Thursday, March 17, 2022

 Thursday, March 17, 2022

 

  My sleep has been better the last two days. I refuse to allow myself to find reasons for feeling lousy. That gets me worked up. I stick to feeling the sensations without attributing good or bad; I observe. At least that doesn't stoke the fire of my suffering and make it worse. It's grief, period end of sentence. I have lost someone who loved me, liked me, admired me, and respected me. My loss made me cranky.

   We had driveway yoga today. We were only doing it one day a week right now. Yvette was busy setting up the video rental business. Also, she doesn't get much sleep because her senile cat howls several times a night. 

   I had plans to drive the two granite slabs I had selected for gravestones to the Kawaihai port for shipment to Honolulu. First, I drove up to Paulette to get a Kangen water refill. Elsa and I were out as of last night. I also checked the tree that loomed over their two-story house that they had cut back. Two-thirds of the tree was gone. Paulette pointed out three places where a limb hit and caused damage. Paulette said they calculated where a branch would fall. They couldn't anticipate the limb bouncing and going off in its own direction. There was damage, fortunately, not to the main house.

   I left on my trip for Kawaihai directly from Paulette's driveway, even though I had to pass my house. It was a nerve-wracking trip. Part of it was my problem with the electric car, and part of it was the chore. I was putting a lid on it in getting these gravestones ready. I was sealing Mike's grave with these stones. It will be over. Very painful.

    After spending time yesterday preparing a lecture for Damon on the importance of not using the EV mode when driving long distances in my car, I forgot to switch on the HEV mode when I pulled out of the driveway. I watched the bars slowly drop and didn't recognize the problem. When I got to the port, I only had two bars left. When I asked about a charging station, the nearest one was miles away. 

     I passed through a security check. The guard placed a numbered hat on my car and told me to go to the trailer's incoming window. The woman at the window asked me what I was picking up. Nothing. I was dropping something off. I was at the wrong window. She directed me to go to the picnic table and wait. About ten people were sitting there. There were no directions. I asked what to do. One woman told me to sign my name on a list. I did that and sat down at the picnic table to read.  

    After 10 minutes, the same woman came to me and said I had to fill out the paperwork on a second clipboard. I was somewhat flaky between my age, the stress of the drive with my problematic car, and this business with the gravestones. I couldn't catch on quickly. I actually thought I was supposed to fill out the form while on a stack of these forms with carbon copies. Someone had to tell me to take a form, put it on the table, and fill it out. They must all have thought I was senile. 

   Veronica, from Honor Life Engraving, had texted me a picture of her business card. She said I would need her name, not the company name. I managed to fill out the from/to information. I checked out the form online. However, I didn't know how to complete the rest of the form. A man came up and asked what are you sending? I said two granite slabs. He said to write the number two in the quantity box and 'granite slabs' in the next box. Yeah, I wasn't in good shape.

   I continued reading Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell, Lawrence Durrells's brother.  Lawrence won a Nobel Prize in literature. He and Gerald are running neck to neck on Amazon now. They both wrote in great detail. Lawrence wrote about sex; Gerald wrote about animals, including his family. While waiting, I read the chapter on Dodo, the dog. I laughed out loud. That rarely happens—what a treat.

   It was at least half an hour before my name was called. A man asked me where my package was and was it an A-frame. The crate was flat. I told him it better be good for shipping since Kona Trans had charged me $400 for the crating job. He followed me to my car. I opened the trunk. He said nothing and walked away. "Should I follow you?" No. He returned with a measuring tape.   He put two stickers on the crate with Veronica's first and last name. That's it. Oh, boy. He told me I could drop it off for unloading and then pay or pay and then drop it off. I chose the latter. I cost what I thought it would, $85—the minimum amount. 

   He told me where to go on the lot to drop off the crate. 'See where the cars are lined up? Pull up to the stop sign if no one else is there."

     I drove right up to the sign and stopped- and sat there. I was the only one there; still, no one came to help. I read while waiting. Finally, a man walked up to me. He told me I was in the wrong lane. From his tone, I gathered he was pissed I hadn't used the correct lane and postponed helping me. How was I supposed to know which lane to use? He told me to pop the trunk open. I told him it had to be manually opened. "I guess you'll have to get out of the car to open it." My best guess is hemorrhoids, flat feet, or athlete's foot. Why else would he be so gratuitously irritable? One of the other workers drove a forklift over. The first man guided the forklift driver, "Lower, over to the left; come forward." That was that.

  Then I got directions on how to get out of the yard. "Pull around the stop sign, make a left, and go past the carriages." Do you know what a carriage is? Those are the large barn red shipping containers. Since not doing things correctly was rewarded with contempt, I was delighted to catch sight of an SUV with a number marker on the hood of his car. I followed him out. If I got it wrong, I wouldn't be the only one who did. 

   As I drove around the yard, I turned on the HEV mode every time I turned on the car. I started the car three times before I left the grounds: 1) to move the car to the pick-up area, 2) to leave the pick-up area, and finally, 3) after I came out of the bathroom before starting my trip home.  

   The gravestones were on their way to the engraver. It has been three years since we put Mike in the grave or, more accurately, his ashes. I have been putting off dealing with the grave marker. I had valid excuses, but I wasn't ready to put "a lid on it" to make Mike's escape from death impossible. The brain map of Mike is gone, gone. I am entirely alone. Not only have I lost my life companion, I have lost someone I lived with happily, someone who liked me and I liked.

     Wordle was a struggle today. When I woke from a nap, emoji came to mind. My trial words gave me three vowels (eoi). I had three out of five possible letters. It was a hard puzzle. Emoji gave me enough information so I could figure out the word movie.

   Jean texted me that she and the kids started throwing up when they got home. Kelly, Jean's daughter and the kids' mom, had been sick yesterday. It's that stomach virus going around. Yesterday was the first time I went without a mask. I sat in a closed car with the three of them. I called and canceled my PT appointment for tomorrow rather than risk paying $50 for a missed session or giving the virus to Terry. It wasn't the 24 required hours, but they let me off the hook.

   I had a long, satisfying nap. Shipping the stones was letting something go. Once I have the gravestones in place, it will make a difference. I wasn't ready before now.

   It was a good thing I waited for another reason. Fr. Lio wouldn't give me parameters for the size of the grave marker. It was only a few weeks ago he finally did so. His plan was a pour a cement slab for the markers to rest on. Then he saw professional gravestone makers work to move a slab to get someone else into the grave. He watched them struggle with it and freaked out. From whatever you want, it went to the grave markers for both of us had to fit on a two by a three-foot base. I convinced him to enlarge it to a three-by-four-foot space. That should be fine for both of us.

     I received a text from Isaac inviting me to join him on a walk just as I returned to the house. He stopped by instead and sat with me while I ate my dinner. I love talking to this boy. We are so much alike. We share our love of conceptual thinking and are outgoing in similar ways. He doesn't treat me 'respectfully' because I'm older. He treats me respectfully because he treats everyone that way. I'm his peer in many ways.

   However, he can talk more than I can. I got up when I was ready and brought my dishes to the sink. "You know, I'm getting ready to throw you out?" He said he knew. I said, "Follow me," as I walked to the side door to drop off some laundry. We stood there a minute and continued talking. "Ah, "he said." You asked me to follow you so I could leave." Yep. We parted, affirming how much we loved talking.  

  Tonight, he told me he befriended another "old person." He apologized. I pointed out that it was an accurate description. He met a man at his church whose thinking he found interesting. Isaac also told me that his dad observed that he was more settled in himself since he came to Hawaii. I told him that I liked to think I was part of his growth. Of course, he took on a huge challenge without realizing it. He came here without friends and found himself in an unfriendly situation at his volunteer site. He had no idea how difficult his situation was. He was experiencing grief with his loss as I was experiencing it in mine. Of course, my loss is permanent, and his was temporary. Still.

   I started another episode of Brokenwood Mysteries. These are good. It is difficult to figure out who the guilty party is. I watched one program where I knew the guilty party was always the one who looked utterly innocent.