Scott's wanderings

Happy holidays.  Scott's memorial/Irish wake will take place on Jan. 17 at 2 p.m. at Scott & Gail's house at 8305 Los Ranchos, Austin, TX 78749.  RSVP by e-mail or phone is requested, but not required.  In lieu of flowers, please donate to your favorite charity.

All the best,

Gail

e-mail: scottgriffiths1@sbcglobal.net
phone: 512-415-7251

Charla is writing this for me today:

At Sundays party, my young friend, Max, and his parents Polly and Joe brought a poem to present that Max had written in response to our numerous visits and growing friendship over the preceding months. As you may have picked up from previous blog entries, I am totally amazed by this 14 year old boy's insight and talent and ability to look at what's been going on with my present circumstances. To put what I consider to be a very witty and insightful take on my circumstances. Max had prepared the following poem entitled the Epic of I, based on our frequent discussions of life in general and the current situation. What is also amazing about this is that Max has the self-confidence to stand up and give a public rendering of his creation despite his young age and what would seem his limited experience. He has a certain strength and wisdom that is amazing to behold. The poem follows.

THE EPIC OF I
BOOK ONE
by Max Hoppe

Traveling through space on a disk of light learning through books
and pondering over your shoes.
For it is. Not the number five.
And then with a whoosh of lightning on a bed of stars, comes the great Humongous.
Speeding down on his chariot of fire,He is the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla.
Yea my homie G-dogs, for the end is not far, so close in fact that you can touch it.
What a strange sensation, what is that texture? Purple I think.
Moses in the bulrushes, Hamel on fire.
jellyfish float through the green, grass sky, filtered through Marlboro lights glistening
with the sweat of all, I fly!
for the joy of naught and all comes Allah,
the king of kings striding with big steps up the halls of the elevator,
leaning against the glass of the monkey cage.
For all to see in.
Like a magnificent microscope for the amusement of the extraterrestrials
I sit and sip my thoughts through a twisty straw.
bending around and round with all its might,
that plastic tube like a serpent clinging to the tree of life!
And death sucks too.
Why oh why is it not, and forlorned is the loss of humanity.
For time and time again it all comes down to this, my friends.
Like the muzak song in the waiting room that you can't get rid of,
the parasites clinging to the bowels of aristocracy.
The bums sing a somber tune, a doo-wop band of depression.
On the side walk, a green ooze drips, traced all the way back from the sewer gators,
leaving an old, ragged doll in the underworld of society.
Imagine a horse on a lawn or a chicken on a bridge.
Hey chicken why the hell are you up there?
don't you have any common sense? Say chicken, you've got a lot to live for, don't jump!
For I nor the bird, can fly.
Down. Down. Down.
To the depths of hell you fly, or fall.
get out of my way you demons, I'm en route to China!
Where the tigers prowl the streets of gold and mine eyes for the likes of men do see.
For down in the subway,
no it's not a sandwich,
demented ravings fill my lungs and scream for the collapse of humanity,
for the death of thousands, for the suffocation of trees!
Have you no mind, man?
On late night BBC they play old episodes of British C-span. And I quote...

BOOK TWO

Thank you for all the bologna.
It was like rain on a winters drought.
The monkey's residue drips upon the many legs of summer.
And the people fly to and fro on sideways elevators.
love Jesus forever for all is one and one is two.
Masterpiece Theater on plasma screen televisions.
I ask: where is the restroom aboard this galaxy?
May you please usher me in the direction of the nearest automotive rest stop?
Where can I find the nearest hand grenade depot and would you like me to pay you in cash or bacon bites?
Falling for three seconds is like being in a supermarket with no milk or swifter deluxe
replacement mop pads for ultra strength cleansing power with a scent of aloe.
Viva Las Vegas!
Good night and tomorrow.
59, 51, 30, (winning lottery numbers)
If six were nine, would the hippies really cut off all their hair?
I wonder; traveling in space.
oscillating velociraptors dance to the hip-hop beat.
With style the golden Martians step forth.
revealing their true divine forms as middle aged women from HELL.
NO NO NO it is.
But I don't know why you say hello in Target ads.
Cajun Eskimos parade on Second Street.
Wish you well from five blocks down.
The earth's crust is like a pizza. and inside there's cheese.
Mozzarella.
Kalashnikov rifles above the moon, blang! bam! poof!
like a video game in a cardboard box melting,
oozing over your face like some kind of alien comes GODZILLA!
Stomping through the streets,
the grey green monster's only purpose in life.
Tired and weary, I sift through broken memories sitting in a poofy chair.
For not but not never, every time to do decide to go, for it is not often.
And then...
For why?
That cliched question that favorite pastime of the stereotyped philosopher,
I ask.
Really, there is no meaning.
My justification is over there somewhere, I lost it.
All I know is that I didn't get any sleep last night.
But yet again, there's always the possibility of...

yesterday we had a get together at the house to visit with neighborhood friends, friends from gail's work, 10,000 villagers folds and our families and their families and friends. Karen, Gail and Charla spent great effort and talent putting it together and we had a great time. Nora showed up and haad drawn me a wonderful picture about our piano experiences. Mas wrote and performed a dynamite poem for me. I got lots of great love and support from many quartersl Cathy did some great caring and sharing that warmed my heart. the food was teriffic, and the house and yard looked amazing in their refined decorations.Just when you think you are totally down and out a new shipment of up and in comes through the door. Thank you life and friends.

Well, turns out all the new stuff they set me up with dooesn't work, so I will continure my time in the bedroom throne. This was more than devestating... and yet certainly fits the pattern of adjustment to failure to get anything positve done I have been learning.

This stuff is really hard to get through, and in some ways I don't even want to put it on the blog... but I feel the need to be straight in letting people know how this stuff goes.

Today we got a sling set up and I can now be lifted out of bed, put in a wheel chair and get around the house and outside. I am exctatic with this nwe found freedom!

This will be the new TexasTriangles creation circle. To join you must open a free LJ account and request to be and be accepted as a friend to this circle. For that you must also agree that what is written here is confidential and will not be publshed elsewhere except by Scott or his heirs in the form of the novel in creation here, Texas Triangles. This information is subject to copyright laws.

I wrote this novel, (Texas Triangles) while I was still working nights at CPS.  I was also substitute teaching at Bryan Adams High fairly regularly and did the writing through a group that met every other tuesday at the Farmers Branch Library Branch.  Incidently that is where I met Traveler Trisha, later her husband Jean Francois and Raf and Natasha.  JF was teaching at SMU in Dallas... not a happy camper.

When I "finished" TT I did some rewrites by my self and the with the group and got an agent who turned out to be a dud who did not follow through on much.  My problem seems to be that the novel is too short to really be a novel and the answer may be to expand some areas or go in some other direction.  Maybe matt needs to get resolved with Tom, or maybe he needs to find his own direction away from the crew he has been "playing with"   Maybe some other section needs more detail. 

Also marketing this story has been a problem.  What kind of story is it?  Action, adventure, sex?  When I descrribe it it sounds like I have mostly put down a sexy escepate, but it also has much more than that.  It tells a lot about abuse, abusive vamilies CPS, Foster care, growing up in foster care and abuse and what it does to you.  It is not as raunchy as it "depicts" for marketing, but is the story of a woman who grew up not knowing much about how to relate outside of using sex, and having poor concepts of boundries.  Maybe some of you could help with this/. Charla and others may have to write for me when I can't..  I guess I can send large sections of the novel by email attachments.  Let me know what you think and if there is some way to participate.

Medium ind of dayl  Pretty outsidek toasty insidel  sort of a straightening out day for drugs and bowels.  Charla is here and Gail is working and my wonderful certified nursing attendant Sophhie makes me feel well attendedl  I couldnt't have bee luckier in finding a sweet young woman to help me through this tim...  five actualllly, Sophie, Gail, Charla a nd Karen.  I always feel well supported and loved, and that'ss not just the drugs.

Charla has started with me on  a reedit of my old novel, Texas Triangles, and that is really getting to be fun.  Sophie is enjoying it too.

Hope you are all well.  Love, Scott

I have been dreading the Thanksgiving/birthday visits, but it all went pretty well.  Been having a lot of bowel and pain issues lately but got it mostly under control for the visits with the help of drugs and soothing comfort from care givers.   The visits went well , though a bit foggy from my perspective.   Good to catch up with everyone (kids, spouse/spice, and grandson) on the current events of their lives.   My love to you all and your families.    Scott

Cousin Chris (Neal[s wife) and Karen came to visit yesterday and Gail and I had the most delifhtful visit with them.  Lots of laughs and happiness.  It is so good for me to see these three wonderful women interacting with each other in such a warm and happy manner.  It is a strangely content time amoungst them... and interesting with so much uproar, personal , national and political.  There comes a time when you know who you are and who you have become and enjoy the support of those who share your valures and belliefs.  I really love our family (mostly) and feel I understand the couple who do not inspire quite so much love at first glance.  We all got here for a reason, and as we age the reasons get more evident and even workable.  What a time of opportunity.  Wishing you all a great thanksgiving.  My birthday is Nov. 27th.  Looks like I'll add at leastt one more year to the total after all.  I am reading Obama's book, and am so glad to have a president who I am sure has read many books but can even write one.  There is going to be a lot for you guys to clean up in the world.  I wish you luck and wisdom.

Charla is writing this for me today.

I want to point out that many of the statements I make on the blog are made in time of special difficulty or pain.  I'd like you to know that thanks to those wonderful people who support me through this ordeal, much of time is relaxed, stable and much more positive than those statements have reflected.  Gail, Charla, Karen and I and the rest of the family have many moments of calmness, joyful reminiscences and just plain humor.  Although I cannot truthfully aspire to my early hopes in finding a way to defeat cancer, I do feel we are holding our own and life is far from pure hell.  In fact, if the TV show The Reaper is any indication (and I'm sure it is), pure hell can be quite a joke from time to time.

Wishing you love,
Scott

Today, Kitty is posting this for me. Ive been having a hard time keeping between my physical strength and my mental clearness together to do much blogging and have also been very confused about how I've been feeling and doing. Im really sorry to say that I find no way to death with diginity i nthe few minutes that Im able to grab where I feel like I can think reasonably I end u pgetting numb by the pain medication and the pain that comes if I dont take them.

I truley wish I could be dead now. dont tell anyone. I've been getting wonderful support from Gail from various peole who have come to the house to help like Karen, Charla, Kitty and Polly, Max has been a joy, my family, Ben, Megan and the people IN THE  familY have made strong efforts to support me.

 I have a new health aid named Rosie. Who has been doing a great job of supporting Gail and Karen during this time but the economics are devastating. What turned out to be an effort to show  that one could die with dignity has turned out to be a bit of a joke. We do our best to maintain a normal household and I am so well supported by loving friends.

But there is no end in sight and as far as I can see no relief.

Thank you for everything you've done keep up im sorry to soud so weak, but its the way I've been feeling the last weeks. I know everyone has to get on with their own lives. i've been doin some drawing that has helped me express my feelilngs and its been interesting and helped me get to my deep down feelings. There seem to be many things on the internet that would be good for me to look at, but Im having trouble reading what these things are between glasses and oxygen. Oxygen depravation.

I'll try to keep posted as I can be more lucid and thank you for checking in with me.

Scott oh... AND HORRAY FOR THOSE DEMS111111

Great support here the last few days from Gail and 'Charla and Karen.  My mind is a lot clearearer.  I am taking very little pain medication, maybe one Vicadin a day or less, and having a lot more success figuring out what is working and what is not.  Charla has turned out to be a master of finding fun games and books and things to draw.  Lots of good visits and laughs.  Changing my attitude to acceptance of not only what is but what will be, and getting good with 'Gail on it.  Some good plans have made that make it seem less likly we wil  be bankrubpt after I am gone.  Gail is able to go work more and that is a relief for all of us; We will survve.  Maybe not me and in that case maybe for longer than I would care to, but  we will probably hang on to what we have fought for.  Love our house, our friends, our family our pets our choices... hey.... and how about that President!!!!!!.... My kids are delightful and I am so proud of their choices.  They thrife in theirown lives, and continue to show love and consern and support for their parents situaton.  They are the ultimate survivors, and we feel we have helped teach them to become theise peo[ple of strength and caharacter.

Do you have any stories you want to tell us about you and your family and what you have learned in lif?  Suzanne, your poems have been heart touching and wonderful and right on target.  Trish, your self help thoughts and articles have opened my eyes to knew ideas.  Got any good books to suggest?  I have just started the Alchamist and it seems to really hit the spot.  Patty... continue the adventure.   You inspire me.  Say hi to Mary.  I need to get back to her, but have not had a good moment.  Any other good books I ought to check out at this time.

Do you know how lucky I am to have met Gail?  Do you understand how joyfuoo my life has been.  I am beginning to understand there are things I did to make it so.  I urge you to do the same for yourseofl

Got any questions?  Gat any answers?  Got any ideas how kids like Max and soft world and Bem amd meg amd Chris and Elizabet get to be so solid at such an early age?  All this joy and with very little drugs.  Talk to me friends.

It'ds been an exggausting and sometimes crazy morning.  Of course some time it is this damn time change. Why is it sprnging forward and falling back?  Who asked it to at such a confucing time.  I have been miserable much of the day, not happy to still be alive, trying to figure an attitudet for this "mode" of living.  Am I passing time, living to die or liiving to make simethubg if tune agaub,  Cae has been a  delight;  
we did some birthday stuff with him and he is so happy to be the bday guyl  They got me into the wheel chair and we almost all got banged up and broken in the painfull, sometimes bloody effortl  It seemed the thing to dol  I will never do it againl  A meaningless, exghausting accomplishment followed by what will no doubt become a tradtion of the birthday grandpa toss. Now I will rest in the bed and see if I can make some sense out of all this crazy stuff i have been enganging in with my crazy, beautiful familyl  Maybe toorrow or even tonight there will be some happinessl Hold me and kiss me strong people, and we will scratch each other[s backs and find out how to cry behind our sleeves becaue it is all really nothingl  Ohl  for some control.   

I woke up today expecting to be dead and instead discovered I was feeling glad to be alive.  Charla is posting this for me.  I started doing some sporatic blogs here and there expressing my confusion about life and apparent lack of control over where it comes or it goes.  I've had some visits from some medical people and a massage gal who has been very positivie and enjoyable.  Thats all for now.  Time for a nap.

Love,
Scott and with great gratitude of your expressions of love as well...thank you all.

I won't be doing many more postings  myself but gail or charla or others might be able to keep you up to date from time to time.  I'm struggeling with pain and comfort vs and alert ness issues.  trying to sort them outl  Quite complete on important personal issues, thanks largely to this blog.  don't want a long series of phone calls and visits.  don't have the strength.  puncuation and spelling gone to hell.  ,au we;; give in on morphine this week end, and from that point on will definitely not be able to post... I guess.  nurse here.  got to go.

I have been here a couple of weeks working with Gail, including bringing a new home health care worker into the mix.  Its been a very loving though often difficult experience.  Scott's progress has generally been pretty positive and stable, but this morning we really got ahead of ourselves.  Thinking he could do more than he could, Scott got up gingerly up from the bed, happily strode into the bathroom thinking he did not need to use his oxygen but found himself in a full blown panic attack that seemed to last forever.  Finally pulling it together, we had Gail, the home health care nurse and myself figuring out how to get him back to bed where he could start to recover some strength.  His body was totally exhausted though he started to come in and out of consciousness, where at this moment he can tell me what to write.

Thank you for your thoughts and support,
Love, Charla Gail and Scott

Tess

 

Both, in childhood and as an adult, there was little dispute that Aunt Tess was the family hero. She was probably the source of a certain amount of jealousy and difficult feelings amongst her sisters and certainly was the source of much excitement and anticipation amongst the nieces and nephews when she would visit.

 

Tess was the only Mravintz girl who completed college and in fact had achieved a Masters Degree in Slavic languages through the University of Pittsburgh. During WWII she had entered the service as eventually a captain in the WAC. She had been involved in a great deal of training of young women going into this new branch of the service.

 

Tess took on all of her jobs with great enthusiasm and gusto. People enjoyed being around her and she was an excellent story teller and was often able to enliven many a conversation with her tales of officers war events, and general programs to train this new strain of American military women in such things as sex education and needs of women as opposed to men in military situations. In order for this to go successfully you had to have a very confident person heading it rather than the stuff y military structures.

 

For us as children, a visit from Aunt Tess was like a combination enchantment by a fairy godmother or an Auntie Mame. Tess swirled into the house, let down her amazing long hair, which had a bright stripe. She would put on interesting clothing that she had acquired from her last post, and proceed to tell you about riding elephants in Ceylon or battles between cobras and mongoose. You would find yourself amazed at the battles between the Tamils and the Hindus where domestic help could not make it to the job that day because they were busy avoiding being burned alive by the opposing ethnic groups.

 

I always remember being aware of a life of adventure excitement and danger that nobody seemed to know about and you didn’t hear about on your five o’clock news. I do remember seeing pictures of riots and demonstrations in Asia, Africa and European cities that there was a lot of history going on that we didn’t know about.  While hanging out with Aunt Tess might be scary, the truth was it was always accompanied by laughs and tickles. You could count on getting chased around the yard as a Tamil housekeeper getting run down by a Hindu assassin.

 

Tess bridged a gap in our family between the desire to separate ourselves from our Slavic and European background and become a part of the American establishment that had been the family goal. Also through her formal education and actual experience and USIA, her work for other ambassadors, artists and artisans, we began to realize a legitimacy in that background that was not all something to be ignored, but rather something to be seen as a part of our true heritage and roots.

 

When Tess was in the WAC the most significant instance that came up was when my father was seriously injured in a battle incident in Italy. There was some question about his condition and whether he would be able to pull through his injuries. Tess was actually able to get clearance to physically go and see my father in the hospital cooperating and discharged. Then they toured together in Italy while George was recovering. Until the family heard it from Tess, the family didn’t think he’d be all right. This was a great ability she had and spoke to her top foreign contacts, which helped her increase her career.

 

In the foreign service as a cultural affairs attaché, Tess would play hostess to people such as Danny Kaye, Louis Armstrong, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway as well as all the local and international painters, opera singers, and people of the time who had great artistic input in that world.

 

We were often sent autographed books by various dignitaries, although we were way too young to understand how powerful this was. We got to see all of the tokens of her life and work, including the autographed books, religious objects such as statures of Buddha and Greek triptych.  It was hard for the “regular” aunts and uncles to keep up with an aunt like Tess. There was a certain amount of jealousy that might be expressed after she left. For my generation, especially for me and for Sally, Tess was an inspiration that there was another way to look at the world and to become a part of the amazing broad things that were happening throughout the world.

 

If you look critically at Tess, you can see that from time to time there was a problem with overuse of alcohol, which was a part of her job. She did not have to stick around to do daily chores, raise children or maintain a household without help. In Auntie Mame’s apartment, broken cocktail glasses from party the night before were always swept away by the next morning. She didn’t do well with retirement; she suffered a stroke from which she never entirely recovered.

 

That said, I shall always be indebted to my Aunt Tess for this wonderful example of what  women could be in that day and age where few women could achieve the kind of dramatic life experiences that were her, day to day bread and butter. She made our family a lot more than it would have been with out her.  She is my hero.

I am at a critical point in my treatment and progress right now and trying to figure out the best way to address disagreements that I am encountering with my current medical team.  I think the key issue with this is that I do not want to continue using morphine as a pain treatment because the way I feel when on the morphine takes me out of the decision making process.  This makes other people think I have diminished capacity because I am all doped up.

We had just undergone a lot of changes because I was able to get a hospital bed in my room, but its been hard to use this bed effectively as quickly as I would like to because I believe the medication is slowing down my learning processes.  This brings up concerns about getting me in and out of the bed to go to the bathroom and showers and whether Gail and Charla are going to be physically able to help me with these tasks.  Yesterday, they were both upset to find that I could not lift my legs very much which is important to get me to the toilet, or at least to a sitting position on the side of the bed.  Today I refused to take the morphine and was able to show them that I could use my legs and would improve with some physical therapy to help build up my leg movement and and to build up my leg strength.  This is the route that I want to go, instead of just zoning out on morphine and having someone turn me over and clean me up in the bed without my having any awareness of it.  This morning, Gail, Charla and I discussed all this and they are now working to help me set up a team that will get me on a program that feels more right for me at this point.  I'm sure all these other folks mean well but I have to insist that I know my needs more than anyone else does. 

This has been a frightening morning but I feel stronger now than I did just a little bit ago.  Thank you for your support.