So I've previously titled one on my posts, A Year of Loss, posted on 10-07-18, the day my last maternal great aunt passed away. My Grandma Krause passed on 02-16-18, her sister-in-law, my great-aunt Annabelle passed away in April 2018. Those were just family losses. My 19 year-old "girl kitty" Angel passed away on 10-29-18 and one of the neighborhood dad's from my childhood, Jerry Reinke passed away on 12-04-18. Ironically I would've been married to my first husband for 25 years on that Dec. 4th. At least Jerry's death provided an opportunity that distracted my family from the date which is a big BIG deal in my family because my mother has a memory along the lines of a steel trap:"Short fuse, long memory" I frequently use to describe her.
So my mom didn't attend either of her parents' funerals. She didn't attend her Uncle Arnie's funeral, although our Dad did, which was kind of interesting in a truly authentic definition of the word. She did attend the funerals of both of her aunts, Annabelle and Shirley. And she even came to the luncheon afterward.
As my older second cousin would say, we're here as"second cousins, once removed." I can understand after a brief informational lesson. Although I don't write that on my Christmas cards; we know how we are related and through whom. We are NOT hoighty-toighty and pretend to be Native American Princesses or anything silly that like. I use the word "silly" in the context of female first cousins, my sister and myself as being eligible for such a thing, not for those members of my family who could really have a shot at it.
Because of all of this loss and my parents not showing up for my grandmother's funeral, but showing up for my two great-aunts funerals, Rog & Shirl are spending 12-24 through 12-26 at the casino in Wittenbergh. Cool for them, but that leaves me and Mark & our brother Chad lost in the lurch.
Jan & Ben's family will spend the holiday with his parents and siblings which is great for them! Mark has such a large family, his siblings spend the holidays with in-laws and his local cousins spend the holidays with their families. So that leaves us with nowhere to go on Christmas Day. Maybe it will be quiet and peaceful, something I've longed for for years.
I must admit that I will miss looking at my sister's face when she opens her gift this year. And I will miss watching the girls open their gifts too. Usually my parents get us a bunch of scratch-off lottery tickets and I will miss the tension palpable in the house as the tickets are scratched off, one of us certain we've got a multi-thousand winner, which never comes to pass.
Sometimes be very careful with what you wish for because you might get it and then have to live with the results.
Like what Mark, Apollo and I will be doing this Christmas day. Because of surgery I'm not up for cooking a full family meal. I'm sure Mark will go shopping for some dishes I can throw together with his help. Since I was 2 years old this is the very first time I won't be at 1415 N. Lynndale Dr. for Christmas. Time to grow up or time to concede to my mother's expectations?
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Based on Farewell My Dear Friend Angel-A Warm and Loving Cat by Leonardo Durango
On hearing of the death of
my pet cat, Angel, 19 years old and all,
The first thought that came to my mind
Was that a friend like her I never shall find
So loving, so genuine, so kind.
Her affection overwhelming
Her love unconditional
Had to be shared with all and sundry.
She did not care
Whether you liked it or not
She would give you a magnanimous slice
She would nudge you and rub you
And curl up on your lap
And all she expected
Was an acknowledging pat.
The house is so empty after her death
We wish, oh we wish, she never had left.
The first thought that came to my mind
Was that a friend like her I never shall find
So loving, so genuine, so kind.
Her affection overwhelming
Her love unconditional
Had to be shared with all and sundry.
She did not care
Whether you liked it or not
She would give you a magnanimous slice
She would nudge you and rub you
And curl up on your lap
And all she expected
Was an acknowledging pat.
The house is so empty after her death
We wish, oh we wish, she never had left.
Rest in Piece our little girl kitty Angel, 10-28-18.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
For My Grandmother
For My Grandmother by
Krissy Sack
Dry your eyes; please no more tears, Listen to my words carried on the wind.
It may now seem we are so very far apart, But my tender syllables arrive with the summer breeze.
You are entirely a part of me. And I of you.
A Year of Loss
My grandma Krause died in February 2018. My great-aunt Annebelle died in April 2018. Today, my great-aunt Shirley, the last of my maternal grandmother's siblings died. She was the last of my grandma's siblings and now she is gone too. I no longer have any great-aunt or great-uncles who were born in either of my maternal or my paternal lines.
We called my grandma, our great-aunt Kootchie, and our great-aunt Shirley "The Golden Girls." They accompanied us during our Gravehopping tradition well before they became part of those we would honor as a result of that tradition. I can't remember the year, but one Memorial Day great-aunt Shirley taught us about FDR's desire to enter WWII. She picked out Grandma's oranges from the kitchen table fruit bowl to provide examples of the way airplanes were posted on the ships in Pearl Harbor which caused the US Navy a delay in response. Grandma turned from her kitchen sink and told Shirley, "Don't bruise my oranges just to make your point."
Shirley also told us the story of when they were all children, sitting on the front porch one Saturday morning when John Dillinger walked his dog past their house at 1202 S. Smalley Street in Shawano. Shirley recognized him and called out, "Good morning Mr. Dillinger!" to which he tipped his hat and kept walking his small dog.
These are the stories that fascinated us, her great-nieces, and sparked our imaginations of what their childhood was like. We knew our Grandma and her family grew up during the Great Depression. They treasured oranges in their Christmas stockings. During an 8th grade project that required me to ask our grandparents about what it was like to live through the Great Depression, Grandma Krause told me, "We didn't know we were any poorer because of the Depression, we were poor anyway."
I remember my great-grandma Ziemer and my great-great-aunt Sarah Denn babysitting us, especially during fair time, the Shawano County Fair is held every Labor Day Weekend. Grandma Ziemer and Aunt Sarah would undo the buns they kept their hair up during the day and they would braid each other's surprisingly long hair down their back and sing us Menominee lullabies. I was astounded by the amount of hair they managed to pin on the tops of their heads and how long and flowing it was when they took it down.
Before dementia began eroding away Aunt Shirley's memory, we would frequently talk on the phone. She always told me I was smart enough to be a doctor, but since I hadn't chosen medicine as my career path, she swore I would get my PhD without any difficulty. As much as my parents and grandparents encouraged me to continue my education after achieving my Master's degree, Shirley was the one who said, "Someday we'll call you Doctor." In a superficial way I'd half-smile and nod in agreement when my parents or other family members would talk about me going on to get my PhD. But when my Aunt Shirley talked about it, she was committed. She believed from the bottom of her heart that I could go on to get that PhD. That led me to believe in myself that perhaps one day, when my chaotic life settled down, I would start that arduous process. Now that she's gone, I feel as if I've disappointed her for not starting down that road, but no matter what my future holds, I know I will have someone who unconditionally believed that I could do it, can do it, and perhaps someday will do it.
Right now her funeral is planned for this Wednesday, October 10, 2018. Another tradition she sparked in us is her love for the Kentucky Derby. She and my great-uncle Norton used to annually bet on that particular horse race. I hope that we get to sing "My Old Kentucky Home" at her funeral.
"The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
'Tis summer, the people are gay,
The corn top's ripe and the meadows in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright:
By'n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door,
Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home far away."
We will honor her with that "one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For that old Kentucky Home far away."
We called my grandma, our great-aunt Kootchie, and our great-aunt Shirley "The Golden Girls." They accompanied us during our Gravehopping tradition well before they became part of those we would honor as a result of that tradition. I can't remember the year, but one Memorial Day great-aunt Shirley taught us about FDR's desire to enter WWII. She picked out Grandma's oranges from the kitchen table fruit bowl to provide examples of the way airplanes were posted on the ships in Pearl Harbor which caused the US Navy a delay in response. Grandma turned from her kitchen sink and told Shirley, "Don't bruise my oranges just to make your point."
Shirley also told us the story of when they were all children, sitting on the front porch one Saturday morning when John Dillinger walked his dog past their house at 1202 S. Smalley Street in Shawano. Shirley recognized him and called out, "Good morning Mr. Dillinger!" to which he tipped his hat and kept walking his small dog.
These are the stories that fascinated us, her great-nieces, and sparked our imaginations of what their childhood was like. We knew our Grandma and her family grew up during the Great Depression. They treasured oranges in their Christmas stockings. During an 8th grade project that required me to ask our grandparents about what it was like to live through the Great Depression, Grandma Krause told me, "We didn't know we were any poorer because of the Depression, we were poor anyway."
I remember my great-grandma Ziemer and my great-great-aunt Sarah Denn babysitting us, especially during fair time, the Shawano County Fair is held every Labor Day Weekend. Grandma Ziemer and Aunt Sarah would undo the buns they kept their hair up during the day and they would braid each other's surprisingly long hair down their back and sing us Menominee lullabies. I was astounded by the amount of hair they managed to pin on the tops of their heads and how long and flowing it was when they took it down.
Before dementia began eroding away Aunt Shirley's memory, we would frequently talk on the phone. She always told me I was smart enough to be a doctor, but since I hadn't chosen medicine as my career path, she swore I would get my PhD without any difficulty. As much as my parents and grandparents encouraged me to continue my education after achieving my Master's degree, Shirley was the one who said, "Someday we'll call you Doctor." In a superficial way I'd half-smile and nod in agreement when my parents or other family members would talk about me going on to get my PhD. But when my Aunt Shirley talked about it, she was committed. She believed from the bottom of her heart that I could go on to get that PhD. That led me to believe in myself that perhaps one day, when my chaotic life settled down, I would start that arduous process. Now that she's gone, I feel as if I've disappointed her for not starting down that road, but no matter what my future holds, I know I will have someone who unconditionally believed that I could do it, can do it, and perhaps someday will do it.
Right now her funeral is planned for this Wednesday, October 10, 2018. Another tradition she sparked in us is her love for the Kentucky Derby. She and my great-uncle Norton used to annually bet on that particular horse race. I hope that we get to sing "My Old Kentucky Home" at her funeral.
"The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
'Tis summer, the people are gay,
The corn top's ripe and the meadows in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright:
By'n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door,
Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!
Weep no more, my lady,
Oh! weep no more to-day!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home far away."
We will honor her with that "one song for the old Kentucky Home,
For that old Kentucky Home far away."
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Expect the Unexpected
I was originally scheduled to read this piece at the last Storycatcher's event on June 21, 2018, but because of a work conflict, I was unable to attend. I still want to share it, so here it is: from a time in my life when I should've known enough to Expect the Unexpected.
September 26, 1995 was a Tuesday. As I was
showering for work that morning, I was replaying portions of an episode of
“Murphy Brown” we watched the night before. I dressed in a long-sleeved beige
and black tunic and black pants. It was cool already that late September.
My fiancé and I had had sex the night before
and he was already showered and dressed, making coffee in the kitchen. He wore
a forest green shirt and beige and green tie that was a gift from a coworker
the previous Christmas.
Not only was he my fiancé, but he was also
my employer. At the time he was also my dealer. We were both addicted to fentanyl;
actually any opiate would do. He was a doctor and had IV fentanyl and a litany
of other opiates at his office in addition to a cabinet full of Tylenol #3 with
codeine and Darvocet, an oral opiate pain reliever banned by the FDA in late
2010 due to risk of cardiac events in otherwise healthy patients.
This day began as any other. There was no
reason to suspect the day wouldn’t be like all the other days we’d strung
together, stashing away meds during the course of a workday to use ourselves.
Our thinking was so delusional we thought no body in the office knew a thing
about our diversion of narcotics. This, despite a new work policy that only he could reconcile the narc count at the
end of the day whereas until February of 1995, any staff person could complete
that task, as long as another coworker was watching, counting along, and also
signed the log indicating the count was correct: amounts of each drug we
started with in the morning minus what was documented as administered that day equaled
the total amounts left. That was the case until our addictions became so
overwhelming and ravenous at the start of ‘95 that a few doses stashed away
here and there was no longer sufficient. We were using amounts that would register
as “toxic” on urine drug screens and there was no hiding it by manipulating the
narc count. So the new policy of the doc completing the narc count was
established and he would go through the motions of counting, subtracting and
establishing an accurate drug count each afternoon.
All of it was fake. Made up patient case
numbers showed up on the log sheets. After that lie wasn’t expansive enough to
cover up what we were using, he stopped tracking the drugs all together,
although he continued the ritual of counting and entering false totals each
workday.
On our way to work that morning we laughed
and chatted. Of course we had shot up on the kitchen counter before leaving,
both of us at the point that we needed to use early each morning just to feel
normal and functional. We arrived at his office around 6:45am as usual. He
began seeing patients at seven.
There was a lull at 10:20 that morning which
gave us a desperately needed chance to “feed the beast”; we needed maintenance
doses to keep going until mid-afternoon. At 10:30am the receptionist called his
office and through the speaker phone said, “Umm, there are people here…legal
people from the medical board that want to see you…they want copies of the narcotic
logs too.”
Well, shit. Maybe in the deep recesses of
our brains we knew this day of reckoning would come, but we had not prepared
for it. That’s just one of the things addiction steals from you: your ability
to think like a reasonable human being. Drugs made us think we were invincible.
The drugs lied.
Being the good co-dependent I was, I walked to the front desk and faced a
representative from the state medical board, two U.S. Marshalls, and someone
from the Federal Dept of Justice. If he walked out to meet them, they would
arrest him instantly, he said. So while I stood across the counter from them
and collected business cards, he was shimming out the women’s restroom window
down to his Jeep Cherokee and driving to his business attorney’s office. They
asked if I was Kristine Porath (my maiden name) and I nodded yes. They asked me
to bring them the narcotic logs for the past six months and I told them they
were locked in the safe in his office and I didn’t know the combination. Then
they asked to speak with him and I said he was unavailable and his attorney
would contact them. (All of this I had been prepped with before leaving his
office.)
They left en masse as they had arrived. I went to the storage room, grabbed four
or five dull-red sharps containers and hid in his office, dumping every
pre-filled syringe and vial of whatever controlled substance we had stashed into
the sharps boxes and sealing them shut. Ten minutes into this his private line
rang. I told him what I was doing and he yelled at me, “Are you fucking crazy!?
Get that shit out of those sharps containers and bring it to the house. Someone
from (insert attorney’s office name here) will pick you up in ten minutes and
drive you home. I will already be there.”
Ok. I knew my thinking was just as impaired
as his, until he demanded I bring the drugs we were both accused of using
illegally by the Feds, (the Federal fucking government, man!!) to our home to
use later that afternoon. My first instinct was to throw the shit out. His was
to have me illegally transport it home so we could get fucked up later and
forget about all of this? You’d be surprised at how easy it is to open a sealed
medical waste container. Maybe it was adrenaline that fueled my power to rip
the covers off, or it could’ve been my own addiction that wasn’t ready to give
in, but I did it. I did exactly what he and my addiction demanded of me.
In the end our relationship was officially
over in September 1996. He went to residential treatment and stayed clean while
I was in and out of using. He was serious about getting his medical license
re-instated and couldn’t be with a woman who still used. I needed and got a
$5,000 check from my parents to put the “second best” defense attorney in
Milwaukee on retainer because he of course had “the best” defense attorney
representing him. I went into treatment that September and stayed clean for
four years. He eventually moved to Michigan and began a family practice
residency. It was weird though because for three or four years we still talked
on the phone, exchanged Christmas cards with each other’s parents, and my dad
went golfing with him on a business trip to Michigan.
I sold the two carat engagement ring and
spent a week in France in March of 1997. When I came home there was a message
on my answering machine from my attorney telling me the Feds knew our
relationship was over and would I now consider coming in to talk with them.
It’s creepy to know that the federal government had been watching me,
monitoring my personal comings and goings, possibly recording my phone calls, I
had no idea. But they were right, I was now willing to come in and tell my
story, answer their questions and was provided with immunity testifying to the
grand jury and at a criminal trial, should the grand jury indict him.
I was well prepared by my attorney and the
day I spent three and a half hours “talking” with the DEA and DOJ was achingly
slow. They asked me what the first thing I remembered about that day, September
26, 1995. I said I remember showering. I remember that he and I had made love
the night before. I recited what we were wearing on our way to work. I remember
talking to whomever it was that showed up at his office that morning. I told
them I remember it all.
Monday, January 29, 2018
The Jungle, Bob!
We recorded at least three videos. We wrote a sonnet. We Googled and Tweeted; shouted answers across the basement and spoke quietly in tucked away corners, catching up on our lives after a year of separation.
Yes, it's been ten years since we regrouped and have done so every January of the past decade to annually "play trivia." However, Trivia Weekend is so much more than searching frantically for three minutes at a time to answer obscure questions. It's the deepest re-connection to one of many families of creation. As I've written before, these are the people I don't have to explain myself to because they were there when I was becoming who I am now and who I've been since 8th grade. They are witnesses to my personal evolution as I have been to theirs. I ran that theory past my shrink at my appointment the Tuesday before Trivia Weekend and he agreed with my theory, stating, "that's a great philosophical perspective on friendship." And he makes the big bucks?
One of the beautiful traditions of Trivia Weekend is the meticulous documentation created over years of playing. This goes back to an accidental finding of notebook pages with handwritten jam team names from the first years we participated while in high school, circa 1988, 1989. Now we write out roughly one-third of the regular questions, both Garuda questions and the Super Garuda, the final question of this year's contest which will be the first question next year. The meticulousness of writing down questions starts to wain around midnight on Friday, two hours into the 50-hour marathon. This is question 3 as written on our yellow, lined pad of paper from this year: "If you need to compare foods, this place can help. Which has more calories and which has more carbs, butts or super butts?" (Answer: Butts have more calories, super butts have more carbs.) This is how our attention to detail had devolved by question 115: "U of Chicago 2017 quizbowl Chris Ray said not dead but where." (Answer: Ohio.)
We document not only questions and answers, but whether we answered the question correctly, the assigned points per question, that Trivia Central acknowledged our correct response by listing our team number over the air with the litany of all of the other team numbers who also answered correctly, questions we will dispute by messaging the complaint "line" (it used to be a phone number but now operates on Messenger), and significant events that happen over the course of the weekend, i.e., "10:33pm played Girls on Film". In between questions the station plays music and at 10:33pm on Friday they played Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" which is significant because several of us were HUGE Duranies in junior high and high school.
My favorite documentation is collecting team quotes. This weekend my favorite quote is from Jeff: "Hays, are you angry at those chips?" asked while Hays struggled to open a potato chip bag. I know this is one of those had-to-be-there situations, but trust me, it was frickin' hilarious! The gold-standard of Trivia dialogue is from two or three years ago: Hays: "Carrie, where did you Google that?" (Pause) Carrie: "Google." Again, you had to be there, yada yada yada, but when I think of that exchange I still snort in laughter.
After we break up from playing together in Milwaukee, we communicate through Google Hang-Out. This is the first time since I started playing Trivia in January 1988 that I stayed up until midnight on Sunday to hear the Super Garuda. I was more than a bit punchy and kept typing "I'm getting my Super Garuda cherry popped tonight" describing myself as a "Super Garuda virgin" to the other three remaining team players who hung in with me until the end of the contest. When we left Milwaukee, I was entrusted with the note pad to continue writing down questions and answers. There was something ethereal about scribbling down parts of that final question and searching for the answer, scratching out wrong information and scribbling down more.
Eventually the WLFM streaming went silent. A video posted to The Great Midwest Trivia Contest Facebook page showed the Trivia Masters and on-campus teams congregated outside the station, light snow blowing haphazardly, frequently blurring the images. My final entry on our 2018 notepad reads as follows:
"End: 12:25AM Monday Jan 29, 2018"
Yes, it's been ten years since we regrouped and have done so every January of the past decade to annually "play trivia." However, Trivia Weekend is so much more than searching frantically for three minutes at a time to answer obscure questions. It's the deepest re-connection to one of many families of creation. As I've written before, these are the people I don't have to explain myself to because they were there when I was becoming who I am now and who I've been since 8th grade. They are witnesses to my personal evolution as I have been to theirs. I ran that theory past my shrink at my appointment the Tuesday before Trivia Weekend and he agreed with my theory, stating, "that's a great philosophical perspective on friendship." And he makes the big bucks?
One of the beautiful traditions of Trivia Weekend is the meticulous documentation created over years of playing. This goes back to an accidental finding of notebook pages with handwritten jam team names from the first years we participated while in high school, circa 1988, 1989. Now we write out roughly one-third of the regular questions, both Garuda questions and the Super Garuda, the final question of this year's contest which will be the first question next year. The meticulousness of writing down questions starts to wain around midnight on Friday, two hours into the 50-hour marathon. This is question 3 as written on our yellow, lined pad of paper from this year: "If you need to compare foods, this place can help. Which has more calories and which has more carbs, butts or super butts?" (Answer: Butts have more calories, super butts have more carbs.) This is how our attention to detail had devolved by question 115: "U of Chicago 2017 quizbowl Chris Ray said not dead but where." (Answer: Ohio.)
We document not only questions and answers, but whether we answered the question correctly, the assigned points per question, that Trivia Central acknowledged our correct response by listing our team number over the air with the litany of all of the other team numbers who also answered correctly, questions we will dispute by messaging the complaint "line" (it used to be a phone number but now operates on Messenger), and significant events that happen over the course of the weekend, i.e., "10:33pm played Girls on Film". In between questions the station plays music and at 10:33pm on Friday they played Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" which is significant because several of us were HUGE Duranies in junior high and high school.
My favorite documentation is collecting team quotes. This weekend my favorite quote is from Jeff: "Hays, are you angry at those chips?" asked while Hays struggled to open a potato chip bag. I know this is one of those had-to-be-there situations, but trust me, it was frickin' hilarious! The gold-standard of Trivia dialogue is from two or three years ago: Hays: "Carrie, where did you Google that?" (Pause) Carrie: "Google." Again, you had to be there, yada yada yada, but when I think of that exchange I still snort in laughter.
After we break up from playing together in Milwaukee, we communicate through Google Hang-Out. This is the first time since I started playing Trivia in January 1988 that I stayed up until midnight on Sunday to hear the Super Garuda. I was more than a bit punchy and kept typing "I'm getting my Super Garuda cherry popped tonight" describing myself as a "Super Garuda virgin" to the other three remaining team players who hung in with me until the end of the contest. When we left Milwaukee, I was entrusted with the note pad to continue writing down questions and answers. There was something ethereal about scribbling down parts of that final question and searching for the answer, scratching out wrong information and scribbling down more.
Eventually the WLFM streaming went silent. A video posted to The Great Midwest Trivia Contest Facebook page showed the Trivia Masters and on-campus teams congregated outside the station, light snow blowing haphazardly, frequently blurring the images. My final entry on our 2018 notepad reads as follows:
"End: 12:25AM Monday Jan 29, 2018"
Our 2018 team mascot: Mr. Pocket
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)