Life of Wry

That big red thing? Peter’s slide. It attached to the two-story, redwood play structure Jim built in 2002, when Peter was 4. The play structure has been a central feature of our backyard for 14 years, especially with the bold, red slide.  But its time has come.

Actually, we are going to retain the structure itself–repurposing it into a garden shed with a nice, shaded deck on top!  But the slide’s going.

Freecycle, anyone?

Making the LAX scene this moment. Maybe I should say I am chil-LAX-ing at the airport.

The Southwest terminal feels like a busy downtown bus station; it’s teeming with people, the PA system is a non-stop, competing set of over-modulated announcements about canceled flights, changing gates, missing people. It’s SRO and the floors are covered with sprawling people and their junk. Best so far, sitting among the UCLA track team on its way to Texas for a spring break relay meet.  A buffer, studlier gaggle of kids you’ll never find. I actually had a couple rushes of adrenaline, as I guess my neuro-transmitters still remember the path to pre-race anxiety and fire at the mere sight of track uniform.  Heh.

Anyway, returning to Davis today. Yay. I do feel the trips to see my mom are important and enjoy the time with her, but am glad to be returning home.  Yesterday, we were driving back to PV, after having lunch with Aunt Ellie, Uncle Bud, John, and Alexis at Legends. We were on the Vincent Thomas Bridge, high above the gargantuan LA Harbor. The thought bubble over my head said, Oh boy, just one more day, then I am going home! My mom’s thought bubble, expressed through her sad, resigned eyes, was, Oh shit, only one more day, then Kari goes home.  I feel bad about this. No, I feel terrible and helpless about this.  I feel so, so sorry for my mom these days. It kills me. Her loneliness hurts. Her anxiety is overwhelming. Her immobility, innumerable losses, frustrations, fear, anger… it all just kills me.  I don’t know what to do about it. I wish she’d make some different choices, like moving into an assisted living complex or a senior housing community of some sort, but she is so stubborn. She says no before she really allows herself to calmly consider the pros and cons. Part of me gets it… she loves her house, loves the quiet, loves the ocean and trees…. but I also think she’s cutting herself off from life. I guess I’ll write more on that later.

In the meantime… some parting shots.

Here is the first house I babysat at when I was about 11 or 12. The Walters. I babysat twins Christa and Linda, who were five, on a regular schedule for an entire summer, and then occasionally thereafter.  I still just love this house… down at the end of the block:

Here is a house down on Paseo del Campo. To me, it looks like Candyland.  This is only a portion of the guy’s yard, but it was all like this.. just went on and on.  I guess he likes succulents, huh?

After living on Via La Selva my whole life, looking, as we did, at Skunk Hill from our driveway forever, I finally actually hiked up the darn thing yesterday. I remember once when I was a kid, standing on the driveway, half in awe and half scared out of my wits as a fire raged on Skunk Hill. My dad had one of my brothers up on the roof with a hose to keep our shake roof moist (most of our neighbors had the ubiquitous red tile roof, but our house was more ranch style than mediterranean… so wet down our roof we did.

So, I headed down the street, across both directions of PV Drive North and the bridle path, and across Paseo del Campo to a trail which leads down to a dry creek (that drains into Pee Water Springs, and eventually spills out on the rocks below Malaga Cove School) and up the hill.

First thing to note is how sandy the soil is around these parts.  Like walking on the beach, man.

In our area, all the soil’s like that. It’s funny to imagine anything growing in this. My mom’s flower beds–the same.

Here’s that creek bed:

Then up. Here’s what it looks like at the top.

On one end is the PV golf course, on the other end is the Malaga Cove Plaza. From one end to the other can’t be more than a half mile, if that. And maybe it’s a quarter mile wide. Will ask Jim to google earth it. The two residential streets that surround it are PdC and Via Campesina.

It’s not like it’s exquisite hiking or anything, but considering I lived about a quarter mile from Skunk Hill–as the crow flies–it’s kind of amazing I never explored it. So I was a little excited, like, Whoa, who knew!  Seriously, a creek?

As for flora and fauna.. not much. I imagine skunks and peacocks roam, lots of rodents probably.  I saw what I thought was poison oak, but not likely.  Just lots of eucalyptus, some sort of scrub and lots of beetles. People walk their dogs up there, but I didn’t see anyone. Worth a return for the view back to my old neighborhood!  I always forget what a hill we lived on… for living in “the flats.”

One more shot from the mom visit… I got a kick out of her clothing choice so snuck this pic while she was watching her current favorite women’s player (Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland) lose her match in the Sony Open.

Let’s see…. today… so much.  Well, it’s late and I need to wrap here, so how about this:

Wonderful nephew, his adorable and quirky wife, and Ina (mi mama, John’s grandma) in the middle, standing outside John & Alexis’ sweet little craftsman bungalow behind a white picket fence in Long Beach:

Around the corner (and, down Ocean Ave a bit), one of my favorite building in downtown Long Beach…

If I had more time to write, I’d comment on thought bubbles, Skunk Hill, gin (rummy), Legends, 90 year olds, an elusive Vincent Thomas Bridge, the shipyards, wounds.

Especially wounds.

As seen in the sky above Trader Joe’s today.

For about five years, I’ve committed to visiting my mom as close to every month as I can. The increase in frequency of my trips south corresponds to my mom’s open heart surgery (December 2009).  I would guess that this has averaged out to about 8-10 trips per year. Before that, visits were more like 2 times a year and happened around holidays or other special occasions.  

The visits are a mixed bag. I like to visit her–she really appreciates it–and I have to say it’s allowed us to get to a different place in our relationship, mostly for the better.  I’ve learned more of her story and have softened on a lot of my judgments. It’s more time than we’ve ever shared together as adults, so I’ve gotten to know her better and in a different way.

And I’ve also gotten a closer look at the dynamics of the relationship we had when I was growing up, and of her ways of parenting that shaped me…not all of it is good (certainly). It would be extremely useful if we could talk about it more, but Petersons are not so great at going too far below the surface, and direct and honest communication were not our way, then or now, so it’s not like these visits provide a lot of rich source material. Plus, I get a lot of the same stories over and over–rare do we cover new territory–so the takeaways are few and far between.

The visits are more about doing the things we enjoy together and far less about unraveling my childhood, or understanding my mom better.  Fun is good, especially if you’re a lonely 85 year old woman. This means playing lots of gin rummy, going to movies, taking walks at the beach, shopping, and lots of focus on meals–the planning, shopping and preparing thereof.  We have some taking-care-of-business time–like doctors or house stuff–but that’s low on the totem pole. My mom is very defensive of this daughter time, so we limit other family get togethers, too.  I usually see a brother or two, on occasion a nephew, and, rarer still, an aunt or uncle.

I sort of hold a grudge about certain aspects of my childhood, which spills out in the form of cynicism or sarcasm or anger toward my mom, and that used to manifest in some doozy battles, tantamount to bullying on my part because she’s pretty helpless when it comes to drawing those cause and effect lines, and really wanted to ignore those realities altogether. She never really honestly looked at the parenting issues, but she does get that shit happened and just feels bad. She really doesn’t want to look too closely. She’s quick to chalk it up to 1) nobody ever taught her how to parent, 2) she was effectively a single parent of four, while my dad was 99% focused on his work and galavanting all over the place on one business trip after another, and 3) parenting was different then. And all of that is true.  I do feel horribly sorry for the realities of her experience as a wife and a parent in the 60s and 70s married to a jet-setting, work-obsessed, absentee partner (I use the term partner ironically).  So I used to pick fights with her, but I don’t anymore.  So glad about that.  I think my negative thoughts, but keep them to myself, mostly. 

Still, as easy, routine, appreciated and even fun as the visits are, they are hard.  The hardest part is being gone from home.  More and more, I resent having to be gone. It sounds selfish, I know, but I don’t want to keep interrupting my life. I miss out on stuff at home that I don’t want to miss out on, I disrupt eating and exercise routines, and I just miss my family.  

Okay…. enough. It’s well after midnight, I don’t want to complain. 

One thing I do really, really enjoy (besides my mom, because I do love her and she is good to spend time with), is the time I spend on walks in the neighborhood and time spent at the beach. I’m always on nostalgia overload when I’m here.  It is insanely beautiful. It smells fantastic (eucalyptus, ocean), the air is cool and fresh, and it’s very quiet among the trees.  So, here are a couple shots along one of my favorite walking routes…. this one goes down Paseo del Campo which borders the PV Golf Course. If it weren’t so monochromatic this morning, you’d be able to see the ocean. Note: no curbs and gutters.. 

Every time I come down to Palos Verdes, I end up spending a lot of time on or near the beach, specifically the area my mom calls, “my little stretch of heaven,” a three-mile length of shoreline called the Esplanade in Redondo Beach.  It’s just down the hill from where she lives, and while not a PV beach, it’s got a smooth, even, broad sidewalk on which to walk up top, and a forever strand of smooth concrete to walk on at sand level.  And, while it’s not a PV beach, it has a stunning view of the peninsula which I can just never, never get enough of.

Whenever I come down here, I take copious numbers of pictures of said beach.  It is beautiful.

Today, however, I’m sharing a picture of another regular haunt, the Bluewater Grill, a very basic, very reliable fish house.  We go every time I’m down because it serves hot sourdough bread and butter the minute you sit down, it prepares a dozen or two kinds of fresh fish in a half a dozen ways with sides that are just perfect (you get two), wine and coffee, and it doesn’t get better.  Nice views of the King Harbor marina, too.

Your basic fish house:

Mom, using her magnifying glass to suss out the menu.

And, okay, the beach.  We took a long walk after dinner and watched the sunset.  Not bad.

Today was the big Raley Field game. Annual event. It’s a big deal for the Davis High baseball guys who get to play on a AAA field maintained just like a major league ball field (which it is). The grass is lush and carefully manicured, the infield surface is flawless, the dugouts are huge and beautifully equipped. It doesn’t come cheap–each family has to pony up $200, but it comes in the form of vouchers for Rivercats games, so it’s a win-win. DHS traditionally square off against Jesuit, a private school in Sac that always has a top flight team.

And.. the weather was exceptional.

Turned out to be a good game. Jesuit got an early 3-0 lead in the first, Davis put up 2 in the third, Jesuit scored another in the fourth, and going into the final seventh, Davis trailed by 2.  We managed to tie the game with an exciting two-run double by one of our two freshman players, but in the bottom of the inning, with bases loaded, Jesuit hit a high fly to right. The runner on third tagged up and scored: Walk-off sacrifice, final score 5-4.  Close, exciting.. couldn’t ask for more.  Interestingly, the varsity also took a 4-4 tie into the 7th. They gave them an extra inning to settle things, but nobody scored, and their game ended in a tie.

Here are a few shots of my favorite player of all time:

Squaring up for his first at-bat, which would be a ground-out to third:

Coming in to take a throw at second, which he turned into a double play, wOOt wOOt:

At his second at-bat, he walked, then moved to second on a ground-out by Solly, so here he is hanging at second, waiting for a chance to advance to third (which did not happen):

So, you know that glass that Peter broke a few nights ago, the one that shattered when it hit his bathroom floor at about one in the morning? The one we told him to clean up really well, because when glass shatters like that, it sprays the tiniest of shards in all directions, which then get spread around…  and, well… you know where this is going. 

It’s a mine field out there. 

Jim wears crocs in the house (house-only crocs, which…. I think most men would consider crocs suitable for house-only-wear) so has not run into any glass.  But Peter and I…. we’ve both been victimized (and in my case traumatized) by surprise glass.

Last night, for example, it’s about 1:00 (again with the 1:00am!), I’m brushing my teeth, and Peter knocks on the bathroom door. He’d stepped on a piece of glass in the kitchen and wanted to come in to get the tweezers. I watched him as he carefully extracted the glass and as he went to show me how tiny it was and how very sharp, he dropped it on the bathroom floor.  We spent about five minutes looking for it (like I need a piece of broken glass on my bathroom floor), but didn’t find it, so gave up so he could get to bed.  

A couple minutes later, he returns saying he stepped on another piece of glass, this time in the hall.  (I’m telling you, these things spread around.)  Again, he carefully removed it, seeming pretty casual about the whole thing. Off to bed he went. 

And this evening, I stepped on a piece. Mine was in the hall. Peter was kind enough to work on it (it was in a hard-to-reach spot), the least he could do, but without success.  At least I think it was still in there.. he never saw it come out and I wasn’t willing to stand on it for fear of pushing it in farther. Gave up for a couple hours.

Then Jim took a stab (literally).

I’m not sure if he got it, or Peter did earlier..Peter definitely drew more blood. In any case, it seems gone. 

I’m not a great patient. All I’m going to say about that. This amuses Peter, no end.

I’m not sure why nobody around here has taken a vacuum to this situation.. maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m not a slipper person, but I am wearing them now.

Peter is on his own.    

Well, I didn’t take a picture of Maia and Bernie, but that’s where we were going when these emerald hills whizzed by–to see Maia and her new boyfriend Bernie. 

Maia the champ: Here from Washington, D.C. to compete in the Pan American Games, won a couple of gold medals in her belt level in her weight class in Brazilian jujitsu. She heads home in a couple of days. Wonderful to see her. Wonderful to meet her sweetie.  

Back to the hills: They maybe shoulda turned green sometime over the winter… if rainfall had been what it was supposed to have been. But it wasn’t.  

Enjoying them now!   

For years (and years and years), I have walked the arboretum.  Routinely, twice a week. Sometimes more.  I would have thought I’d seen it all.

But I discovered a new place (thanks, Carrie and Bodie).

It’s a trail that parallels the creek on the south side and heads westward until it merges with the regular old paved path at the western-most turnaround point. We picked it up just beyond the Mondavi.  It’s not all outstanding, but parts are, like this:

It’s a bit more dog-friendly… Bodie wandered off-leash, happy as could be. I think it’s all university property. I-80 is humming by, about 200-300 yards to the left in this picture.

I just realized… this alternative route might come in handy during sprinkler season when it’s hard to get from one end of the arboretum to the other without getting doused in water. Hmmmm…