History

I found this letter I had written to a friend on July 23, 1997. I thought it helped fill in some of the blanks about my life in "short form" so I snipped it and thought I would put it here.

Let see now so I will fill in the blanks... about 8 months before my sister died I met a wonderful man, Andy. You will never guess how, yes, via the Internet. He loves to Mountain bike and ski, he brews beer as a hobby. We sent e-mail for two months before we actually met, but by that time we were in love, more than kisses letters mingle souls. He was living in So Calif, he traveled to Tahoe to visit and I came down to So Ca to see him (and Barbara and the kids), one of us traveled almost every other weekend. At Christmas time (right before Barbara died) we began to talk about mutually relocating. He is a Scientist, and is currently doing project management on development of some radiation calibration equipment for the research and medical field, so him working in Tahoe was out! We thought about San Francisco, San Louis Obispo etc. but then everything changed much to quickly for that conversation to really go anywhere.

I moved with the kids back to Pasadena in June of 96, about March of 97 Andy and I decided to start looking for houses. One of his best friends, he has know him since he was about 8 and they went to undergrad school together, mom is a real estate agent. She used to have her own brokerage, she is a wonderful woman. Her name is Ann (gee would you have guessed!) Any way we decided we wanted something perfect and unique (kind of like you did). We began looking at these wonderful modern >1960's case study homes. The architectural style is called Post and Beam.

One day Ann took me to a community that I fell in Love with, Sierra Madre. It is nestled in the Foothills North east of LA about 20 miles, very near Pasadena. It has the small community atmosphere of Tahoe City, with its little theater and coffee houses, local pubs, and restaurants. Everyone knows everyone and the local papers police blotter is called Police Blotter or Why we Live in Sierra Madre. Any way she found us a house built on 4 lots, up on a ridge with a panoramic city scape view. It was built in 1961, the living area is all glass and the house is architecturally incredible. SO we bought it and I came down with the Chicken pox the day we made the offer! We are in the hills, the top of our property line skirts the Mount Wilson Trail. Last Saturday there was a deer peering into the family room window, about 5 feet away. He was trying to decide if he should hurdle the little fence we have on the hillside. There is also an Owl that lives in the oak tree outside our bedroom, I have named him Mr Hootywho. He wakes me on a fairly regular basis between 2 -4 am, but he also lulls me back to sleep with his cooing.

We moved in Memorial weekend and Andy proposed shortly thereafter via e-mail (of course)

(Remember this was written in 1997)
Kids are good. Candice, the oldest, will be a freshman in high school this fall. We applied to a small all girls school, college prep, and she got in. Her grades are excellent and she is an honors student and accomplished musician. Plays the flute. She also mountain bikes with Andy, and is quite good. So now we had to cough up quite a bit for private school. She wants to be a pediatrician, at the rate she is going and from the caliber of this school there will be no problem with her getting into a great college. She loves Homey Cat, and they share sleeping quarters.
Natalie, middle, 12 years old going into 7th grade. She is the one with Cystic Fibrosis. Typical rebellious preteen. All the boys call her, her grades are average, reads rolling stone instead of doing homework, and she will try and get away with almost murder. Wants to go to a Marilyn Manson concert, shaved her legs when she thought I wouldn=t notice, wears dark lipstick when I am not around (until she got caught) and prefers purple nail polish. She is beautiful though. She adores Andy, and confides in him. She even asked him what a Cum Bubble was (he was taking her grocery shopping and almost crashed when he heard that one!)

Jacob. Sweet Jacob. Not your typical 9 year old boy. He is quiet and insightful. Has an intense and detailed imagination. Loves to perform for people. He plays the piano, and loves doing recitals, when most kids would be screaming. We were worried he had some learning disabilities because his reading skills are very low, so lots of testing later indicated that he was gifted but couldn't read. Thanks to our wonderful school system (said with sarcasm). He is going to be in an ordinary 4th grade class this fall, with some additional speech and reading help.

Parenthood is a life all its own. It is amazing and rewarding and sometimes a pain in the neck. We have to really organize our time so that everyone including ourselves gets what they need. As a family we have 3 dogs and a cat. Jacob has taking to pinning large insects and we also have several large insects in the house. Scorpion and tarantula, luckily they are dead. He took a class in anahcrids and arthropods and could identify the family, class, subclass, phylum and species of a variety of bugs.

My job sucks. It pays well has great benefits, but the last 2 weeks I worked 60 hours each week. Life in the city. I won't complain to much.

We have started mountain biking in the local mountains. Jacob got a mountain bike for Christmas, and Natalie one for her birthday. They all really enjoy it. It is something we can do together, and Andy really likes it. We have just started rediscovering (for me) all the museums and local attractions. The smaller more hidden things, like Angels Flight. Its a restored funicular right in downtown Los Angeles. It was closed down about 30 years ago under the pretense of repairs and just reopened about a year ago. I remember riding it when I was about 5 years old. There is also El Mercado, a three story traditional Latino marketplace, right in East Los Angeles. It was fun because they had all kinds of foods, Jacob especially liked the fish and meat markets. I never knew organ meat and pig heads could be so entertaining.

Lost Blog

My last BLOG went into the blog bucket. I published and it was gone. I hate that, especialy when I think I wrote something terribly profound.

posted by A GG | 12:06 PM

Mothers Day

I called my mother on mother's day. I apologized for not acknowledging her birthday, but told her I didn't forget. She was nice, for a change. Didn't lecture me about Natalie, but wanted to hear the story about what happened. When I told her she had been arrested for shoplifting, she became my ally. I was easy, I got her sympathy, instead of her judgement.

I am in Sacramento California at a conference. I thought I liked it here at the capitol, but I forgot about all the homeless people in the square. I go for a walk and there are more homeless people than others, it bothers me. I feel as if I should be passing out meals. So I go back to my room and turn on the TV and make a drink.

Sunday night when I arrived I walked an happened to find a photography exhibit, it was called "The September 11 photo project". All photos taken on or around the disaster with letters and personal reflection, and some abstract art work. I become depresseed as I read all the lettters and observations. I buy the pictoral coffee table book. I remember. Will we ever forget?

posted by A GG | 7:47 PM

Hell

I spent most of the day at Childrens Hospital in LA yesterday with Natalie. She hates it there, she takes it out on me. We had to tell them that she wasn't living at home anymore. Dr. Woo took her off the transplant list. Natalie doesn't know what she is doing, how she is comprimising her future, her health, her education.

Dr. Woo said her lung function was down, and her oxygen saturation was 93%, ans she needed to be hopitalized. So we went from Children's to Kaiser and were admitted about 4:30 after Dr. L evaluated her. I got home at 7:00. I couldn't be around her any more, I was ready to strangle her. She is so blasie about everything, her favorite line is "I don't have time to think about that, or I am too busy".

Being around her is like being in hell.

In-Laws

I actually went with Andy to his parents on Saturday for lunch. I really hate going, but I thought it would be nice for Andy if I came along.

It has been a while since I have seen Elaine, she looks so old. She has some type of temor and just is sort of out of it. At least that is how she seems to me. Andy said they look and act the same. No they are aging rapidly.

posted by A GG |