Promises kept...

It was one of those odd coincidences that you can hardly believe is happening, but there it is.

Last week, at about 1 p.m., we arrived at the City Park where one of the city workers had arranged to meet us so we could watch him plant the tree that we promised our son we would plant for him along the walking path.

Well, that isn’t quite accurate. He wanted a pine tree planted, but unfortunately, the tree he wanted was not among the memorial trees offered for planting by the city. Even though it a tree native to Missouri, none of the nurseries we contacted in this area in an effort to get the tree ourselves had that variety of tree for sale in the right size. 

At the edge of a vacant lot on a road into town stands a beautiful tulip poplar tree

 

  

 

and since that variety happens to be one that the city did offer, we said our apologies in the Spirit to our son for not quite keeping our promise, and picked it to be planted.

Perhaps if we are still around 15 to 20 years from now, and I suspect it might take at least that long for the tree to mature enough to bloom, and if we able to hobble out to park, we might see it bloom.

The older areas of the park where memorial trees are planted has been filled up,  so the new trees are being planted in a recently cleared area of the park. It's sort of muddy and not very attractive right now, but it will be beautiful in years to come...

The man had already dug the hole, so as we watched he put the tree in and began to fill in...  

 and he pushed in the plaque on its steel post, and then, slowly…. slowly…. slowly…

two Burlington Northern-Santa Fe engines pulling a train crept down the track past the park. The men operating the train were likely not the railroad men who had befriended our boy over the years but… but the train appearing when it did could not have been more perfect if it had been arranged. 

Perhaps it was.

A bit of whimsy

We decided to visit some friends who we had not seen in a long time. In a conversation I had with the wife some time ago, after I told her that Richard had brought me a bouquet of flowers he had picked along side the road, she had complained in a funny way that nobody ever brought her flowers, so Richard decided to pick her a Spring bouquet.

At the time there were not a huge assortment of flowers to be had (I have fallen a bit behind on my blog) – dogwoods, some yellow flowers (mustard?), and the first of the tall purple flowers that bloom wild in the yard, but it was pretty enough.

She was tickled, I think as much because he remembered to pick them as she was that she actually had flowers sitting on her counter. She especially enjoyed the special vase we used to transport the flowers to her.

And then a few days later, Richard came back from his walk and carefully sets this down on my desk.

It is a blessing to be married to man who tries to figure out ways to make me laugh. And fortunately for him, it doesn't take much.

Olly olly oxen free

My husband has a fondness for bottles made of cobalt blue glass. Fortunately, he has not yet bitten by the bug to collect them -- we have little space here anymore for collections -- but occasionally he finds one. The other day while on a trash pick-up detail we found a blue beer bottle on the side of the road. He brought it back and admired it and then washed it out and tossed it into recycling. But then a few days later he found much larger cobalt blue vodka bottle, also discarded on the side of the road, with a peel off label. That one he is “going to do something with” but is not sure what. Perhaps he’ll use it to store olive oil or find a practical use for it. If not, it will simply sit someplace where he can see it and enjoy its beauty.

His pleasure at finding the bottles reminded me of a wonderful Ray Bradbury story “The Blue Bottle” in a book of his short stories Long After Midnight, which I have written about before here, and so I thought it would be good to read it to him the next time we drove someplace. And so I did.

We were still riding along when I finished the story, and so I turned the page to see what was next. "One Timeless Spring" was the title and as I skimmed through the opening paragraph my eye caught the words “olly olly oxen free…”

 

I am now of an age when I can actually sit down with the microfiche of my memories and roll through them, much as I did in the spring of 1970 for a report for a history class that led me to sit for several hours in the microfiche collection at the University of Southern California, looking at editions of the Los Angeles Times detailing the beginning of the roundup of some 120,000 Japanese Americans -- many of them who had been born in this country -- who were shipped off to interment camps in late March of 1942 for no other reason than because they were Japanese.  

As we motored down the highway, I traveled back another 10 years or so, back to the years when I was in elementary school, when I was 8... 9...10 years old, years when in the early evenings in the summer, after daylight savings time had advanced the clock, that the band of kids that lived in on our block would come to my house and we would play kick the can.

Olly olly oxen free free free…

I wonder how many 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds today have ever even hard those words, much less have played kick the can? Do groups of neighborhood children play together? I don't mean in organized sports that adults have organized, I mean outside in games they have organized themselves. What sorts of memories of childhood games will they have when they look back as 60-something-year-olds?

Now, just for fun, watch this short video (less than 2 minutes long), which is an updated version of a similar video used in a fascinating study done some years back that is detailed in quite an interesting book I have started. Follow the instructions.

Going to plan B…. and plan C….

I fairly regularly have minor disasters in the kitchen when it comes to preparing food -- it’s usually nothing very terrible, just the frustration of things not going exactly as planned.

The day before my last victim came for lunch, I found myself standing at the counter and picking out rice noodles from the vegetables of the Pad Thai dish I had made because it was only after I had put the meal together and tasted it that I realize the noddles were not quite cooked enough.

It seems intuitive that one would actually test the cooked noodles before adding them to the vegetables, but for some reason I didn’t – I had followed the cooking directions on the package and just assumed they would be done. So I had to cook them some more and then add them back. I was very glad that I had decided to make the dish a day ahead.

I had another little adventure in the kitchen recently. Having cruised by the market early Monday morning to see if there was any interesting meat marked down from not having been sold over the weekend, I found some really good deals on some steak and a very nice chuck roast.

On the way home the wheels began to spin about what I should do with this meat – all of them involving my large crock pot: Make chunks out of it and fix stew? Cover it in mushroom soup and onion soup mix? Make beef burgioni (that’s our joke pronunciation around here for boeuf bourguignon)?

I wrestled with this for a couple of more days and then realized if I didn’t do something quickly with the meat it was going to end up in the garbage, so I decided to make Willow Manor’s pot roast (which I have blogged about before).

I rubbed the spice mixture on the meat and turned the heat up under the big cast iron skillet and when it was good and hot I started to brown the meat. While that was sizzling I went in search of the raisins, which go in the sauce. I found them all right. And so had the ants. Even though the box of raisins was still wrapped in its the original cellophane packaging, the ants had found a way inside. When I opened the box I could see they had been very busy for quite a while and it wasn’t going to be a matter of simply washing the ants off and salvaging the raisins.

The raisins were ruint. Ruint, I tell you.

I tried to figure out what to do next. I stood there dithering for a bit. Do I really want to drop everything and rush into town for more raisins? No, I do not. Did we have any other raisins about, say in the refrigerator? No. We did not (I was wrong, however, because there were raisins in the refrigerator – pushed all the way to the back and behind something, which is the topic of another post I will get around to some day).

Aha. I have craisins (sweetened dried cranberries) that are in a much more secure container and so I decided to use them instead of the raisins.

Having completed the sauce and browned the meat, I went into the storage room to get the crock-pot to cook it in and realized that the crock-pot was not there.

I had loaned it to Judy a week earlier so she could use it on Saturday before to keep soup warm at the birthday party she held for her husband. As we were getting ready to leave the party, I said, “Don’t worry about rushing to get the crock pot back to me. I almost never cook in it…”

Except now.

Now what? The oven temperature for the pot roast was supposed to be 220 to 225, but I did not want to fire up the oven for 3 hours to cook it (trying to conserve electricity, doncha know). Our small convection oven has 5 preset temperatures, with the two lowest at 200-210 and 300-350, so I put it on for 30 minutes at 300 and then 30 minutes at 200 and so it went for a couple of hours, and it turned out great.

 

And Judy brought my crock-pot back the next day.

Seed flurry

The sound is reminiscent of small hailstones hitting the unyielding surfaces of man-made objects – the hoods of the car, the roof and skylights of the house.

Then it stops for a bit...

A breeze rustles the branches of the trees, and another flurry of maple tree seeds helicopter down spinning wildly as they fall and breaking apart when they land.

Unlike so many years since we have lived here, this year, once Spring arrived, there was no hard frost to kill off tender blossoms or interfere with the production of pollen or seeds.

 

It seemed to happen overnight. The tips of the trees went from this…

To this..

To this… 

and just a few days later the seeds are beginning to turn golden and fall to the ground.

Everything is on overdrive, it seems…

The joy of life of being alive… the display of nature’s fecundity (it’s not a dirty word, honest). 

No wonder people tend to want to go a little crazy at this time of year.

Happy St. Pat’s Day

On Thursday while we were at the ophthalmologist office for a follow-up appointment for Richard’s eye (he got a good report), a telephone call arrived from my sister’s husband, which was captured by the answering machine. He inquired after Richard’s eye, told us about a Webcam set up on an eagle’s nest on Catalina Island, which is 26 miles off the coast of Southern California, and invited us to the St. Patrick’s Day party my sister is having today.

Richard and I laughed at the idea of how much fun it would be to hop in the car and drive out there – without telling anybody – and showing up at their house for the party.

Some people could do that. They could… and they do. I envy them that freedom. Our life is too complicated right now for us to do something like that. And I don't think we would be brave enough to try it even if it were possible. Doggone it.

Instead, as soon I finish this, I will put corned beef brisket and potatoes and carrots into the crock pot (cabbage will go in later) for dinner tonight. Yesterday, we bought rye bread and Swiss cheese in anticipation of Ruben sandwiches tomorrow.

Once upon a time, I found a recipe for homemade corned beef. I bought brisket and cured it in brine with spices. It tasted great, but it looked horrible. Horrible. It was a nasty gray color because I lacked whatever chemical it is that keeps the meat bright red. I decided making my own corned beef was not something I wanted to pursue.

In the meantime, I am thinking of my 3 half-Irish cousins today. They are blessed among the extended family: both of their parents are still alive. Unfortunately, the physical tents that their parents occupy are failing, neither parent is doing very well, and my heart goes out to these precious cousins and my Aunty and Uncle. Wishing them a good day today.

Visions of peach cobbler danced in their heads

I think people are being a bit careful not to complain that that Spring seems to be here already. The problem is: We barely had Winter, which, of course, really isn’t a problem except that it just doesn’t feel right, somehow.

To be sure, Winter didn’t skip us altogether: We had some cold days, a few days when it got down to 0 overnight, and it stayed below freezing for about a week in January, and there were a few days when there was snow on the ground, and school had to be cancelled for a couple of days because the roads were bad.

Unlike every other Winter I can remember since we moved here, we did not get hit with a bad ice storm or a lot of freezing rain. The old athletic shoes I have rigged up with cleats so I can walk on slick ground never saw the light of day. Can’t complain too much about that.

We all might be singing a different tune tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. It could easily turn nasty again – has done in the past and probably will do in the future --

and the promise of peach cobbler offered by the peach tree outside the back door could be dashed by another hard freeze.

But in the meantime...

one can dream…

Not Florence Nightingale

Last week Richard was given some instructions about how to care for his eye after the procedure. In addition to three different eye drops, he was required to wear a patch over his eye while he was sleeping for a few nights to protect it and help keep it from getting infected.

My job was to tape the eye patch on his face and put in the eye drops.

I am quite good at putting in eye drops.

But at putting on the eye patch? Not so much.

After my last attempt at securing the eye patch, he looked up at me with his good eye and said, “You aren’t Florence Nightingale, are you.

I was laughing so hard by the time I got the camera that I could hardly hold it still.

Taking a cue from the man I see for routine health care, “I-am-not-a-doctor-just-call-me-Bob,” I am not Florence Nightingale, just call me Nurse Betty.

Look down! Look down!!

My beloved has always enjoyed the Kingston Trio, and a brief interlude from their song Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley might be appropriate right about now.

Of course, my beloved is not about to be hanged for killing someone, but he is being required to keep his nose pointed at the ground and his eyes looking down and I am not sure how well he is going to be able to do this.

Some time ago a small “tent” developed in the macular part of his eye that distorts the center of his vision. The fix for this defect is the injection of a small bubble of gas which floats to the back of the eye and puts pressure on this spot and which ultimately makes the problem go away.

To keep the gas bubble where it is supposed to be, the person must keep his or her eyes on the ground as much as possible for up to 2 weeks. The procedure is about 90% effective if the person complies but drops to about 60% if the person does not comply.

Yesterday was our first full day with Richard trying to keep his eyes down: he put his computer monitor on the floor, and he figured out how to watch TV by looking into a mirror on his chest; he drank his coffee out of a straw. As the day wore on, however, he started doing more and more around the house. Without saying anything to me, he went outside a couple of times to get stuff out of the freezer in the basement; he even started cooking dinner before I could stop him. I know that even though he was holding his head down, that he was frequently moving his eyes up and forward to see what he was doing -- stuff you don't even think twice about -- hanging the oven mitts on their hook, reaching up to get the spices he sprinkles on the fish, opening the door to the convection oven.

And he started getting annoyed with me for reminding him to keep his eyes down.

No, he hasn't killed anyone... yet. 

“American blind justice…”

There is a lovely bit of irony in Arlo Guthrie’s song Alice’sRestaurant, which is carried through in the movie by the same name. In the song, Officer Obie has arrested Guthrie for dumping trash, and he is required to go to court. Officer Obie, had compiled “27 eight-by-ten color photographs” of the crime scene with which to impress the judge of the severity of the crime.

 

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. 

Man came in said, "All rise." 

We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down.

Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.

And then at twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice... And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

And this isn’t really about blind justice…

Our church, which is very small, has been without a pastor for almost a year, and another church in our denomination in the next town down the road, which is also very small, is also without a pastor. So the two of us put our heads together and thought perhaps we could find someone willing to pastor two small churches at the time. Together we could come up with enough money to provide a living wage. The idea is not without precedent – the Methodist minister in town takes care of two churches and so does the Presbyterian minister and so does the Catholic priest.

After weeding through lots of resumes and interviewing various candidates, the state coordinator for our denomination found someone in Michigan who said he would be willing to take this on. There were several conference calls between the woman at our church who is keeping things going, and the people at the other church, and the state coordinator, and this man. 

They invited him to come to Missouri and preach at both churches and he agreed to come over the weekend.

When she was explaining all of this to us, she mentioned he "had a hearing problem." But we didn't think anything about it. Her husband is a bit hard of hearing. We figured he was an older guy who had some hearing loss. Not a big deal.

The woman at our church is very excited. Last Sunday she requested that the piano player (me) and young man who plays the keyboard at our services have an extra practice session with the congregation to make sure we were familiar with the songs she was going to pick from the hymnbook and for us to work on the contemporary songs we play together so we would sound good.

We abandoned several songs because nobody could sing them well or the melody too high or the pianist had no clue -- just like I had to learn "southern gospel" type music when we joined the Freewill Baptists, I am having to learn another very different musical tradition with this denomination.

We had “meet and greet” carry-in dinner Saturday night, and when we walked into the other church’s fellowship hall and he came over to greet us, and introduced himself, and began to speak, I knew immediately by the way his voice sounded and the way he pronounced his words that his "hearing problem" was actually profound hearing loss. He is not totally deaf -- he does have a bit of hearing in one ear that is amplified with a hearing aid (and he can hear on the telephone) -- but he must read lips.

Our practice the Sunday before was not a waste of time, but it was very clear he was not going to be able to hear us singing. I couldn't help but remember what happened to Arlo. There was more to my smile as I spoke to him than pleasure in meeting him..

He did preach at both churches yesterday. He did a good job at our church and I assume he did a good job at the other church. I know all of us were required to pay very close attention to him and to watch his mouth as he spoke to understand him as much as he is required to watch our mouths when we speak for him to understand us. The “old man in overalls” at our church, who has trouble hearing, commented “I didn’t fall sleep once!”