The 5 I's

I’m pretty close to breaking the surface of my Benadryl® haze so I thought I’d give this a go. I can’t promise to be clear or even followable, though….

First let me say – diphenhydramine is the shit.

pollen bringin’ you down? get yourself some diphenhydramine.

can’t sleep? got a sore throat from drainage? grab the diphenhydramine.

poison ivy itch driving you crazy? diphenhydramine to the rescue.

bug/spider bite causing your arm to transform into a red, swollen, hot, itchy, club-like structure, that no longer resembles an appendage? say ‘goodbye’ to an entire day of your life and kick it back.

That last one was my experience, by the way. Oh! as a responsible, licensed, healthcare provider I would be remiss if I failed to mention: please follow the dosing guidelines found on the bottle. I, personally, never measure my dose. I use the liquid – but only because the pills would likely induce a multi-week coma. I put the bottle to my lips, tilt back, let the liquid hit my closed lips, pull the bottle away and lick off my lips – then I’m out in 10 minutes and have an antihistamine hangover when I wake up 8 hours later.

Light

Weight….

Now that I may or may not have absolved myself of any responsibility involving diphenhydramine abuse, I’ll carry on…

The really weird part about this bug bite situation is – 10 days ago I spent the entire day doing some Mother’s Day gardening (flowers) – with zero insect or bug incidents. But Saturday…  whist lollygagging in a recliner all day – I nearly lost my arm to a venom injecting asshole.

Full disclosure: my arm wasn’t grotesquely disfigured, or even badly disfigured for that matter… it did make my whole body itch, though. Ok, to be honest, the bite actually only  made the area surrounding the bite itch, my mind made the rest of my body itch… but it DID swell up and get red and hot to the touch – that part was actually true.

Oh! and about the planting… apparently it is widely known that gardening should probably be done on or after Mother’s Day. Then why in the hell would anybody sell plants BEFORE Mother’s Day? That’s like putting out Christmas stuff in Octob…

oh wait….

Anyway, it’s the day after Mother’s Day and I’ve got $300 worth of death and regret spread across six planters and a small patch in the yard, a mysterious bite on my arm and the better part of a day lost to an antihistamine that should be illegal.

Poor Dan… every night he runs out and covers the stuff in the yard and hauls the planters back into the house… bless his frugal soul. To show my respect and appreciation for his efforts I plan to be very secretive when I replace these bowls of annihilation one-by-one over the next few weeks. I’ll even make a concerted effort to conspicuously move the bottle of Miracle Grow® every few days.  I mean… it’s the least I can do – let him believe deep down in his wallet that I’ve saved these posies.

Sadly, the flowers were the bulk of my Mother’s Day gift. Oh… am I supposed to say my kids are my “greatest Mother’s Day gift”? Cause, quite frankly, the Year of the CornTeen has me not really feeling it. It was an amazing gift that I never, EVER take for granted – to have had these people with me every minute for those 9 months while I was making them – now, many years later, with them being able to speak, it’s fucking irritating.

Every minute

Every day

Every breath

I actually left 2 of them with Dan at his mom’s house yesterday and came home early with the third one, who had to work. I felt a little bad ditching them but at this point I’ve spent so much time with Cal that I think I might actually be involved in a relationship with one of the announcers on his 2K video game – I see that guy more than I see Dan.

The most Karen-esque part of it all is – I came home and took the damn diphenhydramine and fell asleep. I finally got some friggin alone time and I slept. Come on – you guys know me… it’s not like I was gonna sit here watching porn or checking the deadly sins off my to do list or anything, but I gotta say… I was hoping for more than laying on the couch, dozing my way through Mommie Dearest.

Which brings up another interesting Mother’s Day anomaly. The only movie on tv yesterday, that in any way related to the day’s honorees, was a movie about an unhinged, alcoholic, whore of a mother. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not a sew-your-Halloween-costume or bake-a-loaf-of-bread or I’ll-do-your-laundry-even-after-you-turn-8 kind of mom but I’m also not beating them with a can of bathroom cleaner or sitting on them while choking the last bit of air out of their lungs.

Dan told me I should’ve just streamed something.  I don’t even know what the hell that means. If Cal leaves the tv in video game mode when he’s done, I sit in front of a black screen until somebody comes in to the room and saves me. Streaming seems out of my league. Not to mention, as I told Dan when he offered to teach me, “I tv to the tune of about 12 hours every day and that’s with limited options. I don’t need to get any better at it.”

So, I slept through my day – dreaming of wire hangers and spiders the size of Connecticut with my arm on fire and my whole body itching…

Between medicine naps Alex, Dan and I finished a puzzle that the kids and I started the night before. Actually Alex and I stayed up until 3 in the morning from Saturday to Sunday working on that thing. I’d like to think it was simple fondness for each other that kept us going, but I know us well enough to know it was actually a test of wills. I was so tired I thought I was going to vomit and told Alex as much. She admitted she felt the same.

So we kept at it for 20 more minutes.

Then as Alex stood with the same puzzle piece in her hand for 7 minutes looking over the empty spots, I said, “I can’t do this anymore…” Alex tossed her piece on the table and walked away without a word.

Abby was out early. “If we have to turn over every piece before we even start, then I’m not getting involved.”

Cal hung on a little longer but, true to form, did more damage than good. Knocking pieces on the floor, leaning on the puzzle and having it stick to his hand when he lifted it up….

If you ever need to sum up my children in a sentence or two – refer back to this situation.

I’m one of those irritating people who has the kind of life that is Mother’s Day every day. My husband dotes on me daily, my kids love on me and are free with their affection all the time, and I eat dessert whenever I want.

I am in love with my family. I mean – head over heels, sometimes-can’t-breath-because-my-heart -is-so-full in love with these 4 people.  Diphenhydramine can’t take that from me…

Ya wanna see the bite?

This blogging thing is tough, sometimes.  When I began my pursuit of “a blog a week” I had some fodder – my high-school-senior daughter.  It was a lofty goal, for sure, but then we had a ridiculously slapstick-style family outing so my confidence soared. That was, unfortunately, followed by my father-in-law’s unexpected passing, a devastating situation, but one that kept me on task.

The topics seemed to throw themselves at me like Dan when I’m wearing running tights (don’t even try to understand it… it’s disgusting… I think he has some kind of weird fetish-type shit goin’ on).

Anyway, I’m sitting here, one day past my (self-imposed) deadline, wondering what the hell to write about…

I got nothin.  So, hang on, you’re about to waste about 15 minutes reading as I drone on with nothing to offer but some idiotic drivel.

To catch you up on the unexpected loss of Dan’s dad.  We had a small graveside service Wednesday.  A musical colleague of Bob’s performed Taps – my God is there any song that reaches into your soul and squeezes your heart like Taps? Just a lone trumpeter, blowing sorrow through his horn…

Everybody is doing… ok.  One minute it doesn’t seem real and the next, we feel like, in some odd way, we knew this was the turn our lives would take. Like, somehow, it already has a sense of normalcy about it…

We’ll figure it out with his mom, she’s intent upon staying put – and trust me… I want her to stay put.

[ba dum ting]

But, she’s over an hour away and we worry about her… She’s healthy and capable, but still… we worry. We’ll follow her lead and just be there when she needs us. She’ll be ok, of that I have no doubt.

At one point last week, she looked at me, tears stubbornly refusing to spill, and said, “I always thought I’d go first.” My gaze softened as I said, “Well… we were all hoping…”

Thank God that woman has a sense of humor.  I mean that’s a pretty big matzah ball hanging out there, if she doesn’t laugh.. ya know what I mean?

I think even Dan will be ok in time… I mean, this is how it’s supposed to happen, right? Our parents are supposed to go first.  It’s the natural course of life… so why, exactly, does it feel so damned awful?

We had a lot of togetherness last week.  Dan was off for a few days and, due to the circumstances, we got along well.  Which is to say, I was a little less of an ass because I knew he was hurting.  As the week wore on however, I got back to my more natural state. Sunday we sat discussing dishwashers.  We need a new one and his mom expressed an interest in replacing hers – so we started our search.

We found the make and model we preferred (Consumer Reports, baby) and Dan went through some options, “…there’s front controls – like we have now – or top controls – they go on the top of the door and are sorta hidden from sight.”

“Yes… yes, thank you for expanding…. my two college degrees and basic common sense would’ve never gotten me through that technical jargon.”

Still not sure why that man stays.

I like to be an equal opportunity asshole.  Early on in the week Cal borrowed a pair of Alex’s sunglasses. She frantically asked, “Are you stretching them out? Do you feel like they are stretching?”

I said, “Come on, Alex… have you seen his head? Every time I look at him I thank God for C-sections… of course he’s stretching them out…” Then I looked at my boy and gave him a shrug of apology.

He nodded and said, “You are not wrong, mother.”

I sorta feel bad when I bust his chops but then shit like this goes down:

Alex: who invented physics?

Me: wasn’t it Sir Isaac Newton?

Alex: yeah I think you might be right…

Me: either him or Galileo

Cal: I thought it was Thomas Edison

Now… to be fair… he said he was joking. But! he only said he was joking after I looked at Alex and shook my head in disgust/disbelief. I’m not sure that I believe he was joking, but I very badly want to, so I will.  An error (that has since been fixed) kept him off the distinguished honor roll list in the paper.  He has, actually, maintained straight As in high school… but don’t despair – his dingbat tendencies are alive and well…

Last week my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her husband came for the night. The kids and I spent the day making our house presentable, or less appalling, however you want to say it.  Alex handled the vast majority of cleaning, with Abby coming in a close second.  Cal followed me around, helping me hang pictures and such… basically he spent the day getting yelled at (the kid has to just groan when I say, “Today we’re gonna work on some projects together, buddy.”). Anyway, I texted Dan and said, “the idea here is to act like our house always looks likes this, so, DO NOT walk in and comment on how nice it looks.”

No sooner did I send that message then our guests walked in to see me frazzled, sweaty and exhausted. I gave up the ghost immediately. “I’m a mess… ignore my appearance, we’ve been busting our asses all day – this house never looks like this..”

Dan walked in a few minutes later, I looked at him and said, “Don’t even try… they know the truth.”

As for me… I plummeted this weekend, Sunday in particular. I just couldn’t get myself together. So, I napped and just sort of moped around and expected nothing of myself. The week before was spent in ‘survival mode’ and I needed a day to take care of myself.

I hate those days.

Rarely are they anything more than a guilt-producing, waste of daylight. I mean, it’s not enough that I can’t find motivation beyond brushing my teeth but then the weight of self-reproach becomes so debilitating that it feeds into a greater lack of motivation until you find yourself nearly fusing with your recliner and hating yourself for it.  The mind is a bitch… amirite?

Anyway, I gave myself the ok for Sunday and promised to get myself going this morning. It worked, today was a pretty productive day and I feel pretty good about myself.

Or I did… anyway…

Until Cal asked, “Are you and dad gonna have a quarantine-date-night?”

I said, “mmmm I don’t think so, why do you ask?”

“I dunno… you showered so I thought something special was going on…”

I met Bob Iseminger 25 years ago. I really would like to be able to tell you all about that first meeting but to be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about it.  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, memorable. I don’t know because my mind has this fun little habit of completely shutting down in situations marked by stress.

Oh, from reports of those around me, my faculties seems to work fine in the moment, but then my mind wipes clean any images, thoughts or memories of the situation, thereby providing me the opportunity to ruminate  about the situation, and my reaction to it, for the rest of my God-given life.

What I can tell you about that first meeting is – my nerves were in an uproar because I knew in my heart that someday, this man would be my father-in-law.

Bob and Dan’s mom, Bonnie were passing through town and stopped to take Dan to lunch, and also, to meet the girl Dan was dating.

That girl was me, in case you aren’t catching on…

After Dan and his parents left for lunch our co-workers looked to me for my reaction. I looked back at them and with a raise of my eyebrows and a slight of my head, silently asked them how I did. Hysteria erupted as one co-worker tried to explain the color of my face during the encounter.

You see, another quirky little thing about me and stress is: I can hide the amnesia part, I cannot, however, hide the blushing. Pasty-white skin, close-to-the-surface blood vessels and hyper-self-awareness are a delightful combination that results in a response that can best be described as glowing.

And not in the you’re-so-happy-you’re-glowing sense but in the geezus-I’ve-never-seen-skin-get-that-color sense. And the good times don’t just end with the blushing. Instead, I keep it going by worrying about the blushing, which in turn exacerbates the blushing, which makes me worry more about the blushing which increases the… well… you get the idea. It can actually get pretty painful.

Less than two years after that meeting Bob became my father-in-law and about a year after that, I was able to shed the radioactive sheen when talking to him. Oh what I wouldn’t give to be an olive-skinned beauty…..

Back to my father-in-law… it was early on that Dan made the comparison of his father to Spock, the vulcan character of Star Trek fame. Dan insisted his father was driven solely by logic and analysis, I insisted he was wrong. The irony is, Dan drew an exact parallel between two men with complex personalities by citing only a surface commonality. Spock was notoriously emotional because he was half-human, Bob was wonderfully emotional because he was all human, both men were uncomfortable with it.

I remember, years ago, asking my father-in-law about his shirt pocket.  My dad will only wear t-shirts with a pocket due to years of smoking… gotta keep them cigs close by (incidentally, he quit years ago, but can’t seem to shake the mystique of a pocket tee).  Dan’s dad also smoked but his chest pocket was found on a button-up shirt and was filled with more than cigarettes.

“Why do you always have pens and pencils and slips of paper in your shirt pocket?”

He looked at me like I asked, “why do you breathe” then said in a mildly condescending tone, “In case I need to draw a quick diagram.”

Who the hell walks around expecting to draw ‘a quick diagram’? Bob Iseminger, that’s who.  Once an engineer, always an engineer. I think Dan said he was 7 when his father decided it was time he know how a refrigerator works, complete with diagrams and equations.

I swear Bob broke his collar bone while playing with Cal one Saturday.  I forget what they were doing, but I was outside with them when he somehow ran headlong into a waist-high brick wall on our patio. He was in obvious pain, sweating, labored breathing.  I said, “Let me take you to the hospital.”

He said, “Give me a minute to make an assessment.”

Give.me.a.minute.to.make.an.assessment.

Who fuckin says that???

In my panic, I repeated my desire to get him to the hospital – a number of times.  Each time he responded calmly with, “I just need a minute to make an assessment.” Uhm… I already made an assessment and you need to go to the damn hospital.

He never did go and I don’t remember how his injury played out (remember… I have stress-induced amnesia…) but we have laughed for years over his request for a little time to make an assessment.

I once watched that man spend a full 2 minutes fiddling with a “tester piece” of chicken on his grill.  Now what I haven’t mentioned is – Dan’s mom is very prim and proper. No shit, the woman sews lace on the collars of her sweatshirts.  So when I could no longer remain silent during the tester-piece madness and blurted out, “What the fuck are you doing with that nub of chicken?” He was caught a little off guard.

He gathered himself, chuckled then explained that one must have a tester-piece to more effectively monitor the grilling process. I’m pretty sure those were his exact words…

As an aside, his son does not follow in his footsteps and consequently cooks the dick out of everything he grills… I guess there’s something to be said for analyzing everything to death.

I enjoyed conversing with my father-in-law, although for the most part, I was usually in over my head.  I think I can safely say he, too, enjoyed most of our discourse. The only time I could really hold my own with him was in the sports realm, though.  One afternoon he and I sat watching a football game, I was complaining about the moronic play-calling and said, “I’m just an average 39-year old woman and I know it’s stupid… how can THEY not know???”

Bob smiled that smile of his and said, “You are anything but an average woman, Karen.  Don’t sell yourself short.”

The highest compliment I’ve ever received.

Dan and I are terrible with the kids’ school pictures.  We fill out the order form, send in a check then promptly toss the finished product in a box without disseminating a single picture. Dan decided he wanted to make a photo album for his parents last Christmas so I sat down and organized pictures from school and sports and filled an album.

Dan’s mom unwrapped it, looked at a couple of pages then got caught up in the chaos of 7 people opening Christmas presents… it is a touch overwhelming.  A few minutes later I asked, “Where’s dad?” He came from around the corner with the album in his hand, “I was looking through the kids’ pictures,” he said, without releasing his grip.  I think it was about a half hour later when I looked over at him and saw him going through the pages again… logic my ass…

It was terribly easy for me to see this man in his entirety.  Not so much for Dan.  In the same vein, I have a completely different view of my own mom than Dan has.  You see… we got the luxury of knowing our in-laws after they’d completed their childrearing obligation.  My mom was a different person to Dan, as Bob was a different person to me.

Sadly, we lost our Spock this weekend.  An aneurysm near his brain stem took him from us, unexpectedly.  It was a different circumstance than watching my mom suffer for 103 days before passing away with a brain tumor… and while I can’t say one is worse than the other, I can say without hesitation, both are devastating.  It’s horrifically ironic that the two most brilliant people I’ve ever known were foiled by their brains. Unfathomable.

We had to look through some of Bob’s papers this weekend and it was in these notes that Dan found some closure, some proof of just how much his dad loved him and his family. It was a seemingly subconscious, nonchalant ode to our family but it was hugely cathartic for a son who spent his life trying to make his dad proud.

I wish Bob had been more openly expressive of his love but I can rest easy knowing there was tremendous love and I think, now… Dan can, too.

Keep playing your music, Poppy. I sure will miss your all-consuming hugs….

Bob’s obituary

Bob’s passions… his kids, grandkids and music all in a single video

I’m a little bit surprised to admit that the state of the world is really affecting my psyche. I truly believe the crux of my problem is the lack of control, because… well… it’s been bandied about that I’m a Type A person. Which is, quite frankly, ludicrous.

And to prove just how ludicrous it is, I sat down, typed up lists (alphabetized and in order of importance) of examples of me NOT being Type A, then printed a few copies (…wanted to print more but my printer was slow and I ended up tossing that sonuvabitch into the street) and plan to hand them out at our next get-together.

Type A, my ass…

Anyway, getting back to my story. I’m not handling this stuff well.

Not sleeping great.

No motivation.

Just being a bump on a log.

And I’m a little caught off guard by it. I’m not trying to insinuate that I think I’m above being affected by a worldwide pandemic, but I do kind of expect me to be able to sleep and keep my recliner time to a 16-hour minimum.

Neither seems to be the case of late.

So, during this morning’s bout of insomnia, I decided to start pushing a more glass-half-full agenda. And the first order of business was for us Isemingers to put our new fishing licenses to good use… ok… I’ve seen us in action… good might be a bit optimistic… but use was fair, dammit…

As an aside, I also watched 5 episodes of Say Yes to the Dress in an effort to defeat the insomnia…why have sleeves become so passé?

I digress.

Back to my plan.

I gave Dan his instructions: gather the fishing paraphernalia from the basement and get the picnic-type foods from the IGA.

You see… one does not simply go from recliner-ridden sloth to whirlwind like that (*snaps fingers*).  My epiphany was helpful… it wasn’t life-altering for chrissakes.

Truth be told: I don’t go in the basement because Dan’s organization style can best be described as hoarding with a side of A.D.D. AND I was in charge of all the non-food picnic supplies.

Now, what I haven’t mentioned is – a good deal of my desire to make the day memorable is the fact Abby is also quite sad these days.  About 3 weeks ago, she rescued a bunny from the jaws of death – our Golden Retriever, Lucy, wanted a new friend, apparently. Abs bottle-fed Oakley (we needed a gender-neutral name because none of us felt comfortable determining the gender… bear in mind, two of us have semi-medical degrees) and housed him in a plastic tote for 19 days – until we were confident s/he would live.  On the 20th day Dan stopped at Tractor Supply and bought everything with the word “bunny” on it.  On the 21st day… Oakley crossed over the rainbow bridge…

I promise, I did not kill that thing, but I also promise – I am not fully unhappy about it.  Nonetheless, my heart nearly broke in two when I had to tell her about her bunny.  I will keep the specifics of her devastation between she and I, but know that it was complete and absolutely gut-wrenching to watch.

We gave her some time and space to wallow in sorrow and mourning, but after two days, I decided she needed to get out and have some fun… so I picked fishing – something she abhors.

She does love family time, though, so I wasn’t completely off the mark. Mostly, though, I was grasping for anything at all to cheer her up because I was sorta repulsed by the fact Dan had placed the bunny in a box then back in the cage until Abby was ready to bury him/her – and it had been a full 48 hours… that shit needed to be handled. I told her we’d have family day, then bury Oakley.

She agreed… reluctantly. She was surprisingly ok with the bunny situation, her reluctance stemmed from the fact she hates fishing – but you see… that’s why I threw in the part about food.  She is her momma’s daughter.

I put Cal in charge of our licenses, then took them back because I’ve seen his work.  Dan, Alex and I got the food sorted and coolered appropriately and then, after some discussion about weather and clothing with a few “I don’t wanna hear you bitchin…”s thrown in… we set about our family day, knowing full well – ain’t nobody was gonna catch a fish.

We found a secluded spot and started unloading the car.  We started toward the river, chatting pleasantly about life and how much fun we were about to have, then we all stopped at precisely the same moment – each realizing perhaps we should’ve brought chairs or a blanket or anything at all that would’ve provided another barrier between the wet ground and our asses.

Our fun would not be foiled.

And now I have a whole load of grass-stained pants to take care of tomorrow.

Cal loves to fish so he was the first to finish eating.  He grabbed his rod, put a piece of chicken on his hook, pulled his arm back, flipped the bail and promptly landed the hook in the nearest tree.

Geezus, if the word goon wasn’t created just for him…

Oh, hey! here’s a neat pic of Dan fishing:

Yeah… this is how Dan fishes when he takes us along.  We cast, snag the bottom, pull up broken line and hand him the rod.  He is by far, the most patient man I have ever known.

It took about 10 casts for the three eaters to work through their first feeding, so they went back for seconds….

Yes, I know the picture is cockeyed – I was actually still fishing.  Oh, and that’s Alex up in the corner – shockingly, she’s not mad at us she just got distracted by some flowers.

Such a pretty girl….

Here’s my mini-me casting – she’s not an outdoorsman so I was quite impressed by her form.

I started to walk over to tell her how much fun I was having watching her when I looked at the tree further out in the middle of the river – directly below the spot her bother had chosen up on the bridge.  The tree was gyrating wildly… having forgotten that ham-fist was up there, I squinted to get a firmer grasp on what in the hell was happening with the tree.  I almost pissed myself when I saw his bobber dancing along with the limbs (yeah… he was using a bobber… I have no words).

Cal brought his clusterfuck back to Dan to fix and picked up another rod while Abby handed me her rod.  I cast my line – to the exact spot I wanted – and looked at Abby and said, “the boys are jelly ’cause I’m the best caster…”  She started to look at me, then looked past me as she said, “Mmmmm Cal is pretty goo…..” I followed her line of vision to see Cal waving his rod, wildly while the tree to his right shook as if they were part of some synchronized choreography.

Dan finally got to throw in a line.  He walked over as I expertly skimmed the bottom of the bridge for a pretty nice cast.  He drew back (“gonna show you how it’s done”), let ‘er rip and landed his lure right between the double yellow up on the bridge. Abby and Cal went up to toss it back.

Cal came back a little while later and said, “Abby is winning, she’s caught 2 leaves so far…”

“HEY! I caught 2 leaves, too!”

“Mom, one of those was when you yanked your lure off the bottom and it flashed by your head and landed on the bank behind you. A bank leaf doesn’t count.”

I should’ve eaten him right after birth.

Oh, this is him trying to get his bottom-lodged lure unstuck.

For the record – the river is flowing back under the bridge… have you ever seen a bigger putz?

We are not river fishers by any stretch (Dan was, back in the day… but these days, he’s always sitting on his ass playing with his tackle box). We caught 6 leaves total, 7 twigs and 3 trees.  But we had fun.

While my 4 idiots were up on the bridge, I decided to stay down below and revel in the solitude of the rushing water.  I was thinking about how blessed my life is – it’s far from perfect but it suits me, perfectly.  I thought back to all the laughs we’d shared during this outing as I lazily drew back my rod to cast it… I swung it out wide and released the button…. or thought I did, anyway… until I felt the hook in my ass.

I almost pissed myself before I could get up to the top to tell my people. I was dancing on the bridge, legs crossed, bent over… hands doing their best to stop it… gasping out the words… I can only imagine what the old guy in the passing car thought…

We decided to call it a day before somebody lost an eye… On the way home we stopped to see my mom.  It has been over a year – I just don’t get any kind of peace at the cemetery, but I felt we needed to stop.

It seems the guy next to mom passed away a year ago, Thursday – his headstone was decorated to the nines…

and you know us – we can’t be outdone to THAT extent.  Abby said she wants to figure out how to wire up a blinking arrow…

I made plans with Pop for us to get some flowers and at least give her a respectable showing.  It’ll feel good to get her all fixed up.

As we pulled into the driveway Abby said, “Well, I guess I’m ready to bury bunny, now.”

Cal said, “I’ll dig the hole for you Abs.”

We gave them a few minutes, then Dan and I went out to join them. The 3 kids already had him/her covered back over.  Not gonna lie… it was a little anticlimactic.

Cal and Alex told Abby they’d jump with her on the trampoline because they knew she was upset. I smiled at them and headed back into the house, with my heart full.  Is there any better feeling for a mom than knowing her kids love each other?  And knowing that, in a time of perpetual togetherness, there is still great joy in that togetherness… It was a beautiful start to changing my perspective… well… not the lure-in-the-ass part… that shit sorta hurt.

I haven’t been overly vocal about the pandemic and how it’s affecting my family because, the truth of the matter is… everybody’s got a story and quite honestly, most are worse than mine.

I’ve mostly been on a self-imposed quarantine since selling my business last June, anyway.  My kids get themselves up every day by 8:30 and do their schoolwork with little to no input from me.  My husband is an essential worker so our income hasn’t changed. And we’re a tight-knit family so being together is not different for us.

Sure… I could complain about being stuck at home (and I do… to my husband and some close friends… because oddly… staying at home on command is not as easy as it sounds).  I could complain about the repetition of my days, the constant dishes, how taxing it is to come up with shittier ways to respond to “I’m bored” and the exhaustion of making it appear as if I shower every day… but nobody wants to hear it.

Mostly, I think about a friend who had to make horrific, unfathomable decisions regarding her teenaged son only to lose him days later to H1N1.  And of a close friend who is currently making gut-wrenching decisions regarding the care of her COVID-positive, elderly father – from afar – because she’s not allowed to be anywhere near him. Trust me… the fact that I last put gas in my car over 3 weeks ago is insignificant.

And, while I’m fully aware of all of this…

I still can’t stop crying for Alex.

She, along with seniors all over the world, is being cheated out of her senior year and all the memories that go along with it. Yeah… she wakes up every day and laughs and lives and talks – incessantly… I get it.  She’s lucky.

But… she doesn’t get to walk the halls with her friends, laughing the carefree laugh of a girl who knows she’s in the home stretch of her greatest-to-date accomplishment. She doesn’t get to bask in the applause of her final band concert under the proud gaze of her favorite teacher. She doesn’t get to lead her softball team onto the field. 

Make no mistake… I’m the only one crying.  Alex, the girl who is in my phone as ‘Drama Queen 1’, is handling it like a champ.  She’s sad and feeling sorry for herself but for the most part, she’s just… dealing with it.

Just another way for her to surprise and amaze me. Typical of her.

But I make no apologies for my fragile emotional state.  Well… actually… I did make an apology, to her, last night, via text.  See… earlier in the evening I acted unfazed by the news of the school year being canceled.  I listened to her talk about it, nodded when appropriate and grunted some ‘yeah it sucks’ when it seemed right but I didn’t engage her in the conversation.

To be honest, I couldn’t engage her.  Not yet.  I just don’t have the emotional stability.  So, I sent her a text explaining and apologizing for my faux-disinterest. She wrote back, ‘it’s ok momma, I didn’t even notice.”

And therein lies the benefit of setting the parenting bar low.

Ok, ok… I love to self-deprecate… the truth is, a) I’m a good mom and b) she noticed… she just didn’t want me to feel bad.  She’s that kind of person.

Beyond that exchange, I stand by my refusal to make apologies for my sadness. I know people are dying, I know some seniors missed their prom because they were going to war… I know all of it, and my heart breaks for all of those people, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be upset with my lot in life (or my daughter’s, as it were).   We need to stop quantifying feelings and emotions by trivializing another person’s feelings. Compassion needs to be the participation trophy of emotions…

So, while I’m devastated for Alex and all that she’s missing, some of my melancholy is centered a little closer to home… I feel sorry for myself.  I am missing out on 3 months of bragging about my kid.  She’s a top-of-her-class, state-level-bari-saxophonist, superstar-softball player kind of kid… that’s a helluva lotta bragging I’m missing out on.

And I’m pissed.

Simple as that.

I was most excited to watch her senior year of softball.  Hell… I went so far as to sell my business to be able to see her senior year of softball – that irony has also not been lost on me.  Sure, the business was struggling financially, but I can’t say with 100% certainty that I would’ve sold if I knew how this year was gonna play out. So, yeah… I had a lot invested in watching her play the game she loves…

I just know my girl was gonna go ham… she had a very real shot at 100 hits (she currently has 75) and she was finally going to get the district-wide recognition she so rightfully deserves. All of this is conjecture, mind you… but it has strong roots in reality.

I was so excited in fact, that I planned a start-of-the-season ceremony.  Her favorite dinner, no dessert (’cause she’s one of those irritating healthy-eaters), and some sentimental gifts.

First I’d give her these (I’ve had them hidden in my drawer for 5 months):

Her first softball jersey… oh how painful those games were.  Nobody could catch or throw or hit… they all just ran amuck, and I cherish every single memory.  At some point, Alex asked her coach, our friend Andy, if she could try catching.  He gave her the green light.  And with that, he singlehandedly changed her…

He claims he didn’t “see anything in her” to push his decision, “she asked, I said ‘ok’.” But we’ve credited him with her success ever since.  And not just her success on the field – but in life.  She was an easily-frustrated quitter before donning that gear… the gear made her a hyper-motivated pain in the ass, which, in the hierarchy of personality traits, is much more appealing.

I remember storming off during a game of catch when she was 7, I think.  I told Dan (privately) I wasn’t playing catch with her anymore until she could actually catch.the.ball.  Sounds shitty, probably was shitty… but in my defense – Dan partnered up with Cal every time – Cal could catch – I just wanted equal time.  Anyway, these days I like to stand behind her when she’s catching and think back to that day… oh my, can my girl catch now.

The ribbons in the picture are from her kindergarten track and field day.  I wanted to ditch everything but blues… but – and I’m not joking here – the strings are knotted pretty good and I don’t have the patience to unwork them.

I remember sending her off that day, “what’s our motto Puss?”

“Have fun!” She said with such innocence and verve.  Damn she was cute as hell… but that gets a kid nowhere on track and field day…

“Uhm, no – our motto here is ‘we only have fun when we win’…  ride a different bus if you have anything but blue ribbons.”

Luckily, she’d had 5 or so years with me under her belt… she rode the usual bus home with her non-blue ribbons tucked happily inside her book bag. And we celebrated them all (ok… some more than the others….).

Incidentally, the 1st-place ribbons are for bean bag toss (distance) and bean bag toss (accuracy)… my girl has always had a cannon.

The last gift for the celebration, was a collaboration.  Scott Stover (rsstover.net) had taken an incredible picture of Alex during the previous season and I wanted to make a canvas out of it.  The wording on the canvas is my version of a conversation between she and I, she said, “I might not be the best player on any field, but there will never be a player on the field who loves it more than I do.”

As an aside: I’m her mom, I always think she’s the best player on every field.

But, I took her words and (with Stover’s help) created this:

We found out Thursday, that there won’t be a season, and subsequently the need for a start-of-the-season ceremony.  So, when she got home from babysitting, I unceremoniously handed her the canvas, then turned away from her so that I could focus all my energy on the lump in my throat.

The bright spot in all of this is: she’ll play college softball and she’ll play close by… the latter part of that statement was not a given until very recently.

Alex’s college search was… ehem… a touch draining for all of us.

First, she made a list of her search parameters (I mean… she is MINE after all).

Deaf/Hard of Hearing education major, DII softball program and out-of-state (don’t get me started… it was a romantic notion of “going away” to school)

Then she listed the schools that fit those parameters.  Then – because she is also half Dan – she made lists of the lists and lists of the lists of the lists and poured over each of them… for 6 damn months.

Until I’d had enough.

With her senior year mere weeks away I finally insisted she tour her first choice – in Alabama.  Long story short, she’s not going to the school in Alabama. We left that school and never looked back… but not before the coach destroyed any confidence Alex had ever gained.

This coach said, “I have a full roster, I can make a spot for you but you’d have to earn your playing time.  You are looking at DII schools… that’s probably above your talent level.  You’re good, I mean you’ve already beat out one of the catchers on my team…”

Say what now?

She’s not good enough for this level but in a 90-minute, rain-soaked practice she’s already better than a girl who is on the team… uhhh huh.

Anyway, Alex hung on to the you’re-not-talented-enough part not the you-are-better-than-a-catcher-who-is-talented-enough-to-make-my-team part and her quest for a DII school, came to a screeching halt.

Enter MacMurray College in Illinois.  Great program, beautiful campus, awesome softball coaches..

But…

DIII

11 hours away

Listen… if she was DIII talent, I’d be happy.  I mean, let’s forget for a second that 5 years ago she came to me and said, “I want to pay for my education with a softball scholarship” (ya see… DIII doesn’t give away athletic money, per se) and we responded by dumping a shit-ton of time and money into her softball career to further that goal.  And let’s also ignore the fact that she doesn’t exactly LOVE the size of her SMALL high school yet was choosing a college with 550 students (yes… five hundred and fifty). And let’s, for just a minute, ignore the fact she is ridiculously tight with her brother and sister and would be missing out on the majority of their lives.

Let’s forget all of that and focus on the fact – it’s expensive as hell to go to school out of state. It’s true, she was getting top dollar for her grades but it was still more expensive than in-state.

So… I forced her to look at Bloomsburg University… has her program, DII softball, the student body won’t fit in a high school auditorium and…

it’s less than 3 hours away.

Win/win for everybody.

She went, she saw, she fell in love…

The coach can’t promise her a spot on the team, she’ll have to tryout for a walk-on spot but we’ve gotten some very positive feedback from the coach and I’m confident she’ll be a member of the Bloomsburg Husky Softball Team.

A lot of people believed her heart was set on MacMurray… a lot of people thought she’d settle for Bloomsburg just to appease me.. but none of those people carried her around in their uterus for 9 months (actually 9 months and 1 week… everything is on her damn terms). Her romantic notion of “going away to school” was just that – a romantic notion.  It was quickly wiped away by the thought of vast scholastic and social opportunities and an enthusiastic coach, who by the way, with no prompting whatsoever, looked Alex right in the eye and said, “You belong at this level. You are extremely talented.”

I think Alex would’ve signed on the dotted line the day we visited but she had such a rapport with the MacMurray coaches that she worried about letting them down.  So, in a nod to her paternal DNA, she mulled it over for the next couple of months.

And then… as usually happens… fate stepped in.

On March 27th MacMurray College, founded in 1846, decided to close the doors for good.

And, with that ladies and gentlemen… we have ourselves a Bloomsburg Husky.

Not gonna lie… the most surprising part was her frank admission that she was gonna pick Bloom anyway.  I mean… I’m not in anybody’s phone as ‘Drama Queen 1’ and I think I might’ve tried to milk it a little bit.  But not Alex… no sir… my girl just took it in stride and said, “It just made my life easier… now I don’t have to worry about how to tell the MacMurray coaches.”

We Isemingers have done some damage in our time – planned a Pigeon Forge vacation right before the wildfires started, flew into Atlanta on one of the coldest days in their history and left for Universal Studios 1 hour before all flights on the east coast were canceled… but this one might take the cake.

We shut down an almost 200-year old college.

So, while the last third of her senior year has given her reason to grieve what was lost… Alex has decided to let the curveball go on by (she’s always been a fastball hitter, anyway). She’s set her sights on college and there’s no doubt she’ll knock it out of the park.

She’s amazing.

She’s a winner.

And I get to call her mine.