nap without guilt

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T18:15:00.001-05:00

Like most people, I love new beginnings: new years, new journals, new books. All the fresh starts and possibilities! But as tempting as it is to say good riddance to 2011, it brought good things as well as bad, just like every year does. Some years we just need to look a little harder for the good than we do other years. For me, getting a cancer diagnosis was bad. But the peace I have found and am still finding is so very good. It helps that this cancer may take so long to kill me that everyone will be completely bored by the time it finally does. Or I may be hit by a truck or a meteorite way before then.

In the meantime, I have a resolution for 2012: I’ll be checking in here more often. I’ll be reading your blogs more often. It’ll be a good place to rest in between organizing all my photos, recording all my passwords, making a financial spreadsheet, purging and reorganizing the file cabinets, oh Lord have mercy.

You’d be surprised how many times I think about you, even you whom I’ve never met. As my She likes to say, “Tah dah!” Happy New Year, y’all. Peace be with you.

What Not To Say To Someone Who Has Cancer

2011-10-01T13:40:00.001-04:00

I have leukemia. There’s just no way to sidle up to that one, foreshadow it, or drop hints, so there it is. I just found out about it, and I don’t have a lot (if any) specific information about my particular case. I do know that I can either live a long time or not. Pretty much just like everyone else, maybe only tireder and more bruised up. Unfortunately I do not have and knowing me I will not ever get “unexplained weight loss,” which can be a symptom for some people. I am actually happy to have a good reason for being so fatigued all the time. I was feeling like a bad, lazy person. Now I can truly nap without guilt.

Here’s what I do know a lot about after just a couple of days. People will say the darnedest things to someone who’s just received a cancer diagnosis. I’m making a list of what not to say or do, no matter how much you want to fix things for your friend or how much you need comfort yourself . (If I could get cancer, so could you. If I can die, so can you.)

Don’t tell them that they will be fine and that this could be so much worse. A few minutes ago, you couldn’t even pronounce what they have. You know nothing about their particular case, even if you have or have had cancer or Uncle Jim has “the same thing.” Don’t tell them to take a deep breath or not to worry until they have something to worry about. They’re breathing fine and with or without your reassurance, they’re actually impressed with how calm they are, and they’re still going to be thinking “cancer cancer cancer” just about every waking moment, kind of like a Greek chorus, while they empty the cat’s litter box or watch the news.

Unless your cancer-diagnosed friend lives in a forest up in the mountains with only weekly stagecoach service, or is technologically challenged as well as cancerous, don’t send them articles. They read everything in print on the first night after they heard the diagnosis. As a sub-category of this “don’t,” don’t send them inspirational poems or stories that appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul.

What about telling your friend that you’re praying for them? This is a sticky wicket. If your friend knows that you really are the praying sort and that you will actually spend a minute or so thinking about them every morning and wishing them well, go ahead and tell them. Unless he or she is a total sourpuss, your prayers will probably be appreciated even by the non-religious. However, If your friend has good reason to doubt that you pray at all, you’re going to come off as a lying, cliché-mouthing hypocrite. Your choice. But please don’t take this opportunity to urge your friend to trust in God’s will, accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, or pray with you. This is not your big chance to save a soul.

So what can you say? It can be as little as “I’m so sorry!” It can be “I love you,” if you do. It can be a quiet hug. It can be an offer to kill anyone or anything who is mean to your friend. If in your shock you say something stupid or careless and you realize it, admit it on the spot or as soon as you can. It’s probably better not to say “Let me know if there is anything I can do.” If you want to do something, just tell yourself to be on the lookout for what the person might need. Maybe it’s just a card in the mail next week for starters. (This is the area where I’ve most often failed with friends. Never again.)

I bet that I’ll have more to say as time goes along. About everything! It’s almost heady, this feeling of liberation that’s come upon me.

Mary Margaret McDaniel Black Harvey (Peggy) 12/08/23 - 5/14/2000

2011-05-14T19:19:00.001-04:00

Today I tried to sing all the songs my mother loved. Some kids got lullabies; I got The Tennessee Waltz, Melancholy Baby, and Embraceable You. I got The Eyes of Texas and Mairsie Doats. I got rafts of World Word II songs like I’ll Be Seeing You and Mamselle. I got a ballad that I have never been able to remember after these lines: “Oh listen boys listen to this story I gotta tell. This little epistle concerns our Nell.”

Eleven years ago my mother died, and I still cannot explain why it was that I was mean, impatient, critical, and completely without empathy when it came to her. I had a ball of anger inside that wouldn’t quit. And yet I loved her, though I wouldn’t admit it. I love her still, and now I am grateful for that love.

Peggy could suck all the air out of the room, literally, with her ever-present Marlboro; and figuratively, with her insistent ability to draw everyone’s attention to her. The expression “It’s all about me!” is supposed to be a joke delivered with a self-deprecating smile. With her, it was real, and it was so desperate. She would clap her hands together and shout “Oh, let’s have fun!” and the fun, if any, would come to a screeching halt. She could spoil a Christmas or vacation without even breathing hard by indicating her disappointment or hurt.

She would interrupt anyone’s most serious and urgent communication to ask them to fetch a Kleenex, bring an ashtray, or in my case, urge me after three sentences to “get to the point.” She “worried” about me all the time, but it was clear that it was what worry was doing to her that was important, and not whether or not the thing she worried about would actually happen. When my friends who had children were around, even when I was in my forties, she would trade stories with them about the trials of childbirth and motherhood before they even realized what was taking place. I’d be sitting or standing in the same room, silently, while my friend became a deer caught in the headlights.

My mother’s worst failure, in my mind, was that she loved me because she thought she possessed me, and for the daughter she imagined I was; not because she loved the real me and not because she wanted to give me permission to be a person, too. My secret revenge was that I wanted another mother, and my overt revenge was that I closed myself off to her in every way that I thought I could, even when she was dying, to lessen her power over me. I couldn’t even give her the 1940’s black and white movie ending where everything is forgiven and made right at the deathbed. She would have loved that.

Eleven years later, I know that she was simply a woman who could annoy the daylights out of a saint. She had no negative power except what I stupidly gave her. I am painfully aware, especially when I annoy my own daughter, of how easy it is to let the wish to do and say the right thing drive me into doggedly doing and saying the wrong thing. My mother wanted to be loved. That is all. I finally get it. I wish it were not too late to be forgiven, because I’d like the movie ending, too.

Cutting the Cord

2011-02-06T19:30:00.001-05:00

It’s been a week today. We don’t have cable TV anymore. And tonight is the Super Bowl. We could (gasp) not watch the game and just catch the commercials later on YouTube. We were prepared to accept that. Instead, we are sitting at the kitchen table with big mugs of tea, followed by a glass or two of Pinot Grigio, watching a perfectly clear picture of Super Bowl 2011 via the $10.00 set of rabbit ears I picked up at Radio Shack. The kitchen works best for reception, and the picture is clearer than cable because the digital signal is not compressed. Most of the time, however, we don’t need a TV at all.

We have not missed a single one of our favorite TV programs all week: Grey’s Anatomy, Harry’s Law, The Good Wife, Detroit 187, CBS Sunday Morning. We watch them whenever we want to, and we can hit “pause” on the laptop or the iPad for rest stops. We can even watch the nightly NBC News with Brian Williams if we want to wait an hour for it to show up on Paddy. In addition, our $8.99 a month subscription to Netflix allows us to watch movies like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo instantly online or via a DVD that arrives in the mail practically as soon as it’s been ordered. We can watch all of this in any room in the house, or out on the screen porch when the weather gets warmer.

We are saving over $100.00 a month, and enjoying it.

Oh, and an hour into the Super Bowl, we’ve only had one second of signal interference, when we both screamed “Yes!” and raised four arms in victory. Then we laughed.

Music Lesson

2011-02-04T14:44:00.001-05:00

Forty old people, arranged around rectangular tables

in a rectangular room with black and white squares

on the floor.

Today's speaker has a microphone next to which he

stands so close that every “p” makes an unwanted

punctuation of amplified air.

He talks so fast that “program music” sounds like prora

music, something new and perhaps extraterrestial that

we are just now finding out about

in this angular room, early in the 21^st century.

But no, we are learning about music in the mid-

nineteenth century, long before even the oldest old

person in this room was born,

long before our parents or even grandparents were born.

The speaker puffs into the microphone about piccolos and

preludes, and the old people are polite, their papery

faces inscrutable.

We listen to the river, beginning very quietly as two

streams, high in the mountains of Austria.

Some cannot hear the beginning at all, but they do better

when the two small streams become one big sound,

and white heads bob up and down,up and down.

The river leads us past a wedding party with dancers,

and into a night scene of dark currents and a moon and

perhaps some magic.

“Therapidswillcomequickly”

warns the speaker, his glasses glinting.

And sooner than we expected, but

we did know, he intones “The Rapids” and no one is

surprised.

Forty old people, still attentive, still inscrutable, past the

rapids now, sit in the rectangular room

and listen to the river disappear from sight.

Like A Prayer

2011-01-18T17:56:00.001-05:00

All of my life, I have wanted to keep a journal. I’ve started one at least 35 times. When I was a pre-teenager, nothing would do but a diary with a key. My mother had a 5-year diary. It was dark green with gold lettering, and she wrote in it sporadically starting at the age of 11, from 1934-1936. I still have it.

On June 16, 1934, she went to see “The Thin Man” with William Powell. She noted “I spent most of the time to-day [sic] writing. I am writing a jungle story. I think I will call it ‘The Killer Camera Expedition.’” Sounds like a promising title, but I doubt if she ever really wrote the story. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I once thought I should try to publish a book full of all the great titles and first lines I’ve thought of, and nothing else.

As life rolled on, I kept buying journals that I never kept up for more than a week. Friends gave me beautiful blank books, covered in suede or tapestry, which I was afraid to write in. When the word-processing age began, I typed journal entries with enthusiasm and a sense of fulfillment until the long vacation weekend ended, and then I was back to sleeping, eating, working, chores; sleeping eating, working, chores. Sometimes I jotted quotes and tucked clippings into yet another lovely journal. Cheaper, spiral-bound notebooks turned into pages of to-do lists and scrawled phone numbers. Nothing became a steady practice.

A year or so ago, I read Phyllis Theroux’s wonderful book The Journal Keeper, and Sheila and I even went to hear her talk at the Library of Virginia. Ms. Theroux was incredibly inspiring, and I seriously thought about buying the same blank books she uses and the same Sharpie pens. I didn’t, though. And I didn’t begin another journal.

In September, I signed up for a small group at church called “The Seeker’s Path,” which I wrote a little about here. One of the suggested spiritual exercises was journaling in the manner described in the book The Artist’s Way. That journaling method sternly recommends writing first thing in the morning, without any coffee, for three pages every day. No typing, either. However, I’d tried that over a decade ago, and it didn’t work for me. I was working ten-twelve hours every day, and I sure as hell didn’t have time to write three pages. Three words, maybe. Plus, no one is going to tell me I can’t have coffee if I want to, or order me to write three pages.

But some of the questions we were asked to respond to in a journal intrigued me. In Week One, we were asked to describe our most profound experience of God; and what one thing might we commit to pursue over the next nine weeks that might significantly enhance our spiritual lives. I decided to commit to journaling. It was just nine weeks, but even that would be beyond any regular writing I’d ever done.

I went to the grocery store and bought a black and white cardboard-covered composition book with lined pages. I decided that I would get a cup of coffee and drink from it while I journaled. I would use a plain old ballpoint pen that moved smoothly over the pages. I would not attempt to answer every single question or prompt posed by Sam, our group leader. And I would definitely write only until I was done, whether that was one page or four pages. I decided to sit in the wing chair in the office, with the afghan over my knees. Miss T decided that she would sit with me, on my lap. And we promised we would do it every day, come hell or high water, for nine weeks.

That was September, and this is the middle of January. I’m on my second black and white composition book. I’ve made an entry every single day, except for two of the days we were in Philadelphia. I don’t grapple with theology or the concise issues of my “spiritual development” on a daily basis, although I think more of our lives than we realize are directly related to our spiritual paths. I do write about what my place in the world in relation to others could be, what I do and do not understand about a person or a situation, what frightens or saddens or angers me, what I found beautiful or moving or important or funny the day before, and what that spark of the Divine inside me may be trying to tell me or show me if I will but listen. Some days I have written only three quarters of a page. Some days I have gone on for four or five. I know when I am done.

Sheila has read a few things out loud to me from her book of the diaries of Dorothy Day, the great social activist and advocate for the poor and underprivileged. Dorothy Day said that for her, writing was like a prayer. Right on, Dorothy. She said "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart." Yes.

How To Live Forever

2010-12-11T22:32:00.001-05:00

A stack of books just crashed to the floor from my bedside table. It was a sign. Every year about this time, I anxiously await inspiration to strike so that I can write our annual Christmas letter. It hasn’t struck yet, and I’ve decided to ~~keep procrastinating~~ loosen up by describing the books on my bedside table, as I did almost a year and a half ago here. Uh oh, I have changed bedside tables since that post—I now use the top of an old wooden trunk—and I have a lot more space. Yeah. That’s why one of the stacks just gave up and fell to the floor. The books here can be divided into several categories: re-reads, dip-in-tos, poetry (always a re-read), and new books waiting to be munched on. You’d nod off long before I listed all of them, so here is just a sample.

My favorite re-read is almost always at my bedside: Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life by Rabbi Irwin Kula. Here’s what Mitch Albom had to say about it. “This wonderful book…embrace[s] the magic of day-to-day living, the spirituality that can be found in our questions, our mistakes, and our doubts. Life is indeed messy, but as Irwin Kula shows us, sorting through it is what transforms us to higher ground.” Of course I would love someone who encourages me in my favorite activity: sorting through things in my head.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a re-read from almost 40 years ago. But for me, it’s a whole different book now. Do you ever feel like even though you’re decades old, you just woke up last week? I feel that way all the time. What was I thinking 40 years ago? I don’t think I had a glimmer of insight into this book. When I read it then, I became fascinated by the idea of buying a motorcycle and traveling across the country. And that’s about it. I was a clueless dork, and I’m just a tiny bit less dorky now that I’ve been awake, alert, and alive for a week or so.

Right now, I’m reading these books for the first time: No Death, No Fear, by Thich Nhat Hanh; Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, by Novella Carpenter; and The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin.

A dip-int0-start-reading-anywhere book is Jack Smith’s LA, a collection of essays on the city of angels by the long-time and much-beloved columnist of the LA Times. Jack Smith made me laugh out loud for years and still does.

Poetry books roam the trunk, because I usually grab one and read a poem before I go to sleep. Right now there is one by Billy Collins: Picnic, Lightning; a poetry anthology edited by Billy Collins: 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Everyday; and a collection of poems by Mary Oliver: Thirst. I love them all, as well as their brothers and sisters on the nearby shelf.

Having a big stack of books yet to be read is a hedge against dying, at least for me. I admit it. As long as all those unread pages are within arm’s reach, I get to keep living. It’s like sleeping with the light on if you’re afraid of the dark. Here are the latest still-to-be-reads:

Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle; Mattaponi Queen: Stories, by Belle Boggs; No Death, No Fear, by Thich Nhat Hanh; The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker; The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, and not because Oprah likes him; and Look at the Birdie: unpublished short fiction, by Kurt Vonnegut.

I’ll live a long time yet.

Christmas Poem

2010-12-09T19:55:00.001-05:00

I was looking for a poem about

Christmas to send to a few people,

whether they liked it or not.

I wanted one with cold and clear stars,

A voice singing something about

Angels;

And animals waiting to speak at

Midnight.

And love, which I believe really is

All we need.

Bilingual Turkey

2010-11-24T11:53:00.001-05:00

When we lived in Mexico, we both made a concentrated effort to speak Spanish to the Mexicans. (They tried equally hard to speak English to us.) Our efforts had mixed results.

In general, my Spanish vocabulary and grammar exceeded Sheila’s. She is half Mexican, but she is from Michigan and was raised as a non-Spanish speaking Midwesterner, whereas I spent a good part of my childhood on the Tex-Mex border.

Prior to our arrival in Mexico, She only knew such important words as taco, enchilada, margarita, cerveza, gracias, corazon (heart) and alma (soul). Just a few words, but they took her places and won her friends.

We arrived in October, and by the time Thanksgiving was almost upon us, Sheila had learned the Spanish word for “turkey,” which is pavo. She had also somehow caught on to the word polvo, which means “dust.” You can sense where this is going, can’t you?

Sondra, a young neighbor whom we employed as a three-times-a-week maid, spoke less English than Sheila spoke Spanish, but by and large they managed to communicate with smiles, gestures, and eye rolls, the latter sometimes launched in my direction. They bonded.

A day or two before Thanksgiving, Sondra arrived in the morning and started sweeping the tile floor. With the usual smiles and gestures, Sheila proudly trotted out her new Spanish word, pavo, and sweetly informed Sondra that there were many turkeys on the floor over by the windows.

Now Sondra had respect for her elders and her employers, and she was also patient and gracious with mistakes in Spanish. But at the startling news of the many turkeys on the floor, her normally kind and serene expression turned to total mystification mixed with concern. Her new boss was perhaps a little loco.

Sondra turned to me for help, and saw the big grin on my face as I choked out “No es ‘pavo’! Polvo!” before bursting into giggles. I explained that Sheila was thinking about the gringo custom of Thanksgiving, Dia de Accion de Gracias, where one serves pavo, when she meant to say the word for “dust.” Sondra’s face cleared with relief. “Ay, Senorita Cheela!” she laughed and clucked, shaking her head with affection.

We have never forgotten the Spanish words for turkey and dust, and I had to share the memory with you. May your pavo be delicious, and if there’s a little polvo on the floor, who cares? It’s the corazon that’s important.

I Saw It On Fox News

2010-10-25T22:30:00.001-04:00

We’ve all kind of wondered, right? Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? What about the detailed symbology in Dan Brown’s popular suspense thrillers? For me, those are fun reads. I think it’s perfectly normal to be intrigued (briefly) with potential conspiracies from time to time and there’s nothing like a good old edge of the seat conspiracy thriller at the movies.

Then there’s the wacko obsessive paranoid crazy person, combined with a dash of pathological liar. We met her on Saturday. A neighbor of ours asked us out to lunch with another friend of hers, who will be pet/housesitting our friend’s dog next week. We were unprepared, as it turned out, for the meeting.

For two plus hours, “Tamara” held forth. If we had been able to break free from horrified paralysis and interject a comment or two, it would have been difficult to interrupt her stream of consciousness monologue on the following topics: microwaved water (poisonous), scalar weaponry (You don’t know what that is? I will tell you, and let you know the five countries that employ it), Jesus’ face on the ocean floor, the successful manipulation of weather by They and Them, the meaningful “fact” that cell mitochondria (she called them “mitrochondria”) are supported by cross-shaped structures, the purposeful connection between Jewish holidays and the conception and gestation of a human fetus, and the cause of her brain aneurysm and subsequent miraculous survival. Oh, and this woman drinks decaf expresso. Because, she asked rhetorically, can you imagine someone like her on caffeine?

I will make just a few comments now that lunch is mercifully over. Microwaved water is not poisonous, and no, it does not stunt the growth of plants. Really. Scalar weaponry, which apparently involves electromagnetism and invisible domes similar to the ones used on Crest toothpaste commercials decades ago, does not exist even though in 1986 “they” did a practice run over Atlanta, Georgia. You would have known about the scalar dome over Atlanta, but you didn’t, because it was only a practice run, see.

If you look it up on the Internet, a tracing of the alleged face of Jesus allegedly seen on the Ocean floor shows a humanoid with a low forehead and a receding chin, more like Neanderthal Man than the commonly accepted artists’ renditions of Christ. I told She that if you could see this face on the Ocean floor and you thought it was really an image of Jesus, it would change your whole relationship with Him. And not for the better, in my humble opinion.

If you don’t believe Tamara about the successful and ill-intentioned manipulation of weather, it seems that somewhere there is a weatherman who used to be with an NBC affiliate in Pocatello, Idaho, and he knows that there isn’t a single flood, hurricane, drought, or even earthquake that wasn’t planned and executed by Them. And if you are still skeptical, consider this: Tamara saw it on Fox News! Yes! It was on Fox News! How could you ever doubt?

Rock Star

2010-10-09T19:03:00.001-04:00

I’ve been a religious rebel (the word “maverick” has been ruined for me by politicians) since I was young. Perhaps this fact was foreshadowed when I played an angel in the first grade Christmas play. You can easily see in the large photo of that occasion that my mother has pinned my wings on upside down. The rebel made herself known during a slumber party I had at my house when I was 15. I announced, prompted by what I do not recall, that most probably the first man and the first woman were not really named “Adam” and “Eve.” A near riot ensued, and at least one girl threatened to call her mother to come pick her up in the middle of the night.

All my life, I’ve had trouble finding my footing on a spiritual path; stumbling over traditional church liturgy, much of the Bible, and even the prayer that all who call themselves Christian know by heart. I’ve always felt alone. My belief in the Source of Love has never seemed to be a good enough reason to feel that I really belong in any faith community. And yet I persist. I have longed for validation.

So it was that a few weeks ago, I signed up for a 10-week small group at church called “The Seeker’s Path: Moving Beyond Belief.” One of the major goals of the group is that “each participant will have been able to move beyond any traditional beliefs or practices that have hindered his or her spiritual growth and will have gained a new understanding of, and deeper relationship with, God.”

There are about ten of us. Ninety minutes goes by in a flash. We are safe to expose our hearts and minds to each other. Safe! We are encouraged, but not required, to do journaling and reading and homework assignments. This week one of the homework assignments, #1 on the list of possibilities, was to “write a short poem, haiku, a very brief narrative or simply list key words that summarize your current relationship with God.”

I thought I’d skip that one. Not in the mood. Too hard to pin down. I’d feel a little bit shy. OK, a lot shy. Didn’t wanna. Not going to do it. But walking into the kitchen this morning to get my first cup of coffee, the image of God as a rock star hopped unbidden into my mind. I have no idea where that came from. Heh. I sat down with the coffee and wrote this:

Note To My Rock Star

Love, we’re good together when we’re alone, or with my friends.

We can talk about anything, and we laugh and cry together.

You understand me better than anyone ever has in my whole life.

But when your groupies and go-fers are around, and you’re wearing costumes and makeup and the crowd is screaming your Name, I wonder if I really know you.

I wonder if that song you’re singing was really written for me.

Oh, honey, I’m just bitchin’.

I know your gift is for the world.

Bedbugs

2010-09-17T12:11:00.001-04:00

“Sleep tight; don’t let the bedbugs bite!” exhorted my beloved grandfather Mac every night before I got in bed as a child. I knew there weren’t really any bedbugs. It was our joke. I passed the saying along to Tara when she was little, but apparently I wasn’t as trustworthy as Mac; she didn’t take kindly to the idea of bedbugs, joke or not. Stories about Tara and bugs, existent and non-existent, are legend, and involve baseball bats and whole rolls of toilet paper.

Bedbugs are not a joke these days. According to all the news media, if you don’t already have them, it’s just a matter of time. Exterminators are paying $10,000 for specially trained bedbug-locating dogs, I saw on TV. We are barraged with warnings and what-to-do on a daily basis.

Yesterday CNN urged against picking up any “free” furniture from curb or alley discards. The same caveat applies to yard sales and the eponymous flea market, I assume.

Good thing we didn’t worry about bedbugs back in the sixties. In my graduate year of college, four of us lived in an old house near campus, which we furnished with parental discards and the perennial brick and board bookcases. The focal point of decor in our living room was the red and white-checked front seat of an automobile. An old automobile. Two of us were at a flea market when we spotted the seat. Five dollars later, the prize was ours, and it never caused us a moment of worry. We dragged home anything that wasn’t obviously breathing, moving, or sprouting at every opportunity.

It can cost “tens of thousands” of dollars to remove bedbug infestations, trumpet the newscasters. For homeowners, that’s just one more grim fact to add to the endless nightmare of ownership. Your landlord won’t let you have pets or paint the living room red? Move. Homeowners have to worry about thousands of dollars for leaking roofs, dead front lawns, falling trees, worn-out heating and cooling systems, rotted beams, termites, backed up sewer lines, faulty fireplaces, squirrels in the attic, and a plethora of other potential hazards. I gotta say, though, that a bedbug infestation might be worse.

Sleep tight.

Inflation

2010-08-31T16:25:00.001-04:00

We were on our way to the library. Sheila asked, “Have you thought any more about what to take Sue tomorrow?” We have been invited to lunch at Sue’s house.

“Yes,” I said. “I thought we’d take a nice chilled bottle of that ChocoVine.” She grimaced sourly. “What?” I exclaimed. “You don’t like it now? You sure acted like you did!”

“It’s ten dollars,” she said glumly. “I know,” I replied, thinking “What isn’t?”

“Ten,” she grumped. “It’s the new one.”

Making Plans

2010-08-21T19:03:00.001-04:00

I’m lucky I didn’t break something. I was alone in the house, dustbusting the rug in the living room, when I did a side-step on my flip-flop and sloooowwwly fell to the floor, hard. On my $50,000 hip replacement. I always wonder, is it better to fall on your titanium hip replacement, or on your regular 66-year-old hip? I’m sure the official answer is “it depends.”

Anyway, I lay there for a few minutes with the dustbuster humming away on its green back and out of reach, thought about the above, and mentally checked over my body parts. She’s cousin Shannon, who is a number of years my junior, fell recently and sustained a terrible shoulder injury. I thought about her, too. I thought about how shocked She would be if she came home an hour later and found me lying there all broken with the dustbuster, now quiet and battery-dead. You never know the time or the place, as She is fond of saying.

But I’m okay this time. Just sore and not laughing quite as heartily as I was about She’s recent visit to the funeral home. She went with her friend Mary, who is 87. Mary had a stroke last month, so she was nervous about not having her “Plans” finalized. They went to get some information.

“So whajuh find out?” I queried later that day. She sat on the couch with her pocket folder from the funeral home. She had a look of determination on her face that made me worry. “I want to get this paid for,” she said. It’s $50.00 down and $101.00 a month for 36 months if you get this insurance policy, and if you die before it’s paid up, that’s all it costs.” “Such a deal,” I snorted. “Where are you going all of a sudden? It would sure pay to die early!” She drew herself up defensively. “This covers quite a lot,” she said, starting to read some of the included “services.” “Three hundred ninety-eight dollars for a bath, comb-out and makeup.” “What!!” I yelled. “I thought you were being cremated!” “Well, it’s for visitation,” she said patiently. “Medical examiner, $50.00.” “Why do you need their medical examiner?” I screeched. “It’s required,” she replied somewhat venomously. “You mean after your own doctor has provided a death certificate, this other guy says ‘Yep, she’s dead’ as you roll past on the conveyor belt to the furnace? Boy, I could do that job,” I snarled. “I am not going to talk to you about this anymore,” she snapped, slapping down the folder.

The next day, she talked things over with the other volunteers at the hospital. When she came home, she’d decided that the funeral home thing was a big rip-off. Of course I had to point out that I was the one who recognized the scam-like schtick right out of the folder, and I made some snarky comments about the snake-oil funeral dude. But we agreed that having our Plans in place was a good idea, and vowed to work on it.

I thought about that when I was lying on the floor. Life comes at you fast, and you never know the time or the place. (That’s another reason for not pre-paying, I said earlier today. How do you know you’ll die in Virginia? Maybe you’ll go to Wyoming and be eaten by a bear. You wouldn’t even need a bath or a comb-out.)

Rabbits At Dusk

2010-07-02T20:17:00.001-04:00

A typical “conversation” in our house this morning:

She (shouting from the bathroom where she has just gotten out of the shower and is looking out the bathroom window to the back yard): “There’s a cat in our yard but I don’t know if it’s one of ours or not. I don’t have my glasses on.”

Me (shouting back from the office where I was sitting down, now looking out the back door to the yard): “It’s Miss T lying in the grass. She’s probably watching for rabbits.” (Miss T has never caught anything in the 7 years she’s lived with us, but she still has lust in her heart.)

She (still yelling from the bathroom): “No, I think they are usually out around dusk.” (Pause.) “I’m a rabbit expert.” (Slightly longer pause.) “I should have a TV show. Rabbits At Dusk.”

Hotter Than Hades

2010-06-22T21:08:00.001-04:00

Sheila went back to jail today. What’s that all about, people have asked, and we’ve enjoyed playing coy with some. But it’s serious. She has joined a prison ministry through her church. From what I understand, nobody is trying to get converts or thump on the Bible or lecture anyone on their sinful ways. They’re mainly visiting the prison to listen and to provide a measure of quiet comfort.

Today there were about 15 women and 6 men making up the two prisoner groups; Sheila and one other person providing the ministry. What do the prisoners talk about? Well, a lot of them talk about how much they miss their children. They talk about what’s good in their lives and what’s not. They talk about the better choices they hope to make when they get out.

Sheila worries each time (but a little less each time) about how well she will rise to the occasion. I’ve been the beneficiary of her listening ear and her quiet comfort countless times, and I tell her not to worry. She’s the right person for this job. Last time, a prisoner seated next to her sobbed and sobbed. Sheila handed her a Kleenex. Then another. And said, “You’re going to have to stop crying. I don’t have any more Kleenex.” If you knew her, you’d smile to yourself and you’d know that it’s all part of her ministry, and her gift.

Since I last posted here, a few non-routine things have happened. I lost part of a tooth. The result is that I will have to have the tooth “crowned,” and I absolutely understand why it’s called a “crown.” It costs a fortune.

Our darling new greyhound, Carmen, got out of the yard during a distant thunderstorm and wasn’t found until the next morning. We were sure we would never see her again, or that if we did, it would be her dead body at the side of a road somewhere. I thought during the search, “Our lives will never be the same, and they will never be good again.”

A couple of dozen people helped us look until late at night. Some were complete strangers; others were good friends and close neighbors. Our friends were back at it early the next morning, but as it turned out, we were all looking in the wrong places. Carmen had run a long way, and when found by Animal Control near the Country Club (we’ve heard some jokes about that) she was almost unconscious, with mangled paws. Now it’s been a little over two weeks, and she is fine. She is fine! Two dear people fixed the low spot in our fence, and we don’t take our eyes off Carmen when she is in the yard, but she has not shown any interest in jumping again.

Oh, and two nights at the Emergency Veterinary Hospital cost about the same as four crowns.

In the middle of the Carmen incident, I got a call from my high school reunion committee. I thought it was someone calling about the lost dog flyers. Our 50th—gah!—reunion is in 2012, in California. I have not attended any of the reunions so far, and only keep in touch with one person. What do you think? Have you been to your high school reunion(s)? Good idea or bad idea? (I weigh about 70 pounds more than I did in high school, have chins and would have to use a cane. Is this important or unimportant? It suddenly seems like it is.) Experiences, please!

That’s the news from here. Stay well and keep in touch.

Uh Oh

2010-05-25T16:45:00.001-04:00

When Sheila got home from the jail this afternoon (ah, but that’s another story) I buzzed over to the grocery store where we spend a good part of our lives and our money. I had just a few things to pick up, mostly for the sweet onion pie I am making for dinner tonight, and the chicken piccata I am making for dinner tomorrow night.

I had scrawled a list of the few items I needed on a green post-it note. As always, I started in the produce section on the right, and then moved farther and farther to the left around the store. About halfway around, I consulted my list to see how I was doing. I read:

Ritz crackers (check)

Ched cheese (last aisle)

Vidalia (sweet onions—check)

Bread crumbs (crossed out—do not need)

Lemon (check)

Walnut pieces (check)

Ice cream (last aisle)

Asp (?????)

Asp? What the hell?? The image of a dying Cleopatra surfaced in my mind. What? What in the world had I meant by “Asp”? I didn’t need aspirin. Must be an old post-it note from when I did need aspirin, I thought. I couldn’t imagine.

I breezed over to the self-service checkout. Not everyone is smart or clever enough or brave enough to use it, but I am definitely above average, tech-wise. I confidently scanned my items, bagging them quickly. When you have produce, the screen asks you to type in the item, and then it shows you some pictures and you select the right item. Usually it only needs the first two or three letters of the item. I typed in oni and selected Vidalia sweet, lem and selected lemons, and asp and selected asparagus, which I had thought would go nicely with the chicken piccata.

Oh.

On The Road

2010-05-23T21:17:00.001-04:00

For a number of years, I was a divorced working mother living from paycheck to paycheck, and not doing the financial thing very well at all. When Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again” became a hit in 1980, I started singing it every time I deposited a paycheck in the ATM that would temporarily save us, and I continued singing it through somewhat better times at the end of the workday every Friday until I retired.

I loved the Willie Nelson song, and I also loved books about life on the road, starting with Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, and including Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Blue Highway, Walk Across America, and the several Bill Bryson books. But although it was published in 1957 and I was an English major in college in the 60’s, I never read Jack Kerouac’s iconic novel On The Road. As of today, I still haven’t read it.

This week I was at the library and spotted in the featured/new book section On The Road: The Original Scroll. Turns out it is the “legendary first draft—rougher, wilder, and racier than the 1957 edition.” Why not, I thought, and picked it up. If I don’t like a book, I never feel obligated to finish it, so no skin off my nose to take something home from the library. I scanned the scholarly essays that introduce the book. Scholarly essays seldom convince me that I need to read something. I flipped to the end and read this last paragraph:

“So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old brokendown river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all the raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the evening-star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks in the west and folds the last and final shore in, and nobody, just nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody beyond the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Neal Cassady, I even think of Old Neal Cassady the father we never found, I think of Neal Cassady, I think of Neal Cassady.”

I cried when I read this, because the writing is so elegant and true, because I was so grateful to be reading Jack Kerouac before my reading time in this life is over, and because it is always such a relief and a blessing when somebody expresses so perfectly what you have thought about passionately and tried your best to say in your own words.

Yes, I went back to the beginning of On The Road: The Original Scroll (not including the scholarly essays) and am loving every word in it. Maybe someday I’ll read the novel it became.

Three or Four

2010-05-14T20:51:00.001-04:00

My blog friend Isabelle posed a question on her blog not long ago: “What were you like when you were nine?” I loved reading about Isabelle’s nine-year-old self, and I’d like to write about that, too. But not today.

Today my blog friend Laurie listed three good things she was thinking about, and that sounds like an excellent practice.

My three good things for today are:

1) Iced coffee with half and half in the afternoons. Summer must be almost here. Just make it yourself with leftover morning coffee. No trip to Starbucks necessary.

2) Sunflowers. Tara sent us a bunch for Mother’s Day, and they are still fine and fresh, the happy things.

3) The book I’m reading right now: Birdology. The author is Sy Montgomery, who wrote another book I own and love called The Good Good Pig. Now mind you, I would never even briefly consider owning a pig, but I laughed and cried over Sy’s pig. Birdology begins with “The Ladies,” Sy’s hens, and although not particularly desirous of owning birds either, I have been known to fall in love with parrots, owls, eagles and falcons from a safe distance. I love Sy’s ladies, and am hanging on every word of her search for a cassowary in the wilds of Australia, leeches and all.

4) Gotta make this four things because we just came back from dinner with a friend at a little gem of a new Greek restaurant in the neighborhood. If you have never had pizza with Greek sausage, pepperoni, salami and freshly made feta, you haven’t been anywhere or done anything. And if you have eaten such a slice of Heaven and then stopped in at Boyer’s for coconut ice cream, and then you sat down in an old leather booth and savored your scoop(s) with full-on lust, you are one lucky devil indeed. And you know it.

Happy Friday, everyone. Shabbat Shalom, too.

Eventide

2010-04-17T21:27:00.001-04:00

My favorite time of day, when the birds are getting into their pajamas and the sun is setting. And the word “eventide”: I love it.

Today is birthday eve for me. Tomorrow I will be, impossibly be, 66. The other day I was laughing cynically to myself and thinking that the only two good things about being 66 are that “6” is supposed to be my lucky number, and that I’m on the right side of the flower bed.

But I think now, on the eventide before my 66th birthday, that things are a little bit better than I’m making them out to be. After all these years, I seem to be amassing a drop or two of wisdom, and sometimes those two drops will stay with me for several hours at a time.

A tattered black and white photo of me taken around the time of my 5th birthday shows me holding an Easter lily. I can still feel the hot sun as I stood on the dirt driveway, see that clear blue Texas sky, breathe in the delicious smell and feel the soft petals of the lily I held in my hand. I saw dozens of lilies yesterday at our local botanical garden, and I was 5 again in a flash.

I am not happy about all of my chins, but I am at home with them. I am grateful to have pretty hair. I am just as grateful to have a new Rollator, which is pushed like a stroller without the baby and allows my arthritic spine and joints to go places and enjoy things that I’ve been missing out on. I have grieved the loss of mobility. Now I’m rolling with it! I have people and animals who love me and whom I love back with a knowing fierceness. Every day brings gifts.

Happy Birthday to me!

Spring

2010-03-26T20:19:00.001-04:00

How did it get to be called “Spring”? Is it because it happens so quickly, this annual resurrection from cold and dark? One day there are the same old bare branches standing in the bleak landscape, and the next day blossoms are everywhere you look.

When Tara was little, we used to play a game every Spring called “Whee! Blossoms!” This was played driving in the car, and the first one to spot another flowering tree, bush, or clump of tulips had to call out “Whee! Blossoms!” before the other person did. After awhile, the game degenerated into continuous “Whee-ing,” shouts of “No fair!” and loud laughter. If we were in the car together right now, at 66 and 36, I guarantee you the game would be played again, by unspoken agreement. Who can ever grow too old for Spring?

The Lenten class I’ve been taking at church, called “Broken & Blessed,” has ended. I am always surprised when I come face to face with cosmologies that are unlike mine. In answer to the question, “Why is there suffering?” people said things like “Because God wants us to appreciate the good things we have.” “Because God wants us to learn something.” “Because we made the wrong choices.” I’m all for appreciating and learning and trying to make the “right” choices, but I am startled for the zillionth time hear that there are people who really think God designs not only general suffering, but specific suffering, and that He even selects certain people to suffer because of some plan He has that we want Him to explain when it happens to us. “Why me?”

I don’t know for sure why we suffer. I don’t even think to ask the question. We do suffer. Move on. There are lots of things we don’t know. The God I believe in doesn’t make us suffer, but She or He is with us when we do, whether we are aware of it or not.

We don’t really have to know the why of everything, do we? We just need to know that Spring has come again this year, and that the blossoms will be back again next year. That’s an amazing promise. One of the women in the class read a prayer by Dag Hammarskjold at the end of the last session: “For all that is past, thanks; and for all that is to come, Yes.”

Carmen

2010-03-18T17:52:00.001-04:00

Carmen has found her forever home. She’s a sweet, quiet, calm girl who is slowly discovering love and even a little foolishness. We’ve had her for eight days now. Her tail wags more, her eyes meet ours more often, and she responds to her name most of the time. When she doesn’t, it’s probably because she has better things to do than because she doesn’t remember her name.

All of our major worries were for naught. She will not be eating the cats, nor are the cats broken-hearted due to the arrival of a dog. She will not be pooping and peeing all over the house. She will not jump on us and knock us down.

Miss T, the resident supervisor and crab ass, has a new lease on life and seems to think that her world is right again with a dog in it. Billy is not as sure about that, but he is confident enough to take shortcuts by walking underneath Carmen’s body.

So far, she has only destroyed an AARP bulletin and a plastic cat ball that the cats never played with anyway. She does collect items to take to her bed, however, and these consistently include Sheila’s bedroom slippers. I was flattered the day she added my red ones to the pile. She has also rounded up Sheila’s book, a wet washcloth, and all the dog toys in the toy basket to carry to one of her two beds. Nothing chewed on so far except the aforementioned AARP bulletin and cat toy.

Carmen’s new name (her racing name was “Where’s Rawbone”--yech) does not come from Bizet’s opera but was the name of Sheila’s late and beloved older sister. It fits the sleek, exotic looking girl that she is. However, I have made up a little song for her (all of The Pets always have a little song just for them), sung to the tune of “March of the Toreadors” in Carmen:

I am a hound, a sweet greyhound/My name is Carmen and I’ll be around/I’m long and lean/just like a queen/My name is Carmen and I’ll be around!

Of Journaling, Greyhound Adoption, and Time Travel

2010-03-06T21:11:00.001-05:00

Last week we had the pleasure of hearing Phyllis Theroux speak at the Library of Virginia, to kick off the publication of her new book The Journal Keeper. I had read the book and was re-reading it by that time. I have been an extremely sporadic journal keeper since college days, but I still have those pages and I treasure them, even the silly, whiny, self-absorbed ones. One entry lets me know that at age 36 I exclaimed dramatically “I feel so terribly alone, sad, and old.” Thirty years out, I want to put my arms around the lonely, sad young woman and sympathize, except for the “old” part about which she knew nothing.

Thankfully, by the time I had finished recording that entry, I had concluded that in comparison to some other people in my office I at least had a spark of joie de vivre, and wrote on at some length in self-congratulation. The great thing about a journal is that you’re allowed to be self-absorbed, and you might even be able to cheer yourself up by the end of the page.

I love reading other people’s journals and memoirs, and I can never resist at least looking at a new one in the bookstore. If you are like that too, or think you might be, I highly recommend this book; and if you know you will never journal but wouldn’t mind meeting someone who knows how to express many of the same inner thoughts and struggles you have, I recommend this book.

Roger Mudd (remember him from CBS News?) introduced Ms. Theroux. In case you thought, as I friend of mine did, that he had died, I assure you that is not the case. He was a hoot, and entertained us with his own very first journal entry, written as a bored Private in the Korean War.

About rescue greyhound adoption: we are in the process. How did it happen that two old ladies looking for an old, small dog seem to be about to adopt a young, tall greyhound fresh from the racetrack? The story is somewhat convoluted, but it involves being at a Pet Expo a couple of weekends ago looking for the old, small dog and meeting two rescue greyhounds who cast a spell of enchantment with their angel faces and sweet ways.

As we’ve learned more about retired racing greyhounds, we continue to be enchanted as well as quite nervous about rescuing a dog of this particular breed. We’ve always gotten dogs that we more or less put in the car and took home without a lot of forethought other than “I want a dog and this one seems to need me.” This time is different and we are reading too many books, in my opinion. I comfort myself with the memory of reading all the major how-to baby books before my child was born, and then pretty much never referring to them again once she made her appearance.

And finally, about time travel. Sheila doesn’t like science fiction or fantasy, and neither do I, although I enjoyed science fiction when I was a young teacher. That was back in the days of Ray Bradbury and not very many other well known science fiction writers. There was no such thing, as far as I know, as a vampire genre.

Anyway, recently I had read a novel which I enjoyed and passed along to She, who also liked it very much. I had gone on to read another novel by the same author, and was telling She how I didn’t care for that one and she wouldn’t either, because a major plot device was time travel. “Oh, I wouldn’t like it,” she called out from the other room. “I have enough trouble traveling through time myself. I don’t need to read about it.”

Hear The Silence

2010-02-12T08:58:00.001-05:00

This guy was resting in the snow around the corner from our house today. It was a bright blue, sunny day and much of the snow had melted, especially from the roads and walkways. Compared to our neighbors Up North (that’s what we Richmonders call Washington DC), we have been very lucky.

Being snowbound gives you a chance to get caught up on a lot of things that you all of a sudden don’t want to get caught up on, now that you have a chance. Around here, we’ve kept up with things that require electrical power, just in case, but otherwise we’ve spent a lot of time reading and napping. Very much the way things are when it isn’t snowing, now that I think about it.

The Barnes & Noble parking lot was jammed. I didn’t go there, but I got a good look at the cars and people as I swung by to get to Target. All the cars were filthy-looking with road salt and all the people had desperate “My God, I’ve read everything in the house already; let me in the store!” looks on their faces. We’re okay here for at least two more snowstorms. We keep a huge stash of emergency books on hand and feel nervous and twitchy if the reserve stack gets too low. Sheila even read, I swear it, The Three Musketeers this week. She had bought a used copy of it last summer in Cincinnati at Half-Price Books. It only has half the cover, but what’s inside has been pronounced a good read for well over 150 years.

As for me, I’ve been re-reading all week: Billy Collins’ poetry, Philip Gulley’s Porch Talk, Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World, and Rabbi Irwin Kula’s Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life. The poems and all of the books share at least one theme: taking the time to listen to each other and to God. Taking time to be silent. Snow makes the world a lot quieter. It’s like reverence falling from the sky.

World View

2010-01-31T22:31:00.001-05:00

I liked what Conan O’Brien said recently on his last late night show (for awhile). He directed his remarks particularly “to the younger people,” and he said “Don’t be cynical. Cynicism is one of my least favorite qualities, and it goes nowhere. If you work really hard and are kind, wonderful things will happen.” That may not really be an exact quote, but it’s pretty close.

It’s so hard not to be cynical these days. Sometimes I swear I will never read the newspaper again and will only watch movies or read books that have guaranteed happy endings. I feel helpless, more than a little mystified, saddened, and frightened by what I see and hear on every side of the political spectrum. And yes, I have become cynical about the people LBJ used to call “mah fellow Ahmuricuns.”

We were having lunch with She’s cousins last week. I told them about what Conan said, we all agreed about how great that was, and not five minutes later I was the first person to make a cynical statement about this nation. We all winced. What can we do, the four of us wondered out loud, when our world seems so out of control? Immediately, we focused on the other thing Conan had said, about being kind. We’re not younger people, and we’ve already worked really hard, but we could be much kinder, we all agreed. And we’re not so far gone that we don’t believe in the power of individual kindness. We can make a positive difference, however small, in our world. It’s a little something we can hang our hats on.

Today, on my beloved CBS Sunday Morning, Mo Rocca accompanied four teenagers from the Bronx to see a production of Our Town, a play (in which I once had a walk-on part) that has been in steady production for 70 years. What would these kids from the cynical, fast-paced, often foul-mouthed I-pod/I-phone/Facebook/Twitter generation make of the message in this play, about realizing life while we live it?

The kids said something about taking the time to stop and notice the blue sky. But is that enough, asked Mo, just to see the blue sky? One of the young men responded, “The question isn’t whether it’s enough. The question is, did you look up?”

The Creepy-Crawlies

2010-01-22T22:18:00.001-05:00

It started after I checked Facebook this morning. She was emptying the dishwasher and I joined her in putting things away. Cheerily, I thought, I began reporting on various recent status updates on Facebook:

Me: Margo posted a lovely photo from the waterside on Key West. Phoebe keeps having nightmares about spiders.

She: Phoebe’s having nightmares about spies? [This is such a typical hard-of-hearing interchange between two seniors, you wouldn’t believe it.]

Me: Not spies, SPI-DERS. That’s one thing I love about Virginia. We don’t have many bu--

She: Don’t even say the bug word! Stop! Right now!

Me: Well, we do have nasty-looking crickets. I always thought crickets were cute little guys named Jiminy who hung out on the hearth.

She: Stop talking about it! (Hurries from room.) (Calls to me over shoulder:) I mean it! Next thing you know, we’ll have some giant hideous critter stalking us in the hall!

Peace was restored later in the day:

No Resolutions

2010-01-19T21:46:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, it was wrong to pronounce the t in often. Once upon a time, people didn’t say oftentimes. They just said “often,” like offen. But that was then. Oft-ten-times is popular now, as are books on how to be generous, how to be grateful, and how to be happy. (Hint: they all go together. Often.)

Books on how to be organized have always been popular, especially around the New Year, when people often make Resolutions. Even people like me, who do not make Resolutions, get caught up in the enthusiasm for closet cleaning, dresser drawer purging, and paperwork filing that reasserts itself at the beginning of each new year.

I cleaned out my top dresser drawer the other day. I probably had 35 or 40 pairs of socks. When I was a working woman, I prided myself on new, colorful, and somewhat unique socks to wear with my old lady low-heeled shoes. Now I am retired, and on the rare occasions when I wear any socks at all, they are oftentimes my pair of lucky socks. I don’t know why they are lucky, but they have lots of strong colors and people seem to like them. So I put most of the socks in a bag for the Salvation Army and only kept about 5 pair. The next day, I had occasion to wear socks and I wore the lucky ones again.

There was also jewelry, some still in gift boxes, that I had forgotten I owned. I usually stick with the same three or four pairs of earrings, my watch, and one bracelet. (It’s a lucky bracelet.) I found a backscratcher. That might come in handy even though I haven’t used it in 5 or 6 years. At least two dozen single buttons in their original tiny plastic bags went in the trash. Ditto washing instructions. I have no idea to which article of clothing the buttons or instructions belonged. A pair of glasses without a case went in the donation bag. I couldn’t see a thing with them on.

My dad’s wallet, flat and worn, was in the drawer. I took it for safekeeping when he went in for surgery, and then he just never came home again. He spent three months in and out of the hospital and a nursing home, and then he died. In the nursing home, he asked me where his wallet was. “I’m keeping it for you,” I said. “It’s safe in my top drawer.” He looked anxious. “What?” I asked. “How will they know,” he worried, “who I am?”

I looked through the wallet one last time, cut up the credit and Medicare cards, and the records of his flu shots and blood pressure checks. I kept his pilot’s license and a much-creased and tattered color photo of a P-38, the plane he flew in World War II. I put those in a file with his name on it. Then I put the wallet in the trash. I don’t need it to remember who he was.

After all that, it was time for a nap. Some day soon, I’ll get to the other 3 drawers. Meanwhile, I’ve saved a lot of money by not getting a gym membership this year. I think being a little more generous and a lot more grateful will make me happier.

The Annual Christmas Letter

2009-12-14T20:06:00.001-05:00

Christmas 2009

Another year that was somehow both ten seconds long and ten years long. Another year full of life, which means tears, laughter, grief, and joy.

Sheila (mostly) and I decorated for Christmas this afternoon—much less than usual, but still the house looks sweet with little trees here and there, candles, and special ornaments. I am not baking cookies. I did try to make pralines the other day, from my mother’s recipe, but I only saw “1 tablespoon” where “5” were called for, and thus they failed. They may have become a successful vanilla ice cream topping, though. We’ll see. I made a pie with the leftover pecans, and it was the best I’ve ever tasted. We ate the whole thing within a 24 hour period. In this house, it’s called showing restraint.

We brought our sweet brown Boxer’s ashes home from the vet this morning. Pancho died December 7. A month before that, we had noticed that he was having trouble breathing, and it was discovered that he had a big tumor in front of his heart that was putting pressure on his bronchial tubes. We enjoyed all the bittersweet time with him that we were given, but we couldn’t allow him to suffer, and he was getting into serious difficulty the last weekend of his life. He would have been 10 in January. There will never be another like him.

If our hearts are broken, the cats couldn’t care less. They show no signs of missing Pancho. Both of them did act like they’d taken a nut pill the day he died. “Maybe they were celebrating,” our friend Carolyn suggested. Who knows. Anyway, Billy and Miss T should have no doubt that they are loved. If they take us for granted, that’s as it should be.

Since I wrote last year, Tara has undergone treatment for cancer in her lungs and stomach, apparently stemming from the original ovarian cancer diagnosed three years ago. On top of that, she was laid off from the part-time job she did from home, and by that time she was unable to get a teaching position at the University for the summer. Being Tara, she was able to find another job without even a break in paychecks, has taken no or very little sick time from her 4 day/week job, and is due for a major promotion in March. The latter is confidential, which is why I haven’t named her current employer. Don’t tell anyone. Oh, I forgot—it almost seems inconsequential that she was also rear-ended twice this year and had her identity stolen. To say that she’s had a very rough time of it is a ridiculous understatement, and I don’t know the half of it. Her friends, including her Rabbi and his wife, have been incredibly supportive. They love her. Her mothers know why. Her mothers also love them.

As for Sheila and me, what can I say. Same old same old, and I do mean old. We’re so damn old we laugh about it all the time. We joined a gym in April, started doing weightlifting and cardio, and eating much healthier. That lasted until sometime in September. Now we are eating pie and ice cream again and lying around napping and reading books. We have a lot of excuses. We are going to exercise and eat right again. Soon.

There were some very good things about this year. Old friendships deepened. New friends were made. We both feel that our love, our faith, and our hope have been severely tested and survived. No doubt they will be again, and yet again. In the meantime, we are really learning what it means to try to live in the moment. It means much more than we thought. We never realized that doing so could be such a gift.

I always seem to end these Christmas letters with a poem. This year I want to end with some things Sheila said that Pancho taught us: “He made everyone believe they were the only ones he loved in the world, and then he would make the next person feel they were the only one and on and on. That's his lesson to us, his survivors. Show your good side, be faithful, wag your tail and never refuse a hug.”

I would add to that: “When you see a patch of sunshine, lie down in it. Heave a big contented sigh. Live right now.”

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Season’s Greetings, Love and Happy New Year 2010 from Sharon, Sheila, Billy, and Miss T

Culture Shock

2009-11-23T18:10:00.001-05:00

I heard the first Christmas carol of the season on Saturday. (I don’t get out much; I know they started up right after Halloween.) It was wafting from the outdoor loudspeakers at the shopping center in our neighborhood, and the second I heard it, I was back in Mexico. The song was Up On the Housetop:

Up on the housetop, reindeer pause
Out jumps good ol' Santa Claus
Down through the chimney with lots of toys
All for the little ones, Christmas joys
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn't go?
Ho, Ho, Ho! Who wouldn't go?
Up on the housetop, click, click, click
Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick.

Why in the world would this particular carol, which has never been a particular favorite anyway, remind me of Mexico? I’m going to tell you, of course.

We lived in a relatively small Mexican village for four years. Sheila and I decided to volunteer at the village elementary school as teacher’s helpers. We would not be helping a Mexican teacher, as it turned out, but another foreigner who was allegedly teaching English to second graders. Our first day was a disaster. The “teacher” was power-hungry and manic. She made it clear that we would primarily be passing out scissors, glue, and crayons and otherwise we would stand around keeping our mouths shut.

Her focus on that particular day in December was the Christmas carol Up On The Housetop, which she had on a cassette tape. Look at the lyrics. Second graders who know only a few words of English encounter a pun in the first line, and more than likely have never heard of reindeer. Then ‘ol’” Santa Claus climbs down through the chimney, a structure I’d be willing to bet not one kid had in their home or had ever even seen.

The children could not have had a clue about this song. The Teacher insisted that we all snap our fingers on the “click, click click,” and she had a couple of the students running back and forth in front of the room with reindeer antlers on. The kids got the running back and forth part, and almost all of them lined up to do it. The Teacher was running a few steps here and there in her own crazy way, looking like a combination of Edith Bunker and Adolf Hitler. I have always wondered what those children told their parents about that lesson, and what the parents made of it.

So much for a 10 year old memory. I had another culture shock just last week, when the final phase of the infamous kitchen update rolled out. The floor installer, whom I had not encouraged to chat with me, confided that he was always fascinated by other countries and sometimes considered moving somewhere else in view of “the way things are going here.”

He had recently questioned an Australian he had met about what that country was like. The Australian said that it was a lot like the United States, except that in Australia they had thrown out a lot of the laws the US had, because they don’t let people get away with things there “like we do here.” As an example, the floor installer told me gleefully, in Australia they recently “rounded up all the Muslims, gave them public floggings, and deported them.” “Oh,” he said when he looked at my face, “I guess you don’t agree with that.”

He was disappointed. I told him that such a thing reminded me of Japanese prison camps during World War II, and the Holocaust. That I certainly did not agree with punishing people for the way they looked or the way they worshiped. That I wondered how people who were born in America, as many Muslims are, could be “deported.” That almost every group you can think of has its radical members. I don’t know what all I said. I know I kept my voice calm, and that I tried to remember that this same man had two rescue cats that he loved. He took what I said pretty calmly as well, perhaps having heard a dim bell somewhere reminding him that bringing up such an inflammatory subject with a customer is not the wisest policy.

We love our new floor. But I will never be able to forget that the man who installed it is just one example of the ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding that inevitably breeds hatred and injustice and sometimes, even terrorism.

Not Picasso’s Blue Period

2009-10-20T15:07:00.001-04:00

Let’s just pick up where we left off. Well, no, we’ll stay out of the kitchen. I mean let’s pick up somewhere in this drafty, creaky crazy-house I call my mind.

I’ve been laughing, more or less to myself, all morning over an email from my dear friend Toni, who has a live rat in her house. Toni’s cat Joseph has a poor sense of what makes a gift appropriate. When I say I’ve been laughing, I hasten to add that my thoughts and prayers are with Toni and Gary as they attempt to divest themselves of the gift that is currently residing in the wall behind the appliances in their kitchen. However, their situation immediately recalled our own Rat Period of 12 or more years ago, which becomes slightly more humorous as the years roll by.

Southern California has fruit trees. Rats like fruit. They gambol along the telephone and power lines strung behind suburban houses, which form an efficient Rat Town Trolley with frequent stops at all the best fruit stands. The most popular time to take the Trolley is just at dusk, when the rats emerge from their living quarters to gather at the trolley stop. The whole family shops together. And where are their living quarters, some of the more curious may be asking? Well, I can only speak for one (vastly extended) rat family. In their humble opinion, the attic crawlspace in Sharon & Sheila’s house in Long Beach was perfect. It was a quick scamper from there to the trolley stop.

At first, we thought we were imagining the scratching noises up in the ceiling, particularly in the master bedroom at the back of the house. Maybe birds on the roof? Then one afternoon Sheila was taking a nap in the bedroom, with our dog Rosie stretched out next to her. Suddenly, She was awake for some reason, and just as suddenly, Rosie was staring up at the ceiling. She’s eyes followed Rosie’s (never ignore an animal who is looking up or behind you), and in mere seconds a perfect circle of ceiling, about the size of a 50 cent piece, dropped on the bed. It didn’t take long to call an exterminator company.

They couldn’t find a hole in the roof. They put poison up in the attic crawlspace. The result was a sudden death wave of expired rats lounging around the yard in various lifelike poses with their eyes open. I screamed when I found the first one on my way to cut some lovely roses for the living room. Sheila scoffed rudely at me and swaggered out to do the pickup while I hovered behind a closed window, watching. When she hauled up next to the rat, she turned a whiter shade of pale and headed back to the house at a trot. I had to do the actual pickup and disposal while she crouched behind the curtains.

Then a dead rodent body appeared inside the house, again in a lifelike, lounging position (what’s with that?). Actually, it was in our bedroom in the middle of the rug. I screamed urgently, “Bring a lot of newspapers, the shovel, and the bucket!! Hurry up!! And for God’s sake, don’t look!” (I stayed in the bedroom near the door to make sure the thing didn’t rise from the dead.) For once She didn’t respond as usual (“What?” “What the hell are you talking about?”) but came quickly. She peered around the door. “Oh my God,” she croaked. “Can we just throw the newspapers on top of it and leave it there?”

Skipping over how we got to be on a first-name, home phone number basis with Matt the exterminator (that killed us: Matt the Rat Guy), one morning before dawn Sheila alerted a still-sleeping Tara and a still-sleeping me that there was a rat in the house. Alive and on the move. Tara got up, wedged her leather jacket under her door and went soundly back to sleep. By the time I stumbled out into the hall, The Town Crier screamed that Rosie had the rat cornered behind the highboy in the guest room. I dialed Matt.

When Matt arrived, Rosie was still guarding the highboy. I think she was grateful to turn the crisis over to Matt. Matt shut the door to the guest room, and what seemed to be a fierce scuffle with some unpleasant high-pitched noises ensued. Sheila and I clutched each other in the hall. Tara slept on.

Eventually, Matt emerged from the guestroom, looking somewhat drained and clammy and mumbling something about usually dealing with rats that were already dead. “You wanna see it?” he asked with shaky pride. We declined, loudly and in unison.

Sometime that week, the tiny hole in the roof was found and sealed, the attic was checked for any hold-out tenants, and the Rat Period drew to a welcome close. It’s funny now.

It’s Always Something

2009-09-24T20:34:00.001-04:00

We’ve blown up two brand new electric ranges in less than a week.

It’s that time of (life?) (the moon?) (the alignment of the planets?) when stuff goes wrong. I mentioned our kitchen issues here. There’s more. And then there’s more.

We decided to pursue our original idea of buying a compact range, as opposed to ripping out and replacing perfectly good cabinets and a nice countertop, and making a new big hole in our brick house, etc. to the tune of might-as-well-be-a-million-bucks, just so we could open the oven door like we think normal people do. We wanted a 24-inch stainless steel self-cleaning oven. They’re scarce. And for reasons that are counter-intuitive, they are twice as much as standard-sized ranges. The most “reasonable” was a GE. It duly arrived, accompanied by a GE tech and a helper, and our plain old but not very old white range was delivered out of its tight space, barely avoiding a C-section. The guys hauled it out to the truck. The new, cute, smaller range was put into place and plugged in. Burners were turned on. Good to go so far.

Oven was turned on. Ten or 15 seconds passed. There was a spark and a big bang. We all shouted. The new range was dead, and our circuit breaker was tripped. The technician also had a burned thumb from thinking he’d been shot and laying his hand down on the still-hot smooth cooktop.

Our old range was hauled back in from the truck, plugged in and worked fine, just like always. We all figured the blowing up thing must have been a fluke. They said we’d get another range in less than a week, and we did.

The same crew came back, only this time they didn’t take the old white range all the way out to the truck. We all joked about it, because we knew the second range wouldn’t blow up. But it did. Everyone shouted again but the technician remembered not to put his hand down on the hot cooktop.

The old white range went into her space with not a little crankiness. She might have been a little swollen from all the tugging she’d endured. The technician said he probably wouldn’t order a third range, but just in case, we should have an electrician out to check our circuitry. Maybe it was a little higher than it should be, throwing off the newer range, he theorized.

We had an electrician out for just under a hundred dollars. Our circuitry is fine. What we had was two defective brand new ranges in a row. The electrician moved the old white range forward a little bit (she was really pissed off this time and tried to refuse) so we could open the oven door. She’s not flush with the cabinetry, but the door opens and she doesn’t look bad. We’re going to leave it alone now. Figure we saved at least $700.00.

Then the air conditioning system went out in the car. No fan. The Honda guy said over the phone it was probably a relay switch. I’m guessing it probably costs $32.95 and labor is $329.95. It’s due for a 60,000 mile check anyway. That’s another $400.00. We’re taking the car in tomorrow because it’s close to 90 degrees here.

There goes the money we “saved” on the range. I told Sheila that God had sent us two defective GE ranges because He knew about the air conditioning system. She said He’s pretty smart.

Then last night we had just gone to bed and all The Pets were tucked in for the night as well. There was a huge crashing/rumbling noise and the whole house shook. At first I thought it was Sheila falling into her closet, as last week she fell into the hall closet (she just takes a notion to stagger sometimes and never drinks more than one glass of wine). We had to have a nice strong neighbor come over and get the sliding closet door back on track. But it wasn’t Sheila this time, so we chalked it up to an oak tree limb falling on the roof. They’re “self-pruning” as neighbor Linda says. It was too dark to investigate.

This morning it was dark when I got up. Miss T wanted out on the back porch but refused to go outside as usual and seemed to be glaring suspiciously at something out there in the dark. When daylight came, turned out she had been glaring at an enormous self-pruning oak tree limb which was lying across the yard. It had ripped the power line completely away from the house and the wires were draped across the grass and walkway. There was also a piece of vinyl siding lying on the grass. We had all the siding painted earlier this year.

The power company man came out and fixed the line. He cheerfully reported that the wood under the place where the siding had come off is rotten. Just so we know.

It was nice that the electrician mentioned back in the part about checking the circuitry had not yet come back to install the back yard floodlight we talked to him about. Because it would have come down with the power line. So that’s a cost savings as well.

Meanwhile, as Gilda Radner once said, “It’s always something.” And it’s never what you worry about. So don’t worry. Be happy.

Another Day At The Pool

2009-09-10T19:47:00.001-04:00

Honk if you believe in civility. (I heard a radio DJ pronounce it “civil-ty” today, but at least she believed in it.) Last night we had a Representative from South Carolina yelling “You lie!” to a sitting President of the United States, who was addressing a joint session of Congress. The Congressman apologized today for his lack of civility. The young radio DJ didn’t even know how to pronounce the word. It’s not used much these days.

This morning I went to “Poolates,” a Pilates-class-in-92-degree-water for mostly old broads, including some really old broads. There are usually about 15 of us, including almost always a certain woman named Shirley. We’ve all had a Shirley in a class of some sort, and when you’re as old as I am, you’ve had a Shirley in one class too many. My friend Mary Gretchen and I keep fantasizing about ways to drown Shirley in the pool. Shirley would be a manic depressive if she had a depressive stage, but she seems to be stuck in permanent mania. She must talk louder than anyone else. She must comment on each and every word out of the instructor’s mouth. She must constantly require “help.” She once held the entire class hostage while she told a long, very boring joke.

Anyway, Shirley was there. So was a large woman I hadn’t seen before. When the instructor threw a beach ball into the water and called out “Toss this around, y’all,” just before the class got going, the strange woman glowered. “I thought this was a Pilates class,” she barked over the hubbub. “It is,” replied our genteel little instructor, “it’s just a fun way to get it started.” “This is not the kind of atmosphere I would expect to have in a Pilates class,” growled Strange Woman. Then, as the class started the first exercises, she heaved herself out of the pool. Now, people come and go from the pool all the time. But as Strange Woman disappeared around a corner, Shirley bellowed to all of us, “Never mind, y’all. It’s just bad karma or she got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” Typical Shirley.

The next thing we knew, Strange Woman reappeared from around the corner where we all thought she’d gone for good, holding a pair of goggles in her hand. “Maybe you could say that a little louder,” she yelled across the pool to Shirley. “I couldn’t hear you very well.” For once, Shirley’s mouth was hanging open with no words coming out. “And then,” continued Strange Woman in a menacing tone, “you could shut your mouth.”

“Shit, man!” I thought to myself. “This could be an old lady SmackDown!” But to my relief or disappointment, nothing further happened. Strange Woman starting doing laps by herself, with her goggles on, and Shirley recovered sufficiently to huff “Well! I apologize to everyone! I seem to have misinterpreted.” Then she was about 3% quieter for the rest of the class. In what I have concluded was typical Southern lady fashion, my classmates and the genteel little instructor did not betray by word or eyelash that they had heard or seen a thing, and I followed suit.

Seems to be happening a lot lately.

I Hate Cooking Anyway

2009-09-05T09:10:00.001-04:00

Sheila and I have bought three houses together, including one in Mexico. Here’s what happened last time, building on a theme established with the first two houses:

Sheila walks in the front door and proceeds two or three feet. “I love this house,” she announces to me and the strange realtor who will now refuse to negotiate the price more than ten or fifteen dollars. Something ineffable has called to her, and she is happy. I like her to be happy, so I try to look around with her eyes. That way, I don’t really see the 1950’s painted metal cabinets (no, not well preserved) in the miniscule kitchen or the faded,scratched, gouged, outerspace-theme countertop in same kitchen across from the gasping refrigerator.

It’s six years later. We have replaced every appliance in the kitchen and laundry room except for the water heater, which was born in 1983 and is no doubt planning a hideous end for us and The Pets. We have replaced the countertops twice and the cabinets once. We have spent thousands of dollars on a kitchen that still looks like crap.

A significant number of thousand dollar bills were siphoned off last summer by a contractor named Alan who spent lots of time making friends with us and reappearing on numerous occasions to re-measure. Why was it not obvious to us what is going on when a man measures the same space 15 or 16 times? The man is trying to make the answer come out differently, you bozo! There’s a problem here!

But Ms. and Ms. Bozo did not notice. My father was busy dying last summer and I was still working a million hours a day. Unbeknownst to us at the time, She had a problem with her heart that was not allowing for proper blood flow to her brain. I am not trying to be funny. To skip all the painful details and cut to what you saw coming, Alan did not measure correctly. Well, everything fit in snugly without the molding around the doors, which was the way Alan left it so that we could “touch up” the paint later. When we finally got around to “touching up” (the entire kitchen needed two coats) the paint and putting the door molding back, months later after my father’s death and She’s open heart surgery, we couldn’t open the oven door. Alan was off by about an inch, and had left us no wiggle room.

This could be a 600 page book with the next chapter titled “Various People Offer Advice” and taking up 500 pages of the book. What I am trying to say is, don’t butt in here with a brilliant suggestion. 1) Anything that involves Alan is either not possible or involves the discharge of a firearm. 2) We’ve already heard it and it won’t work. 3) It costs anywhere from 10 thousand to a gazillion dollars, and involves ripping out lots of things that are fairly new and we like and we already paid a lot of money for and it still won’t look all that great, even though the oven door will open.

Here’s what happens most of the time when people offer advice on anything in your house, whether they are friendly amateurs or professionals:

1) They ask you who put this in.

2) They tell you that something isn’t centered, and in everyone else’s kitchen in the entire world, even in mud huts, it is.

3) They hint that although everything appears to be up to code, your house will probably still burn down. After it explodes. A variation on this is “It could happen tomorrow or not for 20 years.”

4) They warn you sternly that the simple solution that you yourself have come up with, albeit in your opinion still costly, will keep your house from selling 15 years from now when one of you is dead and the other one is headed off to the nursing home and doesn’t give a shit.

5) They tell you that the part that you like and think looks good is the low-grade, low-class, ugly, cheap version and the clear implication is that everyone else, even people who live in mud huts, knows this.

6) They tell you that if you pay $10,000 in cash instead of credit, they will give you a $90 discount and let you have something that already belongs to you “for free.”

Thanks for listening. I know what we’re going to do now.

The End of August

2009-08-31T21:58:00.001-04:00

The weather was ideal today, sunny but with a high of only 72 degrees. What a relief at the end of a sweltering August. We turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows to enjoy the fresh air. People moved up and down the street all day, walking by themselves, walking with a dog, pushing a stroller, running, or biking.

Dean came to put down lime, weed, and seed on the front lawn. The front dirt. Every year we think we finally have a lawn, and every year it dies a hideous death. Dean thinks that the two huge maples suck up all the water and nutrients. I glare at the malevolent maples. “Looks rough,” understated Dean. “You gotta do two things now. You gotta water every day and you gotta love it,” he advised. “Can you love it?” “You better add prayer to that,” I replied. Dean crossed his fingers.

We celebrated the end of August by going to Padow’s for toasted egg salad sandwiches, sitting at our favorite table by the front window. After lunch, I held Miss T’s back paws while we napped on my already beloved, beautiful new purple and green quilt, made by a dear friend who is a genius with a big, soft heart (and thankfully, a low tolerance for my whining and begging over the last two years).

This evening we sat on the back porch in the gathering dark. Sheila silently said her beads, and I bowed my head in the sure presence of angels, picturing their wings enfolding those I love.

For Tara

2009-08-27T21:34:00.001-04:00

What’s ahead?

Only what we are given in that first breath,

Which is everything.

What’s ahead?

Perhaps an understanding

That the flight of a hummingbird

And a yellow hibiscus,

A church bell ringing,

The scent of a candle,

The touch of a hand,

The life in a handful of earth,

And the taste of salt

Are enough.

To the watcher at the window,

The road is not empty

But only waiting

For the walker or the rider

To come into view.

Ahead are gifts not yet given

Or received.

And time, before we leave.

- Sharon, c. 1999, written for 2009

Air and Memory

2009-08-18T11:36:00.001-04:00

I don’t want to do anything or go anywhere except

Back to a hot blue sky morning in Texas with a yellow

Sun suit strap hanging off one shoulder,

Stirring mud pies with an old spoon

In a backyard that is full of oranges and tangerines

And grapefruit and white and pink oleanders

Pushing thickly against the fence.

I only want to go on a picnic next to a cold river

In the mountains, look at my toes on the pebbles

Through the clear water and swim

With my laughing yellow dog.

Or walk through the woods,

With another dog, and a child with her hand in mine,

Looking for a certain small white flower that was said to

Grow there, but mostly just squishing along the muddy

Path, smelling the leaves, and quietly feeling so alive.

I can’t get there from here except when I lie on the bed

In the afternoon in a quiet house just at the end of summer,

With a cat curled up on a quilt at the bottom.

And I ride with my eyes shut on an invisible pillow

Of air and memory to the only places I still want to go.

Sharon, Summer 2008

Ordinary Time

2009-08-03T17:07:00.001-04:00

Late yesterday afternoon was hot and humid, much like today. It is since we moved to Richmond that I truly understand the term “wet blanket.” We need a good downpour with some righteous thunder and cracks of lightning, but no rain is in the forecast right now.

I went off to church at 5:30 pm, grateful to be able to wear short sleeves, light clamdiggers and a pair of sandals. I did carry my new bright green hobo bag with the hot pink lining, $8.00 on sale Saturday at Penney’s. When I got inside the dim, candle-lit church, I stood at the back for a couple of minutes, looking for my friend Lacey, but couldn’t see her, so I sat alone in an empty pew. For some reason, I decided upon a pew that has a pillar at one end, and later wished I hadn’t, because it’s hard to squeeze around that big fat stone pillar on the way back from candle-lighting or Communion. No wonder I was alone.

It was cool enough inside the thick walls of the church. I said a few words to the Creator Spirit, and sat back to reflect upon the week before the service started. We finalized our plans for Cincinnati and will be seeing Tara on Friday. I need to hold my daughter close and touch her hair. Sheila finished painting our old red shed and it is now terra cotta and green and looks new. I don’t know how she managed it with the ladder and the heat, and she says never again, but it looks wonderful. Our neighbor Linda made a tomato tart with homemade pastry and heirloom tomatoes, and invited us to share one night. Walking home down the sidewalk, we noticed how bright and clear the moon was. As always, we had good books to read this week, Weight Watchers fudge bars in the freezer, and pets on our laps or snoring in the corner.

Just before the service began, my ears picked up an odd sound, very much like a cow mooing in a pasture. Must be something outside, I thought. Then the pianist, the harpist, and the flute player began the prelude. One of the priests read the opening poem. All of us sang the first hymn, We All Are One In Mission, the words and tune unfamiliar to me but easy enough to follow. A lady behind me, who sounded tall and elderly, sang out with confidence and enthusiasm, off-key. Terribly off-key. Then the priest read a prayer for evening “…our love and encircler/Each day and each night,/Each light and each dark,/Be near us, uphold us,/Our treasure and our truth.”

Just before the Reading from the Gospel, it was quiet, and I heard the cattle lowing again. It wasn’t outside. Somewhere across the aisle and behind me, someone who sounded large and male was sound asleep. The acoustics in the church are excellent. Had the reading been about shepherds watching over their flocks, the lowing might have added a certain atmosphere. But the Reading was actually about the disciples asking Jesus what sign he is going to give them so that they can see it and believe. Jesus, of course, has been walking on water, calming storms, feeding thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes, and so on. But the disciples want another sign, like bread from heaven. Jesus tells them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

The Reading concluded, and silence was observed, except of course by the dedicated snorer. The man in front of me looked around and quietly laughed once, into his lap. Weezie, one of the priests, gave the brief Reflection. I like it best when Weezie tells a story with herself in it, but she didn’t this time. Relating to the Gospel, she asked us to think about the signs we are looking for, versus the signs that are right there in front of us every day. Ordinary things.

“Ask yourself,” Weezie said, “what is it you are coming here for. And receive what you get.”

Ordinary time. Our treasure and our truth.

Just Put A (Red) Pencil In My Eye

2009-07-23T22:07:00.002-04:00

OK, I’ve had it. You know the newspapers that publish the names of the “Johns” in prostitution cases, with the idea of shaming them into some sort of decent behavior if not outright morality? I’m going to start a variation of that, except I know it won’t do any good. I know. In fact, in a few years, people who still read at all will wonder what in the world I’m talking about.

Lots of people don’t read anymore.

Lots of people think they read, but they are so distracted and in such a hurry that they miss key words and thus the whole point of what they read.

Lots of people don’t listen, either. See above for some of the reasons.

Because people* don’t read, don’t comprehend, and don’t listen, they (can’t bring myself to name them) come up with the following uttered or written words:

Isn’t there a statue of limitations? [Uh, no.]

He likes to be on the spotlight. [Must be damn hot after awhile.]

We worked feverously on the project.

He died of smoke insulation.

We need to prevent people to dogfight.

I did it on accident. [What? Sat on the spotlight?]

You have a beautiful rhododendrum!

There was a whift of smoke. [This one is not connected with the victim of smoke insulation.]

My mother makes an excellent tomato aspect.

What was you wanting? [Where do I begin?]

Here’s one Tara had from a student recently: It was necessary to take gastric measures. [Don’t think that’ll help.]

*All but two statements or questions came from the mouths or pens of college graduates, some with advanced degrees.

I didn’t start writing down these little gems until a few years ago, after a cocktail party at an artist friend’s house in Mexico. One of her quasi-boyfriends was an aged Hell’s Angel wannabe, and he sat rather glumly apart from the other people who were gathered on Janice’s veranda, drinking and talking about her art. Boyfriend just drank quietly for awhile, and then he seemed to catch a word or two of conversation and roused himself long enough to address everyone: “I had an easel under the porch once, but the dogs ran it off.”

If you recognize yourself here, at least you recognize yourself. That’s a good thing. And if you have your own favorites to add to the list, let me know! I’ll be waiting with baited breath. [Eeew].

Still Speaking

2009-07-14T17:44:00.001-04:00

God spoke to me in the shower this morning, and not for the first time. I hadn’t actually heard from Him for quite awhile, at least not actually speaking directly to me in the shower, so I was surprised when it happened today.

It all started a couple of years ago. When I was working, I always hopped into the shower first thing, and I was often mulling over some hard part of life, primarily the fact that I was working. At least, that’s what I was specifically mulling the first time it happened. Things had been so difficult at work that I was dreading the start of another week. Then God said something to me. The fact that He said anything at all was completely unexpected, never mind the fact that I knew immediately who it was. It was just a brief sentence or two. I can’t quote it exactly, but it had to do with setting down a heavy load that I’d been carrying, and it made perfect sense. It wasn’t something I would have thought of on my own.

Since then, I’ve consciously used the shower as a place to pray, and a place to listen in case God ever wants to say something to me again. Every once in awhile, He does, but He picks the occasions and they don’t come often. Anne Lamott says there are three kinds of prayer: “Thank you thank you thank you,” “Help me help me help me,” and “Wow.” I say them all in pretty much equal measure. God never says “You’re welcome,” or “OK, here’s what I’m gonna do for you,” or “Yeah, that was pretty neat, wasn’t it?” I’ve prayed “help me help me help me” a lot lately, as in “Please give me strength.” The only sound I could hear in response was the water hitting the bottom of the bathtub, and there was no comfort from the tiled walls. But I’m here to say, I’ve been given strength.

God only talks to me, it seems, when I least expect it, and no use trying to pretend that I’m not expecting it, because He’s on to that and won’t say a word. This morning, I was thinking about someone who very recently gave me some unsolicited advice that was so inappropriate and thoughtless it bordered on the bizarre. I felt slapped with a dead fish, disappointed, hurt, and angry. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I was chewing bitterly on it in the shower.

God suddenly said, “It’s hard to love people sometimes.” I knew exactly what He was implying, but I’m not up for loving this person again right now. Actually, I had decided something along the lines of a cold day in Hell. “I have to go,” I told God. “I have a dentist appointment.” He didn’t answer. He’s done for the moment. But I’ve been thinking about it all day long. And I know I haven’t heard the end of it.

Mothers

2009-07-04T15:00:00.001-04:00

Every year for the past several, I have watched the peregrine falcons who nest on a downtown highrise. There is a webcam setup there, and I take a look many times a day during nesting season. It’s the most fascinating thing to watch the mother sitting on her eggs, and then the hatching and the feeding and the growing and the suspenseful leave-taking. Twenty-five percent of the time, they say, it’s the father keeping watch, but let’s just stay with “mother” right now. Falcons, in case you’ve never had a good look at one, are heart-catch beautiful, and the babies are adorable fluffs of white feathers, sleepy eyes and wobbly legs at first.

I’ve spent extra time watching the past few days. The best time of the day is late afternoon, when the sun is lighting the nest well enough to see everything clearly, but not glaring on the camera lens and blurring the view.

Yesterday, the mother was watching over three white fluffs, with one egg yet to hatch. There seemed to be something going on with that egg, though, and the mother was keeping a close eye on it and the chicks already born. Sometimes she covers them up entirely with her body, but yesterday afternoon she was standing over them in an angelic pose, wings poised and at the ready should the babies need their extra protection.

The mother falcon instinctively knows the right thing to do; the right move to make. She knows so much more than I do, and yet so much less. The future is not a concept that she understands or cares about. She lives only in this moment. (Non-human creatures are always trying to teach us this.) Are her newborns safe this moment? Is the unhatched egg safe and warm? She may be living the words of an Olive Kitteridge character: “If you can’t figure out something…don’t watch what you think, watch what you do.”

I watch, like praying, and I try to learn.

I’m Sharon, and I’m a Bookaholic

2009-06-27T20:20:00.002-04:00

Please, someone, stop me before I buy/borrow more. Ever since I retired at the end of October, a disease I thought was fairly well controlled has gotten out of hand.

I’ve never waited until I ran out of things to read before going to a bookstore and/or the library. But now, I’m a glazed-eyed addict on a rampage. I actually already own enough books to keep me busy for the rest of my days, assuming some re-reading here and there. Furthermore, this house is significantly under 1400 square feet, and all of the bookshelf room is taken. On my bedside table, books obscure the clock radio, and hang over the edge of the shelf underneath. Other tables and large baskets on the floor throughout the house groan with books and magazines. We recently bought a small side table for the screened porch, and it was covered with reading material in minutes.

We really don’t have this kind of money. Will I have to resort, in my arthritic old age, to mugging old(er) ladies on the street and stealing their purses? Cat burgling is completely out of the question at this stage of life. And speaking of this stage of life, my eyes won’t allow me to read for hours as in days of yore. Nevertheless, I press on, trying fruitlessly to keep the car from turning into the Barnes & Noble parking lot when I’m on Broad Street. Hell, the car will start up and drive to Barnes & Noble if we’re sitting in our own driveway.

Here are just a handful of the books lying about on the top surfaces around the house:

The Best of Adair Lara: Award-winning columns from the San Francisco Chronicle. Haven’t gotten to this yet. I used to love reading her columns when I lived in California.

Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield. (This is a re-read. I got the book off the shelf to find the title poem, which I want to send to a friend. Then I decided to refresh my memory on the whole collection.)

Southern Living magazine, July issue. I plan to make the lemonade iced tea with bourbon. Woohoo.

Evensong, a novel by Gail Godwin. This is a re-read. My new status as a reaffirmed Episcopalian drew me back to the book, because the main character is a married woman who is an Episcopal priest. Also, I’m very fond of Gail Godwin. Haven’t gotten very far into it yet. I note that there is a “reading group discussion guide” at the back of this book. I hate those. I don’t think I would do well in a book club. It reminds me of book reports in grade school. We always had to answer the question “What was the author’s purpose?” When I taught junior high school English, I made sure never to ask that question.

Coop, by Michael Perry, author of Population: 485, which I read and loved. Michael Perry is a guy who grew up on a farm and spent a number of years as a volunteer EMT in the rural area where he grew up. Population: 485 is about that experience. Coop was written after he married, moved to a ramshackle farmhouse on 37 ramshackle acres, and had children. I can’t wait to read this. I would not like living in rural Wisconsin at all, or rural Anywhere, but Perry is such a wonderful and evocative writer that I savor every vicarious moment spent there with him.

Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts. I could make soap. I could make candles. I could make jewelry. I could make 100 different things at least from this book, if only I could pick one to start.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table, by Molly Wizenberg. I’ve been reading Molly’s blog “Orangette,” for awhile now. I’ve even made her roasted broccoli with shrimp twice lately. So of course I had to buy the book. I read cookbooks as story anyway, but Molly is right up there with MFK Fischer. Dare I say better?

We haven’t even gotten to the teetering stack on my bedside table. And on the floor next to the bed, where I flang it last night before my eyes slammed shut, is Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout. This book is so good, I’m putting up with the teeny tiny typeface. An excellent writer links short stories together with a recurring character who is uncomfortably a lot like the part of me that I try to keep hidden.

Oh, and Sheila reads, too, with an addiction only slightly more controlled than mine. We didn’t even know that when we met up. If either one of us hadn’t been a reader, our 23 years together wouldn’t exist. Shudder to think.

Alleluia!

2009-06-27T14:25:00.003-04:00

If all commercials were this good, we wouldn't need the fast forward button on the remote.

Les nonnes

Shared via AddThis

Father’s Day

2009-06-18T08:49:00.001-04:00

I have no one to buy a Father’s Day card for this year. Last year, on the Saturday before Father’s Day, my dad went to the hospital and never came home again. He died on August 26.

My dad was not my natural father. He married my mother when I was 10 years old, and adopted me when I was 15. When I was younger, I always told him “I’m glad we married you.” He loved me from day one. He was the guy who taught me how to ride a bike, throw a ball, and play chess and checkers. He found the special picnic spots on the river and brought the first dog home.

When he moved to Virginia from California 5 years ago, when he was 84, I was terribly pleased but amazed that he would leave the State where he had been born and lived for over 80 years. Then he got here, and I discovered that I did not really know the quiet man who had always been overshadowed, as was I, by my mother’s domineering personality. He was almost a stranger to me. It was hard to talk to him, and made even more difficult by his severe hearing loss. He was good one-on-one and face to face, but the subtleties that we all depend on—the comments tossed over the shoulder and the quick one-twos, were lost on him. When I picked him up for a visit to our house, our drives were silent. That was his “bad” side; and the good side did not hear well at all.

In his younger years, and even when he had just turned 80 and my mother was still alive, he was always the person who could fix anything and do anything. At 80, he was still going up on their roof to sweep off the pine needles and clean out the gutters, and chopping wood. It was hard to reconcile that person with the man who had given up his driver’s license before he moved out here and had trouble seeing to unlock his apartment door. I was always tired from long days at work, and I was impatient with all kinds of things. He was simply lonely, trying hard not to be a burden and not succeeding in a number of small ways. He complained a lot. I didn’t smile very much. We forged ahead, trying to be good to one another. He tried harder than I did. He blew up at me once; then called to apologize.

After his unexpectedly gangrenous, septic gallbladder was removed on Father’s Day weekend, he went into a decline that very quickly escalated into dementia. We know now that it was caused by the overwhelming infection from which he never recovered. Every night he was at an Air Force base or on the train to one. “Which city are we in now?” he’d say. “Maybe I’ll stay here at this base for awhile.” He dodged imaginary cars and other flying objects, and plucked imaginary bugs from his food tray. His hospital roommate was trying to kill him. The Hallmark channel on the TV was showing porn. And yet he always knew my name and who I was. “I’m sorry to be dying and leaving you behind,” he noted one day. “You love me, and you’ve always loved me,” he said on another It broke my heart. And then, at the end of the summer, he died.

The other day, I saw the bus from the independent living apartment complex where he lived, parked outside my grocery store. It was senior discount day. When I went in the store, it was like I saw him in every other aisle. “Did you know my father?” I wanted to ask an old man looking at soup. He wore a baseball cap, like my dad always did. What I really wanted was for that strange man to turn into my father, and I would throw my arms around his neck there in the canned soup aisle and sob and say that I was sorry for being so impatient and not spending more time with him and not being a much, much better daughter, and could I please have another chance? Because now that it’s forever too late, of course I know exactly what to do.

Driving home with the groceries, I thought about how I had wanted him to change: to not be old, not be deaf, not be antisocial, not be slow, not be stubborn. And it struck me hard that as far as I know, he had never wanted me to change in over half a century. He said once about a not-so-bright dog that he had owned, “She did the best she could.” He believed the same of me. He had only wanted me to be happy, always. He was quite a dad. I miss him so.

This Moment

2009-06-13T22:36:00.001-04:00

I sometimes ponder the fact that animals mostly live in the present, unburdened by thoughts of mortality; never mind dwindling bank balances, what to cook for dinner, or how much they weigh. Would we be happier if we were unaware of our mortality? Would we still cherish life? I tend to think the answer is “Not so much.” The Pets chez nous certainly give every evidence of enjoying their lives, often with every cell in their little bodies. But cherish? Dream a dream beyond nailing that chipmunk in the bush over there or hoping Mom will throw a piece of steak my way? I don’t think so. Nevertheless, they do know how to live in the moments of their lives.

A few posts ago (see “Dust” in May) I talked about how our neighbor Catherine was dying, and she did die on May 29. She left behind to mourn her beloved cat, Coco. I’ve been taking care of Coco off and on since the beginning of April, and most of that time she has been all alone in the house where she has lived for ten years, since the day she walked in the back door as a stray kitten and told Catherine they belonged to each other. I knew her when Catherine was alive, of course, but we’ve forged a special bond in these last few months, and I became determined to find my kitty friend a good home when the time came.

Fortunately, Catherine’s son was all too glad to relinquish that responsibility to me. He’s not an animal person, and in fact he’s a rather unlikeable fellow except for one little unaccountably kind and loving thing he did for his mother. The last two weeks his mother was alive, he took Coco to visit her every day that he was in town, and she stayed on Catherine’s bed for hours at a time. No one knows for sure if Catherine was ever aware of Coco’s presence, but I like to think she was.

Anyway. After the funeral, Catherine’s son let me know that he was anxious to get rid of Coco and get on with his life and gave me permission to “find her a home” or “take her somewhere.” With the help of a flyer, emails, calls, caring friends and caring strangers, a home for Coco has been found, and it will be a wonderful one. A doctor from the hospital where I used to work will be taking Coco home with him. I had never met him before now, but he is a compassionate, tender, and funny man who will give this little lady cat a good life once again. To make it all even better, Sheila and I took an instant liking to him, and I hope we will continue to know him and become real friends.

Coco’s new dad is waiting until Monday to pick her up, because he was visiting his own human father out of town this weekend, and didn’t want to leave her alone in a brand new place. When I went next door to feed her this afternoon, I went through our usual cuddling ritual first, and I was holding her close to my chest and telling her all about how very soon she won’t be alone anymore, and she’ll have a new person to love who loves her back.

I told her that just as we think we’ve had our last adventure, or the future is looking bleak, or we don’t believe we’ll ever love again, something wonderful like this happens, and we always have to remember that and believe it. Coco listened, but she didn’t know what I was talking about. She was living in the moment, snugged tight against my heart sounds, getting her eyebrows stroked and purring loudly. Life doesn’t get any better, she might have said, than right now.

I Feel Good

2009-06-07T20:40:00.001-04:00

I fly into a frenzied rage over bad grammar and punctuation. Three other people in the world today feel exactly the same way I do. The rest don’t seem to give a rat’s ass. Before anyone horns in here, let me hasten to add that I know my own grammar and punctuation is not perfect. But only the three other people and I know that, so it’s not high on my list of worries.

My daughter is well aware of my low boiling point in this matter. Nevertheless, she brazenly slaves away at a Ph.D. in English. A couple of weeks ago, she informed me that the Chairman of the English Department at a University that shall remain anonymous insists that it’s correct to “feel badly” about something. I had been drowsy from an afternoon nap when she called, but this news drew me upright and I yelled “What?????!!!!” so loudly that the cat jumped off the bed and ran out of the room. Compared to this, my past reactions to news from Tara about being rear-ended, having her identity stolen, being rear-ended again, being laid off, etc. have been practically disinterested. I had a pleasurable rant over the entire issue and was feeling positively vibrant with energy by the time we hung up.

Today, neighbor Glo let us paw through a few boxes of books that she picked up for $10.00 at a yard sale. (I’m such a Californian; I almost said “garage sale.”) One of the books is a real find: A Manual of English, by George B. Woods and Clarence Stratton, published in 1926. People who wrote such books in 1926 are the very people who taught my generation and my parents’ generation how to speak and write, and I highly approve of them. Here’s what George and Clarence have to say about “I feel badly”: After copulas—verbs like appear, be, become, feel, look, seem, shine, smell, sound, and taste—use an adjective if the word refers to the subject, an adverb if it describes the action of the verb. [Note from Sharon: “badly,” for those of you born after my generation, is an adverb, dammit.] George and Clarence then proceed to list some examples of “right” and “wrong” (two other words that fewer and fewer people give a rat’s rear end about):

Right: I felt bad when I saw their great need.

Wrong: He has looked badly for a week.

I was gnawing bitterly out loud on the whole “badly” bone yesterday on our way to the gym. Sheila, who was not an English major but was educated properly a long time ago, was backing me up at every point. However, she is well known for making authoritative pronouncements that don’t make any sense, and she got a bit carried away as she wheeled into our parking spot. “Even James Brown knew how to say it right!” she proclaimed. I’m still laughing.

Seven Things I Love

2009-05-27T22:35:00.001-04:00

One of the blogs I sometimes read mentioned writing down “seven things I love.” I’m assuming that’s not a list of specific people or animals and probably a little more profound than “mint juleps.” Although, I swan, (my grandmother said “I swan”) mint juleps are pretty doggone profound. There are a lot more than seven, of course, and that’s a good thing to remember. So many more things than seven.

That moment just before the curtain goes up on stage, or just before the conductor lifts the baton. Get ready to be transported somewhere else.
Train whistles at 2 a.m.
A beautiful garden in the Spring. I can’t pick a favorite flower. (But it may be an iris. Unless it’s a peony. Unless it’s a rose.) And what about herb gardens? And cottage gardens with foxglove and hollyhocks? And the colors! Purple has to be the best, unless it’s that orangey pink or the creamy white. There has to be a bench in the shade, where I can sit and listen to the birds and smell the blossoms and feel a slight breeze.
The memory of getting up in the middle of the night in Baja California, and seeing the moon over the Pacific Ocean, in a field of a zillion stars.
The thrill of thunder when it echoes against the mountains.
Watching the sun pop up from the horizon like a glorious magic trick, or go back down.
Feeling like Jacob in the Bible waking from his dream: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

What are yours?

Blurb & Bourbon

2009-05-23T23:36:00.002-04:00

Want a hardcover copy of your blog, cookbook, family photo album, collected poems, travel journal or whatever? How about hardcover copies (with dust jackets, even!) to give away as gifts? Check out www.blurb.com.

Oh my, I’ve had fun for the past 24 hours. I dragged out all of my photos for 2003, which fortunately I had on a “picture CD” as in 2003 we did not have a digital camera. I’ve made what I hope will be a very nice little 28-page family photo album for that year, with text and some good page layouts. That’s the cover of my album, above.

There’s a tutorial video on the website, and it’s actually quite good. I finished putting the album together just a little while ago, uploaded it, and ordered one copy which should be here in about 10 days. Highly recommended for those of you who take wonderful photos and write terrific stories, as well as those of you who are wonderful cooks. You know who you are! Even if you take mediocre photos and write only mildly entertaining captions for them, here’s a newfangled way to make an album without going to the Hallmark store. The possibilities are endless. Check it out.

In other news, the afternoon was made brighter when neighbor Linda hallooed across the fence that she had fresh mint grown in her own backyard, as well as some Maker’s Mark bourbon with which to make mint juleps. Linda and other neighbor Glo came over forthwith to sit on our back porch under the ceiling fan and partake of same. Linda, bless her, had brought everything in a well organized paper bag, including ice cubes! That’s a registered dietician for you. The juleps were delicious beyond description, and we have agreed that this may become a weekend ritual for at least as long as the fresh mint lasts. Here’s to us.

Dust

2009-05-15T11:41:00.001-04:00

Once I make up my mind to do it, I love dusting the bookshelves in my room. It takes a while. I have to pick up this book and that, planning to read or re-read. There are so many photos and little things on the shrine-like shelves that I have to pick up and think about, too. And next to the shelves are the little chairs on the wall, each with something special on the seat. One has a wonderful bird’s nest that we had in our patio garden in Mexico. Another has two black, faceless angels. We have a thing about faceless angels around here. She started it, and now I like them.

Anyway. Catherine, our 80-something widowed next door neighbor, is dying in a hospice room at St. Mary’s, up the road from us. We went to see her on Monday, but she is in a coma. It will be any time now. Dusting, I thought about her and how she used to bring over something Greek that she had cooked for our dinner. How she listened to Rush Limbaugh turned up full volume, but she openly envied our having each other to love. I thought about how I could have been a much better friend.

My hand fell upon a collection of Jane Kenyon’s poems, called Otherwise. I remember that book arriving in the mail about this same time nine years ago, when we were living in Mexico and my mother was dying. I took it with me when we went for the day to the balneario, a collection of swimming pools perched on a short cliff overlooking the beach where cows and horses strolled along the Lake, and the mountains on two sides. The book fell open to this poem, and I cried out in recognition as I read the first lines. I put it here today in memory of my mother and in prayer for Catherine.

She is like a horse grazing

a hill pasture that someone makes

smaller by coming every night

to pull the fences in and in.

She has stopped running wide loops,

stopped even the tight circles.

She drops her head to feed; grass

is dust, and the creekbed’s dry.

Master, come with your light

halter. Come and bring her in.

--“In the Nursing Home” by Jane Kenyon, from the book of her collected poems titled Otherwise.

A Lucky Mother

2009-05-10T14:28:00.001-04:00

I can’t write about my mother on Mother’s Day. My daughter? Oh, yes. The person who makes me such a lucky mother.

Here’s what Tara has always been and is now:

Creative. Hundreds of examples, but one I remember clearly is the time when she was about 8 and I was sleeping late on a Saturday. When I roused myself, the dog was licking my face. And clipped to the dog’s collar was my wedding veil, complete with big lace bow. When I rubbed my eyes, I realized that Spooky was also wearing big white polka dots all over her black fur (they were supposed to be price stickers from an upcoming garage sale). Tara had dressed up Spooky and paraded her around the neighborhood, to great appreciation that I heard about later.

Smart. When she was 2 ½, she knew our full names, our street address, city and state, our telephone number, and the name of the ad agency where her daddy worked. “Hello,” she said to a strange man in the airport waiting room. “My name is Tara ________. Want to see me do a puzzle?” Whereupon she whipped out a puzzle designed for much older children and slapped it together before he had a chance to say “No, thanks.”

Somewhat shocking. (Same flight; different puzzle.) Tara is putting a puzzle together on her tray table when half of it accidentally falls off onto the floor of the plane. “Shit!” yells out the adorable toddler to the quietest passengers on any plane that ever flew.

Funny. No one can make me laugh at myself harder than she can.

Generous. The first indication was the sign she hand-printed for Santa Claus when she had just turned 4. “Santa Enjoe yor Cookes. Tara.” Five minutes later, it seemed, she was baking cookies for firemen, serving the homeless, helping old ladies (besides us), always choosing the perfect gift for someone, and endlessly giving of her time to provide company and comfort to those who need it.

Happy. She makes the deliberate choice, more than nine times out of ten. In recent times, that has included having cancer, being rear-ended twice in a month, having her identity stolen, and being laid off. “I’m getting sick of counting my blessings,” she said not too long ago. Laughing.

Loving. I can’t adequately describe how loving she is to her mothers, her other family members, her friends, and animals.

Loyal. Got some faults? If she loves you, and there’s a good chance she does, Tara will stick by you anyway, and will never badmouth you behind your back.

An excellent teacher. A couple of years ago, her other mother and I were privileged to sit in the back of one of her college classes and watch her teach. I was terrified that I might be called on, but so proud of the way she drew everyone else out and made them think and respected them that I could have put my head down on the desk and cried.

Faithful and full of faith. Several years ago, after a long and thoughtful search, Tara converted to Judaism. At the beginning of a religious service, there’s a prayer that includes, she explained to me, bowing to your angels. I’ve watched her, and I think she can see them. I know they see her.

Happy Mother’s Day, Tara Cat. You’re the best kid ever. Love you past the moon, the stars, and all the planets.

Do Not Send

2009-05-05T15:45:00.001-04:00

Something really chapped my cheeks today, fried my eggs, and definitely pushed my buttons. This isn’t what I was planning to write about for my next post, but here goes.

Someone I consider a friend and a person who should know better forwarded me and about 50 other people an email that was extremely bigoted and, if the truth be known, originally created by someone who is obviously not of high intelligence and incapable of logic. It managed to be offensive about race, politics, and religion all in one fell swoop. Rather than let it go, which I might have done a few years ago, I responded in a way that made it crystal clear how offended I was. And then I got even madder.

I’ve had it with people mindlessly firing off forwarded emails:

(1) that they obviously do not understand and haven’t thoughtfully considered.

(2) to absolutely everyone they know, whether or not that person might be offended.

(3) that contain no logic of any kind.

(4) that try to build fear and hatred.

Then there are the emails sent out to one and all in a person’s email address book, along the lines of “Your cat will die if you use such and such a product on your floors,” “collect plastic bottle caps and when you redeem them a cancer patient will receive a free chemotherapy treatment,” and of course “Obama is not a US citizen.” College graduates blithely pass such nonsense along to all their friends. I’ve even received emails that say “I don’t know if this is true or not, but….” Here’s a concept: if you don’t know if it’s true or not, why are you passing it along? If you use email, you should also be Internet-savvy enough to check out anything that seems amazing or incredible in some way at www.snopes.com or some other solid fact-checking service.

Whatever you do, don’t send your narrow-minded, bigoted, hate-filled, illogical crap to me. Because I’ll just think you’re stupid. And I’m lifting 10-pound weights these days. Don’t mess with me.

Hurray For All Of Us

2009-05-03T22:04:00.001-04:00

The Reflection at tonight’s Celtic service made me think of our fitness trainer, Jim. In only three weeks, we have become devoted to him. Jim knows his business and is able to teach what he knows in a very clear manner. He’s watchful, making sure that we don’t hurt ourselves and that we don’t slack off from what we are capable of doing. He doesn’t let us get away with a thing. And when Jim says “Great form!” or “That’s kickin’ it, Sharon!” or “Excellent pace,” I straighten up and reach higher and move faster and try harder. He’s a cheerleader, Jim is, but his cheers are sincere and they mean something. No automatic “Good job!” from him. (Oh, the ubiquitous and too-often patronizing “Good job!” A lot of mothers and teachers tend to roll those out like jellybeans, just for breathing in and out. It’s another version of “Have a nice day.” And I think that deep down the kids know it. How about something specific?)

I was thinking tonight about all the times that we just want someone to notice how hard we’re trying to do something that’s difficult for us, or just need someone to confirm that they love us, or think we’re smart, or look good today, or were seen doing a kind thing. Some of us are lucky and we get that kind of validation often. And others, many of whom are trying hardest of all, almost never do. When that happens to children whose parents weren’t their cheerleaders, I think it leaves scars for life. In their secret hearts, nothing they do is ever good enough. But I think no one ever outgrows that need for spoken validation, no matter how self-confident and unbreakable they may seem to others. Sometimes I’ve found myself jealously guarding my praise. Why should I give support to someone who doesn’t do the same for me, or who seems to get “too much” from someone other than me, or who “should know” that I love them or am grateful for them?

Tonight I’m hoping to remember to be on high alert for any opportunity I may have to be someone else’s cheerleader. For one thing, when I see him on Tuesday, I think I’ll thank Jim for being such a good one.

Further Adventures In Measuring

2009-04-30T19:53:00.001-04:00

Conversation on the way home from working out today:

Me: I was going 178 steps a minute during the intervals! That’s a lot of steps per second!

She: Yeah, about 50, right?

Me: Heaven help us.

She: I oughta get a job at Home Depot. Everybody’s windows would be mismatched, decks would be either be 3x3 feet or taller than the house, contractors would quit in disgust, Home Depot would go out of business….then I’d write a book titled How To Be A Math Genius, by Sheila.

Me: This is going in my blog.

Missing LA

2009-04-29T21:24:00.001-04:00

We saw a wonderful movie, The Soloist, the other night. I demand that you see it, too. The performances by Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. are not to be missed. It’s a true story, based on newspaper columns about a homeless musician by LA Times columnist Steve Lopez. And like so many true stories, especially true stories set in Los Angeles, it is indeed stranger than fiction, and ugly and piercingly beautiful at the same time.

I didn’t grow up in Southern California, and probably only drove through there once with my parents on the way to Texas, back in the 50’s. I remembered the palm trees, the riot of color in flowers, plants, and stucco, and the Hollywood Hills where we stopped and visited cousins. I didn’t see it again until 1963, when I visited the 18 year old college boyfriend who would later become my husband. We went to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, matching our hands with the sidewalks prints of the stars, and Disneyland. Bob’s parents lived in San Marino, home of the John Birch Society and rich people who weren’t movie stars. They had a Thunderbird. That was class.

When Bob and I married in the Summer of 1967, I moved to LA and began a close but uneasy relationship with the city that was to last the better part of 30 years. The marriage, also uneasy, did not last, so it was the City itself that remained a part of my life. I met She in the “Greater Los Angeles Area” as the multitude of cities that run together for hundreds of square miles are called. And we moved from there to Mexico in 1998.

Until I saw the opening scene of The Soloist, I wasn’t aware that I love LA. In fact, I would have laughingly denied such a thing, maybe even snorted in disgust, and millions of others would understand why I always considered it to be a place I lived because I had to, not because I chose to. But I looked at that iconic shot of the LA skyline, and I realized that the City was like a close but somewhat obnoxious and irritating relative that I never realized I loved or missed until it was too late. I do love LA. I even miss it. It’s inextricable from the story of my life, and it’s inextricable from the story of this country.

Somehow I always felt that LA was a living being, breathing in and out (never mind the smog), the mountains and the hills, the Pacific Ocean and the freeways and the swimming pools and the Santa Ana winds and the millions of lights all a part of that living, breathing thing, and that all of our lives were acted out on millions of little stages. I have been as lonely there as the last person on earth, standing at the edge of the continent; and I have been as happy there as someone blessed and kissed by God and sent out to play in the sun.

Bob and I lived, for a week, in his bachelor apartment down the street from the Ambassador Hotel, where Bobby Kennedy was assassinated the following year. (Martin Luther King was assassinated that year, too. The principal at the school where I was teaching would not agree to lower the flag to half staff.)

Like many other Angelenos who are not at all wealthy themselves, I have spent a lot of time in fabulous homes with fabulous views and incredible art work and electric gates, and have never been envious because the people who owned them were just like me except with money and maybe not as happy.

I was there for several major earthquakes, and each time I wanted to move that day and never come back.

My skin has tanned next to countless swimming pools all over the Southland, while I read a book to the background music of The Beach Boys.

I’ve sat under a full moon on a warm night and listened to some of the world’s greatest music at the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theatre.

I’ve known LA characters with strange lives and storytellers and musicians who would blow your socks off with crying and laughing and loving.

The night my daughter was born, I leaned against the car in the hospital’s parking lot and looked up at the moon and all the stars in the bright October sky. Even today, we say “Love you past the moon, and the stars and all the planets.”

I’ve spent Sunday afternoons in the patio of a crumbling old Mexican restaurant with a group of gay women, drinking margaritas and listening to a “girl” band composed of women in their 70’s and 80’s.

I’ve worked in the middle of Hollywood, the beginning of Beverly Hills, and the beach, driving by just-shot-to-death bodies on my way to the bank at noon, fleeing from major riots, getting stalled on the freeway at rush hour because of bomb threats and police car chases and horrible car crashes and nothing at all.

I drove past the LA County Jail every single morning while OJ Simpson was incarcerated there, and gave him the bird each time.

I’ve awakened in the middle of the night and not known why until I realized it was because of the deafening silence when the nearby freeway was shut down due to a major accident.

I’ve raised roses and wisteria and hibiscus and geraniums just by sticking them in the ground.

I’ve lived alone with my young daughter in the same neighborhood where the Night Stalker roamed, and slept with the windows open anyway because it was so hot.

I’ve lived on the beach and just blocks from the beach in LA, and sometimes I wish I still did. But only if I could have what I have in my life right now, and life would never change and it would always be precious, and the sun would always set blood red above dark blue waves and wet hard sand, and the land and the mountains and the sea and the stars and the freeways and all the millions of people would breathe in and out.

23 Years

2009-04-26T15:47:00.001-04:00

On this day 23 years ago, She and I decided that we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. (Secretly, She gave it 3 months. I, on the other hand, was doing an extremely rare thing for me and living only in the moment.) Despite each of us having said “I give up!” dozens of times (hundreds?) in the past 23 years, accompanied by stomping off in a huff or even the occasional door slam, neither of us ever has actually given up. We’re still on the same road, and it always leads us home.

In celebration of this day, I tried mightily to embed a video from YouTube with a very charming song called First Day of My Life. Couldn’t even copy and paste the URL. I followed every direction, but no go. You can see it yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5rhhQbyYV0

My favorite lines are:

Yours is the first face that I saw. Thought I was blind until I met you.

Yep.

Foot, Schmutt

2009-04-20T21:07:00.002-04:00

We survived our first week in the fitness program, and enjoyed it. I look forward to the exercise. Did I just say that? Yes, I look forward to it. We have even used stability balls to do squats, and they didn’t come flying out from behind our backs and let us fall and break body parts, like I thought they would. Both of us have lost five pounds and feel positively agile.

I haven’t been blogging, because we seem to be fixing something to eat (every three hours), writing down what we ate and how many calories and carbs it was, or cleaning up the kitchen (again). Nah, it really isn’t that bad, but it does keep us busy. We did cheat a little bit, carb-wise, when we went out for my birthday dinner, because we each ate three and a half miniscule round slices of French bread. And we may have eaten two chocolate truffles that the chef put in a gold box as a birthday gift. But She, who is notoriously clueless when it comes to measuring things, emailed a friend that we had eaten a “foot long” loaf of bread. To her, there’s no discernible difference between five or six inches and a “foot.” This is why I watch her like a hawk whenever she starts describing something to anyone. Once, she measured a kitchen window for a screen (this was many years ago, before I knew enough to stop her). When the custom-made screen was ready, it turned out to be one-fourth the size of the window. And I am not kidding.

Change Up

2009-04-16T20:02:00.001-04:00

April, 1949

I’m going to be 65 on Saturday. Already, I’m in the post-Paul McCartney’s When I’m 64 period of my life. How did this happen? That’s the universal question from those of us lucky enough to have reached 60 and over in this world. I’ll bet it’s asked in every single language.

Well, enough of that. The whole point is, I’m looking at the short end of the stick, and it’s become clear that “now or never” has never been truer. So I’m doing something about a couple of important things, like physical and spiritual health. She is my partner in the physical health arena. We’ve signed up for a 10 week “Make It Personal” session at the Zacharias-Ganey Health Institute here in town, and this is our first week. The program combines weight loss management with exercise, and they’ve had some outstanding successes, even with people in much deeper doodoo than She and I are. I can already tell you the secret of their success. The physician who runs it and the staff of personal trainers are with you, adaptations are made to fit your situation, you’re part of a group that signed up at the same time you did, you all exercise and weight manage together, and cheer each other on. It’s very structured, and yet friendly and personal, and not in some phony, false-cheery way. I love our group’s trainer: “If you hurt yourself, I’ll kill you.” “If you’re late, I’ll skin you.” “No jut butting!” (The latter refers to the wrong kind of posture while lifting weights.)

Having said that, I can tell you that for this first week we are on kind of a detox program from our high-carb way of life, and it’s not all fun and games. We are supposed to eat 5 small meals a day, of approximately 300 calories each and (here’s the kicker) no more than 25 carbs each. (Apparently we are going to be able to eat more carbs after this first week.) (We pray that this is so.) This week’s eating plan is supposed to get rid of our cravings. Not yet, folks. Not yet. And if we were doing this alone, both of us would have quit already. But we’re together, we’re doing it for the same reasons, and we ain’t quittin’.

For one thing, we’re investing a lot of money in the program. I wasn’t going to do it at all, due to the expense, and then I realized that we spent $400.00 just having a new toilet put in recently. And we had the kitchen painted, and the carpeting taken up. We pay a guy to take care of the grass and shrubs. We justify spending money on the house because the house is an investment. Hello??? Time to spend money on getting and keeping ourselves ambulatory for the final stretch. We have not been doing too well on our own. I have severe osteoarthritis and a titanium hip. Strangely enough, 60-70 extra pounds caused by eating like a pig and not exercising does not help alleviate pain or allow for much mobility.

As for spiritual health, one of the events I recall is my confirmation as an Episcopalian, 50 years ago. I chose that particular church on my own; my parents were not churchgoers and both disavowed the existence of God, although in retrospect I think both would have loved to have been talked into it. I have been on a serious spiritual journey my entire life, enhanced by reading and prayer, but a big chunk of it has not been spent going to the Episcopal Church, or any other. Oh, for awhile I thought I was a Unitarian, and I’ve explored Judaism, but most of the time I’ve stayed home on the Sabbath. Occasional forays back into organized religion have all fizzled out, mostly due to the “organized” part. However, those of you who read my blog know that I have been a rather steady attendee for the last year or so at the Celtic service at the Episcopal Church. And the other night on my way in to the service, I signed up for the Inquirer’s Class before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, much like the time I got my ears pierced when I was 30.

The class is for those who are already confirmed Episcopalians as well as those who are not. Our first class was last night. It was interesting and I felt comfortable there. That’s all I know right now. Well, actually, I know a lot more than that right now, but I’m not ready to articulate and share. For one thing, I don’t have enough calories and carbs on board right now to be articulate. I just know that I need to get my spirit healthy right along with my body. And for me, that might require some organization.

On The Walls

2009-04-09T19:56:00.008-04:00

Herself has been nagging at me to document our art work with the camera, and I’ve been saying “Yep, yep, I will.” For posterity, so to speak, I plan to post at least some of it here from time to time.

This is a favorite of mine, and is hanging above the computer desk, where I spend a lot of time. It’s called Waiting At The Window For You, and the artist is Neil H. Cronk, an Austin, Texas painter who spends part of his time in Mexico. We purchased this is Ajijic, Mexico about 10 years ago, when we were living there. The red chair, either overstuffed like this one or straight-backed, occurs often in Cronk’s work, along with at least one black crow, and always the melding of reality and the imagination. In Waiting, you can see the extension of the lake, mountains, and trees outside the window. I love this because it’s kind of my ideal place: a soft chair to read in, water to gaze at, a breeze coming in the window, and even a plate of food! And there’s someone to wait for. That’s such a gift.

We have two other Cronks. These are colored pencil drawings, and again there’s the red chair, and the merger of the outdoors and the indoors. The crows appear in one of the drawings, and the other has a religious theme that appears often in Mr. Cronk's art. I’m sorry that these drawings don't show up well in the photograph, because of the glass in their frames. But you get the idea.

Rhymes With Orange

2009-04-08T20:20:00.002-04:00

I laughed out loud over this today. It could be Billy and Miss T. It could even be She and me! I hope you have Rhymes With Orange in your newspaper. It makes me helpless.

Tuesday Top Ten

2009-04-07T18:18:00.010-04:00

A much better Tuesday than last week’s:

I can see! My new glasses were ready, the first new pair since before October 2007 when the retina in my right eye detached. Seeing became less of a chore the second I put them on, and the new frames look better on my face.

Joey came by early to give us an estimate on power washing the house. There is mold on the brick in a number of places on three sides. Joey has clear blue eyes, is kind to old ladies, and doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. Also, it seems he “does everything,” so we may have found another gem.

Screwed up my courage and went to a podiatrist this morning to have the ingrown nail fixed on my big toe. The toe was tender and inflamed, but I kept putting off going until the pain won out. It’s fixed! The doctor really didn’t hurt me at all, and the relief was immediate. I think I had pictured total amputation without an anesthetic.

Mary Oliver has published a new collection of poetry called Evidence, I was informed via e-mail from Barnes & Noble. Two hours later, I had a copy in my hand. Just a little advance birthday present to myself. I will savor it. Mary, you are such a wonder.

Unbeknownst to us, the lawn guys left the gate open and Pancho wasn’t in the back yard when we went to let him in the house 5 minutes after his afternoon meal. Hearts in throats, we went racing to the front door to prepare to scour the neighborhood, and there he was on the porch, prancing around and praising himself for being such a good dog.

She has made her famous lemon cheesecake. I prefer it above all others, and hers is so simple. We will have it after leftover pulled pork cooked with Spanish rice and black beans tonight.

I am presently drinking a glass of Coastal Merlot from Trader Joe’s. Not bad at all.

Miss T had her usual nap next to me this afternoon (perfect time for a nap—cold, dark, and windy) on her purple pillow. For some reason, Miss T and I established several years ago that when it’s nap time together, and at no other time, I arrange a certain purple pillow next to my head, and that’s her place. She knows the words “nap” and “purple pillow” as well as her own name.

Marsha has invited us to a Passover Seder at her house on Saturday. They are Reform Jews, so she says the Seder is “short, sweet, and to the point.” We’ve never been to a Seder and we love Marsha and her husband Tony, so we are delighted. I also loved the fact that I asked what we could bring, and she told me: deviled eggs. It’s fun being included like that.

The bunnies are out!

Palm Sunday

2009-04-05T16:55:00.008-04:00

The first words I heard this morning, from a sound sleep, were “Boppy, I need you to help me. I’ve opened a vein.” Her voice was coming from the bathroom. Moving as fast as a fat person with arthritis can move (not very), I made it down the hall and opened the door to see She holding on to her ankle with a very bloody cloth, and large puddles of blood all around her, soaking the bathmat, stretching across the tile floor. I tried to follow her orders and listen to what had happened at the same time, all the while blind without my glasses, in a state of shock, and desperately needing to pee.

“I was drying off and heard a noise; I thought it was a bug.” “No, I’ll keep pressure on it. Hand me a bandage from that box on the top shelf.” “It made a sound like a whine.” “No, that’s the tape. Open that package.” “I looked around and down and saw the blood.” “OK, now the tape.” “I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from until I saw it spurting like a broken hose from my foot.”

About this time, the heat, steam, blood and shock in the room started to hit me and I said, “I need some air. It’s so hot.” Black dots ran in front of my eyes and I knew my hair was soaked with sweat. “Dammit, you have to talk about the heat right now?” We have an ongoing battle about heat versus air. She was not grasping that soon I would lying in an unconscious heap in a pool of her blood. It vaguely crossed my mind that the police would have a time trying to figure this one out. I flung up the window and stuck my head out, handing her the scissors and some more pressure bandages. Blood had soaked through the first one. Then I managed to help her wind an Ace bandage around her ankle to keep everything together.

I wanted to call 911, but She wouldn’t let me. The blood did not appear to be soaking through the Ace. We need to think what to do, we agreed. By now, we realized that a varicose vein on her foot had formed near the surface of the skin and then burst. Because she is on blood thinners for her heart, the vein was pouring out blood in a brisk and unstoppable fashion.

Ultimately, we got to the ER up the street before it started getting crowded. People were either still asleep or getting ready to go to church on Palm Sunday. My own church was going to have a live donkey in the procession.

When the doctor removed our homemade bandage, the vein started arcing blood again. His calm and collected demeanor was reassuring, and he and She got to telling doctor/nurse stories while he ligated the vein and sutured her. We were all amused in a kind of relieved way and joked with him when he tripped over the “Wet Floor” sign at the door of the treatment room on his way out. Picture the yellow cones, with “Piso Mojado” in Spanish underneath “Wet Floor” in English.

When he came back in the room after the results on She’s pitifully thin blood were available, he said “You know, I tripped on that sign because it’s in Spanish and I don’t know Spanish.” “You need to learn some!” I encouraged, taking the bait. “I am NOT going to learn Spanish,” he replied. “I am an American. I live in America. The language here is English. If they want to come here, they need to speak English.”

“America is changing,” I said with what I thought was an amazing amount of empathy, patience and fairness. I was obviously still in shock over the morning’s incident, or I might have started a verbal bloodbath on the spot. “Unless you are planning to retire by say next year, you really should try to learn a little Spanish.”

“Well,” he said with what I thought was a comfortable arrogance, “I have no intention of it. They can’t change the language of America. They want to change the language. They want to change the Constitution.” “Who’s ‘they’?” challenged She from the gurney.

I wasn’t sure what the man was talking about. All I could think about was how Virginia had recently changed its Constitution, to exclude people like Dr. Powell’s current customers from civil marriage. Historically, the Federal Constitution has been amended for inclusion, rather than exclusion purposes, and I know there are people who would like to change that. But I digress. We were all still trying to smile and maintain a modicum of courtesy. We didn’t want a confrontation. We wanted to go home and make sure we were still alive. She was dressed and ready to go. “Hasta luego,” I nodded to Dr. Powell. “Oh, I know that one,” he said, as he turned to go to the next patient.

Tuesday Top Ten

2009-03-31T23:02:00.002-04:00

I’m here. I just don’t want to write humorously, gently, thoughtfully, or lovingly. I’m feeling kind of pissed off and ornery. I don’t like:

• Washington DC
• wind
• my neighbor’s lying, ne’er-do-well son who could help her and doesn’t
• the fact that ER’s last episode is this week
• being fat and unfit
• customer service people who talk like robots
• driving behind or near someone on a cellphone
• cuticles
• potholes
• myself when I am ungracious, childish and ill-humored

This too shall pass. I wish it would hurry the hell up.

The New Pet Sitter

2009-03-24T21:57:00.007-04:00

Rain, and even thunderstorms are forecast for our 3 days in DC, but that’s what umbrellas are for. Meanwhile, we have a new pet sitter, and she came over with her husband tonight for orientation, receipt of the key, and a preliminary look at the 6-page pet and house sitting manual I have developed. You think this is funny? I don’t care. These are our babies, and we want them safe and happy.

I think they will be. Carrie and Ricky have five pets of their own, and are a very sweet couple in spite of their own pets’ names. You see, Ricky is an expert at horror makeup and special effects. Their cats are named Slash, Krueger, and Elvira. The dogs are Mandible (geez) and Hex, which is short for Hecubus. A sweet couple, indeed. The audience is now shouting “No! No! Don’t leave Pancho, Billy and Miss T with them!” while the organ reaches a frightening crescendo….

Light

2009-03-22T19:00:00.004-04:00

I finished reading Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen Friday night, and have been thinking about it ever since. Among so many other things, this is a book about people who give up and people who don’t, and how life is full of so many hard edges and dry places that redemption seems impossible, but comes anyway.

There’s a part in the Sunday Celtic church service I attend, after the spoken Prayers of the People, when those who are so inclined may go to one of several tables and light one or more candles for those in their personal prayers. A great many of us do so. I always light candles for at least four people.

Tonight, while listening to the music and waiting my turn, I can see these four in my heart. My mother is a little girl, perhaps 5, in a studio shot, with the sweetest look of innocence and vulnerability. It is an understatement to say that our relationship was complex. Things said and unsaid around the end of her life form my most painful regrets.

My father is a grownup in his picture—about 22. He is a pilot in the Air Force, and there is a look of confidence and joy on his face that he had never had before; and after the War, never had again, except as memory.

My daughter is asleep, hair spread out on her pillow, humming softly. We laugh and tease about her sleeping hum, but I miss it. She knows more than I do about so many things, but this is the one certain time that she is still my child, my baby, under my watch.

My beloved She is in a familiar pose, reading in the soft glow of a lamp, cat on her lap, dog snoring nearby. She is where I can always find her, and when I get home, I will.

I step forward to light the candles, and the moment is only about that light, and the love.

Have Mercy

2009-03-12T20:33:00.003-04:00

I’m pretty sure that this post is going to be about food. I’ve had quite a lot of it in the past 24 hours.

The highlight of foodiness was lunch today at Chez Foushee. We had two excuses for a nice lunch: my friend Marsha needed to be rescued from her job for a couple of hours, and Ed The Painter arrived this morning and has taken over our kitchen. I notice that Ed has gotten older and creakier since the last time he painted over here, but his groaning doesn’t sound nearly as horrific as what I sound like putting on my socks, so I guess he’s alright for awhile.

Chez Foushee, which happens to be on Grace at Foushee Street, has wonderful food and impeccable service. If you’ve been there once or twice, you’re treated like a favorite long-lost cousin on arrival, and if this is your first time, you’re likely to be hugged on your way out. She and I both had the tilapia on toasted flatbread with dressed mixed greens, sweet potato relish and saffron aioli. Please know that I am usually not a big fan of fish, and have even shuddered at the thought on occasion. This was scrumptious. Before that I ate as much white bean hummus as I decently could, and afterward I ate an entire piece of Chez F’s famous lemon butter cake. I justified the latter because I had been thinking about it for two weeks.

It was a rough day. After we got home, I barely had time to take a nap before going off to my haircut appointment.

For dinner tonight (can you believe we had anything at all?) we had leftover sausage crepes from our dinner last night. I had already eaten a couple this morning, for breakfast. Ed was here in the kitchen and everything, it was just easier than stirring up some oatmeal as usual. (Right?) I have been making these crepes for over 30 years, and they are excellent for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Email me at napwithoutguilt@gmail.com if you are interested in having the recipe.

Better Smile

2009-03-11T20:28:00.003-04:00

When I was a little girl, this hung framed in my grandparents’ bedroom, in the house where my mother and I lived. I believe it is from the 1920s, not just because of the wonderful design, but because my grandparents bought that house about 1925, and my grandmother was the type of person who put a knicknack on a shelf or hung something on the wall or purchased a chair and set it in place once, and never moved it again, ever. She set up her little house in the beginning, and that was that until she died 50 years later. I have it in my room now, and some days I know I should run in there every five minutes and look at it.

I always attributed the choice of this particular item to my grandfather Mac, because he would have believed in every word. He smiled a lot, and I never heard him complain about anything, ever, including dying of lung cancer. He was also fond of reciting Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, which he had copied out in his beautiful handwriting. I wish I had the handwritten copy today, but I have the words, and I know Mac lived by them, too:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

There was only one exception to Mac’s good nature, and that was any politician who did not agree with him. I know Mac was a yellow dog Democrat except for Ike, whom he supported, and I don’t know specifically which politician(s) he yelled about, but yell he did. That is how I happened to ask my grandmother what a son of a bitch was. She’d be making dinner, and I guess he'd be in his room listening to the evening news on the radio. Suddenly, he would appear in the kitchen door, arms waving and voice rising, carrying on about some politico or other. After a brief rant, he would disappear, only to reappear momentarily with furthermores.

I did not inherit many of Mac’s wonderful qualities, but I do share these political rants, becoming more vociferous the older I get. I thought I was through yelling when George W. departed, but these days I get terribly exercised over the fools who want my Barack to fix everything except the common cold, and then attack him for having having too ambitious an agenda. The other night, some Republican idiot mouthed off while She was watching TV at the kitchen table and I happened to pass by, catching the remark. I yelled back at the TV, but leaned right next to her ear to do so, and the poor woman shot about ten feet in the air. Oh, Mac. I miss you so.

Out & About

2009-03-09T21:09:00.007-04:00

It’s Windy City here in Richmond. Good thing, because it’s nearly 80 degrees. In March! It makes me nervous when we have a couple of days like this in Virginia. Last year it seemed we had about a week of Spring and then it was Summer and nasty for about 5 months.

The old ladies went to the Mall today. Shopping for clothes is something I like less and less as I grow older and fatter, and I’ve never been someone who can shop all day. So I don’t go very often at all, and when I do, it’s nice to have She along. Otherwise, I’d try on one thing, see “old” and “fat” in the mirror, and come home and put my head under the comforter all afternoon. She keeps my spirits up. Although she did comment about one pair of pants I was considering for try-on: “Where’s your bucket? Where’s your straw hat? Aren’t you going clam digging?” Didn’t try ‘em. We went to Nordstrom. The prices were not K-Mart or Target low, but they weren’t bad, either. When you consider that every pair of pants we buy needs taking up, and Nordstrom does it for free, and how great their customer service is, it makes more sense. We each bought two pairs of pants and several tops. We had the salesperson on the run fetching different sizes and colors, and she was always delightful. She even took our purchases to the car for us! I don’t know why every store can’t copy the Nordstrom model of customer service. There is a clerk at Macy’s who has been there for years. She’s as helpful as a rock, and just about as bright. She only becomes animated when she’s ringing up the purchase, and then she hopes you will “go to the online survey and tell Macy’s what excellent customer service you enjoyed today.” Service for what? Punching the cash register keys? Well, it looks like I won’t have to enjoy her service this season.

We had the opposite in customer service at our next stop, which was lunch. I knew we should have simply pressed on for home, but it was 2:30 pm already, and we had been curious about “Max & Erma’s,” a new restaurant along Broad Street. Good Lord. The place smelled like stale cigarette smoke as we walked in, but I’ve been smelling strange things lately, according to She who wondered out loud if I didn’t have a brain tumor because that’s a symptom. Cheesy, faux cheerful décor. Fawning waitress (for awhile, anyway) who asked me soberly if I wanted to “upgrade” my fries to onion rings. Upgrade? That’s a new one in a restaurant, isn’t it? With four or five other patrons in the whole place, we waited over 30 minutes for our sandwiches. When She asked about our order, Fawn said “It takes a moment [sic], ma’am” and disappeared. Finally the so-so but thankfully not repulsive food arrived. While we ate, Fawn buzzed our table like a stunt pilot. Then: nothing. No Fawn. I tried to pay “up front” but the hostess said our “server” needed to take care of that. The hostess was pretty busy, watching some afternoon judge show on TV and reading the paper, but she supposedly toddled off to locate said server. After another long wait, Fawn drifted over with the check, we paid up and boogied. Never again. Bonne chance, Fawn. Eat dirt, Max & Erma.

Ghosts

2009-03-08T20:39:00.000-04:00

Spent too much time this weekend with a parade of ghosts walking through my mind. Nothing I want to write about. (I tried.) I think they’ve all gone back in the drawer now. More next week.

Introducing The Pets: Billy

2009-03-06T20:02:00.005-05:00

Billy has been waiting patiently for his turn to be introduced, but he hasn’t exactly been staring at his belly button lint. He has his daily and nightly rounds to make around the neighborhood, and his front porch observations to record. He knows who got a package delivered today, who had to have the plumber come out, and whose house is being painted. He really does know Ed, the painter who’s currently working at Linda’s house down the street, and who has painted rooms in our house in the past. We talked to Ed when he started work at Linda’s last week. “Billy Bob came down to see me,” he reported proudly.

Our kitty boy is famous in the neighborhood, not only for visiting, but for his walks with She and Pancho. There is the woman with the boxer dog on a leash; a few feet behind them trots their companion cat, tail high and proud, on assignment. They walk for blocks, with Billy occasionally taking a shortcut through a drain pipe running under the street.

Billy isn't really named Billy Bob. He started out his residency here with the name of Billy Collins, my favorite poet. He isn’t a poetic sort of cat, though, and he quickly became Billy Boy or just plain Bill. Gangly and so decidedly not a poet, he was not terribly lovable. He was about a year old, and skinny as an envelope. We liked his intelligent and watchful eyes, and his beautiful stripes. She thought he was going to be big, because of his feet, and we had already said we’d take him before he stood up in his cage, Lincolnesque in his homeliness. Even his tail was skinny. But once you say out loud that you are going to rescue an animal from its cage, you don’t go back on your word. We took Billy and Miss T home on the same day.

The skinny little dude behaved as though he’d never been petted in his life, and couldn’t be less interested. In retrospect, we think he was nearly feral. He literally climbed the walls, leaving shreds of paint hanging in his wake. We had promised the rescue people that we would keep the cats indoors, but eventually Billy got Out. We didn’t “let” him out. This is a cat who can leap to the top of an interior door, and he has no trouble leaping over, around, or through a mere human. Once he finally convinced us that Out was where he had to be, or else, he became a happier and calmer fellow. He even abides, pretty much, by a 10pm curfew. And finally, he began to understand about cuddling and being petted, especially by She. He cuddles on her lap while she says her prayers, sleeps glued to her side, and head-butts and kisses her awake in the morning. He is still opposed to being picked up, but he is loving in every other way, and polite to strangers.

Remember The Velveteen Rabbit, who became real when he was loved? Billy became lovable when he was loved. Funny, I’ve seen the same thing happen with people. Have to remember that.

Power. Gotta have it.

2009-03-02T21:01:00.004-05:00

We had a snowstorm here, and we lost power on our block on Sunday night about 10pm. We were in the midst of watching a 2-hour episode of Thin Ice with Tom Selleck. First time I’d seen it. His Golden Retriever is the best part, but the show’s not bad entertainment and I did want to find out if the kidnapped boy was still alive. Does anyone know???? We slept okay under warm covers, but this morning the power was still not back on, and it was damn cold. Let us just say here that neither of us is good at suffering gracefully or in silence. That will tactfully sum up the day we had until about 2:15 pm, when a Dominion Power truck drove by. A few minutes later, the window curtains were riffling gently from the nice warm air coming out of the heating vents. Thank God. We got about six inches of snow in this area, and it truly looks beautiful. When you’ve got power.
P.S. She just read this post, laughed, and said "It's funny now. Wasn't funny then." Nope.

Having A Hark

2009-03-01T14:52:00.009-05:00

Listening to Phoebe Snow “With A Song In My Heart.” Mmmm hmmm. Yes, Phoebe. If you know someone who covers this song better than my Phoebe, please tell me who it is. Perfect for being warm inside on a cold Sunday in the rain.

The title makes me hark back to the past, though. I hark easily. (My daughter can attest to this.) Readers, if you are old enough, let us give a nod together to the late Susan Hayward for her performance in the 1952 film of the same name. It's wonderful tear-jerker, based on the real-life story of Jane Froman, a well-known entertainer in the 40s and 50s. Ms. Hayward was nominated for an Oscar for her performance. I saw it at either the Tivoli or the Plaza theater in Laredo, Texas (they were kitty-cornered from each other). During the intermission before the 2nd “feature,” I was always so surprised to glance in the candy counter mirror and discover that I still looked like a little girl instead of the glamorous movie star I was sure that I had morphed into during the last hour and a half.

Here’s another hark for today: Does anyone remember archy & mehitabel, the unique characters created by Don Marquis in 1927?
No, I wasn’t alive in 1927, but the adventures of the cockroach who typed in the newsroom late and night and his unlikely pal, Mehitabel the cat, were going strong when I was growing up. The books are still available, and there is an excellent website here: http://www.donmarquis.com/archy/if you are not familiar with these tales and would like to sample a few.

Meanwhile, I’m off for my nap, but to quote Mehitabel:

there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai

Why I Can't Make My Bed

2009-02-28T12:56:00.003-05:00

I Coulda Married Pittsburgh

2009-02-27T00:26:00.013-05:00

When we were still living in Mexico, and had reached the point where we knew it was time to return to the States, I had an excuse to spend hours indulging in one of my favorite fantasies: “What if I lived somewhere else?” After all, that fantasy was kind of what got us to Mexico in the first place. We knew we didn’t want (and let’s face it, couldn’t afford) to live in California again. We were pretty sure that instead, we wanted to try the other side of the United States. We wanted a city, but not a huge one. Not after living in a Mexican village for four years. We wanted a college or university town, with all of its resources and the young people that come with it. I thought water in some form would be a very nice must-have; She is somewhat leery of water; especially rivers. They might flood. She's a Capricorn. The cost of living had to be relatively low, especially in terms of housing. Good libraries, bookstores, a symphony, local theatre, and excellent medical care all figured into the mix. Oh, and the weather. Not too hot; not too cold.

Inspiration came from various sources. The Internet was rife with lists of the “10 Best Places to Retire,” “5 Cities Where The Cost of Living is Low,” “Best Small Artsy Towns,” etc. Good friends were moving to Pittsburgh. How about there? No, they ended up in New Jersey. What about that? My favorite scouting resource was Realtor.com. I spent hours sitting up late, when our Mexican Internet connection moved the fastest. If Realtor.com came up with my dream house, the next step was to explore the local paper for that area, Google it, and so on. Sometimes I’d wake She up at 1:00 a.m. to tell her where I thought we should move. In not necessarily chronological order, here are some of the places where we might be living today, and some of the reasons we aren’t:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – too much snow
Newark, New Jersey –too much snow
Cleveland, Ohio – ditto
Columbus, Ohio – not much there, there
Baltimore, Maryland – too humid; too big; but great newspaper!
Kerrville, Texas – too hot and it’s, well, Texas
Jacksonville, Florida – there are 11,000 varieties of snakes in Florida. And crocodiles and alligators
Thomasville, Georgia – too small-town; too close to the Floridian snakes
Oxford, Mississippi - too hot
Asheville, North Carolina – friends had moved from there; said it was snooty and over-priced
Fayetteville, Arkansas – dunno why we decided against that one.
Norfolk, Virginia – too military

Isn’t it strange how we can discard a would-be life in the blink of an eye, based on a whim or rumor?

At some point, Richmond came up on the radar screen. It seemed to have all of our “wants,” and the James River was not a major threat, flood-wise. When we mentioned it to people, none of whom had ever mentioned it to us, they all had either lived in Richmond themselves at some point in their lives, or their brother did, or their cousin used to, and everybody loved it. Neither of us had ever seen it before in our lives.

We moved here in December of 2002, and within a year, She was sold on the place and wouldn’t live anywhere else. It took me much, much longer. After the initial delight of a new love, disappointment set in. It was much hotter and more humid than I ever could have imagined. I’m not really that fascinated by the Civil War. The James River not only does not flood (anymore); it is not easily viewable or accessible.

The first city I ever loved in person, and still pine for, is San Francisco. But the Lady of the Golden Gate has been unaffordable for decades. I loved Portland, Oregon dearly, but couldn't take her rainy mood swings. Now that I know I could live with her tears, she's gone and developed expensive tastes that are beyond my reach. Besides, I am (a) too old and tired to ever move again (b) beginning to maybe love this place. I don’t know why, really. And if I figure it out, I’m not telling.

Introducing The Pets: Miss T

2009-02-25T18:45:00.007-05:00

Miss T is the only one of our pets with her own voice. We can tell you what Pancho or Billy said (they’re boys of few words), but Miss T simply speaks. There is no “Miss T says” to introduce her remarks. She will say something like, “It is simply too cold for a delicate and refined kitteh like myself to go outside. Oh no, dear, absolutely not.” She says this in a gentle, refined voice with a Southern accent, not unlike the voice of the character Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. Miss T herself has always depended on “the kindness of strangers.” Her voice is so well known that even Shawn, a former co-worker who has never actually met Miss T, can do an imitation of it.

In fact, when we found Miss T, or Misty as she was then, at the cat rescue site, there was a sign on her cage that said she “talked.” I think they meant the little noises she makes that are definitely not meows—more like “eh eh eh” or “heh heh heh.” I don’t think the rescue people knew about the Blanche voice. If they did, government scientists would be surrounding our house with the intent of taking her for their own nefarious purposes.

I said earlier that Pancho follows Sheila around like an Airstream trailer. Miss T follows me like a four-footed member of the paparazzi. No one else will do. I am to be accompanied while on trips to the bathroom, getting dressed, eating meals, taking out the garbage, sitting at the computer, napping, and by all means going to bed at night. If she were allowed out further than the back yard, she would have her own little kitteh motorcycle, fitted out with flash camera, with which to follow me down the street.

She ignores but is not afraid of Pancho, and to Billy she is as the Peanuts character Lucy to poor Charlie Brown. Billy would love nothing more than friendship and trust. Six years into their relationship, he is still convinced that one of these days….but Miss T will have none of him, and when he looks at her cross-eyed he receives an automatic and almost disinterested paw whap. She will take over a cat bed just because she thinks he might want it. There are two food dishes, but the one Billy is eating from is the one she demands, and she has him cowed. Occasionally he gets mad and chases her into the bedroom, always and forever forgetting that he will jump on top of the bed and she will have skittered safely under it, just like a scene with Charlie Brown believing that this time Lucy will really hold the football while he kicks it.

There is no other way to say it: Miss T is a bitch. I know that, but I am enthralled by four white paws, complete devotion, and the voice of Blanche DuBois.

Beethoven Girls

2009-02-22T14:26:00.003-05:00

We went to the Symphony last night. The venue was one of the several temporary ones the Symphony has had in the last few years. Last night’s was the First Baptist Church. In September, the Symphony’s permanent home will be the new CenterStage downtown, which is slated to open then. Meanwhile, all we had to do last night was drive down Monument Avenue to the First Baptist Church and slide in our assigned pew. The offerings were Beethoven, Boccherini, and Shostakovich. We are Beethoven girls, we decided. His Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21 (1800) was the show opener. The guest conductor, Arthur Post, seemed to have the music embedded in his very bones, and it was a joy just to watch him. “Looks like Tom Cruise from behind,” we heard an old lady comment appreciatively. It was the kind of performance that makes you clasp your hands tightly so that you don’t make an ass out of yourself by applauding wildly after the first movement.

Since discontinuing Lexapro several months ago (who needs an anti-depressant when you are retired), I have enjoyed crying at the drop of a hat, and last night was no exception. Watching Arthur Post and his passionate young backside, and looking at the mostly-young faces of the musicians, I dropped a few tears of happiness in the knowledge that all truly wonderful things, including love and passion and music, are in safe hands. Had to borrow some Kleenex from She.

When we came home, we were hungry because having had a late lunch, we had not eaten dinner. “Let’s have the rest of the nut balls,” I said. (Homemade. Delicious.) She filled two liqueur glasses with Harvey’s Bristol Cream. A perfect end to a symphonic evening.

Carmen’s Nut Balls

2 c. flour
¼ c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 c. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
2 ½ c. finely cut nut meats

Sift flour and sugar and salt together. Work in butter and vanilla. Add 2 cups of nuts, and mix well. Shape into balls, roll in remaining nuts, and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar while warm.

Note: Eat over a big napkin to catch crumbs, or just stand at the kitchen sink and wolf them down. Serve with Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

Taxes With Zeke

2009-02-20T17:42:00.008-05:00

She says that going to get her taxes done each year feels like a trip to the confessional. I agree that it is quite stressful to think about in advance, but once we are in our CPA’s office, tucked into our respective chairs, we are as content as two clams. John is “Mr. Virginia” personified: charming as all get-out and possessed of a wicked sense of humor. I don’t pay any of my other friends for a pleasant hour spent in their company, but if I had as good a time with them as I have at John’s office once a year, I might think about it. It helps to have a friend who tells you that you don’t owe the government anything and you’re getting enough money back to celebrate with a hot dog lunch at Melito’s.

Mostly, She sits in her chair and muses out loud about whatever or whomever happens to be running through her mind at the moment, I play straight woman, and John manages to participate without ever looking up from his Dell laptop.

She: You know, Gerald is only 80.

Me: What do you mean, only 80?

She: He acts like he’s 103.

John [typing]: If yew ah 103, yew don’ act lak anythin’. Yew jus’ lay theah.

Today we finally got to meet Zeke, John’s wonderful English terrier. We’ve admired his photos for six years, but never got to meet the guy in person. Isn’t he a prince? Don’t tell Pancho.

Introducing The Pets: Pancho

2009-02-19T13:43:00.007-05:00

We got Pancho when we were retired the first time, in Mexico. No, not New Mexico. Mexico. We’d had to put down our dog Rosie, and we let our vet Carlos know that we were on the lookout for a small dog. That was a ridiculous restriction, because we know perfectly well that the pets we take in are simply the first ones that look us in the eye, and size or other pre-qualifications be damned. Thank God no SPCAs or vets have ever had a soulful-eyed elephant standing around on the day we were there.

On the day we stopped by the veterinary to pick up Rosie’s collar and leash, Carlos mentioned that he had a dog that we might like. He didn’t say a word about “small.” He did tell us that he’d been taking care of this dog (breed unmentioned) for 7 months, after one of his employees rescued it from her neighbor, who was abusing the then-puppy. We walked out into the small but clean area where Carlos boarded a few dogs, letting them mill around outside during the day. Pancho, who already had his name, ran right up to us, or I should say, ran right up to me. You must know that She has always been “the dog person” and I have always been “the cat person.” Dogs always prefer her and usually ignore me entirely, entranced by her superior dog loving personality. (More than one of my beloved cats cheated on me with She all the time.) Pancho put one paw on my knee and laughed lovingly into my face. He gave She a polite sniff and a brief smile, and came running back to me. And that's all it took, of course.

Pancho is a boxer. Not the biggest boxer we’ve ever seen, but a boxer nevertheless. Boxers are not small dogs. After we said we’d take him, Carlos offered to feed him first. I glanced at my watch, and Carlos assured us that “it would just take a minute.” It probably took under 30 seconds, because that’s been Pancho’s average dinner time for the last 8 years. Carlos also said that although Pancho was admittedly not small, he was “used to being outside.” That’s true. Pancho pees and poops outside and then barks peremptorily to be let back in. When he first saw snow, he wouldn’t go outside until he saw a neighbor dog prancing down the icy sidewalk. He has a big comfortable bed from L. L. Bean or somewhere. Inside.

The minute we got him home, he became devoted to She, following her around like an Airstream trailer. He never follows me, and if she is not home when I get up in the morning, I often get no acknowledgement whatsoever. But I am the one who taught him to sit and shake, to pretend to bite my feet when I squeal “Eek!” and to howl on command. (Why would anyone want to command a dog to howl? Because it’s funny.) He loves me when She’s around. He plays with me, laughing lovingly into my face. He loves to hear me chant “Who dat big brown dog wid de tail go roun’ and roun’?”

He’s our boy.

Sleeping Under Louise

2009-02-18T18:13:00.010-05:00

It actually snowed this morning. Big, rapid flakes. All gone by 10 a.m.

Billy was asleep on my bed all day (until he moved to She's bed.)

Miss T slept in the cat bed under Louise all day.

Louise is my dresser.

Thelma is the mirror on top of Louise.

Pancho always sleeps all day.

I had a delicious nap, myself, down comforter and dark-day cozy.

She went back to volunteering at the hospital this morning, and is presently making dinner.

All is well. Oh! And the rutabaga was quite good, mashed with some sour cream.

Errands, Rutabaga, and Twisted Tales

2009-02-17T17:35:00.023-05:00

We ran some errands today--my favorite kind: the library and a place with food (today the latter was Trader Joe's). I drove. The mail had arrived right before we left the house, and I brought the new-used Katie Melua CD package with us, asking She to please take it out of the package so we could hear it. We were on the road quite a few minutes with no music. "I'll be peeling the plastic off this thing when the world ends," She proclaimed. You know how those CDs are wrapped, like the Tylenol poisoner might get into them? She finally got it. Piece by Piece--great album.

When I was in high school, my friend Linda drove up next to me when I was walking home from "downtown" San Carlos, California. "Where have you been?!?" she yelled. "I've been looking all over for you! I went to the library and Safeway and you weren't there!" So my habits started young. Anyway, the library had a book for She that I had put on hold for her: The Old Dog of the South, by Charles Portis. You may remember Charles Portis as the author of True Grit, which was also a great 1969 movie with John Wayne. She just finished True Grit. Tara, who understands She's reading tastes pretty well, made her buy it when we were at Half-Priced Books in Cincinnati last month. The library was also holding Anne of Avonlea for me. Lately, while waking up from my nap, I've been considering various books that I read in my childhood or teenagerhood, and I decided that I wanted to re-read Anne of Green Gables. Well, no wonder! What a sweet book with just the right measure of sweetness and pretty darn good writing.

The sun was coming in the window warm and bright; the orchard
on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush
of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees.

I had no idea that there were eight Anne of Green Gables novels, and I am now in the midst of Anne of Avonlea. It may have been magical to read Anne when I was 8 or 9, but it is an absolute healing pleasure to read her at 64.

A completely different book popped into my mind this afternoon, and I must find a copy of it. Years and years ago, I somehow came across the Twisted Tales books by Richard Armour, and I used to laugh myself sick over Twisted Tales From Shakespeare. These involved couplets with a "real" first line from a Shakespeare play, followed by a Richard Armour invention in the second line. I still remember two quotes from that book:

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
No wonder there are keel marks on her lips.

and

Full fathom five thy father lies.
I pushed him; I apologize.

After the library, we went to Trader Joe's. The official reason for the stop was to buy the protein powder that my friend Toni recommended for me. The not-so-deeply-hidden underlying reason was that I wanted a buncha stuff from Trader's that I love, like the lacy cookies (don't read that, Toni!) and the potstickers. There must have been some other unavoidable purchases as well, because the bill was over $60.00. She bought a rutabaga. We were talking about rutabagas yesterday with our friend Sue, and I admitted that I had never eaten one. So tonight, I am. I'll let you know.

When I looked up Richard Armour on the Internet (I had forgotten his name until after my nap, when it popped up cooperatively in my brain), I found a quote attributed to him that seems entirely appropriate during this week of the signing of the economic stimulus package (please, please let it work):

That money talks, I'll not deny, I heard it once: It said, 'Goodbye'.

Billy doesn't give a rat's ass.

Death in the South

2009-02-16T16:08:00.003-05:00

Richmond obituaries are different from those I recall reading in California. Granted, I was younger in California and perhaps did not read the obituaries as closely as I do now. By closely I mean that I mentally calculate the average age of death for the day, and if it comes out to be more than ten years older than I am, it's a good day. More than fifteen years older is a great day. Meanwhile, I am convinced by the content of the obituaries that the reason I still live is due to my general lack of accomplishment and the fact that my friends and family are not breathlessly amazed by the extent of my kindness to strangers, overwhelming generosity of spirit, beautiful singing voice, and unbending cheerfulness.

But I'm pretty well convinced that the South has not lost its grip on Richmond when it comes to obits, and that's a good thing. No one "dies" in Richmond, or very few, at any rate. They "depart this life" (my personal favorite), "go home to be with their Heavenly Father," "begin their journey to the Lord," "enter into their Eternal Rest," are "called home" and so on. Nicknames are extremely popular in the South, and they are always included in the write-up, no matter how undignified the nickname may be, or how seemingly unsuited to the photograph of a grim, cadaverously ancient gentleman or lady. Examples are usually plentiful, but I can find only two in the past few days: Emroy M. Adams "Boodie Bump," and Donald Hugh Etheridge, Sr. "Hawkeye." May they both rest in peace. Many times it is obvious that family members have written all or most of the obituary, and often to the delight of readers. This morning we were informed that an 86 year old lady had "turned to shopping as a profession, after a brief career in nursing, and made a greater effort to stimulate the economy than President Obama ever will. The vast majority of Richmond merchants will mourn her passing." What fun!

Sundays

2009-02-15T16:34:00.007-05:00

I hated Sundays all those years that I worked. Sunday meant that just as all the Saturday chores and errands were done, and I was starting to rediscover the joy of life, it was time to get ready to start the work week all over again. Those who have never had a strictly controlled "job" 5 days a week, 8.5 hours a day minimum, plus 2-3 (or more) hours of commute time would never be able to understand that. A frisson of sadness arrived in my heart every Sunday afternoon.

But now! Just another day, my dears, albeit with that certain Sunday quiet and somehow clearer air.

Some things about Sunday:

Oh, how I love CBS' Sunday Morning. It's not always a great program, but more often than not it's a terrific package of good things about interesting people, art, music, movies and books. The program is always capped by what we call "the nature scene", which has been all too short the past several years. It used to go on for at least a minute, with no commentary save for the hum of bees, chirping of birds, and blowing of the wind. Now the segment is down to 30 seconds or less. I wrote CBS about this once, but they made no changes, if you can believe it.

I wonder if it's true that newspapers are fading away. When there's "nothing in the paper" day after day and especially on Sunday, how can they last? Most weeks, there is nothing I want to read in the book review section, nowhere I want to go (much) in the travel section, and nothing I want to eat, never mind cook, in the food section. The news, by the time it hits the Sunday paper, has already been driven into the ground by CNN, Yahoo, Comcast, and your local station except for very local interest, and even that is and can be covered online, with slideshows to boot. And that includes obituaries! More about obits another time. We have only one good local columnist in the Richmond Times Dispatch: Michael Paul Williams. When we first moved here, there were several, but they have all moved on--and I think because they were either asked to do so or were made uncomfortable enough to choose to leave. Well, there will never be another Herb Caen from the San Francisco Chronicle, nor another Jack Smith from the Los Angeles Times.

At 5:30 pm on many Sundays, I attend the Celtic service at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Oddly, although I am officially an Episcopalian, I have never attended a regular Sunday service there. The Celtic service is just about right for me: pretty much come as you are. The church is primarily lit by candles for this service, and the musical accompaniment is a piano, a flute, and either a harp or a guitar. Instead of a sermon, there is a very brief "reflection" by one of the priests, followed by silent meditation. Every service is opened by a poem or short prose selection. Tonight's was the title poem from Mary Oliver's book of poems called Thirst:

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have.  I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has 
given us such beautiful lessons.  Oh Lord, 
I was never a quick scholar but sulked 
and hunched over my books past
the hour and the bell; grant me, in your
mercy, a little more time.  Love for the
earth and love for you are having such a
 long conversation in my heart.  Who
knows what will finally happen or 
where I will be sent, yet already I have
given a great many things away, expect-
ing to be told to pack nothing, except
the prayers which, with this thirst, I am 
slowly learning.