No Good Deed

 Hey Women,

I hope you are all alive and vaccinated and still wearing your masks.  Yes, I am all those things and I'm not going to pussyfoot around and pretend that it's ok to be otherwise.  Tired of it!  Yet, despite being tired of it, the virus is still here.  But, enough of that.  Moving on.

So, I just got back from another stint down at my friend's ranch.  Let me tell you about it.

First of all, my two besties and my daughter and I had planned a get together for July of 2020.  Obviously that was postponed.  But, now that we were all vaccinated we decided that it was time for our weekend meet up.  We can't do more than a weekend because Lisa needs dialysis 3 times per week, but a weekend was better than nothing and we were ready for some fun.

The Kid and I drove down to the Bay Area of California together.  Honestly, that was one of the highlights of the trip.  Ten hours in the car with my favorite person in the world!  She lives outside of Seattle, which isn't far from Portland, but we haven't seen each other much in the last 18 months.  Obvs.  So, the weekend started off very well.  She's an excellent travel companion.

We stayed with our friend KA for one night and then went to Capitola for a night at a B&B.  Great fun. Just being together with people that you love is a balm for the soul. We drove up the coast from Capitola to Half Moon Bay and it was glorious.  The fog was hanging over the ocean and it was cool and breezy.  The scenery is that of my childhood and the scents took me back.  Trips to the beach, camping in the woods, eating at quirky coastal restaurants.  It all came flooding back.

We spent another night at KA's house and then Lisa and the Kid had to fly home.  My plan had been to spend the second half of the week at the ranch, visiting the rancher and helping out with chores.  So much for planning, right?

During my weekend with the besties, I got a text from the rancher's friend that she was in the hospital. She's had various health issues over the years so it's not the first time she's landed in the ER.  This sounded like a bowel obstruction.  She's been having increasing difficulty eating and keeping food down but, like so many of us, she hates going to the doctor.

They diagnosed her with constipation and sent her home with laxatives.  As if she hadn't already tried that on her own.  The next day she was back at the hospital and this time was admitted and taken to surgery.  She has some sort of fibrous growth in part of her GI tract.  The surgeon tried removing it laparoscopically and ended up perforating her bowel.  Now she had an abdominal infection, pneumonia, and still a blocked pipe.  She's still in the hospital, two weeks later.  She's just graduated to semi-solid food and while she's keeping it down, nothing is coming out the other end.

Meanwhile, until I arrived at the ranch, a group of her local friends were taking turns feeding the 200 sheep.  I told them to stand down while I was there and they could draw up a new schedule when I had to return home.  I asked my pet sitter how long she could take care of my fine feline and she gave me an extra ten days or so.

So, I'm at the ranch, holding down the fort, wrestling bales of hay and endlessly refilling water troughs in temperatures over 100f.  That's ok.  I knew what I was in for and while I was tired and sore and sweaty I felt good about helping my friend.  

We've been friends for 50 years.  That's a long time. I know all her exes.  I know her whole family.  I've visited her mom in the care home.  I've spent weeks at the ranch helping out.  

Remember a few years ago when I went down and cleaned out the back room?  The hoard of vermin infested rubbish that I spent a couple of weeks sorting through and hauling to the dump trailer?  Remember how grateful she was that it was finally dealt with?  Turns out there's another chapter to that story.  

After I returned home, she and her friend took the load to the dump.  But, they didn't just dump it and go home.  They went through the entire load, opening up trash bags and sifting through boxes to make sure that I didn't throw away anything good.  They pulled out a 40 year old vacuum cleaner and the helper took it home.  Never mind that the rancher has three vacuums - that ancient, heavy, filthy one STILL WORKED!  Then, they tore the lining out of some suitcases and discovered that some dollar bills had been hidden inside.  OMG, SHE'S THROWING AWAY MONEY!

I don't know what all they pulled from the trailer and I don't want to know.  

I texted her not long after I arrived at the ranch to ask where the key to her bedroom was.  There was clean laundry to put away and I was trying to straighten up the living room.  She sent a text to her friend, who happened to be at the house with me at the time, saying 'Don't let her in my room!  I don't want her going through my stuff and throwing it out!'

Well, clearly I had underestimated her hoarding.  I had thought that the hoard in the backroom (and in the mom's room) was all the mom's doing.  Not so.  The hoarding appears to be a generational behavior.  She also hoards food.  Not in the way that you see on tv horror shows, she's not walking on a foot deep layer of spoiled food.  But, she shops at Costco and other bulk purchase places and buys like she's going to be under siege.  When I got to the house, there were boxes and bags of food to put away that were just piled on the kitchen floor.  I did a little purge of the pantry and threw away stuff that was clearly unhealthy to eat.  Rearranged a little in order to get the new groceries in.  I mean, does a household of one person 'need' 50 cans of beans?  There were 20 bags of chips in the house.  Cases of stuff, boxes full of stuff.  

When she sent that text saying to keep me out of her room, that hurt me.  I've only ever done work at the ranch that I was asked to do, asked to help out with.  She wanted the back room cleaned out.  Her mom's room was four feet deep everywhere except for a little square of space between the door and the bed.  It's useable now.  Oh, and the back room?  Not quite the disaster zone it had been previously but it is filling fast.

The real kick in the teeth is that she has told her ranch hand friend, her vet friend, and some young woman who just started working for her on an occasional basis that I had thrown away good stuff, that I was ruining things, that I had forced her to throw away valuable belongings and that I would try to keep doing it.  A lifetime friendship is what is being thrown away, and not by me.

I'm sorry to say that I called her in the hospital and told her that I was upset and that she had hurt me by saying these things.  I told her that I had never felt so unwelcome at anyone's home and especially hers. She said, 'I don't know what the ranch hand has told you but I...' and I said, no, don't blame him.  He's just telling the truth.  Plus, you've said these things to the vet and the youngster.  You've thrown me under the bus.  

I apologized for bringing it up while she was ill and in the hospital.  I said that we would talk about it when she got out and was feeling better.  

I went to see her at the hospital the next day and took the quilt that I had made for her.  She was apathetic about it.  I said, well, I usually get a more enthusiastic response when I give someone a handmade quilt, but I understand that you are sick.  I took it back to the house and left it on her bed.  (Because, yes, I did get the key to the bedroom, I did put her clean laundry in there, and no, I did not touch anything in her room, which has a pathway from the door to the bed.)

So, it's true what they say: No good deed goes unpunished.  I'm still angry and hurt but I'm gaining a little perspective.  I most certainly will not help her with cleaning out her hoard again.  And, I likely won't go back down to help with the sheep.  There are a lot of related issues that I haven't reported here but the bottom line for me is that I need to draw a boundary and enforce it.  I've been a good friend over the decades and in recent years I never counted the lack of reciprocity or the one-sided nature of our exchanges.  I mean, when your friend needs help, you help them, right?  I certainly wasn't keeping score.  But, then when they shit on you, you call a halt to the interaction.  

Now I am home and resting.  My body is aching from the back breaking work but my muscles are starting to ease up.  I'm still waking up at 5:00 am but hope to get to a more normal retired person schedule eventually.  I think I'll go take a walk and let the breeze carry some of my angst away.  Thanks for reading, women!

Almost Spring

Hello Women!

I saw a draft in here that said Winter Greetings but there was not a single word written.  Oops.  So, jump ahead to nearly Spring, I guess...

I have recently returned from points south as part of my ongoing 'friend helper' project.  This time I went to Southern California to clean out Lisa's garage.  Wow.  So much stuff!  It was different stuff this time, though.  My friend Lisa is a retired teacher.  She taught English as a Second Language (both here and in Spain), English Literature, and Drama.  And some other stuff, but mostly those three subjects.  She had so much saved paper!  Lessons and worksheets and study guides and handouts, etc, etc.  All recycled.  Nobody wants the hard copy anymore!  She started teaching before everything was available on line and teachers carefully stored their master copies of everything.  It was a LOT of paper.  And, you just can't give it away - there are no takers.  Fortunately, paper is easily recycled.

Another thing she had in vast quantities was costumes.  Her former high school was remodeling the theater and had no room to store the costumes.  Most of these had been made or sourced by Lisa, and at her own expense (of course).  She donated some to a local community theater and some to the thrift store.  (Aside: while they are remodeling the theater, they have also cut Drama out of the schedule and who knows when it will return. So frustrating!)  Also boxes of props and stage makeup and all sorts of drama-related things.  Boxes of hats.  Crates of art materials.  Stuff.

Her third big space consumer was linens.  Holy Bed Sheets, Batman!  I made her go through them with me and was able to decrease the number of sheet sets that she kept to ONLY 15!!!!  (I also emptied and organized the linen closet in order to get it all sorted out.)  Fifteen sheet sets is excessive, but it's half what it was.  Throw in the 6 - 8 duvet covers and spare blankets and, well, yes, it all takes up a lot of room.  It was a lot of work and a lot of laundry.  But, we got it done!

I was in SoCal for about 2 weeks.  While I was there, the temperature shot up to the upper 80's.  What the actual fork!  87 degrees Fahrenheit in February.  It's bullshirt!  The weather is broken.  We have broken it. 

I had a good time hanging out with my pal, despite the slog and the weather.  We didn't do much in the way of extracurricular excursions since the task at hand was so large, but we did go out to see a wonderful community theater production of Guys and Dolls.  Really well done!  It was at the Gem Theater in Garden Grove, if I remember correctly. 

Another fun highlight was our mutual friend Tania met us for lunch one day.  We all went to high school together.  She has had a rough time this past year.  One of her replacement hips became infected, broke, had to be replaced.  Then the replacement went septic.  She has a second replacement now and has just graduated to walking without a cane but she is definitely a little unsteady on her feet.  But, she got herself out of the house and across town, so big props to her.  It was good to see her!

On my way back north, I stopped at the Ranch to help out for a week.  I had a specific project that I wanted to accomplish but I will have to tackle it later.  Tam is having the house repiped and everything was torn up.  The project I wanted to do was to set up shelving in the back room and get all of her veterinary supplies out of the living room.  But, there was too much stuff piled up in the back room and I didn't have the stamina to tackle the whole thing.  Perhaps I'll go down in the late spring and get that done.

The baby lambs were adorable but I didn't take any pictures this time.  I should have because these ones are ridiculously cute.  Her neighbor has given her a pair of black and white rams (her other rams are white) and the huge variety of white, black, and black&white lambs is glorious.  One ewe had triplets and had one of each, lol.  They are cute little buggers but a lot of work.  I spent most of the week feeding, shoveling, raking and generally wearing myself out.  I'm trying to get her to see reason and decrease the number of market lambs she raises.  It's too much for a single, older, half-crippled woman to keep up with year after year.  I want her to diversify into wool-bearing sheep.  The product is the fiber rather than meat so all you have to do is keep them alive and shear the wool off.  Which is done by a professional, by the way.  It would be a lot less work for her.  She's stubborn, though. 

So, that was my late winter excursion.  Some people go to the beach or the desert, I go clean out garages.  Lol.  Basically, though, I went from Winter to Summer to Spring and home to Winter.  It's still chilly here in the PNW.  And, now my internal thermostat is all messed up!  As I'm writing this, I have on my silk longjohns under my jeans, socks and slippers, long sleeve t-shirt under a hoodie, the hood UP and a scarf around my neck.  In a little bit I'm going to put on my puffy and walk to the Library.  That'll warm me up!

I hope you are all healthy and reasonably happy and surviving the season.  I'll not say anything about the state of the world or nation because it's all just too forking much...

Cheers, m'dears!
E

Back and Resting

I know, it should be 'back and ready' but I'm not quite there yet!  I've been back for a week but let me tell you, the first few days I could do little more than get out of bed and drink coffee.  I'm recovering, though, and will soon resume being my productive self.  Ugh.

So, mission accomplished down in Cali.  The room is restored to functionality.  The closet is usable, there is nothing under the bed, the four (yes, 4) dressers contain just a few needful things.  It's now possible to sit in the rocking chair - and rock, if so desired! 

There is still a bunch of stuff to be gone through, but that is the task of the adult children.  So, in other words, nothing will happen.  Stasis.  Still, it's a functional stasis, so there's that. 

I made some interesting discoveries while sorting through stuff.

First, I will say that I have known this family since childhood.  I've been friends with the daughter and son for nearly 50 years.  Friends with the mom, too.  The dad was usually away as he was a marine engineer and worked at sea.

So, when I cleaned out the back room I felt a keen regret for the life the mom wanted to have.  It seemed to me that she would have been happy being a ranch wife rather than a rancher.  She loved crafts.  She was an expert seamstress, she knitted, crocheted, made stuff out of wood, plastic, found materials, etc (I found more than one box full of pine cones, for example).  For a while she had a craft business - I found plenty of her old records of purchases and sales.  Of course, she made no money doing that.  But, I think she enjoyed it.

I formed that opinion based on the evidence in the back room.  When I got to the bedroom, I had other evidence to consider.

The woman threw nothing away.  Every letter, every card, every receipt, you name it, it was squirreled away in her bedroom.  Most of it was very pedestrian and ordinary.  I kept the letters the kids had written to her, and the letters the dad had written from sea.  I think the kids might like to look through those at some point, but maybe not.  That's up to them.

I found some other letters too.  I found a series of anonymous letters accusing the mom of breaking up someone's marriage.  It was a bit of a shocker!  It was virulent and threatening.  The letters were full of things like: We know where you were last night; we're watching you; you won't get away with this; etc.  I have to say that I didn't expect something like that but when I put it together with some other info, I had a more... nuanced understanding of the mom. 

I wasn't sure what to do with those letters.  The rancher and her mom already have a rather strained relationship and I certainly don't want to add to it.  But, I didn't think it was up to me to dispose of them.  So, I put them together and tucked them under some stuff in one of the dresser drawers.  It'll be quite a while before anyone looks in there and I can probably retrieve them unread if I change my mind.  It's all water under the bridge at this point and I'm not sure what it would serve to bring them to light.  I just don't know which way to go on that one.

Oh, how I wish my mom was alive!  I really wanted to ask her about their mom and what she knew back in the day.  I'm sure she could have provided some context.  Maybe I'll ask my mom's best friend.  Janet might know, but I don't think she spent any time with the woman back then.  Still, we grew up in a small town and everyone usually knows everyone else's business in a small town.

But, why?  What the hell difference does it make at this point?  None whatsoever.  Just curiosity, I guess.  It doesn't change the way I feel about the old gal, or change how I interact with her.  I guess I see her with more layers now, not just the surface that she presents to the world.  Although, given that she is in the depths of dementia, there is not even much of a surface layer any more. 

What do you think, wise women?  Should I consign the letters to the fire? 

What's up, plus a little backstory

Hello Friends!

Let's see, it's June, just past the Summer Solstice.  Are you having long, beautiful summer evenings where you are?  Or, do you live in the Southern Hemisphere and have winter beating you down?  OR, are you in the upper to mid-Atlantic states and have unending rain combined with warm temperatures resulting in paralyzing humidity?  Or something else...

I keep looking at the weather in my hometown and it looks perfect.  Mid 70's, cloudy with showers... that's how I like it.  Unfortunately, I have to look in the newspaper as I am not currently in residence.  I am down in that hellhole known as California, specifically the Sacramento Valley.  Well, the Sierra foothills, if you want to be specific, but the effect is the same. 

It's overly warm here.

What am I doing here, you ask?  Well, I came down to help my friend, the Rancher.  Her mom is currently residing in an assisted living place and I volunteered to come and help get a grip on the house.  Her mom is a hoarder, or at the least, someone who never threw anything away.

Here's the backstory:
I came down here back in March (meant to blog about that trip but was so exhausted I never got around to it) in order to clear out the 'back room' of the house.  It's a room that had been added on to their tiny house long before they bought it.  It was poorly constructed but it was put to use as a storage room.  I know what you are thinking and you are absolutely right.  A hoarder with a back room is trouble in the making!  Well, that is the truth.  The back room was so packed with stuff that one literally could not set foot inside.  The mess came up to the doorway.

So, I set to work.  There were layers to the hoard and it was a little like archaeology.  On the top was the worst layer, the layer where people had recently just tossed stuff into the room from the doorway and walked away.  The perimeter and the deeper layers were well organized and packed for storage.  But, the Rancher's aunt had died recently and loads of her stuff was superimposed over the existing hoard.  I could see the difference between the recent stuff and the original stuff.

It didn't make much of a difference.  Old useless crap is old and useless no matter how long it  has been sitting in a back room.  I'm a good sorter and I divvied things up into useful groupings.  Trash, keep, donate, etc. I was lucky enough to find an outfit that did art outreach and accepted many boxes of art supplies.

All in all, I ended up moving a LITERAL ton of material out of the back room.  The Rancher has a dump trailer (cue heavenly music) and I filled it up.  When she took it to the dump, the weight was 2,144 pounds.  Reader, I carried every ounce of that ton!

It wasn't the most fun of visits and I worked my ass off, but it was very satisfying to clear out that room and send so much garbage to the dump.  It wasn't all trash and I worked very hard to redirect useful things to appropriate destinations.  But, seriously, the woman never threw away a jar.  Not just canning jars, but all jars were washed out and stored on shelves, in boxes, in bags, etc.  Every mayonnaise jar, peanut butter jar, pickle jar, everything.  All washed and put in the back room.   That wasn't the worst of it, just an example.

So, yeah, I came here and cleaned up a big mess, but it was only the first mess.  Now, I am back and cleaning out the mom's bedroom.  Here's how the room was: you opened the door and stepped in the room.  The bed was about 4 or 5 feet into the room, bedside table on the left, door to the closet on the right.  That was literally the only open floor space in the room.  In order to make the bed you had to lie on it, or roll over it and try to squeeze your feet into the piles of stuff on the far side of the bed.  It was impossible and a damned fire hazard.

I've been here since late Wednesday, so I've had three days so far to get a grip on it.  It is now possible to walk around to the far side of the bed!  I have sent a large bag of small clothes home with one of the ranch hands (he has a whole passel of kids to clothe), I have a big stack of boxes and bags to go to the donation place (Goodwill, or whomever), and I have been filling up the trailer again.  There won't be nearly as much stuff this time around, but I need to go through it carefully.  There is an unbelievable amount of paperwork.  For one thing, the woman never threw away a piece of paper.  There are receipts and notes and greeting cards dating back to the 1950's.  I'll have plenty of interesting things for the Rancher and her brother to sort through and make decisions about, but the big bulk of it is going out.  I've found so many brand new, tags-still-on, unworn articles of clothing!  I've got a stack to take to the Mom's new home (well, after I wash it all), and it includes shoes and slippers and shirts and pants and shorts, and, and, and...  But, the bigger stacks are things that are no longer of use here but might be worth someone else's while.  I mean, she'll never wear these 20 coats again but someone else might.  I've saved her out a couple that she can wear. 

My next step is to gather up the donation items and start taking loads to drop off.  That will be satisfying.  In the meantime, I'm plugging away at it, reducing the mess bit by bit, bag by bag, box by box.  It's slow going but I'm making progress.  My back is killing me, though. 

If this post is rambling and unintelligible, I apologize.  I'm tired and need to lie on the floor for a few minutes.  Do a few gentle stretches.  Relax and breathe non-dusty air...

I'll make another dent in it tomorrow.
Cheers!