The Crackpots and These Women

Thanksgiving gave me the opportunity to think about women quite a bit.  I was home with my dad's family for the holiday and was lucky enough to enjoy the holiday with three generations of women, including my brand new niece, Keaghan.  It also included Keaghan's mom, Kendra, Keaghan's great-Aunts, Ingrid and Miggie and Keaghan's Grandma, Sandi. Unavailable for participation was Keaghan's grandma-like person, my Momma, Judy, who is in the process of becoming bionic. The men were there too, but this blog isn't focusing on them.  And not because I don't think that men are important or equal of wonderful.  This is not meant to open a debate on gender roles and traditional gender assignments.  I am not man hating or man-excluding.  I understand with absolute clarity ideas of gender, sex and sexuality spectrum's.  Men are wonderful.  I love the men in my life, I used to be married to a man.  One of my dogs is a man-dog.  My favorite being that ever existed was male. But, for me, the holidays are about the power of "these women".

 The first woman I thought about was my Momma because I had my first taste of what she pulls off almost annually, offering people a Thanksgiving feast that is nothing short of totally fucking amazing.   She couldn't participate in the Turkey-Day madness this year, but she was with me in spirit.  In fact, I was so inspired by the taste of throwing a Thanksgiving, that I am proclaiming here, that next year, I am going to try my hand at doing the whole thing myself. It's funny, I had always thought of it as this chore that I wanted nothing to do with, but I realized this year that it is a Rite of Passage for me to accept the responsibility for these traditions from my momma, especially because she is still here to call in a panic when I mess it all up. 

I thought even more about mommas and women as I watched my sister who is breast-feeding Miss Keaghan, who is two weeks old.  Actually, I watched her simultaneously chase after two 17-month olds (my twin nieces), carve turkey and breast-feed all at once because that is what women do, especially at the holidays; 100 things at once without blinking.  In one night I watched her: finish making a dinner for 9 adults & three children, take pictures with said children in not one but two different holiday dresses, breast feed, try and eat dinner, change diapers, breast feed, participate in conversations, dry tears, breast feed....she was so beautiful, so graceful in the total overwhelm of a life that is what life is for young families.  It wasn't anything exceptional, yet it was absolutely the most magnificent choreography I have ever borne witness to.  

Then there was my aunt Miggie, my Dad's sister.  She has begun coming down more often, to be with Sandi and my Dad during my Dad's illness.  I think that is what women instinctively do, they pull the circle together, around the family, when hard times come.  She spent almost the entire time rubbing my Dads feet, trying to control the swelling.  She is a master at this having done it for my grandpa and grandma during their transitions and also, most recently, her sister-in law who passed last month.  I listened to her tell story after story about family members.  The whole time she sat in the same spot rubbing my Dad's feet.  Letting him know he is loved and sharing her healing energy with him.  She promised me that if it does come time for my Dad to leave us, my Grandma Harris will come for him and even though I am usually not a believer in things like that, after watching these women during Thanksgiving, I am sure that is true.

I think that woman are the greater point of the season, after all.  These women. Your women.  All women. They aren't mentioned much in the songs or in the symbolism.  We are told Jesus is the reason for the season and we look for Santa Claus, but I would like to offer that they are not the entire point.  Jesus does not get here at all without his Mom and Santa would not be able to find the keys to the sleigh, let alone get around the world delivering the presents, without Mrs. Claus. When I called down two days before Thanksgiving it was my Sandi-Mom, out of breath trying to care for my Dad, clean house and get the Christmas tree out, so that pictures could be taken.  That's what first provoked me to consider the ever present amazingness of these women. She sounded tired, but determined.  In fact, I think that should be the catch phrase for all of them....tired, but determined to do this....to create and sustain life.  Because that is what women do.   

This poem says it better than I can.  So I stole it.

Thank you, to all of my women.  I love you. Happy Thanksgiving & Merry Christmas

More About Baseball

The title of this blog is totally on purpose.  I have seen some backlash recently about too much baseball talk and it doesn't sit well with me.  In fact, it never sits well with me when people on social media or in real life critique other people for being who they are.  None of us really care about all of the things people we are following or are friends with care about.  I mean, sure, I care in a general I know you or have known you and hope you are enjoying your time here kind of way.  But I give less than zero fucks about your football teams, your dinner, your beer, where you are at any given moment, what your kids look like on the first day of school, or what genius thing you have to say about Ebola or Obamacare.  I certainly don't care enough to want to take the time to encourage you to stop posting the 17th picture of the bird you saw on your camping trip.  Good for you for being into your life.  And good for me for knowing how to scroll. I feel the same way about the language police.  I say "fuck" a lot. Whether or not it offends you is not my problem when you choose to be friends with me on Facebook.  Or read my blog.  Or when you come to my house.  Or pretty much anytime I am not being paid to have some semblance of appropriate and professional language.

Wondering about how people could be bothered by baseball did prompt me to reflect on just how and why baseball has become so important to me. I haven't always cared about baseball.  In fact, I could have cared less up until a couple of years ago. My Dad tried for years to encourage some interest in his beloved Giants, to no avail.  Years.  My dad is a lifer when it comes to the Giants.  He remembers when they came from New York; remembers cutting school to sit outside of Candlestick (made sense at the time); remembers players and coaches; he knows when AT&T opened, knew he was part of history when he saw Bonds play.  I, on the other hand, was pretty baseball resistant for almost my entire life.  There is a neat story about my Dad and Sandi trying to foster some enthusiasm and father-daughter bonding by taking me to a Giants vs. Dodgers double-header for our birthday one August. Based on my color choices at the time I would guess I was about 13 or 14 because I went to said double-header in ALL black.  That's right.  All black for eight hours of baseball at Candlestick.  In August.  My memories of that game are not of father-daughter bonding at all.  In fact, my memories are almost entirely of the passageway underneath the stands because that is where I sat.  For the entirety of both games.

I couldn't stand baseball.  Thought is was boring.  Sort of cared about the Giants because it was important to my Dad, but not really.  Not enough to know who was pitching when we went to AT&T annually, (or for that matter who we were playing), but enough to understand that it was a cool way to spend the day with my Dad. Plus, the garlic fries were good.  I didn't even jump on the bandwagon when they won the series for the first time in 2010. In fact, I wasn't bit by the bug until 2012, during the actual World Series against Detroit.  I don't know how or why it happened, all I know is that all of a sudden whether or not Sergio Romo got the save, and whether or not we swept in Motor City, became the number one most important thing in my life.  My dad wasn't even home, I don't think.  He's funny in that he manages to be out of town just about every time they are in a World Series, this year being no exception.  But once I was bit....it was all over.

Sometimes I think my obsession with baseball has come with my recovery from alcohol.  The timing is about right and it certainly gives me something to think about that can serve as a distraction from being sober all of the time, or from anything else that actually matters.  That's right, I just said that baseball doesn't really matter.  And it doesn't.  Not compared to Ebola or the drought or sobriety or other real life things.  I haven't lost my sense of what is really important simply because I have developed a baseball obsession.  But I do think it is my obsession with baseball that gives me the ability to cope with the things that do really matter because it gives me an out (no pun intended).  If I can focus my attention on whether or not Matt Cain will return to form in the 2015 season I can take a break from a job that is difficult and filled with pain.  If I can zone out and watch the World Series I can think about something other than the fact that my Dad is really sick.  If I am able to look foreword to Spring Training I can give myself the gift of hope, no matter how deep, dark and cold my Winter may be. If I can talk to my Dad about baseball we can share something eternal.  Something that will live beyond him and beyond me and that helps me feel like death doesn't really have to be the end of anything.

What is so funny about my baseball obsession is that it has gone even beyond my Dad at this point. Now I keep him abreast of trade rumors.  I let him know what is going on in the American League because he could care less.  I will be the one inviting him to games at Raley Field because I am the one who will have RiverCats season tickets.  I have a life that is inspired by his and a life that has also grown beyond his. Baseball may not matter.  But life does. My Dad does. So just in case you missed it the 1001 times I have posted it, here are some things really important to me and about me:

Go Giants!

Even Year Magic!

I Bleed Orange and Black!

W4K! (Win for Keith)

Don't (ever) Stop Believing!!!

and the best....

"Travis Ishikawa hits one to right.  THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT"

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/10/17/6992939/travis-ishikawa-walk-off-home-run-giants-cardinals-nlcs-world-series

The secret nobody knows....

Here is the secret that nobody knows.  About my Dad.  I don't really believe he is dying.  I mean rationally, realistically, I know that this is in fact what is happening.  I was in the room when the doctor (who has been shark-cage diving, btw, a fact that is probably only important to me, but still pretty fucking cool) said things like: "average life expectancy is six months" and "entire liver compromised", and other stuff in language that was all terminal and sad and really, really way-to-clear.

I was, in fact, the one who insisted Dr. Shark-Cage-Diver explain to me, in detail, WHY my Dad didn't qualify for a liver transplant.....because why should I just believe him?  Just because he is an oncologist and deals with cancery-livers all day, every day, does not mean that he is somehow the liver transplant God.....all-knowing and all-powerful.  And frankly, I am still not convinced that I couldn't sway the people at UNOS (who actually are the liver transplant Gods, apparently) with a sales pitch about how cool my Dad is.  He may not meet their stupid criteria, but seeing as though he is the coolest human on the planet, I am willing to bet that if I went there (and by there I mean wherever UNOS is, which possibly isn't really a place that exists as a place at all) and took old pictures and told stories and maybe even brought my Dad in person (if he was willing to go, which I doubt because I am pretty sure he thinks this is all crazy) I. Could. Convince. Them.....but I won't do that. Because rational, thinking, Megan is on-board.  In full acceptance.  Rational Megan knows that much sooner than is even possibly comprehensible this liver thing is going to end....badly.

Trust me I get it.  I was the one that said all of the things I was supposed to say about supporting my Dad's decision not to do any kind of treatment (which I really do support...the options he was offered sucked and trying to convince my Dad that he should drink Cannabis oil and take Epsom-salt baths four times a day was not a conversation I think he would have tolerated).  I have been to the mortuary-office. I know what the plan is.

But here is the secret that nobody knows.....my Dad can't really ever leave me.  I do not think it is really possible for me to exist on the planet without him here, in some form.  From the very beginning we have had a special bond that is super-human and unbreakable.  I was born on his birthday for Christ's sake.....I have his feet.  So deep down, in the recesses of my heart, here is what I really believe is happenening:  My Dad has been selected to become part of a super-secret faction of spies who, like vampire-slayers, have always been part of the ether of human existence and are responsible for ensuring that the Earth survives the perils of time.  I believe in my most secret place that after he "dies", he will still communicate with me through secret messages and signs and that my biggest responsibility is to be aware of this without making a big deal about it, because that's the kind of talk that gets you institutionalized. I believe this like some people believe in Heaven and Rainbow Bridges, Reincarnation and Alien Abduction.

That is the way you survive things like this.  With a system that is three parts knowing reality, one part acceptance and one part total-fucking fantasy, aka belief.  Because the first four parts are really, really just too hard. Earth-shaking, bottom-dropping-out, I-feel-like-I-can't-breathe-hard.  So to survive, which I intend on doing, I will follow the plan to the tee, I will not  let my Dad or my family down.  I will call the number and pick up the ashes, I will go on with my life because he made me promise, I will help Sandi and I will carry on....

But in secret, the secret that nobody knows, I will believe that he is not really dead.  For the rest of my life, from the moment he is gone.....I will always be on the look-out for my signs....in a manner that keeps from being placed in any type of locked facility, but looking all the same.

So.....Super-Secret Agent Keith Redden Harris.....make sure you don't forget to send them.