Threats of a very bad storm overnight prompted our grief counselor to reschedule to yesterday the session that was supposed to happen this morning. We had some routine shopping to do in town. The stores were very crowded with people, likely stocking up, just in case.
Richard filed up the generator, just to make sure it would work.
We hunkered down.
This morning we woke up to a very thin coating of ice only on the the cars and the porch steps. The ground was mostly clear.... then as it got lighter, sleet came pelting down, which was followed by thunder and about 5 minutes of pea-sized hail.
Usually when it hails it is during a summer thunder storm when it is hot and the hail melts within minutes. Today it is very cold, and the wind is biting, and so the hail remains on the ground.
I was able to don my cleated shoes and walk Molly Wog down the driveway, crunching through the hail and sleet, so she could do her business. I don't think she understands why we won't be walking 3 miles today.
We are very relieved the storm was not any worse. Conditions may deteriorate if it warms enough so everything melts and then it freezes again, forming a sheet of ice, but it isn't too bad so far. I could be worse...
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The Carousel of Time
While we were living in Oregon I noticed an announcement in
the newspaper that the local community college was going to offer an adult
education class on “Folk Guitar for Beginners.” I had bought a rather cheap
classical guitar and an instruction book before we left California but had not
made very much progress in teaching myself how to play it, so I signed up for
this class.
The class went well, overall. I inherited my mother’s short,
stumpy fingers, which are something of a drawback when trying to make some of
the chords on a guitar, so although the F chord was elusive, I managed to lean
how to play the rest of chords that were taught.
One evening Richard was not able to take care of Nathaniel
and so I took him to the class. He was about 3 years old at this time, and not
long after we walked into the classroom, he spotted the fire alarm button and
before I could stop him, he had raced over to it and pressed it. The alarm began
ringing throughout all of the buildings on the campus. Nobody seemed to pay
much attention to it and it was quickly shut off. Fortunately.
At the end of the class, we were asked to learn a song and
present it to the others with the words and the chords. I learned to play Joni
Mitchell’s song The Circle Game…
And the seasons they go 'round and 'roundAnd the painted ponies go up and downWe're captive on the carousel of timeWe can't return we can only look behindFrom where we cameAnd go round and round and roundIn the circle game
Today is the day in 1977 that the seasons began going round
and round for our son as he made his way into the world, in the usual way. The
carousel of time he was riding made 33 revolutions before it stopped, on
January 13, 2011, almost exactly 1 month before the 34th turn. So he will
forever be 33 years old.
And we can’t return, we can only look behind. In thinking
back over the 33 birthdays we celebrated with him, I remember very few of them.
One was very much like another as the years passed.
The warehouse in Orange (near Disneyland) where our
newspaper office was located was right next to train tracks. And it seemed
almost inevitable that every day when I brought him, as an in infant, to the
office to see Richard, that a train would pass by, and we would rush out to see
it. Thus it is not surprising that he became obsessed with trains very early. I
think the first sentence he spoke was “Go bye bye car. Train?”
We moved to Oregon when he was about 18 months old, and as
it happened, we lived near train tracks there too. I remember making at least
one “train cake” for him for a birthday. I baked a flat sheet cake and cut it
in various shapes to resemble cars in a train, mixed different colors of icing
for each car, used pieces of licorice to couple them together, and used cookies
for the wheels. It was a mess, of course, because I am not skilled in this sort
of thing, but he didn’t care. He loved it.
That might have been the year I took him for a train ride on
his birthday. It was either his third or fourth birthday, but I am not sure
which. We got on at the depot in Albany...
and rode to Salem, and then got off and
waited in the depot for another train to take us back to Albany. It was one of
the best birthday presents ever.
In later years, one of his favorite things to do on his
birthday was go have pizza. There is a restaurant in town – not a franchise –
that serves very good pizza. And today we will have lunch there and remember…
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
What’s wrong with this picture?
I am taking Miss Molly Wolly Doodle for a walk through town. It is a lovely warm day, and the sun is brilliant. In several yards I notice freshly laundered clothes have been pegged out on clotheslines and are flapping in the gentle breeze. Storm doors are propped open, and windows are raised to let in the fresh air.
And back at the home front, bees are busy working the crocus in the front yard.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing, exactly, except that it is after all, the beginning of February. It is supposed to be winter.
It was winter this time a couple of years ago…
Yes, we are used to “yo-yo” temperatures in the winter, so this is not all that unusual, and it is very likely that within a week there could be 3 inches of snow on the ground.
I am not complaining, mind you. Just reminding myself not to be lulled into a false sense of security; after all, Winter is the season when Nature is out to get us…
All this lovely-ness makes me a little wary.
And back at the home front, bees are busy working the crocus in the front yard.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Nothing, exactly, except that it is after all, the beginning of February. It is supposed to be winter.
It was winter this time a couple of years ago…
Yes, we are used to “yo-yo” temperatures in the winter, so this is not all that unusual, and it is very likely that within a week there could be 3 inches of snow on the ground.
I am not complaining, mind you. Just reminding myself not to be lulled into a false sense of security; after all, Winter is the season when Nature is out to get us…
All this lovely-ness makes me a little wary.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Hoppin’ chicken (or another thing I am getting too old for…)
When we first moved here, there was a very active rabbit producers’ cooperative in the county, and they had arranged for a truck to come once a week to the parking lot of a local factory about a half-mile away from our house and pick up rabbits that people were raising, which they hauled off to a processing plant in Arkansas.
We decided we would hop (sorry, I couldn’t resist) on the bandwagon. Having read too many issues of Mother Earth News, and the too-good-to-be true propaganda from the rabbit cooperative, we thought we could make some decent money raising rabbits.
It did not work out way. We not only did not make money, we did not even break even. We ended up eating the rabbits ourselves. And so I became an expert butcher-er of rabbit.
My father has a fondness for fried rabbit, which is not easy to come by in the stores, even in a major metropolitan area. My mother was an excellent fryer of chicken, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch for her to get out the big black cast-iron skillet and fry up a rabbit if it was to be had.
Knowing how much my dad liked rabbit, I figured out that I could take a freshly dressed rabbit, freeze it, and then put it in a plastic shoebox of water, and freeze that, and that it would survive in an ice chest for the couple of days it took us to drive to Los Angeles from here.
And so it did. I took a couple of our own rabbits out to him, and the next year I bought rabbits from someone else who raised them and continued on taking fresh rabbit to my dad once a year or so.
Hoppin’ chicken, my brother called it. Rabbit really does not taste like chicken. It tastes like rabbit.
Fast-forward a number of years (quite a number, actually). An e-mail arrives from the former pastor of the church that we used to attend next door to our house. He retired because of ill health. He had decided to raise rabbits on a much smaller scale than we did, but the project did not go very well for him either, and he decided it was too much trouble. He had 3 rabbits that needed butchering. He was too squeamish to do it, neither of his two daughters who live with them would do it, and his wife, who could do it, has rheumatoid arthritis and a lot of pain from back problems and does not feel well.
Would I please come and butcher the rabbits? They would give me two in exchange for helping them.
Sure I would. But I did not intended to take two rabbits – one would be fine. So after church I motored over to their house and commenced killing rabbits.
A rabbit is normally very easy to skin. It pulls right off like you’d remove a glove. And so it did for two of the rabbits. But the third, for whatever reason, did not want to let go of his skin, and I struggled with it for quite a while. It was almost as hard as skinning a squirrel (which I did once and will never do again). I recruited his 12-year-old granddaughter to help pull, and his wife as well, and between the three of us we got ‘er done. Finally. By the time I finished with him, I was very tired and decided that I definitely would take both of the rabbits. I earned them.
I came home and sat down and as the afternoon progressed into evening I was so sore I could barely move. I must have used muscles I have not used in years. That night I gave one of the rabbits to some friends at church who have never had rabbit, and the other one…well, Richard moved it down to the big freezer in the basement, and if I don’t remember to cook it fairly soon, it may be a long time before it resurfaces.
We decided we would hop (sorry, I couldn’t resist) on the bandwagon. Having read too many issues of Mother Earth News, and the too-good-to-be true propaganda from the rabbit cooperative, we thought we could make some decent money raising rabbits.
It did not work out way. We not only did not make money, we did not even break even. We ended up eating the rabbits ourselves. And so I became an expert butcher-er of rabbit.
My father has a fondness for fried rabbit, which is not easy to come by in the stores, even in a major metropolitan area. My mother was an excellent fryer of chicken, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch for her to get out the big black cast-iron skillet and fry up a rabbit if it was to be had.
Knowing how much my dad liked rabbit, I figured out that I could take a freshly dressed rabbit, freeze it, and then put it in a plastic shoebox of water, and freeze that, and that it would survive in an ice chest for the couple of days it took us to drive to Los Angeles from here.
And so it did. I took a couple of our own rabbits out to him, and the next year I bought rabbits from someone else who raised them and continued on taking fresh rabbit to my dad once a year or so.
Hoppin’ chicken, my brother called it. Rabbit really does not taste like chicken. It tastes like rabbit.
Fast-forward a number of years (quite a number, actually). An e-mail arrives from the former pastor of the church that we used to attend next door to our house. He retired because of ill health. He had decided to raise rabbits on a much smaller scale than we did, but the project did not go very well for him either, and he decided it was too much trouble. He had 3 rabbits that needed butchering. He was too squeamish to do it, neither of his two daughters who live with them would do it, and his wife, who could do it, has rheumatoid arthritis and a lot of pain from back problems and does not feel well.
Would I please come and butcher the rabbits? They would give me two in exchange for helping them.
Sure I would. But I did not intended to take two rabbits – one would be fine. So after church I motored over to their house and commenced killing rabbits.
A rabbit is normally very easy to skin. It pulls right off like you’d remove a glove. And so it did for two of the rabbits. But the third, for whatever reason, did not want to let go of his skin, and I struggled with it for quite a while. It was almost as hard as skinning a squirrel (which I did once and will never do again). I recruited his 12-year-old granddaughter to help pull, and his wife as well, and between the three of us we got ‘er done. Finally. By the time I finished with him, I was very tired and decided that I definitely would take both of the rabbits. I earned them.
I came home and sat down and as the afternoon progressed into evening I was so sore I could barely move. I must have used muscles I have not used in years. That night I gave one of the rabbits to some friends at church who have never had rabbit, and the other one…well, Richard moved it down to the big freezer in the basement, and if I don’t remember to cook it fairly soon, it may be a long time before it resurfaces.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Now. Where did I put that....?
About the middle of the afternoon yesterday, Richard comes in to inform me that a pack rat has built a nest in the fruit cellar. That is how bad it had gotten in there -- so much stuff piled on the floor in front of the shelves that a pack rat could construct itself a nice nest on the floor behind it all. It is has not smelled particularly nice in there for a while because we assume something had eaten poison we had put out and had died. And we now have an idea of what that "thing" might have been. So Richard starts to tear out this nest and discovers the rat had picked up
Miss Molly is obsessed with digging out things
that live in holes in the ground...
so perhaps we should let her have a go...
He comes in a little later with a shoebox-sized tub of "stuff" that he found in larger tub and holds out a metal rod with a hook sort of thing at the end and says "Do you know what this is." I had no idea and neither did he, so into the trash it went. Now watch, a week from now he will come up with whatever it is that the metal rod belonged too...
And then he holds out a small metal thing and says "Well, how about this."
Yes, I certainly do!! That is my dohickey for sharpening scissors! I have been looking for that for a long time!
My dohickey for scissors sharpening? Scissor sharpening? Why is it called “scissors?”
It has indeed been missing in action for a very long time.
At any rate, perhaps I can now do something about various extremely dull and basically useless scissors that are lying around.
Which goes to prove one of our favorite sayings...
- a light bulb,
- two jersey work gloves,
- a red bow for decorating a present, and
- some bits of fake Christmas greenery.
Miss Molly is obsessed with digging out things
that live in holes in the ground...
so perhaps we should let her have a go...
He comes in a little later with a shoebox-sized tub of "stuff" that he found in larger tub and holds out a metal rod with a hook sort of thing at the end and says "Do you know what this is." I had no idea and neither did he, so into the trash it went. Now watch, a week from now he will come up with whatever it is that the metal rod belonged too...
And then he holds out a small metal thing and says "Well, how about this."
Yes, I certainly do!! That is my dohickey for sharpening scissors! I have been looking for that for a long time!
My dohickey for scissors sharpening? Scissor sharpening? Why is it called “scissors?”
It has indeed been missing in action for a very long time.
At any rate, perhaps I can now do something about various extremely dull and basically useless scissors that are lying around.
Which goes to prove one of our favorite sayings...
"It ain't lost, just temporarily misplaced..."
Saturday, January 12, 2013
...As If it Were Your Last
A lot of time has passed since Marcus Aurelius gave us one of the early variations of the idea that we should
Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last
There have been various interpretations of what it means and how one might apply it to one’s life, as another blogger has so elegantly written
I wonder how much time we actually spend occupying our minds thinking about the business of living, which tends to be occupied with routine things filling up the seconds and hours and minutes, and which we tend not to think about when we are doing them… I don’t think we think very much about changing the way we think about those routine things we do even when we think we might want too…
What does one think about, after all, when one mops the floor, or washes dishes, or puts clothes in the washing machine… or completes any of the repetitious tasks that fill the day that one doesn’t actually have to think about?
I like to think that I am doing everything as though for the glory of God, because I do want to honor Him with my life, but I don’t always measure up to that high and lofty goal. My mind is often very far away from the task at hand, as Richard frequently points out: when he has to follow behind me (which is often) to finish something because as I have a tendency to wander off before I am quite done.
So, how would we live if we knew it was the last day of our lives?
When all of us woke up on the morning of January 13, 2011, none of thought it would be the last day of our son’s life – least of all him – and he was the one who was poised on stepping out of his physical body and on into eternity.
We knew he was going to die “soon,” but ‘soon” was still a month or so away. Wasn’t it?
He made it very clear that he did not want to know when he was going to die. He did not want to know when it was coming. He wanted it to just “happen.” We figured he would slip into a coma -- either drug-induced to keep him from suffering or as part of the process of his body shutting down -- and that he really would not know.
We knew that January 13 would not be entirely routine, because ultrasound technicians with a mobile unit were scheduled to assess him to see if the doctor could do a palliative procedure to make him more comfortable. So we spent some extra time with him that morning, sitting in the room with him while they moved the probe over his distended belly, trying to figure out where the fluid build up might be, and when they had finished, we walked down to the coffee machine, while the nurses and aides bustled in and gave him his medicine and water and other things, as the news from the technicians (“we aren’t supposed to tell you this, but…”) sank in that there was no fluid, it was all tumor, and they were not going to be able to do anything to help him.
And then we pasted smiles on our faces and helped him set up the laptop computer so he could monitor the E-bay item he was bidding on, and we kissed the top of his head and said “see you this afternoon….” And Richard teased him “….don’t buy anything…” and we left. Assuming that we would follow the usual routine for the day.... returning later in the day to read from a Terry Pratchett novel we were enjoying together and visit.
And about 30 minutes after we left, he left the computer, went into the bathroom, came back to bed, and then he died... suddenly. Right then. He had no idea it was coming. It turned out it was his last day on earth.
It was not our last day on earth though...
and we miss him, and we will go on missing him until it is our last day on earth. And we are still working out how we are going to live as if it were our last...
Live not one's life as though one had a thousand years, but live each day as the last
There have been various interpretations of what it means and how one might apply it to one’s life, as another blogger has so elegantly written
“…Reorganize how you think about what you do in regards to what you do.” Thus, there will be not a change in the things you do (except in regards to other advice you might adopt of his), but a change in the way you think about the things you do….A change in the way you “think” about the things you do…
I wonder how much time we actually spend occupying our minds thinking about the business of living, which tends to be occupied with routine things filling up the seconds and hours and minutes, and which we tend not to think about when we are doing them… I don’t think we think very much about changing the way we think about those routine things we do even when we think we might want too…
What does one think about, after all, when one mops the floor, or washes dishes, or puts clothes in the washing machine… or completes any of the repetitious tasks that fill the day that one doesn’t actually have to think about?
I like to think that I am doing everything as though for the glory of God, because I do want to honor Him with my life, but I don’t always measure up to that high and lofty goal. My mind is often very far away from the task at hand, as Richard frequently points out: when he has to follow behind me (which is often) to finish something because as I have a tendency to wander off before I am quite done.
So, how would we live if we knew it was the last day of our lives?
When all of us woke up on the morning of January 13, 2011, none of thought it would be the last day of our son’s life – least of all him – and he was the one who was poised on stepping out of his physical body and on into eternity.
We knew he was going to die “soon,” but ‘soon” was still a month or so away. Wasn’t it?
He made it very clear that he did not want to know when he was going to die. He did not want to know when it was coming. He wanted it to just “happen.” We figured he would slip into a coma -- either drug-induced to keep him from suffering or as part of the process of his body shutting down -- and that he really would not know.
We knew that January 13 would not be entirely routine, because ultrasound technicians with a mobile unit were scheduled to assess him to see if the doctor could do a palliative procedure to make him more comfortable. So we spent some extra time with him that morning, sitting in the room with him while they moved the probe over his distended belly, trying to figure out where the fluid build up might be, and when they had finished, we walked down to the coffee machine, while the nurses and aides bustled in and gave him his medicine and water and other things, as the news from the technicians (“we aren’t supposed to tell you this, but…”) sank in that there was no fluid, it was all tumor, and they were not going to be able to do anything to help him.
And then we pasted smiles on our faces and helped him set up the laptop computer so he could monitor the E-bay item he was bidding on, and we kissed the top of his head and said “see you this afternoon….” And Richard teased him “….don’t buy anything…” and we left. Assuming that we would follow the usual routine for the day.... returning later in the day to read from a Terry Pratchett novel we were enjoying together and visit.
And about 30 minutes after we left, he left the computer, went into the bathroom, came back to bed, and then he died... suddenly. Right then. He had no idea it was coming. It turned out it was his last day on earth.
It was not our last day on earth though...
and we miss him, and we will go on missing him until it is our last day on earth. And we are still working out how we are going to live as if it were our last...
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Frosty the Snowman…
When we first moved here, a church was under construction on the land next to our property. They were holding services in the basement until the interior of the sanctuary upstairs was finished. We visited there a couple of times and decided to attend church elsewhere. But eventually, we did begin going to church there, and did so for many years. It was very easy to be on time for services
Then the church sort of faded away and the denomination closed it. And then they found another minister to try again, and we resumed attending there. After a few more years, the church petered out once more. Since then, a couple of other groups tried to establish congregations in the building but did not succeed.
Last year the denomination finally sold it to a family with young children. For the first time since 1981, we can say “the neighbors next door.”
He owns his own business, and they said the plan was to live in the basement until they could remodel the upstairs and then use the basement for the business. I saw part of the remodeling project in the basement when they were up to their armpits in drywall dust, but I have not seen it since they finished it and moved in, and I am not sure what they have done with the auditorium.
They seem to be a nice young couple and they have nice children. We can hear the children playing sometimes – laughing and having a good time outside. I think in her former life Miss Molly belonged to a family that had a child. She gets very excited when she hears them.
At the end of the summer, the father started building a tree house at the edge of the property along our driveway. When Richard came upon this construction project, one of the children was quick to tell Richard. “Don’t worry, we checked. It is not on your property…”
Richard wants to climb up the ladder and sit on the platform, but is afraid he will break it.
They were away from home over Christmas and came back early yesterday, beating the snowfall by several hours. This afternoon when I took Miss Molly for a walk I spotted this cheerful fellow in the yard.
I couldn’t resist taking his picture.
Then the church sort of faded away and the denomination closed it. And then they found another minister to try again, and we resumed attending there. After a few more years, the church petered out once more. Since then, a couple of other groups tried to establish congregations in the building but did not succeed.
Last year the denomination finally sold it to a family with young children. For the first time since 1981, we can say “the neighbors next door.”
He owns his own business, and they said the plan was to live in the basement until they could remodel the upstairs and then use the basement for the business. I saw part of the remodeling project in the basement when they were up to their armpits in drywall dust, but I have not seen it since they finished it and moved in, and I am not sure what they have done with the auditorium.
They seem to be a nice young couple and they have nice children. We can hear the children playing sometimes – laughing and having a good time outside. I think in her former life Miss Molly belonged to a family that had a child. She gets very excited when she hears them.
At the end of the summer, the father started building a tree house at the edge of the property along our driveway. When Richard came upon this construction project, one of the children was quick to tell Richard. “Don’t worry, we checked. It is not on your property…”
Richard wants to climb up the ladder and sit on the platform, but is afraid he will break it.
They were away from home over Christmas and came back early yesterday, beating the snowfall by several hours. This afternoon when I took Miss Molly for a walk I spotted this cheerful fellow in the yard.
I couldn’t resist taking his picture.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Twas the night before Christmas…
And, to quote Bobbie Burns,
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley…
We actually did have some plans for Christmas day, intending
to venture a bit out of our comfort zone and have a couple over for snacks
later in the afternoon. Except by noon on Friday, I was sneezing and my throat
was scratchy… and it sort of went downhill from there.
Today I am not feeling quite as bad as I did yesterday
although I am still coughing a lot, but now by beloved is sneezing and has the
scratchy throat. Trying to entertain tomorrow is out of the question.
So, we will spend a quite evening at home watching Love Actually and eating food that is normally forbidden for people who
are trying to watch their weight, and reflecting on the blessings of Christmas
and memories of happier times. The last Christmas we spent with our son was not exactly a happy time. He was in the nursing home, dying, and being cared for by hospice.
I won’t pretend that getting Christmas presents wasn’t an
important part of the holiday when I was kid. I most certainly was excited
about what Santa was going to bring, and I can even remember some of the
presents I got – a chemistry set, a bicycle, and a green snake (yes, a snake)—among
them, but what I remember most vividly was the thrill of decorating the tree.
The ornaments for the tree were loose in a big cardboard box filled with
shredded paper. And it was so exciting: going with Dad to choose the tree and bringing it home,
and then Dad would bring in the big box in from the garage and we would carefully
fish out the ornaments and put them on.
In the first years after we were married, and then after our
boy was born, we spent Christmas with my folks and so did not really develop
our own tradition. When we moved here, the annual ritual was for Richard and
Nathaniel to go out in the back pasture and cut down a cedar tree. We never had
much room for a very big tree, but that became something he enjoyed very much –
cutting down the tree with Dad and decorating it.
Earlier in December, the town held a Christmas tree decorating contest. I doubt our little tree would have won a prize, but it has a place of honor on the old sewing machine.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
She who shall be named…
After several weeks of “Dog”, “Little Doggie” and other variations, she now has a name. The night I came back from my vacation, Richard was watching a documentary about Little Richard, and when the inevitable happened and he began singing “Good Golly, Miss Molly!,” we sort of looked at each other and said, “that’s it.”
Miss Molly she is.
It fits her. She loves chasing after her ball and she is most definitely a little doggie who loves rockin’ and rollin’.
And getting her to sit still so I can get a decent picture of her is exceedingly difficult.
Miss Molly she is.
It fits her. She loves chasing after her ball and she is most definitely a little doggie who loves rockin’ and rollin’.
And getting her to sit still so I can get a decent picture of her is exceedingly difficult.
Saturday, December 08, 2012
The trip....
Cattle cars...
Large trucks often rush noisily pass our house loaded with livestock, usually cattle, sometimes pigs. In the summer, when the windows are open, we notice that the smell lingers in the air long after the truck has barreled down the highway. The animals are crammed in so tightly that they can barely move. This is done for more reasons than just monetary greed to get as many animals as possible on the truck. Animals that are packed tightly together are less likely to fall and break something if the truck comes to a sudden stop or there is a sharp curve in the road.
And indeed, they have packed us tightly together, but in this case it is all about money and not for some other more altruistic reason.
And the metal tube hurtles down the runway at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport and launches itself into the air, and we spend about 3 hours crammed together, feeling like so many cattle in a truck or perhaps sardines in a can, and we head into the West and land in off-and-on drizzle in Los Angeles.
Before it is practical to be standing up, I am in the aisle, as is the woman across from me – a flight attendant who has been given a seat on the flight. She also complains about cramped knees. I do not wish to appear ungrateful. I am very thankful that I have arrived safely – the aching joints will shortly calm down.
Where the heart is…
Home is where the heart is, or so the saying goes. But what if your heart is in two places? What if your heart is here, in this house on a quiet street in a neighborhood of tract homes in south Los Angeles, and also 1500 miles away on 8 acres of land in southern Missouri?
I am so glad to be here. Dramatic changes take place in the life of a young child in an 18-month period, say from 2 years to 3.5 years, and similar dramatic changes can take place in 18 months when a person becomes elderly. I last saw my father in June 2011, and he is now 88.
The changes taking place in his aging body are inevitable and not unexpected, but sad nonetheless. Although he is in extremely good health – heart, lungs, and other organ systems appear to be working well – he has lost the strength in his legs and has become rather feeble. He can still walk around his house, has a walking stick for shorter distances, and needs a wheelchair for lengthy journeys. Fortunately, he still has nearly all of his “wits about him.” He does occasionally get confused and forgets stuff. But he can fix simple food, cook his own breakfast, and take care of himself. He reads the newspaper “cover to cover” and still enjoys working the crossword puzzle. He has not yet been caught in the vice grip of serious dementia or “old timer’s disease,” for which I am very thankful. He is cheerful and happy and still makes faces at me to make me laugh, and he is fun to be around.
Shopping for food…
My brother’s birthday was the day after I arrived. I was about a month into my 4th year when he was born. Funny thing. I am still 4 years older than he is. For his birthday present, he wanted me to cook food with him. We went to an amazing Mexican market and scoured the produce section for fresh “everything”…
several different kinds of chilies, tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, onions, avocados, Mexican-style cheese, and freshly made corn tortillas, still warm from the oven (the market makes its own tortillas on the premises).
I paid for the groceries, and then we went back to his house and used these fresh ingredients to put together a Mexican-style feast of enchiladas, chile rellano (I neglected to remove the ribs along with the seeds so some of the chili peppers were quite lively), and guacamole, all topped off with cherry pie. Cherry pie? Yep. Cherry pie with a candle in the middle.
On Sunday I went shopping and bought stuff and I cooked for Dad and my brother and his wife… lamb curry, a curried bean dish, gingered carrots, and broccoli with lemon sauce. The difference between almost winter in southern California and almost winter in Missouri is that one can go out the back door and pick a lemon off the tree (if one happens to live in a house with a lemon tree in the back yard).
They ate everything down to the last bite – there were no leftovers. A sight to warm the cockles of the heart of a cook whose food in the past has, on occasion, had a somewhat underwhelming response…
At the other home where my heart is, I actually don’t cook much any more, other than your basic “stick a large piece of meat in the oven at 350 degrees” and various strange things I throw together for my lunch. Richard is the one scouring recipes for interesting ways to fix vegetables and does most of the cooking these days, so it has actually been fun to cook for people, and very gratifying that they actually liked it enough to eat it all and weren’t just being polite.
Bearing witness…
There is a lovely line in the sweet movie Let’s Dance where Beverly, the character played by Susan Sarandon, talks to private detective she has hired to tail her husband, played by Richard Gere. They are discussing marriage…
So it was that various family members gathered at the small amphitheater overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Laguna Beach on Saturday
and bore witness to the marriage of my sister’s oldest daughter, who has chosen a life partner to bear witness to her life.
It had been raining more or less constantly for the past 2 days, and rain was forecast for that day as well. God answered many prayers. There was a break in the rain… it was perfect…
no wind coming off the ocean, so that nobody froze, and a light cloud cover with intermittent sunshine, so that nobody roasted…
and it was beautiful.
Remembering…
He directed me with pinpoint accuracy on the trip we took to the harbor to see the battleship USS Iowa, which has been decommissioned and permanently docked in San Pedro.
During his tour of duty in WW II, the supply ship he served on steamed alongside the USS Iowa and sent groceries over to the crew in cargo nets attached to cables that they shot from one deck to the other.
One of the ships my father served on picked up soldiers who had been wounded during the invasions. He saw some horrible things, but he was on a ship and did not have to fire a gun and kill people, and there were enough fun things that happened so that his war experience was not the nightmare from which many young men never recovered.
He recalled on one tour that they picked up some Marines who had been in one of the invasions, and several of them decided to “go for a swim,” while they were steaming in the open ocean. Some of them were never found. Finally, the captain barred anyone from being topside except those on guard duty.
Mini-reunion…
I graduated in June 1967 and our 45th high school class reunion is happening today. I had to decide whether to extend the trip several more days so I could attend the reunion or come home. I decided to come home. I had one best friend during high school, and she and her husband came to the house on Tuesday. He sat with my father and visited with him. I sat with her, and we visited…
and it was lovely. It was a great reunion.
A bit of culture…
The day before I left to come home, my sweet sister took the day off from her job as an elementary school librarian...
and we went to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and strolled through the various exhibits. Art covering 5000 years of Chinese history and culture…
exhibits of artifacts from the Pacific islands…
early California history, and art by California artists.
Pins that Madeleine K. Albright wore during her diplomatic career…. jewelry, and eggs, and other objects created by Peter Carl Fabergé…
And a meal at a Greek restaurant. Oh my.
Home again…
My brother picked me up at 5 a.m. to take me to the airport. There were no delays on the freeway. We were there in probably less than 15 minutes. It took less than 10 minutes to check the bag and get my boarding pass. A very kind airline employee helped me press the buttons on the monitor. There was no line at the security checkpoint. I spent a very stress-free couple of hours watching the people. I met a delightful trio of women at Dallas-Ft. Worth who had bought a package deal for Branson and were on their way there.
For the finale to what was one of the less stressful flights I have ever taken was a phalaenopsis orchid peaking over the top of the back seat.
Now, if I can just keep it alive…
Large trucks often rush noisily pass our house loaded with livestock, usually cattle, sometimes pigs. In the summer, when the windows are open, we notice that the smell lingers in the air long after the truck has barreled down the highway. The animals are crammed in so tightly that they can barely move. This is done for more reasons than just monetary greed to get as many animals as possible on the truck. Animals that are packed tightly together are less likely to fall and break something if the truck comes to a sudden stop or there is a sharp curve in the road.
Let’s make the seats really narrow and the aisle between the seats really narrow, and make the distance between the rows just a little shorter so we can add some more rows and see if we can’t get just a few more people into this tube of metal…
And indeed, they have packed us tightly together, but in this case it is all about money and not for some other more altruistic reason.
And the metal tube hurtles down the runway at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport and launches itself into the air, and we spend about 3 hours crammed together, feeling like so many cattle in a truck or perhaps sardines in a can, and we head into the West and land in off-and-on drizzle in Los Angeles.
Before it is practical to be standing up, I am in the aisle, as is the woman across from me – a flight attendant who has been given a seat on the flight. She also complains about cramped knees. I do not wish to appear ungrateful. I am very thankful that I have arrived safely – the aching joints will shortly calm down.
Where the heart is…
Home is where the heart is, or so the saying goes. But what if your heart is in two places? What if your heart is here, in this house on a quiet street in a neighborhood of tract homes in south Los Angeles, and also 1500 miles away on 8 acres of land in southern Missouri?
I am so glad to be here. Dramatic changes take place in the life of a young child in an 18-month period, say from 2 years to 3.5 years, and similar dramatic changes can take place in 18 months when a person becomes elderly. I last saw my father in June 2011, and he is now 88.
The changes taking place in his aging body are inevitable and not unexpected, but sad nonetheless. Although he is in extremely good health – heart, lungs, and other organ systems appear to be working well – he has lost the strength in his legs and has become rather feeble. He can still walk around his house, has a walking stick for shorter distances, and needs a wheelchair for lengthy journeys. Fortunately, he still has nearly all of his “wits about him.” He does occasionally get confused and forgets stuff. But he can fix simple food, cook his own breakfast, and take care of himself. He reads the newspaper “cover to cover” and still enjoys working the crossword puzzle. He has not yet been caught in the vice grip of serious dementia or “old timer’s disease,” for which I am very thankful. He is cheerful and happy and still makes faces at me to make me laugh, and he is fun to be around.
Shopping for food…
My brother’s birthday was the day after I arrived. I was about a month into my 4th year when he was born. Funny thing. I am still 4 years older than he is. For his birthday present, he wanted me to cook food with him. We went to an amazing Mexican market and scoured the produce section for fresh “everything”…
several different kinds of chilies, tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, onions, avocados, Mexican-style cheese, and freshly made corn tortillas, still warm from the oven (the market makes its own tortillas on the premises).
I paid for the groceries, and then we went back to his house and used these fresh ingredients to put together a Mexican-style feast of enchiladas, chile rellano (I neglected to remove the ribs along with the seeds so some of the chili peppers were quite lively), and guacamole, all topped off with cherry pie. Cherry pie? Yep. Cherry pie with a candle in the middle.
On Sunday I went shopping and bought stuff and I cooked for Dad and my brother and his wife… lamb curry, a curried bean dish, gingered carrots, and broccoli with lemon sauce. The difference between almost winter in southern California and almost winter in Missouri is that one can go out the back door and pick a lemon off the tree (if one happens to live in a house with a lemon tree in the back yard).
They ate everything down to the last bite – there were no leftovers. A sight to warm the cockles of the heart of a cook whose food in the past has, on occasion, had a somewhat underwhelming response…
At the other home where my heart is, I actually don’t cook much any more, other than your basic “stick a large piece of meat in the oven at 350 degrees” and various strange things I throw together for my lunch. Richard is the one scouring recipes for interesting ways to fix vegetables and does most of the cooking these days, so it has actually been fun to cook for people, and very gratifying that they actually liked it enough to eat it all and weren’t just being polite.
Bearing witness…
There is a lovely line in the sweet movie Let’s Dance where Beverly, the character played by Susan Sarandon, talks to private detective she has hired to tail her husband, played by Richard Gere. They are discussing marriage…
We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."
So it was that various family members gathered at the small amphitheater overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Laguna Beach on Saturday
and bore witness to the marriage of my sister’s oldest daughter, who has chosen a life partner to bear witness to her life.
It had been raining more or less constantly for the past 2 days, and rain was forecast for that day as well. God answered many prayers. There was a break in the rain… it was perfect…
no wind coming off the ocean, so that nobody froze, and a light cloud cover with intermittent sunshine, so that nobody roasted…
and it was beautiful.
Remembering…
He directed me with pinpoint accuracy on the trip we took to the harbor to see the battleship USS Iowa, which has been decommissioned and permanently docked in San Pedro.
During his tour of duty in WW II, the supply ship he served on steamed alongside the USS Iowa and sent groceries over to the crew in cargo nets attached to cables that they shot from one deck to the other.
One of the ships my father served on picked up soldiers who had been wounded during the invasions. He saw some horrible things, but he was on a ship and did not have to fire a gun and kill people, and there were enough fun things that happened so that his war experience was not the nightmare from which many young men never recovered.
He recalled on one tour that they picked up some Marines who had been in one of the invasions, and several of them decided to “go for a swim,” while they were steaming in the open ocean. Some of them were never found. Finally, the captain barred anyone from being topside except those on guard duty.
Mini-reunion…
I graduated in June 1967 and our 45th high school class reunion is happening today. I had to decide whether to extend the trip several more days so I could attend the reunion or come home. I decided to come home. I had one best friend during high school, and she and her husband came to the house on Tuesday. He sat with my father and visited with him. I sat with her, and we visited…
A bit of culture…
The day before I left to come home, my sweet sister took the day off from her job as an elementary school librarian...
and we went to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and strolled through the various exhibits. Art covering 5000 years of Chinese history and culture…
exhibits of artifacts from the Pacific islands…
early California history, and art by California artists.
Pins that Madeleine K. Albright wore during her diplomatic career…. jewelry, and eggs, and other objects created by Peter Carl Fabergé…
And a meal at a Greek restaurant. Oh my.
Home again…
My brother picked me up at 5 a.m. to take me to the airport. There were no delays on the freeway. We were there in probably less than 15 minutes. It took less than 10 minutes to check the bag and get my boarding pass. A very kind airline employee helped me press the buttons on the monitor. There was no line at the security checkpoint. I spent a very stress-free couple of hours watching the people. I met a delightful trio of women at Dallas-Ft. Worth who had bought a package deal for Branson and were on their way there.
For the finale to what was one of the less stressful flights I have ever taken was a phalaenopsis orchid peaking over the top of the back seat.
Now, if I can just keep it alive…
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