Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

Since we’ve asked people to share memories of my parents, I’ve been thinking about what I would share if asked for the same thing. Here’s a spattering of items about each of them.

I can’t recall going to a movie theater with Mom after elementary school; I think the last movie we saw together in a theater was E.T.. (If I had to guess, it was either because she didn’t like sitting still, possibly because of her arthritis, or not being allowed to talk. “No, Mom, I don’t know what’s going to happen in this new episode of Star Trek. I haven’t seen it before.”) We didn’t see a lot of movies in theaters in elementary school, so it was fairly memorable.

In middle school, my sister and I established a fairly solid movie habit; one of the two single-screen theaters in Antigua had double-showings at the weekend, so we could spend all of either Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching somewhat recent movies. (I will note that the pairings were not always appropriate, such as a He-Man movie followed by Revenge of the Nerds. Kids movies were dubbed; everything else had subtitles.) At some point before that, while staying with a local family in a neighborhood with many kids our age, we decided to convince Mom to pay for 5 or 6 of us to see Jaws. We weren’t dragging her along, we were just hitting her up for the money, which at the time was probably $3 or $4 for the entire group. As the second-youngest member of that group, I spent a decent amount of the movie peeking out from behind the chair in front of me, along with the youngest member. (I have since rewatched it with less hiding, as well as reading the book in English and Spanish.)

Dad, on the other hand, enjoyed movies in theaters, but was fairly selective about what movies he saw. As an example of something worth seeing on the big screen, we saw Dances with Wolves together once I was back in Miami for school. He saw The Crying Game before I did, I think while we were hosting my sister’s bachelorette party at the house. Near the beginning of middle school, I recall there was a movie he and I both wanted to see – Amadeus – but my sister wasn’t interested, so we compromised and saw something else at that opportunity. A month later, we were all in Guatemala and looked for somewhere we could see it. (Back when you checked movie times in the newspaper!) With only two single-screen theaters in town, it wasn’t playing where we could walk to it, so we caught a bus to Guatemala City, then another bus to the appropriate zone of the city for a theater with multiple screens that was still showing it. And then had to reverse that process to get home in time for dinner.

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned playing yarn chicken with multiple crochet projects, including a historical temperature blanket project.

Umm… that blanket was for my mother.

And wasn’t done yet… I was partway into month nine when she passed.

The decision not to finish it was an easy one. After all, who else would need a historical temperature blanket tracking the high for the day in her city of birth, starting at her birthdate?

The real question was whether to frog (that means undo) the seven or eight days in month nine that were already done – leaving me with awkwardly small sections of yarn for each – or finish off that row. As it happens, the row I was working on already included the date she died, so it seemed logical to finish just that row. I also decided to mark that chain with something extra, in this case a gradient white to gray yarn, to make it stand out.

And now we have another crocheted blanket in the living room, of different styles and weights for all our blankety needs.

Sarah (Edelson) Rodgers, age 79, passed away in Guatemala after a brief illness including anemia, fluid in the lungs, and, unshockingly (to anybody who believes in science), extensive scarring in her lungs after decades of smoking.

She was born in Portland, Oregon on December 14, 1946 to Elizabeth Ruth Thompson (Stevely) & (absent) Harold (Hal) Miller, immediately adopted by Zan & Mary (Lonergan) Edelson, and further raised by Bunny Edelson.

She met her husband, Frank, while attending Portland State University, quitting her role as Student Body President and the related protests at faculty events that she was now invited to after marrying the Director of Libraries.  They moved with their young daughters to Miami, Florida in 1979, just in time for Hurricane David to turn around off the coast, leaving them with boxes of avocados rapidly harvested before the storm and a desperate quest to use them all, thus introducing avocado lime pie as a family favorite. 

She fell in love with Antigua Guatemala on her first visit in the 1980s, following with subsequent visits, enrolling her daughters in middle school, and ultimately buying and renovating a house that became known as Sunshinetenango, merging her personal sun logo with the “tenango” suffix from many Guatemalan towns.  (Oddly, “tenango” arrived from the Nahuatl people in Mexico with the European conquistadors, rather than from the Maya people of Guatemala.) 

Her fascination with Guatemalan textiles involved buying many used clothing items and repurposing some of the fabric into pillows, bag holders, and other common use items.  On one occasion in the late ‘80s, she and housekeeper Salvador took an overnight trip home to a remote village with someone they met on the street to buy the clothes off his back.  In addition to the clothes for her collection, she brought home a twisted ankle, acquired descending a slope to the outhouse in the middle of the night.

She is, as best we know, the oldest of her siblings: Syl, Charles, Rich, and Andrea (all surviving) from Zan; Betsy, Janet, and Doug (only Janet surviving) from Elizabeth; and Stephanie, Karen, and Christine (unknown status) from Hal. 

She was preceded in death by her adoptive parents, birth parents, and husband, Frank.

She is survived by her amazingly resilient stepmother, Bunny; daughters Hilda and Frances; grandchildren Jesi, Alex, and Cassandra; and a fabulous array of nieces and nephews. 

Due to the unfortunate circumstances, her planned 80th birthday party will be repurposed as a celebration of life. Whether you can attend or not, we would appreciate if you share some memories – and photos, if you have them – of both her and our father, Frank, so we can assemble a combined memory book.

Back in April, I decided I was ready to transition to a sit/stand desk – sitting all day isn’t particularly healthy, but neither is standing, so I wanted a desk that would do both. I found one I liked and decided the discount (10% or so) was worth ordering the repackaged one that had been returned. After all, they guarantee that it has been checked for damage and all of the parts are included.

Narrator voice: This was not the case.

Due, among other things, to slightly delayed delivery and my work travel, the box sat unopened for over a month. That was my fault. When I finally opened the box, the first problem I noticed was some damage on a couple corners of the desk pieces. I could have worked with that.

The second problem I noticed was the absence of assembly instructions. Fortunately my order email included a link to a PDF for those… except that part letters and numbers on the PDF didn’t match the pieces I received. It did get me to the point where I could at least check for all the parts, which led to the third problem… they weren’t all in the box. Specifically, I was missing the wheels and the metal bar (in 2 parts) that connects the motor to the legs in order to switch the height.

After some back and forth with Customer Service (a couple people, the AI chatbot couldn’t help me because of the 30-day window), where I made it clear that I only needed the missing parts and accurate instructions… they issued a full refund and said I could dispose of or keep the desk. By that point, the desk was assembled – the damaged corners notwithstanding – so I tried reaching out to the manufacturer to order replacement parts. Alas, I received no response.

So I ordered the same desk again. I skipped the repackaged option this time, and made sure to open the box the day after it arrived.

Assembly instructions: included! And with part labels that matched the stickers! (And for the record, that metal bar… was one piece, not two, making the mismatched instructions for the first build that much more frustrating.)

But… why aren’t there wheels? Not in the box, and not on the instructions, but the desk is listed on the website as having wheels.

Back to the website, then, where the AI chatbot apologized for the inconvenience and placed a replacement parts order.

Several days later, I received an email stating that the replacement parts order had been cancelled (no explanation of why), and they were sending me another “unit” instead. Yes, really, they were sending me a third desk.

By this point, I made the assumption that the third desk would be packaged identically to the second – without wheels. I went elsewhere and ordered a dozen wheels, which is enough for all three identical desks. The wheels and third desk arrived the same day.

I am happily relocated to my new desk, am working on clearing out my old one, which is destined to become our garage workbench. The two spare desks – one slightly damaged, and one unopened in its box – are going home with a friend soon to his new apartment. With wheels. All for the cost of one desk and some extra wheels.