This day...

I have been struggling all day, today, trying not to think about my father, about his last days, about our relationship.  Mary talked with me to my doctor's appointment and Becky snuck in a few minutes with me before her husband came home from work.  In between, I had two acts of mercy shown to me.  And, well, some killer shopping deals.

When the pharmacist got my new prescription and saw it was not on my formulary, she figured out what would work and then contacted the doctor's office about changing the prescription.  Astonishingly so, the office staff returned the call and, so, by the time I got to Target, Kaitlyn was able to hand over the medication!  I only went there to do a return and thought I would check by the pharmacy, but I was most certain that I would have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for things to be worked out.  Target's pharmacy staff are incredibly kind and merciful and helpful to me.

My GP believes that my cold transitioned into triggering some type of allergy in my sinus bits.  Her chief factors for this conclusion are that my ears are itching and peering into my nose and ears showed no signs of infection.   Because of what something like Claritin D does to my blood pressure (darn that dysautonomia), she wants me to take a nasal allergy medicine with a steroid in it.  She also ordered more blood work.

Kaitlyn, when handing over the rather miraculously processed prescription, told me that it is the type of medication that takes about two weeks to build up in your system and become effective.  Then, she grabbed a pen and wrote that on the outside of the bag for me.  Like I said, merciful.

In between the GP's office, I had the blood work done and went to the other pharmacy to get the free prescription (and drop off a refill).  I am now convinced that the reason Meijer offers free medication is that it is almost too tempting not to shop whilst you are there.  I went ahead and got some lettuce and another English cucumber.  And, well, I bought an $0.88 avocado and went to see about some Hint of Lime chips.  Becky had been talking about them recently.  They were on sale, $1.79 off each if you buy two bags.  I did.  And, okay, I found a GREEN hoodie that was on clearance.  It was in my cart, really, without my knowing how.  Do you think I could count the hoodie as my contraband grocery item??

So, then I was at Target, a bit giddy over the thought of GREEN hoodies and avocados and Hint of Lime chips, and started weeping when Kaitlyn spotted me and held up the prescription bag.  Really, it was a miracle.

I was going to walk out, but I thought about the fact that I have been walking in bad shoes and have needed some proper sneakers.  I wondered if I could find some miraculous bargain.  I did!  $7.98 clearance Champion running shoes.  Ugly, but cheap.  I also bought another pair of men's lounge pants (since one of my original pairs got a hole in the seat) on clearance.  And, finally, I went to take a gander at some sheets I spotted online.  I have wanted another set so that I could not be stressed about washing the spare set before time to change my sheets again.  That seems like of gluttonous, but I spotted some online that were a botanical print.

If that doesn't scream MYRTLE, I don't know what would!

The sheets were on sale!  Now, I confess that ALL the sheets I've ever owned have been gifts.  So, I have been avoiding buying these.  But seeing their awesomeness in person and spotting the sale spurred me into buying them.  I am thankful that I can now have fresh sheets more often but be less pressured about the laundry.

Already, I the three things that were needful (mostly) were on sale.  However, when I got to the register, this new employee told me about the Target Cartwheel app.  It has barcode coupons that you can get only on the app.  Well, one of the current coupons was that anything on clearance was an additional 20% off!  I saved $7.20 on my purchase, nearly the price of the shoes!

She showed me how to use the app, both by searching categories and by using the scanner to check items in my cart.  She waited while I set up my account and then did the tutoring. The woman behind me in line was also interested and far less technologically adept than even I am.  Through many attempts, we first got her onto the Target wireless signal and then created an account for her, since she didn't want to sign in with her Facebook account (who would???).  Then, the cashier gave her the same tutorial, scanning several items as she did, so I got to sit through the learning process twice.  Jordan.  A woman named Jordan was kind and merciful and helpful to two women tonight.

I almost feel like I had some sort of victory, finding all those needs and wants on sale or clearance.  In fact, only the lettuce and cucumber were regular price.  Everything else, including grapes and the avocado were on sale.

Of course, I forgot to get milk.  Hopefully, the snow forecasted for Sunday won't be all that bad.  You see, originally, I thought to do my month's grocery shopping today when I was out.  But whilst I was at the lab waiting to be called back for my blood work I thought that a GP visit, blood work, and two pharmacy trips was probably enough for me.  It is strange, being so far past the 27th and not having gotten groceries.  With the lettuce and cucumber and onions from Meijer, though, I can live out of the basement freezer meals for a while yet.  I really don't have to go until I am out of milk.  Napping tomorrow sounds good.  And then maybe some more napping on Sunday, followed by a return to house cleaning on Monday.

Amos was all distressed when I came home, having been missing me as much as I missed him and nothing to distract him.  He followed me all about whilst I put away groceries and heated up some dinner, holding Reindeer Baby in his mouth.  Now that he is convinced that I am actually really and truly going to stay with him, Amos is taking a nap to recover from the strain of his worries.  I just love how much he loves his babies.

I sure do love my canine baby.

I don't want to have allergies again.  I thought, having moved north, that part of my life was over.  I'd really like not ever to go back to the place where I was having 4 shots a week and allergy sneezing fits so long that they disrupted my ability to work.  Moving north, years ago, changed all that.  However, I would really like for this to be an answer and for medication to work and to have easy breathing and NO MORE ear itching in my life.

Now, it is quiet.  I have a fire going and a snoring puppy dog and thoughts.  Lots of thoughts about my father and his life and his death.  Thoughts that are hard and not ones I wish to face.  There were very, very, very many hard things about my father, but there were good things, such as the love for trees.  Also, he is the one who drilled into me about turning off the lights to save energy.

This afternoon, I was telling Becky that both my parents, but especially my father, taught me the value of tending to the things in your house before they become a problem.  In a sense, he was very keen on being a good steward of anything that you own. I cannot help but think how much he would have loved seeing this house and would have been pleased with the way I have cared for it and made it a better place for future generations.  Not much in my life pleased him.  This home most certainly would have.  To this day, I cannot apply a coat of CWF sealer without thinking of the long lectures he gave about taking care of wood that is exposed to the elements.

My father is the one who introduced me to science fiction movies, especially the truly great ones, such as The Abyss and Time Cop and Running Man and 2001 Space Odyssey and Blade Runner and Total Recall and Robocop.   So many more of the oldies we watched together, as well as some of the ones that were so bad that you eventually fell in love with them, such as The 5th Element.  I miss my DVD partner.  I miss the man who, late in life, would spend the weekend with me watching 10-12 movies and talking about them at every meal from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening.  Amos doesn't really have any movie opinions.

He had an extremely challenging childhood, learning many wrong lessons and having to care for drunken parents when young enough to still need parents to care for him.  I still struggle with all the things I heard at his funeral that I never knew about him.  And his death is such a terrible burden to me in so very many ways.

But I want to keep in mind this day that I have by and large been successful single female homeowner because of what I learned about homeownership from my father.  And I do want to call to mind the good things that we shared at the end of his life:  movie fests, Fuddrucker's, football, and the ability to look at a home not for what it is, but what it can become.  He was, as I noted last year, the only person who did not think that I was crazy for buying a home that was so rundown as my first home.  That a rundown home was the only one I could buy during the boom was not the issue.  He walked inside, took a look around, and saw great potential.

That really was my last mentally clear moment with him.  Alzehiemers was already moving in on his mind.

Besides an abiding love for Colorado both my parents taught me, my father's utter love for history is another good thing I learned from him.  Here, in Gettysburg, he was not always present.  A navigationally challenged woman and a memory challenged man really have no business trying to take a car tour of that place, but we did.

It is hard to put into words.  When we went to the Air and Space museum, my father would touch the side of the Mercury capsule in awe, thinking about what it represented and where it went.  That same awe would come at the touch of the fence and stones and remaining cannons that mark this Civil War battlefield.  Brother against brother.  A country torn apart.  So much grief and passion and determination.  History is important.  That's another lesson that I learned from my father.

My father's brother had no children.  My brother has no children.  The long line of this branch of family has come to an end.  It is difficult not to think about the history and the lessons—good and bad—that will end.  The one who was the infamous paymaster of the Confederate army who lost not one but two shipments of gold.  No one will continue to tell the stories.

My father told a lot of stories.  I wonder if he did so because his family was a fractured and distant as mine.  By that I mean his uncle fell out with his father and, thus, he grew up in an isolated world.  My aunts and uncles on both side of the family also were/are estranged and, thus, I grew up in an isolated world when it comes to family.  Maybe I liked listening to the stories, to the history, as much as he liked telling them because that was all we had.  And, maybe, being so disconnected made us both yearn to reach out to the greater history around us and savor it.

Or, maybe, I am just tired and thinking odd thoughts because life has been rough of late.

I am increasingly thankful that my father was loved by his second wife.  Loved and cared for and accepting of his ... quirks.  A woman who followed him to Colorado and was willing to take silly photos with him.

He was loved.  More and more and more I value that he was loved as an adult the way he was not as a child.

Darn this day....