the good times my dad and I shared. The times we laughed together, watched a movie, ate a delicious meal, took a long drive, and had a heart to heart talk (yes, we did even have those sometimes). We had the same offbeat sense of humor and love of the random, shared a fascination with geography and science, and loved all sorts of word games. No, he wasn’t a great parent, but he wasn’t the worst either, and he was aware he wasn’t a good parent when I was a kid. We had love for each other though, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.

Maybe I’m unable to cry because my C-PTSD makes it so difficult for me to access and feel my emotions anyway. I’m going to talk about this in therapy tomorrow.
Or maybe it’s just normal to feel an emotional distance when you and your parent haven’t seen each other in 11 years, and is really nothing to worry about. I feel some regret that I didn’t have the opportunity to see him one last time before he died.

Dad, I am thinking of you, and I know one day I’ll see you again.

My dad…update.

Posted on June 6, 2016 by luckyotter

I just received an email from my dad’s wife (my stepmother). Here is part of it:

Everything seems to be same with a few add-ons. The urine output is almost nonexistent
which means his kidneys are shutting down. I also asked why his tongue is hanging like
that and the nurse said that he is not able to hold his reflexes.
Yesterday, after I had talked to all three of you, I told ____ what you wanted me to convey
to him and then asked him to squeeze my hand if he heard me and, he did. I have not
had that kind of response from him since.

Please keep both of them in your prayers. Thank you.

Better late than never.

Posted on April 23, 2016 by luckyotter

Relaxing in the kava bar.

Today was fun. You may remember, my daughter’s birthday was last Tuesday and we were supposed to meet, but she was sick and the day was a total bust. Last weekend she was working, so we made her “birthday” today. I had planned to drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway and take her for lunch at a restaurant I know up there, but the weather looked iffy, so I took her to the same little inexpensive eatery I went to with my son early this month (appropriately named The Lucky Otter–yes, this blog is named after it) and we sat outside and enjoyed watching the people walking along Haywood Road.

We were stuffed, so we decided to walk to a nearby kava bar. My daughter goes there a lot; I have never been to one before, or had kava before. For those of you who aren’t familiar with kava, it’s a very bad tasting herbal drink that has a relaxing effect (it doesn’t make you high though and it’s perfectly legal). Their information sheet called it “the anti-coffee.” Here is more information about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava

The kava, which is gray-green and viscous-looking, was ladled out of a somewhat unsanitary looking punch bowl into a plastic cup. It was served with another plastic cup of orange juice as a chaser, to cleanse the palate because it tastes nasty. I was a little afraid to try it because it looked so gross and was supposed to taste terrible, but it actually wasn’t too bad. It’s definitely strange tasting, but not really gross. I can’t quite explain the taste but if dirt came as a liquid, that’s what it would come close to. It leaves your mouth feeling slightly numb, but soon you feel relaxed.

Kava on the right; orange juice chaser on the left.

The kava bar was interesting too. Very rustic, lots of hippies and hipsters sat around on laptops, writing, or playing on their phones. Rock music played at a low volume in the background. Local art hung on the walls and sofas and recliners lined the room. We sat for awhile, drinking our kavas and just watching the sights. Afterwards, we just walked around and stopped by a small yard sale, where they were trying to give away stuff because they were closing up shop for the day. I got a new purse and pullover sweater–for free!

Inside the kava bar.

I got this for nothing!

My daughter had to get to work, so we walked back to the car and called it a day. I’m glad we got to spend some time together.

A reflective trip into our common past.

Posted on April 7, 2016 by luckyotter

My son said he’s spent today feeling reflective and wanted to revisit some of the places he knew as a child, including the home he and his sister were raised in by us. Compared to the last two days, which were fun and active, today was quieter and more reflective for both of us. It was also very healing and put a lot of perspective onto things.

So we took the 20 minute drive to where he grew up, parked the car and just walked around looking (without trying to look too suspicious!) Our old house has fallen into disrepair (I don’t know if anyone lives there) but back in 1993, just after we purchased the house, we planted some trees.

We had this nutty idea of importing 30 tiny Canadian redwood seedlings from a company in British Columbia, Canada. I remember we had to wait a while for them even after they shipped, because first they had to pass some kind of inspection in Florida to make sure they were free of aphids and other microbes that they might have been carrying from outside the US. I remember when we finally got the seedlings, I had to keep them in a tub for a few days to moisten and soften their roots before planting them.

Redwoods are not indigenous to North Carolina, but we did some researchh and found out the moderate humid climate here is actually conducive to their growth, which is why we took a chance on them. Over the years most of the seedlings died, and when the house was finally sold (well, actually foreclosed on) in 2003, the next owners chopped most of the surviving redwoods (about 5 or 6 left) down. I remember being so enraged by that. At the time the doomed young redwoods were about 8-10 feet tall.

But there is one last survivor, a beautiful, majestic redwood that is now 30-40 feet tall and looks very much at home among the small grove of other large trees that were either non-existent or very small when we bought the house in 1993. Here is that redwood as it is today. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that twenty-three years ago it sat in my tub upon arrival encased in a root ball with a plastic bag tied around it.

redwood2

redwood1

redwood_bark

Closeup of the bark–beautiful, red and burled.

I got photos of the rest of the trees (the ones I was able to–I didn’t want to be caught trespassing), all so much bigger than they were in 1993 or even ten years ago. Here’s a cherry tree that was very tiny, barely more than a sapling, but is now a huge shady tree big and sturdy enough to support a tire swing. When my kids were little, the tree was too small to climb, but they used to pick caterpillars from its bark and collect them in a bucket (to be released outside later, as per my instructions.)

cherry_tree cherry_tree2

View of the property as it is today. It was quite bare and almost treeless when we moved in. You can see part of the house on the right. The pink magnolia directly to the left of the house I planted there as a tiny seedling in 1996.

Here is a closeup of the magnolia:

magnoliatree

One of the many pine trees showing off its huge sturdy trunk:

pine_tree

The tree pictured below was the only one that was already big when we purchased the property in 1993, but it’s at least twice the size now and wide enough at the bottom to make a perfect fort for kids to play under. Hell, I used to go sit under that tree to escape from my then husband! Sometimes I even read books under there.

pine_tree2

2 views of the remains of our old outbuilding. The roof has collapsed. My son and I are both attracted to the eerie beauty of abandoned buildings. Seeing the shed we used to store our gardening equipment and other things in was a little bittersweet. I didn’t dare go inside.

abandoned_shed1 abandoned_shed2

A nearby “bamboo forest” growing behind the elementary school my kids attended. It wasn’t there then. Bamboo may be an invasive weed in this country because of its lack of natural enemies to keep its growth in check, but I find it beautiful. I find the same to be true of Kudzu, which also grows here.

bamboo_grove1 bamboo_grove2

Finally, a view of our old neighborhood from the top of a nearby hill:

hightop_view

My son is flying back to Florida in the wee hours this morning. I’m going to miss him, but I feel so happy we had such an amazing time together.

Tomorrow I’ll be able to return to blogging as usual. I’ve been so busy the past few days that keeping up has been difficult. I didn’t even have time to post a Monday Melody, but I promise there will be a new one this coming Monday.

A very busy day.

Posted on April 6, 2016 by luckyotter

I got off early today and my son, his friend Ryan and my daughter came by to pick me up, and we drove out to the WNC Nature Center in East Asheville (Oteen). Four of us; four cameras popping. The day was a bit cool but otherwise perfect, and the animals had just woken up from their daytime meal and were just beginning to become active (though the cougars still seemed a bit lazy).

I took a lot of pictures, and they are in no particular order because there are just so many. So I just peppered them throughout this post. I haven’t given them captions either. I also included some photos ofmy daughter, son, myself and Ryan. The “prism” photos of my daughter and me were a total accident–I’m not sure how that happened but they are cool so I’m posting them.

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO SEE FULL SIZE

We wanted to see the snake and reptile house too, but they were closed for renovations. We probably spent a good two hours there. We saw all sorts of animals indigenous to this area–otters (pretty much everyone’s favorite), giant turtles, birds of prey (I got photos of the owls), wolves (they were still sleeping and are hard to see because of their camouflage), coyotes (one came right up to the fence), foxes (they were very hard to see and too far away to get good photos), cougars (the adorable male and female pair was cuddled up together), and of course the petting zoo animals (goats and donkeys). We also saw deer and a caterpillar web. I got a pretty good closeup of that. I wanted to see the black bears in action but they seemed to be AWOL today.

wnc_naturecenter

We spent about two hours at the Nature Center, and then we all went to eat at O’Charley’s. My son’s friend Casey joined us. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life. After our early dinner, we caught the 7 PM showing of Zootopia. I’m finally home, and exhausted, but in a good way. Tomorrow’s his last day here. We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet but it will probably be a less active day.

I not only love my son, I like him too.

Posted on April 5, 2016 by luckyotter

It’s entirely possible to love your child, but not particularly like them, or at least not like the things they do. But my son has grown into an outstanding young man, and not only that, we share many of the same interests. He’s like a more extroverted version of me. We have the same sense of humor and basic philosophies about life. If I just met him on the street, I could see us being friends.

I was annoyed at work because it was taking too long to get done, and I wanted to be off early to spend some time with my son since he’s only here until Thursday morning. He kept himself busy while I was working though. He met up with his sister, who loaned him her car while he’s here (he didn’t have enough to rent a car) and they went to the mall, and then went back to her place and they hung out with her boyfriend (they are back together, sort of) and their dad (my ex). Apparently my ex mellowed quite a bit as far as our son goes, and I was happy to hear they had a nice conversation.

I finally arrived home about 3:30 and didn’t expect to see my son until late tonight, but within the hour he came in the house and announced, “I’m taking you out for a ride.” Okay, I thought. I put away the laptop and changed my clothes, and we got in the car and drove first to his old high school, which he wanted to see. He said it was weird seeing the old sights after so many years (he hasn’t lived here since 2010)

Then we drove into the funky, arty part of town which is filled with old hippies and young hipsters, musicians, consignment shops, unique hole in the wall stores of all kinds, craft beer bars (we live in the craft beer capital of the USA), and many little eateries, most which have areas where you can dine outside.

We walked up and down Haywood Road and just looked at the people and the shops. There’s always so much to see there. He took a lot of pictures using his new 35mm camera. He got a really cool photo of an old abandoned white church. Like me, he’s fascinated by abandoned buildings (I wonder what that says about us).

We finally were hungry, and decided to eat at one of the little eateries, a Tex-Mex and seafood establishment called, of all things, The Lucky Otter (which is the restaurant that inspired the name of this blog). I mean, I just had to eat there, having named my blog after it. I even got a picture of the sign!

We sat outdoors as it grew dark. I had a bowl of chili with cheese and sour cream and a locally made orange-vanilla soda. He got a veggie-seafood burrito and the same kind of soda. The food was cheap and good, and a friendly black and white puppy from the next table came up to visit us. The puppy was adorable but hard to get a good picture of because she wouldn’t stop moving. I can’t get over the pale pink lacy bow tied on the back of her collar! I also got a couple of pictures of my son.

Later we stopped in a convenience store he used to frequent when he was about 12 or 13 and it’s completely changed–the laundromat that used to be there now sells craft beer and the design is much more up to date and includes organic foods along with the usual chips, candy and soda. Both of us are addicted to a locally made drink called Dr. Enuf, which is made in Tennessee and apparently can only be found in this area. We like the cherry kind with the ginseng and purchased one for each of us.

We drove back to my house where we looked through old picture albums and I found a box of his old CDs from the early 2000s filled with the nu-metal he used to love so much. I had no idea I still had them, and it was like Christmas morning for him as he looked at all these old CDs, which he’s bringing back to Florida with him.

Two years apart is way too long. I’m off for a week in July and we decided I’m going to drive down to Florida to see him and stay in his apartment while there, so my only expenses will be gas to get there and back, and a little spending money.

It was a good day. Tomorrow he’s taking his sister and me to see the animated film Zootopia.

One last thing: I received my copy of Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker, which my good friend Linda Lee sent me as a gift. Thank you, Linda!