Ding of Joy

Goodness unbounded

3 Parts:  Cookie monster,  Medical catch and throw,  The G Man, aka the hummingbird 

Part 1: Cookie monster

I made spicy ginger molasses cookies today. If you don’t know, I like to bake. I like the process, the smell, the creativity, the eating and the giving them away. Today I added some stem ginger syrup and bits, and some cayenne pepper. 🙂.  Oh, yes, they are good. These two have extra stem ginger on top. Thanks M!

My main intent is to give the cookies away. So, to start, I packed up seven sets of six, got on my bike and headed in to school. Even though school is out they are still working in the front office today and I thought they needed a little boost of thanks. Well received! Some were consumed immediately and some will be snacks on the drive to the S.J. Airport this evening. 

I had three little packs left so I went over to the resale shop that’s associated with the school. We usually forget about them since they’re not in the middle of our daily school/kids action. I walked in and looked around for the manager, K… It was busy. The busiest I’ve seen it and I already counted way too many workers and volunteers for the number of cookies I brought. Dang.

I head over to K and see that she and another employee are talking with a woman. The woman is animated, agitated. Based on appearance and her disheveled look, most likely homeless. The woman was making claims that the employees were not being honest, how did she even know they were employees, where were their badges, how could they know what’s going on in her head, maybe I work here how would you even know if I was telling the truth or not, you can’t make me leave I’m going to leave on my own when I want to, … , and the stream of thought words continued.  K and the employee were calm and patient and waited and tried to talk to her. There was kindness there. They weren’t mean. Eventually K walked away and pulled out her phone to call the police. The noise and commotion were disturbing other customers and was becoming more heated. Sigh. 

As K was on the phone, the woman left. The line to dispatch was busy. No one was coming.

I walked over to K. She was calming down the employee, but also had tears in her eyes. After a moment I offered her the cookies and said, “I think you all are going to need these”.  She smiled, took them and then needed a moment and walked to the back. I gave her a few minutes and then went to find her. She was in her office area recovering from tears. I gave her a hug and we talked a little. She said the homeless have been coming in more often and it’s hard because you want to help them. You want to make their life better, but they can just be disruptive and mean. Normally, she said, it doesn’t get to her this much but it did today. 

I had flashbacks of working in customer service and receiving all of the escalated phone issues. Oh, they could be nasty. I almost brought it up but thought better of it. This isn’t about me. Then I said something like, “You do develop a turtle shell that protects you from the emotions of stuff like this, but sometimes they will sneak through and get to you”.  She smiled.  Then she gave me two computers for e-waste. That K is all business!   

A few hours later she sent me a text thank you for the cookies.  I think they were able to share the 18 cookies reasonably. 

Part 2: Medical catch and throw

Oye, today’s medical stuff is a pain.  It feels like some bizarre circus act. 

I am supposed to get a new referral for PT, but it’s just not going through. Sent to the wrong place… then not sent to the right place. It’s a phone call juggle game I don’t have much patience for. I think I’m at 8 calls so far.

In the meantime my actual physical therapist emailed me and said I could just come in while we’re waiting for the referral. She’s worried my issues will worsen with missed treatments and would rather have me just come in off the books for a quick stretching torture than wait. Well okay, she didn’t say “stretching torture”.  Anyway… So cool she reached out. I thanked her. That’s the way it should be.

Part 3: The G Man aka The Hummingbird 

Sometimes folks tell me I’m fabulous. Nah. I’m just me. I definitely make mistakes and I’m seriously selfish about certain things when it comes down to it. The following is about a truly fabulous fellow. Not all of it may be true, but it’s as I know it.

When I was a wee lad I would sometimes visit Ben who lived on the other side of town. One day we were playing in his backyard. It was a giant green expanse of grass that stretched totally across his backyard and also across his neighbors backyard. He said it was okay to play in both. I wasn’t so sure. I looked in the back window of the house and saw a looming shadow watching us. “Oh that’s just G”.  He’s fine with us playing here. I had a real feeling of unrest in that moment that I still remember pretty clearly. 

I think it was G’s son that gave me the feeling. He was also in the house. Or it may just be that his presence was still in the house. I learned later that the son committed suicide.  

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Fast forward a few years. My parents divorced while I was in middle school. I lived alone with my mom since my brother and sister were both in college… and my mom started dating. Oh, I was not nice to the first few that came through. Not nice at all. 

I don’t remember when she started dating G. I may have been in college at the time. But he passed the test. He was annoying, but he passed. He was divorced. His ex still in town. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect the death of the son had something to do with their split.  Hard, life is. 

Annoying, you ask?  Well yeah. And he’s still annoying. Lovingly annoying. Whenever I would visit my mom and even though I had lived in that house with my mom for many years and was very aware of her fabulous garden he would insist on taking me on a “garden tour”. “Oh it’s fabulous” “It’s beautiful” “You’ve just got to see”.  The weather could be horrible. “Garden tour!”  You couldn’t say no.  He would insist until you gave in. 

If music was involved, beware the triangle. It would come out and he would play a ding of joy. Somehow he managed to have guest appearances with a variety of orchestras or other groups. He knew everyone and would bring his triangle with him to almost every event. If he had a chance, he would join in to play a single triangle note… sometimes they let him.

My first real insight into who G really is came when I would hear these stories of how he was going over to his ex’s house to fix the roof. Or he was going to another friend’s house to help with something else. He was always off doing something to help someone. If his son called from San Fran and needed something he’d hop in his car and drive from Oly to SF just to help out. Yes, really. That’s who G is. 

He and my mother were together for many years. They attended more plays, musicals, concerts, operas, and local productions than you could possibly imagine. It had to be at least 3 a week for many many years.

And then they broke up. He moved out. We were all shocked. I know some of what happened but it’s not my story to tell. 

He moved on. Bought a house.  Somewhere in here his second son died.  His daughter is a little younger than me and lives near him, with a couple of kids of her own. 

I should say a bit more about G. He’s like… smart.  Super smart. Yet humble and funny and more hyper than… oh man. I can’t even think of an example.  More hyper than a hummingbird. I think he was head engineer for multiple highway bridges in the state of Washington. Some of them, quite major.  Every day, thousands of lives are in the hands of things he’s made. Yet, when you meet him in person you wonder if he’s off his rocker. Hyper. Disjointed. Always going.  

But he still helped my mom out even after they split. He would still give garden tours. He was still there. Intrinsically there. Even after he got a new woman friend. He still came by to make sure my mother was okay. Regularly. 

When my mom started having memory issues and we had to move her into a memory facility he helped. He visited often and would love to come with one of us three kids when we came by for a visit. He was still there.  He even let me stay at his place when I came up to Washington from California. 

When my mom’s issues got worse and she was moved to a full on Alzheimer's lock down facility he still kept visiting. Regularly. The staff all knew who G was. He had the run of the place. He would take her for walks. He would get her out and about. He certainly did far more for her than I ever did. I am sure he visited her more than any other person. Maybe more than all of us combined. 

When my mom fell and broke her hip and had it replaced but didn’t have the memory ability to go through PT and relearn how to walk, he still kept coming by.  He would push her around in her wheelchair and talk and talk and tell jokes and play her music and oh my god… I think I’m crying just thinking about his dedication. 

And in the meantime he has his own girlfriend. He has his own daughter and grand-kids that he is doting on. He has his own health issues. He is still the hummingbird. I talked to C, his girlfriend, and she’s like - “oh, he’s so all over the place it drives me crazy if he stays home” “I love that he goes out and sees your mom”  and then she lists off a bunch of other people. He is the magical hummingbird.

At my mother’s memorial service we gave him some special “open ended” time to speak.  He took full advantage with a series of random seemingly disjointed stories filled with fun and laughter and love that somehow all came together in the end. If a random person had walked in they surely would have thought, “who the hell is this guy” but everyone in the crowd knew him and loved every word.  I believe there were at least 3 dings of joy. “Oh, just one more.” 

My mother was in memory facilities for about 12 years. They “split” several years before that. He was there the whole way. He never asked for thanks. Never asked for anything. 

To you G Man - a ding of joy.