Mish Mash art politics and the intimate side of life and death

Well I stayed up for the election night returns on tv. What an exciting speech! Seems like what we need in these trying times a little inspiration and compassion.

Okay this where you have to bear with me.

I really didn't get a chance to bask in that hope for the nation, because my mother called me early Wednesday morning with the news that my brother, 48 had a heart attack a few days after hernia surgery. So then I was torn. I'd been torn before because ordinarily I would have gone down to see my brother when he had the surgery, but now this was more serious he had been air lifted to Boston and was on the cardiac care unit at Boston Medical Center a maze of buildings comprised of the old Boston City Hospital and University Hospital. I tearfully called Claire's son Tom who agreed that its hard to be two places at once and said that he a full day scheduled, I told him I would call hospice and see if I could get some respite. Then I called Lill, Claire's sister who comes by weekly, to tell her that Claire might be in the hospice house. Lill called me back to say that since Claire really did not want to be in hospice house she would come and spend a few days. The morning was divided by many phone calls, attending to Claire and trying to pack. Plus I had to take the dog out while the CNA was here. When Lill arrived, I was running around with a bag saying~ okay what do I need to put in this? Lill started cleaning and asked me what to with some letters on my kitchen table turntable. I said that she could just leave them there on the turntable so I could work on them later. They weren't bills for which I have a system but they needed my attention. Any way I decided before driving 2.45 hours I needed a nap and I took one.
I'm sure that it was very hard for Lill who comes by at least once a week to see Claire when she is usually awake and vibrant putting on her best face. Some thing that she can't pull of all day long. Not to mention Lill's dealing with my prioritized and limited housekeeping (laundry meals dishes) which allows time for crafting and Claire who is bedridden and needs a lot of attention. Also she is dying and I just want to be with here when she is awake because death is so near.
Lill told my mother that I was the most disorganized person she had ever met in her life. Handicapped by the disorderly array and frightened by Claire's decline. (Lill had thought just the week before that Claire could ride over an hour back and forth to her summer home by the lake for a cookout, just goes to show that Claire's theater class payed off and denial is a poerful force). Lill had to be beside herself.
While I was gone, Hospice called and said that the block of time I 'd requested for the workshop I am running next week ( see below)and a couple of other things, could not be covered unless I paid for them privately HA. Insurance company hoops. For weeks they had been telling me it was no problem having shown the coordinator and the nurse manager the plan. I think they are more used to medicaid and medicare. When Lill told me this I was in the parking lot of the Boston Medical Center and I said that's not right we have been over this many times. I have called the insurance company four times and reviewed this with hospice about the same amount of times. Lill graciously offered to call them. When she said that I would have to call hospice again I said that I couldn't at that point in time I didn't have all the numbers with me and I was making my way out of town in rush hour traffic.Lill graciously offered to call them. She was in the insurance business and is in her element sorting such things out, that knack of hers has been helpful over the past 14 months. She found out that they need an exact schedule written down for the entire month and then they might be able to put something together.Actually apon calling the hospice they said that wasn't correct I just needed to set some dates which I had already done and was all set for. I thought I had figured that all out already and I had.
Well satisfied that my brother was out of the woods, I made it back to Maine Friday around three thirty. Panicked, Lill who was not used to seeing Claire as sick as she really is and the substitute nurse had decided that it was Claire's time to go. They had asked her if she wanted to go to sleep and called all the relatives. So I never had a chance to deal with hospice and the insurance tangle. Lill said that Claire had said goodbye to her sons over the phone and that all her local brothers and sisters were coming over. 10 people. I told Lill that I believe that she is waiting to see her son Ray and that she won't go until he sees her one on one. Lill said that she didn't believe that people wait like that and that Claire had spoken with him over the phone and that was good enough. Claire has never been one to talk on the phone and many things can't be conveyed over the phone.
At any rate its Monday and Claire is still here. Lill left for Virginia and reminded me what I needed to do today when she stopped by to see Claire for one last time. Saying that couldn't do everything and that I need to get organized. I am thinking sheesh I put myself through College and grad school, worked for 25 years in social services, raised three kids spent 25 years in two long term relationships and bought two houses. I am going to be okay. To a type A personality perhaps it looks like my entire life is and has been falling apart but so far so good. In reality it works pretty well for me. I think that I can keep the house from going into foreclosure that will be tricky but I'm open to having roommates and when the administration changes there may be actually be work out there. I don't know about you but I am sickened by the way services have been slashed for those challenged by mental health issues in this country.The argument you often hear is their families can take care of them- just doesn't hold water in times when families are strapped. In the past 14 months I have seen how families take care of loved ones. There is a huge rant but I think I've covered that before. Lill is surprised that Claire is still with us and I reminded her that Claire is stubborn and will most likely try to wait for Ray.
Any way its Monday morning, I have been up since 3:30, my monitor woke me Claire needed medicine and adjustments. I have a moderate to do list and I haven't showed what I've been working on. In the middle of the turmoil I have felted a few things. I havent photographed them all but I am getting ready for a craft show in December.
I have also been invited to a craft night tommorrow as a new member of the Brunswick Artists Collaborative but I might put that off until next month. The acorn ornament above is stuffed with freshly harvested balsam from my woods in the back ground. The acorn a symbol of strength and hope. With Claire's passing and Obama's presidency life will start anew. I will probaly do one more memorial entry that will be the end of these intense personal journal type entries here. I hadn't intended this to be a personal journal, but life happens.

Switching hospice care

Usually I write about etsy and art but that is not all that's going on here in the tree house. For the past 14 months I have been the primary care taker for my partner Claire who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer two Augusts ago. We were disappointed when we switched from regular medical home health to hospice care. One of the arguments for hospice care was Claire's falling and decrease in mobility which called for more care also after 14 months with marketing and art shows to attend to I was getting more stressed about being it 24/7.
Early in the month, I had gone to a wedding and Claire who was not left alone, her daughter in law came by for a few hours for the first time in ten months. My son Eric was here all day. None the less after her daughter in law left, Claire decided to try to do things on her own and took a bad spill, one of many recently. That really began a down hill slide. The idea of getting hospice was to free me up for work and a life outside care. Hospice talked about how family usually steps in Claire's siblings and one of her cousins have been quite helpful when they can. One sister stops by once a week and she lives over an hour away in the warmer months. She suggested getting hospice in because the family is really to busy to set up a regular schedule. Her sons have been unable to come over since Christmas though one calls weekly these days.My Mother who lives out of state has been very helpful coming up for weeks at a time.
This whole notion about more family care was brought up by hospice partly in response to our desire for blocks of time because they seemed to be understaffed and unable to offer this stopping in for 45 minutes here and there during the week really more disruptive than helpful in lots of ways. Its not that I don't want to care for my partner I need to get out, buy supplies, maintain some friendships, network and market and just breath. Well I can run into town cell phone in hand with my sons here Claire is more apt to not ask them for help.She will call me In town before she asks them for help.
After the 4th conversation with the service about our need for blocks of time and the third call to our private insurance. Because one of the excuses for not providing was insurance the other was our dog.
I called another agency and signed up. Now we have two sets of supplies here because the various agencies get supplies from different locations. Not a terribly client centered practise. So we are ironing out the new program.
It will all work out I'm sure.
In the meantime the guys were very sweet the other day the created a romantic bistro here. One cooked a fabulous meal and the other dressed up and waiting on us in style.

Break

Hi there. This is sort of a rambling journally muse as I haven't checked in for a while. Wednesday was crazy busy. My son had a last minute doctor's appointment. We stopped to visit an old friend that I have known since I was ten and she was the elementary school librarian for a minute on the way back. That minute turned into a pleasurable hour. She is one of the most delightful people I know with the greatest stories. I had plans to deliver some dolls for a dark carnival window display and had a terrific time chatting and working on doll stands all afternoon. After that great experience, I came home mowed the lawn, prepared dinner and checked the computer for buys in my store and other signs of life. I ran into a couple of brick walls, mostly because I think I am running myself ragged to deal with the frustration of my partners' terminal illness. Perhaps what would be a minor branch across the path could be at times too much to deal with in the preparation for this great loss. I suppose this oversensitiveness is just natural. So I have decided to take a break from more frustrating areas in my life just for a week or so and focus on more rewarding pursuits.

Projects are afoot. Steering clear of the mundane, but necessary, Suzees JubileeZ next event will be a demo at Blue Moose in Richmond on Friday July, 25 9:30 a.m. in preparation for a needlefelted sachet workshop there on August 20th. I also have a little book project on Shorty and Jack and the the Anatomy of Catnip Cats ( I am still frantically creating tons of cats for two upcoming craft shows one on August 2). Poking little cats it quite therapeutic, the rythym provides a meditative quality.Ohm.

Today I just chilled mostly and went to Pemaquid after running a few errands. Claire was exhausted after the trip, but she did eat a whole lobstah and had strawberry short cake for supper. I enjoy watching her savor all her favorites these days. The air quality is going to be even worse tomorrow so we shall see how that goes for her. I did get 6 cats polished off today and I made this Pirate Clown Beau Beau Periwinkle earlier in the week for the "dark but not too dark" circus. Beau Beau is Beauticia's brother who ran away to the circus at a young age.

Introductions: Poet/Pinata Lady in a Tree house

Ephemeral Permeance

Hot ginseng tea from
the rebel siege next door
and leftover chinese luncheon special
stacked on our stacked
newspaper mattress.

From the Hilltop Queen Anne victorian
We peer northwest
through
leaded glass
rain streaks, mist
chinatown, gastown, downtown
bay and lion peaks.

This window,this view.
Our photo gray
closing snap.

Tomorrow the
demolition squad alarm clock
on the first floor will jar
us from our down and into
separate yukons
north and south.





The poem was published some time ago in The Cafe Review a lit mag out of Portland, Maine. It is based on a trip with a group of travelers I met in a hostel in Montreal in the long days of June many years ago.

I am retro-cycling into that more agreeable hippy like sphere once again after a responsible 22 year stint in the real world of social service agencies, as I raised my three children. I am making pinatas and other items that strike my fancy, reading cards at the best tattoo shop in town and working in my perennial gardens, right now. My youngest son is still in high school. My middlest one is struggling after a brief stint at college- writing music and sci-fi and drawing anime figures here in the tree house. My daughter the activist, is off in Philly stirring up the masses in her quietly charged way.

I did not merely quit my day job. The company I was working for spiraled and crashed after an ugly year. Allegedly, taking people's IRAs, definitely taking their mileage and vacation pay. I know for a fact they weren't even paying into unemployment insurance, because I ran into that stumbling block when I tried to collect some. It was a blend of poor management and another unseen casualty of war as have been so many social service agencies. Don't even get me started on no child left behind..... A system for creating cannon fodder.

Losing the job and the attached politics of the downward spiral was horrific, but ultimately good timing. My better half had just undergone a series of surgeries for a methosilioma like cancer just before it happened, I spent three weeks in the ICU with my love and I was needed at home for the long recovery process. The chemo is over and there is a tentative remission, but with this sort of cancer they can only do rudimentary scans as it is considered terminal and insurance won't cover PET scans.

I am still maintaining the vestiges of that more traditional life more specifically a mortgage to pay. So I am my tossing hat into the ring for at least a part time position. In the mean time, check out my wares at my little Etsy shop of the same name and while you are there, visit the other etsy shops : etsy Maine team, freethinkers shops and the pagans of etsy. They are a fun and talented bunch of artists and crafts people. Maybe to spice things up I'll introduce you to some of them along the way.

This blog will feature some of my works and I hope will be a positive reflection of my creativity as I try to stay on my quest for fun and color and keep the treehouse near Merrymeeting Bay in the family.