Sunday, January 28, 2018

dear aunty rita, rest in peace

henry & rita orozco: combined IQ level,
250+; personality, off the charts
-mama had us meet her at san joaquin hospital in bakersfield once my doctor's appointment with the mysterious & kindly dr agha (a figure from a peter lorre film) was done. we could see on mama's face it was serious this time, & reality suddenly shuddered into a gray, weighted thing. aunty rita was not going to be leaving the hospital. it was the end.
-we went up to icu & she was a tiny figure in the bed, family all around bearing hushed faces of shock: this woman who had dominated all was going to be leaving us all very soon. aunty rita's face for the first time contained grandma's softness; even her mouth as i wiped it gently bore grandma's cupid's bow. the only thing legible she said was to yell aunty dodie's name; doubtless if she'd been more conscious she would have been calling for her sister in order to kick her a*s (their lifelong relationship has been love-hate). i think she smiled at me a bit; i know she did when she saw dad and james joking it up at the foot of her bed because aunty rita loved nothing much more than men. we all sat with her for a long time. i kissed her soft round cheek & told her i loved her & then it was time to leave.
-the next day james showed up at school unexpectedly. he sat with my class & me, sang a few songs, left the room for a bit (to cry, he later admitted), & when the kids were gone to their buses, he told me that aunty rita was gone, & that was it for me for a while til i came out of the fog hours later because it was time to call tushi, my dear cousin, aunty rita's daughter.
-aunty rita was petite, but she was larger-than-life: a foul-mouthed, fierce & fiercely funny figure. in her youth, she was dangerously glamorous, a femme fatale who lived on whisky, cigarettes, hamburgers, & diet pills. (she later stopped drinking & smoking cold turkey & never looked back, characteristic of her resolute nature.) her favorite color was "streetwalker red," she'd tell you; she could charm & disarm any male, 1st with her exotic hourglass looks & personality, later with personality, & with those flashing black eyes & white smile. she was quick with numbers, handling money for the grape growers in delano, ca. she hustled & did what she could to take care of our cousins, tushi & ray, her kids. sometimes that meant living back at home with grandma & grandpa, in the house on randolph across from the vineyards.
-later in life, she met uncle henry, who, 110 pounds soaking wet, had carried the torch for her since their  delano high school days (big, rawboned "uncle" danny later would remember her from those days, too, & he would be her last love). uncle henry had become a nuclear engineer with big bucks; he sent for her & she bolted. they traveled the world with his many jobs, amassing hundreds of friends & adventures.
-in those years, every word from aunty rita's mouth seemed to be some hilarious story or other, about meeting mean joe green or oj simpson or seeing willie or just about the family. she & uncle henry together would draw crowds w/their vicious, laugh-out-loud routines. she was merciless in her humorous attack: anyone could be chopped to bits by her tongue, but most would be left howling w/laughter as she hacked away. her temper was fierce, her love just as much so. she ran dear tushi in texas & mom & dad ragged taking care of her these last many years, demanding mama bring her soup or a hamburger or go do this or that errand for her, or that tushi get on the plane RIGHT NOW to get home to her mama. she controlled us all by phone from her couch or (in the last year) hospital bed. she had been sick 17 years, having to stop her travels with uncle henry when kidney failure brought her to bakersfield, where she stuck. she was so often sick, then always sick, but she persevered, she just kept going: we all thought she was gone many times, but she'd come back, defying odds. the family joked that she & james weren't human but mutant: they'd lived lives that would've killed mere mortals...
-many years ago, when i stepped in sh*t pretty deep due to my then-dangerous need for male attention, aunty rita helped me out of it. and she never told a soul how she had saved my reputation & first marriage -- now then, not ever. that was the true aunty rita, bearing a trait all ollivares-forqueras seem to have: that deep, undying loyalty. mama has it for all, abundantly, freely; aunty rita would tear you to bits if she were in the mood, but when the chips were down, she was there for you no matter what.
 -there will never be another aunty rita. we all will miss her huge presence so much. we are heartbroken she is gone, but grateful she no longer has to suffer. i hope i have conveyed even a bit of her here. i will, again, miss her so very, very much.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

the great contrast that is life...

1. a picture of mom & dad at last saturday's civil rights march (for women, for humankind) -- mary frances posted it on facebook w/sweet caption, "my aunty monie and uncle gil." just look at this kindly, noble, hard-working, principled, accepting, sensible, lovely couple who still in their mid-and late-70s want to change the world....

2. james just read me this, a 4 a.m. verse he riffed to his army buddy james e.:
I wrote this tonight.
'm gonna eat a huge bowl of cabbage before I play.
My farts are deadly. My aim is true.
Pray to God they don't hit you. ....some are loud, some are soft, unseen across the room they loft.
The band can't get out of the way. All they can do is hope and pray.
They try to breathe, they cannot cough They pray and pray that mine will stop.
I fire them left, I fire them right, I fire them steady all through the night.
I'm on a roll, yet in control, the farting game, I've mastered, from here, to Taft, to Germany, they call me, STINKY BASTARD! I fart so hard, I fly through the air, and gas evil men unconcious (sic) With a spark they become a deadly flame, with a bottle, deadly bomb. My farts are a gift from a parent, not my father, they came from my mom!
I can, with my farts, toot out sweet melodies, a two - step, even a sonata, a jump, a boogie, an 8 - bar roomba, hell, I can fart UNDER WATER!
The sharks, the fear me, the whales understand, for they speak to each other with sound. When the water starts warming, they all stop with a warning, SWIM AWAY, BEFORE WE ALL DROWN!
For those who don't know, I'm not from your Earth, as any astro, or cosmo- naut could attest to...

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

blablablablablablabla

this was a pic from the last time i played w/james & band,... i think... it's hard to recall w/doggy barking away & i'm so tired. i love the $3 dress i'm wearing in the pic, which penny snagged the next day when i was jogging w/her on the way to santa cruz... we played music this eve, but i was very sluggish due to school/physical fatigue & i realized my right hand hurts from doing school yoga minus any mats on hard classroom floor, but we had fun playing... doggy has stopped barking & tail is beating a tattoo on the floor and now james is back from the store, so time to sign off! he's in the house now, announcing, "hey, honey, that was a lot of fun," & even tho my piano & singing blew chunks this eve, yes, it was fun. singing "love my baby," i had a manuel moment, clearly hearing my own voice aping my dear departed friend's w/o realizing it; i've been doing it all along. and james? when he wings it, he just soars.
this has been a good two days of fun w/kids at school, lots of running, meals at home, meetings, today seeing our rumpled blue-eyed gentleman of a counselor, then music... oh hell, i need to sign off, so bye for now.

Sunday, January 07, 2018

hoka hooka hicka HIKE

yesterday i got to go w/my friend christy (my fellow teacher, the high school cross country coach, for her birthday!) on the fog run in bakersfield. we left the hill at ungodly dark-thirty to register, go potty, stretch. she even had me jog an extra mile to warm up. once we started, in a gigantic group of runners, we had a good clip going, were passing ppl, feeling pretty good. grabbed a cup of water @ the halfway point, dropped cup in trash box, hit a rock w/my extra-large super-fantastic hokas, did a swan dive onto the dirt: BAM! i hit chest-first, therefore saving my knees & wrists, but knocking the air out of myself. the last stretch was much harder w/less wind. i came in 7 seconds behind christy: a 10:20 mile. slow compared to the old days, tho i've never been fast!! ...now i have a bit of a resolution: to get back to a sub-10 minute mile.
i want to think the fall slowed me down, but just to be sure, i will work on developing speed... realistically. i'm old, but not yet old enough to be that slow!
today the dog-girl (outside yelling her head off right now) & i did 4.88 tough miles. turns out my knee IS a little injured. down the dirt path, out on the highway, down to the park, around, around, around (saw lisa & arestina, which was nice, as well as students at the skatepark, as usual), then back UP for the steep climb home.  i decided to explore coming back, so cut off the main road down into the riverbed. i mean DOWN: you really descend, & the hills climb steeply, ever more steeply in all directions. we got snarled in thick trees for quite some time, snapping dead branches off on the leash, meandering, branches & stickers tearing my shirt, my pants, my hair, my yushenka... i saw no way back up for quite some time, feeling quite isolated, staving the deliverance thoughts, bearing in mind what i read today about john muir and "sauntering" (see https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/palmer_sauntering.aspx. )... finally i spied an extremely steep way out & climbed, slid, & scrambled my way out (penny had a bit of a struggle as well) into... more thick scrub brush, no road, more bushwhacking. finally we came to a barbed wire fence, but no real way to approach except through more thicket. crap.
after much struggle, i located a semi-break in the fence that necessitated me lifting penny & gingerly threading her through, then doing the same with myself, careful not to touch hair or flesh to barbed wire. i felt some tearing in my pants & shirt, but they're both home garments, so no problem...
she is barking her head off again, so i'm gonna go. dang beast!!
tomorrow school resumes. i'm not ready, but i will be.
happy birthday tomorrow, elvis!!!!

Friday, January 05, 2018

ON auld lang syne

our favorite people on fun eve in smellay
this is a week late, but it's interesting! especially this part (given the photo i post here): "The song begins by posing a rhetorical question: Is it right that old times be forgotten? The answer is generally interpreted as a call to remember long-standing friendships." here's the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne... now please watch & listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42_ilQc_sxc ... it reminds me of studying chaucer moons & moons ago. or, i should say, NOT studying chaucer. i was a very poor undergrad student.
our dog-girl is whistling & whining outside, entreating to be gained house-entrance... in, dog-girl!
she & i had a few nice runs on james's & my vacation. she & i ran in monterey, we ran in santa cruz (well, i mostly went alone in santa cruz). i put in about 10 miles in two days, so that was the best thing i could say about THAT trip! we agreed afterward we should have visited the gias, where mama had made a beautiful, delicious, lovely new year's day meal & we had a loving, kindly visit... & then we should have turned around & gone back home!
yes, we had a crap of a time, but all is well again now. like i wrote years back in a heartbroken rag (when we were separated), "after the storm, the sun is gonna rise." rise it has, & we is fine. now i'm just waiting for him to split so i can do major cleaning in his Quarter of the Hoarder. this house is gonna be soooo clean by the time he gets back! haHA!!!
then i have to prep to get back to work. and teach choir. oh heck, i conveniently had forgotten!! i'm supposed to teach music for 8 weeks! ... this all is good. creative immersion is a real good when your coconut is prone to upsettings... ok, off for now. :D happy happy day!! happy happy year!! that's it.