grandma bob

I'm not entirely sure how to approach this blog entry. The thing is, my grandma Wickman had a stroke last week and is in hospice now, resting with her family around her. Grandma Bob (as my brother and I dubbed her in order to differentiate between her and grandma Toby) was and continues to be one of the smartest people I've ever known and fiercely independent. We will miss her dearly, but I feel confident she is at peace with her life and I feel incredibly lucky to get to spend this time with her.
While this obviously been the encompassing aspect of my week, I'm not entirely sure how to approach it in this venue. I do want to give some sort of an update about my life, and this is my life right now. But so often this blog is (to put it mildly) irreverent.
One of the things I discovered this week is that more of my family reads the blog than I imagined. Aunts and uncles and whatnot. And I do tend to drop some f-bombs and douche-bombs. Even though I write this in the knowledge that my mom reads it, it's a bit disconcerting when other random people who I don't necessarily want to know the sordid details of my existence casually reference the blog. Like my aunt cracking a joke about my face kersplat.
That has been the most rewarding (if that's the right word) aspect of this entire experience. I can't remember the last time the entire family was together like this. A little background: this is my mom's mother, not my dad's (who I'm staying with). While my dad's mom has two children (my dad and my developmentally disabled aunt) and two grandchildren (me and Glenn), my mom's mom has 17 direct line descendents and most of them have been around for some period of time this past week. When I was young, we were all together a lot of the time. And the relative ages of everyone leads to a lot of interesting interactions. For example: my brother is as close in age to our youngest uncle as he is to me, and he is much older than any of the other grandkids.
Rather than lapse into the countless memories I've been rehashing this week, I just want to focus on what's been happening recently. Although the stroke was massive, grandma has retained her personality and ability to communicate. It's impossible to overstate how reassuring this has been. She was able to decide for herself that she wanted her feeding tube removed, and that she wanted to go to hospice instead of staying the hospital. She has been responsive when people visit, and retained her wry wit and whip smarts. She's mostly sleeping, of course, but just being able to tell her we love her and have her reply in kind is wonderful.
I'd also like to give a warm and sincere thank you to the Evergreen Hospital Hospice Center. It's a beautiful and peaceful place, with lots of wonderful and supportive people. I can't describe how much of a privilege it's been to be there with everyone.
I am doing alright, in general. Emotionally exhausted of course, and the days are running together. But I feel great peace between me and grandma, and am secure we've said what we need to say to each other. She is and will always be an inspiration.

busy

Been trying to find the time to get a quick word out here, but I've just been crazy busy. Very content with the shape of the path, but it's a full schedule.
The biggest story is truly surreal: last Tuesday I went to a trivia night at a bar on Capitol Hill with a couple new friends; they set up this group that plans to visit and review every bar and club on Capitol Hill by the end of the summer. So this particular evening we're sitting there, rocking the trivia casbah, when Alex (instigator and blogger of the group) gets a phone call. Long story short; a friend of theirs works at Canlis (the fanciest restaurant in Seattle) and can get us into an impromptu, free jazz show... featuring Wynton Marsalis.
No really.
So we all jet to our respective homes, put on some nice threads, and meet back at Canlis at 11:30. At midnight Wynton Marsalis walks in with a good sized crew and they proceed to jam until 2:30am.
I had never been inside Canlis before. It looked like Hugh Hefner's study. Well, I've never been in Hugh Hefner's study before, either. But Canlis definitely had the 1960's pleasure lounge feel.
I would say more, but I mean... what else needs to be said? Definitely among the most surreal experiences of my life. Wynton was absolutely and predictably amazing. Perhaps oddest about the entire night: I can find no mention of this show anywhere on the Interwebs. Just that Wyn (we're on a monosyllabic basis now) canceled his show at Benaroya earlier in the night.
So that was Tuesday; here's what the rest of last week's schedule has looked like:
Monday: 2.5 hour yoga/meditation class. Meet a buddy in town for the night for a few drinks. In bed around 2am.
Tuesday: Hit the gym, hang out with some friends in Belltown, walk up Capitol Hill, trivia for a few hours, sprint around town in time to get to Canlis to see Wynton Freaking Marsalis. In bed around 3am.
Wednesday: Somatic movement class. Check out a bi-monthly ecstatic dance night in Interbay (more on this in a moment). In bed by midnight.
Thursday: Meet a buddy in town for the weekend and another good old friend. Go lawn bowling at Greenlake (they have an immaculately manicured lawn, really a treat). Have a late dinner (sunset at 10pm) before taking a bus up Capitol Hill to check out a dancehall reggae night at the War Room club. Cab home, go by the 24 hour doughnut shop, play board games and eat doughnuts until falling asleep on the couch around 4am watching 6 String Samurai. Still haven't seen that frickin' movie to the end.
Friday: Independence Day. More lawn bowling. Toss the Frisbee around. End up at a rooftop party in Belltown from which you can both the Forth of Julivar's and the Lake Union fireworks. As always, Lake Union show blows Forth of Juliver's out of the water. I kept expecting a full scale replica of Mount Rushmore to appear in red, white, and blue in the sky. Very impressive. Finish the night dancing to 80's music at a bar around the corner. End up retiring with a few people afterwards and, before you know it, in bed (again) at around 4am.
So there you have it. I am the type of person who is usually in bed by midnight. This has been an insane week. And yes, I did go to work this week, too. I think that's a valid excuse for the belated blog entry.
Just to return to the Wednesday night ecstatic dance event for a moment; I've been keeping my eyes out for a good ecstatic dance night since I returned to Seattle. I tried a few, but they involved people putting on CD compilations and charging you $10 to dance in the space. Totally fine, but really not what I'm looking for. The big thing, for me, is to have a live DJ laying down tracks. Someone who can interact with the energy in the room and change the flow of the music according to what kind of feedback they're getting. It's just not the same the have a pre-defined list of tracks.
(Quick note: the things that generally set apart what is called "ecstatic dance" from a normal club night are an earlier start and finish and a lack of a bar. The idea is to use the dance to achieve a sort of inebriation, to reach a different level of consciousness.)
So this night is exactly what I've been looking for. Decent DJs, and only $5.
Guess I'll just leave it at that for now. Hopefully things will settle down enough that I can get in another entry before too much time passes, but I wouldn't hold my breath. So until next time... Pope out!