Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Another 366 Days Around the Sun (Leap Year)

Any day can be recognized as marking another 366 days around the sun, but generally birthdays and New Years Eve are days carved out to celebrate this trip.

My first caveat about 2024 I'll state is that this past 366 days have been more shit-show than celebratory, but that's not the focus of this post. However, I wanted to get that out of the way to start. 

So here are some celebratory highlights from 2024.

It sounds weird but losing Apollo on January 17, 2024 eventually opened my heart to love another rescue puppy, Rexford Mahi Sack, who we brought home from the Happily Ever After Animal Sanctuary on October 21, 2024. Rex was born on February 16, 2024 and was just about 8 months old when he came to his forever home. Apollo was a "rescue" puppy but I didn't know what that really meant until Rexie came home. As of today, 2 months later, he won't let Mark touch him, put his collar and leash on him, and refuses to play with Mark. He has bonded with me like super glue and is my "protector" when anyone approaches me, hands me something, or even engages in conversation exclusively with me, Rex will stare down the other person, voice a low growl, and sometimes he stands up in front of me to block anyone from potentially getting too close to me. We put in an underground electric fence to accommodate his habit of going outside in an open fenced-in area like he did when he was at the shelter. Because I'm the only person that can put his leash on him, our outdoor training is limited to times when I'm available to take him outside. Approximately 3 weeks after Rex came home, I started working outside of the house at a local mental health outpatient agency that Optum/United Health Care purchased. I was super excited to be working in direct client care and outside of the house again, but my absence 40 hours a week threw a major kink into Rex's outdoor training. And then, you know, it's Wisconsin and the snow came. In the midst of all of this change I was having some serious physical health issues which prevented me from taking Rex outside in the mornings and evenings I worked. Our current potty training situation is that Rex does his business on XL puppy pads, the location of which were determined by where he was going potty in the house.

Mark and I spent 9 days in Key West FL at the end of May into early June. It was glorious. We rented a 4-seat golf cart to travel around the 4-mile by 2-mile island. I was more hyped for this vacation than Mark was and I took full advantage of running around the island to Duval Street, the southern most point in the continental US, and do some grocery shopping at Fausto's Food Palace where I found a bottle of Sun Drop priced at $1.79 which is WAY cheaper than it can be found in WI where it's actually produced (in my birth place of Shawano, WI). We went deep sea fishing and caught more Mahi Mahi than we could eat but took what our Captain of the Southpaw Fishing vessel fileted for us to take to the Conch Republic Seafood Company where they seared our fish in butter, olive oil and lime juice. When our platter of fish was delivered we asked for lemon wedges and our waitress looked at us like we each had two heads, then we explained that in Wisconsin, we eat our seafood with lemon and of course in Key West all seafood is served with Key Lime slices. 

I spent everyday in Key West in either the pool, the ocean or the Gulf, mostly more often than once a day. The back pain I was experiencing vanished with the increased humidity and regular water "therapy". My day at Smathers Beach was peaceful and tranquil and even though they had showers to clean away the ocean water, I didn't take advantage of that and when I got back into the golf cart I stopped at some shops along the way home (Books & Books on Easton Street, Kermit's Key Lime Pie Shop, and Emerald's International where I bought a Mahi Mahi pendant with an emerald eye (my birthstone) and an emerald "constellation" thumb ring. About 4 hours out of the water a SERIOUS case of swimmer's itch set in and I thought I was going to have to amputate both of my legs because the itching was SO intense, the best treatment I could provide was to scratch the lesions until they bled and then put rubbing alcohol on them. I've been swimming in the ocean at least a dozen times before and for the life of me I can't explain why I didn't shower the salt water off of me, but trust me: LESSON LEARNED. 

The emerald thumb ring I bought needed to be resized and then shipped to me. Just as I got that via UPS, I thought, "This is the last thing I'm bringing back from Key West." Oh, silly me, two days later I tested positive for COVID and that was literally the last thing I brought home from Key West. I've had every COVID vaccine and booster that the NIH recommended. I was honestly surprised at the seriousness of symptoms I had. I was out of work for 7 days, spending my days laying in bed or on the couch. It seriously kicked my ass. 

While we were in FL I stopped drinking my regular 12 oz of morning Coke and Sprite throughout the course of the day. I started drinking 68oz of Dasani water a day and I felt great! After three weeks of drinking only water I lost about 10 pounds. In mid-July my daily blood pressure readings started to drop - like 77/59 and I spent a day in the ER where I got a bag of fluids and felt better, my BP was up to 108/68 and I was discharged to follow up with my PCP.

In mid-October my PCP prescribed 0.25mg of Ozempic once a week for 4 weeks because I was officially diagnosed with diabetes type II. At week 5 I was to increase the weekly dose to 0.50mg. Once I started Ozempic I lost weight-mostly muscle mass because that's the mechanism of action, and I needed to "push fluids and eat a high protein diet." I stopped Ozempic after my 4th dose because since I started the med I was in the ER again, BP 79/60, pulse 115. They did a total cardiac and respiratory work up and everything came back within normal limits. I had a 7-day Holter monitor placed which came back within normal limits. I need to schedule an echocardiogram, probably sometime next week. 

Late October brought my 35th class reunion which totally kicked ass!! I was honored by the reunion committee to write a poem about the significance of being 35 years post high school graduation. Some of my "besties" from Minnesota drove down and we stayed in an awesome Air B&B near Lawrence University which is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Appleton. I spent time at the reunion talking with people I went to junior high with, people who knew my younger sister who was 3 grades behind me, and yes, the infamous Sid Seehawer hiding in Mr. Moe's lecture podium at Wilson Jr. High. I didn't attend our 25th or 30th reunion, but I will be damn sure to attend our 40th. I was shocked by the number of classmates that we've lost since our 20th reunion, the last one I attended.  

The last big change this year was transferring to a direct client contact position at an outpatient mental health agency that Optum/United Health Care purchased in mid-September 2024. It's kind of weird because there's only me and another clinician who started on 12/23/24 and our totally kick ass Administrative Assistant as the entire staff. As I described earlier, with adopting Rex, the timing could have been better, but overall I enjoy getting ready for work and leaving the house to go into the office. While working at home I fell into some patterns that really didn't increase or sustain healthy self-care. But no more wearing my pajamas to work!!

It is 12:23am, January 1, 2025. I usually include a snippet from Auld Lang Syne, but I think I'll let my words and photos speak for themselves this year. May the best of 2025 come to everyone reading this blog 💕


                                                                Rexford Mahi Sack

                                                        Me & Mahi Mahi deep sea fishing

                                                        Smathers Beach Key West, FL


                                                        Sun Drop at Fausto's Food Palace

                                                            35th Class Reunion Poem

                                                                    Class Photo 1989

                                                                     Selfie with Sid

                                            Appleton West High School Diploma June 8, 1989





                                    
                                                            


   

Monday, October 28, 2024

It Didn’t Feel Like 35 Years

 It didn’t take long last night before it felt like it couldn’t possibly be thirty-five years since we graduated from high school. No. Nope. No way. Nuh-uh. Thirty-five years, really? Thirty-five years…huh.

There were not an enormous number of name tags at the Registration Table. In 1989 The Post Crescent declared that 380 students were graduating from Appleton West High School on June 8th. For some reason, I always thought there were 444 kids in our senior class and the way I remember it is because that’s the number of days the US hostages in Iran were held in captivity. Yeah, that happened when I was in 5th grade, but the correlation is unbreakable for me. Yet I’ve heard rumors that our class size was closer to 477-478. I understand that class size doesn’t equal graduation size. Then there’s this nebulous piece of data that had something to do with kids getting caught cheating on the Physics final and they were prohibited from “walking” during the commencement ceremony? Trust me, I was never in any sort of Physics class whether it be high school, college or graduate school. That’s something that could likely be mis-memoried. Hey, I like the sound and definition of that new word I think I just created. I know the correct grammatical term is mis-remembered, but mis-memoried seems more emotional to me, and if the displayed poem and Talisman articles out for display last night are any indication at all, yes, I go with the emotional!

I remember writing the “censorship” article. The Valentine’s Day article though? Not one thin string of memory can reconnect me to writing that. Last night I literally cringed when as reading the article and kept referring to female students as “chicks”.

MY UNDERGRAD MAJOR WAS WOMEN’S STUDIES FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.

AT AN EAST COAST LIBERAL ARTS UNIVERSITY.

Just goes to show that a person can have her consciousness raised and become much more aware and sensitive that how we refer to each other can be deeply telling about our own crap at the time. Read the article and you’ll totally understand what I’m talking about.

I haven’t gone to all of our reunions. I missed twenty-five and thirty. I was at number 20 though because that’s when the people I was closest to in high school were invited over to my parents’ house where while we were in high school, we either a) spent a lot of time in my parents’ basement or pool, or b) didn’t spend a lot of time there but the time that was spent was memorable in some way, or c) you were at my graduation party on June 24, 1989 and if you were, the first thing that comes to mind is Wowzers.                           


There are SO many classmates that I would love to see again. Some of them had nametags at the ready last night. Others didn’t or haven’t at the reunions I attended. I’m not going to name them here, but God-damn Matt Thompson, Adam Hardt, Robb Bosser, John Falcus, and Pat Van Derhei you need to get yourselves to our next one. We’re not going to live forever, you know. It’d be nice to see you again before I die.

Our Reunion Committee kicks ass. At each reunion there is something created in memory of those from the class of 1989 that we have already lost due to tragedy, accident or illness. I was shocked to find two names of boys I knew from junior high added to the memorial. I went to junior high at Wilson with them both. It’s hard tracking down anyone who knows the details, but really that information is to satisfy my own curiosity. It doesn’t change the fact that 35 years ago, they too walked across the stage assembled in our high school gym. 380 teenagers slammed into the gym, let’s average two guests for every graduate, that’s another 760 bodies, plus the representatives from the Appleton Area School District, staff/faculty/administrators from our own high school, I figure that’s roughly 1,200 people in that gym on a cloudy and damp early June evening. Wearing polyester robes over the clothes we were already wearing. It’s a gift from God, a mitzvah if you will, no one went down that Thursday night.

              
I wrote a poem dedicated to our 35th class reunion and it was on full display last night. I brought markers so everyone in attendance could sign it or write something on it. At first a fellow alum and I stood there, saying, “What do you write on this sort of thing?” Then she said, “Is it like a yearbook where you write ‘Stay cool and have an awesome summer!’” My mind went racing with the number of variations on that theme I’ve written in yearbooks since 1984.                                    


I talked to and hugged a lot of people last night. It felt amazing. I spent more time with other people than the people I arrived with! All of the high school pettiness evaporated years ago, but it’s good to be reminded that high school is not the way life will always be. I know there were official group pictures taken by Brian Blazer (WTF Blazer? You don’t even say “Hi!” to me??) I’m over it, I really am 😊And I look forward to seeing those in the near future.

I bought an official copy of our class graduation picture snapped in the pouring rain at the Banta Bowl and I am already circling people’s heads and adding their names. 

At the time of high school graduation, I would be in the camp that wanted to selectively remember classmates and experiences. Then I started working as a School-Based Mental Health Counselor through the PATH Program of the United Way-Fox Cities and I was so excited for my first day at West that I walked into the Student Services Office and boldly said, “Hi I’m Kris Porath, your new PATH counselor!” Then I erupted in laughter and said, “Ok, no, I’m Kristine Sack and I’m your new PATH counselor, but the last time I stood in this office, which was across the hall by the way, my name was Kris Porath, class of 1989.” The three secretaries/administrative assistants looked at me as if I had two heads. I mumbled that I needed access to a certain room number and could one of them please let me in. How returning to that specific place, all those years later, brought me right back to the way I identified myself then is surely something Freud would have me on the couch for years analyzing.

So, thirty-five years have come and gone. What an exquisite life it’s been. Wouldn’t you agree?                                                    



Saturday, August 10, 2024

Family

 Well, that’s an incredibly small and incredibly large subject, isn’t it?

 When I started putting this blog together, it was going to be a simple description of how I had been finishing the pad of Jumbo Word Finds that I ended up with after my Grandpa Krause died in February 2018. Ultimately it will be, but I had to explore a bunch of tributaries before I got back on the river this particular tribute to my maternal grandmother would become.

I’m a quasi-genealogy contact for my family of origin. That said, tonight I sifted through obituaries, funeral programs, printed material from ancestry.com, and database information that my second cousin on my paternal grandfather’s side had created. Yes, Bruce Schaepe, I will call you out because whenever we have been together, unfortunately it’s always at family funerals, we have created a pod of just the two of us talking about family history and genealogy. Bruce’s mother married a brother of my Grandpa Porath. So, his mother was my great-great aunt. Establishing family relationships at times makes my head spin. Tonight, I tried to organize some family documents into folders. So far, I have a folder titled “Krause” (my maternal grandfather), “Wilber/Ziemer” (my maternal grandmother), “Porath” (my paternal grandfather), and “Kuether” (my paternal grandmother). Yeah, I know, my head is spinning right along with yours.

Now, getting back to the original purpose of this blog: I hope everyone reading this can say, “My grandma was the best grandma EVER!” I can certainly say that without doubt. In my maternal family we have this tradition I have posted about before called “Gravehopping.”  Quick hits info: either the weekend before or Memorial Day Weekend we go to the graves of our maternal grandparents’ family, which now consists of three separate cemeteries, and remove the fake flowers we placed last year and replace them with “fresh” fake flowers.

When my Grandma Krause (my mom’s mom) was able to go with us, when we got to the grave of her grandma, she always said, “She was the best grandma ever.” Every year I would tell her, “No, you’re the best grandma ever.” She would look up at me and say, “Oh, I can only hope so, Dolly.”  She ALWAYS called her five granddaughters “Dolly” when ending a phone call or a letter.

Back on the river and off of the tributaries: As I alluded to earlier, I have my Grandma Krause’s Jumbo Word Find Pad. I don’t know the date of my grandma’s last attempted word find, but the title is “80 Reunion Time.” The clues include “guest”, “memories”, and “mementos”.  Of the 28 words, she found 15. Today I completed 10 of the remaining words.

I left one incomplete on purpose. The word is “Farewell.” It’s in here somewhere, but I haven’t looked for it. Despite the number of years that have passed since Grandma Krause passed and where she lived at the time she passed, I like to think about one year when we were in Shawano, on the small front porch of the house on Smalley Street and Grandma said, “They must not have the stock car races at the Fair anymore.” My cousins and I shared a knowing look with each other and one of us said, “Grandma, they’re racing the cars right now. Can’t you hear them?” She answered, “Oh, no, but I’m glad that you can hear them.”

The BEST things about Gravehopping was that on Sunday of Gravehopping weekend, Grandma Krause would fry eggs over-hard for me in the bacon grease in her cast iron skillet. To this day, all of these years later, I have not eaten anything that comes close to how absolutely perfect these simple fried eggs tasted.

I have no idea who got Grandma Krause’s iron skillet, but I have my Grandma Porath’s iron skillet and I have yet to attempt the “eggs fried over hard in bacon grease.”  I hope that I have the courage to fry eggs over hard soon. In a way, it will complete the “farewell” Reunion Time.



Saturday, July 27, 2024

How Will I Know?

When we lost Peanut on May 26, 2010, it was exactly one month later, June 26, 2010, that we brought Apollo home. If you knew me during the Peanut years, you know how completely devoted I was to him. Living in a household without a dog got lonely and when we chose Apollo and he chose us, it felt right. When I close my eyes, I can still feel his little puppy body curled up in my lap on the drive home. He was warm and I could hear him breathe. We picked him up in Wausaukee and had a significant drive home from his foster family’s house. I held him steady with my left hand, playing with his ears, looking out the window, contemplating his name.

His name. As someone who silently giggles when I come across “unfortunate” human names, this was a defining choice. His foster family named him Red, which was a no-go from the start. So, I’m doing some free association thinking and the movie Troy with Brad Pitt as Achilles floats into my thoughts, and how he fell in love with Persephone, the protector of the oracle of Apollo, the Greek god of light, their Sun God. The Romans worshipped Apollo as a god of healing. Light, the sun, healing…exactly what was needed in the vacuum of our lives that Peanut left. Not a replacement, but a healer. That’s a lot of expectation for an eight-week, nine-pound puppy, but fucking-a did he deliver!!

From the moment we got back home, his huge personality filled every shadow of darkness. It took two rounds of obedience classes to get him to honestly, the sub-par level in which he would listen and “obey.” We did get him kennel trained which was huge because Peanut wasn’t, and it eventually became problematic – like the time in Milwaukee when he got my new $1,700 eyeglasses off of my night stand and I woke to the sound of him chewing and destroying them a mere two hours after I fell asleep.

 It’s been 6 months and 10 days since we lost Apollo. I am finally able to look at pictures of him without crumbling into tears, although if I look at anymore than three, my thoughts wander to how much he was loved, how much he loved all of us, and how much I still miss him. Then the tears roll, like they are now.

Two weeks ago, I opened my Petfinder app and plugged in the info about what type of dog I was looking for (size, sex, age, etc.). Then I added our info (kids, other pets, type of yard, etc.). This is the website where we found Apollo. There are small-to-medium sized male puppies available for adoption. Some of them are part-terrier with wired hair like Apollo had. Some of them have the same black and tan markings that Peanut had.

While looking at pictures and reading puppy bios, it crosses my mind that I may be looking for a “replacement” for Apollo, and that if a pup has a different personality from his, which of course he will, I will be disappointed.

I just untangled my own answer right there.





Saturday, June 29, 2024

Key West Rhapsody

Key West Rhapsody

Yes, I stood in the ocean and wept with joy.
I floated in the gulf and brushed seaweed from my hair.
Hearing a waterfall under water sounds like thunder.
I miss roosters crowing in the morning…and all day.
She decided to start living the life she imagined.
Closer to Cuba than the nearest Walmart, I found Sun Drop at $1.79 a bottle at Fausto’s Food Palace, cheaper here than it is where it’s made, Shawano WI.
I caught my own Mahi Mahi and ate it seared with olive oil and Key limes.
I never imagined there were so many shades of blue.
Just before the rain poured, I picked up 4 college kids from Pensacola in my 4-seat golf cart and drove us to Mallory Square.
The humidity is high and stagnant.
The air smells of orchids and cigars, is subtly spicey and subtly sweet.
The water feels thin and light.
There are two places where my soul feels at home; one is Manhattan, the other is Key West.
There will be a time when I go there, to Paradise, and I won’t come back. 

Those are some of the major “be mindful in this moment” memories from our trip to Key West. Before Mark and I spent eight days there in late May/early June, I had spent a total of roughly eight hours there twenty-nine years ago. But I knew then, “even if I have to live in a box on the beach”, I knew this is where I’d retire. Considering my ability to work remotely from anywhere in the U.S. in my current job, and, having lived in the equivalent of a tiny home while we were there, the possibility of moving there sooner than retirement is a high possibility.

It was very freeing to have a small footprint of space available to live in. Anyone who has ever helped me move or has been to any of the places I’ve lived in since I lived in Boston as an undergrad, may find this shocking. I have a ton of shit. I have been hauling books I read in high school (and never re-read), yearbooks from junior high, photos of my parents in my childhood and “junior cookbooks” with me since the day I moved into my first off-campus apartment in Boston. I still have a bookcase that was in the bedroom I shared with my sister in 1984.

I’ve been reading about people my age and younger living in Key West for roughly six months each year, depending on the climate they are coming from, and living the other part of the year where it’s likely much farther north, but they also call “home.” Apparently, there are boarding houses in Key West that offer this option. I haven’t looked for something comparable in Wisconsin yet, but I’m not hopeful.

Just by looking at photos of me from Key West is proof enough for me that this is a place where I belong. Not because of the touristy stuff we did, like deep sea fishing and then having the fish made to order at a harbor restaurant. I belong here because my soul feels full. I look forward to each day here. All I need is a small golf cart to run errands and for grocery shopping. I need to spend every day in water, a pool, a gulf, an ocean.

                                  

                                                          This is where my soul feels at home.