the scrounger

Do any of you remember the movie "The Great Escape"? I totally relate to the James Garner character, the scrounger. He could find and liberate almost anything. He could acquire some shoe laces, a crisps tin, a fountain pen cartridge and end up with a pinhole camera, forged papers and a shiny hat. I am inspired by this!! While this behavior is no longer culturally acceptable I want to be able to do that. But I have found that as I work on creating the little farm that people (okay, Mac) wants to push me into a different mold. There's the slap across the chops, " Wake up! and smell the half caf, two shots, tall, caramel latte with whipped cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg" While that might be a nice vacation.... that's not the girl I am every day. I just can't seem to be like everyone else and my lifestyle is starting to represent that.

Here's an example... It's like we are being presented with two possible realities, neither practical nor sustainable. One is the TV program "Survivor" and the other is "This Old House". In Survivor the one thing we don't see, oddly enough, is any attempt to survive. Instead, there is a lot of challenges that are suppose to somehow simulate surviving. Then whoever wins the challenge has everyone else trying to stab them in the back. This strikes me as being more like Cannibalism 101. What's missing are the Armani suits and whitened teeth that have also been sharpened. This is a very disturbed low end.

The other extreme emulated in This Old House is that anybody can take an old house and end up living the life styles of the rich and famous. What started out as an interesting show on architecture and restoration has become a show about grasping for opulence. It is the template for conspicuous consumption. Despite what we are told, neither of these programs reflect reality.

My reality is that I'm dangling somewhere in the middle. I want to live simply and sustainably. I want enough to survive on comfortably for myself and my children. I don't want anybody stabbing me in the back or undermining my effort, and if they leave me alone.... I promise to leave them alone. I've gone a long ways in building my own house. I designed and implemented the way the floor joists were installed. I drew the floor plans for our little house. I have been told at almost every step of the way that I have over built it. But then, I want it to survive.

On the luxury side, in our little 24x34 house, we have gotten in one full bath and a 3/4's bath, a great room, one enclosed bedroom downstairs, an open loft guest bedroom and seating area, a small kitchen with ample (for me) counter space. The counter is marble tile, not gargantuan slab o' rock. The cabinets are unfinished stock cabinets that I configured, sanded and stained myself. It's comfortable without becoming burdensome.

Then there is the scrounging... dare, I call it reality? I'll have to do a fair amount to get the farm working properly. I need more fence, and fencing is expensive. I need some fruit trees, so I will be learning to graft. I want an outdoor fireplace so I will be doing a little rock hound work in the ravines in the woods. The run in sheds for the horses will be built out of hedge trees cut on the property. When the garden is finished there will be a rainwater catchment for watering plants and for a solar outdoor shower. Then I won't be tracking in mud and I will have a place to wash vegetables. There will also be an outdoor sawdust toilet. Come on! I'm 52! I'm not even going to TRY to run into the house every time I've had too much coffee. And you can bet your sweet Aunt Fannie that it WON'T be half caf, two shots, tall, caramel latte with whipped cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg!

louie

you're so lucky you don't have leukemia......

Overall, yesterday was a weird day. For one thing, for me being alone is very rare. Mac is always here. He is always first in my thoughts and for the first time in a very long time I could just think of something else. Considering that an asian lady bug walked across my desk with a dust bunny on it's back, got to the corner and then died; I kind of thought I should turn my attention to housecleaning.

So, I start my cleaning. As I make the list and am crossing things off I just keep getting angrier and angrier. I am mad about dishes. I am mad the kitchen is a mess. I am mad at the bathroom floor. Then it occurred to me ... it was safe. Well, to explain I'll give you an example. Horses have a response called a flight line. If something scares them, their response is to run. They will run so far then stop to see if the danger is still behind them.. to see if they are safe. Some horses may just jump, some it may be ten feet, for a hotter horse it may be a mile or ten miles. But somewhere or other the horse will stop and say,"Oh good, nothing is chasing me. I'll eat grass."

That was where I was at. Mac was safely back at school and I could finally have the moment to deal with the bad news. Finally, almost a year later. I have a flight line of sorts too. I don't break down during a catastrophe. I wait until I am clear and then I break down. So I recognized that I was going through the stages of grieving minus the ones that were no longer applicable, like denial, and playing lets make a deal with God. I was pretty much left with the rage and then later the resignation/grieving part.

I was just hitting grieving when I went to pick Mac up from school. Acquaintances had parked next to me. We chatted a little. Of course, it was about Mac, and then they said, "you're lucky you didn't have leukemia." What did that mean? I knew how it felt. It felt like I had just gotten slapped across the face. It felt like they had said I had RATHER it was you who had leukemia. Yes, if only just the worthless people would get leukemia and die! Maybe I am worthless now, but I haven't always been. I have an above average I.Q. , did all the crap that was suppose to mean something but it didn't, like "Who's Who Of American High School Students" and National Honor Society. I was the one whose high school counselor told them that their A.C.T. score was high enough that if I didn't go to college it would be a waste. He reiterated that I NEEDED to go to college. I didn't feel lucky when my Dad told me there was no money so I couldn't go to school. Despite that, I continued to send out applications and letters to request applications. Lucky me ... I didn't receive a response to any of them. But I was SMART. So surely someone would at least send me the application! Finally in desperation I sent an application to a community college. I should say my counselor sent it for me. And I had requested that the response also be sent to him. He wasn't happy about it. Mr. Good had taken me aside and told me that I had presence and verbal abilities and he had hoped I would choose to be a lawyer. At this point, I had been trying to apply for a year. I was losing faith. When visiting a four year college on a senior trip, the head of the art department had asked me to go there. He said he wanted to teach me. He had told me that he could spot them. The ones with the good sense of humor, the ones that could make it. Yes, lucky, lucky me ... I went to community college.... until I couldn't stand it any longer.

And when I got married and had kids, lucky me worked my butt off to make sure Mac got through school. Then his teaching job was such crap that it didn't make enough money to live on. So I continued working horrible jobs. I have done everything from foundry work to scrubbing toilets, and I did my best to make sure that the kids went to college. Since I couldn't go to school I tried to find information where ever it was to be had. I was a sponge. The engineer that wouldn't give me a permanent position with the Department of Transportation thought I did good work and that I had it in me to go to college and become an engineer myself. Lucky me... I'm so smart. I've gotten enough dings in the fender from the crud jobs I have worked that it really doesn't bear thinking about.

Lucky me, every time Mac was in the hospital I was with him for 24/7. I was sent away for several days once because I had gotten a cold sore. I was the one that twice ripped his breathing apparatus off his face when he was vomiting into the face mask as a result of the ICU Dr. having taken away his anti nausea drugs. I was the one that kept him from tearing out his picc line when he was reacting badly to one of his meds. I was the one that could get him to calm down and sleep when he was having hallucinations. I cleaned up more vomit, blood and , pardon me, shit then his nurses. Lucky me.

Lucky me that I didn't get leukemia. Like it was destined for my family and I was such a coward that I didn't man up and take the hit. I would have... If I had just known that's the way it worked. Of course, the school's insurance is such garbage that we can only afford to insure Mac. If I had gotten leukemia, I could be dead now, and Mac would have the life insurance money and be set up to marry a woman that would be his equal. Lucky me.

But now I'm in this other place, where my last surviving dream is dancing around me like a sparkling light. Just at my fingertips. Just out of reach. I can brush up against it but I can't grab it. I can't grab it yet. But I'm going to. I've worked so hard to keep Mac from dying and now, that's how hard I am going to work to make a life.

Oh and by the way, aren't we all so lucky we didn't join the navy and come home with monkey syphillus.

louie