Another - Blended Not Shaken

Part II...The Reward...

The Reward is not exactly the book’s happy-ending because decades later, we’re still living it.

Hence our reward isn’t so much an ultimate goal as it is a harvesting of sporadic events that occur over the passing months and years. Life’s rewards in general are often curious unplanned events, with tiny moments of connection that surface quite naturally… 

OUR FIRST SIX MONTHS…

Amazing-accident comes to mind as I reflect on our first half-year amalgamated together in wedded cloud nine.

It may not happen to you – but be prepared. Fashioning a new family with people and the [residue] of issues from a former marriage can sometimes feel like a major renovation project.

By nature, I had always strived to keep life’s crisis to a manageable count. I functioned so much better with just one predicament at a time. Before remarrying I had prided myself on that accomplishment.

There are people who are naturals - or become emergency octopi. Our police, firefighters, teachers, military and medical personnel are trained to handle multi-source disasters. Remarrying parents could be added to that list, but they get no prior training.

To survive the trials of a new relationship that comes equipped with both his and hers offspring requires the endurance of a foot soldier, with the patience of a missionary.

As each calendar page of our first six months together flipped over – some incredibly enjoyable lifestyle patterns emerged that held for years – tossed in with some incredibly testy events which thankfully did not.

We merged furniture from my three-bedroom townhouse moved from Alberta in with Keith’s furniture from his two-bedroom duplex. The process was reminiscent of Sherman’s advance into Atlanta – with much less organization.

We parked on the driveway of the house Keith found large enough for all of us to share, at 10PM - Friday, August 24^th just ahead of the moving truck.

At 10:47PM everyone shot visual daggers between the packed thirty-foot truck and the lit empty house. But there was no escape. To be able to release the truck prior to midnight it was all-hands-on-deck…Mutiny would need to wait until after everything was unloaded. We had beds and I was sure I could find the box of sheets and blankets.

Like most traumatic events that night remains a blur – most likely because everyone moved at the speed of a blur. If there isn’t a Guinness world record for fastest time unloading a furniture-moving truck with the help of three cranky offspring, there should be. By 11:33PM the truck was empty.

The state of our house was an entirely different matter. We didn’t even try looking for the box of bed linens. Dressers had gone into random bedrooms on both the upper and lower floor. Dining, kitchen, living room and family room furniture pieces were jumbled between rows of boxes stacked from floor to ceiling.

Mattresses had been tossed onto mismatched box springs set on the floor in various bedrooms. Everyone found one then fell asleep on top, still dressed.   

The following morning with meager supplies from our suitcases, we were able to shower and go for breakfast – then over to Keith’s duplex. There was more furniture and more packed boxes – too much to even consider moving to the blended-house that day. In fact, it was another four days before there was any space for some of Keith’s furniture and even then, most of his boxes went into the garage.

Labor Day came and went and suddenly it was September. Thirteen years out of practice Keith was thrust back into the parent-teacher scene, with all of the confusion, expenses and surprises back to school brings. He was flustered as he mentally juggled a new household that had blossomed from two to six – with three of our blended four, returning to three different schools simultaneously.

T-h-e-n just after we had moved into the house Keith received word the shopping center project, he had worked on for over a year fell through. Paul needed first semester tuition and books. The following week Patrick announced he wanted to join his junior high school band and would need a saxophone. The week after that Gail announced she had joined her high school Flag-Line and she needed a uniform.

Concern over how well Gail and Patrick would adjust to the abrupt move to a new country, state, city, and school – made my daily commute to Denver even more taxing.

Patrick, funny, easy going and social soon began to look at this move as an adventure. Two days into his first week in junior high he brought home two new chums who remained his friends for several years.

Gail, who didn’t stop hating me until well into grade eleven, was far more torn about this move and her mother’s sanity for making it. Thankfully, within a few days she was quickly pulled into a segment of the local high school’s mainstream by her new cousin [daughter of one of Keith’s brothers] who was a senior at the same school.

David, struggling to find any point to his senior year, was a daily worry too.

Regardless of what was – or was not happening each day – it soon became apparent that one of the most essential possessions we owned was our double-leafed, seven-foot, very seasoned Maplewood dining room table. It became our ‘roundtable’ if you will, centered in a rather foggy Camelot buffeted by outside eruptions and tested by its distinctive crew of residence within.

In the midst of this stew, Keith like Mark Twain and Stephen Leacock, was a consummate storyteller. Food may have brought both clan and company to the table, but Keith’s retelling of anecdotes from his childhood in Nebraska [Our Gang meets American Graffiti] kept them there.

Added to his youth stories were Keith’s early career years at the coroner’s office in Los Angeles and later his trucking company, transporting antique cars – then to commercial real estate, making those accounts a combination of Night-Shift, Cannon Ball Run and Back To School.

With Keith’s story-time our early evening stage was essentially set for discussions on a myriad of topics. Nothing was out of bounds: the embalming techniques of ancient Egyptians, world religions, political corruption, personal ethics, sex, car design, fashion - whatever… Anything in the dictionary.

By October I found two other commuters to form a small carpool. Pablo [attorney], Paula [audiologist]. The three of us hit it off and became so close over the years that long after of our commuting stopped, we remained valued friends to this day.

Gail who wailed at me that she “had no friends” brought home a classmate one night for dinner. The girl was one of two other students new to the school and new to our town too.

My townhouse in Alberta still hadn’t sold, which concerned Keith and me for two reasons. The townhouse was empty, and it was costing us additional monthly expenses besides the bigger Colorado house and Keith’s office rent.

Canadian Thanksgiving [1^st Monday in October] came and went uncelebrated, but thankfully Halloween was the same for the northern transplants.

We had our first formal dinner guests, others besides the regular kids who followed our kids home from school most days. Several of Keith’s childhood school friends had married each other after college. Ken and Lucy were two particular favorites of his. One Friday morning Ken telephoned Keith. He and Lucy decided on the spur of the moment to drive from Nebraska to Colorado for the weekend to meet the blended-members of Keith’s new family.

Typically, there were several people at our house on any given day, at any given time, except on that particular Friday. Keith was away for an afternoon meeting, Gail was at Flag-Line practice and Paul had left for his part time job directly from his college classes.

The sole occupant of the house was Patrick, who, I interrupted at a crucial point, during a particularly intense Nintendo game. My phone call had caused his hero to die! Anyway, Patrick was my only resource…

Prior to our move to Colorado, Gail [whose specialty is still desserts] had always readied our evening vegetables. My part was the fish or meat dish while Patrick was my salad chef. This dinner was to be his first solo full course meal – for ten people.

Over the phone from my office [like an air traffic controller talking a disoriented pilot through blinding snow] I led Patrick through a culinary storm. He washed and wrapped potatoes for baking. The Caesar salad he could do sleepwalking. Then I talked him through the mixing of hamburger with finely chopped onion, eggs, spices and breadcrumbs for a large meatloaf to bake, followed by cleaning and chopping carrots to boil. And the kid-came-through!

Gail arrived home in time to help Patrick finish setting the table. Keith came home to the aroma of a perfect meatloaf roasting in the oven. I made it home just in time to greet and meet Lucy and Ken and sit down to eat with everyone. To this day Patrick’s-meatloaf ranks as one of the finest to have ever come from our kitchen. [Lucy and Ken were impressed.]

In November, a second joint-venture project Keith had also been working on for several months fell apart.

Keith’s ex-wife called frequently, with concerns she had over how David was dealing with his senior high school year.

My area in geology had become computer mapping and graphics in oil exploration and development. But the Denver office was much smaller than the Calgary head office and I was not as busy, nor as challenged.

Patrick announced his band teacher was an idiot.

Gail was so miserable and home-sick it was difficult to get a smile from her most days.

We celebrated our first American Thanksgiving, in Nebraska. We drove to Keith’s hometown where his mother [widowed two years before] cooked a feast that made the transplanted Canadians feel welcome.

And as much as I attempted order and predictability – even a little would have been nice – it was like trying to net-air. It rarely happened.

Preparing our regular evening meal was always a juggle. But with assistance from my ‘crew’ at home-base, we developed a system of sorts. Keith was the barbeque and broiler cook. Paul had almost chef status. From him we never even had typical grilled cheese!

David had limitations. He made toast, on weekends and gathered condiments for the dinner table during the week. Patrick was our go-to salad guy. Gail would prep vegetables but preferred to prepare the grand finale with anything for dessert, except pies.

Keith cooked at least one evening meal each week with Gail and Patrick assisting. Paul would cook something amazing one night a week, so long as I gave him at least two days warning so he could assemble his ingredients. Everyone, always looked forward to Paul’s meals. However, the kitchen generally resembled the aftermath of trampled prairie grass after stampeding buffalo.

December had always been a big event for Gail, Patrick and me. As was our tradition we cranked up the volume on the stereo to the Muppets Christmas album then launched right into a baking frenzy.

Keith had long since ceased to pay much attention to that particular season, but Paul was game for anything learning to make minced tarts. My mother [widowed eight years before] and one of my younger brothers came for the holidays. Gail and Patrick returned to Alberta for Christmas and New Years with their father, and paternal grandparents.

We discovered that Paul had not been attending his college classes for several weeks. Because he didn’t know how to tell us that college was not for him, he just kept leaving the house each morning as if he was still in school.

It was a bittersweet month…It was my first Christmas without my children since they were born. However, because their father had graciously given up even far more, I had to let them go with a smile and outward calm.

I was worried about Keith’s business. I had serious misgivings as well about the state of my Denver job – due to the fractured management style of the American office.

We were concerned about Paul leaving college and even more troubled over David’s aimless outlook toward his future.

I had finally sold my two-story townhouse. It was wonderful to see my mother and brother. I introduced the American side of the family to minced tarts and fruitcake neither of which impressed Keith or David.

Thanks to Gail and Patrick we had dozens of gingerbread as well as green and red sugar cookies all generously iced and decorated. I have no idea why we all didn’t die – we ate so shamelessly.

January, 1991 arrived with more storms to rock our boat. Gail returned with Patrick even more miserable. After spending time with friends she’d known since kindergarten, hearing them talk about teachers and new friends, she could not relate to – she felt as if she didn’t belong anywhere, anymore.

Paul took a fulltime job at a local grocery store. [We hoped stocking shelves might send him back to college faster than anything we could say.] David’s relationship with almost everyone was a virtual retreat, so we invited him to join us on our long-awaited honeymoon to Phoenix, Arizona.

With the opportunity for Keith and David to spend time together and for David and I to get to know each other better -, we made a discovery.

David’s mother had separated from her second husband and that reality affected him deeply. Keith’s wife remarried when David was eight and over the years he had bonded with his stepfather, hunting, fishing, camping. The loss of that ‘other-father’ figure in his life was the loss of another important person to him that set up a thick emotional wall of ‘caution’ regarding anyone that he met connected to re-marriage.

Some household routines evolved. Every Sunday after brunch, I attempted to round-up our young folk [they were evasive] sending them to their rooms. Their mission was to gather up and return all cutlery, glasses and dishes that had been taken to other corners besides the kitchen during the previous week.

As well the boys were to clean their rooms and the shared bathroom downstairs, while Gail tidied her room and the main bathroom. [The oil spill cleanup from the Exxon Valdese went smoother!]

Quick jokes, verbal retorts and outgoing personalities were not the only traits Paul and Patrick had in common. Despite the ten-year age gap, they shared several near life-threatening quirks. Under no circumstances did we ever send a house guest into their bathroom. Managed by those two, that particular room was almost an environmental incident.

After relocating his office operations to the house, at one end of the lower level – the boy’s bathroom was more convenient, for Keith but he refused to cross the threshold even with a hazard suit.

There were rather strange shapes of unrecognizable matter in random patches on the ceiling, walls, floor, mirror and shower. No two patches of matter appeared to be the same. Patrick and Paul were unfazed.

Regardless we armed them with everything we found in the cleaning section of our local market that clearly displayed a large ‘caustic’ warning on the label. With rubber gloves for them both we ordered them to seek and destroy – then keep it that way.

In the ensuing months with David onboard, he was constantly rescuing that tiny forgotten room. It was likely due to David’s efforts that his brothers didn’t develop some form of life-threatening illness.

February was not the classic stuff of Valentines for this newly remarried couple…Aw, but spring in Colorado [much later for Alberta] was just around the corner. A-n-d, here and there we actually glimpsed some light from time to time.

We took Gail in hand, explaining to her that if she felt she didn’t have any friends – then perhaps that responsibility was hers. We went through several of the clubs and organizations the school sponsored. She decided to try the Booster Club and the Dance Club – both of which she enjoyed right up to her senior graduation!

We were continually working with Paul, who was very artistic and gifted, but very impractical. He was chronically broke even though he worked fulltime, his car was his only expense, and he still lived at home rent free.   

Keith developed a revised business plan to restructure his business direction.

So it went… the Reader’s Digest version of our first six months. Just so you don’t get the idea ours was a warm and fuzzy version of The Walton’s script – with divorce and remarriage thrown in.

Ours was real-life. And some days it was more real than we would have liked. However, call us demented - there was plenty of optimism, liberally flavored with laughter. [Or perhaps it was controlled hysteria…]

MY NOTES…

·         Those first six to eighteen months can feel like you’re chasing hundreds of important pages tossed by a strong wind;

·         You may also discover you have a reserve of some pretty incredible abilities;

·         Earth is a tricky school. Just when you overcome one test – unknown to you that was a graduation!  The Universe then congratulates you with yet another challenge…Nice.

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