Life, Examined

This page is for all kinds of stories.  If you are looking for a story mentioned on another page, scroll down until you find the heading you were directed to.  At least, until I figure out how to insert a hyperlink!

 

My Story Map

After visiting maptia.com- a website that creates a world map from stories and shared experiences- I have decided to create my map by listing all of the places that I have lived in Utah and tell a significant and typical story from my time there.  I may go back from time to time and add more stories to an area.

 

West Bountiful, Utah

I was born and raised in a large Mormon family.  My mother had twelve children and always seemed to her neighbors to be pregnant.  She once told me that she was either pregnant or nursing for over twenty years.  Whew.  Well, it wreaked havoc on her health and her figure.  My mom hated being overweight, but as she wasn't a sensitive, fussy type, she seemed to accept her tied- down, over-worked, overwhelmed, under-appreciated fate the best she could and pressed on.  But you could tell that it still bothered her.  

One of my sisters loved to make trouble and she thought it would be funny to tell our neighbor, Marla, that my mom was pregnant again- about five years after my youngest brother was born.

Marla was so excited to be the first to congratulate my mother!  Now, you have to understand that Marla was scrupulous to welcome everyone, to mind everyone's feelings, and never to do anything to offend anyone.  Marla beamed at my mother and exclaimed, "Congratulations!  When are you due?"

My mom stared, then swallowed and said in a dry voice, "No, Marla.  I'm not pregnant.  I'm just fat."

You can only imagine Marla's embarrassment.

As for my mother, she told my sister, "Well, that was thoughtless.  Did you ever stop to consider how that would make Marla feel?"

Her words impressed me for two reasons.  First, they convinced me that she was so used to insult that she forgot to mention that the insult was primarily aimed at her and second, her concern for her neighbor's feelings took precendence over her own hurt feelings.

 

Price, Utah

I moved to college and all I had was a bike, a bed, and some clothes.  My roommate provided the kitchenware.  We lived in a garage that had been converted into an apartment with the world's loudest heater, no insulation, and drafty windows and doors.  It was one of those places where you get the feeling you could catch something from the carpet.  We had to watch ourselves getting into the shower lest the rusted door rails cut us and the shower was a bare pipe sticking out of the wall.  We dealt with the cold until we could no more because we couldn't sleep through the heater. 

When I chose to walk instead of bike, it was about 2-3 miles home.  One bitter cold night, I walked.  The sun had slightly melted the snowpack and the night's cold had refrozen it and made the shiniest, glitteriest snow I had ever seen.  As I walked home beneath the streetlights, the snow became the starry sky to me, as expansive as the universe and more brilliant than the sky in the deepest canyon on the darkest night.  I will never forget that experience because, while I had often felt my insignificance beneath the heavens, this was the first time I felt my insignificance on the ground.

 

West Bountiful

Again.  I had earned a scholarship in theater performance only to find out that: 1, while I loved acting, I did not love the scene and that I could not have the one without the other and 2, that I was screwed up.  Too screwed up to not attract a crazy boyfriend who thought that we were fated after the second date.  I didn't know how to get out of his claustrophobic attentions so I finally just told him I was gay.  Then I moved back home.  My dad somehow heard something and kicked me out.  I was too proud to set the record straight with him for a few reasons:  I thought it was wrong that I had been kicked out for being gay, even if I wasn't.  I didn't want two be anywhere I wasn't welcome or loved- and that much had been clear for a long time.  And I was tired of being a round peg supposed to fit in a square hole.  I was off to find other round pegs!

 

Capitol Hill

I moved into an apartment with my sister on Capitol Hill, heartsick after being kicked out by my dad.  I don't think he ever let my mom know he had kicked me out- she wouldn't have approved, I think.  I don't think she approved when he kicked my older sister out for being gay.  What I remember best from that time  at my sister's is how much she cared about my well-being and that it was actually safe to cry in her home.  I also remember how much more like a home my sister's little apartment felt like than the home I had lived in all my life.  There was an ivy plant growing all over the building and it had worked its way through her window and had grown all over the wall inside.  She loved it and let it grow.  I loved it too because it was a resilient little plant and it would grow where it could- like me and my sis.  My sister was a renegade and an outcast from the family and so was I.  We were the red-headed-step-children in the family.   The years have passed, but some things haven't changed.

 

Avenues

My sister set me up with someone she knew of who needed an apartment.  She was a lesbian but she was not interested in me.  She was interested in the wife half of all the couples in the neighborhood or from work that she took to dinner.  It disgusted me to watch someone actively pursuing married women.  It was like watching a train wreck.  I moved out.  I still had to pay my rent for the next 3 months, but I was happy to do that and not have to watch a real vampire at work every day.

 

North Salt Lake

I had a blonde roomate who said some of the funniest, most airheaded things.  She wasn't stupid- she was smart- but she just said the funniest things, failed to make connections from time to time.  She made life so much more vivacious and light- hearted. For example, I came home to find a beta fish in a bowl on the coffee table.  She said she'd decided to get a pet and that she had decided to give it an appropriatly ethnic name- Pocahontas.  She named it Pocahontas.  

My other roomate and I looked at eachother and smiled.  "You know that beta fish are siamese, right?"  I asked her.  "Yeah.  They're siamese fighting fish."  She said.  She died laughing when she figured it out.  We all did.

 

Brigham City

I remember being without a car most of the time, walking to the grocery store and fitting the groceries into the basket of the stroller and walking it home.  I enjoyed that.  I don't think I could fit groceries for a family of 7 in our stroller now- or at least I would have to go more often.  Geez, I can't wait to be done with school!!

 

Downtown

I was managing an apartment complex and I met some very interesting people that way.  I remember a tenant telling me that he had just been fired and asking me if he could have a larger apartment, all in the same conversation.  I remember a chauvinist venezuelan telling me that he had decided it was my responsability to watch his children so his wife could work.  I told him that that was all well and good, but I had not decided that for myself and he would need to find someone else.  I got a letter from him, that my husband had to translate for me, telling me that my behavior was unbecoming for a woman and that he was terribly insulted.  I remember one of the tenants downstairs stealing a VCR from the mentally- handicapped couple down the hall from them.  I remember the same neighbor tapping into my nephew's phone line and racking up a huge bill for him before we figured it out.  I remember having to evict the same tenant after three months of non-payment.  He sent me a note with his return address on it asking for a refund of his deposit (after three months of non-payment he still had high hopes).  That was all good because when the police came looking for him on a drug bust, I was able to tell him where he was.  I remember the lady who ruined the plumbing for a while because she flushed a messy diaper down the toilet!  There was the paranoid gentleman upstairs who had a nervous tick and always looked around him in a hunted way, the chinese couple upstairs who loved their only child and watched him so carefully. like he were made of gold.  I remember the mentally handi-capped gal who painted her apartment sunshine yellow cause it made her happy and because she couldn't read the rules that forbad it.  My boss told me I had to tell her to repaint it in white oil paint.  I was so sad to do it, that I suggested that he just charge her for the repaint on her way out- I knew he was going to anyway.  I remember the drunk couple upstairs who were always high or something.  I remember the young mother who lived upstairs in an apartment paid for by her drug lord sugar-daddy.  I remember he beat her and I remember how scared she was when I talked to her about it- how hopeless she felt.  I gave her the number to a hotline that could help her and get her into school.  I don't think she ever called.  I remember the girl upstairs that my husband had gone to high school with who was in a relationship with a man she was terrified of but couldn't seem to end the relationship.  She thought the fridge was broken because her vegetables would rot but I explained to her that if you filled your refrigerator with vegetables enough for 9 people and only eat them like one person, they will rot before you eat them.  She could never understand that.  She wanted a new fridge.  It was the second fridge that had had the same problem!

 

Woods Cross

One of my best memories of Woods Cross is taking the kids to school on roller blades everyday.  I loved that.

 

Millcreek

My favorite thing about living in Millcreek was Tanner Park.  We loved that place.  So much that we still drive out of our way to go there sometimes.  Millcreek was a great place to be active, as long as you don't have knee problems.  My husband does, and when he tried running with me, it put him down for a while.

 

Daisy

 

Introduction

She was my husband's Grandmother and I took care of her for a year.  She had Alzheimer's Disease and was often confused and disoriented.  Her mind would do the strangest things.  For one thing, she thought that there were five of me.  Some of me, she liked and others she didn't.  She didn't mind talking to me about the other me(s).  When I had a baby, she thought that there were three of him, but one was a girl.  She finally asked me one day, "Why don't you get it over with and just all come up at once?"  

She was in her own home, and I cared for her there.  Her kids were real good to her and came up every week to take her out for dinner and a drive.  Her husband had died years earlier from cancer and she had begun to decline after that.  Her sister had lived across the street from her at some point in the past and Grandma Daisy got confused.  She thought it was her house and she wanted to get back to it.  She often thought that my husband and I were trying to keep her from going home.  I guess that is why she refused to take the Ginko Biloba pills her sons bought for her- meant to help her be less confused.  I gave one to her each morning but everytime I did her laundry, I found them in her pockets.  I think she thought they were mind-control pills.

 

Tramping in the Neighbor's Yard

One day, my husband and I came upstairs to get dinner made and Grandma was gone. We searched and started to panic when we had been over the entire house and yard.  It was winter!  My husband eventually found her in the neighbor's backyard, confusedly trying to find a missing door that would let her back into her real home.  This was the first time of many that she would try this.  My husband tried to convince her to come home, but she insisted that she needed to find the door.  She would point to the rocks and say that she knew it was there, somewhere.  He finally convinced her at least, that the polyester mumu she was wearing was insufficient for the weather and that if she would change into something warmer, he would come back with her to finish looking for the missing door.  She agreed and we all walked back to the house.  When Grandma stepped inside, she looked disoriented and said, "Well, this looks right."  And didn't try to leave again that night.

 

Upside Down Newspaper

Grandma really wanted to get home to across the street and in order to keep her from leaving, I would sit in the living room and read.  I read huge amounts that year!  I always got the feeling that Grandma was pretending to read her newspaper and was just waiting for me to fall asleep or go downstairs so she could make her move.  One day, I noticed that the newspaper she had been reading for two hours was upside down!  I couldn't resist asking her what was going on in the world.  "Not much."  She said.

 

Driving Around the Block

As Grandma's confusion progressed, she was constantly determined to get home.  She would ask us why we were trying to keep her from getting home, who was paying us, etc.  She never believed our response that she was home and we were living with her.  One day, just to mix things up, my husband said, "Okay.  Get in the car and we'll take you home."  "Really?"  She asked, suspiciously. 

We all go tin the car, and drove around the neighborhood a few times.  When we got back, Grandma walked inside and said, "I don't know how you did it, but thank you."

We thought maybe this would work a second time.  It didn't.  When we got back, she said, "It looks like you just drove around the block a few times."  

 

We Put Everything Back Where it Belongs

One morning, Grandma woke up and starting fussing around the house.  She came to us and spoke to my husband, who was working construction at the time.  "What have you done?"  She wanted to know.  We had no idea what she meant.  She said that the bedroom was where the kitchen belonged and the exercise room was mixed up with the bathroom.  

"Now Grandma, I'm good, but I'm not that good." My husband said.  "How do you think I managed to do all that in one night, quietly, while you slept?"  "

"I don't know how you did it." Grandma answered, "But I am going back to bed, and when I wake up, I want everything back in its rightful place!"  

She woke up an hour later and came out.  "Well," she said, "I don't know how you did it, but thank you."

I think that was the easiest job my husband ever worked on.

 

The Barber Shop

Grandma would slip in and out of times and locations in her mind.  Sometimes we would be having a normal conversation, and she would seem as right as rain and then, suddenly, she would say something strange and I would have to figure out where and who we were supposed to be.  This was made harder by the fact that I did not know a lot of her history.

One day, we were sitting in the kitchen, playing with the baby and waiting for my husband to come home.  After sitting for a while with nothing to do, she said, "Well, no one's been in for a while.  Seeing as there's nothing else to do, we might as well just cut each other's hair."

This took me a minute, but I vaguely remembered hearing something about her having worked in a beauty shop at one point and then it wasn't long before I realized that we were coworkers in that beauty shop on a slow day.

"Sure."  I said.  "How about I cut your hair first?"  I was happy to humour her, but there was no way she was cutting my hair!  By the time I'd finished trimming her up, we were back at home with the baby and there was no more talk of haircuts.

 

When Does our Husband Get Home?

Grandma was always confused and her confusion shifted shape all of the time.  One day we went out for a walk and she was asking me about "that man that lives with us".  I asked her if she meant my husband.  She looked relieved and said, "Oh, you're married!"  

"Wouldn't it be a little bit naughty if we weren't?" I asked.

"Well, I wasn't going to say anything!"  She laughed.

Later that week, we were walking again, in about the same place, when she asked, "When will my husband get home?"

 I didn't know how to break it to her that her husband was dead, so I asked, "Your husband?"  

"Oh, you know."  She said, "That man who lives with us."

"Oh!  My husband?"  I asked.

She looked confused.  "I guess." She said.

One or two weeks later, we were taking another walk.  "When does our husband get home?"  She asked.

 

Grandma's Birthday

We celebrated Grandma's birthday with her and had a nice dinner.  We had a cake and my husband said, "make a wish!". Grandma made her wish and blew out her candle.  My husband and I looked at eachother and just knew that she had asked to die that day.  My husband and I went out to an appointment we had and did not get back unitl about 11.  Grandma was up, sitting dressed up and in her pretty white sweater.  She had all of her geneology in her lap.  When we came into the kitchen, her eyes lit up and she said, "Okay.  I'm ready to go."  It took a while to explain to her that we were not angels come to take her.  It was hard to watch her disappointment.  She'd lost her husband on Christmas about ten years back and had started to lose her mind to Alzheimer's.  It was no wonder, but that was a hard night.

 

 

Orange Punch!

Grandma was going with her daughter to the 4th of July parade.  I filled an empty water bottle with some orange juice and they went on their way.  It was a hot day.  In fact, it was a hot summer.  Unusually hot.  And grandma kept the house as hot as could be.  You can imagine what happened to that bottle of orange juice over the next 2 or 3 weeks.  I was sitting in the living room when I heard a great POP!  I ran in grandma's room and found her sprawled on the bed, rubbing a red welt on her chin.  The stench of fermentation was everywhere.  I found the distended water bottle, still half full of hard orange cider and I found the lid- the sime size as the welt on her chin.  She said, "I got thirsty, so I found this drink in my dresser."

 

You're Not My Son!

Poor guy.  He came with the rest of the uncles to take Grandma to dinner.  She asked, "What is he doing here?"  

"I'm your son.  We're going to go to dinner." He said.

"No.  You're not my son."

Ouch.  You should have seen his eyes.  That's when everyone came to his rescue.

"Sure he is"

"Of course he is".

But she looked steady at everyone and said, "If he were my son, I think I would know"

Of course, that's exactly what was hurting his feelings.  That's what he'd thought, too.  But she didn't recognize him.  Only him.  My husband looked at Dayle and pulled down the family geneology  book.  

"Okay, Grandma."  He said, "Let's consult the all-knowing family bible."  Oh look, here it is.  A family picture.  There he is, same face.  See underneath here- it says he's your son."

"Well, I'll be!"  Was all she had to say. 

 

Shlidin' and a'shlidin'

Grandma loved holding the baby.  I really hated letting Grandma hold the baby.  I know that sounds terrible, but it was a full-time job in and of itself.  Grandma would ask if she could hold the baby and her sense of time was so skewed that she would immediately become impatient- like a baby.  In the time that it took to get the baby to her, she already felt like she'd been denied the pleasure of holding the baby for what must have been a very long time- judging by how upset she got.  I would give her the baby and have to stand careful guard because she always lost him.  She was annoyed that I was trying to help.  She was annoyed when he started sliding on her polyester mumu.  "Shlidin' and a-shlidin'"  she would say (sliding and sliding).  She would immediately get upset by how long she was holding the baby and start thinking she was back in the day-care, being overworked and left with too many babies.  She'd start grousing about if "Someone would just take the baby and let her have a minute".  There wasn't a moment from start to finish that she enjoyed and yet, she always wanted to hold that baby!