Thursday
May 2, 2002
After lunch in
Room #18 - Raymond, WA
Dearest Daughter,
Good day! I just moved your picture by my lamp and decided to finish my lunch writing to you at the same time! Yep, your picture goes with me! You'd kinda like this little town for a day. After that it forces you to play solitaire a lot!
I fix lunch and some suppers here in the room from some foods brought by us and bought by us to save eating the same boring stuff out. I challenged dad to bring something back that can be microwaved or from the Chinese buffet! I have a cute little refrigerator that holds a qt. of salad dressing, some lunch meat, orange juice in a qt, lying on its side, 2 cans of pop, 1 qt. of applesauce, dad's qt milk, and my "milk" stuff. In the ice cooler, i have a tupper bowl full of ice I replace once a day from the ice machine outside across the parking lot. We brought oranges, lemons for water, and grapefruits. Then the dry stuff that I just put in one of the dresser drawers is our breakfast cereals, sugar, cans of tuna, Ritz crackers, can opener, some utensils. Then I go over to the box in the night stand that contains the family dinnerware a la paper products, can of pears and two of Kim's small bowls for whatever use i need. So I have and ice chest, box full, drawer full, and refer. and I make lunches and dinners for 3! It is sorta something for me to do too, as I fold napkins, set up the table with the cheap flower centerpiece compliments of the motel, on this tiny round table. I do have a candle burning just for the "smell". "Cookies and Cream" really is fun. you should see the crumbs on the floor and full garbage cans everyday! They vacuum and say nothing. I am going to wash my windows next when i take today's garbage out. All the little microwave boxes from the lasagna and alfredo chicken. Ha. Two tiny bite sized pieces of chicken. Then i have a frosted flat german chocolate cake on top of the microwave - all the comforts of home! But their tub has a black caulking ring around it! Dumb to caulk in anything but white! Gross, gross, gross.
Yesterday I bought from the huge hardware store some dble ruffled petunias for the little boxes outside the rooms. May Day! I gave them to the young co-owner and said I had to satisfy my May Day tradition, feel dirt under my nails, and to leave a souvenir! He thanked me saying that was generous. Denny's had a closeout of $.99 a cube so i bought a few. Pink will lighten this place up a lot!
Then i fixed dad's work Carhaart pants knees by folding a place mat into quarters, stuffing into the pocket created. So when he kneels down, his boney knees aren't pressed into rocks. He sure has had a lot of charlie horses in his legs every night. Even when sitting in a chair they'd hit. They're doing so much being in the wire pulling, connecting stuff, on the roof pulling wire, and connecting all of it. Today they are pulling wire and connecting the pumps that actually pump gas to your car. They're called "mixers" if you flip the handle for supreme, the computer switches the mixer to the supreme tank. If you switch to regular, it'll switch to that but you get 3/4 gal of whatever was left from the previous pumped gas customer! In other words, you don't always get what you want for the first 3/4 gal unless you're lucky! Thus, motorcyclists are really messed up as they run strictly on on type and have a real tough time keeping their motors running smoothly. So I learned something new today and I'm passing it along to you.
Saturday they'll be pumping gas - I sure hope the computer system, phones, all are ready to work. Permanent power is now on. So, dad has to connect some stuff hot. He knows how to do that, - Turn the breaker off!! He and Jim have been working 2 hrs a day. I am so glad Jim came to work for 3 days. It takes 2 to pull wire and to connect at each end. The inspector was out there yesterday and carded all the workers!!! You have to have a Washington journeyman's card or apprentice card that is current or a nasty fine is levied to the company plus the worker. And, they have to be on your body or truck. Dad has been carded twice in his whole electrical career and both times have been in this last year! He has one for Utah, Alaska, and Washington. He has to do 8hrs of classwork in each state for 2002 yet. WA is done. How and when he is going to do Utah, i dont know. AK + WA are reciprocal. So he has to send his proof to AK.
I have paid off 8 Dr. bills this week. I just need your dental one - which I hope you have sent already. I'll call if it isn't there when I get home. Ha! By the time you get this letter, it'll be paid. Time......
All we'll have left is my cat scan bill and the Dr. who reads them. He charged almost $600 to do that! There wasn't any charge from the former lab! And when we got through with that bill, it was $198 total! This one will be negotiated again. Grr.
I finally can see the little mountain range - The rain clouds had it obliterated plus the motel girl finally washed one half the window. The other half she couldn't do as it retracted over the immovable one. It can be takenout but that isn't her job nor mine. The apple trees are in full bloom plus the non fruit trees - the Hawthornes are so pretty in pink puff balls. Petals fall in pink "rain" when i let go of the branch from sniffing them. I didn't go for my walk yet today, Don't wanna as i just washed my hair and i dont want it all flat.
I forgot the news even though you'll know before this gets to you. Laurie's baby, Damon, was born Monday (4/29/02) morning 10:55am. He weighed 6# 14oz. and came one month early. They said he looked and sounded good but they'll be monitoring him for 48 hrs to make sure his lungs are functioning well. She went in Sunday night late after her water broke but it took 12 hours later, an epidural, and lots of effort to bring him forth. We haven't called yet, but will tonight to see how things are.
Well, are the BYU tests done? Must have been different to be doing that all alone, no one else to compare to afterwards or nothing. Hmm. A once in a lifetime deal.
Our time here has been 2 1/2 weeks. Hm. I have learned to do things to keep from beng a "bench bunny" playing solitaire for hours on end.
I made a little formal purse from scraps of Melody's dress [hand drawn photo]. It's just cute and if she don't use it, oh well that's okay. It only took 2 hrs to make.
Boring day. I don't feel like sewing doll clothes either. Some days are like that at Ron and Kim's too. When i can't move furniture, plucl plants dead leaves off or whatever, i can bet bored easy. Life goes on. Some days I look back at what i did around the house and I miss it a lot. I have this "dirt digging urge" or creativeness like work on my album pages of which i can't do. I can't make envelopes i can't put things on walls to make me more at home... So i just say "one day at a time" and know it'll get better. Better meaning, our own digs with our stuff.
The dongs need some serious grooming and loving. A whole year and confined to cages. If she doesn't come in season soon, I'm advertising Pepper for sale. Reasons are many. Wherever we will be, I want Rowdy to be the main loved dog. He'll be getting older faster now. he is the cutest and most responsive. He could be yours but you aren't in a place nor time in life for him. he will get cleaned up this weekend though. Kim doesn't really do anything for them, just puts food in the dish.
Putz. I'm tired and babbling. I'll add more later. It's raining so no walk today.
Love, Mom.
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Kim was my brother's wife. My parents and i moved from Utah to Washington abruptly, and had no place of our own, so we moved in with my brother and Kim. They only had a double wide mobile home so there wasn't much space for 5 people. Kim didn't really appreciate my mom's style of cleaning and running a house, so after a while - they, my parents, felt unwelcome and stayed in their room most of the time.There was a lot of fighting between my brother and his wife, which caused tension for my family and we fought a lot too. Finally, i was fed up and needed to get away.
I had gone to Alaska on a trip the previous August (2001) to meet my biological family for the first time in my memory. They had mentioned that i was welcome to spend my senior year there, if i wanted... so i went. I was living with my (biological) grandparents when this was written.
Dad was working on a job and mom had gone with him (as she has done with any job my dad works out of town for more than a couple days). I don't remember originally reading this letter, but i'm glad i kept it. There's so much of her in it. From the loopy script handwriting, to the language. I can almost hear her voice. If i close my eyes, i can almost smell her in the paper.
Memories are funny things.
