Weird Weekend

[merimask]

It's being an odd weekend for me.  Odd in a number of ways.

 

I'm not feeling well...some kind of stomach/digestive thing which I've had for days.   I'm not letting it sideline me (I have too much to do) but I just feel really crappeh.  I was so tired last night, but couldn't sleep.  So here I am, writing in my journal, waiting to see what the oatmeal I just ate will do to me.

What can I say?  I love oatmeal.  It's that instant Quaker Low Sugar apples and cinnamon oatmeal and it's perfect for a cold snowy morning (or any morning really).  It really is a very cold and snowy morning though...not too much snow but a lot of howling wind, which is blowing the three inches we got last night all over the place.  It looks and sounds just like an arctic tundra out there.

Greg's sick too, with probably the same thing.  I'd blame it on something we ate except it's an ongoing problem and we don't really eat the same things.  *shrug*  Anyway, in spite of feeling kinda yukky I went out yesterday...mailed some orders, went shopping at Tops, filled up the car.   Then I went alone to Kimmie's Dad's wake.

It was a memorial at an American Legion Post, in the heart of the decaying city of Niagara Falls, where I used to live in another lifetime.

The streets are pitted with potholes so huge that you have to drive around them (reminded me of Costa Rica) and the old neighborhood is falling down.  Big old homes that were sweet once but in such disarray now.  Every few houses, you see one that's still nice and being kept up, and you know a family lives there and that they love their home.  All around them though...urban rot and neglect.

I used to live there, on the corner of North and Lockport street, with my first husband.  My first house was a long large narrow 120 year old house with a big front porch and a side porch and stairs and four bedrooms...it was an uphill battle, trying to keep that place whole, but I loved it.  We fenced in the entire house, all the way 'round, so the dogs (my old sweet Australian shepherds) could patrol the property and keep us safe.  We remodled the kitchen ourselves, on a budget (but it was cute and HUGE, a gigantic country-style kitchen), and the bathroom, and I painted almost every surface with nice clean white paint, which made it cheerful. I loved the huge front porch; I'd run a hose from the kitchen and fill a wading pool with warm water for Char and we spent many long summer days out there on that porch, screened by trees, listening to the roar of the distant Falls.   Tucker used to stick his big head over the edge of the pool and drink her water, and she'd slap at him with baby hands and laugh. 

When I left my ex, I left him the house.  The neighborhood was terrible and unsafe, the schools scary, and I wanted better for Charlotte (who was 4 at the time).  So I left him the house and less than a year later he abandoned it, and it's been empty and unloved ever since.  Probably a crack house, like so many other houses in that neighborhood.  Smashed windows, slumping porch, no door...it looks like a mouth full of rotten broken teeth.  It made me cry to see it again...I drove by quickly and didn't slow.

At the memorial it was more like a party than anything else...a sort of Irish wake I suppose.  Full of life and laughter...a nice sort of send off I think.  Pete had friends of all sorts; he was a friendly and loveable guy, a real character.  There must have been about 200 bikers there (I never knew he was a biker!) and at least another 200 members of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism...a medieval sort of recreation group that I used to be active in.  It's where I first took up my leatherwork). 

I saw people I hadn't seen in years, which was really nice.  Many of them, I've known since I was Charlotte's age.  I got to tell some of them (not everyone...I was there to pay respects and not to promote myself) what's been going on with me and my crazy career.  It was really kind of a moment for me, especially after seeing the decayed ruins of my beloved first house; my old life.  I've done so much and come so far.  Everyone remarked about how youthful I looked (hee!) and I was dressed smartly in a black shirt tucked into my Levi's and really, it healed a bit of the wound that's been in my heart ever since I left that neighborhood behind.  I'm not that scared sad person anymore...I'm the person I was always meant to be.  I'm Andrea who has traveled to the other side of the world, who works hard and makes a decent living with her art, who lives in a much smaller but nicer house in a nice safe suburb and has a teenager on the short track to college.   I drive a 2007 Subaru Outback.  I have a savings account.  It's a beautiful thing.

I brought a copy of the Artvoice magazine with my masks on the cover, and gave it to Kimmie.  I told her about the mask I donated to charity for the Hospice fundraiser, in her father's name.   It felt good to do, because I felt like I was giving back to the people and life that was my starting place.  I know Pete would have liked that too.

I stayed for a few hours but HAD to leave...the bikers all smoke like chimneys and I was ill from it (not to mention whatever bug I'm dealing with).  I'm so glad I went though.  Kimmie is a good and constant friend and I know how hard it is to deal with the loss of your father...and lost to cancer too, like my own Dad.   Such a difficult, sad way to go, and a hard thing for a daughter to preside over.  We both did it though.  I guess I just wanted her to know I'm still here for her and always will be, and that there is an "other side".  You come through changed but whole, still, and able to smile when you remember your Dad.  That's the important thing.  

Well, the oatmeal seems to be settling nicely (whew!) which is a good thing.  I have masks to make today and I should probably rest, too.  I think I'm just going to make pretty things and take naps all day...which actually sounds heavenly to me.  ^_^
 

*smooch*  Love you all.