Don't Wait

Don’t Wait
How many times have you delayed reconnecting with an old friend even though you really wanted to see them and even though you really meant to make time? I confess that I’ve done this many times. In fact, I continue to do so. And sometimes, I’ve waited too long.
I was up early this morning, shortly before 6am, and I wanted to go back to sleep, but sleep eluded me. So, I did what all good folks do these days when sleep isn’t coming, I reached for my phone and checked my email. When I didn’t find anything of particular interest there, I tried Facebook. And there – about three posts down – was the sad news of the passing of my friend, Yvonne.
After the initial moment of disbelief, I realized that what I was reading was true. Another friend of hers had posted about losing her BF. And that sadness that accompanies loss came over me. I’d known she was ill, but we’ve all grown so used to cancer victims becoming survivors that I hadn’t worried that much nor for that long. Now, of course, it struck me. Yvonne had lost her battle.
I’m reminded of the words from the movie Calendar Girls when Chris makes a plea before council to go ahead with their risky project. She refers to cancer as “this shitty, cheating, sly, conniving bloody disease…” And that was my thought. This shitty, cheating disease has taken my friend. Had taken yet another friend.
I scrolled over to our FB messages and was surprised to find that our last posts were some time ago, way back in November of last year. I hadn’t realized it had been that long. Yvonne had recently moved from Long Beach to Pomona, and when I’d mentioned a holiday visit, she’d shared that she wasn’t settled in, yet.
I began then to think about the course of our friendship. We met in the mid 1980s in grad school at CSULA and hit it off immediately. We were among the oldest members of our class and perhaps that bonded us. Or maybe it was that we were both rum dumb by break time. The classes in our major met from 4 – 8p and both of us had quite a commute to school. I remember how hard it was at times to stay awake on the drive home.
In one class, we sat right next to each other and often whispered conspiratorially. Then one night we got a fit of giggles. I can’t remember what caused it. I’m sure it was just something stupid, but we got to laughing uncontrollably. The students near us looked anoyed and the prof sent several glares in our direction, but we couldn’t stop. Eventually, I think we had to get up and go outside.
I can usually control myself and, indeed, I can only think of one other time that I had gotten such a laugh. It was with my mother. We were on vacation in Hawaii and had gone to church one Sunday. During the homily, the priest, who was rather old, got stuck in his sermon. He’d preached for a few minutes and then started over. The first time he began again, I thought he was just making a point, but by the third time, my mom and I looked at each other and she let out a snicker.
You’d have to know my mother to know how truly unusual that was. She was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic and the celebration of the mass was a solemn occasion for her. Thus, something had to really tickle her funny bone to get her to laugh in church. Well, by the forth or firth time the priest started his sermon again, she exploded with laughter. She was bent over. She just couldn’t stop herself and finally got up and left the service.
Laughter is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? I’m glad I remembered Yvonne and me laughing because we’d had some things to cry over. Not long ago, her husband had decided to leave her and go back to the Philippians where he’d apparently taken up with another woman on a recent visit home. Indeed her move that delayed our last meeting was a result of their divorce. He’d been given their house by the judge, but had to buy her out. I’d wanted to talk about why she was relocating so far away, but… I guess when you emigrate all the way from the Netherlands, the move from Long Beach to Pomona doesn’t seem far.
This morning, knowing that sleep was not going to come my way, I got up and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. When my daughter came into the kitchen, I told her about Yvonne. And she reminded me that Yvonne had been our landlady. In fact, she’d saved our bacon.
I’d gone to OR to be with my daughter for the birth of her first son. When the baby decided to be late, I’d asked for some time off from my summer position and, now that I think about it, had arranged for Yvonne to be my substitute. After an emergency C section and a half dozen other events that seem to conspire against Sarah, she decided to move back to CA to my delight. Unfortunately, when I returned home, my boss didn’t give me my job back. Without an income, I got behind in my rent and my landlady asked me to leave. Fairly new to the landlord/tenant issues, I didn’t realize I had options. Anyway, Yvonne and her husband had just started managing some apartments and were running a “first month free ad.”
I was so relieved to have a place to go to, but it turned out to be awful. We moved in amongst 1000 dead cockroaches and poison spread from one end of the place to the other. It was clear that we couldn’t stay even after we cleaned the carpets and scrubbed the cupboards and ensconced the baby upstairs in the relatively clean bathroom. Fortunately, I got another job right away and I took my first couple of paychecks and moved us out. Yvonne wasn’t happy with me because it was her job to keep the apartments occupied, but she understood in the long run that it just wasn’t safe for an infant.
Friend who laughed with me, I’ll miss you.
Friend who rescued me and mine, I’ll miss you. You’ll be pleased to know that that baby just turned 23 this week. How the time does fly.
Even though we haven’t gotten in a visit in an age, even though most of our communication has been via social media, even though we haven’t shared much in recent years, I want you to know that I will miss even that.
Rest in peace, my friend.

My 50 Cent Miracle

My Fifty Cent Miracle
It wasn’t until the IRS came calling that I truly realized that my husband was gone and was not going to support me or our children any longer. I had only $8 in my change purse after the government levied our checking account. Some women have enough sense to change things into their own names, but I didn’t or, at least, I hadn’t figured it out yet.
It was a humiliating time. My husband had been a good provider and we had a five bedroom home in an upscale community. I drove a Cadillac and we had a boat and all the trimmings of suburbia, but I could no longer afford anything. My kids were in summer camp at the Y and I had to go in and beg them for a scholarship so that I could run around trying to get a job.
I was mortified to return from a job interview a few days later to discover that a local church had brought us several boxes of food. It brought tears to my eyes to see the eagerness on my kids’ faces as they unloaded the boxes and I realized that they were aware of the rather dire straits we were in.
I hadn’t gone on a real job interview it was more of an information session. I’d been a stay-at-home mom for some time, but I had volunteered with some private companies that brought foreign students to the U.S. to study English and I’d gotten very interested in teaching. So, I’d gone to my local community college which had a huge English as a Second Language (ESL) program and asked them how one went about getting a job.
The department chair explained to me that I’d need a master’s degree. My heart sunk. It had taken me close to 20 years to finally get a bachelor’s degree. The woman must have seen my distress, so she shared that adult schools also had ESL programs and that one could teach with them with an adult ed credential which could be obtained from the state if one had a 4 year degree. And so I set out on a path.
Eventually, the path took me to get finger-printed one of the last in a series of steps along the way. And it was going to cost $20.00 which I had to scrape together. I did some bookkeeping for a friend’s mom who owned a business, but could only pay me a few dollars an hour. Still, I was happy as I pulled into the civic center of the neighboring city. Until I pulled into the parking lot and realized that it was metered.
Large signs around the public lot announced the various penalties for failing to obtain a permit which could be had for a mere $.50 – fifty cents. Even then that was a cheap price to pay, but – to me – it might as well have been a king’s ransom. I had the $20.00 I needed to pay for my prints and not a nickel more. I wasn’t even tempted to rummage thru my purse. I was quite sure there was no money there. I’d long since robbed my piggy bank and rolled the coins for grocery money.
I stood looking at the vending machine reading the instructions again as if I could make it say something different – like “first twenty minutes free.” That didn’t happen.
What did happen though was even more amazing. A woman who was leaving rolled down her window and hollered, “Betty?” “Betty?” I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone else> I pointed to my chest and she nodded which was when I realized she was talking to me. “I’m not Betty, “ I began and she interrupted me.
“Oh, I was supposed to meet her here. She works afternoons and I work mornings and we’d talked on the phone about sharing our parking permit.”
“… but she’s not here. Would you like it?” she asked.
Would I like it, I thought to myself? Would I like it, I wanted to sing.
I managed a weak, “Yes,” as I walked over to her car. An answer to a prayer I hadn’t even dared to pray.
God promises to provide for us and he does – even in the smallest things.

Rain Rain Rain

Well we are in day 2 of I guess the 3rd or 4th week of the long anticipated El Nino, and I’m going crazy. WTF do you do when it keeps raining and raining and raining?
My washer and dryer are in the garage-converted to man cave which is not attached to the house. It’s close, tho. It’s just across the covered patio and joined to the covered car port, so I only have a space of about 18 inches that isn’t covered between my back door and the garage door, but the water drips off the two roofs like a water fall and I get soaked no matter how fast I sprint. And sprinting is not encouraged as the concrete can be very slippery when wet.
I have often told the story of visiting with Sarah – many years ago – when she was living in OR and expecting John Rafael. Although it was June, the skies would often darken up with the next downpour. One afternoon she mentioned that we needed to go grocery shopping. And I said, “But, it’s raining. We have to wait for it to stop.” Except for her big pregnant belly, she would have doubled over laughing. “If we wait for the rain to stop, we’ll starve,” she countered.
I love rain, but I’m quickly discovering that I only love it on my terms – that is, once in a while, lightly, and preferably when I don’t have to go out in it anywhere.
In our normal semi desert and recent drought conditions, we look forward to rain like a camel coming upon a mirage in the desert. My students who are visiting here do not share my enthusiasm though, so I tell them it isn’t rain at all. Everyone knows, it never rains in California. This is liquid sunshine. When the next day dawns sunny and bright, they get a laugh out of it. This season, I don’t think anyone is going to think it’s funny.
I lived in Guadalajara for a season and the rain there was well behaved. It would start just about the time I got home – quite late at night and continue until just before dawn. By the time I was up and about, the skies were clear and the sidewalks were dry.
I also had the misfortune of living in Chicago for a time, but I don’t remember much rain. All I remember is bone chilling cold that permeated every bit of clothing you piled on. Although I’d been kind of exciting about moving there, I was never so happy to be leaving a place as when we set foot to go back to CA just days before Christmas. Of course, we weren’t actually on foot, we were driving home in our gto and, happily, without the trailer we’d pulled when we were coming. My Dad had arranged to ship our stuff via the trucking company he worked for which made our return trip much simpler. And, thank goodness.
As we headed across Arizona somewhere west of Flagstaff, which sits at 7,000 feet, we were overrun by flash flooding which brought the traffic on 1-40 to a dead stop where we stayed for some time. Eventually, the highway patrol came and escorted us through the flooded areas issuing strict warnings that we were to find a place to hole up for the night. We ended up in Peach Springs, a wee little town along Route 66 that I’m happy to say I’ve never visited since.
And today the folks in North County got three flash flood warnings. Two were broadcast over the TV and one came via the cell phone. Each time, a very stern-voiced gentlemen said this is the highest level of warning. You must move to higher ground immediately. The problem was, he didn’t say precisely where the danger was. Instead he mentioned the cities involved. His only specific mention was the area stricken by the most recent wildfires.
As I live high on a bluff, I figure my danger is more likely that I’ll slide down the hill. My other concern was of course for my family who are in Fallbrook, one of the cities mentioned in the warnings, but as they are on the top of a hill also, I figured they’re relatively safe.
The last warning predicted that we get from a half of an inch to a whole inch of rain per hour over the next few hours.
The good news is of course that the snow pack in Northern CA is already more than it has been in any recent year. As soon as that announcement is made though, the authorities are quick to say that it won’t likely affect our drought situation much. Really? Are you f*g kidding me?
Anyway, I just wanted to tell those of you who live in colder places and put up with rain and snow on a regular basis - that I take my hat off to you. Wait. Maybe I'll change that. I take my sunglasses off to you.