More Krauses, just what you wanted

I said I'd do a little Krause family history, so here it goes.

Clark is the youngest of 3 kids. Katy is the oldest and Bernie is the middle. I think Katy is about 7 years older than Clark, and Bernie about 3. They had a pretty great childhood, from what I've been told. They grew up mostly in Fresno, CA, but also had a cabin in Yosemite where they spent all their summers. They did a lot of hiking, fishing, camping, swimming in the river, and that kind of stuff. Clark was actually a wrangler and guided horseback backcountry treks into the wilds of Yosemite during the summer for several years during high school and college. As I type that, I am amazed he and I have anything at all to talk about. He was very outdoorsy from a very early age.

Clark's parents were a little older than the norm when they had their kids. I think his dad was 40 when Clark came along. Bill was an amazing man. So sweet, so accepting, so in tune with nature. He passed away about a year and a half ago from prostate cancer. It was very difficult for all the family, Clark especially. He always had a special relationship with his dad, and they talked on the phone several times a week for as long as I've known him. Bill never knew his dad, I think he was out of the picture before Bill was even born, and his mom was a raging alcoholic. I think he had a total of 10 stepdads, and was in and out of foster care quite a lot. He served in the military during WWII as a fighter pilot, and made a living for a time after that as a boxer. It's amazing that he got through his childhood in tact, and miraculous that he came through it the gentle, caring man that he was.

Pat grew up in Minnesota in a fairly poor farming family. She doesn't hesitate to tell anyone that she considered her childhood mostly miserable. Her mom was pretty judgmental and overbearing, but she doesn't talk much about her dad. She was the kind of kid who chose to sit inside and sulk because they didn't have smooth sidewalks she could rollerskate on at the farm, instead of going out and finding something else to do. She learned early to be negative, and I don't think anyone ever tried to turn that around for her until she met Bill. She moved out of her family's house at 16, only to realize she was still miserable even without her mother around. She and Bill met while working seasonal jobs in Yellowstone, thus beginning the family's long relationship with the national parks and nature. Bill ended up teaching school, and selling real estate during the summer. Pat stayed home when the kids were small, and worked for awhile for the IRS. After they retired, they moved to the Yosemite cabin full time.

Now that Bill is gone, Pat can't stay by herself at the cabin year-round. The winters are hard, and their little town inside the park mostly vacates when the snow comes. She's 79 now, but even if she were younger it probably wouldn't be a good idea. Last winter, we were in the middle of moving, and she split her time between her two other kids. Katy lives in Sacramento, and both her and her husband have high stress, high power, full time jobs. They also have 3 daughters. Two teens and one preteen. The oldest and the youngest both struggle with pretty serious ADHD, among other things, which can be challenging for anyone, and especially so for an aging grandmother. Bernie lives with his sweet wife Heather in Houston. Bernie and Heather got married 2 weeks exactly before Clark and I did, and don't have any kids. I think Pat liked it there, but her timing was bad last year. Pat also has a harder time in a city that size, particularly when she's on her own a lot. She doesn't like to drive, and I think she ended up feeling a little isolated.

I get the feeling that she wants to be around her grandkids, and that puts her here. She wants to be around my kids, but doesn't seem to be interested in any babysitting, or caretaking of them. Which is fine. She is 79 after all, and I don't expect her to do anything more than what she wants to do. That's been the biggest stress for her kids in trying to help her figure out her living situation, she doesn't seem to know what she wants. I can't blame her, she hasn't had to be totally in charge of herself in over 60 years, it must be difficult. She wants to be independent, but then gets stressed out by it. For example, when she came to visit, she insisted on renting a car and driving herself from the airport to her hotel. Then, she got lost, but wouldn't call me. She ended up being lost for a couple hours, driving around the city, and then didn't want to get back in her car the whole time she was here.

She's gone back and forth tons of times on what her plan is for this winter. I think she procrastinated her way out of the housing situation Clark had found for her, since we don't have a guest room, and I don't think she'd want to live with us anyways. Right now, she's going to stay at the cabin for as long as she can, then go to Sacramento for a couple weeks, then go to Houston. It's a challenge for me to have her here, as I've talked about in previous posts, but of course I will do what I can for her. She is my husband's mother after all. I could have it a lot worse, as far as inlaws go. She doesn't try to meddle or tell me what to do. And the negativity has improved since the last time we saw her last spring. I think Bill was her balance. He was able to diffuse her negativity in a very subtle way. Now that she doesn't have that, she's not as able to reign it in. I mostly try to ignore it, with varying degrees of success. I did lose it once, and had to tell her to stop when she was criticizing something Madeline had really wanted to watch on tv (some disney made for tv type thing). She just wouldn't let it go, and it truly just wasn't that bad. I guess that's what you get when you marry an older man. Especially an older man who's the youngest child of parents who had their kids a little later. You get to deal with caring for his aging parent.

Clark is on the road AGAIN tonight. The shit has hit the fan at his work, and he's had to pick up another trip next week to Washington DC. He'll be back a day before I leave for Seattle. I know I'm being cryptic about the work thing, but I'm trying to follow the commandment of Dooce, and not go into the details in a public forum. If you're interested (and haven't heard about it already), I'm more than willing to fill you in via email, I could use the vent, and the support.