How I Got Involved With The Catholic Church #6 (DelBalzos)

1995.

After the car accident I was very thin. I needed a job so I looked at the ads for nanny positions. I took a position with Carl and Mary DelBalzo. Carl was Human Resource Manager for Intel and Mary was an Intel lawyer. They were a bona fide Italian-Catholic family.

Lawyers have always been in the background and I never thought about it. Erik Lund's Dad was a lawyer, Mike Nichols' Dad was a lawyer, Mary DelBalzo was a lawyer, and my high school boyfriend became a lawyer later too. The legal community is small and tight in Oregon. Mary advised me a little on where to go for a lawyer and when the insurance company got wind I was working for a lawyer, they wanted to settle that very day. They wanted me to take an annuity but I did the research and got all the cold hard cash up front. I should have bought a lawyer though, instead of a book about investments.

I knew I wasn't going to do the live-in nanny thing again. After watching the baby on the East Coast, I went through baby withdrawals for almost a year. I was truly sad to be apart. I thought I'd never be a nanny and open up my heart again, but I took a job watching 2 little girls, ages 3 and 7. They are still near and dear to me. I spent more time with S., because she was still at home, and so we had more time to develop a bond, but I really loved A. as well. I knew, after babysitting those girls, that I was capable of loving someone else's children as if they were my own, and I knew I had the heart for adoption. After I was a nanny for these girls, I went through part of the foster parent application process and talked to people about it seriously. My best friend was open to being involved, not as a parent-partner but as a friend. Monica and I were best friends until she met her husband and married. I think her husband thought our friendship was too close and that he felt threatened. Once, he came onto me when I was waiting for Monica, and I left, and after that, he had to be around whenever we visited, because I think he wanted to be there if I said something. I never did (until now). It was difficult to maintain the friendship after that but I will always love her and wish her and her family the best.

I watched the DelBalzo girls for a year, until their mother decided to quit work and stay home herself. I liked this family. I had decided before I took the job that if the house was neat and sterile, I wasn't taking the position. I needed to work for a family that matched my housekeeping philosophies. HeeeLLO Mary! It was exactly what I wanted: creative chaos.

I felt free to spend the majority of my time playing with the girls, doing a little cooking (Indian fare!), and making flower arrangements from the plants, flowers, and trees in their yard. Mary had an amazing green thumb and I enjoyed breaking off small branches of leaves from trees to combine with flora. The girls were fun and the parents were relaxed, in general. Towards the end, a neighbor got between us, but I never bothered to explain. This blond across the street was always trying to pick my mind about Mary and Carl and I didn't give her dirt. First of all, their lives were private, and secondly, Mary said she had a security position as a lawyer and the company computer secrets had to be kept. So she told me a little about developments and I told no one--not to this day. This neighbor persisted however, inviting me over to her house and then approaching me at soccer games. One day I made the horrible mistake of commenting I might like a raise. She told Mary and Mary thought I was telling everyone in the hood that they were cheap and paid me dirt or something. Then Mary thought I was lying to her about going to some yardsale for myself which her own kids had wanted to go to. I didn't argue with Mary. She was the lawyer. When I said nothing, it was better for everyone. In the end, I didn't want to pick up messes the kids left on my day's off (weekend) or add cooking dinner every night to the routine without a little extra compensation, so we parted ways. I really, really missed those girls and thought about them all the time. I took them out afterwards a few times but it was probably harder on me than them. All in all, it was one of my favorite positions.

During this position, I bought my house. It was a 1920s bungalow. Sturdy, sound, and fabulous for small. I painted the livingroom walls Italian Ice, my bedroom with a ochre color, another bedroom pure white, and the kitchen was creative in bright green and vivid turquoise blue. The bathroom was sky powder blue with clouds I painted on. I did the painting myself and tried to sand the floors myself with a professional sander but that gave me a headache and took me for a ride I didn't want to go. So I hired someone to do that. I also wrote Old Testament verses on the doorframes of the inside of the house and along railings, above the built-ins, in black. Then I tackled the basement and sealed it to make it waterproof and then did a chocolate/vanilla floor which I tried to give a marbled appearance but it looked like ice cream. I worked on oil paintings then and was really into it. Downstairs I made a room and wrote things all over the ceiling of the room, where my unfinished copy of a Degas ballerina (the one with the blue tutu) was on an easle.

I had energy to spare (always have) and was very involved in the community church which was called "New Song Community Church". I started going there after the car accident. Some of the people I met there had connections to others I would meet later. It's the most twisted tale.

Okay, it's really not that twisted. I just liked how that sounds: "It's the most twisted tale"--DA-da-da-DAH-da-DA. I am struggling to stick to the facts here. I truly love to write too much I think.