I Collect Spores, Molds and Funguses.

This year, I vowed not to keep up with the cult of celebrity. I honestly feel it adds nothing to the value of life and, in fact, leads people down a dead end of low self-esteem (Why am I not famous? Where's my 15-minutes of fame?) and to doing stupid things to garner that fame (Watch this!) It's been hard, particularly when my schadenfreude kicks in at someone's public stupidity. If I was going to drag race down a street at 4 a.m., I certainly wouldn't do it in a residential neighborhood.

Today, however, there is one light gone out in the marquee that is celebrity. Harold Ramis died this morning. It doesn't seem possible. There are people we tend to think will be around forever and it is jarring to accept their mortality. It reminds us that we are mortal. I think Ramis' death is such a shock for a lot of us because he contributed in a big way to movies which are touchstones in American comedy; "National Lampoon's Animal House", "Caddyshack", "Stripes", "Groundhog Day", and "Ghostbusters". The comedy he created was not only slapstick but cerebral, full of sight gags as well as appealing to one's intellect. A good turn of a phrase, such as "Where do these stairs go? They go up," from "Ghostbusters" (One of my all-time favorite movie lines), is as appreciated as dropping 150 pounds of liquid marshmallow on a guy in a suit.

Ramis, as remembered by friends, colleagues and people whose paths crossed his but once, took to mentoring others, dispensing advice in a genial, friendly style, never getting upset at being asked the same questions over and over again. He will be remembered as much for the influence behind the scenes as he was for the few times he was in front of the camera. It's a shame, with the Academy Awards next Sunday, an event I don't care about beyond "she wore what", that the Academy chooses to ignore comedy in their awards. Ramis should have a golden statue on his mantle.

I think the ability to make us laugh is harder to pull off than drama. I would hope that Ramis is making God laugh right now.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Contemplating Change

Tomorrow is an anniversary, a major anniversary. I might not get to blog tomorrow because this gigantic project in the city requires that I be there at 9:00 and work pretty much on my feet for most of the day. I came home on Thursday with aches in places I haven't ached in years. It's a lot of walking but it has to be done. Yet, I resolved to mark tomorrow because it's very important.

My dad died 20 years ago on January 3, 1991. He suffered from pulmonary fibrosis. He was a truck driver for CRST out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He had been in declining health and knew that his time was limited, but he continued on because he loved doing what he was doing. Driving a semi allowed him to fulfill that wanderlust he had. He went all over the U.S. He bought a camera and took pictures of his travels. Every time he was in Chicagoland, we would get together. I probably got to see him more in the last 4 years of his life than I had in the 4 years before that.

But he fell ill coming back from a run to Houston in December of 1990. He was having problems breathing and stopped at a small emergency room at a town outside of Tyler, Texas. They felt they couldn't treat what was ailing him so he was taken to the University of Texas Medical Center in Tyler. Mom got a call that he wasn't doing well. My mother, sister and I took the train from Chicago to Tyler to be with him. I couldn't stay for the duration and returned home on December 30th. My brother, Dan, took the train to Tyler, arriving there as I arrived in Chicago. Dad died at 2 p.m. on the 3rd. Iowa had been in the Rose Bowl that year, but they lost. Mom remembered that he seemed to be aware of the game on the TV in his room. The funeral was the 8th and his body was donated to the University of Iowa for research into the disease that claimed him.

My dad's death changed everything. That's a big statement but, as I look back across the landscape of 20 years, it's the truth. My mother remarried a year later, to her high-school sweetheart who had lost his wife in May of 1991. Carole really doesn't remember my dad. Dale has been "grandpa" to her. I used to get really upset when she'd call him that because he isn't her "real" grandpa. I don't know when it hit me that he's "grandpa" because he's real. My dad is someone whose photo hangs on the wall.

The real change came in my immediate family life. There were things we glossed over, things that bothered us. Grief was not unknown in my life. My father's parents came from large families. I never knew my dad's mother, she died in 1944, but I knew all her sisters. I knew all my dad's father's siblings. The extended family that got together for July 4th picnics was upwards of 50 people. As people passed on, there were funerals. I have memories of at least one a year for a time. My spouse, on the other hand, came from a very small family. Death was not something he had experience with. He had gone years without seeing the inside of a funeral home.

The death of a parent is unlike any death I'd experienced. Experts agree there are 7 stages of grief; shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression and reflection and loneliness, the upward turn, reconstruction and working through, and finally, acceptance and hope. How you go through these stages is up to you. Grieving is a highly personal event and no one is allowed to tell you to "get on with it". That last statement is the crux of what happened over the next 10 years.

I couldn't grieve in my own way. Years later, our marriage counselor said the depression my spouse had lived with all his life couldn't allow me to be depressed as is natural with grief. His depression had to be cared for first. If there was anything left, my needs would be met. It was a mix that could not sustain a relationship. Unless something changed, the outlook was grim.

My therapist said Dad's death and the natural grief that accompanied it, started the chain of events that ended with divorce. Grieving a marriage is like grieving a death. Sometimes you go through those stages while you're married in an attempt to hold it together. I remember trying to bargain with God to get dad well enough to die in Iowa surrounded by his entire family. I remember trying to bargain with God to get me to the next therapist appointment without screaming at my ex.

In the 20 years since Dad's death, things about him have faded. I can't hear his voice anymore. I used to be able to call up the sound. I see CRST trucks in Chicagoland. He would have been here more and more until he retired, probably in the mid-to-late 1990's. I used to start crying every time I saw one. Now, I say, "Hi Dad!" and count myself lucky that my dad is with me today. Sometimes, if I'm particularly troubled, I'll ask a question. "What do you think I should do, dad?"

I bought a bottle of his aftershave and I used to keep a cotton ball under my pillow for the first few years. The scent was a comfort. Now, I open up the bottle for a whiff when I'm dusting.

The plant I received from his funeral still thrives in the NE corner of the living room. I water it every week. It seems to be happy and blooms regularly. I rarely think about where I got it or how long I've had it. I turn it periodically to try to keep it growing straight. If it outgrows this pot, I think it will have to be on the floor. At one point, it lost a lot of leaves and I thought it was dying. But it recovered. Carole's cat, Faux, used to lie in the pot when he was a kitten.

Twenty years is a long time. I still cry sometimes when I think of the loss. The change has been huge in that time, some good and some bad. Dad never got to sit in box seats at Wrigley Field and watch his beloved Cubs. He never got to teach me how to build and repair things. I finally threw out the list I kept for years with all the things he knew that I wanted to learn. I've moved on, continuing on the road he departed. I still grieve, I always will. Some things will set me off and I shed tears.

I don't think I'd want it any other way.

Beverage:  China Black tea

Deb

He was once a little green slab of clay.

Art Clokey died yesterday. He was 88. I am ashamed to say I thought he had passed on years before.

He created Gumby and Pokey. I have fond memories of watching their half-hour cartoon during the week or when someone picked up distributorship and the 3-4 minute shorts were included as part of another program. It was never, to the best of my knowledge, a cartoon on its own on Saturday mornings.

I tried to get Carole interested in Gumby but it never resonated with her.

If you know of "Davey and Goliath", a claymation series put out by the Lutheran church, Clokey did those and used Gumby often to satirized what he was doing on Davey and Goliath. Eventually, Gumby had 2 friends named Prickle and Goo and had to foil the nefarious Blockheads, whose heads were blocks. There were other characters introduced over the course of 35 years, but I didn't like those. I really prefer the first few shorts where it's just a green slab of clay and his talking clay horse.

Rest in piece Mr. Clokey.

Beverage: Huckleberry tea

Deb

It's Over.

2009 is finally over.

Not quite the worst year of my life. I think that dubious honor goes to 1991, which started with Iowa losing in the Rose Bowl followed by my father's death. 1992 is close because my great-aunt and grandmother passed away in that year.

I look back over the debris of another year passed and I wasn't the best friend I could have been; the best mother I could have been; the smartest with my money or the best at planning the few things life lets me plan. But I try to live by one overriding principle, "You make the best decisions you can at the time you need to make them." Unfortunately, for me, it seems my "best" decisions are often wrong, or, at least last year, that's what they seemed.

Jessie posted to her blog about New Year's Resolutions. I thought about what I wanted to accomplish this coming year. The usual stuff popped into my head; lose weight, travel, read, get my finances in order, be a better person in whatever manner that takes. But, at some point, I'll fail in my standards of what each of those means and that will set me up for getting down on myself. I know me a wee bit too well.

I thought I could put up things I won't do. That way, I will have kept something. I resolve:

• not to rob a bank this year.
• not to drive my car on the sidewalk.
• not to pick my nose in public.
• not to swim to Michigan from Navy Pier.
• not to skydive off the Hancock Building.

But that sort of defeats the purpose of resolutions. So, I'm going to try to do the following:

• Read a book a month.
• Read a magazine a week.
• Write a friend a real letter once a week.
• Add one more fruit or vegetable to my daily diet.
• Pay off one major credit card this year and not use that card for the remainder of the year.
• Try, in one month, to pay for everything I might need or want, excepting gas, with cash.
• And, most importantly, not get down on myself when I fail to do one of the above.

The last one is going to be the hardest to keep.

Beverage: Assam

Deb

1997-2009

I had to stay late at work today. We are upgrading our Internet to Comcast and they give you this 1-5 p.m. window. We all felt it would be after normal hours, 4 p.m., before the guy showed up. He got lost in the business complex and had to call the boss at 4:20 for directions to our building. I didn't get home until 5:20.

Betsy was at the back door. No sign of Rascal. This morning, she was hunched over in the hall but got up to move to the living room rug. She didn't meow, but it was obvious she was not well. I petted her, told her I loved her and I'd see her later.

I walked into the bedroom and she was dead on the floor. She had not been dead very long.

There is probably nothing that could have been done had I been here. Something was very wrong, something I won't know about and I don't want to know. She gave me 12 years of love and I hope she knew how much I loved her.

She had the most marvelously soft coat and the most interesting yellow eyes. She was an exceptional hunter and I've tossed rabbit, chipmunks and birds out of the house. Up until May, she jumped into the living room window to watch for me when I came home. She knew when 4 p.m. was and, if I came home after 4:30, she would be at the back door to yell at me. For the longest time, I couldn't give her Fancy Feast cat food with fish in it because she'd throw it back up.

Betsy doesn't seem that disoriented. I keep getting up to check on her. She's not as complaining as she has been the last three days. She maybe knew something was awry.

I love Pam because she dropped what she was doing and came to take me to the clinic. The clinic, where we just were yesterday, will handle all the arrangements and I'll get her ashes back. She will join Shakespeare and Penney in my secretary. Pam also drove me to Culver's to get food because she knows I'd come home and not eat.

It's going to be a very long night tonight. Rascal slept with me last night, purring up a storm, although I know she did not feel well. I know, in my heart, that she's playing with Shakespeare, Penney and Half-Pint.

Beverage: Pepsi

Deb

Mortal Musings

The father of one of my best friends has died. I met him twice, I think, over this long friendship we have shared since the fall of 1976 when she moved into the Viterbo College Marian Hall Residence for Girls. (It's now Viterbo University and that floor is co-ed. Talk about culture shock!) I was on 6 North and Laurie was on 5 North.

We've been through miles and miles of pot-hole strewn life roads together. I got married first, had a child first. In fact, Carole was all of 6 months old when Laurie got married to a Marine with full military honors. Man, that's impressive. She had two girls and endured a rocky marriage before divorcing first. She's got one up on me in that she married off a daughter AND she's a grandma.

Our lives have not been the happiest over the long course of this friendship but we have always been there for each other. And, I realized when I read her email about her father's passing, I assumed her dad would always be a part of our letters and emails. I only knew him through her letters and emails, but I knew him to be kind, funny, warm, fiercely independent and very proud of his daughter. His passing leaves a huge hole in Laurie's life and in the lives of her mother and brother, but also in the lives of his friends and family.

In the few days since his death and funeral, Laurie has spoken of expecting him to walk into the living room and ask to play a game of Dominoes, of picking up the phone and hoping it was him calling to check on how she was doing, of expecting him to pull up in the family car saying he'd gone to look at a lawn mower that he thought he could fix up for someone. Understandable feelings. My father has been gone since January of 1991 and I still, on rare occasions, have this fleeting thought that the phone call is from him, that he just "stepped away".

Life goes in these phases. You grow up and graduate high school. For a few years, there are graduations and weddings to attend. Then come the children. There are christenings, confirmations, birthday parties. Your friends change jobs and move to new homes. There might be a time when your grandparents and that generation pass away. Your children graduate and move on to college and their lives which start to involve weddings where you are at a circular table off to the far left with a second cousin who had to be invited or Aunt Mildred would have a cow. Your children's friends, the ones who climbed the tree in the side yard to look at your roof, who tossed toilet paper OVER the house while TP-ing it, who seemed to be at your home every night after school, start having their own families. Your friends, the ones who steadfastly remain 21 in the back of your mind become grandparents. And their parents start falling ill and dying.

I realize that I am quickly becoming the generation at the top. It's rare to have anyone my age with a grandparent still alive. Mortality comes sooner and could be right around the bend. Laurie's dad's departure for better Dominoe playing fields reminds me that there is much I wish to do before I leave.

Beverage: Dr. Pepper

Deb