October has arrived and that means soon my husband will depart.  He’s leaving on Monday for a quick visit to his family in Texas.  Then he’ll be here for one day.  The following day, he’ll load up our silly red Cadillac, turn right on I-5, drive 1,181 miles, and exit from I-5.

This has been the longest, slowest transition in history and so until he actually loads up the Cadillac and drives away, there’s a part of me that simply doesn’t believe this is really happening.

(January to October is nine months, the usual incubation period of a pregnancy.  Coincidence?  Probably.)

As part of his farewell tour to Washington state, he’s taking our daughter to her soccer game tomorrow morning.  They have to arrive at 8:30 a.m.  (ON A SATURDAY!  Hello, soccer-game-schedulers . . . are you aware that Saturday is meant for sleeping in?)

Anyway, I deeply appreciate this gesture from my husband.  I hope to be snoring at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

I have been practicing being the only adult in the house.  Tonight, for instance, I killed a spider with nothing but my slipper-covered foot.  (And then I made a teenager pick up the spider carcass with a napkin and throw it away because I am scared of spiders, even if they are pre-squished.)

Only nine and a half months to go.  Send Raid Max.  And cookies.  (I prefer homemade chocolate chip with walnuts.)

The soccer game on Saturday began at 9:00 a.m.  We were instructed via email to arrive at the field at 8:40 a.m.  The coach explained that the game would take place in Puyallup, about thirty minutes from my house.

I grumbled and dragged myself out of bed and arrived at the field only a couple minutes late.  We did not see our team. Where was our team?

I double-checked the email and found that the coach was talking about the game NEXT Saturday . . . I misread the email.  I wasn’t the only one.

So, we arrived at the actual field where the game was underway (ten minutes from my house).  We missed half the game, which was probably just as well since our team is, uh, struggling this year.  The girls don’t seem to know the basics of the game (my daughter does, of course) and it’s frustrating to watch the girls play.

Does that make me a bad mom?

Anyway.

Don’t answer that.

I cleaned out the coat closet today.  I removed coats from the rack on the back of the front door.  I stripped the coats from the coat trees.  The entryway looks bare.

I feel like I’m dismantling our life here one coat tree at a time.

Then I cleaned out the tall sturdy four-drawer metal filing cabinet.  Three drawers are empty now, so I was able to push, pull, and rock it into a more suitable place in the storage room.  I ran out of energy or I would have transferred items from the two-drawer filing cabinet into the empty drawers of the four-drawer cabinet . . . so I can rid myself of the tw0-drawer cabinet.  That’s a task for another day.

I am giving away the items I’ve cobbled together here in this life, in this house.  Anyone want the top bed from a bunk bed set?

I rolled up the deflated swimming pool and shoved it into a too-small packing box.

I have never lived in this sort of blank space before . . . inhabiting a life which will break into a thousand pieces and float away, leaving me to cling to its wreckage.

Oh, wait!  That makes it sound like moving is a bad thing.  And it’s not.  It’s a good thing.  But we’ve been here so long that it feels a lot like loss rather than progress.

A few months ago, after I heard about several friends my age who are adopting, I said to my husband, “Why would anyone do that?  Why would you want to disrupt your life and adopt at this age?”

Even as I spoke those words, I realized that our own lives are being disrupted . . . and that disruption and change is part of life.

If disruption and change were offered in a buffet, I would never scoop a helping of them onto my plate.  But life seems more like a cafeteria line and you get a serving of everything, whether you like it or not.

And sometimes you don’t know what’s good for you.

Today, after my shift ended, I glanced out the kitchen window and spotted a white cat squatting in the sand under the playhouse. I banged on the window.  “Get out of there!”

The cat just looked at me, undeterred.

I ran to the sliding glass door and yelled as I scurried across the yard and that cat raised one eyebrow in boredom until the very last moment when I was near enough to smack it with my slipper.

And so I noticed that the cat has obviously used that sandy area for a litter box a lot.  I’ve never seen it until now, never noticed until now but of course now that I noticed, I had to clean it up.

Did I mention it was raining?

And I still had on my slippers?

When I finished that unpleasant task, I decided to drain the fairly large inflatable swimming pool I purchased in hopes that summer would linger.  (Wrong.)

I drained it, washed it, dried it and lugged it inside so it can fully dry before I roll it up to store until next summer.

That’s why my entire family room floor is covered by a deflated swimming pool.

So, then, I had fifteen minutes to sit and stop sweating before it was time to go to soccer practice.  I failed to even bring a coat with me, but luckily, I never did clean out the trunk of the car, so I found a lightweight jacket to wear, nestled next to the eco-friendly shopping bags I never remember to take into the store.

It only rained a little, then the clouds scattered some and the sun shone.  The light was so beautiful and golden–to the right were dark, ominous clouds and to the left the sun glared.  I shifted my umbrella to the side where it provided shade so I could read my Oprah magazine.  (Don’t judge.)

The grass was emerald green and the children looked like they were in a commercial with perfect amber light side-lighting them.  It was a lovely moment.

A lovely moment I would have appreciated a whole lot more if I had been chilled to the bone.  Today was the first day that I felt truly chilly while sitting outside.

Summer is really over.

As if that weren’t obvious.  Duh.  I have a deflated swimming pool in my family room.

I’d like to pinch the person who scheduled all my daughter’s soccer games at 9:00 a.m. on Saturdays.  Do they not understand that I take Sleeping In very seriously?  And that my only Sleeping In day was Saturday?  Sad.

At least the downpour abated long enough for the game to be played.

When we got home, I cleaned two bathrooms.  I know!  It’s about time!

That afternoon, I spent some time with a friend who is a real estate agent and we examined my house and decided what needs to be improved before we attempt to sell it.  She has three grown boys and I always love the reassurance she offers.  She understands what it’s like for me now.  She knows why I just gave up and keep the boys’ clean clothes in baskets right here in the family room where I fold laundry.

I finished reading Mockingjay.  It’s always so sad to come to the end of a book (or series of books) that you really love.

This morning all six of us managed to get in the van on time for the drive to Mars Hill Ballard.  My poor husband had to drive through horrible rain.  (I played with my iPhone . . . but I felt sympathy.)

I noticed while in Seattle a number of people wearing flip-flops and carrying umbrellas.  Funny.

After church, I watched football until I fell asleep.  A stupid survey telephone call woke me.

So, I headed to Lowe’s to buy a few home improvement items.  Now my kids keep complaining that the light in the kitchen is weird.  That’s because I bought new fluorescent bulbs and covers for the fixture in there.  They were all used to the dim light.  I discovered one fixture is broken and needs to be replaced.

I am so boring that I am yawning through this entire post.

And so I apologize for the dull recitation.

Sometimes boring is good, though.  Considering the alternative and all.

I like to know the score.  Am I winning?  Losing?  Am I on the right team?  Am I sitting on the bench?

This metaphor could go on and on.

But what I’m trying to say is that I appreciate straightforward people.  When I was young and timid, those kind of brash people scared me.  I never knew what they might say.  I assumed every stink-eye was directed at me.  But now I’ve grown to appreciate people who are exactly what they seem to be, through and through.  I like even the cranky straightforward person, the one who cannot mince words or sugarcoat a thing.

I do not like someone to smile at me and shake my hand while plotting against me.  Or even just pretending to be my friend.

So, when I find myself the victim of a murky situation because a fake person misled me, I get a little annoyed.

I am even more perturbed when said fake person is regarded with much acclamation by a lot of other people.  I feel crazy, pointing and muttering, “The emperor has no clothes!”

That is all.

Have a nice weekend.  I’ll be at the soccer field trying to stay dry.

A year ago, an improvised explosive device exploded in Afghanistan and killed a young soldier we’d recently met.  Only a month or two earlier, we’d had a good-bye barbecue in his honor.  He entered heaven leaving behind his wife of a few months and his unborn baby girl.  His name was Andrew.

That event shaped my perspective more than anything else this year.

When I feel whiny, I can hear my ungratefulness.  I can palpate the bitter knot of discontent in my heart.  I see how short-sighted I am, how my vision blurs when I forget.

I’ve watched the young widow face her shaken world with courage and cheer.  I visited her in the hospital after their baby was born.  I’ve seen her carry on and live her life with grace.  And when I see her fortitude, I am inspired to face my life differently.

I admit that sometimes I hold my breath, waiting for tragedy to collide with my world.  I’ve lost an assortment of people and felt the pain of disappointment and rejection and why wouldn’t I view the world through these scratched, cloudy glasses?  A meteor could crash into the earth at any time and there’s no reason it shouldn’t crash on me.  (I am a glass-half empty kind of girl.  I am a glass shattered on the floor into a million pieces kind of girl.)

It’s a wonder we don’t all crawl under the bed and wait to die, when you look at it that way.

But I can’t look at it that way.

Loss hurts but love heals.

Life is fleeting and uncertain, but we have today.

And that is reason for joy.

I’ve only recently realized that my dark superpower may be my ability to make people invisible.  And not invisible in a good way, either.

Hurt my feelings?  You’re invisible.

Offend me?  I can’t see you.

Betray me?  I’m blind in your general direction.

The worst thing is that this superpower seems entirely reasonable to me.

It’s sort of a no-fuss, no-muss way to live, except for the immaturity and ridiculousness of it.  I believe in the power of forgiveness, in the necessity of forgiveness, but if you bug me?  You’re dead to me.

I can ignore you for the whole rest of my life, if need be.  The Silent Treatment and I go way back.

I’m not saying it’s good.

But I am good at it.

I realized this over the weekend–the one dotted with dank pools of self-doubt and jealousy–when I explained to someone my 8-year old’s issues with another girl at school.  My daughter has no patience for someone who has crossed her.  She does not forgive and forget . . . she remembers and continues the feud.

It’s sort of vaguely amusing when you’re 8-years old, but when you are forty-five and you erase people from your future if they disappoint or disagree with you it’s not at all cute.

Although it’s better than punching people in the nose.

Don’t tell my daughter, but my husband and I went to the Puyallup Fair today.  We went mainly to see the rodeo, but also had fun strolling around in search of food.  I particularly liked watching the people . . . the arms covered in tattoos, the women teetering on spiky heeled boots, the strollers transporting identical twins.

We’re taking the kids in about ten days, so don’t feel too sorry for them.  We have to rob a bank save up some money before we take them.

Yesterday was Grace’s birthday party.  We invited the whole class and thirteen kids ending up attending.  The party took place at a local high school swimming pool and it was fun to watch the kids bobbing around in the water.

The highlight for me occurred while Grace was opening gifts.  After she pulled one gift from a gift bag, the boy who’d given it to her shouted, “My mom says to bring that bag home!”  I laughed and told him that he could have the bag back.

Later, when I gave him the bag to take back to his mom, I noticed that it was not even an actual birthday bag, but a generic bag that was battered from previous uses.  I admired his mom’s frugality and was really very amused.

In every moment of my spare time this week, I read Catching Fire.  I only heard about The Hunger Games within the past week or two . . . suddenly, I heard the book mentioned repeatedly because the last book in the trilogy came out (Mockingjay).  So, I jumped on the bandwagon and have been happily immersed in these books–reading them at the same time as my 12-year old.  (We were racing through book one to see who could start book two first.  He won but I read book two first since he was busy this weekend playing video games and running around outside with friends.)

And so another week begins.

This was originally posted on my blog on September 11, 2006.

* * *

I am participating in the 2,996 Project, for which 2,996 bloggers volunteered to write a memorial for one person who perished in the attacks on 9/11.

Today, on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States, I remember Thomas Kuveikis.

Thomas Kuveikis was known to his family and friends as Tommy.  He grew up in Brooklyn, attending Blessed Sacrament Elementary School.  He later graduated from Wheatley High School in 1971 after his family moved to East Williston.

Tommy studied architecture at both SUNY Farmingdale and the Pratt Institute, but her never completed a degree.  He dabbled in carpentry, a skill learned from his father.  He joined the New York Fire Department (FDNY) in August of 1977 when he was twenty-four years old.

Within a year, Tommy made a name for himself as an aggressive, brave and tough firefighter.  His younger brother, Tim,  once said, “If I could be half the fireman he was, I’ll have a really good career.”  (Newsday.com)   He loved the action of firefighting in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighborhood.  (His father was a legendary firefighter who died in November 2001.)

But Tommy wasn’t just a tough guy.  He came up with an idea to help a poor family at Christmas.  Starting in 1987, members of his squad visited a priest at St. Barbara’s Roman Catholic Church and ask for the name of the poorest family in the parish.  Then they would contact the family, set up a Christmas tree and provide presents.

Tommy was married twice and was about to be engaged to Jennifer Auerhahn, who described him as “sweet, funny, kind gentle and unselfish.”  His brother Jimmy wrote about him on September11victims.com website saying,

“It was really tough to lose Tommy as he became such a kind, considerate guy over time.  He was not always this way, especially in his twenties, but ‘life’s difficulties’ made him become a great human being.  He was a vegetarian, he gave money and time to Putnam County Land Trust to preserve ’special’ land . . . he loved animals, kids and good people.  Tommy was already a tremendous fireman, working in a poor area of Brooklyn, where he could experience many more fires than the average fireman, just like his father did.”

Kathy Gelman said her brother, Tommy, was “honorable, honest, humorous, humble, humane, and hero.”

In his spare time, Tommy worked as a carpenter.  In fact, he built a steam room in Squad 252’s firehouse.  He had a reputation for not charging enough for his carpentry work.  One day a year, he would donate a day of carpentry to the Putnam County Land Trust.

Tommy had one daughter, Kristen.  He had five siblings, sisters Christine, Karen and Kathleen and brothers, James and Timothy.

Tommy had been a firefighter for twenty-four years and a member of Squad 252 (“In Squad We Trust” was their motto) for five years when his squad answered the fifth alarm at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, at 9:00 a.m.  He was forty-eight years old that day.  CNN footage shows his squad pulling up to the east side of the Trade Center around 9:28 a.m.  The six members of the squad entered the north tower, rescued a man from an elevator.

Two of the firefighters’ bodies were found in the C stairwell 18 days later.  The other four men of Squad 252, including Tommy, were never found.

Today, I remember Thomas Kuveikis.  Thomas Kuveikis is one of the 343 FDNY firefighters who died on September 11, 2001.  He is a hero.  We will never forget.

We will never, ever, ever forget.