A 900-Foot Deep Secret

I was born in the first wave of Baby Boomers. I grew up in coastal Southern California where the leftovers of war were being surplussed and cleared away. New businesses popped up in leftover Quonset huts, hundreds of huge gray ships huddled together in "mothball fleets" in the harbors, and--most shocking to a small girl--constant reruns of the liberation of German concentration camps were shown on TV stations that apparently had nothing else to show between "Victory at Sea" episodes.

Our 1950s homes were the epitome of tiny modernity and everyone's dad had a shiny new car in the driveway. The dads all seemed to work at one of the many local aviation companies. My mother got excited whenever she saw a "Flying Fortress" overhead because she had helped build them. I thought everyone's mom could recognize airplanes in the sky.


I remember seeing piles of huge round black buoys at the Seal Beach (CA) Naval Depot. Boys at school swore they were explosive mines. "If they blew, they'd blow everything to kingdom come!" one male classmate said, eyes shining. I didn't then--and still don't--understand why boys liked to see things blow up.

One day when we were on our way to the beach, I pointed at the dark globes and asked my mom, "What are those?"She said she wasn't sure, but she thought they were floats to hold up underwater submarine nets. Oh, I said. But I always wondered: Did Japanese submarines come to California beaches during the war? It was weird to think about. My mom didn't know. Of course, she was only 14 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She said there weren't any reports in the paper about ships being sunk off our coast. She lived in San Diego, where she and her friends visited the beach as a regular part of their recreation. They were too busy taking pictures of each other in bathing suits to think about Japanese submarines.

As told in an AP Wire story a couple of days ago, the Japanese submarines were there, all right. They even sank a few of our ships, one of which was a very large oil tanker named the SS Montebello. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, it was torpedoed and sank off the coast of Cambria, near Hearst's Castle. The 39 crew members all survived, thanks to the residents of Cambria, who waded out through rocks and treacherous surf with ropes to help them ashore from their bullet-riddled lifeboat. It was big news in the local paper. But the story never made it to the national news . Why? Because, as the government admitted around 1988, they didn't want to create "hysteria" in the populace. Fair enough. People might have indeed panicked if they'd known enemy subs were close enough to watch through periscopes as they ate their dinners. Even with sturdy submarine nets in place, a couple of miles offshore seems uncomfortably close.

The danger of keeping a secret like that for too long was revealed in the recent news article. It seems the SS Montebello--and its three million gallons of oil--lies in 900 feet of water dangerously close to the Montery Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Government agencies are mounting an expedition to test the oil--which they think is the consistency of peanut butter by now--to see if it's a danger to wildlife if the tanks give way. (My thought is: how would it not be? But what do I know?)

My childhood question has been answered, and I don't like the results. My conspiracy-theorist friends are probably having a field day with this one. I chose to exercise my imagination in a different way: I wrote a short fiction story about a fifteen-year-old girl seeing a Japanese sub off the coast of her beach in 1941. People don't believe her because it wasn't on the news. Maybe I should give her a camera...

9/11: No Such Thing as Closure--Just Moving On

I knew the 9/11 ten-year anniversary TV coverage was going to be gut-wrenching, but I had to watch some of it. I'd never seen the 9/11 Memorial and didn't know what they planned in the way of a ceremony. NBC did a great job of simultaneously broadcasting from Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and that peaceful-looking field in Pennsylvania. I found the ceremonies beautiful, tasteful, and touching. I dabbed tears several times as I listened to the reading of the names and the personal messages from the readers to their lost loved ones.

It was an uplanned moment that touched me the most, however. It was captured by an NBC cameraman with a discerning eye as he was panning through the Ground Zero crowd . An Asisan woman with her back to the camera leaned over a name, barely holding herself up with her hands on each side of it. She clutched a crumpled tissue in one hand. A small puddle slowly seeped into the pristine stone in front of her. Tears? She tried vainly to staunch the flow from her eyes with the soggy tissue.

That's when I got it: for me, it's been ten years. For her, it's still happening.

The Crease in My Heart

I took my wedding ring off about a year ago. Sometimes, when I felt sad or vulnerable or lonely, I put it back on for a few days. But mostly it's been off. Oddly enough (or perhaps not), I still have a little crease where the gold band encircled my finger for 18 years.

When I notice it, I wistfully remember what was and is no more. The indentation is fading slowly, acknowledging the unbuilding of a life even as a new one rises tentatively. There is no calendar deadline, no indication of when the process will end. Maybe it won't.

I'm moving forward, staying positive, trying to create a tomorrow worth striving for. But the little crease on my finger reflects the one in my heart, and I know each of them will end only in its own good time.

There Be Dinosaurs Here

Being in my gated retirement community is like living at the edge of an ocean. No waves, of course, (we have that hot, dry desert thing going on) but there is a definite line of delineation between species of air and water.

Species 1: working folks, mostly Hispanic, trying to make ends meet and raise their children. Species 2: wealthy outsiders, mostly white, with a strong sense of entitlement. I live on their side of the line, by freak circumstances involving the current recession..

For the most part, each species stays within their preferred environment. Well, except for daylight hours, when an army of service industry workers invade the compound to clean, polish, trim, and prune the wealthy folks' homes and gardens. I admire the invading army. They work hard and they have jobs--a commodity I still lack.

At a committee meeting today, someone noticed I was wearing scrubs and asked if I'm a nurse. I told them no, not a nurse. I'm training to be a Front Office Medical Assistant (the person who checks you in, verifies your insurance, makes your next appointment, and bills your insurance company.) I told the inquirer that I'm studying Spanish on my own and will take a class at the local community college next semester because I think I need to speak Spanish to get a job in the Coachella Valley. And I would really like to have a part time job.

A woman wearing a golf hat and a pinched expression said, "That's just the way it is now; no jobs for real Americans. You have to speak Spanish."

An actual dinosaur rising up in front of me would have stunned me less. Dinosaurs once ruled the world but evolution changed that. Wealthy old white people may still control much of the country's wealth, but I think they're losing out to the inevitable, just as their metaphorical counterparts did. I didn't tell her I'm half Hispanic. I didn't ask where her grandparents came from. I probably said something lame like, "Oh."

I did, however, think I might be running toward the wrong side of the line at the end of the day.

How to Divide a Lake

The story about the couple who were jet skiing on Falcon Lake on the U.S./Mexico border sent me into paroxysms of bemusement for two reasons: 1) I didn't know we had a lake that sat over the border, 2) I wonder why we haven't divided this lake up and protected our side? The Navy blocked whole California harbors from submarines during WWII--what's one little lake? An outing by a young, exhuberant couple was cut short by violence, and I just can't get over the idea that it didn't have to happen.

Re #1: who thought an open body of water right over the border was a good idea? Didn't they hear that our government wants a fence, not an open lake? After the lake was created, did they send written invitations to the drug lords, or did they just depend on them to figure it out?

Re #2: I remember seing mounds of buoys and chain at the Seal Beach Navy yard when I was a kid. I asked my mom what they were and her answer was like a fantasy adventure tale. She said the Navy used chain link nets strung across harbors on buoys to keep out Japanese and German submarines during the war. I was creeped out at the thought of an enemy submarine rising from the water where I jumped waves and screamed for joy in the summer. I was really glad the war was over.

I remember thinking there was enough chain in that Navy yard to block most of the ocean (my idea of "the ocean" at that time was Belmont Shores in Long Beach.) Why can't we do the same to Falcon Lake? I suspect those chain nets are still in Seal Beach, somewhere under the mounds of grass-covered dirt. (What? You think they're corroded by now? I dunno--some of that WWII stuff was really well-built. After all, it was American made!)

I shake my head like a dog with ear mites and hope this idea of a borderless, open lake between the U.S. and Mexico will make sense to me. But it just doesn't. We should probably ask "The Greatest Generation" how they think we should handle it. After all, they held off half the world--they just might know what to do about violent marauding gangs who use American citizens for target practice.

"Hey, mom, remember those chain nets...?"

The Universe Speaks

My purse was stolen tonight. It was ancient but beloved, dilapidated but functional, and I'd been debating whether to try to find a new one or ask the shoe repair guy to replace the zipper and stitch the hole in the front section one more time. But now the Universe has spoken, and I must find a new purse.

I am very particular about the organization of the object I carry everywhere and use as a file cabinet, lunch box, and communication center. I hate rummaging in an undivided space, and am happiest when there is a compartment for everything. Not easy to find in this era of glitzy "hobo bags" that are as large as airplane carry-on bags. For now, I'll make do with my travel purse, my back-up credit card, and a printed appointment confirmation for my Department of Motor Vehicles appointment (in case I make the unexpected acquaintance of the local constabulary under unfortunate circumstances.)

Worse than contemplating carrying a less-than-perfect purse is the feeling of being incommunicado. My iPhone and Daytimer with everyone's phone numbers, addresses, and some gmails, are gone. If someone isn't in my gmail contact list or on my home phone, I may have lost them for all eternity. Sad. I like my contact people (almost as much as I like my purse.)

I spent the last three hours talking to my bank, credit card company, the police, getting my ancient flip phone charged up, and leaving a message with the locksmith to get my home locks changed. (Yes, I had duplicates of house and car keys in my purse. I've had occasion to feel smugly intelligent about that when I misplaced said keys. I'm not feeling so smart about it now.) Maybe tomorrow I'll have enough energy to set in motion the arduous process of replacing insurance, Costco, and AAA cards--and a bunch of others I can't even think about now.

Have you ever noticed that the number to call for a lost credit or debit card is on the back of the card, not on the bill? I hope you don't have to find out the way I did. One more telephone tree, and I was going to have to have to have a temper tantrum.

But life goes on and I must plod forward, if ever so slowly. Good-bye, battered old leather purse! We had some good times and some truly weird ones. I suspect you'll wind up in a dumpster somewhere with everything still inside you except the cash. So sorry. You deserved better!

The Whack-a-Mole Within

I spent the last two hours crying and reading What to Eat with IBD, a book by by Tracie Dalessandro, MS RD CDN (and IBD sufferer herself). IBD stands for "Inflammatory Bowel Disease," I think. Whatever, it includes Crohn's Disease, which was supposed to have much less control over my life after my surgery last August. I spent years of painful trial and error finding out which foods it was OK to eat and which exacerbated the pain and other symptoms of this puzzling auto-immune disease. Now there is this great book that distills everything I learned, and then some. I've tried for the last nine months to forget what I knew, but I was unsuccessful, and it's all rushing back.

"You have no restrictions on your diet now!" crowed the Seattle surgeon on my follow-up office visit after the surgery. He was SO wrong! Inflammation in the digestive tract can show up anywhere at any time when you have IBD. Even removing badly affected areas doesn't mean the inflammation won't just whimsically pop up in that very spot. It's Whack-a-mole, only I don't have a mallet.

Since August I've been joyfully eating things you probably take for granted but that I had not experienced in years: grapes, peas, big salads, sesame seeds, berries, whole grain foods--in short, most of the foods that have been found to be healthy for most of you. I thought they were now healthy for me as well. It's been so nice not to feel like a freak waiting for the Mother Ship to come take me home. I started having pain and fever about six weeks ago. My new desert gastroenterologist informed me on Friday that inflammation has shown up in places it never was before, that I need to stay on medication for the rest of my life--which may be shortened if I don't take meds--despite the fact that I have severe reactions to almost every medication the ingenious drug companies have devised to save your lives.(Would it be bad form to call that Northwest surgeon and tell him just how wrong he was? Yes, I know it would. I just want to yell at someone.)

I've been feeling sorry for myself for three days now. I think that's enough. It's time to go back outside at night and look for the Mother Ship. At least the nights are warm here in the desert, so keeping a lookout isn't such a chilly business. And now I'll slip back into restrictive eating patterns that will lessen my symptoms. Yep, I'm taking responsibility for myself instead of railing at gods and doctors (who sometimes think they are gods.) Maybe it's because I'm old and too tired to make a big fuss. Maybe it's because feeling better is more important to me than insisting I don't have to follow ever-changing rules. Or it could be that I finally recognize that I'm blessed in all the ways that count, among them good health care, caring people in my life, and so much food to chose from that I can eat healthily, no matter what my dietary restrictions.

Actually, this is progress. Only three days of whining and self pity! When I first found out I had Crohn's Disease about 25 years ago, I went into denial and didn't give up foods that hurt me (tomato-based foods, nuts, pepper, spicy foods, etc.) for three years. I was cocky for 20 years thinking I was getting away with something because I didn't seem to have many symptoms without medication and I didn't have to have surgery. But chronic inflammation is insidious and comes after you with quiet persistence until one day it leaps up with a "Bwah hah haha!" and drags you into the hospital.

I thought my reward for going through surgery was that I would get to eat berries again. I guess not. ("No, no, my Sweet--you get to do all that hospital stuff and you still don't get berries and fried chicken! Bwah hah haha!") Actually, the reward was that the doctor was able to remove enough damage to keep the Whack-a-Mole creature from shutting down my digestive tract completely. I could have had the wailing ambulance experience and emergency surgery--which I may or may not have survived. (OK, maybe I should be calling that Northwest surgeon and thanking him.)

Well-intentioned people have been sending me articles and news blurbs and suggesting alternative medicines since I was first diagnosed. I actually tried some things before I realized that natural or synthetic, most of the treatments involved ingesting something--and they all made me sicker. I thought I'd learned not to get my hopes up. But did get them up this time around. Having them dashed hurts. And yet...and yet...these nine months have been glorious. I had a reprieve. I savored the giant, juicy strawberries of California spring. I reveled in blueberry buckwheat waffles. I felt happy and hopeful that my life would be so very different. It was a good run.

Now it's likely that I'll have to eat the same few well-cooked foods over and over to minimize pain and inflammation. If the past is any indication, I'll spend about a third of my time too fatigued to do anything but move from the bed to the couch and the computer. That's just the way it is with auto-immune diseases.

It's not such a bad life, all things considered. Maybe I'll just lie back and read (or write) a good book while doctors search for a mallet to knock out the Whack-a-Mole.

We Gotta "Cut to the Bone"

Oprah sets such a high bar for excellence on her show that I can only watch it occasionally. I get tired just thinking about doing all those energy-sucking self-improvement projects, so I generally flip to MASH reruns.

I did watch the segment with Suze Orman last week, about surviving the recession. A beautiful couple in Southern California revealed how quickly their carefully-planned financial life fell to pieces. They did everything right, and they represent the people I admire (yes, and sometimes envy) for the prosperity they earned through hard work and self-discipline. It was a revelation to me that people who "did everything right" are hurting just as badly as those of us who are never quite sure we're doing anything right.

Those of us who aren't sure we're doing anything right aren't surprised our plans aren't working out. We're used to it. We're lying low, waiting for a new inspiration (that hopefully doesn't involve serving french fries.) Those poor, stunned people who did everything right, but got slammed by the economy anyway, have to overcome a huge shock before they can move forward. I feel for them, and I hope french fries won't be part of their new reality, either.

Suze Orman told everyone to "cut to the bone"--figure out how to live on half of what you've been spending--and stop looking back at what you had so you can figure out how to work with what you have. She was more directive than Ben Stein on CBS Sunday Morning News, whose recession-survival advice was, "Get a dog."

For once, I feel like part of the clever and accomplished crowd. I cut to the bone months ago (OK, so it wasn't by choice,) and I got a dog. Survival feels like excellence in these circumstances! Maybe Oprah will ask me to share my secrets on her show.

Just Tell Me What to Think

Along with my breakfast, I'm digesting my daily dose of gloom and doom from the the newspaper. A headline says 4.4M people are affected by cutbacks, unemployment is at 8%, and the sky is falling. (OK, I just threw in the bit about the sky to see if you were paying attention.)

Right next to that is a teaser for an article on page B3: "Irrational Pessimism in the country." The outrageous happenings of the past few months have burned out my double-take response, so I just stared dully. Let's see. Gloom and Doom all around us...pessimism irrational. Oh-kaay. To be fair, the article on B3 was referring to Alan Greenspan's warnings in the late 90s about "irrational exhuberance" for stock when prices were being driven up. It also points out that stocks are about the same as they were then, before the bubble. It's just not as attractive on the way down, I guess.

I think the media is telling me to think all is lost--but maybe not, really. Is someone going to tell me what to think, please?

Meanwhile, I see my friends and family helping neighbors and friends and volunteering in community programs. I see helping hands offered and compassion given--in stark contrast to the way the captains of industry treated all of us over the last decade or so. This is quietly miraclulous. Can a country made up of such people fall into such a deep hole it will never get out? I may be irrationally optimistic, but I think not.

Never mind, don't tell me what to think. I think I'll believe my eyes and my heart.

Angel Dog

Yes, I know this picture is ridiculously cute. That's why it's here. I haven't felt very amusing lately, and this is my way of making it up to you.

Like the rest of us, Scruffdog has had a tough time of it since November. He's wearing this attractive Victorian collar because the groin wound he sustained (when attacked by a big dog) didn't heal. Then he tore it open last week. The vet cleaned it all out, stitched him up, and sent us home with an array of pills that would do a senior citizen proud. It seems to be healing nicely, but when I feel sorry for him and remove the annoying appendage, he instantly tries to chew the stitches off. The only wayI can be sure collarless Scruffdog isn't chewing himself is to hold him. I'm typing with one hand, and my arms are getting numb. But I'm nice and toasty; it is amazing how warm a 7-lb. dog stuffed in your vest can keep you!

He's a plucky little survivor, a great inspiration for an unemployed and soon-to-be-single Boomer. He thinks the sun rises and sets on me--who wouldn't be cheered up by such devotion? As I care for him, his slow healing reminds me that wounds don't stay raw forever. And that sometimes we find divine hope in the unlikeliest places.

Getting Sacked

I got sacked from my job today. I feel very strange--almost glad, kind of embarassed, but mostly just spacey. I put my keys in the refrigerator and my apple in my purse when I got home. I called Young Geezer to tell him I'd be hanging around the house a lot more (I can already hear him thinking up things for me to do) and then emailed some friends.

One of my writing buddies came over and read me the latest fabulous chapters in his book-in-progress. His story transported me to a lovely beach and into a seaside town. It was a nice respite from the weirdness going on in my head. We talked about pain--mine from failing to learn my job, and his from the death of a very close friend last week. We commiserated, agreed to meet again in two weeks, and decided to "geezer on."

There are lots of things I should be doing, like cruising the Web for my next job, or calling the agencies that have placed me in contract positions in the past. But I think I won't be doing those things right away.

One of my favorite quotes is:
"Sometimes I sits and thinks;
Sometimes I just sits."

I think I'll just sit for a couple of days.

Good-bye, Codey

Life is full of absurdities, but sometimes it delivers profound, inexplicable sadness. I can make jokes about absurdities because that seems to be the best way to deal with them. I'm a little lacking in coping skills for the sadness quotient, though.

A little red-haired boy and his dad sat next to me in the airplane on my way back from Arizona a few weeks ago. The boy told me his name was Codey and he and his dad were on
their way back to Everett from Hawaii. We looked at a map and couldn't figure out how it made sense to have a connection in Phoenix to get from Hawaii to Seattle. He wore glasses that looked like little goggles and spoke with conviction about mountains and sea turtles, and played his hand-held electronic game. He turned his face toward me after removing his glasses and I was struck by what an angelic little face this delightful, imaginative character had.

People touch our lives every day, and we touch theirs. We may never know who we make an impression on. Codey impressed me; I was sure he would grow up to be an engineer or a designer or a leader of some sort.

But he didn't get the chance. I've been hearing on the news this week about a little boy who died two days after a tragic backyard accident in Everett; it was not until tonight I saw his picture on TV. I felt a horror of recognition and a deep sadness when it finally sank in. My reaction is, "But how can he be gone--I just saw him! And he has so much more to do in this life!"

He did do something profoundly amazing. He told his parents to donate his organs and his body parts so other people could have a chance. At the time of the news story I saw, five people had been saved by the power of his conviction and imagination. More may be touched that way. I don't think anyone who met him could have missed seeing that he was a pretty special kid. But even for a special person, that's quite an accomplishment.

Good-bye, Codey. You did good.