Down The Rabbit Hole

thelostkimmer — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:20:26 +0000

The Weeds

Standing in a field waiting for the dogs to go;

surrounded by childhood flowers- in tall wispy wheat grass, with Black-eyed Susans llike the sun; dwarfing daisies like the cool rain when the sun peeks in.

And clover, dear clover- so fragrant with her stout

lavender head. Never parading a raised bed

- stalks too sturdy; blooms too eager?

Like whitening hairs stand coarse in a fading

crest of brown,

these intrude into gardens, rush sidewalk cracks,

and waft their pollen at the whitest wedding gown.

We stand growing outside the established bed.

Pulp Fiction and My Mother

thelostkimmer — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:03:13 +0000

My mother died in April. She left an enormous mess behind. Her will was stashed in a safe deposit box that needed a court order to enter. My sister and I knew there was life insurance so we arranged a burial, costing $8000, only to find out that she had taken loans on the life insurance and there is only $3000. Her car was inspected and bearing put on in late 2007, and not driven after that, yet it has a horrible steering problem that turns out to be a tie rod and bearing problems. So it is worth a lot less than it looks like. I am in charge of sorting it all out. A foreclosing house. A suspiciously-termed reverse mortgage that the NYS Banking Dept is investigating. The bank won’t talk to me without Administration papers. They cost $275 to file. They have to list my mother’s first cousins and all of their children. We never had much contact with any of them and upon digging, there are at least 54 first cousins, all of whom had 1-8 children. I almost have all of their names, then any living ones, I need their addresses. I need the Administration papers to get her mail, where there are several checks in danger of being returned. So where does this connect with Pulp Fiction? I woke up this morning thinking about Bruce Willis discovering his watch was missing and rather than trying to explain, he says “my father went through a lot so I could have that watch”. His father had carried the watch up his ass for seven years and died of dysentary, and not giben up the watch. Bruce Willis’ character nearly gets killed trying to retrieve the watch. It is just a watch.

I think I have been carrying my mother up my ass for the past 50 years. I may end up leaving her and her baggage behind in the hotel room rather than going to retrieve her. This is becoming more of an issue of assigning blame -to M&T Bank for writing a very suspicious reverse mortgage, to Saratoga County Social Services for making repeated home visits and calling the horrible state of the home a “lifestyle choice” as my brother drank himself to death, and my mother’s breathing problems exacerbated from mold, to the town of Stillwater, NY for verbally threatening that the house was going to be condemned but after she moved out, they took away her property tax exemption, moved in, cleaned up and sent the bank a bill for their services, to HUD for backing the mortage of $65.000 on a house in horrible condition and for their failure to properly inspect it, Nationwide Insurance company for denying her claim for storm damage, calling it a flood when it was major roof damage, to the neighbors who watched the deterioration of the house and its inhabitants and did nothing about it, to the family, including myself, who gave up trying to change it… and the list goes on- than it is about her estate.

The watch has become a symbol. Cleaned up, it looks like a nice antique gold watch. Its history untold, it is a relic of the past, an heirloom. Out of context, it is what it is. Butch can take it out, look at the time. He always knowsthat to carry it, is to carry its history of hardship and shame. He chooses to use it to inspire, but he can neither part with it willingly, or bear its accidental loss. How many things are we as individuals carrying up our assholes that we are obligated but not attached to? It is not just individuals- as a country, the US now has Iraq and Afganistan up there, and since China owns so much of our currency, they are up there too. (although we are probably going to reverse that if we can’t get our economy back and be up theirs). Israel is up there- we sponsored its beginnings, it is still surrounded by enemies, and we are committed to carry it around with us. All of the countries we fear as sovreign nations are up there, because we have to help them to support their sovereignty in exchange for them staying weak.

I think it is time to take a chance on all levels, and let the watch to turn back into being a time piece...

Shortcuts make long delays…

thelostkimmer — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:24:13 +0000

Everytime I go on Ancestry.com with the intentions of researching my family tree, I end up linking with other trees that have duplicate entries. It is like magic, that feeling of click, click, there’s another generation added. I think it is better to slow the process down a bit. I spent the better part of yesterday deleting duplicates, and finding minor errors in other people’s data. I went back to the sources- the census, the historical context, land records. It is hard to resist those little whirling leaves. It’s like on Wheel of Fortune when you are trying to hit the trip to Disney World.

***In case anyone is watching- The title of this post may remind you of something (I think it was) Merry Brandibuck who said “Shortcuts make for long delays” when he heard the story of how Frodo, Pippin and Sam ended up in Farmer Maggot’s field. (citation: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien) I guess the vast data bases of the Internet could be considered one giant “Farmer Maggot’s field”. It is funny how many things I have in my head that feel so original but came from books I have read… Anyway…

The data bases all in one spot are the reason I stay with the paid service. I did meet a cousin I had heard of, but never met, and we are collaborating. I happened upon a people collector this morning who had a hundred thousand individuals in his family tree- probably had a click-fest. It really brought it home why I am doing this.

I want to learn about the people who shaped the people who shaped me. I want to find out how they lived, what they struggled with, what joys and sorrows came their way. Part of my process is to read the documents, visit the areas they lived in, see where they were buried, and who they are sharing eternity with. It is not a race.

Except in the one aspect that I have to ferret out my mother’s 50+ first cousins and their children, find out dates of death, and how to contact the living ones in order to get my mother’s will probated. The technology has been invaluable to that process and I am almost there. I will go back later and find out who they are, though…

Yesterday I gained a new respect for the division of I-ROBOT versus Me aware. I clicked on an e-mail that said my friend wanted to meet me at reunion.com, and I saw a few of our high school friends in the group so I joined. Less than an hour later, my other friend, who is very suspicious of technology although she uses it brilliantly, e-mailed me to say What is this cheery invitation to join you at reunion.com? That program uploaded my e-mail contacts from Yahoo and fired off invitations from me to such varied people as a person who is not speaking to me, a business contact, a brand new friend who I know only casually, and the aforementioned disgruntled friend, who didn’t fall for it. I had become too comfortable clicking on things, and luckily this was fairly benign, if a bit embarrassing.

My new caveat- Take a breath before you click. Or you may have to spend your day deleting and apologizing.

For out -of-print, childrens, vintage scholastic and all of your book needs, please visit sarah-grace-BOOKS at:

Singin’ a chorus of “I got up late; confused” blues

thelostkimmer — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:04:19 +0000

We had a hot night last night. Rode the motorcycle to the bookstore in the tourist town of Saratoga Springs, about 10 miles from home; met a man who wrote a novel about being a dad and playing high-stakes poker. Read a bunch of magazines and sipped an iced-coffee concoction made with chocolate-covered java beans and coffee. It was tasty, but I am still picking little coffee ground pieces from my gums. My husband combed the shelves for new computer programming books and met me in the cafe, where we looked at a local history book about Clifton Park that showed a yearly convention of beagle raisers, circa 1890, Of course, we saw Harry’s face in every one. The beagles were all sitting so calmly for the pictures- no sniffing butts or twisting their leashes. We debated whether my father-in-law would like the book, as it depicts his neighborhood before his house was built. At 11:00, we barely made it to the supermarket before closing time to get a pizza for dinner, and went home to watch the History Channel and doze. At 3 am, we finally woke up to go to bed. And now it’s 8:53am and I feel a hint of what I did 30 years ago after a crawl down Caroline Street in the same Saratoga Springs! Only one chorus of those “I got up late; confused” blues these days, thank God, and now its time to make the coffee, wake the husband, and walk the dogs. It’s a beautiful day!

Mary J. Rich, Army Nurse 1943

thelostkimmer — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:20:47 +0000

I noticed today that Ancestry.com is adding newspaper archives to their site. I am an avid family researcher and thee is only so much you can do with dates and names- finding little newspaper notes really makes people seem more real.

Take the story in The Saratogian dated 1915, which told about my great-grandfather driving his horse and cart to market. The road was in disrepair, and his cartwheel got caught in some cobblestones. He wasn’t hurt, but the wheel unraveled, and the reporter went on at great length about how the road should have been fixed during the previous year, as an estimate had been made and funds allotted. I am struck how things are more the same nearly a hundred years later as my husband and I were driving down the road on our motorcycle and hit a mega pot-hole yesterday!

Today’s news story, from the Troy Times Record, dated Jan. 5, 1943, and tells of my friend Nancy’s aunt Mary J. Rich, daughter of Georgia Rich of Whitehall, N.Y. Mary was on her way to her station as a Major with the US Nursing Corps, in Australia. I grew up knowing Nancy’s family well, as I lived next door, and was a frequent hanger-on. Her mother came from a family of 10 children aad I had trouble keeping them straight. I vaguely remember knowing that her Aunt was in the service, but I never knew that she had gone overseas. Wow!

At a funeral recently, Nancy and her dad remarked on my great-grandmother’s name, which was the same surname as theirs, and we began wondering if there was a family connection, so, having recently joined Ancestry.com, I started researching their line. I am planning to get a little book together in time for her daughter’s wedding, which is almost here. So far it looks like we had relatives with the same surname in next-door towns, all Irish immigrants, but so far there is not a connection.