When the house falls apart, call Lou...

Published Summer 2004

Real life is often a mystery. There are lots of different ways people refer to a streak of bad luck. Some call it “Murphy’s Law”, others say the old favorite, “when it rains, it pours”! Personally, I like to call these little misfortunes, “Christmas must be around the corner, because the house is falling apart”, or in short, C.A.C.A.

For instance, something breaks, either in the house or on the car and it needs to be repaired. It costs several hundred dollars but it’s really not fixed yet because nothing stays new, fixed or inside it’s warranty. This was true with my central vacuum system which is too small for my house by the way. The sweet folks who built our home made sure they used the cheapest and most ineffective products in our house. We didn’t know this. Their sales people were over the top but their service people were robots. They don’t like us because we want our stuff to work. I guess we are just not “industry standard” which was a common phrase the service manager used with me when I asked her why my house didn’t look or work right.

My summer started out with the burning out of my stove top ignition system. Two weeks later the double ovens went out. We ignored both problems and started eating out.

Later, when it looked like the summer would start to sizzle we decided that it was time to call a professional and install a whole house fan, and right after that happened, our HVAC unit’s coil system went caput and has probably been bad since our home was built. Do we repair it or replace it? I don’t know. (Whining like Seinfeld)

C.A.C.A. occurs with the cars too. It’s not one car that needs a repair, it’s all of them. The tires are only bad when the registration is due and that is in December when we are looking at hosting Christmas parties and buying gifts. We try not to go into debt but C.A.C.A. makes it impossible.

The only answer to C.A.C.A. is a neighbor you can trust who is a real friend and his name is Lou. Every person on planet earth should have their very own Lou but that’s impossible. Lou is precious and we’re not sharing him nor his last name with anyone else, so forgedabout it.

Lou started working on my house seven years ago. When the builder wanted his money but didn’t want to find the leak that was destroying my family room at Christmastime, Lou showed up with his wife and they tore out the wall to find the leak. When my gas dryer was giving me trouble one winter while the laundry piled up into New Year, it was Lou that came and braved his way through the mess and saved the day. Two weeks ago, the whole house fan expert installed the switch on a crooked angle which sent J.D. into a tailspin, so Lou came and straightened it out by gerry-rigging it with his popsicle sticks and some caulking. It looks perfect.

Lou is the answer man. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to ask him about my bath tub. I spent the last seven years taking a bath in lukewarm water because the water heater our builder installed in our home had a defective dip something or another. Lou knew this and fixed all the dip thingys for many of the neighbors on his own time. Hot water is a blessing.

Lou is a sweetheart. You can call on him anytime, unless of course “The Price is Right”, or “Cops” happens to be on television. But it’s well worth the hour wait. Not only that, when he’s here fixing things, we get to listen to his musings on life which are absolutely hilarious. He’s the pirate king in our ‘Pirates of Penzance’.

When J.D. needs anything at all, Lou is always there. Like a superhero, he’ll ride around on his red scooter scouting out other C.A.C.A . projects. J.D. wants to be handy like Lou. He practices by putting on Lou’s old overalls that say “Lou” on the name tag and he walks around with something in his hand. Everyone has their niche.

I thought about Lou today as I was escorting the repairman I summoned to my home on the hottest day of the year. No sooner did the heat arrive and our air conditioner went out again. The very nice HVAC man spent a good deal of his morning evaluating the problem with scrutiny, whereby making it look like a job suitable only for a neurosurgeon. I had flashbacks of the character, ‘Cosmo’, in “Moonstruck”. He works for a reputable company which I’m sure you’ve heard of called, Gimme Allyurmoney. He had two estimates for me, one for $1800.00 and the other for $3800.00.

Christmas is four months away. I came inside the house to telephone J.D. to break it to him gently when I noticed the dish washer leaking. Lou will be by the house about five o’clock, so everything will be OK.

Tammy Maher is a resident of El Dorado Hills and bi-weekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat. You can reach her at familyfare@sbcglobal.net

Angels Among Us

Published August 2004

About 15 years ago, I met a young man, Adam, who went to our church. He was very close to his family, seemingly always cheerful, and had a smile for me every time I saw him. He was openly affectionate to his parents, giving them hugs and saying hello to everyone he met. I found myself staring at him wondering to myself, “what is he so happy about all the time”? Each week I would look to see if he was at Mass. He was so demonstrative in his affections and completely unashamed by his own joy, I wanted to see what he would teach me next. When I didn’t see him, I felt disappointment. I looked forward to the next time I would say hello to him. Adam was 16 and he was born with Downs’ Syndrome. But for some of the facial features that are typical with Downs’, he was like me in every way, except one thing, he lacked cynicism. I admired him and envied him at the same time. We moved out of the area and I think about him now and again. He and I would have been lifelong friends I’m sure.

I was at my favorite lunchtime café 8 years ago, when I asked the guy across the counter from me who made the best big salad in the world, what happened to his co-worker who usually worked the espresso machine. “She’s out –something medical” Won’t be back for three weeks.” I was concerned and he hinted without saying too much that she was 4 months pregnant with a ‘Downs kid’ and was “taking care “it”. I knew what he meant by that. I went back to my office and cried. I cried for her and I cried for the baby. I hardly knew her but for the fabulous lattes she brewed. I never saw her again. Someone said she never got over what happened to her. I understood and wished somehow that she could have known Adam.

One month ago, a very dear friend of mine Barb, gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Madeline. The moment I met Madeline, I fell in love with her. She is the most beautiful girl with lips like an angel, and a ‘Gerber baby’ wisp of hair with the pudgiest cheeks you’d ever want to eat! I look forward to getting to know her as she grows up. I told Barb that I can see her as young girl already, in pig tails, full of joy and expectation to see her friends, making sure that all get a warm hello and a hug. I see her working at Starbucks someday, and I imagine all of us meeting there to have coffee just so when can see her and be near her. She will be the one we will look to when all seems cynical and hopeless. I admire my friend Barb and I envy her at the same time. Two of her seven children have special needs, but Maddie’s special gifts will more than outweigh any of her special needs.

Yesterday I drove threw my neighborhood and saw a new neighbor I never noticed before waving frantically at me like we were old friends. I looked at her and waved back. She had the most wonderful smile. She had a spring in her step. She not only waved to me and my kids while out getting her exercise, she waved to the people driving behind me too. She changed my mood for the entire evening. I must find a way to formally meet her, the next chance I get. I have a feeling we’ll be lifelong friends.

Yes, God created the angels for heaven but the most special angels, the ones with Downs’ Syndrome, he created for the earth.


Tammy Maher is a resident of El Dorado Hills and bi-weekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat. You can reach her at familyfare@sbcglobal.net

Living in the hamster years

Published July 2004

We were expecting company. I instructed our children to clean their hamster cages. Dutifully, they set to work. ‘Bosco’, the big hairy teddy bear hamster was overjoyed to be free of his cage. I could hear my son, Conor, squealing as he let him crawl around on his shoulders near his ear. ‘Pinky’, the little dwarf hamster was about to get his cage cleaned too. Pinky isn’t kid-friendly and hates to be handled. I don’t particularly like Pinky.

Meanwhile at another part of the house, I was working on an endless amount of laundry, thinking about matching socks someday and how dirty the house fans looked, when I heard the first scream around noon. “Mom!” hollered my 7-year old daughter, “Hurry up…come quick, Pinky…He’s having a baby”! Yeah right, I whined. I slowly made my way to the kids’ room. Pinky, the biting hamster probably had a poop stuck to his tail, and it would be my job to deliver him.

Peering in to the cage, it was clear the ‘little guy’ was dragging his lower body around the newly cleaned cage and it appeared he was trying to give birth. My thoughts raced and I thoughtfully encouraged “him” to push. The struggle went on for two hours as we all monitored her progress like nervous fathers. This led to conversations with my kids about how hard it was for moms to have babies. We watched her breathing and how she would get excited for a while and then rest for a minute to get her strength back. I was mid-wiving a hamster!

We decided to look at books, call people who knew about hamsters and we Google’d our way on the internet in search of information. Everything seems to point in the direction of leaving her alone and letting nature take its course. I couldn’t improvise myself out of this one with my kids. What do you do if a dwarf hamster needs a C-section? Flashbacks of old ER episodes came to life. “Shannon, get me 3 cc’s of Demerol STAT plus 500 ml glucose IV and page Dr. Hamstersavior in OB now..Go! Go! Go!

Ultimately, the situation became gravely worse as it appeared the hamster had prolapsed but I will spare you the details. I never felt so helpless. She looked terrible but she was still alive. Remember those old movies when “Pa” would pull the rifle off the mantle, pat the young boy on the head and walk silently out the door to the barn where you didn’t see what he was doing but you just heard the sound of the single shot? All this happened while the camera panned down to the sobbing child who always ran away from home “I hate you Pa”…as he fled into the woods overnight just to punish his parents. I didn’t have a hamster rifle over my mantle. Mission level now elevated, I weighed my options in front of my troops. This scene needed a M*A*S*H response and I was Radar O’Reilly.

We headed for the emergency vet where I imagined we’d rack up hundreds of dollars in bills for hamster IV’s, cardio pulmonary hamster-sized resuscitation pads and hamster surgical retractors. Luckily, as I exited highway 50 at Shingle Springs I saw the Lee’s Feed sign like a beacon of salvation to save me from the wrath of J.D. who wouldn’t understand paying such bills for a pregnant dwarf hamster who was supposed to be a boy. I found a sympathetic lady who basically affirmed what I found to be a hopeless situation for Pinky. “If it were me, I would take her home and wrap her in something and put her in the freezer. She’ll go to sleep quickly and it will end her agony. I’m sorry I wish we could do something”.

When we got home I took tissue and wrapped Pinky up and gently laid her in a size 4 coffee filter. My two youngest followed me out the back door in a funeral procession worthy of all the Italian ancestors in our family, saying their woeful goodbyes to Pinky. She was buried under the rock in the front yard the next day. My husband does all the critter funerals because he has such eloquence at times like these. “Pinky Maher was a spunky ol’ gal and we’re gonna miss him”. It brought back fond memories of another hamster funeral 33 years previous presided over by my father, whose own eloquence cannot be overlooked with “God bless the rat”. My hamster’s name was “Snuffy”, a critter who died at the hands of my sister, Trish, who had fed him a box of Vicks cough drops. These were stored by the hamster in both his cheeks until rigor mortis set in.

My job was done. Living in the hamster years means cleaning, nursing and undertaking my kids’ critters. The revelation that stayed with me after this experience was that Pinky had endeared herself to me in her greatest hour of suffering. Even people have a tendency to have that same effect on us, whether we like them or not.

Tammy Maher is a resident of El Dorado Hills and bi-weekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat. You can reach her at familyfare@sbcglobal.net

Nature study on a whim

Published July 2004

Messy mud swallows. You either love ‘em or you hate them. For me, it’s a battle that always ends up a draw every year. The birds usually win though. I thought the nests were finally empty since Spring sprung a little early this year. Assuming the little ones graduated and headed wherever mud swallows go after they have pooped their infancy away on my driveway, cars and porch, I got out the hose yesterday and put the stream setting on Jet Mode and starting firing away. Sheepishly I admit, this was a poor assumption on my part. Never assume anything since apparently mud swallows sublet to sparrows for the summer. I had just spent the months of April and May monitoring a robin nest near my front door so I thought I was the aviary expert. I obviously jumped the gun.

The little guy fell on top of his mud nest and was probably only about a week old based on Anna Comstock (our nature study author). Other than being a little wet, he was intact but a little surprised to see the sun. So, what do you do when you become a home wrecker? Well, after running around in a panic and apologizing to my children who were pretty upset with me, I was so nutty at one point, I picked up the baby bird and held him up to the sky while exclaiming, “yoo-hoo, I’ll just put him over here in this robin nest by my front door…it’s a very nice nest. You come take care of him here”.

Unfortunately, the message didn’t get through. Birds do not understand English nor do they wish to relocate on a whim (or the Tsunami created by my power hose). My children had a better idea. “Mom, call the wildlife people”. Sierra wildlife rescue in El Dorado takes critters big or small, injured or not and treats them and feeds them until they can be released back into the wild. At this time of the year, they are full of birds that have fallen and can’t get up, so to speak.

I made the call and was given explicit instructions. The bird should be in a box. I was to get in my car and be as quiet as possible. Radio was to remain off, but the air conditioner was Ok. I was to drop off the bird, fill out some paperwork (uh-oh, was I going to be busted for some illegal hose versus nest infraction)? They assured me this would not be the case but that the paperwork was required by the Department of Fish and Game. After this, they would take over, assign him a case number and hopefully take care of him until he could fly the coup, or the shelter as the case seemed to be. This involves taking him to his natural habitat (which would be somewhere near my house, or yours, I’m sure) and then allowing him to be natural again. Sounds like a peach. If he comes back, he’ll have to start from scratch because as soon as summer is done, I’m taking the mess down again which is my annual September chore. When March approaches again next year, let the battles begin.

The kids really enjoyed seeing the baby bird safe and warm in his new incubator. We looked over Sierra’s flyers and it seems they need volunteers all the time. My older two are very interested in this. My seven year old, cried and whined in the car all the way home, demanding a waiver on the age restrictions so that she could go to Sierra and take care of baby bob-cats. Whoa!

Tammy Maher is a resident of El Dorado Hills and bi-weekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat. You can reach her at familyfare@sbcglobal.net

Good Neighbor & Good Brother

Published June 2004

My neighbor Liz and her two sons lost their beloved husband and father quite suddenly last week. It was the day before father’s day and death came unexpectedly as a thief in broad daylight. Dan was at the golf course where his son works, enjoying the beautiful weather with his friends and neighbors when he collapsed and died. The trauma of trying to resuscitate him and the terrible task of calling his wife and comforting his son must have been a nightmare everyone wanted to wake up from. One need hardly imagine the shock and sorrow of the day and the lifetime ahead of trying to understand why. It is the day which serves as the marker for the rest of their lives –understanding that the whys may never be answered and new coping skills will be learned in order to carry on without him.
Good neighbor Dan is gone and we’re void of the words to express to his family how sorry we are and we’re full of regret.

Regret, for us, is that we did not know Dan as well as neighbors should. We knew him from admiring his yard, the changes he made to his home after he moved in a few years ago, and his interactions with his sons. We knew him in his comings and goings to and from work, walking his beagle with his wife, hanging out with his boys and their friends. He seemed quiet, yet he always returned a friendly wave of hello as we passed his house. Last week we lost the potential of a closer friendship with Dan. That is our regret. Our vow is to better our friendship with his family.

Our sister in law, Kate, and her three sons lost their beloved husband and father three years ago last February. Dan was in his early 40’s and home recovering from minor shoulder surgery when he collapsed and died in his bedroom. The trauma of finding him and calling paramedics to a hopeless situation must have been a nightmare for his wife and sons. We do not want to imagine it because sudden death robs us of our breath. It kicks us in the gut and causes the momentum of the earth to stop for several hours while trying to comprehend the facts – “He was here just a moment ago, I talked to him just last night and now he’s gone”. I’ll never forget the day I had to tell my husband his brother had died.

Good brother Dan was gone and we were full of regret.

Our regret was that we didn’t telephone Dan or see him as often as brothers and sisters should. He always called us first. We admired his character, honesty and fortitude. He was a man devoted to his family and active in scouts and sports with his boys. His countenance was pure goodness. We never heard him utter an unkind word against anyone. Death robbed us of the opportunity to tell him how much we appreciated him and there was no time for “goodbye” or “we love you”. Our vow is to strengthen our family ties to his wife and our nephews.

Procrastination, like sudden death does nothing to stand down regret. Life is full of good neighbors and good brothers. Spend more time getting to know and appreciate them.

Three cranky kids

Published June 2004

Our annual trip to Lincoln Nebraska was interesting this year. Our church choir director was traveling with the kids and I in our minivan and I was to meet my husband, J.D. at the airport in Omaha once we arrived. We gave ourselves three days to get there. “Thelma”, “Louise”, and three children set out with the car loaded comfortably with more luggage and snacks than the trip actually required and tons of audio-visual stimulation to make the trip even more twenty first century than most road trips. The kids were cranky by the time I hit Reno, with my daughter, Birdy, asking after only two hours in the car, “is our hotel coming up yet?”

The state trooper in Wyoming materialized out of nowhere behind a semi truck that was blowing my bumper from side to side (think Stephen Spielberg’s first film, “The Duel”). I thought he was going after someone in front of me. “Ma’am, I need to see your driver’s license, registration, proof of insurance and birth certificates for the people traveling with you….” Ok, not the last one.

“Louise” looked at me (she wanted to be Susan Sarandon). We were caught red handed. My cruise control was operating perfectly at eighty five miles per hour in a seventy five mile zone. Looking at the landscape were traveling against, we might as well have landed on the moon. Apparently there are state troopers in Wyoming whose sole job was to support their own salaries and pensions because there was no sign of life anywhere. We speculated on where they lived. My bet was the wooden contraptions you see randomly hoisted off the interstate.

We were bored with our characters after the first speeding ticket so we became Dorothy and Toto (again, she wanted to be Dorothy) in Cheyenne. We watched the NBA playoffs in a bright red smoky leatherette lounge with brothel red back lighting behind the booths resplendent with retro-fifties cocktail waitresses to match. “What can eyes get fer y’all”? she asked. At that moment, after a $120 speeding ticket, this red wine drinker wanted a double gin martini with three olives. It was the only thing this side of heaven that would put the smile back on my face. “We ain’t got none of that. We got Bud, Bud Lite, Cuurz and Cuurz Lite.”

Fast forward to Lincoln, Nebraska (at the posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour, no less). Our arrival at the Embassy Suites was like OZ where we enjoyed fully cooked breakfasts, an indoor pool and glass elevators. Lincoln’s tree-lined streets remind me of East Sacramento. Their churches spire over lush green rolling fields and big sky. We settled in just fine and headed to a friend’s for a party. The tornado was headed straight for us, just south of Lincoln. Our host and hostess told us to get in their basement. We were a little surprised that over a hundred people could fit in that basement, all on our knees praying. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live.

Looking for an alternate route home after stopping in Topeka, Kansas, where you don’t have to look too long for really bad Chinese food, we took Interstate 70 west homeward. Make sure if you ever get to Abilene, to stop at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. I was 20 miles outside of town when the state trooper heading east made a sharp turn onto the medium and raced after me. “I clocked you at 85 in a 75 Ma’am”. I hate the word Ma’am. “Anyway, you can mail the cashier’s check here and sign right there on the dotted line. Ya can always come back to court but that would be in Hays (he knew I was from California obviously) so y’all have a nice day”. I couldn’t believe it. This was worse than sailing off the edge of the Grand Canyon or being spirited away by monkeys. My husband was flabbergasted that I managed to find the only two real speed traps in America..

Vail, Colorado looked like a place we couldn’t afford and since there are no signs, it’s hard to know what’s what. My latte cost me five bucks and that made me mad.

I kissed the ground as we crossed the Nevada/California border. God bless Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado and Nevada. The check’s in the mail.

Tammy Maher is a resident of El Dorado Hills and bi-weekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat. You can reach her at familyfare@sbcglobal.net