Boss! Boss! The Plane! The Plane!

Places everyone, places!

Tattoo (see what I did there?  no?  so young...so so young).  I'm here to talk to you about the tattoo.  I don't have tattoos.  By the time I decided there was something I was passionate enough about in order to justify using permanent ink on my delicate skin, I was a dad.  And I had other shit to deal with.  And it seemed...self indulgent.  And Leslie wasn't a fan.  It was something I didn't NEED.  So I didn't do it.  But, as previously mentioned, now I'm doing it.

Today I met with an artist to talk about designing something.  I gave him a deposit.  And February 26th I have my first sitting.  He said 5 hours.  Then two more sittings.  That's a lot of sitting.  And hours.  And ink.  All in.

I mentioned before that I was looking now at an owl.  And that's all I'll say for now.  From now until February 26th he's going to work on the design and when I go sit down for five hours...I hope to have a design that I'm happy with and that means something to me.

I was excited to go to the consult.  We spent an hour talking about it.  He wrapped a page around my arm and marked it off so he had the design dimensions.  And then we looked at pictures and I told him what my vision was.  And he quickly sketched up some things and asked questions and took notes.  And then I left, $100 poorer, but excited.
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Meanwhile...

On my way to pick up my weekly Pad Thai, I stopped by the jeweler to check on my ring re-sizing.  "You have your envelope?"
"No."
"Well, do you know your order number?"
"No.  But...I DO know my name."
*grumbles*

They hadn't called me, but it seemed like long enough to resize a ring 1/2 a ring size to ME.  And apparently it was.  Because my ring was ready.  Good to have it back.

Endings

Caring Place had its final night for us this evening.  It was a good experience.  I don't know if it was an experience tailor made for someone like me necessarily, but it definitely was a good experience for me and for Emma.  It generated some nice conversations.

Caring Place is a group support "service"? specifically for the benefit of children who have lost a loved one.

So every other week for the past...four months...Emma and I have spent our Mondays with other families also dealing with the loss of a loved one.

Emma asked me if it helped me.  I hedged.  "It didn't hurt me."

A second went by as I considered.

"That's not the same thing as helping."

"I know, baby, I just want to be honest, let me think about it for a second."  And I thought about it.

I told her that I felt that it was helpful.  I told her that if nothing else it gave me a 'scheduled time to grieve'; a time where I didn't have an excuse to compartmentalize.

What I told Emma then was that I don't like thinking about it.  That I'm pretty content 90% of the time because I'm not thinking about it.  On purpose.  That when I DO think about it, I'm sad.  And I don't want to be.  The Caring Place for me became a time where I had no escape from thinking about it.  And I told her that was good for me.  Because I think it's good for me to think about the sadness and about Leslie and about loss...and that sometimes I'm just not disciplined enough to do it myself.

And it was good for me too because it made me feel like I was "doing something" to help give Emma an outlet.  People to talk to who "get it".

Emma told me that one of the things she liked was being in a group where discussing losing her mom or her mom's life wasn't "a downer".  Not that it wasn't still a downer...but everyone in the room was in the same boat.  It didn't stop conversation...it started it.  It was nice not to have to censor herself and just talk to people without trying to protect their feelings.

Ironic, right?

Did I love it?  No.  It wasn't necessarily my kind of place.  We did touchy-feely things that make me feel uncomfortable.  They were quick to reiterate that anyone could "pass" on any activity without judgment.  And they meant it.  But I was committed to the program...it just wasn't necessarily my thing.

Would I recommend it to someone...anyone else?  Yes.  Everyone.  Maybe it's not your thing.  Maybe it IS your kid's thing.  Maybe you might even find out that although you thought it wasn't your thing...it really WAS your thing.  Whatever.  Highly recommend it.

We did a square of a quilt that will hang in the Caring Place when it's done (in a month or two, I think).  They took a picture of Emma and I.  It looks weird.  We're smiling because we're having our pictures taken, but we're holding a square of a quilt with Leslie's memorial on it.  Yay!

Emma saw it and said, "I look so tired."
I looked at it and said, "My beard is so long."

But I thought...man we sure look happy.  Brave faces maybe.  Appearances perhaps.  But we are happy for the most part.  Just looks weird.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

I talked to a couple tattoo artists last week.  My idea has morphed from butterfly to raven to owl.  Apparently in Polish folklore an unmarried woman who passes away is transformed into a dove, and a married woman is transformed into an owl.  And Leslie was very Polish.  That, and the psychopomp aspect (that owls guide the departed to heaven) make it a pretty good fit.  Still working on it though.  

Got some pricing information back from them too.  Whew!  Fun! Not inexpensive.

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Ever since we got this cat I've developed allergic asthma.  We knew I was allergic when we got him.  But just really wanted to get Emma a "real" pet.  Fish just weren't cutting it anymore.  So Leslie and I decided to get a cat for Emma, and maybe I wrote about the process and maybe I didn't, but essentially we pretended that we were taking her to the animal shelter to see if they had volunteer work that she could do for them.  She volunteers in Glade Run's animal program and loves it, so we thought it would be a convincing story.

the happy day

The Humane Society had two kittens set aside and when Emma got there to "talk about volunteering" they brought two kittens in to play with her.  One was very shy and hid most of the time we sat and talked.  The other was very mischievous, exploring every nook and cranny, playing with Emma, and generally having adventures.  We told Emma that she got to pick one to take home and that she wasn't volunteering...she was getting a cat for her birthday.  And she loved it.  And loved him.  And loves him.

She still will randomly hug me and say, "I am so happy that Dobby is part of our family."

But the fucking cat makes me sneeze.  And claws the furniture.  And carpet.  And pukes on things.  And...has adventures.  But he's family.

So when I first approached the doctor two years ago about what I could do to help my allergy symptoms with the cat and he said, "Get rid of the cat." I told him, "Nope.  What else ya got?"

On again off again doctoral care and two years later I returned to the same doctor (who'd left the practice, disappeared, then rematerialized at another practice) and said again...Alright...I've tried this, this this and this...what else ya got?  And he said, "Get rid of the cat?"  And I said, "Nope."

Sad sidebar...
When Leslie originally was struggling to breathe, we attributed it to allergies because we'd just gotten the cat and so we tried managing her breathing with various allergy pills and an albuterol inhaler...and ultimately got fed up with our failure to make a lasting impact and got an xray which showed the fluid building up around her lungs that ultimately took her life.

And so now, two years later, and a lot of fucking miles down the road less traveled on...when I struggle to breathe there's a little part of me that has a minor panic attack.  Asthma is tricky.  I mean, for me it means that when I breathe it's like I'm breathing through a straw, or through cotton balls.  It doesn't matter how hard I inhale...it just comes in..."less" than I feel like I need...which is a really panicky feeling.  Now when it happens...I can't help but put myself in Leslie's body, laboring for breath, and feeling that panicky feeling...for months...

I have to switch tracks...therein lies madness.

So asthma sounds like no big deal, and I suppose it isn't REALLY as long as you have medicine, but there's some baggage there.  You know?

ANYWAY...

I use an inhaler and when I take a couple puffs...I'm fine.  I'd take a couple puffs before bed. Sometimes when Lily would wake me in the middle of the night, I'd need a couple puffs.  Sometimes in the morning if I didn't wake up in the night.  Sometimes during the day.  But always fixable with a couple puffs.

So the doctor said, "Would you say that your breathing is managed?"  And I said, "Yeah.  I mean...as long as I have the puffer, I have no issues.  If I don't have it..."  And we talked about how frequently I took it.  And he said..."By definition your breathing is not managed."  Apparently the puffer is an "emergency" medication.

So he prescribed some...steroid thingy ALSO an inhaled medication...that I now take at morning when I wake up and at night before bed.  And that's pretty cool.  I've taken it for several days now and haven't used the inhaler since.  His words, "Then the inhaler can go back to being a 'rescue' inhaler".

And all that is fine.  Except that what I don't really totally understand is how being dependent upon this NEW medication twice daily is really any different than being dependent upon the OTHER medication twice daily (fine...sometimes more).  And how it is NOW managed where before it was not.  But I GUESS the thinking is that now if I struggle to breathe I can use the inhaler as an emergency relief where before there was nowhere to go.

And the reason that any of this is coming up is because the last few days I've been tired or distracted, or busy, and haven't gotten in the treadmill, where in the past I NEEDED a puff.  Like...needed.  Already breathing heavy...but through cotton balls...very panicky.  So tonight I'm on the treadmill as I write this...and no breathing issues.

So that's good!