We're Havin' a Baby... Part Three!

A fog clouded my eyes. I blinked and blinked to clear them, but to no avail. I felt the sticky tape of the IV pulling on my arm. I looked down at my hands. Each digit looked like a chubby breakfast sausage and not one of them would bend at will. I turned my head to see Jess standing beside me, holding little Graye in his arms. Behind him Zol sat in the chair he’d earlier passed out in, smiling when he saw I was finally awake.

“How do you feel?” I felt FAT. HUGE. It was as if the Michelin Man or Pillsbury Doughboy had fathered me in some previous life. All I could see where my hands, arms and feet and I knew just from looking at them that the rest of my body was 3 times the size it normally was. Later, a picture of my face taken at the time proved it much to my dismay. Jess handed me the baby, and she nursed quietly.

The day carried on, with nurses coming in and out. My blood pressure was checked no less than 15 times over the course of the day. Zol and Jess left at some point to go clean up what Jess later called ‘a scene from an episode of the Sopranos’’ back at the house. I don’t remember much of what was said to me that day aside from the fact that I had a catheter and there would be no need to get up and pee (thank God!). My eyes remained blurry and I was lightheaded with any sudden I movement made.

For some strange reason, during my whole three-day long stay at the hospital, whenever food was brought in they placed it SO completely far out of reach I had to annoyingly buzz a nurse to come put it in front of me. By the time they got around to moving it within my grasp, much of it was cold and soggy.

That evening I was moved into another room, one with a window and thankfully a TV!! Zol came back after the clean up and we watched crappy shows and ogled our new daughter. He left later in the evening and I settled into what I thought would be the first ‘night of hell’ I’d heard so much about. Turns out this wasn’t the case as Graye would softly grunt and quietly squawk if she was hungry. Not the case with every other woman with child on that ward. They let ‘er rip ALL NIGHT LONG. I longed for my own house and bed as the woman next door to my room called her family in Russia at 4am two nights in a row. As to not wake her baby with her chatter she leaned against my doorway as she babbled away in Russian...

My teeth had the equivalent of a 70’s shag carpet on them by the next morning and I decided it was time to give them a good brushing. Moving and shifting around on the bed had been hard enough, but getting up? Yah, just a TAD more uncomfortable. Due to the whole giving birth thing and then the surgery, getting off the bed proved a bit more challenging than I had thought it would be, and getting back INTO the bed was even worse! Imagine me perched in saddle upon a horse – take the horse away… that was me trying to walk.

Later in the day my midwife Beth showed up and asked me if I had remembered anything she’d told me the day before. I had no recollection of even seeing her, so she retold me the news… the placenta had been removed successfully and without any damage done to my uterus. There was no known reason as to why it had not released. Retained placentas weren’t that common and nobody really knows why it happens. She told me to keep taking my stool softeners (that did NOTHING) and Tylenol and that she’d be back the next day to hopefully get me checked out of the hospital.

Thursday morning came and six hours of waiting finally had us released from the maternity ward. A million papers to go over… getting the baby into her car seat… yada yada the hospital drill… finally we walked out the door into an amazingly beautiful day. The sun was bright and hot and so was our van that had been parked in it for six steady hours. The seven speed bumps we went over to exit the parking lot reminded me that my body was still not yet my own. It felt like I had been kicked in the box to an extent I’d never imagined possible, but looking down at our wee little one, so small she needed to be wedged into her seat with rolled up diapers and blankets – I almost felt no pain.

We were going home – as a real FAMILY. Zol and myself were now connected for a lifetime whatever the winds may bring us… and that felt…. wonderful.

We're Havin' a Baby... Part Two!

Part Two of a story... read first part HERE.

Prenatal classes had informed me about having to push out the ‘afterbirth’ or placenta shortly after the baby came out. I had no idea what this entailed or what it looked like as it wasn’t something they’d shown on the 200 plus birthing TV shows I’d watched up to this point; in each episode baby would come out – cut to getting in the car going home scene.
A chill came over me as the water crossed over to the cool side of tepid. My body began to shake a little, Beth telling me that hormones were now flooding my body causing me to quiver. The baby was taken from my arms to get cleaned up and checked out.

“OK Dalyn let’s get this placenta out! Puuuuushhhhhhhh!” Beth pulled on the cord and the water went from clear to a deep shade of red. I lay there calmly, not knowing what to expect… What was normal in such situations? How long does it normally take to get these things out? Why is the water red? When can I hold my baby again? A few minutes passed with no result and I was pulled from the water, dried off and helped over to the bed we had set up in the living room. I lay there naked with a towel draped over me and they placed the baby at my breast. I looked down at her perfectly squishy face. Her mouth opened and took in my nipple… and she had her very first meal. Now, normally the baby staring to feed tells something in my body that its time to release the ol’ placenta, but for some unknown reason my uterus just wasn’t going to let it go. The midwife gave me a shot in the leg – oxy-something-or-other and minutes later I felt a surge within me… the contractions were staring again! They increased in length and then in pain, but still no afterbirth!
“OK Dalyn, were going to get you to stand up and push. Zol, you’re going to have to take the baby OK?” His face was stricken with the “But I don’t even know how to hold a baby!” look. Taking off his shirt he sat there on the couch, cradling our baby as I was lifted up to stand. Jess stood by my side, looking concerned. Beth pulled and pulled on the cord…. Nothing. More pulling… nothing. With blood dripping onto the pad below me Beth said, “Well Dalyn! The good news is your blood is clotting nicely!” I looked at Jess as she said this. Standing there naked, umbilical cord swinging between my legs I cracked a smile at Jess and gave him the two thumbs up signal. He smiled back nervously, returning my hand gesture. What better time for a little comedy?

A wave of exhaustion fell over me, and becoming dizzy I was laid back down. The painful contractions continued, but with nothing to show from them and with the clock ticking, Beth made an executive decision. We were going to the hospital. An ambulance would be arriving any minute to pick us up. Oh… OK. I hadn’t planned for this… I hadn’t planned for this at ALL. In my blind belief that nothing would send us to the hospital on the night of the birth, the personal bag for the baby and myself had not been packed. Jess raced about the house trying to put together what he thought might be useful for my stay there. Standing in the doorway, he held up a pair of 5 year old ‘period’ underwear that NOBODY was ever suppose to see (ladies, you know the ones I’m taking about!?). “Will these be OK? Do you wear these?” I nodded in embarrassment and he disappeared again to gather more things.

“The ambulance won’t have the siren on will it?” I asked desperately. A needle was being jabbed into my wrist for the second time, and an IV bag was then hooked up to it. Things began to happen quickly around me in preparation for the paramedic’s arrival. I heard footsteps on the staircase outside and looked up to see two men standing calmly in the doorway. Dizziness set in again…
Lifted into a sitting position, my head swelled with the heaviness of passing out… a dead weight inside your brain that you are unable to fight. Blind spots flashed in front of my eyes and my head bobbled in its fight to stay alert. They laid me down again.

A stretcher was brought in, a special one that was made for the sitting up position. Turns out that due to the big staircase out front I would have to be transported down the stairs in this ‘sit-up’ gig, and once down they would place me on the real stretcher, pop me into the ambulance and then speed off to the hospital. Sounds simple right? I suppose, so long as you haven’t lost a lot of blood and having painful contractions every few minutes. The paramedics lifted me up in their first attempt to place me in the seat. Never having passed out before I didn’t realize I was until the room went black before me within a matter of seconds. Back on the bed, lying down again, the dining room light came into view swinging above my head. Waiting until I’d gained full consciousness, they tried a second time and this is where everything just became a blur. I could hear metal clicking and clacking as they strapped me into the seat… my head was fizzy with lightheadedness, loose on it’s bearings and bouncing around like a bobble head doll. I felt myself being lifted up, and then tilted back in an attempt to get the blood back into my brain. A rush of cool air surrounded me and I saw the streetlight dancing through the trees. I heard footsteps going down the stairs… more clicking and clacking, I couldn’t stop my head from swaying side to side. At this moment something occurred to me. I could die. I could be dying right now… oh my god I had NOT planned for this! Then the weirdest thing happened. In a half awake state, my mind propelled itself into the middle of a dream – the kind you have when you are sleeping. I have no recollection now of what the dream was about, just that it was a short clip that had no beginning or end and made no sense at all. I felt my body laying flat now, blankets being wrapped around me. I opened my eyes to see an Indo woman in what I thought was a paramedic’s uniform looking down at me. She was saying something… everything went black. She was saying it again…

“Dalyn, Dalyn stay with me OK? It’s Beth, OK look at me… Dalyn, it’s me Beth!” I squinted my eyes but still only saw an Indo woman looking at me. I heard the sound of wheels on cement, the front gate clinking… it was so cold! Then LIGHTS! Big bright circles of light shone above me. I was in the ambulance now. A surge of pain rocked my body as my uterus contracted. “Good, good, you’re doing GREAT Dalyn.” Now I saw Beth beside me, her face shadowed from the blaring overhead lights. The ambulance began to swing back and forth as it traveled down what must have been the most potholed street in all of Vancouver! “So! The babies name, Graye… how do spell that?” I was confused by her question and a tad annoyed. You’re asking me how to spell my daughters name? “Ummm… G-R-A-Y---E… it’s… it’s a family name… OH GOD! IT HURTS!” I moaned and moaned my way through the contraction. Beth carried on with ‘light conversation’ all the way to the hospital. I realized later it was to keep me awake and coherent as my body was doing it’s best to pass out again.

Cue theme song to the show ER! Rolling down a sterile hallway, Beth at my side, people in scrubs passing by, long florescent lighting flashing above my head. Rolled into a room, another needle for another IV being poked into my arm, I came to as another contraction rolled through me. “Make it stop! PLEASE, just make it stop!” The events before me blurred again, doctors and nurses coming in and out. Then the familiar faces of Zol and Jess appeared, our baby swaddled in Zol’s arms. I smiled at him, his face racked with concern and confusion. Time moved slowly and after what seemed like an hour a doctor appeared at my side.

“OK Dalyn, bla bla, bla bla bla bla, OK? Bla bla bla and then bla bla bla and worst case scenario we will have to remove your uterus, alright?” I looked into his eyes and nodded, pushing out the words “OK”… I turned to see Zol’s face now ashen and white as a ghost from the doctor’s words. He handed off the baby to the midwife and leaning forward placed his head between his hands. Two seconds later his head lifted, his eyes rolled around like marbles and then back into his head. His body became limp and he slid off the chair and onto the ground beside me! Another contraction turned inside me as the nurse and midwife straighten him out on the ground…

I was being wheeled down another hallway… lights above me as we traveled to the operating room. What felt like 12 people surrounded me, their many conversations filtering in and out of my ears.

“OH PLEASE! Please, please… make it stop!” ANOTHER contraction! Still they spoke over me for what felt like half an hour. What the HELL was taking so long!??! Haven’t they done this before??? A nurse placed a plastic mask over my mouth. I couldn’t breath I couldn’t breath I couldn’t BREATH! “I CAN’T BREATH!” She released the mask a bit and I felt air in my lungs again… still the talking… KNOCK ME OUT!!! Oh SWEET jesus! Just KNOCK me OUT!!! My body began to shake uncontrollably… it shook and shook. A different mask was placed over my mouth… the room finally faded…

To be continued….!

We're havin' a baby... part one!

Returning to the kitchen from a trip to the bathroom, I stood at the sink barefoot and 8 months pregnant rinsing a few dishes. Zol had just come home from work, and as usual we chatted about the many idiots that had cut him off in traffic that day. As he ranted and raved I felt something strange happen ‘down below’.

Now I’m not sure if you have ever peed your pants, but my last recollection of doing so involved having to use the toilet madly and holding myself like a 5 year old for at least a half hour. I stood there staring at Zol, underwear wet, holding a dish in my hand.

“Ummm sweety? I - I think I just peed myself…” He looked at me blankly. “I JUST went to the bathroom! Weird…” It wasn’t enough pee to have it running down my leg, but a change of underwear was definitely in need. With a fresh pair on I continued with the dishes. A minute later my underwear was just as wet as before. I started laughing, as did Zol…

“Oh my GOD I’m PEEING myself and I can’t control it! How annoying is THAT?” We sat down to dinner, and upon standing up the whole back of my dress was soaked. OK, this isn’t pee, this is something else. This ‘leaking’ continued for an hour or so and I started to piece together the earlier part of my day.

A tad tired from the wonderful baby shower my friends had thrown for me the day before, I decided to venture out in search of a baby car seat. My hunt was futile; there was NO WAY I was going to drop $300 on something that we didn’t really need. Our friends had already given us their perfectly good used one. I was on my way to another store when my tummy seized up into a Braxton Hicks contraction. Pulling the van over to the roadside I touched my rock-hard stomach. This contraction was lasting longer than they usually did. Several more followed and I decided it was best to just go home. I called Zol and told him to check up on me in few hours, saying the contractions felt a little different today. Upon getting home I napped and when I woke up I felt fine again and started to make dinner.

After dinner that night the leaking continued and in my soggy underwear I sat at the computer and searched ‘water breaking + pregnancy’. Thanks to Hollywood my ‘idea’ of my water breaking was a massive gush that left me standing in a pool of fluids - turns out this rarely the case. If your water breaks at all, it sometimes comes out in small leak… much like a slight pee in your panties! I called my midwife and told her what was happening.

“I thought you’d be an early one!” she said. “Get to sleep early and your contractions will probably start around midnight.” My due date was still 11 days away and we were 11 days unprepared for our home water birth… VERY typical of us of course. This week we had planned to get the living room ready; take down the table, blow up the portable bed and the birthing pool… lay down the tarp… you know, home birthing stuff?! Zol was anxious to get started, but still in denial I said NO, lets just wait and see if this is for real. Around 9pm I started to have a slight pink hue in the ‘leakage’ and that’s when I knew it was the real thing.
A strange calm fell over me as I sat on the couch flipping through channels and watching my husband take down our massive dining room table.

I’m going to have a baby.

I AM GOING TO HAVE A BABY TOMORROW.

Holy SHIT, it’s happening.

With the table finally taken down we decided to go to bed at 10:30pm. I laid there, becoming more uncomfortable with every tick of the clock. By 11pm it went from uncomfortable to something else.

12:00am… “Hun, I think I’m having contractions…”
It’s really hard to explain a contraction. The closest thing I can compare it to is the feeling that you have just before you have to puke violently, but without the nausea if that makes any sense? Imaging the uncontrollable feeling that your body has JUST before you blow major chunks. Your body becomes engulfed in itself and there is NO stopping what’s about to happen… and then a minute long surge that coats every fiber within you ------------------------- and then its over. That was a contraction for me.

We were half way through our prenatal classes at this point and had yet to learn how to time contractions. Rolling out of bed and into my office I sat at the computer and searched ‘timing contractions + pregnancy’. The pain was speratic and ununiform, but they were contractions, no doubt about it! Every 2 to 5 minutes Zol could hear my grunts and groans as I sat at my computer timing each surge. By midnight I’d had it and told Zol to get up and blow up the pool.

As preparations for the homebirth commenced I called my midwife. It was great to hear her clam voice on the other end of the line. She listened to me as I went through several contractions, telling me I was doing a great job. She told us to call her back when the contractions were 2 minutes apart, over a minute long and steady for 3 hours. I hung up the phone and focusing on a small nub of fabric on the blanket at my feet, this carried on for around two and half hours. Zol did his best to ‘time’ the contractions. They were all over the board and the only thing that was remotely consistent was the fact that they were getting closer and closer together. I puked up my dinner into a bowl, laughing as I did it. I couldn’t bring myself to walk around or take a hot shower as recommended, I just sat there on the couch and rocking and moaning. Zol sat across the room, notebook in hand, writing down the events as they happened… we’d previously decided that I didn’t want ANY kind of coddling or touching while going through a contraction, it would be much too annoying!

3am… “Call Beth Zol…. ZOL!!!!! CALL BETH!!!!” He dialed our midwife. He spoke briefly with her but she could hear me in the background. I must have sounded like a demon straight out of hell… such a deep guttural grunting sound was all I could muster. “I NEED TO PUSH! IIIIII NEEEED TO PUUUSH!!!!!” Beth hearing me, told Zol to make me STOP! NOT to push and she’d be there in 15 minutes. Zol then called my best friend Jess, who I wanted at the birth and he hopped in a taxi. Like she said she would be, our midwife Beth was there in less than 15 minutes… and Jess shortly there after.

“OK Dalyn, I’m just going to check you out, but your going to have to spread your legs a bit OK?”
“OH GOD, no no no… I can’t I CAN’T!” but I guess I did, or she pried them open! Her head popped up with a look of surprise.
“WOW, OK, your fully dilated! Lets get you into the pool!” The birthing pool was now full of warm water sitting in front of me. I don’t remember my PJ’s being taken off or Zol and Beth lifting me into the pool, but once that warm buoyant water surrounded me I felt a world of relief!

Jess arrived shortly after I was lowered into the pool, calmly walking in with an air of comic relief to him.
“Hey guys????? ????” He took a seat on the couch beside the pool. I felt a slight sense of relief now that he’d arrived.

Zol seemed tense yet supportive to me, but in a way needed his own support… turns out Jess would be JUST what he would require on the near horizon!

3:20am… “OK Dalyn, don’t push yet… look me in the eyes… Dalyn? Dalyn? LOOK at me… OK you’re doing great! You’re doing an amazing job! Dalyn? Dalyn? OK, LOOK at me… Keep looking at me… OK PUSH!!!” I pushed with everything that was in me. The contraction passed. It was an out of body expierience that I can’t compare to anything! The pain was gone, but now it basically felt like I was taking the biggest shit of my life! In between the contractions my body felt normal – painless as I floated in the warm water. Then I smelt something… like someone had placed a piece of burning toast RIGHT in front of my face! Zol appeared at my side with a pot of hot water, releasing it into the pool to warm it up.

“TURN IT OFF!! WHAT IIIIS THAT??? TURN IT OFF!!!!!” The smell was incredibly intense and obtrusive, breaking my process of traveling into the ‘birthing side’ of my brain. By heating up water in a pot something we’d previously cooked had spilled onto the heating element and the smoke (that nobody else could smell) was permeating the room and driving me insane!

3:30am… “OK Dalyn, with this next contraction you can push OK? But when I say stop, you need to hold off alright?” I stared at Beth’s warm eyes, so calm, so knowing. It’s rare that one looks deep into the eyes of someone she trusts that knows what is best for ones self. I don’t know that I’ve ever trusted someone as much as I did at that very moment. The need to push fell over me in a wave, Beth keeping my crazed stare aline with hers. The wave passed but quickly came back. I PUSHED….

“Do you want to see the head?! The heads right there Dalyn! Do you want to see it??” This meant somehow spreading my legs, so I passed on the new view of what was happening below. I felt nothing… NO PAIN. Amazing… but JEEZ LUOIS JUST GET IT OUT OF ME!!!!

3:50am… “Alright Zoltan, do you want to catch the baby?” In a blur I saw his face, apprehensive and sweet and scared. It makes me cry while I write this. In a hospital this situation would never have come to past… my husband kneeled on the floor in front of the pool, looking me in the eyes as my last contraction released our daughter into her new world… with the help of Beth he pulled her from the water and onto my breast and then wrapped his arms around the both of us. AMAZING. Our baby girl was alive and breathing, floating in the warmth of the water. Covered in vernix, cheesy from day one! Graye made sweet baby sounds and laid softly at my heart. Jess smiled at my side, looking down at his new goddaughter and Beth conversed with the second midwife who had just barely made it in the door before the birth…

Life was sweet and amazing and in our arms… we laid floating in it for what seemed like forever…

“OK Dalyn, now we just have to get you to push out the placenta, OK?” WHAT? Push out what? Still holding my baby they had me push… and push and push…. and PUSH. nothing. PUSH PUSH PULL PULL… the embolic cord was short. “OK, push HARD!... HARDER…”

To be continued…

And I Want That Twist Tie BACK!

I grew up all over the place as a child. my parents found Jesus in the 70's and soon after believed they were called to the "mission field" to spread the good news. turned out to be bad news for me. we left our new home in a quiet safe neighbourhood and sold everything we owned at bargain prices. i was pulled from my grade 2 class where i knew everybody and everybody knew me and we shipped out to hawaii. yes hawaii... not the best experience. i was beaten up every day at school for being white. a year later we moved back to Canada and up to the yukon (beside alaska) as god had now called us there. several years were spent in different towns and settlements, building churches and spreading the 'good news'.

now being a missionary kid isn't all its cracked up to be... who i am kidding? it was never cracked up to be anything! for us it meant waiting on the Lord to pay the rent, secondhand clothing and powdered milk. times were tough but i suppose we were happy. it was easy to hide poverty in the yukon. almost everyone had the same reliable type vehicles, parkas and snow boots. even better for my sister and i as we were home schooled for much of our stay up there. no public school clothing competitions to worry about for us.

of course our time "serving the lord" in the yukon came to an end after a few years. why? guess. the lord had called us to the sunny okanogan - Kelowna to be exact. we packed up the cabin and loaded it all into a U-haul type plywood box on two wheels that my dad had made, hooked it up to the back of the van and said goodbye to the wilderness of the north. a 2 week camping trip ensued till our scruffy caravan bumped into our new hometown.

right off the bat we stuck out like a sore thumb. kelowna was a beautiful city on a lake in the okanaogan - the 'california' of canada they call it... gag. everywhere you turned were wineries and orchards bursting with fruit. there were beaches everywhere, covered with soft sand and scantily clad teenagers. the water was alive with high power speed boats and the roads filled with convertible jeeps - all driven by over muscled drunk boneheads. a stark contrast to our tan coloured Ford van and massive plywood box in-tow, both COMPLETELY covered with 2 weeks of highway mud. WOW! i thought... i'm really going to fit in here! i would learnt to hate this town with a vengeance one day.

our drive finished in the richest part of town where we would be shacking up with another christian family till we 'got our feet on the ground'. it all seemed normal to me! nothing was strange or out of the ordinary when you've moved as much as i had. this was the 14th house id lived in by now. up until this point in my life id say i was pretty happy. i didn't know we were poor. i didn't know what 'name brand' clothing was. i didn't know what pre-packaged processed food was. i thought everyone lived like us i guess? i don't know, but i was about to get a wake up call.

"let's get the girls enrolled in school!" well theres nothing like entering grade 6 two months into the school year. you know, after everyone has and knows their 'place' in the classroom hierarchy? that left a very uncomfortable spot for me at the bottom of the ladder. my clothing didn't help. i was a tallish gangly girl with long legs that grew an inch a day it seemed. it was impossible to find a pair of pants that fit me lengthwise and in the waist, so my mum just opted for the waist. "we can't have your pants falling down!" that left me with highwaters. as for shirts and sweaters - i'd spend the next 6 years of my life searching in vain for a Benetton or Esprit ANYTHING at the '2nd Time Around' used clothing store.

but aside from the clothing there was something i felt that really made me stand out... lunch time. to be more precise - my lunch verses their lunch. now i had food, i never went without at school, but there was a very distinct difference between the lunches my classmates brought with them and mine. 1st on the list?

Wagonwheels - not only was i astounded that they had somehow put all those yummy things together into one round chocolaty serving, i was unnerved to see kids giving them away because they didn't want them! this just made NO sense.
My Equivalent: a completely browned oozing banana.
Frozen Juice Boxes - not only did they have a drink box, they had a frozen one... so they basically had a Freezy at lunch. the girls would seductively suck on their little boxes of ice juice for 45 minutes... i was so jealous.
My Equivalent: unfiltered apple juice in a tupperware container.
Ichi Ban Noodles - japanese soup noodles. you know, you lived on them in college? well they would bring these to school and eat the noodles dry... strange i know. i wouldn't even contemplate asking to have this in my lunch... i already knew the answer and 30 minute explanation of why asking was so ridiculous.
My Equivalent: egg salad sandwich, that upon pulling out everyone yells "WHO FARTED????!!!!??"
Fruit Roll Ups - basically candy... My Equivalent: homemade fruit leather and and no mum its NOT THE SAME.
Halloween Candy - kids had this stuff in their lunch like it was going out of style for like 3 MONTHS after halloween!! unfortunately celebrating Satan's birthday didn't make it into the christian holidays.
My Equivalent: NUTS
Paper Bags or Lunch Boxes - I've save the best for last... this is the one thing that has really stuck with me - the fact that i never had one. there was NO WAY my mum was going to go buy little paper bags that i would throw out every day. NO WAY. so what did i use to carry my lunch in? A BREAD BAG. thats right. a see-through bread bag. and maybe if it had been some kind of cool bread (like white wonder bread?) it wouldn't have been so bad, but it wasn't. it was the store made whole wheat loaf bag with a big bright orange 'DISCOUNT' sticker on it. my lunch was up for inspection upon entering the school yard. peanut butter banana sandwich (browned bananas and homemade chunky peanut butter look like a 'shit-sandwich' by lunch time) cut up apple also turns brown by lunch, mixed unsalted nuts floating freely on the bottom of the bag... that sort of stuff. and to top it all off the bread bag was held closed as most bread bags are - with a twist tie. and every day just before id leave for school i'd hear my mother yell... "dalyn? be sure to bring back that bag!! i MEAN IT this time! oh and dalyn?? DALYN?!" "WHAAAAAAT!!!?" "bring back that bag! And I Want That Twist Tie BACK!"
grade 6 through 11 lunch hour was mortifying to say the least. looking back i know such experineces have given me character and a sense of humor. i have a feeling i may end up doing the same thing to my kids one day... is that so bad? surely you all have some embarrassing lunch contents or memories to share?? do tell!

Bullet Berryman

this post is a tad long, but the read is worth it just for the last few paragraphs! trust me! OK so these last few months have been a rollercoaster ride of too much work, christmas holidays, van breaking down constantly and my Aunty Carol mysteriously dying. The last in the list has taken over my families life since december 8th in a way that i wouldn't wish on anyone. i had only just gotten to know my aunt about 3 years ago. she is my fathers sister and upon their dad (grandfather i never met due to him being a crazy alchy) dying they had to resume contact to deal with a small inheritance. my dad just let his sister have the whole thing, not wanting anything to do with the money. why the need to 'resume' contact with his sister? well my parents became 'born again' in the 70's, right around the time when aunty carol 'came out'. last time i checked born again christians don't deal too well with having a lezbo in the family, so we just never got to know my aunt. plus we moved around so much we were never near where she lived anyways.

well aunty carol wanted to get to know her nieces. i was OK with that, but my sister didn't really want anything to do with her as she had no memory of her at all. carol and i talked alot on the phone and i went out to visit her a few times. we talked every two weeks for about a 2 years. we would have talked more but i knew if i got a call after 5pm she'd already taken a plethora of medications and drank 2 bottles of wine. you can imagine the conversation with all that stuff involved. the last time i saw her was at my wedding last summer...

long story short (and its a long one!) carol had gotten a disability settlement of $70,000 and the $35,000 inheritance 2 years ago. she had me come to her bank and co-sign on a safety deposit box and investment, so that when she died the government wouldnt take a huge chunk of the money. she also said i was the executor to her will.

dec 8th i get a phone call from a corener telling me my aunt had died. i was astounded. i seriously thought shed live forever. i was also informed that her 'husband' was in great distress. HUSBAND??? WHAT??? yes shed gotten married, not told anyone. his name was ART and he was gay as well. he has been homeless before their marriage and had 2 more months to live with termanal liver cancer. they'd gotten married so that carol could get his pension check after he died. i could go on and on about how complicated this gets... any and all wills made before they got married were useless, so i was not the executor if there was a will. when i and IF went up to look for it in her tiny apartment (that this Art guy was still living in) i found that carol had stolen mine and my fathers identity (had our info from the co-bank account and inhearitance transfer) and opened up credit cards in our names (this kind of broke my heart cause i really thought she cared for me). she was in major debt and her bank account had $78.00 in it.

after finding out our family had no legal right to do anything, we quietly stepped away and let time take its course. it did and Art died just after christmas. the government then got involved in the estate but because she/he were in so much debt it wasn't 'worth it' for the government to take care of it. so it fell back on my family. well my mother, father and i went up last weekend to start emptying out the place... and what a mess!! 20 garbage bags full of clothing, a full dumpster of garbage (not even joking) tons of boxes of junk for the secondhand store.

while going through all of the stuff my mother was DYING. she had never liked carol, regardless of her being a lesbian. my mum is kind of prissy i guess. VERY clean and VERY organized. carols apartment was the exact opposite.

comments like: "oh DAVE! this is just DISGUSTING! how can anyone live like this!???!" or "UNBELIEVABLE just unbelievable that someone can have THIS MUCH STUFF! WE dont even have this much stuff and we live in house not an apartment!!"

well as my dad was unhooking the cheap ghetto blaster and i was empting out a coffee can of nails and half burn candles, my mum says, "Dave? dave what is this? is this something you can use? it looks electronic." i look up to see my mothers puzzled face. in her hands she is holding a hot pink plastic bag in which she has pulled out a small device. my dad also puzzled, looks at it as my mum is turning in around for inspection. i start yelling... "MUM! NO! PUT IT DOWN!" "wha-at?" "DON'T TOUCH IT! ITS A - (should i say it???) JUST PUT IT DOWN! ITS ITS... its a VIBRATOR!!!" "vibrator? for what?" "A VIBRATOR! DILDO!!!??"

now cue slow-motion - it registers in my mums brain what she is holding in her hands. she looks up with horror in her eyes. a complete physical flip out with distorted slowmow screaming "NOOOOOO!! -AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!" and the vibrator goes flying in the air!! but not before the cord gets hooked around my mums finger! franticly shaking it off of herself, we all duck hoping to not be in direct line of being hit by the flying bullet. "DAM IT DAVE! I CAN'T HANDLE THIS!!!!" another 30 minutes of similar comments followed.

the last few months of crap we've gone through were acually worth it just to witness my mum holding that vibrator. shes probably still scrubbing her hands of it! *d

P.S. i will be guest hosting/commenting on a fellow blogers site this Friday. he has a great weekly post called "It's Friday, I need music!" lots of people post all types of music. i will be the guest commentator. check it out if you can!