Halloween - In the Spirit of Things

I owned a 1915 bungalow south of Fountain Square here in Indy that came with it’s very own spirit. People would see a shadow over by the upright piano in the dining room that came with the house. I’d not mention it, but notice people turning their heads in that direction from time to time and ask them what they saw. The reaction was invariably “what was that?” To which I’d say, “I think that’s the original owner of the piano and I don’t know why, but I think they want it fixed.” One of the first times that Robbie was over to my house, we were watching TV (which was on a stand by the double doors to the dining room) when I saw him whip his head around in that direction. He then slowly turned to me with this puzzled look on his face and quietly asked "What was that?"

The other odd thing that kept happening was that things would disappear only to reappear moments later in a place you’d already looked. Car keys frequently would not be where I thought I left them. Misplaced checkbook that was always kept in the same place. Remotes that would vanish and reappear later. I would just chalk up to me being an airhead.

The strangest time was when I was playing with a Westie puppy I had at the time and told him to go get his ball. Nine months old and as smart as a whip. We were in the living room and he started looking all over the place and kept coming back to me like he was trying to say “help me, I can’t find it." So I started looking under all the furniture, and moved into the bedrooms thinking maybe he left it under a bed. Well, neither I nor Max could find it.

We went back into the living room and there was the ball right in the middle of the room. A bright yellow ball on brown carpeting would have been easy to spot if it had been there to begin with. That’s the only time I really felt uncomfortable living there. I owned the house for a while and rented it out after moving in with Robbie. The renter freaked out when she saw it and called me to say that she didn't want to be there with a ghost.

The new owners got rid of the piano. I've wondered if the spirit is still with the house or if it's with the piano now. And did the person who ended up with the piano fix it?

Home

At the top of my blog is a quotation from Robert Frost. This post is about home. My/Our home.


Today is our anniversary, Robbie and me. Four years ago today, we had a church ceremony. It's not legally recognized in this state, but that matters not to us. What matters are these things:

We were surrounded by family and friends who have had a significant impact on our lives.

We wanted to declare what we meant to each other in front of our friends, family and God.

We wanted to build further on what we already had and make the foundation of US stronger.

The next day in church, the minister introduced us as having been married in the sanctuary the day before. If the minister and our friends can call it a wedding, then it was a wedding and not a commitment ceremony.

And I've never been more sure of anything in my life than knowing/believing that by committing my heart to be intertwined with Robbie's, that my life would be forever richer.

In those short four years we have:

Brought home (at different times) two Westies and lost the first one to theft. Oh, how we grieved with that loss.

Gone through an emergency appendectomy (mine) and several bouts of kidney stones (also mine) that on more than one occasion required a hospital stay.

Had a car die on us (literally) on the way to Robbie's parents over Easter weekend two years ago.

Bought a huge honking SUV to replace the dead car because we knew (hoped) that we would get a baby soon and wanted the extra protection while on the road to visit family five hours away.

Finally brought home a baby girl last year who couldn't have been more perfect for us if we had tried. Of all the jobs I've had in my life, this by far is the most rewarding, being Daddy.

Moved back to Indiana to raise our daughter here, where things just seem a little more true. A little less frantic. Let's face it. Chicago is a great city but it's exhausting to live there.

Built a life together that makes me blink and stare wide-eyed in amazement at what we have, when I have the time to take it all in.


For those of you who don't know, I'm kind of an animation freak. (It's the child inside.) My favorite one is Lilo & Stitch. There's a line toward the end of the movie where Stitch is talking about the family that he found and wants to be part of. He says "This is my family. I found it all on my own. It's little and broken... but still good. Yeah. Still good."

There are a few places I could go and they would take me in if need be. Good people I have the honor to call friends. But there is only one place I want to be, and that's where ever Robbie and Riley are. My own family may be little and unconventional, but it's still good. Yeah. Still good.

Ursa Minor

For H who was first, K who was next, and R who was last. Without you, any/all of you, I would still be wandering, lost in the night.

Why do I still after all these years seek you out?
You are my guide through the minefields. You give
me safety, a haven, leading me over hillocks and ditches.
Ditches I’ve dug till my palms have bled,
dug to hide the wounded, the infirm.

The markers and flares that burst over head cast a
sallow light allowing me to see who I’ve left in
waters so cold that their very bones ache.
Aching as does my beating heart bound in
the sounds of despair and pain that wind round us.

I need to go on, for the flares also light our path
forward, your hand lightly holding my arm.
Your whisper, soft, in my ear, says not to worry,
for they will find their own way even back to dust.
They are not to be buried. Burial would be forgetting.

You remind me that the furrows I’ve dug
are not meant for me, that new tasks await me
as the little bear shows us my way home, that three
isn’t five in my new world. The three remaining strayed
as I kept an eye on the dragon, turned their backs, gone.

Three isn’t five, you whisper again, placing a soft
hand gently on my back, giving me momentum to glide
across the new landscape stretching infinite before me.

And at once I see it all.

The day my head caught up with my heart

There are times when I've had the most breath taking moments of clarity, where everything around me - the people, the places - comes into such sharp focus that I can't breath. I call those moments hyper-reality. It's just too much to take in and I feel my brain withdrawing from it all by focusing on something mundane outside of my visual path.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robbie and I had been dating since around the Fourth of July. Kind of casual, seeing each other several times a week and spending weekends together. I, for one, had no intention of getting into a serious relationship again after the psycho. I'd just see how this relationship played itself out and then move on, content with the notion that if I was dating, fine, if I weren't, that was fine too.

That October, my neighbors invited me and Robbie to go away for the weekend with them to Union Pier, Michigan. Just a little trip north while the weather was still good. Maybe do some antiquing (my neighbors ran a booth at an antique mall) and just enjoy Lake Michigan. So, Robbie and I packed up the convertible and hit the road.

We arrived late Friday afternoon and spent the rest of the day talking, drinking some wine with the neighbors and just enjoying each others company. The cottage we stayed in was on a bluff overlooking the lake. We went to bed that night listening to the waves crashing onto the shore below us.

The next day we went to a late brunch and then shopping around with the guys. One of the places we stopped at was actually a tent set up in the middle of a gravel parking lot. Robbie and I wandered around for a while making small talk while my neighbors shopped and tried to figure out how to get an antique stove home - they were in a Dodge Neon. When Robbie and I had seen everything we went outside to wait for my neighbors still chatting about nothing in particular.

It was getting late in the day and the wind had picked up. The sun was behind me and was shining on Robbie's face. I remember that we had stopped talking and were just standing there. I have no idea where my mind was, but Robbie got this smile on his face, tilted his head and said "I know, me too." It was like someone had snapped a rubber band against my brain. I saw everything with crystal clarity and knew at that moment that I was hopelessly and forever in love with him. And knew that he felt the same about me. I can still picture him standing in that parking lot, wearing brown Doc Martins, denim jeans, brown carcoat, and a dark blue ball cap, smiling at me, loving me. I've never been more sure of, nor more aware of anything in my life than at that moment.

Robbie has been my salvation. He has shown me that it is possible to love and be loved by someone and not regret it. He has given me a family that I absolutely adore. They are everything my family is not. They are loud, they are opinionated, and they love completely. It's been an honor to have been accepted into their lives and hearts, and I would do anything that they would ask of me.

But more importantly, he gave me a life. We have a modest little house, a beautiful baby girl and the sweetest dog. We have each other and I know that no matter what, we'll be there for each other. He supports me in trying my hand at writing and doesn't complain when I've been struggling with a story idea until 5 am and he has to get Riley ready for daycare.

It would be a cliche to say the he is my other half and he completes me. It also wouldn't be true. He does more than that. He lets me be myself and is happy when I succeed. He truly is my best.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin

I received the following email today. I think it's appropriate to post this in as many places as possible:


I hope no one will be offended by this email, but I have verified that these facts are true and I know that if these things were switched around it would make a difference in my choice. How about you? I do not expect or even necessarily desire a discussion about this, since I do not want to have a heated debate with people I love and respect. I just thought I would put it out there for you to think about.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin

What if things were switched around? Think about it.

Would the country's collective point of view be different?

Could racism be the culprit?


Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage?
Including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards? (*It should be noted that McCain did not leave her immediately, though he did begin cheating on her soon after his return.)

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard ?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing several planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama 's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

Would anyone believe McCain is a Muslim? Why not?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are? This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor ( J.D. ) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters -journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism


Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Remembering Dan

Today would have been Dan and Joe's fourteenth anniversary. Unfortunately, Dan passed away last February after battling pancreatic cancer. That's Dan on the right holding Riley, with Joe on the left. The photo was taken last summer when we came down one weekend to visit them at their lake house. We were still living in Chicago at the time and Riley had been with us for only a few months.

Dan was truly one of a kind and his passing has left a huge void in this world. He taught high school English for over 30 years at the same high school. Over the years he sponsored the year book staff, the drama department, coached boys swimming and fought on a daily basis to make his students lives a little richer and broaden their views of the world beyond Central Indiana farm country.

Dan didn't always succeed with the latter work, but when he did, the results were amazing. One of his former students happened to be a friend of mine, briefly, before I met Joe and Dan. Troy was an amazing artist who I believe got a little inspiration from Dan to try larger dreams than what would normally be expected of him. Troy attended art school after graduation and went on to become a set designer for The Indiana Repertory Theater and other local community theaters here in Indianapolis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I met Dan the spring that Joe and I worked together at the same place. I was fairly new to town, having moved just a few months before and didn't know very many people. Joe had asked me over, if I wasn't doing anything, to help them demolish an old garage to make way for a swimming pool. Believe it or not, hard labor sounded a lot better than the plans I had of making the divot in my sofa a little bit deeper that weekend.

If you've ever done demo work on a building, you can understand how gratifying in some ways it can be. And tiring. So what do Joe and I do after working hard all Saturday? We hit the bars. Big mistake. Dan was up early Sunday morning, swinging a sledge hammer against the stucco walls of what remained of the garage. I weakly tried to help for about 10 seconds, realized the the sledge wasn't the only thing pounding and went back to bed for another hour or two. By the time I got up, Dan had reduced the rest of the garage to rubble and the only thing left to do was help throw the piece in the dumpster.

That was the weekend that Dan gave me the nickname Jimmy Ray. Only he said that Ray was spelled with an E and not a Y. Anyone who ever met me through Dan after that always thought my middle name was Ray. (For those of you who are curious it's really Allen.) Dan and Joe's favorite movie was "Coal Miner's Daughter". Most of their time speaking to each other was like they were extras from the movie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And this is where I get stuck. I can't seem to describe what Dan meant to me. From that first moment of meeting him, I knew that his was a good soul. Oh, he could be just as catty and bitchy as the rest of us. But the underlying truth was that he would never make you feel less important than any one else in the world. Everyone was instantly at ease in his presence and feel that you had known him for years.

He would cook these amazing meals whenever I was over at their place. And do it while putting the roof on the replacement garage that he built. He was meticulous, careful and precise in everything he did and said. He never met a stranger, even though he would tell you he wasn't comfortable meeting new people.

When Dan found out that he had cancer, he and the doctors had hopes that he would be able to beat it. The tumor was on a duct leading away from his pancreas giving hope that a successful treatment would be possible. He did his rounds of chemo, steadily gaining weight back throughout, and never getting sick. His doctor said that gave hope that he could beat it.

A year ago the treatments stopped. Not because the cancer had come back, but just because that was the end of what could be done. Dan told us that he asked the doctor what they would do next. The doctor looked at him and said with a puzzled look on his face, "Are you sure you're ready for this talk?" Dan asked what he meant by that. The doctor replied that that was it. There would be nothing more to do.

So Dan and Joe waited along with family and friends, anxious, hopeful, silent. It wouldn't be until sometime in December that he would know if the treatments had worked. Dan finally got the results back and the doctors couldn't find any signs of the cancer. The doctor said that if the cancer would return it would happen in 12 to 14 weeks.

Thirteen weeks later, I received the call from Joe that the cancer had returned. It had spread everywhere. There would be no hope this time. Dan had asked if we could come down for the weekend. We drove down Sunday morning and went straight to their lake home. As sick as Dan was, he still was trying to make sure that everyone was taken care of.

At the time we didn't talk about it, but after leaving we knew that Dan was saying his goodbye's. Ten days later he was gone. He died at home, surrounded by his dogs, and with Joe by his side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dan gave me (and Robbie) possibly the best compliment I've ever received. When we told him and Joe that we were adopting a baby, he cried. He thought that us becoming parents was the most wonderful thing he could think of. I'm just so sorry that Riley won't get to know her Uncle Dan in person.

My apologies to Joe and Dan's family if I got the time-line or facts of Dan's illness wrong. I'm working from a very clunky memory. I have an easier time remembering the man. I think Dan would want it that way. Forget the cancer! Remember the trips to Florida! Remember the cookouts! Remember the laughter! Remember?

Driving Lessons

I really don't have a story here. I just happened to like the title. It seems that sometimes I get a thought or even just a few words together that I think would make a nice title. I suppose it could be about how my dad used to take me out on country roads and let me steer the car while he worked the pedals. Maybe throw in how he would try and teach me a lesson by punishing me. The driving part could be fun considering he died when I was twelve. I must have been sitting on his lap the whole time and I'm sure the way cars were made in the 60's that I could barely have seen over the steering wheel.

Or maybe it could be a story about golf. My grandmother played golf for a while when she was young. I think she was in her late 60's early 70's when she told me. I just for the life of me couldn't picture the tiny woman sitting at the kitchen table with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth ever playing golf. She said she didn't play that much. It was boring. Her and Mark Twain... "Golf is a good walk spoiled."

Just why is it that certain words or phrases will stick with me. It's annoying. Am I supposed to make something out of them? I feel like Rainman sometimes the way they keep revolving round and round in my head. Maybe there's a pattern or connection among the whole lot of them. Should I keep track of every stray phrase that wanders into my consciousness? Maybe I should have a cork board and pin them up like an entomologist would with insects. If I have to lable them in Latin, I'm in big trouble.

It's like the "Fun, Fun, Fun" syndrome. For those of you who don't know the syndrome I'm referring to, "Fun, Fun, Fun" was a song by the Beachboys (a group from the 60's who, believe it or not, gave the Beatles a run for their money) that once it gets in your head it won't leave. EVER! Until something else comes along to take it's place it just keeps repeating itself. Or "until daddy takes the T-bird away." Dammit!

And that makes me wonder who programmed the DJ in my head. Today, I woke up with the Mary Jane Girls singing "In My House" IN MY HEAD! Now where in the hell did that one come from? What overstimulated neural synapse sparked some life into that oldie? And why won't it leave? I've listened to the radio for at least two hours today. You would think that something, anything would have caught hold to knock the MJG's out of the top spot of my personal TRL. But no, they're still swaying back and forth, singing their biggest hit, and being just as trashy as ever in my brain.

I don't know if other people have their own sound track running through their lives, but mine is weird and unpredictable. Sometimes it will get caught on current songs, other times it's an old one that I've not heard or thought about in years. And in trying to think of some to list as examples, I've managed to do a mash up of "In My House" and "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. (Don't fear for my sanity. It apparently left with The Mary Jane Girls years ago and revisits me from time to time. From what I understand, they and my sanity are having a great time somewhere in southern California.)

Back to Driving Lessons (dammit! where is that missing headmaster?) I also get an image of my dad driving us through through thunderstorms when I was little. He absolutely loved being out in the wild weather. The more lightning flashing and thunder pounding the better. If you could see through the windshield it wasn't storming hard enough. I was terrified the entire time. I just wanted to be at home, safe and dry, not worrying about if a tree was going to fall on our car to crush us. Or if a tornado was going to show up in our path and pick us up and fling us down in a cornfield three counties away. Or even worse, get struck by lightning. But those things never happened. We always made it through safely to the other side of the storm. Although the rain was still falling on us, the sun would be shining; downed tree limbs and shredded leaves all around, but we would be just fine. And there was dad smoking a Pall Mall, his right arm across the steering wheel and his left hanging out the car window, on the lookout for the next big storm to drive us all through. Guess I had a story after all.

5 am

Not sure when or why this one popped into my head. It's been raining here since yesterday afternoon. Off and on, just a soft rain. Nice, calm, soothing. I awakened to the sound of the rain falling through the maple tree that's in the backyard outside our bedroom window and I had the first part of the following poem resonating in my head. Indulge me. It's not often anymore that I do poetry, neither the reading nor writing of it.

5 am

I lie awake in our bed
hearing the rain whisper
through ancient oak
on its descent
to inescapable
fate.

Around me the house slumbers
and I aware and listening,
hear each drop when
upon meeting fate,
utter softly
“oh!”

Our House in the Woods

Since I've started this post, I've meant to write about the differences between living here and in Chicago. The most obvious place to start would be with the size of the cities. But I'm not typical.

Robbie awoke the other morning thinking he was in some "damned Disney movie, what with all the birds and stuff making a racket outside our windows." Here, we hardly have had them closed. When it's been so hot and humid (the equivalent to two or three weeks, I think ) that we needed to turn on the air conditioners have we closed them. Even when the temperature has fallen into the 50's at night we've kept them open.

In Chicago, we rarely had the windows open. And never at night. We lived at the corner of Halsted Street & Roosevelt Road which has to be the busiest intersection for ambulance, firetruck and other rescue traffic in the entire city. Roosevelt Road is the fastest way to get to the Illinois Medical District and Halsted is only one block off of the Dan Ryan Expressway. Noise. 24 hours a day. I also don't think there is a single driver in Chicago who isn't emphatically in love with the horn in their vehicle. So, yeah, the windows were shut most of the time.

It's easier to get together with friends here. But it was easier to walk to restaurants (gawd, I miss Hashbrowns restaurant) or grab public transportation if we were going out of our neighborhood. I don't think it's humanly possible to experience just half of the great places to eat in Chicago. Everything from the bistro right off Michigan Ave. to the breakfast and lunch diner on Roosevelt Road that seemed like small town restaurants the way the waitresses remembered us on our second time there.

When the people I worked with in Chicago heard that we were moving back, they couldn't imagine why on earth we would do such a thing. After all, there is no culture outside of Chicago - well, maybe in New York. As luck would have it, The Chicago Tribune did a piece on Indianapolis that same week. I took it to work to show people and they were surprised that there WAS more here than a two and half mile oval racing track. There are theaters, restaurants, libraries, museums, festivals - everything you can find in Chicago, just on a smaller scale. Except, we do have the largest children's museum, the largest cultural event with Black Expo, and a hospitality and warmth that truly is an institution unlike anything found in Chicago.

Yes, there's more than corn here. But we Hoosiers have known that all along. It's a one of the best kept secrets about the Midwest.

If you havent' been to the bottom of the page, I've posted two pictures there. They dramatically show the contrast of our lives in just a few short months. From towering architecture, to towering maples. Chicago is a great city and I'm glad we took the chance to live there. We have Riley because of that choice, and Indianapolis will always be home.

Dad? Daddy? Pops? Father? Dad One? Dad Two? What's a girl to call her two dads anyway?

One of the most asked questions of us about our daughter is "What is she going to call you?" My answer is usually "anything she wants as long as she doesn't call me late for dinner." Badum bump. Thank you! I'm here all week.

It's a good question. Until recently we didn't really have an answer except for "we'll leave it up to her." Well, the question now has an answer and from none other than the girl herself. She's calling me Da-ee and Robbie is just Da. I'm sure that those are the toddler equivalents to Daddy and Dad. However she came up with them, they're our names now.

I'm not surprised that she came up with different names for us. Since we first brought her home she has been very attentive to her surroundings. Put her in a new situation and she'll just watch for a while before opening up to people. If she has a choice during those times, she wants Robbie to hold her. She's decided that he's her protector.

Fiercely independent most of the time, when she's not feeling well or wakes in the middle of the night, she wants me to comfort her. I love those moments (few that they are) when I can hold her across my shoulder, rubbing her back, humming softly while swaying slowly back and forth. After a few moments I'll ask if she's ready to go back to sleep and she'll just go limp in my arms. I place her back in her bed, she throws her arms over her head and drifts back to sleep.