Annette

My mother told me two weeks ago that my making the decision to come home to spend time with my grandmother was "a selfish thing to do." Then last week she told me how appreciative she and my father were for me being here to relieve them of the burden of my grandmother and the Alzheimer's that is tearing through her.

Introspection is a curious thing. It is purely selfish. My thoughts after mother dear told me how selfish I was were along the lines of "this is the most selfless thing I have ever done in my life."

Reading my blog posts made me think that I am being selfish....this blog seems to be all about me....and  it really isn't. So here goes.

My grandmother's name is Annette Ingber Streichler, born in Manhattan on March 14, 1926. She is the third child and second daughter of Jacob Ingber and Rivka (Rose) Ingber (nee Wilner), now deceased for many years....I am named for Jacob and my Hebrew name is Rivka. Anne had one brother, Samuel, 17 years her senior, and one sister, Bertha, 14 years her senior. Yes, Anne is a change of life baby. Jacob came to the United States from Hungary, and was a successful tailor, which made the years of the Great Depression a bit easier for this part of my family. One of the tailors who worked for him was a man by the name of Aaron Streichler, my other great-grandfather, father of my now deceased grandfather, Isidore.

At the age of 8, my great aunt Bertha tried to kill Anne by strangulation. Aunt Bertha spent the rest of her life in mental wards. However, Anne thrived at school excelling at typing and stenography. At the onset of World War II, she became engaged to my grandfather, Isidore, who enlisted in the United States Navy. They were married on December 10, 1944 and then moved to Key West, Florida, where he was stationed. She worked as a civil servant on base while Izzy worked on a minesweeper in the Pacific Theatre.

After the war ended, they moved in with Anne's parents while Izzy went to Pratt to get a degree in draftsmanship and engineering. Anne obtained a job as a secretary. They then moved to Queens, where my mother Susan was born. To be continued....with pictures.

So Now What?

People in most cultures ask how you are upon first meeting. I do not believe they do this because they are interested. I believe they do this because it is a culturally accepted custom, and by the time you reach the age of 30, it is ingrained in you to do so, and if you do not ask, you are considered to be rude. 

There are certain people, true friends and family members, who genuinely care when they ask this question. Unless otherwise occupied by some silly drama, my response is the generic "I'm ok, how are you doing?". In the past few months, I have used the term "ok" more times than I can count. I began to wonder about the origins of the generic ok answer. Some reference it as a North American Indian word. Others, of European origin. The truth is, no one really knows. But we have the word ok. 

"How's grandma doing?" "She's ok, the same, really." "How are your parents?"  "They're ok". 

Acknowledging that I am a magnet for troubled souls, including but not limited to bums, alcoholics, drug addicts and complete psychopaths - it's ok. Sitting next to an old ex-friend to celebrate the birthday of a good friend - it's ok. Wanting to leave every place you've ever been - it's ok. Being told you suck at everything - it's ok. 

Determined to be done with ok. Because, really, none of it is ok. It is the exact opposite of ok. There is no word for it, it is just not ok. Maybe I am too contemplative. Maybe I am a pushover. Maybe I never completely grew up. I just know that I am tired of the hand I am dealt on a regular basis. 

So now what? The apartment is generally cleaned and fully functional, so if we needed or wanted to bring grandma home it would be possible. I have been becoming bored in the past week or so, looking for ways to occupy my time. I would love a change of scenery for a moment, but I feel like leaving, even for a few days, would be a mistake right now. 

My grandmother's deteriorating state of mind scares me, as she thinks that relatives who are long deceased are living, and living at the nursing home. She doesn't eat, and it has become harder for me to visit because now she does not want me to leave. 

I don't know what this blog post is supposed to be about, but I've said everything I needed to. 

Full Moon Fever

When I returned to the Bronx from 8 years of crap in Atlanta, I was confronted by a plethora of nosy neighbors who never ask me how I am. They are only interested in how my grandmother was doing. I finally figured out how to answer them.....and that was to talk myself into oblivion about a million other things. To which they mostly looked at me and said "So, what do you do for fun?"

I am 36 years old and my priority in life is to enjoy myself. I want to have fun. I could care less about work and the material things I have in my life. Is my car fancy? No, but it gets me where I need to be. Do I have an iPhone? No, but my phone works and does what I need it to do. I care about enjoyment, my friends and family, and being a good person on top of it all. When I leave this planet, I will not leave wishing I had spent more time with friends and family because I worked too much. Since I moved back to New York, my life has not been fun. I've been filled with anger and frustration toward certain family members, not to mention feeling conflicted with my own plans for the next few months. Watching the only grandmother I have ever known (my paternal grandmother passed away when I was 4 years old - I have very vague memories of her) deteriorate at a blinding speed wears on me at an alarming rate. Cleaning an enormous amount of junk out of a 60 year old apartment is taxing. I can't imagine not being here, though. 

Dealing with my parents has never been an easy thing for me. Now that they are getting older, I believe that they are slowly going completely insane. My father is hard of hearing, my mother's childhood polio has her about 98% paralyzed, and they do not understand the world at large. They are from the generation of work all your life, retire and do as you wish. They are in denial that that world no longer exists, and would prefer me to work a job that I hate, with a boss that I loathe, which effects my mental health, than no job at all. When I returned to New York, all we did was fight. We fight. A lot. Their comprehension of me, of my grandmothers' illness and of life in general lacks a nurturing aspect that has long since been lost.....it is as though they decided at some point to stop being my parents. I cannot write enough about the dynamics (or lack of dynamics) between my parents and I, so I will stop here. 

So what's a gal to do?

Go to the city as tourist, do the Katonah Avenue pub crawl, meet some Irish guys. Have fun for a minute and then go back to a grey life.

Katonah Avenue

30 Rock

Seeing my friends and family on a somewhat regular basis is fabulous. I keep in touch with a few of my friends in Atlanta. I exercise poor judgment on a semi-regular basis, even when my gut is screaming at me, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, KAPLAN!!?" All for a moment, then that moment is gone. 

At times like these, I yearn to be somewhere else. Escapism has been my downfall for most of my lifetime. Now more than ever I find myself wishing I was at the farm in Alabama, in the dirt, feeding chickens, duck and goats. I plan to spend a few months there in the summer. I also plan to spend three weeks in South America in April.....I don't know. I think about it and I don't even know if I really want to go anymore. Then I meet Irishmen and other men and I think I could settle down and get married and be happy.....and then the bottom falls out. I am a bum magnet, a messed up person magnet, a bad luck charm. I meet people, everything is great, and then it crashes and burns to a fizzle. After 36 years, it is getting old. 

This entry isn't about sympathy. It's about human nature and how I am weary of dealing with the crap that is handed to me every day. I have very little sympathy for others nowadays. And with good reason, methinks. Or, maybe it is just the full moon. 

This Ain't Yer Gramma's House......

I grew up in the same apartment building my mom and uncle did, one floor above where my maternal grandparents lived. It is a neighborhood called Woodlawn in the Bronx which borders Yonkers and which may as well be in the heart of Ireland. More on that later. 

My grandparents lived in the same apartment for 60+ years. My grandfather, aside from working full-time as an architectural draftsman, was also responsible for cleaning this gigantic apartment due to my grandmother's heart condition. 

Well, folks. Grandpa died in October 2010, and I am convinced that this gigantic apartment never had a proper cleaning since, oh, ten years ago. 

I opened the door to the apartment and oh yeah, it smelled. I don't know what it smelled like, but it smelled. I quickly opened a few windows. I took everything in. In 60 years, my grandparents never bought new furniture. They did not own a microwave or a dishwasher. They had no upgrades to the shelves, countertops or anything in all the years of living in this apartment. So, walking in there would be a big time warp to most folks who hadn't grown up there. 

I continued my walk around the apartment in the lessening stages of shock & awe. Let's say, I was in the advanced stage of "eew, how did anyone let my grandmother live in here by herself" and the beginning stage of:

Cleaning fairy, answer my prayers. Before I could even THINK of laying my head down in a bed in this apartment, I wanted to fumigate it. It wasn't funny, it was a health risk. Through the years of my grandfather being sick, my grandmother never allowed any strangers into the apartment, including professional cleaners. My grandmother could not see due to macular degeneration therefore her version of clean was a lot different from my version of clean.

I became Cinder-Jana. I spent $200 on cleaning supplies at National Wholesale Liquidators while fending off busybody neighbors. Some had known me from my time living in the building, others only knew my grandmother. Some were just gossips who had nothing else better to do than talk. People wanted to know what was going on with the apartment. OK. I AM CLEANING IT. 

I took to dumping garbage at night. Recycling was also brought down at night. In a 2 or 3 week period, I got rid of 34 industrial size garbage bags containing either garbage or recycling. My cats were layered in a fine coat of dust that I have only now (after 71/2 weeks) managed to contain. My grandparents saved EVERYTHING, as in ALL OF THE STUFF. It was not a happy time for my mother. Hell, it was not a happy time for any of us. I cleaned out closets and stuff would fly out at me, be it empty Sweet N Low packets, loose change, jewelry, empty plastic bags (for which my grandmother had a crazy sort of infatuation with). In the two years my grandmother spent in the apartment alone, she kept "losing" things, for example, the keys to the apartment. In my working throughout the apartment, I have found a total of 38 sets of keys, all in different places, put there by my grandmother with the best of intentions. There were just things, and if I began cleaning one place, I would invariably end up in another room of the apartment trying to place the one thing where it belonged. My Uncle's old room had been used for storage since he moved out on his own, and in order to get stuff to come out of the room, I had to actually remove stuff from the room. It was almost like an episode of Hoarders, but not quite on that level.

I don't mind cleaning. I truly don't. But to walk into my grandparents' home of 60+ years after being on the road for three days to be greeted with an overabundance of steam, heat and dust was not an experience I would want anyone to have to live through. It was not a healthy nor livable environment for an 86 year old woman to have been living in, and I was thorough in making sure to turn it into just the opposite of that - livable, workable and fully functional. 

Twilight - Not with Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson

Choosing the word "Twilight" as part of the title of this blog has nothing to do with the Twilight series (of which I am a fan, thanks to two gals I met in China). 

It's not about this. Go Team Edward. 

It has nothing to do with the episode of NCIS where Kate gets killed. I prefer Ziva, anyway. 

It's not about this. Later, Kate.

It has to do with the nearing of the end of life. I chose to spend some of my Grandmother's Twilight years with her, even if she doesn't know who she is, or who I am. It is a selfish thing to do, and I admit I do it more for myself than for her. But when she goes, I will feel a sense of calm and relief and will know that I did the right thing. 

The year I refer to is 2013....I am hopefully (come on 401k, hang in there) taking off to spend with my family and friends, to volunteer, and to travel (of course!!). Being a Corporate Zombie and making money and working in a negative space made me doubt myself and my abilities in general. Being told you suck all the time really does nothing but make you believe, and thereby, BEHAVE like it. 

My parents are old-school and really don't understand the modern 21st century world. The rules they lived by do not apply anymore. They are truly unhappy with a lot of things, including their only daughter. I am dealing with it, but I would have thought they would be more happy with the decision I made to move home. They were a huge part of it. They NEED my help, but will not accept it. I cannot understand them. I am frustrated, but I learning to let it go. 

Truly, if I were to find work right now, I would be the worst employee ever. If someone told me what to do right now, I would laugh in their face and walk away. I don't want to be a paralegal anymore, and I don't want to be in an office environment. I want to be flexible, to have time to spend doing what I want to do, but to also be able to make ends meet. It's a mind twister. 

Leaving Atlanta

Moving to Atlanta, Georgia in 2004 was not something I had ever planned to do. After spending a few years living at home with my parents and seeing my mother through a prolonged illness, I NEEDED to get out of New York. I had a friend from college who lived in Atlanta, who talked me into moving there with the offer of staying with her and her husband rent-free. Note to everyone: don't listen to crazy people. From the moment I arrived to the moment I left, things never really worked in my favor. I am not going to elaborate because I resolve to not focus on the negative, or the past. Suffice it to say I was more than ready to leave. Things I miss about Atlanta: Anna, my bestest friend, Laurie & Will Moore, who run a CSA and own a farm in Alabama, Doc Chey's Noodle House and my apartment. I miss how easy it was to get fresh food. It is challenging to be a vegan and/or vegetarian in the neighborhood I live in now. But I digress.

I took the long way home, through the Appalachians.

   

Tennessee Mountains outside of Nashville

Virginia Sunset

Cats in car

         It took three days to get home. My car

        was loaded, plus I had two cats who   

         behaved rather well the entire way. But I 

         finally made it. 

         I love driving and I love being on the

         road. Finally arriving at my destination  

        was a bit lackluster as my parents had some sad news for me: over the weekend, my grandmother was taken to the hospital after experiencing chest pains and when the doctor observed her state of mind, had been moved to a nursing home. For an undetermined period of time. 

    I had waited too long to do the right thing. I kicked myself and went to sleep. The next day, I decided to go to her apartment anyway. It needed to be sorted out, cleaned and made livable. It was still possible that she would come home for in-home care. 

The Beginning

Sign outside Beijing Airport

The beginning starts somewhere in 2012, when I decided I had had enough. My boss was an anal retentive jerk, my work colleagues were old and miserable, and there was nothing in Atlanta for me. My maternal grandmother had been alone in her Bronx apartment for almost two years and it was obvious to me, from one thousand miles away, she was in the midst of Alzheimer's disease. My parents were at their wits' end from constantly dealing with her. I was in the middle of dealing with my own health problems - from skin cancer, to bladder issues, to "lady part" problems, I was forced to stay put until it was all resolved, which took the better part of 2012, loads of procedures and tons of anti-biotics.

China was a destination I had not been interested in going until I found an organization called GoEco, which offered one and two week volunteer programs in various parts of the world. Working with pandas sounded excellent. I applied and was accepted, and for a variety a reasons, had to keep delaying. Finally, after given the all systems go by the doctors who had been poking and prodding me all year, I applied for the holiday visa, bought travel insurance and a plane ticket and waited.

I was granted a visa to visit China three weeks before my departure date. Whew! I was actually making alternate travel arrangements in case I was denied entry. But I was going.

Landing in Beijing was the most fearful, most exhilarating and most fantastic moment I experienced in a LONG time. I was immersed in a place where I could not understand ANYTHING. I was overjoyed. My brain immediately slowed down as I stood outside the airport and took everything in. I had lost one day when flying and was exhausted but determined to see Beijing at night. Once I got to my hotel, I took a rickshaw ride. It was brilliant. While in Beijing, I visited the Forbidden City and climbed the Great Wall. My climb of the Great Wall was a humbling experience, to say the least. I fell, I was hot,

Forbidden City lit up

I was completely out of shape for something so rigourous. But I did it. And then, I flew to Chengdu to hangout with the pandas. My group consisted of five other girls, of whom I was the second to oldest (this has never happened to me before). We had an amazing program director, Francisco (not

Me and one of the residents. Carrots not included.

his real














name) and my roommate was great (see the blog Caught Short in Asia for her adventures). We fed the pandas and cleaned up after them, and at night we had different things to do. One night, a mah jongg lesson, then tai chi, then calligraphy.

All in all, China taught me that I had nothing to fear but fear itself. I had been trapped by my own fears, and the fears my boss and co-workers had instilled in me for so long I couldn't do the things I wanted to do. Namely, travel, leave my job and find something with more flexibility, and move home to be closer to my family and friends. Thank you, China. Onward and upward, as they say...when I returned home, I gave one weeks' notice and left before the week was up. I did not feel I owed the company anything, even after five and a half years. I took a loan from my 401k and made arrangements to move home. My motive was to be closer to my family and friends, to spend time with my Grandmother and to help look after her. The latter was not to be.