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Michele Miles Gardiner Writes Posts

“Diary of an Accidental Car Saleswoman” — Excerpted from “How to Stay Broke and Influence Nobody”

Kaboom! Thwap! Thwap! That’s what I heard as I sat behind the polished walnut steering wheel of a brand new, shiny, black Jaguar XK convertible–an $80,000 car–a car that was not mine. I knew it. Of course, something horrible would happen if I were to get anywhere near a luxury vehicle. What fools would ever trust me with this car? I wondered. The fools at the car dealership who just hired me to sell cars, that’s who.

One of my co-workers, also a recently hired salesperson, Marcelo, sat in the soft, tan-hued leather passenger’s seat beside me. We weren’t even out of the dealership lot, on our way to get familiar with this Jaguar convertible on a test drive, when we heard the horrific kaboom! The car shook. Then another thwap!

The car shook again and again.

I sat in the driver’s seat. Marcelo sat to my right in the passenger seat. After the first Kaboom, I looked over at Marcelo, a Brazilian whose chatter was as fast and plentiful as the Samba in his home country. He just stared straight ahead, eyes wide open and his mouth closed.

“Marcelo,” is all I could say through clenched teeth, too petrified to move even my jaw.

After sitting momentarily frozen, the two of us gathered enough courage to look back through the rear window. We discovered what had happened. The guard at the gate had clumsily released the heavy wooden arm of the gate before we moved the car forward as we were about to leave the lot. The Kaboom we heard was the gate arm slamming down on top of the trunk of the Jaguar.

Marcelo and I both jumped out of the car to survey the damage. After thoroughly examining every inch of the metal exterior, we looked at each other, and laughed hysterically, the way people do when they realize they just escaped something horrible. Incredibly, there was no damage–nothing but a dusty smudge from the padding on the gate arm. After I pushed my heart back down into my chest, I looked over to the guard who was at fault. She just shrugged her shoulders and shuffled back to her booth.

It was only my second day on the job, after two weeks of training. What else could happen in the days to come?

That morning, I had awakened at five am, still in a foggy sleep state. I was so certain I had only dreamed I worked at a car dealership, that I pulled the covers back over my shoulders to return to sleep. I quickly bolted upright when I realized it wasn’t a dream–I did work at a car dealership.

Once I’d wrapped my head around that fact, I crawled out of bed and dressed myself in a gray pencil skirt, black high heels, crisp, white, a fitted, cotton shirt, and a black blazer, complete with my shiny new metal car name tag. I pulled my shoulders back and prepared to be the best car salesperson ever.

After parking, I walked two blocks to the car dealership with a bounce in my step. It began to rain. Prepared, I popped open my red umbrella. This was the new me, the new organized Michele. The old me would never have prepared for rain. As I approached three stairs, I caught the eye of a fellow car salesman. He smiled at me, and said, “Good morning! How are you today?”

I smiled back, about to answer him, when–clunk, clunk, clunk–I slid down three rain-slick stairs. “It is a good morning! I didn’t fall,” I said as I walked away, glancing back to see the car salesman’s mouth hanging open in disbelief. His expression said it all: our dealership hired her?

I entered the luxury showroom where I worked, ready for an exciting new day. Today, I told myself, would be the first day I’d sell a car, as I walked toward my office with chin up and arms swinging confidently.

The receptionist stopped me. “Uh. Your name tag is upside down.”

So began my career in car sales.

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You can read my book, “Craving Normal,” now. I’m currently working on my second story collection, “How to Stay Broke and Influence Nobody.

Reader of my book, "Craving Normal" in Spain

 

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Cusack, A Cupid Called King, And Kung Pao Shrimp – 34th Anniversary Recap

“You’ve begun to bore me,” Ian will dryly say when I’m talking about something he has no interest in. I laugh as he walks away to do things he prefers. I’ve tried this with people. But I don’t have
his tact. Ian has a subtly humorous way that makes it funny. I do it, and people get pissed.

While I enjoy his droll humor, he likes my “wrong-ness.” As Ian said to me recently, “You’re the right amount of wrong.”

“That sounds like a compliment.”

“It is.

“I’ll take it.”

This explains why he didn’t flee my antics back in 1987.

We met after John Cusack wouldn’t put up with me a couple of weeks earlier. My roommate, whom I’ll call Norma, tried to fix us up. Cusack was starring in a movie called “Tapeheads.” She was dating one of the movie’s producers and wanted us to double date at the Formosa Cafe, where the Tapeheads crew were meeting for drinks. Well, I had a few cranberry and vodka cocktails and fell asleep (okay, passed out) beside John in a red booth at Damiano’s Pizza on Fairfax.

Two weeks later Norma dragged reluctant-me along to the “Tapeheads” wrap party so she could hang out with her movie producer boyfriend. John Cusack saw me and pivoted in the other direction. Soon after, King, Roscoe in “Tapeheads,” and I began talking. Next thing I know, he’s introducing me to his record producer friend, Ian Gardiner.

Ian knew from the beginning what he was getting into with me. On one of our early dates at a counter-service Mexican restaurant in the San Fernando Valley, we sat down in a booth to eat.

“Take that back,” I teased Ian after he made some silly joke at my expense. I picked up my plastic spoon, packed it with rice, and pulled the spoon bowl back with an index finger as if I were going to catapult rice toward him. “Take it back, or you’ll get a face full of rice,” I joked, not really intending to shoot him with rice because mature people don’t shoot their dates with rice.

My finger slipped. And, as if it were happening in slow motion, like a football flying over a field, I watched my ball of rice skim the top of Ian’s head and land on the head of the woman sitting in the booth behind him.

The woman’s husband stood up, red in the face, and screamed in my general direction, “What the hell is going on here?”

Having already paid for our food at the counter, I grabbed my purse and ran out. Ian ran behind me. We burst through the back door as if we were Bonnie and Clyde running from the scene of a crime.

Quite a few men would have left and never called me again. But Ian kept calling. We laughed for a long time about “the rice incident.”

 

Things escalated quickly after my roommate’s boyfriend ate my leftover kung pao shrimp. That did it! I packed up my car, strapped my 1950s amoeba-shaped coffee table to my car’s roof, and landed on Ian’s doorstep. Unlike many other people, Ian accepted purloined kung-pao shrimp as an acceptable reason to leave my roommate and move in with him.

Soon, we planned to elope, just the two of us. We made an appointment with a Justice of the Peace for April twenty-sixth, 1989, and reserved a room in a yellow and white Victorian Inn with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

“Who needs the stress of planning a wedding?” Ian said

“Yeah. Why spend months planning a guest list and seating arrangements?” I agreed.

We felt so smart for avoiding the stress of wedding planning.

Two weeks later, we left for Pacific Grove, arriving at the often foggy beach town around two in the afternoon. But that spring day, there was no fog to be found. The sky was turquoise and cloudless. The sun sparkled on the ocean, and the water looked like it had been strewn with diamonds. We couldn’t have planned for better weather. But then, as I said, we really didn’t plan much at all. With only a couple hours before our appointment with the Justice of the Peace, we still didn’t have a wedding ring or a bouquet.

We walked through the coastal town, passing cottages and Victorians until we found an antique shop where Ian bought a delicate gold band engraved with intricate leaves for my wedding ring. After that, we found a florist who put together a bouquet of white and pink roses surrounded by baby’s breath.

With an hour to spare, we returned to our inn with the incredible ocean view. As the golden sun poured through our room’s windows, we dressed and took goofy photos of ourselves; the last images of us as single people.

“And now I’m off to apply the ball and chain,” Ian joked—or maybe he wasn’t joking—as he buttoned his shirt.

Fifteen minutes to four o’clock, we walked along Ocean View Boulevard to Lover’s Point.

Once there, we stood on a cliff above the ocean as a breeze blew through our hair. A serious-looking man in a dark suit, who we realized was the Justice of the Peace, approached us. After quick introductions, he looked around and asked, “Where’s your witness?”

“Witness?” Ian and I asked in unison.

“Yes. You need a witness.”

That might’ve been something he could’ve mentioned when I spoke with him on the phone. I mean, I wasn’t exactly the wedding professional around here. My husband-to-be and I looked at each other. I hadn’t planned much, but a witness would’ve really come in handy at that moment. Our stress-free wedding was just about to cause me to hyperventilate. How did such a perfect day go so horribly wrong? And then, on a nearby path—where no one had been the entire time we stood there—a man in a gray sweat suit jogged into view. Ian looked at me. I looked at Ian.

“Excuse me!” I yelled to the jogger as he came closer.

He jogged over to me, sweating and panting, “Yeah?”

“We’re trying to get married, but we don’t have a witness. Could you be our witness?”

A smile stretched across his red and sweat-beaded face. “Yeah. Sure!”

“Uh . . . and”—I held my camera out to him—“would you mind taking pictures?”

Only after I developed the film, did I see our wedding photos were blurry, badly exposed pictures of our feet. We think it’s hilarious that we have wedding photos of our feet and that we’re together after I annoyed Cusack, allowing King to play Cupid, and that filched kung-pao shrimp changed the trajectory of our history.

We’re two people who happened to find the person who doesn’t just accept the other person’s quirks but adores them, things that make us laugh and bring us joy other people might find odd. But it works for us.

Hey Ian, you knew what you were getting yourself into. Now we’re together 36 years and married 34. That is hilarious.

 

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Laughing Is More Fun Than Crying.

You’re Not Alone

Welcome! I’m an imperfect person trying my best in life as I share in my stories. In parenting, marriage, working, and interacting with other humans, I do my best to remain calm, sane, and havoc-free, but I often fail.

In 2019, I published my first book, “Craving Normal.” As I continue to work on my second book, a work-in-progress (still without a title), a traumatic and life-changing experience happened that I wanted to share. It’s included as a late chapter in my next book. I guess that author up in the cosmos decided to add some scary trauma and emotional chaos to my tales. These latest adventures I will share with readers in my last chapter have added some needed perspective, that’s for sure.

If you’re struggling, I hope my life experiences assure you you’re not alone.

Life’s tough. But it helps to find humor and magic. It’s there, in between the madness.

If You’ve Snort-Laughed Inappropriately at Awkward Moments, You’re My People.

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Ian’s Quite Remarkable Tale: A Story of Trauma and Recovery

*I’m sharing this story to celebrate my husband Ian’s 70th birthday on December 4th.

As life unfolds in the yin/yang boogie of dark and light, I do my best to take my experiences, whether negative or positive, and find the absurdity, beauty, and comedy, even in tragedy. I enjoy sharing my experiences and observations in my stories; if I learn something from them, I hope to share that. But, until recently, I couldn’t write about this latest life education. For me, often, it takes time to let extreme experiences settle. I need time to think, to let emotions soften, as the dark and the light begin to balance. Then, it’s easier to contemplate many life moments from afar.

On Friday, December 11, 2020, just after 8 am, I was still in bed and looked over at Ian. He was awake but sleepy under the covers. The sun was coming through the windows.

“Good morning. I’m going to get up and make coffee.” I got out of bed.

“Sounds good,” he said, with a smile, then pulled the covers up and rolled over.

Fifteen minutes later, after I made coffee and checked my email, I heard a muffled “Michele! Help me!”

I rushed back into our bedroom to find Ian on his back on the floor beside the bed.

My brain slowed down to take in this confusing scene. I don’t know what I said, but I thought: Why’s Ian on the floor? Why can’t he get up?

“Help me,” he struggled to say as his head and body stayed pinned to the floor. The left side of his face—mouth, cheek, and eye—were pulled down and didn’t move as he spoke.

“Oh my God, you had a stroke. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.” As if my brain wiring became overloaded, this scene wasn’t computing. I was unable to believe what I was seeing. Only fifteen minutes earlier, Ian smiled. It was a sleepy smile, but he seemed fine. Exactly a week before, we were climbing and jumping rocks in the Joshua Tree desert, celebrating his 68th birthday. We stayed in a yurt! That’s who we are: happy, active, nature-loving, yurt people. Not this. This didn’t make sense.

I grabbed a pillow to put under his head. On my knees with Ian on the floor, I begged for help from above. “Please, please, don’t let anything happen to Ian. I’ll do anything!”

Ian looked up at me, confused. “Call 911.”

“Oh, right!” As if my brain and my body were set to slow motion, I struggled toward my phone to call 911 and did my best to tone down my hysteria as I spoke. The operator had to tell me to calm down a few times, so I failed. I was sure Ian had a stroke and informed the 911 operator. So the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) took him to one of the best stroke hospitals in our area, about ten minutes away. It’s the hospital our daughter, Lauren, was born in thirty-one years earlier.

In the minutes before the ambulance came, Ian told me, “I went to get out of bed, and my left leg collapsed.” His entire left side wasn’t moving.

Waiting for the EMTs to arrive, I called my mom in a panic, “Ian had a stroke!” She calmed me with her years of hospital experience working with vascular surgeons. “You found Ian right away, so he has a better chance of recovery.” As I panicked, she sent me off with, “We’ll be praying for Ian. I’ll get Greg (my mom’s psychic healer friend) to work on him.” We needed all the help we could get. Ian couldn’t leave me. I asked my mom to call our daughter, Lauren, and relay what happened. My inability to control my emotions would freak her out. Within minutes, Lauren arrived at our house. She called her brother, Adam. He met us in the hospital’s Emergency Room waiting area.

Because of 2020 hospital protocols, only one family member would be allowed to stay with an ER patient. I was the first to go in to see Ian in the room. He was alert, talking to the nurses and answering questions. Thank God, I thought, his speech and thinking seemed to be unaffected, beyond his mouth drooping on the left. I kissed his face and tried to hold his left hand, but he was unable to feel my touch. I sobbed, gasping and convulsing. The nurse on duty took me in her arms and held me as I wailed. Once I calmed down enough to speak, I told her, “Ian’s daughter and son are here. They’ll want to come in to be with their dad.”

I will never forget the kindness and humanity of this woman. She ignored the 2020 hospital protocol of only one family member at a time. “Wait here,” she told me and went to get Lauren and Adam in the waiting area. All three of us were able to stay in the ER room with Ian.

The ER’s head nurse came in and introduced herself. Through my tear-blurred vision, I recognized this woman, even with the surgical mask over her mouth and nose. She’s nearly six feet tall, with white-blonde hair cut above her shoulders. She and I became friends at a local fitness club, where we often took the same evening workout class.
I jumped up and clung to her. She hugged me back.

Before workouts, we used to talk. So I knew she was a nurse and where she worked. But I could never predict how she would later appear in another one of those crazy kismet connections, weaving through my life—and a vitally important one.

She explained how she and the EMT team coordinated Ian’s transfer. “The ambulance trip here happened in record time, second fastest in California. We were able, in minutes, to get him in for a CT scan to determine he had a hemorrhagic stroke (brain bleed) and not an ischemic stroke (blocked artery). So it’s a good thing we didn’t give him the clot medication I had ready to inject, or his blood would’ve gushed like a fire hose.”

I stared at her and exhaled in relief. This was all too much to digest, mentally and emotionally. Way too close. But he was alive. Great news.

Great news, yes. “But wait, there’s more!” like those TV shopping network salespeople shout into the camera. A Physician’s Assistant (PA) for a staff neurosurgeon came in to discuss more information than I could handle. He explained, “For the next 72 hours, we’ll watch to see if his brain swells. In that case, he’ll need surgery.”

I was a soppy, sobbing blob with this thought bubble: He’s alive. Can’t we be happy about that?

Lauren stood up to talk to the PA as I hovered in the background.

The PA held up Ian’s brain scan, showing the location of the brain bleed, on the right side, affecting the left side of his body. “We have to appreciate how serious this is…” he continued, speaking in fluent medicalese.

“I don’t want to appreciate that,” Lauren reacted to the wording. “Just explain what we can expect.”

The PA spoke in a dour tone, focusing on the likelihood Ian would need surgery. “In the case of cerebral swelling, we’ll remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on his brain. And he may have trouble breathing, so we’ll put him on a ventilator…”

“What?” I looked at Ian. Yes, he was exhausted, and his left side wasn’t moving, but he was breathing and aware. This PA was giving us only scary possibilities without hope. We needed some hope. I appreciate the potential of the human mind and the power of our minds over our physical health, i.e., the placebo effect (toward positive health) and the nocebo effect (toward negative health). I didn’t appreciate Ian being exposed to only frightening possibilities without the balance of positive potentials. He was right there and totally aware.

“But that’s not for sure, right?” Lauren said to the PA, trying to get some better news.

Next, Ian’s potential neurosurgeon stopped by to meet us. I sat by Ian’s side. After seeing how Lauren asked good questions, I felt confident she could handle talking to the medical staff. We all had different observable coping skills: Ian was physically affected and mentally exhausted; Adam was supportive and quiet; I was upset and emotional, and Lauren was managerial and inquisitive.

Lauren asked the neurosurgeon, “Will you go over the scan with me and explain the surgery?”

“Sure, follow me.” The surgeon and Lauren left the room to view Ian’s brain scan, which she wisely recorded on her phone.

Every now and then, Ian would attempt to move his left leg, only managing to make his left foot twitch under the hospital blanket. Still, he was cracking jokes and doing his usual physical humor—whipping his reading glasses from the top of his head, with his right hand, in an exaggerated way. He got Adam and me to laugh.

We would later realize the hemorrhagic stroke occurred after a collision of poor health conditions (kidney issues, leading to hypertension—we were clueless about how kidneys regulate blood pressure) and unhealthy choices (poor diet and 2020 drinking, which Ian rarely did prior; he wasn’t taking blood pressure medication for hypertension, a condition he managed when he was eating real food and not fast food).

I didn’t know then that only about 13 percent of strokes are hemorrhagic but account for 40 percent of all stroke fatalities. In retrospect, I’m glad to have been ignorant about this as I sat there feeling helpless.

The hospital gave Ian medication to stabilize his blood pressure. But other than that, the rest was up to Ian’s brain and body.

Lauren, Adam, and I sat near Ian’s ER bed from that morning until after 5 pm, when a room was finally available in the ICU, where he would be monitored for the next 72 Hours. We all had to leave.

Adam, now married and a father, drove home to his wife, Heather, and their three-year-old daughter, Holly. Lauren and I went to my house to get our dog, Charlie, and pack some of my clothes and a toothbrush, so I could stay with Lauren at her apartment in Hollywood.

That night’s a blur. I only remember waking up around two in the morning and crying out in disbelief, “This can’t be happening!” I still couldn’t believe it. He woke up smiling. Fifteen minutes later everything changed.

The next morning was a crisp, sunny Saturday. Days earlier, Lauren found a kitten online—a three-month-old female, black and white tuxedo cat, and made an appointment to adopt the kitty on this day. She felt strange about continuing with this plan, considering what her dad was going through. “I don’t know. I feel weird.”

“I’ll go with you. The kitten needs a home.”

Hospital protocol did not allow families to visit hospitalized patients. Otherwise, we’d have been by Ian’s bedside. Instead, we’d be sitting around Lauren’s apartment, sad and nervous. So it made sense to focus on something positive, like giving a kitten a home. I drove Lauren to the San Pedro animal rescue place and stayed in the car as she went inside to meet and pick up her new kitten.

As I waited, my cell phone rang. It was the hospital PA. My heart bopped around as my fingers fumbled to answer.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Gardiner?”

“Yes?”

“This is Dean, the PA from…”

“How’s Ian doing? Anything new?

“Yes, and it’s quite remarkable, actually.” I could tell from how he said it, he was smiling. He sounded almost shocked to say what he was saying.

“Oh?”

“Your husband’s brain is not swelling, which is amazing, and his body is absorbing the blood from the brain bleed.”

“So no surgery?”

“Not at this point. We still need to monitor him in ICU for the next two days, but he’s looking good.”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

Lauren opened the car door, holding her sweet little kitten she named Marley. I let her know what the PA said. The good news felt like we’d been given a massive dose of a happiness serum, causing contagious euphoria and lightness. The two of us suddenly felt upbeat after the darkness. The energy in the car lifted. Plus, we had a new cat to love. That night, at Lauren’s apartment, we ate dinner and went over that positive phone call again and again. As if repeating a fairy tale with a happy ending, I said: “And the PA said, ‘It’s quite remarkable, actually,’ with a smile in his voice. And, at the hospital yesterday, he sounded so dour—only scary possibilities.”

Since visitors were not allowed in the hospital, we delivered comforting items—blankets, pillows, photos—and dropped them off at the front desk for Ian. I made a collage of family photos and printed it with “We love you! Get well really soon so we can hug you.” Lauren sent along an envelope that said, “To Daddy, open when needed,” filled with supportive thoughts to help her dad through this tough time.

Ian’s 72-hour period of monitoring in the ICU came to an end. A neurologist called me. “Mrs. Gardiner, your husband is doing so well we expect a full recovery. It really is remarkable.” She smiled, too, as she said it.

Great news. But other than speaking to Ian on the phone or via Facetime, we hadn’t seen him in person since we had to leave him in the hospital. I began to contemplate what would be in our immediate future—all of which would be even more difficult because we were physically separated. I wished I could be there to comfort and support him. He would learn to walk and use his arms, hands, and fingers again. This had to be scary for him, especially being alone, to think about the most daunting and unknown of what he faced.

The two of us being kept apart was torture for me. And since Ian called me from the hospital at two and three in the morning, I suspect it wasn’t easy for him. Beyond weekend trips to visit my mom in the Bay Area, I had rarely been separated from Ian since we first met in 1987.

The hospital called me to coordinate his move to a physical therapy rehab hospital. I learned when the ambulance would pick him up and drive him to the rehab twenty minutes north of the hospital. I managed to have the hospital give my cell phone number to the EMTs so they could call me with their schedule, and I could follow behind their vehicle.

That December evening, Lauren and I drove to the hospital around six o’clock. The EMTs texted me when they’d depart with Ian and gave me the rehab address. We followed the slow-moving ambulance from the hospital to the new location. Once in the rehab’s parking lot, one of the EMTs called me. “If you meet us at the entrance, you’ll be able to say hi to your husband.”

It had been four days since we’d been with Ian in person. Time moved strangely. So much happened in only a few days, days that seemed to last forever. The two EMTs pulled Ian, who was on a gurney atop a liftgate, out and down, then rolled him in front of the small facility’s entrance. Lauren and I waited in the chilly night air. We hugged him and kissed his cheeks. He gave an exhausted smile. I gushed thank yous to the thoughtful EMTs for coordinating that moment, far more precious than I realized then. His stay would turn into nearly a month—a month of separation.

Later that night, I spoke to Ian on the phone. He told me he ate an “interesting sandwich” and moved a finger on his left hand; both showed progress.

Claudia, Ian’s head physical therapist (PT), called me that night. “Ian’s going to work out in our gym tomorrow morning. Visitors aren’t allowed inside, but we’ll be by a window. You can watch him through the glass.”

What sort of bizzaro world did I wake up to? Ian not only had a stroke but I’d have to watch him through glass as if he’s a zoo animal. Still, the chance to see Ian learning to move his left side again and give him support wasn’t an opportunity I was going to miss.

“Great, I’ll be there!”

The following day, Lauren and I parked in the small rehab parking lot and spotted the long window of the gym. We got closer to the glass and saw Ian with Claudia, the PT who called me. Claudia lifted him and moved him with a physical therapy belt around his waist, called a gait belt, from the wheelchair to a workout bench. We waved to him, and he waved back with his right arm and hand. But waving caused him to wobble over and lean on Claudia, so she propped him up again.

It hit me. Ian would start over again, almost like a toddler, except for his speech and use of his right hand. In phone calls, the rehab staff explained he’d be learning to walk, working on moving his arms and hands, and learning to care for himself—eating, dressing, showering. But seeing him there, unable to hold himself up, smacked me upside my head with reality.

Outside the window, Lauren and I jumped up, clapping and cheering for any small movement he managed with his left hand and arm. We rah-rah’d like annoyingly perky cheerleaders. But Ian seemed to love it. And cheering was so much more fun than sobbing.

Those weeks we drove from Hollywood to the Thousand Oaks physical therapy rehab, about forty-five minutes one way, north on the 101, and back as often as possible.

With all the chaos in our lives, Lauren and I didn’t think about Christmas and how it was only days away. Of course, there were reminders—twinkly lights and decorations on houses and in stores and incessant Christmas music in supermarkets. As a chronic Christmas procrastinator, always decorating and shopping about five days before the holiday, I hadn’t done one festive thing this year. But Ian, hospitalized for two weeks by Christmas, loved the holiday. So I went shopping to get him some gifts to put in a stocking, even if I’d only be able to drop the gift-filled stocking off at the physical therapy rehab’s front desk. I wanted him to have a happy moment.

A few days before, I called Claudia to see what Ian’s schedule would be like on Christmas morning. Adam, Lauren, and I wanted to bring gifts to Ian and maybe wave to him through the glass. So, after driving with Lauren and meeting Adam in the parking lot, I called Claudia.

“We’re here,” I said.

Claudia lowered her voice so her co-workers didn’t hear. “See that back door at the other end of the gym window?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We’ll meet you outside there.”

Claudia rolled Ian in a wheelchair through the back door. He came out smiling. “Hey, you guys, Merry Christmas.” Lauren, Adam, and I bent down to hug him. We sat on a bench under a yellow and red-leafed maple tree in the chilly, sunny Christmas morning air, facing Ian and Claudia. I went to hold Ian’s hand as he sat in the wheelchair, but it was his left, so he didn’t react to my touch. I caught my unhappy reaction and covered it with a smile, trying to keep upbeat for Ian. We gave him gifts and talked. About fifteen minutes later, Ian had to return to rehab before the other staff noticed Claudia’s clandestine Christmas caper.

Adam and Heather had their little girl, Holly, so they’d be doing their Christmas thing. Lauren and I went back to her apartment to watch romantic comedies as you do on Christmas. We chose to treat it as any other day since Ian wasn’t with us.

For the next two weeks, I filled notebooks with info I would need as Ian’s caregiver. My days were busy calling doctors and nurses to ask questions, setting up future appointments, and finding medical suppliers to order a wheelchair and a Hemi-walker. At night, I read about neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form and reorganize synaptic connections. I watched physical therapy videos on bed transfers and how to help someone with hemiparesis (weakness on one side of the body after a stroke). I watched hours of videos on physical therapy workouts we could do at home and ordered workout equipment.

The last week before Ian was to return home, the inside of my head must’ve looked, sounded, and smelled like a vomit-covered carnival ride run by toothless drunks (an image conjured by an experience Ian and I had in our early dating days when two drunk carnies wouldn’t let us off a spinning ride). I was overwhelmed by all I had to accomplish. I had never had to be so responsible for so many vitally important things, and by “things,” I mean Ian’s life and health.

Lauren held me together, giving me good food and a cozy place to stay, listening to my concerns, and offering to take on anything I needed help with, like contacting some of the people I needed to speak to right away. “I’ll call the rehab coordinator to find out about Daddy’s transfer home. I have a lot of questions, anyway.” In the first scary days, she had also called nurses, the neurologist, and the PA with a litany of questions.

Ian’s rehab stay was coming to an end due to the insurance coverage running out. Claudia called me to let me know I’d be allowed inside the facility for caregiver training, where she and other physical therapists could show me how to transfer Ian from his wheelchair and how to care for him. After that first day of learning to help Ian, and seeing how the PTs worked with him, I suddenly understood how much he had to learn to perform basic functions, like putting on a T-shirt. I hadn’t realized until then how much work we both had ahead of us.

Overwhelmed after the first day of care training, I called my mom as I drove back to Lauren’s Hollywood apartment and bombarded her with a deluge of emotions. “He has so much work ahead of him! How am I going to do this?”

As frantic as I was, nothing seemed to rattle Lauren. I’d been staying at her 1930s-era Beachwood Canyon apartment, down the street from the Hollywood sign, for about three weeks when the dark winter sky opened up and pummeled LA with rain. Even though Lauren’s apartment unit is on the bottom level of a two-story building, we began to hear water drip from her kitchen ceiling. She placed an outdoor plastic garbage bin under the drip to keep the floor dry.

Plunk plunk plunk, I heard as I sat in Lauren’s living room, planning another crazed day of coordinating Ian’s care and all the things I needed to get done. Suddenly, a torrent of water burst violently through Lauren’s soaked and weakened kitchen ceiling. Hearing the powerful eruption, Lauren ran out of her bedroom and stared into her flooding kitchen. Her ceiling then collapsed—a thunderous explosion of plaster chunks hammered down as water rushed through. Lauren said nothing.

I screamed. “This can’t be happening! I’ve had it!” This was the thing that was going to send me to a madhouse, if they still had those.

“Just go!” Lauren pointed toward her front door. “I need to handle this.” She couldn’t deal with the water pouring through her collapsed ceiling and my screaming. I got our dog and my stuff and returned to my quiet house in the Valley. I needed to get our home ready for Ian, anyway.

Ian counted the days along with the massive poster board calendar Lauren created for him. He called me upbeat. “Hey, baby! Only two more days and I’ll be home. I’ll even be happy to eat your veggie medleys, anything but hospital food. And I can’t wait to not be poked and prodded all night by nurses. I need a full night’s sleep.”


Lauren and I were having our bedroom-bathroom remodeled with a built-in bench and grab bars for Ian’s safety. The plumber, tile, and paint crew were still working. We needed the house empty and quiet for Ian’s return. Other than that, I couldn’t wait for him to come home.

I dreamed of him sitting in the morning sun, getting natural Vitamin D as I made him healthy meals, with his favorite jazz players’ music playing on our turntable: Charlie Haden, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus… My watercolor dreams were full of sunbeams, music, healthy food, and laughs. Finally, I’d have my best friend home again.

Claudia called me. “Michele, Ian isn’t ready to go home. If we had him for a couple of more weeks, we’d have more time to get him stronger. I’m contacting the insurance company now to make that happen.”

“Claudia, no. He wants to be home so badly.”

“If I can get the insurance company to approve this, it would be the best thing for him and for you.”

There was a long pause while I thought.

“Let me know what they say. I’ll talk to Ian to make a decision. But I’m not saying anything to him now. He just wants to come home.”

Claudia’s plan didn’t work. The insurance company didn’t approve. But now I was concerned that he would have been better off staying longer.

The final hours before Ian came home: a work crew was still in our bedroom bathroom finishing the shower and floor tile. I needed to drive to a medical supply store to pick up a wheelchair and Hemi-walker. As I rushed around, the rehab transfer coordinator called my cell phone. “You absolutely need to hire a caregiver. It would be crazy not to. You cannot do this all on your own. Believe me.”

So in between all my other duties, I began trying to find a caregiver. Then I realized that for the amount of time, we could afford, it would be useless and intrusive to have a stranger pop in momentarily to our home to care for Ian while I just stood around. So I planned on caring for him myself. Crazy, maybe. But being considered crazy has never stopped me from anything.

January 8th of 2021: Ian’s last day at rehab. I helped him pack his month’s worth of clothes and accessories. Because he was in a wheelchair, I ordered a van to take him from rehab to our home. I then drove on ahead to be at our house before he arrived. Lauren was at our home getting the bathroom remodel crew to finish.

The van pulled up to our house. The door slid open. Ian, at the top of the ramp in his wheelchair, waved like a celebrity as Lauren and I jumped up and down, clapping. “Welcome home!”

****

As for my sunbeam and music-filled dreams for Ian’s initial home recovery, well, that wasn’t reality. Most importantly, he needed sleep. His body and brain needed to recover. Ian was determined to walk, so when he wasn’t resting he would have to work hard to walk again. When Ian was in the hospital, he called me more than one morning, saying, “I dreamed I could walk again.”

Ian had to learn to walk. It was his dream. Plus, he was not a fun wheelchair guy. I bought a short metal ramp to get the wheelchair into the front door of our house. My arms and legs shook as I pushed him in the wheelchair up the ramp with all my strength, panting and sweating. Apparently, I wasn’t fast enough because he’d shout, “Go! Go! Go!” which tempted me to let him go go go… backward. Pushing him around Home Depot in that bulky chair to look for screws was another experience.

“Roll me forward. No, back. Too far. No, forward. Stop. Stop! Stop!”

“You better learn to walk real soon,” I said through clenched teeth, fantasizing about tossing that thing over a cliff… the wheelchair, but not with Ian in it.


“That’s us!” Ian and I happened to catch this scene from the TV show “Monk” and had our first huge, cathartic laugh. We related.

A physical therapist and an occupational therapist began coming to our house a few times a week. In the first month, the occupational therapist (OT) walked into our home to find Ian on the floor of our carpeted office and me struggling to pick him up.

He stood over us and said sternly, “Mr. Gardiner, I have to call and report that you had a fall.”

“What?” I was horrified. “It wasn’t a fall. It was a crumple.” The transfer from the wheelchair into a chair was poorly executed, but it wasn’t a violent fall. Ian slowly folded, sliding out of my arms to the floor. The scary part was trying to get him up from there. I was relieved when the OT walked in until I heard he’d report this sloppy fumble as a fall. I freaked out. Would Ian be taken to a safe house or something? Would they try to take him from me?

This wouldn’t be the first time we had a problem with this occupational therapist.

The OT, to help Ian get back the use of his left hand and arm, would have Ian pick up kidney beans, one at a time, between his left index finger and thumb. Then Ian had to lift his arm like a crane, stopping over a tiny bowl to drop the bean into it. It wasn’t easy. He would put all of his concentration into using the right pressure to hold the bean. Once he had the bean secure, he then had to focus on lifting and moving his arm, which felt incredibly heavy, to hover over the bowl and then concentrate on releasing the bean from his fingers. He couldn’t look away. The second he wasn’t watching his left hand and arm, the bean—or anything he was holding in his left hand—would drop before he meant to release it.

After one intense kidney bean session with the OT, due to Ian’s mental fatigue during the late afternoon in-home appointment, the occupational therapist pulled some psychologically manipulative nonsense. “Maybe you need to go back into a rehab facility.”

It was such a disturbing comment neither Ian nor I said a word; we sat in stunned silence as the OT got his coat and went out the door. We were in a funk long after the OT left. Ian called him. “Look, what you said about me having to go back to rehab was not cool. We’re done.”

“Good,” I said to Ian afterward. “This is hard enough. We don’t need to be treated like that in our own home.”

Fortunately, the OT gave us enough exercises to do on our own. We continued without him.

And then there was the physical therapist, Constantine, a Ukrainian drill sergeant. Well, he acted like a drill sergeant. He was not pleased with Ian’s stooped bass player posture. “Stand up straight, like a man!” he would bark at Ian, as he held him by the gait belt around his waist, showing him how to walk again. The first few weeks, Ian took about ten steps toward one end of our kitchen and back to the wheelchair, with Constantine holding him steady. In the following weeks, they walked from the kitchen to the living room, as I followed behind the two of them with the wheelchair, in case Ian needed to sit or if he stumbled.

Constantine would point his finger at me. “You! Don’t do this without me. Very dangerous.”

I put my palms out in front of me, signaling acquiescence. “Okay, I won’t.”

He was a hard ass, but he seemed to know what he was doing, so I’d ask him questions. “Constantine, when do you think Ian will be able to go to the beach and walk on the sand?”

“No. Never. Not safe.”

Ian and I looked at each other, behind Constantine’s back, like misbehaving kids in class, smirking, as in “We’ll see about that.”

After a few months, with Constantine along, we took our act on the road—well, to the street out in front of our house. Ian, with Constantine holding his belt, would walk to the next-door neighbor’s fence and back. Eventually, the drill sergeant felt I was up to take over his part. He watched me hold Ian’s belt firmly while walking by his side.

“I think I can walk alone,” Ian said to me, about three months after he came home from rehab. We were home by ourselves. He asked me to walk beside him as he walked down the hallway to our office. There was a chair he felt confident he could walk to and sit down on.

I made big eyes at him. “Really? Without me holding you?” This was huge. He hadn’t walked alone since he had the stroke. But I knew how important it was to him. He had his walking dream regularly. I saw the look in his eyes. So I rolled Ian in the wheelchair to the dining room and locked the chair, about forty feet from our office. Ian stood up from the wheelchair carefully. I didn’t touch him. But I did keep my right hand near his lower back to grab his gait belt if he stumbled. He stepped, one foot and then the other, keeping his shoulders back, as Constantine had demanded. I stepped beside him, down the hallway. He entered the office. He walked toward the chair and took tiny steps in a small U-turn so his bottom would be over the chair. He sat down.

Ian walked by himself.

He slumped in the chair in an emotional release, and I crumbled to the floor, my head in his lap as we both sobbed. He dreamed this. He would get his life back with hard work—playing his bass, driving, and building things with both hands.

We’ve made giant steps forward (literally and figuratively) and had some slides backward.

A big part of 2022 we spent getting Ian off drugs he was put on while in the hospital right after his stroke but were no longer necessary. One was a tranquilizer, and another was an antidepressant, for issues he only had in the hospital. He couldn’t sleep, due to the noise and discomfort of the rehab. And he was bummed out because his family was kept from him and he couldn’t walk.

At first, we thought his scary conditions were stroke issues. Ian no longer enjoyed food; he lost a dangerous amount of weight and constantly suffered painful stomach issues. His sleep was erratic—tired during the day; not tired at night. His moods swung farther and faster than that vomit-covered carnival ride I mentioned earlier. Then Ian began looking into the side effects of the drugs he was taking—all of the issues he was having were listed as side effects. So we tapered them back until Ian was no longer taking those drugs.

Two months later, Ian no longer had intestinal issues and began to enjoy food again—he even devoured my veggie medleys! He gained twelve pounds, had more strength, and no more mood swings. He became old Ian, laughing and enjoying life.

As he often did, Ian recently made an appointment with a General Practitioner doctor he’s had for many years for a check-up. I went with him.

The elfin, twinkly-eyed, basketball-bellied doctor began talking about drugs for an issue Ian was asking about. The doctor spoke about the dosages Ian might take and said, “Even then, the drugs may not work.”

“But wait,” I said, “If they might not work, why should he risk it? Ian finally got his health and love of life back.” My voice started shaking, remembering all we had gone through. I couldn’t hold back my emotions and cried as I explained how horrible it was. “We tapered him off of three unnecessary drugs doctors put him on. All three gave him radical mood swings, horrible sleep, no interest in food, dangerous weight loss, painful intestinal problems… You saw him. He was dangerously skinny. Now with all those drugs out of his system, he’s old Ian again: happy, enjoying food, sleeping great, no stomach issues. He’s finally loving life…”

“Are you done? Ready to listen?” The doctor asked me.

Oddly, I sensed a coldness toward me. Maybe I misunderstood his tone. How can he be angry at me for my passionate concern? I wanted to hear him. “As you see I’m passionate about Ian’s health and all he’s been through. But, yes, I’ll listen.” I placed my folded hands in my lap to show my rapt attention.

The doctor’s once-twinkly-eyes turned to dark slits over his N95 mask. His voice shook, too, but with anger. He said, “The doctors who recommended those drugs meant well…”

“Fine. But the results were disastrous. Ian took the drugs they prescribed, trusting they’d help. They didn’t work, weren’t even needed, and caused harm. Now we’re trying to get information to avoid the horrific experiences we had before.”

The now furious doctor rolled his chair up to my chair, so his face was inches from mine. I could see into the crevice of his furrowed brow, his dark pupils, and the rage in his eyes. “You do what those doctors tell you!”

“What? No. We’ll listen to doctors’ advice, but I, or Ian, we don’t have to take drugs that might harm us if we don’t find…”

“You do what the doctor tells you!” He stood up over me as I sat. “YOU DO WHAT THE DOCTOR TELLS YOU TO DO!”

I stood up and left the room as the doctor shouted behind me. “And don’t come back!” I left the office and stood in the hallway, confused.

Ian came out soon after. “Sorry. I don’t know where that went wrong. You were just emotional. That got weird.”

We walked down the medical building hallway toward the elevator to go home.

“He didn’t like being questioned. It’s the medical system. I know you’ve heard me say this before, I’ve received that sort of rage for the last thirty years, after asking questions… since taking Lauren to doctors when she was little. Like that doctor who wadded up a prescription and threw it in my face when I asked for less harmful ways to treat her ear infections. Marv’s (Our late friend who I accompanied to doctors when he had brain cancer) doctor stood over me screaming ‘He’s fucking dying, what is it you don’t understand?’ when I asked about Marv’s quality of life for his last days. I knew he was dying. But life is precious, each day… you know, I don’t need to tell you… you know how I am, I’m passionate about health and life.”

***

So we’ve had some dark days. The experience hasn’t been a trip to the South of France, which we were dreaming of doing for our 30th anniversary. But we are now in our 33rd year of marriage and closer than ever. I didn’t think that was possible, considering we’ve been together nearly 24 hours a day for 26 years since we started working together at home.

We’ve experienced so many raw emotions, lived through life-threatening trauma, and all the stress, fear, and chaos that goes with that; yet we can still find humor and joy in life. All these experiences have bonded us closer. We both have had many life-altering epiphanies since this experience. I can’t help but see nearly everything in a new light. Trauma has a way of clarifying many things. Mostly, we appreciate life more than ever, knowing to enjoy moments fully as they’re happening.

A simple, stress-free day is a luxury. We know not to take those moments for granted.

Since December 11th 2020, Ian’s gone from needing a wheelchair to walking in nature. He’s gone from being unable to feel and use his fingers to working with his hands on his projects, and playing his instruments again—electric and acoustic basses, guitar, and piano. Playing music has been vital in helping Ian’s brain neurons and muscles to reconnect.

He’s come a long way from struggling to drop kidney beans into a bowl.

***

On a recent chilly November evening, as I was making after-dinner coffee, Ian walked into our bright and warm home after working on a new project in his garage workshop.

He breathed in and smiled. “I love our life.”

I stopped what I was doing to soak that in. We’ve come a long way.

Days later, over the Thanksgiving holiday, we enjoyed sunny, clear days of family, good food, and nature. Ian wanted to get outdoors as often as possible. So we walked on paths under old oak trees at a nearby ranch and up and down rolling hills beneath the red rocks of Stony Point—just what Ian imagined back when he dreamed of walking.

On Sunday he said, “Hey, let’s go to Zuma Beach. I want to walk through the sand to the ocean.” I loved the idea. This would be a huge moment. So we got right in the car and drove over Topanga Canyon to Malibu.

Ian walked through the sand as I followed behind, watching him take steps toward the water. The sun’s rays shone down on him and sparkled upon the water. The light seemed even more brilliant after all the darkness we’d experienced. He stood feet from the crashing waves and said, “Take that, Constantine!”

If this were a Hollywood movie, here’s where music would swell as the credits roll.

But real life is dynamic, ever-changing, and not something we can end by saying, “And that’s a wrap!”

The following Monday, it was as if the big Director of the universe said, “Okay, okay, those Gardiners have had enough glorious days. Cue the heavy, dark clouds for the Gloom and Doom scene and make the day full of drama.”

As Ian said later that crappy Monday afternoon, “What’re we gonna do? That’s life, good and bad. I’m just happy to be up and walking.”

 

It’s a sunshine Day! Ian’s first walk on a beach. “Take that, Constantine!”

 

 

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People Are Enjoying My Book

Well, this is a wonderful way to start my day–

A man reading my book in England wrote this to me:
“Oh man, your book is brilliant, heartfelt and hilarious! I can’t stop reading it. The story about Santa is fantastic, and when I turned over the page to see the picture of you with suicide Santa splayed out on the roof, I was crying with laughter. You’re a true talent.”

Greg Firlotte emailed me this, about reading my book: “…the family dishrag passages!! I laughed out loud in my room late into the night over these and thought if anyone passed by my door and heard me laughing uncontrollably, they might have me committed today! Can’t wait for tonight’s reading!”

This is from a lovely woman in Spain

Reader of my book, "Craving Normal" in Spain

From Canada! Here’s another wonderful message from a reader my book, “Craving Normal.” Though our lives have been different, my stories resonated with her. She wrote, “Thank you for taking me on your crazy journeys through life and reminding me to chuckle along the way.”

Happy Reader of Craving Normal by Michele Miles Gardiner

Book review of Craving Normal


You can buy my book at my favorite Los Angeles bookstore, Skylight Books.

You, too, can read my “crazy stories” (quoting my editor). You can find Craving Normal, in print and eBook, here, on Amazon.

 

My friend Leslie’s bawdy and funny Texan mom is loving my book. Leslie texted me this photo, saying how much fun her mama is having. I call this “Shock and awe.”

You might have fun, too, if you buy my book:
https://tinyurl.com/y3ezy7d9

Reading Michele Miles Gardiner’s book”Craving Normal,” true and humorous story collection

I signed my first book, yesterday.

"Craving Normal" my collection of nonfiction humorous stories, and personal essays

 

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Twinkie Talk and “Craving Normal”

Promoting my book, "Craving Normal, " with Twinkies.
I was promoting my book, “Craving Normal, ” with Twinkies.

While promoting Craving Normal at the Brand Library in Glendale, I set up my books next to a tray of Twinkies. Below them, I put a sign saying, “Why Twinkies? Read the back of my book…” I did it as a “conversation starter.” I put that in quotes because the last time somebody used that term with me was when I asked my accountant why he had a silver streamer draped across his office door. His answer: “Conversation starter.” I nodded, and the conversation ended.

But yesterday, I got all kinds of talk when people inquired about my tray of Twinkies. Either they read the back of the book, or I told them, “Well, as a kid of health food freaks, I watched all the kids at school devouring Twinkies at lunch. So I craved them. That’s what I thought ‘normal’ kids with normal parents who lived in normal homes ate.”

A tall, older woman with a Boston accent came by and told me, “In the 1970s I used to give Twinkie tours.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they were made in the same factory as Wonder Bread.”

She began her Twinkie tour spiel, pointing toward an invisible conveyor belt above her head. “And over here, the Twinkies are being filled.”

After she quit the job, she became a health food eater and never touched Twinkies. Oh, and she added this Twinkie fact. “Another woman I worked with, who used to give Twinkie tours, went on to become a Playboy playmate and then became a cop in Boston.”

I only contributed, “Wow.”

She looked down at my book. “I’d buy your book. Sounds interesting. But I’m 86 now and decided to stop buying things. Don’t want to leave my kids with a bunch of crap they don’t want.”

And the conversation ended.

 

"Craving Normal," back book cover.
“Craving Normal,” back book cover.

 

My book is available! You can buy it here.

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My Book’s Hideous Kinky Connections

Years ago, I saw the movie “Hideous Kinky,” about a single mom with her two girls in Morocco around the same time my family and I lived there. I gasped when I saw the Kate Winslet character and her girls swimming in the same Marrakech swimming pool I remember swimming in.

Anyway, it’s fun to see my book listed just above the Esther Freud novel, “Hideous Kinky,” knowing I have some connections.

My book, Craving Normal, and the Hideous Kinky Morocco connections

 

 

Here’s the trailer from the movie:

Ha! I don’t remember the last line, said by one of the girls, in this trailer, but that’s another connection.

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This Book Review of “Craving Normal” by Writer Kristin Casey Made My Day

Oh my gosh, I almost cried reading this review from a writer I admire and have enjoyed reading. Kristin wrote  “Rock Monster: My Life with Joe
Author Kristin Casey's Review of my book, "Craving Normal"
                                                                                                                              Please read her review of my book in full, here on Goodreads.com.

 

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Wonderful Interview About My Book, “Craving Normal”

Wow, I cannot thank Elliot Windmill enough for this wonderful interview he did with me about my book, “Craving Normal.”  Here’s the interview.

US/Europe BOOK GIVEAWAY, beginning tomorrow. We’re each giving away one signed copy of my book, “Craving Normal.” Details on 4/27.

About Elliot, sometimes you just connect with people, no matter where you are in the world. I’m here in the U.S. and he’s in the U.K., but we have so many interests in common, we’ve become friends.

I “met” Elliot via Instagram, while I was pre-promoting my book. He was a big supporter and one of the first people to buy “Craving Normal,” and leave enthusiastic comments about it.

His curiosity and love of adventure is contagious.

Please read more of Elliot’s website. He writes out people he’s met while having adventures, near home and far away. They’re so much fun to read.

Elliot Windmill asked me really indepth questions about my book, "Craving Normal."
Elliot Windmill asked me really indepth questions about my book, “Craving Normal.”
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