Monthly archive: September, 2007

Secretarial or Procurement~

29/09/2007, by 2 comments


procure |prəˈkyoŏr; prō-| |prəˌkju(ə)r| |proʊˌkjʊ(ə)r| |prəˌkjʊə|
verb [ trans. ]
1. obtain (something), esp. with care or effort : food procured for the rebels | [with two objs. ] he persuaded a friend to procure him a ticket. See note at get.

I’ve been beavering through my files this morning looking for some lost papers, and wonder how it is that I got put in charge of the procuring portion of this marriage of mine.

I agreed to some responsibilities many years ago when presented with the options. A bit like hunter-gathers, my husband and I, in a brief fling at fairness, decided to divide up the labor of the marriage. He asked nonchalantly which I would rather be in charge of, secretarial or procurement. Well procuring sounded like a lot of heavy lifting so I said, blithely, secretarial please. I had no idea how many things would come to fall under that label over the years.

Grocery shopping, which seems to me to fall squarely in the procuring column, has instead fallen to me because, well, there must be a list of the items made out and, obviously, that is secretarial. And, besides, he says, he wouldn’t get the right things at the store anyway, so I should just do that part too. He does have a point there. And I have to admit that he carries them for me without complaint.

But that is only the beginning of my current tasks. I find I now, like an office all-in-one machine: file, copy, print, fax, scan, translate, navigate, phone, shop, search the internet, purchase, as well as cook, do dishes, clean, do laundry, and oh, about a hundred other things.

A month or so ago I found myself in charge of finding all of his papers to complete his retirement with Social Security. This sounds like procuring, doesn’t it? And personal procuring at that.

I got the birth certificate and the military DD 214– the famed discharge form. Those hardly presented a challenge. But when we entered into the realm of the personal my world took a turn for the worse. The Social Security Administration wants to know about all previous marriages and divorces. This is, presumably, to avoid more than one spouse from claiming benefits from them.

And I suppose this can be a fairly easy task for those who remember where and when these events took place. This was not the case. It took weeks of searching the databases of various state agencies. It turns out that, although public records are exactly that, you have to know where to look for them or they are as hidden as gold dust in the Sierra Nevada.

Oregon public records, for instance, are only available up to about 1950. All others– newer files–must be searched for at the local level. Deschutes county records are all on computer disc back to 1986, but all older files are still on microfiche. For those people who fear that the government is spying on their records, rest assured, they will never find them.

I finally got it done, but not without calling an ex-wife, begging for dates and places. She didn’t know the date either but did know the place. Bless the file clerks who searched those records down. I bet they are all women.

So today I was looking for his passport, which he gave to me the minute he debarked the plane ten days ago. I finally found it but not without sweating considerably over where I had misfiled it.

Our lawyer is coming next week to talk about this endless land deal we have been embroiled in, and I have been trying to straighten those files so I can locate certain plot maps and contracts if she asks for them (see Noticias de Punta Uva Blog).

So, I’m thinking, I have ended up in the same place as some friends of my parents.

When asked, the husband said that he and his wife divided the decisions of the household into major and minor decisions. He made the major decisions, she the minor. It’s as simple as that. Did that mean he decided if they were selling the house, for instance? No, that, it turned out, was a minor decision. How about paying the bills, or buying and selling stocks? No, those too were minor decisions.

So what exactly were the major decisions he was responsible for? Well, it seems those were more on the order of whether or not to invade Iran or admit Cuba to the UN.

I have to go now. I have some secretarial duties that await me in the form of making lunch…

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..

Some Thoughts on My Father-in-law

15/09/2007, by 2 comments

I found this in my files this morning. The Word document says I wrote it August 18, 2006, just a year ago. I thought I would post it as a memorial to my father-in-law, Jonas Hammack, who died Wednsday, September 5, 2007. He was 92.

He shuffles toward the opposite end of the field, his upper body cantilevered over twisted lower limbs, ever veering to the right. Like an old horse with one blind eye, he steadfastly compensates for the loss of ground and ends up where he wanted to go, the irrigation ditch, where he went to close the weir.

As he bends down, I can see pale skin and bony spine between shirt and jeans. The belt has a few new notches punched in it since I saw him last. Time is taking its toll. Some in the family think he may have had a stroke because he drools now, and when he sits he slumps toward the right.

He would never go see the doctor about it unless coerced, and he sure as hell wouldn’t go in for any of “that therapy business.”

“I’m as good as I ever was, just a little slower,” He says.

There is no forcing this man to do anything he does not want to do. His jaw is jutted forward the same way it has been his whole life as he closes the weir; the sprinklers give a final spurt and then fall silent.

He is too proud to admit that he might need help.

My father-in-law grew up an orphan in North Dakota and came of age during the Great Depression. He was a CCC kid. Most people don’t even know what those letters stand for anymore, but they saved his life. He loves Franklin Roosevelt even though he has voted as a registered Republican in every election since.

Jonas worked hard all his life. Unasked for, he outlived his wife and having survived that blow fifteen years ago he is not about to go down easily. Who are we to tell this man how to live out the last years of his life? Would it really be better if he went into a “home” to rest?

The end is only the same as the rest of his existence and although he may complain about it occasionally, he accepts it. There is nothing wrong with his brains; it is simply the mechanical parts that are failing him.

I watch and am reminded that he is only thirty-five-years older than I. An eye blink in time. This is the first year I have begun to know what it feels like to be thought of as “old,” and I am much more sympathetic to his plight than in years past. I am aware, with my graying hair, that young people now view me as middle-aged or worse, old.

Recently on a trip with my adult children I was looked after as though I might get lost, or not remember the way back to the car. It made me angry. I now understand the evasive answers my own parents and my father-in-law used to give me when I asked about having someone come in to help around the house. Suggestions of incompetence I’m sure they felt were implied.

All of us know who we are. We have lived in our skins for all of our existence and even if we aren’t always comfortable with who we are, we are at least familiar with the terrain.

We must hang onto that dignity and carry ourselves to the grave fighting to retain as much of who we were as humanly possible.

All the older members of my family seem to be doing that with as much class as they can muster. I hope I can live up to their example.

There is not that much time left.

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..

LBJ’s

08/09/2007, by 2 comments


This picture was taken on August 18th. Three weeks later the nest is empty, the chicks gone. We first noticed the nest because the bush is right off our front porch, at the bottom of the stairs leading out into the yard. Alan saw a small seedeater fly into the bush and went to investigate.

Seedeaters are what Kenn Kaufman in his wonderful book, Kingbird Highway*, refers to as LBJ’s, or Little Black Jobs. Non-descript small black birds with a white tip on their wings, they spend a good amount of time in front of our house foraging for, yes, seeds.

The nest was hunkered down about thigh high in an ornamental shrub well camouflaged in the branches. We made daily visits to the bush waiting expectantly for the eggs to hatch. Finally, about two weeks ago, one of the chicks appeared. It was so young it looked like someone had peeled the shell off an embryo. It lay on the floor of the nest without moving; I thought it was dead. All the blood vessels were visible through its translucent skin. It appeared so fragile I couldn’t imagine it surviving. The other egg remained intact, but a day later we had two. They were both totally inanimate for a few days afterward.

As they grew, doubling in size every day it seemed, the two LBJ’s began to look like someone had chewed up some fruit leather and spat a wad in the bottom of the nest.

Then entered the eating stage. Mom and dad flew back and forth hauling untold amounts of seeds for these insatiable babes. If we approached the bush and barely touched the branches two enormous mouths flew open as though hardwired to the movement of the shrub. We couldn’t tell where they were anymore because they were black at the bottom of a very dark nest, but their beaks were bright yellow, providing a target for mom and dad.

We journeyed to the capital last week to send Alan north to visit family, and when I returned home the nest was empty. There are lots of seedeaters out and about this morning, but I can’t tell if any of them are new to the group.

* Kingbird Highway is one of my all time favorite books. At 16, Kenn Kaufmann dropped out of high school and went on a yearlong birding adventure hitch hiking across America from Alaska to Maine and back again.

Reading this book I learned a good deal about birders, who are very different from bird watchers, and loved his lyrical writing about nature and his adventures. It is a great book.

Kenn kaufmann has also written several other books for birders but this one is memoir about freedom, coming of age (in a most unconventional way), and a passion in life. He must have had extraordinary parents. Check it out twice, as Joe Bob used to say.

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..

The Vicissitudes of Growing Older

04/09/2007, by 3 comments

Nora Ephron has written about her neck, as has Anne Lamott, and I agree with both of them. I hate my neck, but for me it’s not the worst part of getting older.

I now arise each morning with a groan, my joints opening like old rusty hinges. I had to give up coffee not long ago. “They” say it is supposed to help, and it has cut back on the creaks and crunches a bit. I still miss the smell, but maybe I can use it as aromatherapy and drink my tea instead.

I get headaches I never used to, and the articles I read tell me they are “hormonal.” In other words, get used to it. I take aspirin until my ears ring and then back off until the buzzing stops.

But none of these things bother me like having to wear glasses. I hate wearing glasses. I hate, hate, hate it. My far distance sight is great. I can pick out an ant crossing the highway half a mile away, but for those close encounters I might as well be reading underwater. Put me under the red line on the Snellen eyechart.

A nurse by training, my job requires I see. Because of the nursing shortage my retirement is whenever I wander off with my walker. Those of us with training will probably still be shuffling off to some patient’s room only to forget why we went there in the first place. I see a big need for hospitals hiring Prompters to remind us of our tasks.

The eye thing started to bother me about five years ago. Curiously, this was simultaneous to the irritation I began to feel about my neck. I remember the first time I looked down and couldn’t read the date on my watch. This I not a froufrou ladies’ watch either, it’s a good sturdy Citizen that says, “Railroad approved” on the face. Nothing frilly about it.

At first, positive it was something on the face of the watch, I cleaned it off. Same outcome. I quickly discovered that when I pulled my wrist further away from my face the date flashed into focus. That was then; now I can’t get my arm far enough away to bring the watch itself into focus.

I entered a period of denial that blurred my judgement for about a year. When I realized I would soon have to ask my patients, “What does that say, honey, is that 6mg. or 8mg.?” I knew the time had come to take charge. I bought a pair of glasses. I didn’t do what several of my aging colleagues did, buy those cheapie reading glasses from the drug store that you wear on the top of your head or the tip of your nose, making you look like a female version of Carl Levin.

No,looks be damned; I bought bifocals.

My optician talked me into the new fangled ones without a seam. “They’re great, you’ll love them, ” he said. I hated them. I viewed the world as though through a carnival mirror, and if I looked up too quickly, I almost threw up. Plus, while I could see whether the medication said 6 or 8 mgs, the rest of the room became a blur. I found myself removing them so I didn’t stagger when walking. I took them back.

I then bought the sensible kind with a seam across my line of sight. Always caught on the wrong side of the line for whatever I needed to see, I felt seasick most of the time. I began to wear them on my head like my colleagues. There is nothing worse than telling someone you have lost your glasses and have them laughingly point at the top of your head.

I have gone back to the seamless variety. I still have tunnel vision but with the assistance of another optometrist I have managed to find a pair that allows me to see close, mid-range, and at a distance without removing them. But I now have that crone habit of tipping my head back and thrusting my jaw forward to look down. I guess that’s okay because it momentarily reduces the drapage of my neck, but I don’t want to discuss my neck.

Today, as I walked across my favorite restaurant, one lens of my glasses popped out. I stopped, took off my glasses, and groped around for the ejected lens. One of the screws at the temple piece had come loose. I was blind until I could get to an optometrist’s shop for repairs. I ordered my meal from memory and claimed the Ray Charles Exemption when my husband asked me to look up a business in the phone book. (He can’t see without his glasses either but always forgets to bring his.)

I hate wearing glasses.

Blog contents copyright © 2005-Present SC Morgan. All rights reserved..