One of the stipulations for faster recovery in my sclerotherapy drama is that I must walk four times a day for twenty minutes. I’m generally a fast walker because of my long legs, so I rarely ask anyone to walk with me. I’ve been lax on my recovery. With it being Summer, I’ve been so hot that, holy cheese, just melt my face off because it might be less painful than walking with busted veins and COMPRESSION STOCKINGS in 100-degree heat, thankyouverymuch.

Most of my co-workers are aware of the torture I’ve been putting myself through these past few weeks, and know my therapy routine. If they haven’t seen me up and around, they make me walk with them to lunch. One of them hates Cleveland, but loves it at the same time. Knows everything about it. Best restaurants, best entertainment, best… OK, so our list of bests isn’t very long.

He is our resident Encyclopedia in that he knows everything about anything. He is also our resident foodie. He eats anything. EEEEEHHHH-NEEEEE-THING. The man has the stomach of a trash compactor. If I go walking, he always makes me go outside with him to pick up lunch at some obscure hole-in-the-wall restaurant I’ve never heard of. Every time we walk, hatred for Cleveland comes up. It’s happening regularly enough that it spurns a routine argument between the two of us:

Me: What is this place?

Him: What do you mean?

Me: I mean, where are you taking me, what ethnicity is the food, will I get sick if I eat it, and can I find my way back to the office should we be venturing somewhere that serves up baby toes?

Him: You’re so narrow-minded.

Me: Whatever. Will I need GPS to get back to the office? That’s all I’m saying. I don’t want to die because you wanted Indian food from some back alleyway just because you heard how good it is. You know I’m directionally challenged.

Him: How have you lived in this city all your life and a) still not know where you’re going, and, this one is my FAVORITE, b) hate this city so much but have never been two feet inside city limits to explore anything?

Me: I don’t think I like your tone.

Him: I don’t think I like that you hate everything but won’t try anything. You’re just as bad as people who don’t live here but say they hate it.

Me: Basically the rest of the United States.

Him: Yes.

Me: Don’t judge me.

And we’ve had this conversation enough that I can no longer argue with him. He’s right. How can I hate something so much yet never tried it? I’m worse than my children. ANY children: I don’t like broccoli. Have you tasted it? No. Then how do you know you don’t like it? Because I just don’t.

I figured I should take my friend up on his advice. Somehow, through the goodness of the Internet, I found a site called Living Social. You select a city, provide your e-mail address, and discounts on different attractions around your city are e-mailed to you daily. The site itself houses a repository of every suggestion they’ve given so far. I don’t think it’s been around long – most of the cities featured have either moderate to little listings of things you can do there, or discounts they offer – but I think it has legs and can grow to be something great. With enough viewership and suggestions through other forms of social media (they have Facebook interconnectivity), it could take off fast. Other than Cleveland, here are a few of the cities featured:

Of course, I showed this site to my friend who promptly went to the section called “365 Things To Do In…”, and called the listings for Cleveland, and I’m quoting, “LAME”.

So much for researching.

Shortly into my first year of college, I’d come home for a holiday break. Since my mother and grandmother lived in the same house (my mother downstairs as it was a duplex), I’d normally come home to referee some argument they would be in the middle of. Expecting to come home and play peacemaker, instead my mother pulled me aside, almost in a whisper. “Here,” she shoved something hard, metal and jagged into my hands. “Keep these away from your grandmother.” I pulled my hand back, opening my fist only to find my grandmother’s car keys. “If she wants to drive somewhere, tell her you’ll take her. Whatever you do, don’t let her get these.”

That Summer, I spent most of my days playing Hide The Keys From Nana. A few times, I was unsuccessful. Being a late sleeper, my grandmother the early riser, she’d beat me to the punch and be gone before I even had the chance to wipe crust out of my eyes. A few times, I not only missed grabbing the keys, but I was forced to ride shotgun. It was during these times that the reality of why we were hiding the keys from Nana became clear – my grandmother was losing her memory.

City streets with speed limits of 25 and 35 were driven at neck-breaking speeds of 50, sometimes 60. Stop signs would be met with such herk and jerk, one would be foolish not to kiss the maker of seat belts. Freeways were a palatable 25. Oh, I’m sorry. Did that sign say 60? Yeah. Not happenin’. Be happy the car is even in gear on those God-forsaken freeways because “those thangs are skerreh.” How I made it out alive that Summer is still a matter of urban legend.

The next year would prove even worse, this time with my grandmother realizing, herself, that maybe – juuuuuust maybe – the keys should be permanently lost. It was the same year she’d woefully hand them over, look at me forlornly, and ask, “Whatever you do, don’t let me find these.” It was one of the most heartbreaking moments for me, seeing one of the strongest people I knew, suffer through an unimaginable show of weakness. More time would pass only for items to go missing. Spoiled food to go long stretches in refrigerators and pantries. Bills and newspapers to pile into towers of architectural feats. What used to be a Summer of hiding keys became three months of clean-up. It wouldn’t be much longer before we begged our matriarch to please, please let us take her to the doctor for the diagnosis we already knew. They called it Dementia. It would become Alzheimers. It could get worse, it could come in waves, it could stay stagnant. There was no real way of knowing for sure.

The year BFam and I were to wed, I got a call from my mother. My father had passed away. It would be the first time I’d seen my father’s side of the family in years. Because of the distance, I didn’t feel right sitting with family during the funeral. But my grandfather was having none of that. He brought his only grandchild to the front rows for a chance to have a fitting goodbye to the shell that was her father. I sat with he and my grandmother. I’d heard she was ill, but had no idea the extent until the funeral. My father had an open casket. When Myra kept asking, “Where’s Donald? How come Donald’s not here? Go and get Donald,” my grandfather could only experience so many times of explaining to her that Donald, her son, was in the box, before frustration and sorrow set in. It didn’t take a genius to understand Myra was afflicted with the same disease that was just entering the early stages of eating away at my maternal grandmother. A year later, she would also be dead.

It is not lost on me that both my maternal and paternal grandmothers suffer/ed from this affliction. It is also not lost on my doctors as we discuss the medical history of my relatives. Diabetes, both maternal grandmother and grandfather. High blood pressure, same relatives. Heart disease, maternal grandfather. Through the checklist, Alzheimers is always the one that makes my doctor look up from the computer screen. “Oooh,” she says.

Yes. Oooh.

I don’t want to lose my mind, and yet there are so many jokes I just thought of from that one statement, I could go on forever. Maybe I should say I don’t want to lose my mind in that way. I don’t want to wake up one morning and not know my husband, my children… myself. I’ve seen what it’s like and it’s a horrible way to be. I believe I am a candidate. For that matter, everyone is a candidate for everything nowadays. You never know.

And that is what scares me the most.

Cover Image: Wilted flowers by Nobody’s Clown on flickr

Because I think I have a good thing going with these “Everything I Know In Life” moments, I’m going to keep them up. (Stop the presses, I’m experiencing follow-through)…

Everything I Know In Life I Learned From Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion (1997)
- No matter how weird you were in high school, you will still be just as weird as an adult… and that’s alright.
- Never tell everyone you invented Post-Its. Unless you actually invented Post-Its.
- The person you thought you loved back then will not appeal to you ten years later.
- The popular girls will end up unpopular losers.
- Interpretive dance is the only way to go with Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time.
- There’s nothing wrong with walking the treadmill in open-toed platforms.
- Pretty Woman is the ultimate classic movie, no matter how unbelievable it is.
- Best friends are, like, so cool.
- Always be yourself.

I thought about it: Had I really known what I wanted to do at 10? What was I doing at 10? What did I like? I liked Nacho Cheese Doritos. I liked Wonder Woman. I liked The Smurfs. I liked The Great Space Coaster. This was telling me nothing. Then I thought a little harder…

I wrote my first story when I was 10.

There was nothing groundbreaking with this story. I was a lonely housewife, stuck raising my two twin girls, while my philandering husband, Raul, was off gallivanting with my evil twin sister.

I’m not sure, but I might have liked soap operas, too.

By the time I was 12, I’d graduated from scribbling obscure stories on loose-leaf notebook paper, to owning my first journal and pouring out the contents of my young heart.

Had I really known what I wanted to do at 10? No. But something inside me did. And I hope it still does.

To my credit, it was like that when we moved into the place, and BFam and I were all YEAH! OUR HOUSE! OUR YARD! WE’RE GONNA ROCK IT LIKE WE WANNA! OW! And then, the yard laughed at us because trees, while gorgeous, have roots that can kill – MURDER! – a yard.

What was I saying? Oh, yes…

So we’re walking and surveying and (my mom, God love her) sees the bright side in the disaster that is my backyard. A few encouraging words, pointing out a couple of flaws and, in a matter of minutes, I feel like I’ve just been visited by the Mary Poppins of landscaping. I’m all chim-chim-e-ny, and she’s all spoonfuls of sugar. And all the while she’s standing there, I’m actually feeling like what she’s saying will work. Yes! Accomplishment! In my mind!

Then she went home.

Bah!

During our inspection, we happened on a hole in the ground. A hallowed tree stump with brush and muck, the thing of Alice In Wonderland folklore. And even though I didn’t see any rabbits coming or going from the hole, we have been ambushed by quite a few happily frolicking in my disaster of a yard which leads me to use my masterful skills of deduction. Add the pots of herbs my mother tasked me with maintaining over the summer, and the bunnies are frolicking and nibbling and DUDE! YOU’RE EATING MY GREEN THUMB!

And it’s basil! I like basil. Furry little cute mongrels.

This past weekend, the family and I sat down to watch the revamped, Tim Burton-version of Alice In Wonderland. Mooter, ever my child, had never wanted to see the movie when it was playing in the theater because “it looks scary”. But, Moo. You’ve seen the cartoon! “That doesn’t look like the cartoon. I don’t wanna see it.” It was mostly the Mad Hatter’s fault. Johnny Depp has a tendency to throw himself into Tim Burton movies. But it’s why I HEART HIM!

Pledging to guard her should any scariness jump out and attack her, and with a few goading remarks from the midget of the group (“Wassa matta, Mooter. You scayerd? You watch duh moovey, and you cry like a liddoh baaaay-beeee?”), we braved the flick. Surprisingly, the character that scared her the most ended up being her favorite.

Yesterday, while Mooter and I played with Bo in the backyard, I broke out my camera for a few snaps of the assumed rabbit hole. “Hey,” Mooter said, “just like Alice In Wonderland! Would you wanna go down there just like she did in the movie? I wouldn’t.”

And, just like that, the never ending bond that is the mother-daughter connection I share with my eldest reared its ugly head. No. I would not like to go down the rabbit hole. In fact, as I watched the movie, it was all I could think about: That girl is so dumb. What would possess someone to go down a hole just to chase after a rabbit? Who does things like that? And who just drinks a bottle of junk just because it says “Drink Me”? And who eats cake, after drinking from the bottle and shrinking, just because it says “Eat Me”? And how much dope, exactly, did the author smoke before he wrote this book?

Who would want to jump into the unknown? Fearless people. Adventurous people. People willing to grab that rabbit by the ears and ride it to who-knows-where. That’s who.

Curse you, life lessons. Stay outta my entertainment, already!