About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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November 22, 2011
I keep thinking about Mom. But it’s taking days and weeks to form words, words into a sentence, then into coherence. I’m working. Eating. Sleeping. Taking care of business. But at odd moments of the day, I keep thinking about Mom. But for now, that’s not where my words want to flow. Because they’re still swirling in my heart and my gut. And that makes this other thing that I couldn’t write before emerge from the darkness.
It was so much easier when I could just write him off as an egomaniacal selfish jerk. Not easy, mind. Just easier.
I’ve long missed having a big brother, I missed having a full family (a real family), I missed having someone who remembered all the family secrets, to share the jokes, mimicry and stories. Just like I’ve missed having a mom. But this was easier. Easier because it was his choice. It was his loss. It was his fault. I had tried, you see. I had done the best I could with kind words, wheedling words, empathetic words, angry words, harsher actions, drawn lines in the sand, feet planted and stone in my heart.
I had failed, which wasn’t something I could really forgive myself for, but perhaps someday I could absolve myself of the responsibility of his life having gone the way of so many other wasted lives. Trying to accept the reality, trying to swallow my crackling bitter pride, I rehearsed the explanation to my future children, that they once had an uncle, I once had a brother, we were once great enemies and great pals, fanciful adventurers and creative plotters, but alas. It was complicated. The explanation tilted and twirled, the questions bobbed to the surface, but why….? But how….? When did it go wrong? Couldn’t you…?
But still. I could walk away into that future where I had no good explanation. I had to – if I wanted a future. For my health, my sanity. I had my parents to think of. My future family to tend to. It rent my heart but I had to leave a piece of my family and move forward.
And so my resolution was made to move my parents into a safer place as soon as I possibly could, leaving him to fend for himself.
***
Labor Day weekend, I visited my parents and my soul was pummeled with all the fury of great titans, passion worthy of Ali v Frazier. My brother, the jerk, my brother, the eldest son, my brother.
He was speaking gibberish, not just his usual castle in the sky and whistling in the wind, but true, delusional gibberish. And I knew that my secret fears that I’d never uttered aloud but once had begun to come true. He’d begun to spiral into some new world of his invention, one where he could teach animals speech and they’d speak back, and so he’d converse with them, and the furniture, and the buildings, at length.
And his dog watched him, with sad, sunken eyes. He knew. Loyal with every sinew, bone, and breath. But still even he knew, there was something terribly wrong. And he looked at me with those sad eyes.
***
It’s been a terrible, horrible year for my Dad. But he’s borne it well, as well as he can. He carries the guilt of my mother’s illness and now, in part, her passing; the guilt of my brother’s failed life and the revelation of his instability and probable illness; my struggles of the past years and the extra burdens created by the concessions I made due to my brother and their inability to love him any less. All these, he carries as a shroud and as a shield.
He managed to start a small business several months ago, while juggling the care of my mother, driven by the need to alleviate my financial burden any small degree, and while he’s ready to take on the care and keeping of my brother as his next responsibility, I can’t allow that.
It’s not sensible, he doesn’t have the tools to deal with this, his role as a father isn’t the right or effective one to rein in or treat the madness. But neither do I have the tools. We need professional help and we need to learn from the past mistakes and not let him sink the rest of the family under the weight of this.
Most importantly, most selfishly, I need my Dad to stay well; he’s the last of my family. In a mass of hundreds of relatives – cousins and aunts and uncles – I only have one parent left. He has to stay healthy and because of that, I have to become, once again, my brother’s keeper.
***
It’s certain as the full moon will wane that until he has some evaluation and/or treatment, my brother will not change for the better. So the first course of action will be to find out what options are for medical treatment out there that don’t involve beggaring ourselves. I’m not putting him above my new family, or my Dad, in this situation.
Next, he needs to be in a safe place to live NOT with Dad, and certainly not with us, but again, it cannot be by sacrificing anyone else.
Because he’s sick, I will undertake the search for what options there are but this won’t be a quick process. He’s an adult, so that complicates things. And money isn’t freely flowing around here, and he doesn’t get any special treatment. Unlike Mom, he didn’t earn the Anything Goes package even if I were made of money. He’s my brother but he was abominable when he had a choice. He’s my brother so I will look out for him if I can but there are absolutely limits.
November 20, 2011
I’m back. Thank you for all the thoughts and condolences, everyone.
It’s a -something- getting my head and feet back where they need to be so, as usual, I turn to working with finances for comfort.
We’re nearly through November, so at this point, I don’t know what to call this.
Retirement Accounts
Just as I predicted, my new retirement account through my “new” job (I guess I should call it the Now Job) is fairly mediocre to poor.
Overall Rate of return on the new 403(b): -4.94%
Balance over 1 year timeline: 747.01 to 6661.87
All the increase is in contributions with losses, not gains.
Vanguard rallied this month, though.
Brokerage account
This account sees steady (tiny) increases every quarter generally. $700 of that 1,915.05 is just cash I’m holding for a future purchase that I may or may not make. Still, neither of my stocks have lost money over the time that I’ve held them (though it only matters at the time I sell) and one pays dividends so it’s throwing off income in the meantime. A whole $4 every quarter!
Cash
There was a modest false bump in the cash calculations because I locked myself out of my Ally Bank account at the end of September and never bothered to get back in again. That’s where my CDs are and so I haven’t been getting accurate data on the interest earnings for the CDs.
It turns out that my cash holdings passed the $50K mark this month after recouping the cost of the funeral from funeral gift monies and adding the remainder (a very modest amount) as a separate category to take care of remaining costs as they come.
Spending has been OUT OF CONTROL though. In the week we were down south, we spent more on gas, food, and incidentals than we’d normally spend in a month, I think. I haven’t had time to comb through everything yet.
New
Family Budget:
I’m creating a combined budget for our money going forward. It’s sort of good timing in that we’re at the end of 2011 anyway, so I’m taking all our liquid cash and pooling it to create a fresh set of household funds similar to my current set-up.
I’ve never had this much to work with but there are two of us in our little family and Doggle now, and two extended families to plan ahead for. Now I need to figure out which banks to use.
Mortgage:
We’ve explored some refi options and I am now pondering on the wisdom of the financial risk we’d be taking in committing to one or another of these options. More research to come!
Benefits:
Now that we’re married, we can combine our benefits. Costs will go up on PiC’s side, and go down on mine. I don’t think we actually come out ahead, though, as I do the math.
Insurance:
It’s time to reevaluate the cost of our auto, home and other insurance. We currently carry our insurances separately, of course, so it’s time to see about combining them for cost-effectiveness and discounts.
Upcoming Spending:
* We need a new mattress for the bedframe that PiC Craiglisted earlier this month. I really hate mattress shopping. All those options and I can’t tell the difference in how one mattress feels from the next, but there’s this imperative to pick the right one because you’re going to have it for a trillion years. And you know the bargain hunter in me would absolutely have to know we’re getting the best deal possible. It’s possible I’m a little more gripey than usual about it because I’m tired but … I’m probably exactly as gripey as I normally would be.
* I need to plan our Christmas shopping – I already have some small gifts for other people earlier this year but there are primary gifts for family that haven’t been bought yet.
In sum: Tons to do and I feel like I need to do it all right now. Surprisingly.
November 5, 2011
My mom passed away suddenly. I’m shuttering the doors for a little while to deal.
PiC’s a rock and Doggle’s a spaz and we’re going to take care of my dad and vice versa.
November 1, 2011
Actual Wedding Stuff
Outside the courthouse, it was positively gorgeous. The sun was out, everyone arrived nearly at the same time, I was given two beautiful bouquets because two of my friends knew I wasn’t going to even think of flowers. And one was also turnabout for taking care of hers.
I spent some time with people in the parking lot as they gathered but I hid in the bosom of my surrogate family for a while. I wasn’t nervous, I just felt … surrounded for a minute. I needed quiet.
Then my parents arrived. And my blood pressure went up. My dear older friend who is bossy, domineering, mothering though childless, and knows how worried I was about Mom, came over and introduced herself, took Mom’s arm and I could breathe again. She’s wonderful precisely because she’s all those things. She’s a take charge personality I’ve come to love and trust and she helped with Mom the whole time we were waiting in line at the courthouse so that Dad could just be.
We never have that kind of help and it was a huge boon that morning. Mom was doing particularly well that morning, too, which was amazing. She had trouble remembering names, and faces, but she didn’t have any real outbursts early in the day. She wasn’t overtired or overwrought.
As it turned out, we waited in the wrong line for 20 minutes because it wasn’t clear which one to be in, and I felt a bit of a silly arse because I’d looked them over to check! That made us late for our appointment. As the minutes ticked off, my blood pressure started shooting up. PiC was remarkably calm at that point, saying it was fine, we’d just go elsewhere if they didn’t take us but that made me feel even worse. The thought of dragging our 20 plus group back of beyond because I’d screwed up the lines?? Augh!!
Luckily they had our judge stick around for this last one and made it happen.
Of course, she was in a tearing hurry. She started off, with her poufy hair, looking over her ’70s shaded glasses, “in the middle of someone else’s shift, so we have to do this expeditiously.” So expeditiously it was done. The ceremony could not have lasted more than three minutes. Blink or breathe too hard and you missed it. She wasn’t rude but I think she still upset one of our friends for coming right out with the whole “let’s move along” speech. He felt it really wasn’t necessary. (I was amused.) It was not the worst thing ever, I was worried a long ceremony would have me in tears and I hate crying in front of people but we didn’t realize that at least one of our guests had been downstairs and hadn’t come back in time!
PiC was grinning madly throughout.
The judge granted us about 2.5 seconds to take photos in the room and then sent us out to the front of the courthouse for any pictures we wanted. And those took too long – I was starving! I know, sentimental. I do regret not getting a good photo with my surrogate family in the fuss of everyone bossing everyone else for the photos and then getting antsy for lunch, but I’ll have a do-over.
We had a lovely lunch with the group, sans my parents, lots of photos were taken. The absolute necessity of following the A Practical Wedding’s How to Write a Perfect Toast was underlined. There’s a picture that I’m hoping wasn’t captured on anyone else’s camera that shows my face at a moment that I’ll just call “sentimentality” to anyone else. PiC and I had a talk later about this. I’m not letting the memory fester but it also may not happen again at Round Two.
On a related note, I have no doubt thousands of photos were taken, in fact, which frightens me no end. Living in an age where photos are just … everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Augh!
Traffic to and fro, of course, this having been in LA. But after all was said and done, we got home to visit with family briefly, and then went to feed me again. My lunch salad was sad and I was starving again. Stuffed full of sushi, we made our final guest drop-off and collapsed at our crappy hotel room just before midnight. (I reserved my annoyance for a letter to the Doubletree after we got back.)
We. Were. Married.
You know, it wasn’t perfect. It was full of hustle and bustle and “are you serious with boutonnieres too-big, boutonnieres too-heavy, boutonnieres won’t-stay? Because non-essential stress, kids. NON ESSENTIAL. Skipped it for a reason. Also, you bring it, you fix it.” (I fixed it.)
For all that we crushed this wedding into a time capsule we still caught other people’s expectations, other people’s imposed “necessities”, other people’s baggage. We were also lavished with other people’s love and joy and silliness and loyalty and steadiness. (And cute little tiny baby feet! So many babies.) We still played our roles of fixer upper, mediator, organizer, event planner, picker uppers. Because that’s who we are. That’s what we do. And that’s “who” our wedding was. It was good. It was better than perfect, it was us. Low-key, casual, almost-normal. And PiC was stupid-happy. I really liked that.
It was good.
***
Next spring, we’ll host a food thing of some kind where everyone we care about, including long distance friends who didn’t get the chance to make it and were sad not to have been offered the chance, will be given plenty of warning. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to see them and spend time with them. But it won’t be a pressure cooker of an event. It’s just going to be a gathering of loved ones. And I guess we could get around to having some rings by then, if we wanted to. There’s also going to be the fancy dress, since it got altered already!
But for a bigger thing? I’m asking a couple of my girls to help out. I’m not dealing with any more stupid flower pinning emergencies. 😉
{Next: a financial analysis, of course!}
Part One: Race to a Wedding: Five days to a Faux-lopement
Part Two: Faux-lopement: Details, Details, Gettin There
October 31, 2011
Go Time
Before we knew it, Thursday had arrived and it felt like nothing was done! Granted, we didn’t have all that much to do since I’d trimmed our list of need to dos down to next to nothing. But the truth was, we were rushed off our feet at work and trying to wrangle arrangements according to a slightly archaic system.
Luckily, work wasn’t a problem … in fact, my boss strongly suggested I get the heck out of there early because he thought I was insane. I suspect my team thought the same since he’d outed me behind my back. Not that I was keeping it a secret, I just didn’t have time to tell them!
Rings were stricken from that list – not critical.
New shoes for me, not critical. If I could get a dress altered, great. If not, old dress. If not, slacks and nice shirt. No, wait, incoming text from cousin – “wear a dress or else.” Big cousin, I grew up with from toddlerhood. Means it. Old dress it would be.
Manicure, pedicure, veil, hair piece, decorations, fooforrah – definitely not critical.
We needed gas for the car, we needed a place to stay post-wedding (because I do not care how frugal it is to stay at a parent’s house in town, I’m not staying there on our wedding night), we needed our travelers to be situated, picked up and dropped off at the right times. Ok, scheduled, sorted and sorted.
I called the tailor trying to explain the situation – he wouldn’t let me. “I understand ’emergency’, come come, just come in, I can do this!”
“But … no, I don’t think, please, let me explain, it’s — “
“No no, just come in!”
He didn’t really understand. Sweet man, but really should have let me explain. After pinning me up and giving me the price quote and explaining the alterations, he offered to rush the job and have it ready at 5 pm Friday.
Er.
How about noon?
Er.
Today? You need it today???
….. *nod nod*
….. I’m going to have to alter the price a little.
……*nod nod*
$10 more.
/head tilt/ — In my head: really??— I will see you in at closing, sir!
We went on a panic shop for PiC and found his entire outfit minus a shirt at Macy’s in 2 hours. Then his shirt was another 15 minutes at Banana Republic (yay for gift cards!) And back to pick up my dress. Fit. A. Dream. It was an exorbitant amount, but for a three hour rush job, I can accept that.
Despite a semi-early exit from work, the errands took us long enough that we didn’t leave until *really* late. The drive was easy, though and we arrived at dark o’clock in the morning. I napped for a few hours before heading out to get a hair trim and pick up a guest arriving at the airport. Or so I planned. I was held hostage at the hair salon while my long-time stylist trimmed and then styled my hair as she felt was more elegant and appropriate to the occasion. Hostage, I tell you! Not only would she not listen to what I asked for, she wouldn’t tell me what she planned to do. Point blank refused. “I’ll take care of it,” she says.
And then she undercharged me massively for it. She didn’t put it up or anything but I know for a fact she charges $75 for bridal hair before tip. She only charged $38 for cut and style, and wouldn’t let me tip her. Have you ever heard of such a thing??
But, she was right. It looked really much better than my original rush-out-the-door hair plan. We even had time to stop for coffee before our airport errand. Miracle worker, that woman.
Back to the house to get dressed and futz around on the internet. Oh, and book a hotel for that night! Hotel points, FTW!
{to be continued}
Part One: Race to a Wedding: Five days to a Faux-lopement
October 30, 2011
Changing our Tunes
Remember how I said wedding planning was a pain, and I didn’t like it? Well, I (and PiC) didn’t like it so very much that the unthinkable became thinkable. And then ….
Well, at first, I thought it was a joke.
A couple days after that post on the 11th:
“What about the end of October?”
“What about the end of October?”
“What if we just went to the courthouse?”
/head tilt/ “… to … do what?”
“You know. Get married.”
— *mentally reading the calendar* you’re going to be traveling most of this month. When are we going to talk or do anything about getting married with even just a few people present?– “Surely you’re joking.”
No answer from PiC.
Ok, he must have been joking.
October 23rd, he returned from a trip. The subject was reopened the next day. “You weren’t kidding? You’re not kidding? Right now, you’re not kidding me? You’re kidding me. Right? What? WHAT?”
He was not kidding me.
Wheels started turning. Panic set in a little bit. It was all a joke before! Now it wasn’t! Holy chickaree! But aside from a few moments of {why are we doing this …??} it felt right. Mom’s health has been steadily declining. I haven’t been happy with any of the earlier compromises or attempts at planning largely because of my worrying over her health and how she’d be able to handle any kind of event even though she wanted me to have one. I personally didn’t want one. Talking to my dad Tuesday night confirmed that she’s not having any sort of miraculous turnaround or even stabilizing. There was no sense in holding out for her sake.
PiC being happy to have a much smaller one, even elopement style, was amazing. He was always happy with the idea of small but not as small as I wanted it to be. Also I was stuck between the all or nothing situation and wasn’t sure how to find my way out. How do I invite some of the relatives I really want to share this with and not create a family rift? And that alone would be too many people in combination with his family and friends. So I sacrificed all of my family but three. Plus surrogate family – old friends so close I’ve been adopted into their clan. My heart was appeased.
This compromise of around 20 was manageable – I was pretty sure I wouldn’t lose my composure. We were sorely missing some very good friends but the days hurtled past and we couldn’t dwell on that. Or anything.
Calls were made. My most amazing long distance people booked their flights (even cross country) the second I confirmed we were trying to do it last Friday – before we even had plans. We rushed to the SF courthouse for a license on Tuesday. He confirmed the courthouse appointment on Wednesday. We picked a restaurant that night and made the reservation on Thursday. We confirmed most of our guests up until Friday morning. I was confirming and adding seats to our table as late as arriving at the restaurant for lunch. This was not a normal wedding by any stretch of the imagination.
{to be continued}
October 25, 2011
As much work and as costly as Doggle has been in the totting up of his bills over the months, there are some pretty amazing things about this dog that makes me say it’s totally worth it. Also, I like to point out that if you really want to think about the costs, you have to think about the FULL picture, and that includes considering what kind of dog we could have gotten since we did get really lucky with the pup we brought home.
Remember, this big man was abandoned for at least a year before we brought him home, and we have no clue what his history was before that. He could have been a shivering wreck inside his head and ready to burst out with all kinds of crazy after we took him home, just hiding it behind a stoic face when we first met him. It’s not that dogs are duplicitous, it’s just that when they first meet you, all the nuances of their personality aren’t going to be evident. That was certainly true of Doggle. It took him about three months to come out from his shell entirely and show that he actually had a personality lurking underneath.
Happily, most of that livelier personality is more pleasant than not. There’re also some rather … limpet-like parts to his personality. It’s usually cute but … sometimes it’s not.
How Doggle Costs Money:
Oh Vet Bills (Medication/Supplements): Doggle has been to the vet every other month since he’s been with us. We’ve spent over a thousand dollars on his medical bills so far. *_*
Carpeting: His poor staggering legs don’t deal very well with the slippery floors so we’ve laid down new (to us) rugs. Thank you, Craigslist and Costco for relatively cost effective rugs and padded squishy mats.
Food: He just keeps on eating. And I’ve turned into a bit of a sucker about buying him a stock of treats. Yeah. I’m that dog mom. I never was before.
Car upgrade: But let’s be honest. It wasn’t like PiC hadn’t been looking for his car upgrade for several years.
How He Doesn’t Cost:
Furniture: He doesn’t mark on anything at home, thank goodness. He’s embarrassed us in places where other dogs have previously marked their territory as that lights up that little area in his brain that says “oh! I should pee here too!” But as our home has been unmarked, so it stays. Whew.
He also doesn’t chew, scratch or (mostly) climb. Occasionally he takes a freak into his head that maybe he should try to get on the sofa. Then he gets put in timeout.
Shoes/Bags/Socks/Clothes/Books/Small Items: He also doesn’t steal, chew or destroy any of these things.
People Food: He’s not allowed to have any. Not that that has diminished his interest in our cooking activities or eating at the table or anywhere else one whit. But he also doesn’t beg. He’s allowed to hang around and sniff within a certain limit.
Toys: He’s still not interested. He’s just starting to get the barest inkling of how to socially interact in play with other dogs or people. I’m trying to teach him and expose him to other big dogs because small dogs around here are frankly, brats, who mostly don’t want anything to do with him if they’re not being snappy, snippy, yappy and their owners just don’t socialize or train them out of those nasty behaviors. Bigger or younger dogs really like him, though, and that’s really nice.
Energy: 95% of the time, he has amazing indoor manners. Which is to say, he is incredibly quiet and mellow inside. If you’re hanging out, he’s hanging out. If you’re sleeping, he’s sleeping. If you’re cooking, he’s in the way. But he doesn’t bark, he doesn’t scratch, dig, growl, or generally freak out in any way.
2% of the time he has little freakouts where he goes into corners and huddles or has to be on the sofa which is a no-no. 3% of the time he is really really really happy you just got home or we’re going for a walk. That is a really manageable percentage, in my mind.
Extra Baths and Carpet Cleaning: He only gets baths on our schedule which varies between every 3-6 weeks. We can do this because he doesn’t roll in the dirt, he doesn’t rub himself in gross stuff he finds on his walks, and while he might get himself a little in his poorly-aimed, old man spatter, he lets us wipe him down after every walk and wipe his paws as well. Docile as anything.
At the end of the day ….
I’m so glad we’ve got him. We have made a lot of adjustments. We factor him into the morning and evening routines to take the time to take him out twice a day, (but that’s all we have to do – we have neighbors who walk their yappers FIVE times a day!) We either travel with him by car, one of us stays home with him, or have to make arrangements for him. We mostly do the first two, though. I’m hopelessly attached. 😉
