Thursday, September 16, 2004
I found the titles...all three (it's a triple wide)...
...for the mobile home. I'm so ecstatic I've decided to celebrate in a post. I didn't have to go through all our boxes of old files, although I hauled all of them onto the livingroom floor. They were in the 3rd box and would have been in the second if I'd followed my hunch; in an old investment file of my mother's. In yet another investment file I found the title to one of our vehicles. The title to the other car was in the original "Title to Lancer Mobile Home" folder in which I discovered only copies of the current, transferable titles to the Mesa home.
Remembering my mother's misfilings that I discovered in 2000, the year that one of my father's investments he originated in 1968 matured and I had to go through the files looking for stuff that would tell our tax man what the final capital gains were on that investment, was what made the job easier. Whew. That was amazing. That's when I learned what obsessive and detailed record keepers both my parents had been (my mother still is, although creatively, now) and, as well, got a peak into my mother's financial acumen, which matured soon after my father died. Interesting because he was the one who was always buying financial books, looking at financial programs, and he absorbed some, but not as much as my mother. She was very savvy when it came to investments, although she, along with a lot of other savvy investors, including a friend of mine who was writing a book on investing at the time of the crash when she lost all her money, got caught in the crash of 2000 (thereabouts...I don't recall that it really hit her until 2001). I tend to think of myself as a meticulous record keeper and financially aware. I am nothing in either department compared to my mother. She fucking went to work, after my Dad died, on their assets, and polished her position nicely.
That was an accomplishment and a relief. I had very little to configure into my decision as to where to begin looking for the titles. I even had day-mares in which I discovered that she has filed them away in boxes in the shed connected to the Mesa home, the very ones I found so rain soaked that their dilapidated contents, all saved papers, were melting into one another. I expected to have to go through those and expected to discover that I would have to, within a half month, reapply for tranferrable certificates of title for the mobile home.
For some reason yesterday evening, although we certainly had a productive day, I was feeling melancholy. I finally traced it to seeing my mother's small, domestic hopes and dreams sliding by my eyes as I packed out her room. Projects whose practice I know my mother has coveted for years: A ginger bread house kit, candy making kits (she really pursued candy making, one year, and it was good, too, if you like candy); half finished afghans, one in particular begun for the son of some close cousins the year they adopted him; her interest in what is, for lack of a better term, paranormal religion (a lot of Jane Roberts' books, some by Ruth Montgomery and Edgar Cayce; Emmet Fox and C.S. Lewis, as well, to show you how deeply thought she is philosophically and spiritually); all her genealogy stuff which she has, essentially, passed on to MCS...
...I remembered, finally, who J. L. was (may still be, who knows). She was a friend my mother made when she and Dad lived in El Paso. They remained friends through both of their husbands' deaths and took vacations together, some pretty spectacular ones. They were planning, when they lost touch, on going to Australia together, highlighting New Zealand. My mother dreamt of J. L. about a week and a half ago. It took me a couple of days and some miscellaneous memorabilia to remember her. I met her once when I was living in the Phoenix metroplex the same time as my mother. Delightful woman, rather like an Ancient Diana Rigg, devoted to the cocktail hour, and only to the cocktail hour...
...a bunch of traveler's pamphlets regarding Australia and New Zealand. I even found gifts she had bought for people and forgotten where she placed them. Some will be passed on to those for whom they are intended because they were perfect gifts in their time. The recipients will appreciate knowing my mother's unfailingly insinuating ability to pick the perfect gift for anyone whether one has mentioned it or not.
Incredible sadness welled up in me for the activities and ideas for which my mother had desire but on which she didn't, for one reason or another, at the behest of life, follow through. I started to weep.
My mother's annoyed, amused, mystified response to this was, "What is it now?!?"
I told her, haltingly through tears and sudden sobs. I knew, even as I was telling her, how I would look back on all the desires I haven't followed in my life, shrug and think, "but look what I have done, what I am doing"...and this would be exactly my mother's position.
It was. At one point she even said, "Those were just things to keep me busy until you got here."
Which threw me into an even more ridiculous spasm of grateful sobs.
Which sent my mother into hysterics.
"You're just like Dad, your dad, not my dad," she always says. She said it yesterday.
My father, if you can imagine, was even more sentimental than me. Oh my. Especially when he was drunk.
There won't be any lunch stats today because she's been eating pretty steadily since breakfast. I managed to get her dose of cinnamon and her iron pills in, which I'll report, but didn't take any stats.
She's pretty slow today. The new oxygen company rep arrived and she was very alert, very "here", signed the paperwork. He spoke to both of us when he talked. She even teased him. It's going to be a very efficient arrangement. We are not going to be overwhelmed with tanks and supplies are just a couple miles away. Emergency service is provided directly by the local employees. We received a much nicer carrier and discovered there are "fanny pack" size tanks: M-4's (sounds like ammo, doesn't it) that I think even my mother could handle if an appropriate fanny pack is available so the rep is going to look for one.
I may check in later, I may not. I may take advantage of the situation and express my relief in so quickly locating the transferable titles by taking a nap.
Remembering my mother's misfilings that I discovered in 2000, the year that one of my father's investments he originated in 1968 matured and I had to go through the files looking for stuff that would tell our tax man what the final capital gains were on that investment, was what made the job easier. Whew. That was amazing. That's when I learned what obsessive and detailed record keepers both my parents had been (my mother still is, although creatively, now) and, as well, got a peak into my mother's financial acumen, which matured soon after my father died. Interesting because he was the one who was always buying financial books, looking at financial programs, and he absorbed some, but not as much as my mother. She was very savvy when it came to investments, although she, along with a lot of other savvy investors, including a friend of mine who was writing a book on investing at the time of the crash when she lost all her money, got caught in the crash of 2000 (thereabouts...I don't recall that it really hit her until 2001). I tend to think of myself as a meticulous record keeper and financially aware. I am nothing in either department compared to my mother. She fucking went to work, after my Dad died, on their assets, and polished her position nicely.
That was an accomplishment and a relief. I had very little to configure into my decision as to where to begin looking for the titles. I even had day-mares in which I discovered that she has filed them away in boxes in the shed connected to the Mesa home, the very ones I found so rain soaked that their dilapidated contents, all saved papers, were melting into one another. I expected to have to go through those and expected to discover that I would have to, within a half month, reapply for tranferrable certificates of title for the mobile home.
For some reason yesterday evening, although we certainly had a productive day, I was feeling melancholy. I finally traced it to seeing my mother's small, domestic hopes and dreams sliding by my eyes as I packed out her room. Projects whose practice I know my mother has coveted for years: A ginger bread house kit, candy making kits (she really pursued candy making, one year, and it was good, too, if you like candy); half finished afghans, one in particular begun for the son of some close cousins the year they adopted him; her interest in what is, for lack of a better term, paranormal religion (a lot of Jane Roberts' books, some by Ruth Montgomery and Edgar Cayce; Emmet Fox and C.S. Lewis, as well, to show you how deeply thought she is philosophically and spiritually); all her genealogy stuff which she has, essentially, passed on to MCS...
...I remembered, finally, who J. L. was (may still be, who knows). She was a friend my mother made when she and Dad lived in El Paso. They remained friends through both of their husbands' deaths and took vacations together, some pretty spectacular ones. They were planning, when they lost touch, on going to Australia together, highlighting New Zealand. My mother dreamt of J. L. about a week and a half ago. It took me a couple of days and some miscellaneous memorabilia to remember her. I met her once when I was living in the Phoenix metroplex the same time as my mother. Delightful woman, rather like an Ancient Diana Rigg, devoted to the cocktail hour, and only to the cocktail hour...
...a bunch of traveler's pamphlets regarding Australia and New Zealand. I even found gifts she had bought for people and forgotten where she placed them. Some will be passed on to those for whom they are intended because they were perfect gifts in their time. The recipients will appreciate knowing my mother's unfailingly insinuating ability to pick the perfect gift for anyone whether one has mentioned it or not.
Incredible sadness welled up in me for the activities and ideas for which my mother had desire but on which she didn't, for one reason or another, at the behest of life, follow through. I started to weep.
My mother's annoyed, amused, mystified response to this was, "What is it now?!?"
I told her, haltingly through tears and sudden sobs. I knew, even as I was telling her, how I would look back on all the desires I haven't followed in my life, shrug and think, "but look what I have done, what I am doing"...and this would be exactly my mother's position.
It was. At one point she even said, "Those were just things to keep me busy until you got here."
Which threw me into an even more ridiculous spasm of grateful sobs.
Which sent my mother into hysterics.
"You're just like Dad, your dad, not my dad," she always says. She said it yesterday.
My father, if you can imagine, was even more sentimental than me. Oh my. Especially when he was drunk.
There won't be any lunch stats today because she's been eating pretty steadily since breakfast. I managed to get her dose of cinnamon and her iron pills in, which I'll report, but didn't take any stats.
She's pretty slow today. The new oxygen company rep arrived and she was very alert, very "here", signed the paperwork. He spoke to both of us when he talked. She even teased him. It's going to be a very efficient arrangement. We are not going to be overwhelmed with tanks and supplies are just a couple miles away. Emergency service is provided directly by the local employees. We received a much nicer carrier and discovered there are "fanny pack" size tanks: M-4's (sounds like ammo, doesn't it) that I think even my mother could handle if an appropriate fanny pack is available so the rep is going to look for one.
I may check in later, I may not. I may take advantage of the situation and express my relief in so quickly locating the transferable titles by taking a nap.
