What's in a name?

In talking to Holly tonight, I was reflecting on the origins of our names. Dad was named William after a long line of Williams in the George family. His middle name, Lea, was a family name on his dad's side of the family. Rick also has Lea as his middle name. Mom's name was a point of contention with her parents. Grandpa insisted on naming her Evelyn. Grandma finally relented saying, "Fine, we'll name her Evelyn, but we'll call her Gail." Dad originally wanted to name me Wenke (venka) Lisa after a little girl he met on his mission to Norway. Mom was sure that people would accidentally call me "Winky" so she vetoed it. They kept Lisa as my middle name, but they said they picked Karen just because it was a name they liked. Mom said Kathy's name was chosen because they liked the name and they chose her particular spelling (Kathryn) because they liked it better. Bill was named after Grandpa George. This happened before we discovered that Grandpa's name was Jesse William and not William Jesse (he was always called Bill). Grandma George also went by her middle name - something we didn't know until she went on her mission later in life. Rick got Dad's middle name. I never heard why they chose the name "Rick," but I once met one of Dad's best friends from high school and his name was Rick or Richard. Sharon was named after Dad's youngest sister who had died in a car accident when I was a baby. Her middle name, Laura comes from Grandma George's side of the family - Laura Zulieme Weakley. Emerson's dad's family has a tradition of naming kids with the initials EDT. Emerson was actually Emerson Daniel Tsosie, Jr. at birth, but later changed his last name to his mom's maiden name after his parents divorced. His siblings followed suit. Our kids have matching initials (but not EDT). Dwayne is named after Emerson's best friend, Duane Milford, who was killed by a drunk driver. We used a spelling we liked better. His middle name, Christopher, was chosen so he had a more common name to use if he didn't like his first name. When searching for names for Dexter, Emerson mentioned he wanted one that sounded athletic. I worked for a press clipping company at the time and saw the name Dexter a lot on the sports pages. Sounded good to me and it started with a "D." For the middle name, Emerson, his brother (Gene), and I were having dinner together one night and trying to come up with a name beginning with "C" that would go with Dexter. The result was Cornelius, after a guy Emerson played football with in high school. That guy went by "Corny." It took me a long time to not laugh when saying the name Cornelius, and Dwayne used to say it in the cutest messed-up way as a toddler. Dwayne has had to get used to people forever spelling his name wrong (Duane, Duwayne, Dewayne, etc.) and Dexter endured a lot of "Dexter's Laboratory" references. I always wanted a more exotic name and used to resent that Bill, Rick, and Kathy had a variety of options on what to do with their names. I have to admit that it was tough to let Billy and Ricky grow up and let go of the "y" at the ends of their names. Kathy has good stories to go with her kids' names, but she should be the one to tell...

In memorium

This isn't my favorite picture of my dad, but it shows my dad as he looked while I was growing up. William Lea George (Bill) passed away at 2:05 pm (Pacific Time) on February 10, 2009, in Bremerton, Washington. He passed away peacefully at the age of 62 after battling several chronic conditions.

Dad was a lover of the arts and was a very talented artist and pianist. He taught me to love opera, classical music, Impressionist art, photography, and everything beautiful in life. As a trombone player in high school, he played at Disneyland's grand re-opening and in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. His art teacher, Mr. Crutcher, brought in great cartoonists like Walter Lantz, Walt Disney, and Charles Schulz to meet his students. Dad even played the caliope at Disneyland once with Mr. Disney's permission.

Dad was an avid reader and his eyes sparkled as he told of practically growin up in his local library. He was a history buff and knew all those little odd facts they don't teach you in school. School was a challenge because he found it boring, but he managed to graduate, partly because his love of art and history classes kept him going. He was such a perfectionist with his own art that he often destroyed it to get rid of the flaws. I once added a few brush strokes of my own to a painting he was doing of me and he considered it unacceptable when he couldn't fix the coloring because the oil paints just kept mixing more and more on the canvas. He finally painted over it and painted a seascape on top.

When Dad was on his big photography kick, he taught me a lot about taking pictures and I used to help him in the darkroom. We used to develop slide film and print color prints using Cibachrome processing. Once the print was in the developing tube, we would put the chemicals in and roll it back and forth on the floor for the required time since we couldn't afford the drum to turn the tube. Dad would take the film from the canister and load it into the developing container while standing in his bedroom closet so he could have complete darkness. The garage was our darkroom.

Mom used to tell me that she couldn't believe a guy as good looking as Dad could be interested in her. He met her at an LDS youth dance. While they were dating, he even rode his bicycle through Watts during the riots to go see her. He was from South Gate and she was from Los Angeles. Dad was pretty handy - something he probably learned from his own dad, but was scared of electricity. It seemed like electricity would just jump out and get him every chance it had. Even changing the channel on the TV led to him getting shocked. For that reason, even though Dad built on to our original house, Mom did all the wiring.

From everything I observed, Dad was not the least bit domestic. I know he had to do some chores growing up, but he wasn't much for doing them as an adult. I'm not sure how he handled things during his mission to Norway, but he relied on his mom before that and my mom after that to take care of him. He went through alcohol treatment when I was in high school and I remember traveling up to the treatment center to show him how to do laundry in the machines there. I found it very funny at the time. Even though Dad could cook, he generally didn't. He had some gourmet cookbooks he looked through and then he would show Mom which ones he wanted her to cook. Because of the complexity of the recipes, we rarely ate dinner before 9:30 or 10 pm. Dad did try to show off one time and make albondagas soup. Unfortunately, he didn't notice the glass measuring cup he was using held 2 cups and he ended up with double the water in the soup. He was pretty hurt by the mistake.

Dad's injuries - He broke his leg trying to fix the antenna on our roof. He slipped and started to roll and hit a vent/pipe of some sort in an effort to not knock Mom over (she was pregnant with Bill at the time). While he was working for the sawmill, he tried to push a railroad tie along the greenchain and had another railroad tie pop out from the saw and smash his hand between the two ties. He was carried to the end of the greenchain and he pulled his hand out in time to avoid being part of the lumber pile at the end. They had to cut off his watch (he was mad about that) and they originally tried to save his crushed fingers. The reattached them, but the fingers started to die and caused a lot of pain, so he ended up losing two fingers on his right hand. The other two fingers were also injured and limited their movement. While laid up with that hand injury, he managed to injure himself again. We used the fireplace for heat and we needed to cut some wood. Mom couldn't quite get the chainsaw started (she was pregnant at the time), so Dad came out to help. He had his injured hand elevated, put his foot on the chainsaw to keep it from moving, and then used his good hand to pull the cord. At some point, the chainsaw jumped up and bounced off of his good arm, cutting ligaments and tendons inside. Mom rushed him to the hospital. He had surgery and was told he may never be able to use several of his fingers again. Once recovered, he worked hard to get those fingers working. I watched tears roll down his face as he forced the fingers back and forth. He got almost his entire range of motion back! The irony after all this was that worker's comp sent him for retraining since he could no longer work at the mill - they sent him to typing classes!!! He spent his recovery with both hands up in the air and had to have Mom feed him.

When Dad was first out of high school, he worked at the Alpha Beta grocery store while attending community college. Scheduling conflicts ended the job and the attempt at college. For awhile, he worked at a boat-building company in California and built boats for Bob Denver (Gilligan) as well as others. He did some boat building in Oregon, starting his own company, Bluefin Marine. He built 15 ft. fiberglass dories. The wooden mold for the boats used to sit outside collecting water and mosquito larvae (Kathy and I thought they were sea monkeys). When he brought the mold into the garage to do the fiberglass boats, the house stunk like crazy from the resin. Our friend Madeline used to love it when we made cookies while Dad was working on boats. She thought the "fiberglass cookies" tasted great. I think he only made a couple of boats. Dad moved up to Oregon before the rest of us did, finding a job at a sawmill and living out of his car most of the time until we joined him at the house in Bandon. His work at the sawmill ended with his accident. After some time with no work, he worked delivering propane around the area. He even delivered propane to Nick Reynolds, formerly with The Kingston Trio. I believe the propane job ended due to layoffs and never held another job while he lived in Oregon. After moving to Seattle, he attended the Art Institute of Seattle and later worked for a company doing graphic art for souvenirs, shirts, etc. He eventually filed for and was placed on disability, ending his working days.

Dad raised canaries as a boy and he really liked dogs. We had several dogs over the years, but several of them got away or were stolen and the final one, Dirk, we gave away so he would have a more attentive family. We raised chickens for a few years and had a decent supply of eggs. Our attempt at raising rabbits didn't seem to go well. Kathy and I liked dressing up the little bunnies in doll clothes, but we had one mama rabbit that always killed her babies. Dad got fed up one day and we suddenly had rabbit stew for dinner. I once received a cat (from the local shelter) for my birthday. Silver ended up being a mean cat and scratched everyone. We also took in a stray cat named Smoky. Dad was working swing shifts at the time and Mom would leave a plate with his dinner on the table. We made sure to put the cats out, but somehow Silver always found a way back in. She pooped in the bathtub and ate his dinner. One night, Dad couldn't take it anymore and took Silver outside, tossed her in the air, and shot her. Smoky must have seen because he disappeared that night as well. I always thought the cats had run away until Uncle Bob came for a visit and Dad told the story... Dad loved having fish and we had a very elaborate fish tank in California (and I think for awhile in Oregon too). I was told I used to get in trouble for coloring the the aquarium glass.

Dad always seemed to have health struggles. He had rheumatic fever as a child, but never managed to catch chicken pox. He had his first heart bypass when he was in his 30s. Problems with angina and congenitally small blood vessels forced them to pull what they needed from his thigh. He battled intense headaches that must have been migraines. He had bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder and struggled to comply with treatment for those. At one time, I remember he had a tackle box full of medications - for headaches, bipolar, angina, blood pressure, and who knows what else. His alcoholism started early in his life and led to many different problems with his relationships. He did try hard to kick it, going through at least three treatment programs during his life, but he could not overcome it. His motivation in going through the first program was the guilt he felt that Sharon, a pre-schooler at the time, was having to fend for herself since he was sleeping off his hangovers. Dad's smoking was so methodical that it was entertaining. He would be smoking one cigarette and have two more cigs out - one tucked behind each ear. If those were the last in the pack, he would make sure to open the new pack and get it set up so he wouldn't waste time when he needed a new one. I was silly enough a few times as a child to hid his cigarettes. We had one of those assemblies at school and I thought I was saving him. Instead, he sent Mom to the store for more cigarettes. I hid those too and was probably close to dying young when he found out. Until I moved away, I never realized how horrible we all must have smelled with smoke on our clothes.

Everyone (nearly) who met Dad seemed to be intrigued by him. He's a real charmer to talk to and has great stories to tell. I learned a lot from many of his stories even though Kathy and I worked hard to escape when he started lecturing. After his divorce, it seemed that Dad had trouble remember past events accurately. Since that time, I have realized that he probably was having a tough time determining reality in his past. Dad and I had several clashes over these differences in how he saw things. We butted heads even when I was young. Mom used to say it was because we were so much alike. Dad regularly threatened to send me away to a boarding school. Because of Dad's need for control, Kathy and I didn't have very many social opportunities. We only had one friend that was really allowed to come visit and it was hard to get permission to attend school sporting events and stuff. I didn't realize that I had missed out on learning certain social behaviors until I got married. I didn't know to invite people in, offer refreshments, make introductions, etc.

I know Dad adored his Nana and Grandad (from Austrailia) and we was somewhat traumatized by their passing. He was angry at the joyous way people approached funerals and felt hurt when they sang Nan's favorite song at the funeral. When his dad died, he wouldn't let us kids attend because he assumed we would be trumatized like he was.

I'll end this one here and probably add more memories later. There was a lot of good and gad in my dad, and I got to see them both. I think he just felt walled in and weighed down by his mistakes and could see no way out. It's good to look at all the sides of his life to understand how he ended up so alone and why he may have made the choices he did.

When medicine isn't enough

I haven't exactly kept it a secret from anyone that I suffer from Bipolar Disorder. It runs pretty heavily in our family. Formerly called manic-depression, bipolar disorder is a kind of chemical imbalance in the brain which leads to alternating states of depression and mania (euphoria, agitation, risk-taking). Like most other illnesses, it can be managed with medication. I have tried several different kinds of meds to find what works for me. The key is to stabilize the mood swings and take the edge off without hampering thinking, creativity, functioning, etc. Most people who meet me (even some who've known me for years) have no idea that I have this disorder.

Over the years, I have found that there are several components to handling an illness like mine.
1. Face up to the fact there is no cure - you have it and you must now deal with it!
2. I can't manage my life without the aid of medication. People with bipolar often talk themselves out of taking their pills - big mistake!
3. Being open about my illness helps me manage it. Friends and family are often the first to notice when I'm having problems and can help me.
4. Whatever I can't handle, I must trust God to help me with. He's not going to cure me or take my problems from me, but he can give me the strength to go on, the clarity I need for making decisions, and the peace I need so very much.

Right now I am on an emotional rollercoaster. Joy from finding my dad. Anguish from remember the past. Pity from seeing what my dad has become. Deep sorrow at seeing him suffer. Hope when he responds to having his children with him. Sadness when I hear that his condition is deteriorating. This is one of those times where the emotional overload is more than my medication can deal with and I must pray for extra strength. I survived going through this when my mom died, but this almost seems harder.

Trophy

While I was dealing with things in Washington last weekend, Dexter was competing in a debate tournament. He won and got this awesome trophy! He has really been enjoying his debate classes and events this year. Emerson's remembering back to when Squeak used to own the debate floor.

Blessings

Life doesn't always seem fair and that's just the way things work. Many horrible things happen to absolutely wonderful people for no apparent reason. Without going into details, I will just say that I have had my share of bad things happen in my life, especially as a child. It wasn't my fault, yet I had to make a choice of what to do with those experiences. At first, I made some poor choices which led only to more hurt and sorrow. Eventually, I learned to move on with my life, keep the lessons learned, and let go of hurt, anger, etc. I am who I am today because of my experiences - good and bad. It would be easy to be mad at those who hurt me or be mad at God for "letting" it happen, but I do not choose to handle it that way. The concept of the Atonement has helped me to know that someone else has felt my pain and that I can get past it. I can forgive others and go on with my life in peace. Sad memories still exist - forgiveness does not erase the past - but I can look at it in a different way and know that it truly is in the past and I am not a slave to the sadness. Our lives are too precious to be tangled up in old hurts and angry feelings. I look forward to glorious new days and opportunities to be a better person. This weekend I had the wonderful experience of offering the peace of forgiveness to someone in pain. I share this in case any of you are struggling with pain in your own lives and hope you will be able to find your own peace.

A Sad Reunion

It's sad how families often get so spread out that it takes something tragic to bring them together. We found out on Jan. 30 that our dad was critically ill and in the hospital. I haven't seen my dad in person for 22 years and I haven't talked to him since 1999 when my mom passed away. He has made some poor choices in his lifetime, one of them being to stop communicating with his family. He recently befriended an LDS missionary who let us know where Dad was and how sick he was. I flew out to Bremerton, Washington, (Seattle area) to see him. My brothers and sisters all came to the hospital as well. We've had quite a rollercoaster of emotions with locating our dad after all this time and then not knowing if he will survive. Dad's body is shutting down in many ways and he's not very neurologically aware. He did open his eyes some when we talked to him and tears came out of his eyes when we told him we were there. Only time will tell where this goes from here. The prognosis is not good. I have to fly home tomorrow morning. Rick and Holly headed home tonight. Bill and Tina are here until Tuesday. Kathy will probably go home tomorrow. Sharon is staying as long as necessary and being our spokesperson. A lot of blessings and sadness this weekend.

New Year....New Stress

Welcome to 2009! I'm still struggling to put the right year on documents at work (and notes to Dexter's school). Emerson's back into his classes for his special education certification. I think he's especially frustrated with this semester's courses since they focus on teaching reading and math. Good skills to have, of course, but he's a P.E. teacher and it's much more challenging for him to develop lessons to use in his weightlifting classes that incorporate reading and math instruction concepts. The good news is that after this semester, all he has left is his student teaching and the Praxis exam.

Dexter is still looking for a job to pay for his choir tour. His crazy schedule for the play and then the choir's winter concerts ended up costing him his job at the pizza place. Now there are just no jobs to be found. I'm realizing now how hard it is to be in high school, have a job to pay for these great opportunities, and attend all the rehearsals and performances associated with those activities. I'm behind schedule on tour payments myself now that there have been some budget cutbacks at work and I won't be able to earn extra money teaching training classes.

As of today, Dwayne is the proud owner of a netbook (really tiny, lightweight laptop computer without any CD or DVD drives). Sharon gave him her laptop for Christmas, but it turned out to be woefully inoperable. He already had his brain geared up for having a laptop, so he just had to get something. Dwayne now has Sundays off so he can prepare for his mission. That dropped him to part time and then they cut another one of his shifts because of the budget cuts at work. He is the first to be called to fill in for people, though. He had a few early mornings this week to fill in for the baker.

I have been coming up with plans to reorganize our church library - not physically, but organizationally. The checkout sheets are doing absolutely no good since people forget to bring stuff back to the library and nobody can figure out who had it last. I stocked up the library with a lot of stuff near the end of the summer, but now it's all gone! Crayons, scissors, chalk & erasers, pencils...probably at the bottom of people's church bags. So frustrating!!! We're restocking again and I'm working on a plan for tracking things better. Three wards use this library and we all need the supplies.

We are in the middle of an exciting time at Heritage - our Joint Commission survey. As a behavioral health care facility, we work hard to be accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Every 2-3 years, they send some people to visit in person to check up on us. It's a three day process where paperwork, policies, files, and buildings get examined thoroughly to see if they meet the standards. People at every level of the treatment process get interviewed. I'm normally not involved in this since my job doesn't relate directly to the treatment of our clients, but we had a personnel change with who handles making sure we comply with all policies and standards. I've been helping her with a lot of different projects to get ready for this survey. The surveyors arrived Tuesday morning and people have been scrambling ever since. It's actually a very helpful process, but nobody enjoys being put on the spot and having their mistakes pointed out. I even got interviewed this morning about the results of our client satisfaction survey. Tomorrow is the last day and they will give us their report with any warnings, recommendations, etc. after they finish meeting with our management team. I think I'll miss the chaos when they're gone since I've kind of enjoyed running around making copies, locating items, delivering documents, creating documents, and providing the occaisional stress relief for everyone around me.

Christmas Joy

Nothing says Christmas like love at home. I'll never be too old to crawl around on the floor and play with our dogs. Dexter snapped this picture and the dogs kept trying to climb on me and lick my face. They are still fascinated by the snow and love to play in it. When I open the door, though, they run inside fast! The heater is close to their beds in the living room and they love to bask in the warmth.

Since Dwayne has a job, he had fun buying presents on his own with his own money. That large stack of presents in front of the tree is all his. He was very generous and we are proud of him for all the time and effort he put into purchasing gifts. Everything was absolutely perfect!

Dwayne had to be at work at 9 am, so we had an early start on unwrapping presents. After he's done whipping up a fabulous Christmas dinner for the kids at Heritage, he'll be coming home to play with all his new toys.

The boys got creative with their gift wrapping. Dwayne added drawings and captions to the wrapping paper. Dexter takes the ultimate prize. He wrapped his gift to his dad completely in duct tape, including a duct tape bow. Beautiful and manly!!

Dwayne and Dexter have rediscovered Rubik's cubes and are pretty good at solving them. Dwayne's gift to Dexter was a 5X5 cube which has Dexter completely perplexed! In this picture, Dexter is also modeling the coat we gave him. He loves it and we're hoping that means he will actually wear a coat.

Dwayne decided to be goofy for the picture, but he really did like all of his presents. Dexter gave him an emergency kit for his car (including jumper cables), but Dwayne didn't remember to take it with him when he left for work. He needed a jump start to get home from work last night, so that may have been a poor choice to leave the cables behind today.
I had one of the most wonderful Christmases ever. With the declining economy, it was nice to see people scale back and really think about the gifts they're giving. It was a relief that more neighbors just said "Merry Christmas" and didn't leave us with plates of candies and cookies. The gifts I received were wonderfully chosen and I felt like each person really knew me and what I liked. Emerson gave me the most incredible set of jewelry, the most beautiful I own or will probably ever own! Santa got me the "Mama Mia" DVD (singalong version) although the family says I'm not allowed to sing along. Dwayne gave me a heart-shaped jewelry box, some sterling silver earrings, and a gold and silver heart necklace. Sharon made me a beautiful and very warm scarf (pictured). Kathy got us a fun family game to play on the Wii. Dwayne gave Emerson an XBox 360 and Dex gave him Gears of War 2 so they can network game systems together and play against each other on different tv's (don't ask me how all that works). It's snowing outside and soon we'll have to find our sidewalk again. It looks beautiful, but we'll be buried in it soon enough.

This year I have thought a lot about Christmases past. Emerson and I have now celebrated 21 Christmases together. Our first Christmas was celebrated at his mom's house and his brothers were embarasssed when I opened a nightgown that was labeled as being from them (courtesy of their mom). The tree at our apartment was the cheapest we could find and it was so crooked we had to weigh it down on one side so it wouldn't fall over. We decorated it with our stuffed animals since we couldn't afford any ornaments. Then there was the year that Emerson gave me his mom's rocking chair for Christmas (I was pregnant with Dexter) and I gave him a used La-Z-Boy chair I bought from a friend. We both stored our special presents at the babysitter's house and she had to keep the secret. Emerson was too sick to enjoy Christmas day much and our tree was all dried out already and we got rid of it by the end of the day. Needles were all over the place! Last year was fun with both of my sisters here. I also loved the year Grandma Myers came out and we had my entire side of the family here (even Dan and Andrea). I remember Christmas mornings when I was a kid and how we had to have breakfast before opening presents. I also remember how Kathy and I were a profession gift unwrapping and rewrapping team so we could sneak peaks at our presents before Christmas. Dad used to go pretty crazy spending a lot on gifts and we spent most of the year paying them off. I'm much happier with the more sentimental gifts, the creative ones, and the handmade ones. Every ornament on our tree has a meaning to me - the Garfield and Odie ones that were our first ornaments as a couple, the baby's first Christmas ones for each boy, ones the boys made, ones from friends and neighbors, the cool Native inspired ones Loren gave us, the free ornaments from Black Friday sales at RC Willey, Mervyn's, and JC Penneys, the Broncos ornaments, the fishing boats from the tree we dedicated to my mom, the ornaments Kathy made for us each year, the beaded ones I picked up this year in Phoenix..... I hope the memories of these Christmases last on and on...

Who Says Mormons Aren't Funny?

A friend sent me this video clip from You Tube. It is from a church talent show and the men are doing a synchronized swimming routine. I laughed so hard when I saw it and I just had to share. Part of me is jealous of their creativity...

Facebook

All four of us have Facebook pages now. Dwayne and Dexter still refuse to be my friends, but I have found plenty of others who wish to be identified with me. It has been a fun way to keep up with friends and family and I have managed to get back in touch with friends from 20-30 years ago. I have gotten a little addicted to some of the games you can play on there. Kathy and I are probably a little too into some of the applications where you grow plants, adopt pets, decorate trees, send presents, etc. in that little make-believe environment. Right now we even have a George family scrabble game going.