Steven Harper Piziks

I haven't blogged much lately, though lots has been happening. It's like that spoon analogy. I only have so many spoons every day to lift stuff with, and by the time I think about updating this blog, I don't have any spoons left.

I'm the administrator of my brother Paul's estate. It's not a job I ever thought I'd have. It's certainly not one I want. But it must be done, and I'm the person in our family who is closest to Oakland County, where Paul lived. The job requires multiple trips to the courthouse, you see. So many forms, so many little jobs, so many people and businesses to talk to. It's daunting and draining and it's a continual reminder that my brother died. This takes up a lot of spoons.

I decided early on that I would do One Thing Per Day. That'll hopefully prevent me from burning out. Sometimes I break that rule, but mainly it lets me be okay for not plowing through every single thing that I =could= do on a given day. It lets me give myself a break.

This job isn't a labor of love. It's a labor of grief.

In the meantime, we have The Short Version of what's going on right now:

--My seniors have taken their exams already. They're done with school! This means I only teach one class of freshmen per day. (!) This makes my life easier in so many ways, as you might imagine, especially since I have all this estate stuff to handle now.

--On the day the seniors came in to pick up their caps and gowns, a large group of young men who I swear hated me--they seemed to delight in making class difficult--stampeded into my classroom wearing their gowns and booming, "We're gonna miss you, Mr. Piziks!" "This was my favorite class!" "I'll never forget you!" and such, and I was thinking, "Then why did you make life so difficult for me?" It's the way many teenagers shows affection, I suppose. It was both strange and uplifting.

--I did Paul's taxes. I was secretly hoping it would only take an hour or so. It took five, and basically wiped out an entire Saturday. The experience left me drained and exhausted.

--The results of my cancer biopsy came back. The cancerous lesion hasn't moved or grown since last time, so I don't need treatment. Additionally, the oncologist decided my risk of problems was so low that I was demoted to seeing the physician's assistant now. So ... yay!!

--The results of my latest kidney stone x-ray came back. When they showed up in my patient portal, the physician reading the x-ray reported "multiple" stones 4mm or larger on both sides. This freaked me out. Six months ago, I had two tiny stones, and that was it. So I was terrified I'd need more of the treatments that sent me to a therapist. But when I met with my urologist, he said he disagreed with the reading. "I don't know what he was looking at," he said, "but I only see the same two small stones you had before. Nothing's changed, and these stones aren't going to cause problems anytime soon. See you in six months." So ... yay!!

--After Paul's funeral and before my biopsy, I took a getaway weekend to Cleveland for a change of scene and to settle myself with some alone time. Why Cleveland? I overnighted there in order to fly out for my Hawaii trip last February, and said to myself, "This place looks pretty interesting. I should come back and explore it a little more." So I did. I biked some trails and slept late and visited the most amazing food market and bought the most amazing food and generally did my best to unwind. It was a nice trip, and I'm glad I went.

--I finally started writing again. It was difficult, honestly. I felt like I had forgotten how, and kept putting it off. But finally I did. I wrote more of the fantasy novel my Dear Agent is marketing samples for and surprised myself by finishing more than two thousand words in one sitting. I've also started an SF short story because I've decided to renew my campaign to get into the Big Three--F&SF, Asimov's, and Analog. I've gotten a lot better at short stories recently. They're more powerful and punchier now than my earlier work. I think it's a function of age and experience. It's nice to know I haven't peaked as a writer yet.

Life moves forward.

My dear friend Diana Rivis passed away on December 27. It was a sharp blow. She had a number of health issues and was getting on, as we like to say, but still. I have a hard time understanding that she's gone. Her passing has left a hole in the world.

Diana was born in 1950 and saw quite a lot in her life. She looked like a harmless little grandma who would happily serve you cookies and pizza rolls (and she did), but every now and then she'd drop something about her life on you like an anvil. "When I was sharing an apartment with a drag queen, we used to ... " "At that time, I was working box office for the porn theater and ... " "Oh, this original sketch by [enormously famous artist]? I got that back in the seventies from a former lover who ... " "I won't be at group this week--I'm in Cancun with my friends," all delivered with cheerful honesty. She attended my and Darwin's wedding, and when a raucous game of Cards Against Humanity broke out, she joined right in.

She joined the Untitled Writers Group several years ago, and in no time at all, she was hosting meetings. Ironically, she joined just after I moved away from Ypsilanti--her house was only a couple blocks away from my old one. She wrote both fantasy and science fiction and was working on an urban fantasy novel when she died. 

Her health started to decline in recent years. She was in and out of the hospital. I gave her the occasional ride and was one of her network of helpers with her cats. She had cats who stayed inside and two semi-feral outdoor cats she set up heated shelters and a feeding station for. (The cats are being cared for.) 

Diana hosted the most recent live meeting of the UWG, happy that her health had improved to the point where she could do it. When the meeting ended and the team cleaning up was finished, I gave Diana a hug, kissed her on the temple, and said, "Love you, darlin'." "I love you, too," she replied.

It was the last time we spoke.

 Today Darwin and I revved up the Yuletide season, the first one in our new house! I baked a pile of piragi for our family gathering next weekend (including ones filled with Nutella and ones filled with raspberry, as well as the traditional ham) and some banana bread just because I could. Then we put up the tree and strewed the living room with lights and decorations. Afterward, thanks to the magic of streaming, we decided to watch SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN ("Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you are walkin' 'cross the floo-ooo-ooor!') and the George C. Scott version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which is the best one, in our opinion. It was a cozy day!

The day before a long weekend, a lot of teachers go for a more low-key day, partly because we're as tired as the students, and partly because absence rates are really high and you don't want to teach something new, only to have to re-teach it for all the students who missed it.

So I ran a low-key day. My seniors were great. We did some reviewing of previous material with online games, listened to a radio version of the book we're reading, and did some drawing of literary scenes. It was very relaxed and fun. Then my ninth graders showed up. They were monsters all class, some of the worst behavior I've seen all year. Immature and bad decisions that bordered on malicious. I was really upset with them, and it was a sucky way to end what had, until then, been a really nice day. I was glad to see the class end.

I have sixth hour prep, and normally I would have ducked out early, but we had a Gay/Straight Alliance meeting after school (we meet every other Wednesday, and this was an "other" Wednesday), so I had not only to stay, but stay late. I thought the meeting would be dead, with maybe three or four students, but we had a full house. All the active members came! I was a little mystified at this--didn't everyone want to get out for the long weekend?--but then I remembered how high schoolers see it.

To a teacher, an after-school meeting is work, and it's much the same as running a class (though the students are better-behaved). More work is the last thing you want on a Friday or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. But the students see a group meeting as fun time. It's social time and time to unwind with friends. It's the kind of thinking that eventually leads to Happy Hour when they're adults. 

The meeting went very nicely, and it was good to get the taste of my freshmen's bad behavior out of my mouth, but as the time for the meeting to end drew near, a lot of them were lingering. Under normal circumstances, I'd've let them, but today I wanted to go home, so I gently shooed them out the door.

By the time I got to the parking lot, it was nearly 3:30, and on the way home, I got caught in the "I'm sneaking out early today" traffic, so it took a LONG time to get home. I was late, in fact, for my online counseling session, but was able to hook up with the therapist anyway.

In the end, it was after 6:00 before I got any downtime. I should have gone for a run, but I said screw it and slacked off.

But the day wasn't done yet. Thanksgiving prep had to begin...

After I moved away from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, I forgot about ... Game Days.

If you aren't a football fan (and I'm not), Game Days in the hometown of the University of Michigan are a strange combination of locking down and scurrying out.

See, the Big House (the local nickname for the UofM stadium) holds up to 114,000 people. Most of those 114,000 people come from out of town. This means most of those 114,000 people flood the local highways and roads. The entire day before the game begins, no one can go anywhere. The highways (and there are three of them--four if you count I-275) become parking lots. Every street within five miles of the Big House is backed up. I'm always amazed that anyone manages to get to the game at all.

And then all 114,000 of these people need a place to park. The lot at the stadium fills up a day beforehand (seriously--people actually CAMP OUT in the parking lot). All the street parking within a mile of the stadium becomes engorged. The people who live near the Big House make a cottage industry of charging people to park on their front lawns. PARK HERE! shout the home-made signs. $100 FOR THE DAY! And people pay it. The high schools rent out their parking lots and shuttle buses ferry people to the game. The local supermarkets don't get in on this action, but their lots are full anyway--fans park for free at Kroger or Meijer, then try to get an Uber or Lyft driver to the stadium. If you work for either company, you want to be out there on Game Day.

Of course, all these people want to be fed. Every restaurant and bar in both towns is packed to the gills on Game Day. The takeout places are stacked with orders. Between demand and clogged streets, a pizza delivery won't arrive for at least three hours.

We non-fans keep an eye on Game Day, too. We have calendars and red-ink reminders: GAME DAY! DON'T FORGET! and MY GOD, WATCH OUT FOR GAME DAY! This isn't because we care about the game. We care about getting stuck. Before the game, we non-fans stay home, with the doors locked and the windows barred and the lights off. We huddle in the basement while the fans thunder through our city overhead. We don't make plans. We don't even venture outside. Instead, we wait. This is the lock down portion of Game Day, and it bites football cleats.

But then ... then ... the game begins. And a hush falls over the city. Everyone is in the Big House. The streets and highways are clear. Restaurants and bars and stores are empty. Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti become ghost towns. This is when we non-fans have our time. Like Morlocks at sunset, we creep outside and do anything we want! Eating! Shopping! Entertaining! We have THE WHOLE TOWN TO OURSELVES because everyone else is either at the game or watching it at home.

The cool part, though? All the retails places are fully staffed. They schedule all the workers for Game Day because they get slammed before the game. Then, during the game, the workers repair the damage and await the post-game second rush. So when we non-fans go into such places, we find a lot of staff who are just dying to wait on us. It's lovely! This is the scurry portion of Game Day.

Smart non-fans keep the game running on their cell phone or radio, not because we care about the game--again, we don't--but because we need to know how it's progressing. When the fourth quarter starts, the non-fans scurry back home and hide in the basement again, though now we're nicely fed and fully stocked. For three or four hours after the game, the streets and highways and bars and restaurants are clogged again, and we don't dare go anywhere. But we don't need to because we've already done what we need to do.

I lived in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area for twenty years, and this was the circle of life. Every autumn, the air turns crisp, the leaves change colors, and Game Day looms over you. But then I moved away and was gone for nearly ten years. Now I'm back, but Game Day didn't make a blip on my radar.

As it happens, I eat lunch with a group of male teachers who talk about almost nothing but sports. It's dreadfully dull, and I usually pull out my phone and read when one of the guys says, "So how's that new pitcher for the Puxatawny Groundhogs doing?" I do keep an ear out in case someone brings up a different topic, which turned out to be a good thing. Today, one of them mentioned "The game against MSU," which is Michigan State University, to which another guy said, "Yeah, they might actually beat Michigan this year."

Michigan, of course, means University of Michigan. My old reflexes kicked in, and I came to attention. I interrupted. "Are they playing in Ann Arbor or Lansing?"

They looked at me like I was a space alien. "Ann Arbor," came the answer.

"Ah." I tried to keep it casual. "What time does the game start?"

"Seven."

I blinked. "Seven?"

"Yeah. It's a night game. We won't get home until two in the morning, and that's without the drinking, har har har."

Oh, crap. Usually games start at two or three, which means we non-fans only have to huddle inside until afternoon. A seven o'clock game means we stay inside ALL DAY LONG.

But at least I got warned. On Saturday, we'll be good little Morlocks and hide in our tunnels until it's safe.

Dinah and Dora love their canned food. The routine is that I feed them when I get home from work, and they greet at the door: "Time for food! Time for food!" When I crack open the cat food can, Dora gets so excited, she runs laps around the kitchen island. On the weekends, they think they can get fed early--as in ten in the morning--and they bug me until I wave the spray bottle at them.

And then there was Friday.

(What follows is a little icky. You have been warned.)

When I went downstairs to work out, I found five lumpy puddles of cat diarrhea scattered about the carpet. Apparently, the cats had both gotten sick and had decided the litter box was the wrong place to handle it. Ohhhh, I was upset. We have an entire main floor with wood flooring, and they can't do it there. No, they have to choose the one area of the house that's completely carpeted. It took Darwin and me considerable time to clean it up.

Clearly, something in the wet food got to them. I don't know if it was one can, an entire batch, or something in their physiology changed, but it ultimately doesn't matter. No more canned food for the cats, ever again. And they have been banished from the basement entirely. Once cats have decided that another spot in the house is a good alternative to the litter box, it's almost impossible to break them of the idea. They'll have to be content with the main floor.

Of course, we have no way of explaining any of this to the cats, and I knew what was coming. Yesterday, they started the food demands. They don't actually yowl and prance around. Instead, they both get all lovey-dovey, like they're trying to flatter me into feeding them. ("You're so great. We can't help adoring you. Yes, you! So how about some food?") I responded with an immediate squirt from the water bottle. They retreated. A bit later, they were back at it. Another squirt, another retreat.

I expected this to last all day, but by four o'clock, they'd clearly given up. I handed out catnip as a recompense, and they were happy with that. Today, they haven't bugged me for canned food at all, though Dinah firmly pointed out that the hard food dish was empty. I refilled it.

I wonder if they themselves figured out that the canned food made them sick, and they don't want it anymore as a result.

A new house requires many trips to various stores. So much shopping!

One of the great things about this place is that it's close to both an At Home store. At Home is like KMart, but funky. The stock continually changes, and they always seem to have new stuff. Darwin and I love the place and they've shamelessly lured us in over and over. We found some wonderful rugs there that were exactly what we needed, and we've found bathroom mat sets and towel sets and bar stools for the kitchen island and a table with a shelf underneath that turned out to be perfect to hide cords for the sound system--and it had matching end tables. We've practically worn a trail to that place.

We've been spending money like water. But it has to be done, so I'm going to enjoy it. :)

Darwin has a new job! He's Village Manager for Stockbridge, Michigan.

Stockbridge hasn't had a manager in several years. When their last manager left, the village president said, "We don't need a manager. I can do the job!" and took over running the village. That was a couple-three presidents ago. The current village president and council didn't want to run the village this way anymore, so they started a search for a new manager.

Enter Darwin.

He started work on Thursday. As you might imagine, there's a lot to do! And the commute . . . it's more than an hour away from our home. Each way. It makes for an exhausting week. However, we're moving, and that's a different set of posts.

And congratulations to Darwin!

At about 3:00, I realized I hadn't eaten lunch. I asked Darwin what we wanted to do for supper, and this touched off our usual, elongated discussion. Eat at home? I didn't want to face a sandwich or a microwaved frozen meal. Restaurant, then. But which one? Darwin plumped for a local low-level diner. You know--the one whose entire menu comes from the back of a Gorden Food Services truck.  I didn't want.

There's a small, slightly upscale Italian restaurant right up the street from us. It's where Max took me for my birthday, in fact. I said we should order takeout from them. Darwin wasn't happy with the idea. "They have such a limited menu," he said.

I pulled up the menu online, and it was quite extensive. I read out some items I know he likes, and when I said they had chicken Parmesan, he agreed. Me, I ordered short ribs with roasted asparagus and an appetizer of sweet chili shrimp.

At the appointed time, Darwin popped out to pick it up. And everything was wonderful. The ribs were fork tender. Darwin's chicken was perfect. And the chili shrimp to die for. The diner has no idea!

So I'm going to be more forceful about restaurant choices!

We had a full slate of holiday activities planned this year, but along came a spider.  Or a virus.

Christmas Eve was meant to be Darwin's side of the family over at our place, close to twenty people.  Then we learned that a couple people in the family hadn't been vaccinated, and some other people had potentially been exposed to COVID. Several people expressed worry and concern, including us, and we reluctantly pulled the plug.  Darwin and I decided to spend Christmas Eve playing Santa Claus and Mother Berchte.  We drove around the Detroit Metro area delivering presents and holding distant conversations in driveways and on porches.  It was a pleasant way to spend the holiday, though not what we'd been expecting.  Darwin, I know, was especially disappointed.

Christmas Day was just Darwin and me.  We exchanged our own presents and enjoyed each other's company. Kala dropped by for lunch, and we had the roast that had originally been slated for Christmas Eve.  Roast beast!

The day after Christmas was for my side of the family at my mother's.  It was a small group, and we know everyone had been vaccinated and boosted.  I brought a carload of food and drinks, including home made carrot cake and ice cream and piragi.  Aran and Sasha drove up together, and it was wonderful to see them. Max couldn't come--he had to work. :( But it was a successful event, and no one came down with anything afterward, so hooray!

The next day, I had surgery . . .