HOME REPAIRS

I haven't been on the computer much due to the verge of migraine. Trying to avoid actually having one and that means staying away from triggers, e.g. light from the computer glare, sugar, etc. But I have to wax rhapsodic about the fact that I have curtain rods, curtains and blinds in my windows. It's amazing how grown up it makes me feel. I've always been one of those people who will take a project, like redecorating a room to a certain point and then stop because I do not have the ability to use the necessary power tools. Actually I have the ability to learn how, I'm just too lazy to do so.

Anyway, my dad came to stay this past weekend and he brought his drills and drill bits and his extensive perfectionism and he not only hung curtain rods and blinds, he also changed out the sockets in my apartment so that they're now grounded. This allowed me to plug in a power strip for the NINE plugs that make my various entertainment center components go. Previously I was using extension cords and had what looked like scary electrical insects stretched across the wall of the living room.

While dad was staying we also ate and talked and ate and talked. My dad likes beer so he drank the Heffeweisen that's been sitting in the frig since the last time I had a craving about two months ago. I didn't drink the beer, but I was still able to share with him my feelings about how spending time with me feels less like a priority for him and more like something to do only when it's convenient. Like when his wife is doing something else and his only option is to be alone. He said that's not true. And I know it's not. But what was important is that I think he understood what I meant. I also told him that although I know his wife doesn't dislike me, if often feels like that because she's a very cold person. It's because she's scared that people won't like her - but seriously talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. When setting boundaries sometimes it's good to be aware that you might be erecting barbed wire fences that most people won't care to get cut attempting to climb over them.

It's nice to know that he sees her "boundaries" as walls, and also that he loves her just the way she is. My parents really have ended up with partners who are more appropriate to who they are at this point in their lives. Teachers to take them through the last chapters. I asked dad why it was the he and mom didn't seem to be friends the last half of their marriage. What changed? He said that she couldn't acccept him for who he was and that was probably due to the fact that he wasn't accepting of himself. Hindsight and all that. Considering the bonding that I was feeling and not wishing to appear judgmental I didn't ask why it is that he seems so mad at her that they can't be friends now.

Baby steps and all that.

Saturday night we went to see Indigo, a movie produced the Spiritual Cinema Center. This is the same group that produced What the Bleep do We Know. I didn't see that movie and I wish I hadn't seen Indigo. It's based on the theory that Indigo children are those kids born in the last 10 or 15 years who are born with a deeper knowing and a different way of being in the world. They are more empathic, more creative, more able to reason in new ways. And in this movie the Indigo kids were psychic and able to heal people with Alzheimer's disease. There were lots and lots of scenes of cars driving with bad movie of the week music playing over and scenes of beautiful Oregon sunsets and forests. The writing was abominable - think afterschool special circa 1971. The acting, except for the little girl was pretty much what you'd see in a student film, made by a student who ultimately decides to go into producing because he realizes he's not a director.

We had to go to my church to see it because it was sold out at all the AMC theaters that were showing it. And in overall weekend box office the movie came in NINTH! The only reason I can imagine that this happened is because of the marketing that the Spiritual Cinema Center did with massive e-mail dissemination. When the movie finally ended we leapt out of our seats and bolted for the doors with the majority of the audience. The girls behind me put it very succinctly when one said to the other giggling, "I've never been so happy for a movie to be over."

Amen sister.

On Sunday I got dad up to watch the Austrailian Open men's final and I ran to Ikea to buy bamboo blinds. I've always wanted them and at $4.99, with someone to install them, totally worth the half hour drive to Ikea and the run walk through the entire store to get to the curtain section. Part of Ikea's master plan is to make you walk through the entire store. You can't cut in from the bottom and go up. There's a secret stairway that one of my friends told me about but I couldn't find it and so I went up to the 3rd floor and ran down.

Dad gave me a big hug and said he'd had fun and would come back soon. And as I waved goodbye as he drove off I remembered the shelves that have been sitting in the hall closet for the last three years. I hope he comes back soon. Not just to install the shelves, but because for the first time in a long time I really had fun being with my dad.