kareina

On the way to the lunchroom just now I caught a glimpse through the window of the reception area of... mom. My brain was totally convinced. The woman was wearing the right shape glasses, had the right haircut, and the right upright and slightly rolled forward posture of mom waiting.

Of course the illusion vanished once I got through the door and could see her features clearly, but still.

First time in a while I have cried. I guess that means that life is generally pretty good. But the joy of recognition/surprise of "seeing" a loved one in an unexpected place, followed by the memory of why it isn't possible...

I am terrible about remembering anniversaries. Yet this year, when all of my friends who celebrate it were sharing photos of their Thanksgiving feast I couldn't help but remember that last year, on the day after Thanksgiving Mom went into the hospital for the last time, and I flew over there to be with her as soon as possible thereafter.

I am terrible about remembering anniversaries, so it took my sisters mentioning it for me to realise that it is just one year ago today that Mom left me alone in that hospital room with the job of telling my sisters that she had breathed her last.

We were all lucky. She was spared a painful ending, she was weak, but her mind and spirit were strong. She had five days between when she decided that she didn't want that balloon pump helping to keep her heart going and when her heart finally beat its last, there were times to say goodbye, to tell her how important she was, to hear her assurances that she had had a good life, and was ready to go, to have her tell us, not just once, but many times, that it is ok to cry, just keep a smile at the same time.

It isn't easy (and she knew it wouldn't be), but Mom, I am smiling for you. Those tears? They are tears of love.

My sister, going through more of mom's stuff yesterday found an "open in the event of my death" letter, which mom first wrote in 2005 and updated in 2007 and again in 2011. It mostly contained practical info as to her financial assets and accounts that would need to be dealt with after she was done, but it also contained a personal note for each of us. We each got a title "my adventurous one", "my empathetic one", "my practical one" and "my sophisticated one". My note said:

"My adventurous one. Always keep your happy disposition. It will get you far in life. Stay practical. I offer a special congratulations on your Doctorate. I am very proud of you. I hope your future brings you all you want in life."

My sophisticated sister says that hitherto she wishes always to be addressed as "Sophisticated one", though she confesses a bit of envy at my title. But then we all agreed that all the titles could apply equally well to any of us. Though it took a bit of convincing to get me to relate to "empathetic", since the first time I was made aware of that word at all it was in a sci fi/fantasy story wherein the person had the magical gift (or was it a curse?) of empathy and really, truly actually feeling what others feel. I, on the other hand, pretty much depend on the other person explicitly telling me their feelings before I think I might know what they are.

The following summary contains highlights from the stories my mother told me about her life:

Norma Jean Tyyska was born on 19 December 1940, in Ewen Michigan, the third child (of four) of Martha and Alex Tyyska. Her early life was spent in a variety of locations in and around that town as her parents alternated between different options to keep the family going, including running a restaurant in town when she was little, and later moving out to a farm. As a tomboy who enjoyed shooting guns and being active, she thrived on the farm, even though she resented needing to help out with some of the necessary chores, such as milking the cows (which task was made more fun by singing to them a variety of rather inappropriate songs that her sailor brother had taught her).

Her childhood was full of music, as her father, Alex, had a violin that he had built from a mail-order kit and a harmonica that he played often and with enthusiasm. Norma’s first instrument was a trumpet, an instrument that was so loud she was sent to the sauna for practicing, as that was just far enough from the house as to not disturb her mother.

Norma had a hankering to travel, and wanted a college education, but the family couldn’t afford the tuition and fees that would have been needed for college. So, she enrolled in a much shorter (and non-degree granting) program an Airline School, thinking that if she worked for an airline, she would be able to travel often. However, that path took an unexpected, but welcome detour. Just before the course finished a representative of the government visited the school and administrated a test for potential civil service workers, which she passed with flying colours. Coincidently about the same time the airline industry was facing a major strike, so Norma packed her bags and moved to Washington DC to start a job as a secretary at the Pentagon.

During her six years in DC mom’s social life was active, with many parties hosted in the apartment she shared with friends. During one of these late-night gatherings she was convinced to open the window, stand with the trumpet facing out into the night, and play Reveille. This, of course, caused the newly married man in the upstairs apartment, who had only just completed his basic training, to be up, dressed, and ready to go out the door, before he realized that he wasn’t on base, it was only 01:30 or 02:00, and he had no where he needed to be. Even more often though, she had her harmonica out, since that could be played without waking the neighbours.

Her time in DC left two very lasting effects on our family. First of all, she introduced her good friend Nancy to her brother Jim, leading directly to their marriage. Secondly, this was where she met Ray Chmielowski (more commonly called “Ski”), her first husband. Ski was in the air force, and was transferred to Lackland AFB, Texas after his time in the DC area, and Norma accompanied him there. Soon after their wedding (which took place in February of 1966) she, Ski, and a couple of their friends were spending an afternoon out in the Texas country side, out on a row boat in a lake. One of the friends had a pistol with him, and the guys were amusing themselves shooting at (and missing) a bottle floating in the water. Norma asked if she could take a turn, and the owner of the gun, fooled by her fashionable short skirt and heels (and not realizing how she had spent her youth), took the time to re-load, then proceeded to careful explain to her how one should aim and shoot. She thanked him politely, took the gun, and shot all six bullets, hitting the target at every shot. After a moment of stunned silence, the men in the boat all told Ski that he had better behave, lest his sharp-shooting wife decide to use her skills to keep him in line. (Ski just laughed, as he already knew full well her talents in this regard, having accompanied her on visits to the family farm.)

After a few months to get used to married life Ski got his next set of orders, to spend a Temporary Duty Year (TDY) in Thailand, without his family, so Norma, already pregnant with their first child at this point, moved into a shared apartment with her friend Liz (whose husband was also going TDY) and her three children to await the baby’s arrival and Ski’s next orders. Riia Marie arrived in December, nine day’s before Norma’s own birthday (and six before Ski’s), and not long thereafter bags were packed for road trips, to take her to meet Ski’s family in Pennsylvania and Norma’s family in Michigan.

Then Ski’s next orders were cut: Japan (his second duty tour there), and they decided that Normal should drive the car to California, put it on a boat to be shipped to Japan, and fly over to join him. So, she got a cardboard box, made a baby bed in it, and set it on the floor of the car in front of the passenger seat, tossed her bags in the back and Norma and Riia set off across the country together. Norma quickly fell into a routine—drive for as many hours as she could, then stop at a restaurant, carry the baby in, hand her to the first waitress she could find who wasn’t actively busy, and say “please hold my baby while I use the toilet”. Pretty much every stop, when the people found out that she was doing a cross country trip alone with a baby, they would happily play with the baby while Norma ate her dinner, and then give her back.

During their three years in Japan Norma worked in base Supply. Thus, she was one of the people in charge of coordinating the special sale they were going to have to sell off surplice goods at reasonable prices. Therefore, she knew that one of the things to be sold off was a brand-new accordion, that had been purchased for the Military Band, but the guy who could play it had been transferred to another base. She also knew exactly which shelf and row it was on, so when the doors opened the day of the sale she walked in, went directly to that shelf, picked up the case, and walked directly to the payment station, thus obtaining a very nice quality musical instrument at a very good price. She taught herself to play, and soon every party would include not only harmonica playing and sing-alongs, but also a bit of accordion playing (which had an advantage of being able to sing and play at the same time.

Ski’s next transfer was to Germany, so the family decided to go there by way of the US, so that visits could be made to both Michigan and Pennsylvania to see her family and his, which visit was made more interesting by Riia having the chickenpox and giving them to the cousins in the states. Not long after they arrived in Germany their daughter Beth was born, and both Norma’s mother and Ski’s mother came out for a visit. The two of them took full advantage of their first trip to Europe by traveling together and exploring. Since Norma’s mother could speak Finnish and Ski’s mother could speak Polish, between their three languages they could get by pretty much every were they went.

While in Germany Norma and Ski made a point of heading out to local pubs to connect with the local culture. One of the first times they tried this, when they entered the pub the atmosphere was very subdued and dire, as the men sat quietly around a common table and spoke seriously with one another, but, of course neither Norma nor Ski could understand a word being said. Norma thought that they were all much too serious, so she reached into her purse, pulled out her harmonica, and begun to play. As soon as she did everyone around the table stood up, and walked out of the pub, and Norma worried that she had done something wrong. However, a couple of minutes later they all came back in, carrying musical instruments, and a very happy evening was spent playing together. (They later learned that it was a local political meeting that she interrupted and turned into a jam session.)

After a year in Germany they were transferred to Crete, which was close enough that they could drive there (though Riia sat in the back of the car during a traffic jam in an Italian city muttering “I told you we should have taken the plane” with all the dignity her 4-year-old self could muster). Norma’s stay in Crete was short, since that was the point at which she realized that her relationship wasn’t going as she would have wished, so she and Ski separated, and she took the girls back to Michigan.

They spent one year in Michigan, first staying with Norma’s sister Barbara (and their mother and Barb’s five daughters), then renting a small house a few blocks away. However, there were no jobs to speak of in Ewen that payed well enough for a woman to support herself and two daughters, so she decided to move back to Texas. Barbara’s third daughter, Jennifer, graduated from high school that year and wished to move somewhere, but didn’t want to go to college. Therefore, Norma made her an offer: come with us to Texas and do the babysitting while I look for work and get settled, and then you can go find a job of your own and move out. Jen found this to be a good suggestion, and happily accepted.

They settled in to a small house in a suburb of San Antonio near enough to the Air Force base that Norma could work on base, but the girls could go to school off base. The families living on that street were very friendly, and it was common to gather in one yard or another in the evenings, and many a sing along was aided and abetted by Norma’s harmonica.

After three years in Texas Norma decided that since it had been a while since the girls had seen their dad, who had retired from the military and moved to Alaska to work as a labourer on the road crew building the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, that they should take a two-week vacation to Alaska to visit Ski and meet some of his brothers (who had lived there for years). During that visit Norma and some of her (former) sisters in law decided to do a girl’s trip to Anchorage and left the kids with their dads at the family homestead in the middle of the state for a couple of days. When they returned Norma announced, “I got a job, we are moving!” She left the girls with their dad, Uncle, Aunt, and cousins, flew back to Texas, sold the house, sold the car, bought a pick-up truck, filled it with much of their household goods and sold the rest at a garage sale, then drove back to Alaska, picked up the kids, and moved to Anchorage.

Norma spent 11 years living in Anchorage, during which time she discovered Toastmasters International, which encouraged her to share her joy of public speaking with many new friends. She was also active with the Parent-Teacher Association, and even made an attempt to run for office (which gave her an opportunity to teach her daughters a new word: “gerrymandering” as she withdrew from the race when she suddenly found herself in a new district where the incumbent was a good friend). Even so, it was her love of music which continued to draw attention. She was one of the people to be selected to take the inaugural trip of a new train, during which she broke out her harmonica and got a sing a long going, which made the evening news.

When she sent her youngest daughter, Beth, off as a foreign exchange student to Finland, Norma had no idea how much it would change her life. She probably didn’t even think anything of it when Beth got home from her year abroad, and she received a letter from one of the other exchange students saying that she wanted to give Beth an international phone call for a birthday present, and please be certain that Beth would be home to answer the phone on the appropriate day.

However, when Beth got off of that phone call and told Norma that “Kirsty’s Dad wants to marry you”, Norma was in just the right mood to say “That is the first marriage proposal I have had in years, I think I will accept”, and they sat down together to write a letter of acceptance addressed to “Mister Dart”, and starting with “G’day Mate” (since they had no idea what his first name was). In the letter she asked when he would like the wedding to be, suggesting that she always thought a summer wedding would be nice. Terry enjoyed the letter and replied, “you didn’t say whose summer, yours or mine, I don’t believe in long engagements, how about January?”.

Given that Norma had already moved to Alaska on the spur of the moment, and had been known to fly to Fairbanks at a moment’s notice just because she was invited over for spaghetti dinner, no one who knew her was really surprised to hear that she had decided to marry a man she had never met, just because their daughters arranged it, and the wedding party was well attended.

Norma and Terry lived happily together in his home in Victoria, Australia for about five years, where they were both active in Toastmasters, before Terry took an early retirement and they moved to Alaska. Five years later they decided to retire to Tasmania.

Retirement meant that they had more time for hobbies, which included Toastmasters, and, in Terry’s case, wood turning, and gave them an opportunity to take a round-the-world trip together. During that trip they got the chance to meet many of her father’s first-cousins, who live in Finland and Sweden, none of whom had ever had a chance to meet their US relatives before. That trip, like so many others Norma has taken, was filled with music from her ever-present harmonica, and much joy and laughter.

After five happy years in Tasmania we lost Terry to cancer and Norma moved to Seattle, where Beth and her new husband, Beto, were about to buy a house. She joined them, and they were soon joined by Beth’s daughter’s Anahi and Lucia. Meanwhile, in Australia, Kirsty and her husband Mike were joined by their sons, Felix and Caspar. A few years thereafter Riia moved first to Italy for her first post-doctoral position, and then to Luleå, Sweden. Amber, who had been living in Vancouver BC when Norma first moved to Seattle, wound up moving to San Francisco. This gave Norma even more motivation to travel now and then between states, and between continents, so that she could spend time with each of her daughters, and with both sets of grandchildren.

During her visits to Riia in Europe she also got to visit many of her Finnish cousins and share music with them. However, perhaps the highlight of her travels while she lived in Seattle was her “Tip to Tip” cruise, during which she got to visit the three continents upon which she had never lived: South America, Antarctica and Africa. Since it was a cruise the time between stops gave her ample opportunity to discover which of her fellow travellers enjoyed music and song, and her harmonica got a good workout.

She spent 15 happy years based in Seattle, watching her granddaughters grow into talented singers, active in the local music theatre scene, and her heart filled with pride and joy. When it was Norma’s time to go, she assured us all that she had lived a good life, and she was content to pass on to whatever comes next; that it is ok to be sad, and even to cry, but we should always do so with a smile on our face. She understood that sorrow mixed with joy is the easiest sort to bear, and her life has spread joy to many.

I am in Seattle with mom, her sister Barbara, and all three of my sisters. Mom is doing grest, spirit wise, but  her heart is only beating enough to keep her blood flowing right now because of the baloon pump they have inserted,  which inflates and deflatrs at a 1:1 rate in rythym to her heart beat. They tried weaning her from it on two different days so far. This is done by first decreasing to a 1:2 rate, then to a 1:3 rate. We don't know the next step because both times it went badly enough that they had to return to 1:1. They have her on a new medicine that has a good chance of making the next try go better. However,  she has decided that she no longer wants major unpleasant  interventions such as breathing tubes or chest compressions. She tends to have an ability to amaze the doctors with her ability to recover,  so there is a chance that she will pull through and get to go home again. Certainly finding out that we were all flying in to see her has made a huge difference in how she is doing. So there is hope.

Last night was my turn for the slumber party. It makes mom happy with one of us here overnight, and one of the chairs in her room pulls out to make a bed that is surprisingly comfortable. Beth had last night's shift and Amber the night before. Tomorrow will be Kirsty's turn.

 Mom woke up early this morning and we had a good chat. She tells me that she would like to modify her Will to say that the remaining cash in her Australian bank account goes to her grandsons there, Felix and Caspar, and the remaining cash in her US bank account goes to granddaughters there, Anahi and Lucia, as her contribution to their college funds.  She wants Beth to contact the neighbour who helped her with the Will to come in and write up a codicil for her to sign.

She tells me that she has had a good life and is feeling very pragmatic anout it. She knows that today's planned attempt to wean her heart from that helpful ballon pump is critical and it might not work, but she is ready either way. This is her fith time in the ICU this year,  and she doesn't want another. She says that if she gets out of the hospital this time and there is another problem she doesn't want to come back to the hospital again. I can understand where she is coming from on this point, and if I had been in her situation I might well reach the same conclusion.

Today I had an appointment with the plastic surgery section of the local hospital. I have been in their queue since October, when the psychologist section decided that I could skip that step in the queuing process, based on what the local health practitioner said when she wrote me the referral there. The appointment was for 08:50, so I didn't bother to go to the office first.. Indeed, I could have slept in, since I didn't need to leave the house till after 08:00 to be there in good time, but clearly my body didn't want to risk oversleeping, as I woke at 06:30.

The appointment itself cost nothing. (I truly love living in Sweden, and the fact that we have health care!) The doc was an older man (or at least he looked older to me, but recently I have noticed that some people that I would guess as older turn out to be younger than I am). He asked me to explain to him exactly what procedure I want done (remove the breasts--all of them, including the nipples), wanted to know if there is a history of breast cancer in the family (not that I know of, but I would like to donate my breast tissue to science, if we can find a researcher who has a use for healthy tissue for experiments or comparison purposes), double checked to be certain that I understand that there is no going back, that once this is done they are gone forever, I can't change my mind later (yes, please! I will be forever grateful to whomever can get these things off of my chest and out of my way and also increase blood flow to my arms by banishing those elastic bands). Then we briefly discussed where to put the seam. I commented that I thought it would look good to have the seam running diagonally from the shoulder to the middle. He said that they used to do that, back in the 1920's, but found that sometimes the scar tissue would thicken and interfere with arm movement, which is why they switched to horizontal. that makes sense to me, I like the idea of full arm movement. I also asked about recovery time, and he said that it is up to the patient how long to wait before resuming workouts--use common sense and listen to the body, but a week to 10 days is good to avoid working out. I can live with that.

Then he sent me to the nurses to fill in a health history quiz and have blood drawn for some sort of testing. I asked the nurse who drew the blood if she knows how long the queue would likely be between this appointment and getting called for surgery, and she said that it can take months, perhaps even nearly a year, but it is impossible to really predict, though they try to work as fast as they can. But I understand, these things still take time. I can wait.I have put up with them for decades, a few more months can be endured.

After the appointment I went to the office, where I managed to accomplish more than 5.5 hours of work for LTU, during which I finally updated my spreadsheet of hours worked vs how many the uni thinks I should work, so now I know that I had managed to get completely caught up in hours by the end of March, but am now about 6 hours behind for April. Oops. Then I opted to skip the Phire annual general meeting and just go home and relax (since there wouldn't be any acroyoga at the meeting anyway). Much to my surprise, as I was curled up on the couch with a book they called me from the meeting to let me know that I had been nominated to serve on the Phire board as the officer in charge of guiding people in making costumes and props, and would I be willing to accept the nomination? I double checked to be certain that they wanted someone to help and advise on costumes and not be the one making them, and with the warning that I don't have so much time, agreed to accept the nomination. Luckily, some hours later I got a message that during the voting they decided that since my time is in short supply they wouldn't put me on the board (that position is an optional one anyway), and I am not expected to attend the weekly board meetings.

However, the phone call was enough to remind me that I should put my book down and be useful, so I then did several hours of thesis work. One of the things I did was import the spreadsheet I have been filling in with the location of the steatite artifacts from the Swedish Historical Museum's database, plus the various "keywords" I have been adding to the card for each, into the graphing program I am so fond of, so I could try playing with the data there. One of the keyword categories I have been using is assigning a colour word based on the photograph (when there is one), and so far have several variants on pink and several on green. It turns out that of the 50 samples in the spreadsheet so far the pinks tend to be inland, getting close to the Norwegian border, while the greens tend to be more coastal. However, that is only about 1/7th of the samples in the database, so that pattern may well change. Even so, it was interesting to note, and I took the time to type up a summary of what I was seeing, including a photo, and share it with my advisors in my "supervision blog" (only visible to the two of them).

Sadly, right after I sat down to the computer this evening I got a message from my sister saying that she and mom were at the emergency room again. They don't yet have any idea what the problem is this time, but she has just gone for more tests, and it is nearly 02:00 my time, so I think I will go do my yoga and get to bed, and hope that there is good news on that front in the morning.

Since C. has now moved in with us and we are three in the house, we decided it would be a good idea to put regular household meetings onto the calendar, so we could discuss things that matter with respect to topics like finances, house cleaning, events we want to attend, etc., and we decided on Friday evenings as the default for that, accepting the fact that sometimes there would be something else on that evening and we would need to adjust.

However, on Wednesday evening, just after dinner (which was after accomplishing four batches of concrete for the earth cellar walls, yay!), we decided we were already inspired to ( have a pre-meeting financial discussion )

That meeting took a few hours, but it was good to have, because we then pedaled into town on Thursday to have the bank do a new three-person joint account for buying groceries etc. The guy at the bank had problems understanding why we would want such a thing, when we can just swish cash between us. We explained that it makes accounting much simpler to do it this way, and didn't mention just how close the relationship between the three of us is (indeed, he looked like his brain would break if we had).

Normally we will be having our meetings on Friday evening, but since we are on vacation this week, and we thought the first meeting would take longer than usual, we opted to start in the early afternoon. Good thing we did. The meeting ran for nine hours, thirty minutes (including fika breaks). But now we are all on the same page as to:

*What the cleaning rotation will be (three main stations: A. bathrooms B. upstairs dusting/vacuuming C. downstairs dusting/vacuuming, with each of us to be responsible for one of them each week, and the next the following week), exactly what is expected to be done for each, and what daily cleaning tasks are expected. We are all fussy about cleanliness, but we each have different "this is really important" things, and we all agreed that it is best to make certain that all of them are taken care of.

*What our social calendar will look like this autumn. We are making an effort to make certain that we set aside some time each week for the three of us to do things together, and that there is time for each pair of us to do stuff just two at a time, and that each of us gets enough alone time each week, while still managing to get to the regular activities that we want to attend (choir, nyckleharpa, Frostheim, dance, etc.)

*What home improvement projects are urgent, which are moderately important, and which ones can take longer time.

Each of these took much longer to discus and find appropriate compromises for when needed than it does to type it up now, so I managed to get lots of progress on the sewing of my jester costume, and the day was well spent. But it is now well past bedtime, so I had best close this and do my yoga.

Oh--before I forget, I had an email from my step-sister who reports that mom is doing better and already getting mobility back in her arm etc., and in good spirits and joking, but will be spending some time staying at a hospital for further rehab etc. Thanks for the good wishes.

My mother made it here safely this afternoon around 16:00, I took her home, fed her fresh-baked blueberry/raspberry/almond filled bread, juustuo, and (after a short break to digest the first bit) spaghetti, then took her to nyckleharpa night, where we got to listen to beautiful Swedish folk music, and finally sent her to bed at 22:00 our time, so, with luck, she will be adjusted to the new time zone straight away.

Tomorrow evening we will bring her to choir with us. Wednesday afternoon we will head back out to the home of the Nyckleharpa teacher so mom can give it a try. Thursday is SCA night at the Uni, and Friday I have invited everyone I could find on FB who is local to me over to our house to meet her. I suspect that by the time she gets home a month from now she will be grateful for the easier social schedule of driving my nieces to school and all of their various extra curricular activities.

Now I need to do my yoga and get some sleep so I will be able to keep up with the schedule I have set her, and make it to work in the mornings too.

The closest thing to "uni work" I accomplished today was 45 minutes this evening spent checking the various positions to which I might wish to apply to find those who's initial application deadline has already past. Those I sent a quick e-mail stating that I'd seen their ad and are they still seeking applicants? I included a link to my CV and let them know that if they were still seeking applicants I'd be happy to submit a formal packet. I've also made note of the one with a 15 December deadline, and the fact that the others are all in early January. The quest for something interesting to do once I finish this degree continues!

The rest of the day was spent in various tasks towards the goal of moving this weekend. In the morning clovis_t and I went in to uni and picked up more empty boxes from the "box store room" in the geology department. A useful place, largely full of boxes computer paper arrives in, and a few other sorts. Even found one large enough to pack my big cookie sheets! From there we when out to Allens Rivulet to finish preparing the room to move into. Of course, in order to get it empty, I first had to do some re-arranging of the boxes of things in the rumpus room. Thanks to some organizing and stacking of boxes the stuff that was already there, plus the stuff from what is about to become our room (again) now takes up less floor space than did just the one pile yesterday. Have I mentioned recently that I enjoy organizing and packing things in a space efficient manner? We didn't have much time available out there, because we needed to be back at this house by 13:30 to meet a lady interested in purchasing our refrigerator, washer and dryer. She decided she wants it, so will meet us here late in the day Sunday to pick them up. Yay! One more set of large items dealt with!

After that it was packing, organizing, dealing with FreeCycle e-mails connecting with other people who will come take away the stuff we no longer need, and meeting our houseguest. He is a friend of a friend in Alaska who has come to Tasmania to spend five weeks doing a bicycle tour of the state. He's got a rental car for the first few days and is using our house as a home base while he gets his bearings and finds a bicycle he can use for his adventure, be it purchased or borrowed (so if anyone local has a working mountain bike they'd let him use, let me know). He's already offered to help us with moving, which is sweet, but I hope that he spends more time checking out this beautiful island than he does being useful with the great moving project.

In other news, darttn is one of the world's best moms. The Hammer Dulcimer e-mail list recently recommended a book, but when I checked the ordering page, they stated that they don't process payments over the internet, that it is necessary to actually call them over the phone to give them credit card details. Not wishing to place an international call, I asked mom to call them for me, and told her to withdraw the cash from my Alaskan Bank account (of which she is a joint account member, for just this sort of purpose). Today she tells me that the book is in the mail, and Merry Christmas, *and* she says that she's put additional cash into my account so that we can go shopping for new luggage, since she figures that it will come in handy when we do travelling/moving next year. She is so wonderful! Thoughtful too!