The Funeral List

Thursday February 4, 1993

Didn't sleep much after 4 a.m. but feel pretty good when I get up at 7:30. I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed until 10. Frank is at carving class.

I wash and condition my hair. After lunch I dust our bedroom. Frank goes to the valley to bank. When he returns we go to Newbury Park to check on the roofers. On the way home we buy a pie at Marie Callendar's. I spend the afternoon reading. Smokey, our cat, is on my lap every time I sit down. He won't leave me alone.

I plan to make a list for Frank to help him make calls when and if I die.

We have a chicken and rice dinner. Donna calls. She's upset that I'm not doing better.

Oh my, I hope she didn't tell Donna she was making a list for her funeral. I don't recall whether Frank used a list or Mom's address book to call friends when she died. What I do recall is that I wanted to be the one to call Donna, her best friend since childhood. I remember I tried a few times and got no answer. Finally, on the third try Donna answered the phone. She told me she and Bob had been out for a walk. It was still early in the morning, maybe 8 or 9 a.m. She said she was happy to hear from me. There was no way to break the news gently. I told her Mom had just died. We both cried. She and Bob drove down to Simi Valley from Pollock Pines the next day. Bob said Donna said nothing the whole ride down, about a 6 hour drive. Donna was the one who was diagnosed with cancer 5 years before Mom. She was treated for breast cancer in 1986. Donna beat back that nasty cancer. 27 years later she is still going strong. I just received her Christmas card and she looks great. She's 79 years old now.

Our male Boston terrier Brutus is just like Smokey. Whenever I am sitting in a chair, without being at a desk or table, he takes that as a signal to jump up in my lap and be petted.

Good Mother-Daughter Time

Tuesday June 16, 1992

Up and have waffles ready for everyone. Feeling good still. A bit tired today as the dogs barked alot last night. Chris says she was depressed last night about the wedding. Ric reminds her the important part was that her family was there to witness her wedding. Good Ric!

Smokey begs for Ric's dogs to come in to play. We let them in and Smokey chases the pup around. Chris and I have a good talk time on my bed for an hour. We are close. We really love each other. We are concerned for each other's health. She's so large with child and overweight. Her breasts are tremendous. She's so uncomfortable. She's gained 35 pounds.

By 12:00 they're on their way home. I hope she makes it before going into labor. She's due July 13.

Oh how I miss those long talks with Mom. Usually I sat on the edge of their huge master tub while she fixed her hair and applied her makeup. This day, we sat on her bed and talked. I'm so glad we had that time together. Yes, I was huge and uncomfortable. To try to control the continuous nausea I snacked on box after box of saltine crackers and lots of 7-Up. My cup size, which was already a D, was a G after I gave birth and my milk came in. I never knew bras came that large. I had to go to a specialty store.

That was very nice of Ric to point out the importance of our family being there to witness our wedding. He is almost never romantic and rarely sentimental, but that was a sensitive thing to say.

Smokey the Cat

Thursday June 11, 1992

A regular day, feeling fine. I go marketing, banking, etc.

In the evening I try to wrap Chris' high chair gift but I don't have enough paper to finish.

Tomorrow Smokey will get a hormone shot to keep him from peeing on the furniture. Sure hope it works.

In the evening, we take some drapes over to Gary's. They can use them on their dining room slider.

Mom & Frank's cat Smokey looked alot like the one in the photo above. They had a horrible problem with Smokey marking his territory by spraying urine all over their furniture. They kept a piece of plywood with small nails sticking up in his "favorite" chair so you had to be careful when picking a seat at their house. They tried everything, but Smokey would spray whenever they left him alone in the house. I'm glad I have dogs!

Income Taxes

Wednesday March 11, 1992

Awake at 6 a.m. and not able to go back to sleep. I get up and begin to get ready for our 9 a.m. appointment with our accountant to have our income taxes done. It's always such a relief to have our taxes out of the way for another year. We will have to pay an additional $1600, but luckily we can deal with that.

Today is spent doing laundry and putting things away from our trip. The dogs and cat are glad to have us home, especially Smokey the cat. Marketing and banking, and I'm exhausted.

We have a nice dinner at home, eating the artichokes we bought near Castroville yesterday.

Frank's mom calls and asks him to take her to Loma Linda tomorrow to see her brother in the hospital. He had other plans but we decide he must be a good son, but I must stay home to rest from our trip.

Castroville is just north of Monterey on the coast. It boasts of being the artichoke capitol of the world. There are roadside stands all along Highway 1 selling artichokes and other fruits and vegetables. This area of Central California is agricultural. It was the area John Steinbeck wrote about in Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row.

So thoughtful of Frank to drop his plans to take his mother for a visit with her brother.

Chris Had a Traumatic Weekend

Monday February 17, 1992

Up and doing laundry before I get my nails done at 11 a.m. Trying to keep Smokey from falling off the wooden bannister I break my middle left fingernail way back into the meat of my finger. It creates alot of pain. Luckily my manicurist is able to fix it quite well. I'm able to go square dancing in the evening with a bandage for protection.

I finally reach Chris this morning after trying all weekend. She had a traumatic weekend getting moved back into her condo with very little of her belongings. She's not comfortable or happy. she will live about 4 months in a very unstable home until the new house is finished the end of May. I'm very worried about her. I must pray for everything to work out well for her.

Frank went to Gary's to help him repair his shower this afternoon.

She must have been on the receiving end of alot of teasing that night with her middle finger bandaged. I'm not sure how she managed to square dance without banging her finger. There is certainly lots of hand contact in square dancing.

I don't know why mom said my condo was unstable, but it was certainly a very temporary living situation. We put most of our belongings from our Windsor house in storage, knowing that we would be living in the condo only 3 months. Only the essential furniture and possessions were moved to the Santa Rosa condo while we tried to refinance it in order to pull cash out to buy the new house that was still under construction in Windsor. We could only refinance and pull money out if we were living in the condo. Four months into my pregnancy with Derek I was very tired and still nauseous, so going through a move was very difficult.

Smokey The Cat

Saturday November 16, 1991

My constipation continues with hemorroids and bleeding. Other than that I have a good day. I think my diet is to blame. I need more fruits and vegetables.

We take Smokey with us when we drive the truck out to Camping World. First he pees from fright so we come back home to clean up. Taking off again he cries and we pet and talk to him. Finally he settles down. When we get there I walk him in the dirt. He rolls and gets really dirty. He does pretty well on the way home.

At home we decide to give him his first bath. He does pretty well. After much brushing he feels like a new cat. I even used the hair dryer on him.

Dolores, Robbie, Marty & Kathy arrive and we all ride in our car to Thousand Oaks for a square dance. We have a great time! We are all really tired and leave 15 minutes early. We all go to Hudson's to eat and meet up with all our club friends.

Ok, so I have never been a cat person, but I have owned a couple of cats in my life. My one experience with driving with a cat in the vehicle was that cat screaming bloody murder all the way to the vet. We had to keep him in a carrier to prevent him from running under the brake pedal or accelerator or to keep him from scratching us in his panic. I tried to give my cat a bath once and got myself scratched up badly even though there were two humans holding him down. I figured he can clean himself; that's what all the licking is about! And using a hair dryer on a cat???? How did she manage that?

The Shower Feels Wonderful

Saturday July 6, 1991

We're up before the sun breaking camp to beat the heat. Bob and Ron offer to help transport our gear. We make it in one trip and have the boat out by 10:30 a.m. A shower feels wonderful. We are all quite tan. We make it to Merced Sizzler for lunch. We all pig out buffet style.

It's hot driving through Fresno and Bakersfield but our air conditioner works wonderfully! Justin and I play games.

Smokey (their cat) is really glad to see us when we get home about 6 p.m.

Oh yes, how well I remember that shower at the end of every trip to Lake Don Pedro. Up near the parking area for the launch ramp on our way out was a campground with restrooms with flush toilets and hot showers. After a week without a shower and spending time in the hot sun, that shower never felt so good, and we didn't even have to feed it quarters. Our bodies looked so tan against the white walls. The drive home was always a hot one. Thank goodness for the invention of automobile air conditioning. When I was a kid, our car did not have air conditioning, so just before getting in the car, we jumped in the water in our bathing suits and doused our beach towels with water. We draped the wet towels over the vinyl seats of the car and kept the windows down for the drive home. It was so hot that our swimsuits were dry within minutes and the beach towels were dry in a few hours, but it was better than nothing.