Some Bad Karma--Life Story #15

Fear is a really useful but also dangerous energy in this life. (The most obvious recent example of the bad things fear can do is the 100's of thousand deaths of innocent people caused by this stupid war brought about in fear of a vague enemy.) I have not been truly afraid for a long, long time and so this recent fear came to me as a strong jolt, and in hindsight, I am not all that proud of how I reacted.

Hubby was working down at the dock getting the boat cleaned and I had finished some errands in the house and was heading down to ask him some question. We were going to take some friends out on the boat that afternoon, and since we are all getting older, one of my routines is to pick up all the newly fallen broken sticks and branches in the path to the boat so that no one accidentally falls on the hilly path.

When I reached the dock and hubby emerged from the small boat cabin, I asked how things were going. He looked at me and asked me,

"Didn't you see the dead copperhead on the path?"

I, who had so carefully scanned each and every inch of that path picking up snake-sized sticks did not see anything out of the ordinary, and I told him that. He looked at me in disbelief wondering how I could have missed it. He explained that he had almost stepped on it as a bucket in his hand had blocked the view of the path and he immediately knew he would dispatch it with a large log by smashing the head. (Killing snakes is not nice even if they are poisonous, but he had a grandson who ran willy nilly to the dock recently, and therefore, we would not be able to sleep at night letting this pit viper survive.)

Hubby followed me back up the path to show me the location of the snake with the smashed head. We got there and we peered every which way. There was no snake. Hubby was sure he had crushed the small skull, and therefore, wondered if in the short ten minute span an animal had taken it away to eat. I said it might have been alive enough to crawl under one of the logs lining the path. We poked around another minute or so and then decided it had snuck away to die a slow but peaceful death. I turned to head back up the hill and as I got closer to the top I saw the fat fellow just a foot away. It lay right in the middle of the black sand path as still as a curved stick and looked none the worse for wear. If you have never seen a copperhead, it is truly a beautiful animal. It almost looks as though some artist had painted the coppery and grayish tones of color across its back with a brush.

But, this close encounter caused me to almost swallow my tongue as I leaped back to my husband's side. It had appeared as if by magic out of nowhere. It was fat and healthy and not moving---thank goodness. If it had been scurrying, I would have probably swallowed both my tongue and heart in fear. Hubby quickly grabbed another large piece of wood and pinned its head against the sand once again. I told my husband not to move while I hurried up the path to the garage for the shovel. When I returned he severed the head quickly with the edge of the shovel and we threw the beautiful animal into the river.

I realize that copperheads are not as aggressive as people commonly believe and that the freezing in place was its defence mechanism and that we should have just tossed him by stick into the woods to go on his way or walked widely around him. But neither my husband or I could bring ourselves to be so fair. We were frightened for our grandchildren and that deep primitive urge to protect our own rushed forward bringing with it adrenaline and no immediate regret as we ended the life of this innocent animal.

I am sad that I did this, but I also am honest with myself and mother nature, in that I would certainly do the same again.

(Seems to be an unusual amount of references to snakes, rubber and real, in my blog these days!! What's that all about?)

The Big Weekend or A Precautionary Tale

This blog entry is a tale for those future grandmothers/grandfathers wondering if their young adults are ever going to get it on and present them with some grandchildren. Remember, it is said that you sometimes get what you wish for...

Recipe for potential disaster, mix the following carefully:
4 thirty-somethings--two males and two females
2 toddlers--11 months and 12 months
2 preschoolers--3 + years old
2 old farts

If your first-born grandson sleeps in your room because the baby sister is sick with a fever, you will not need an alarm clock. He will present you with a rubber snake before the sun is up.


Fortunately, he can pretty much dress himself. This is very useful as your eyes are not yet open, and, unlike him, you cannot form complete sentences. Thus, you are not much help.


Baby sister does not let a little flu bug hold her down. She may have gotten the household up three or four times crying with a stopped up nose and congested lungs, but she still takes her morning crawl right after a breakfast of blueberry pancakes. Note to new grandparents...you had better keep up! Mommy is barely functioning.




Once you pass the test to see if you can get to all the dangerous places in the house before the crawler and retrieve all the bugs you thought you had vacuumed, then it is time to go on the post-breakfast constitutional. This usually results in one or the other being carried on the way back as the morning gets hotter. Do not hold your breath as you will not be the one to be carried.


After lunch it is time for the mid-day swim. Remember to keep your camera dry because you will get wet even though you do not get into the tiny pool.

No one is safe from getting wet including the local wildlife.

The first day begins to wind down with a toe counting exercise. As luck would have it all of them have all of their toes!!

And, as usual, it is the male of the species that crashes just before dinner as the sun is receding behind the trees.

Footnotes:
1)The adult males were the only ones who had time to play several games of ping pong, fish from the dock and actually stay up late and watch a movie. How in the hell we let them get away with that I don't know, but we continue to let them think they are the stronger and smarter.

2) This visit 90% of the folks were excellent eaters and praised my meals until I got that warm glow of energy to do it all again the next day.

3) Tabor lost 1.5 pounds!! I have been putting in two miles on the elipitcal many mornings with out budging any fat cells. I just need more weekends like these where I never sit and rarely eat.

It is not even Halloween

While cleaning the storms broken branches and leaves from the driveway, we came across this black jelly-like fungus in the photo above that was curled in the rocks. It is cubist in form and was about fours inches in size. Any ideas anyone? What are the chances of a mycologist reading my blog? And, no, we didn't drop anything chemical in nature...that we can think of.

Glutton for Punishment?

Oh, yes, I guess that is what I am...a glutton for punishment. Sometimes it seems that things happen to me without any pro activeness on my part. Actually I do know that this coming weekend was not even a glimmer of an idea in my mind, because I have been sleeping so well these evenings. Certainly this was actually all my daughter's idea. I do NOT remember initiating this. I do not even remember talking about it at length with anyone...but then, one of the lovely attributes of getting older is that darn forgetting part. Just because you do not have it written on the calender, does not mean it was not scheduled. After all, it WAS on someone else's calendar.

Tabor's B&B is once again opening for weekend business. It seems that my daughter and her husband and her two toddlers are joining us ALONG with her friend and her friend's husband and THEIR TWO TODDLERS. Yes, I will be entertaining four very tired adult parents and four very active tots under the age of 3.5 that are pretty much as mobile and curious as un-housebroken puppy dogs. This may be just the breakthrough I need to lose those last 5...10...alright, 15(!) pounds.

I have planned a menu or two and am cleaning the house, although with four little rugrats being set loose, only God knows why! I have battened down the hatches, even though I have found that little fingers are really experts at hatches. I have stocked the 'larder' with applesauce, microwave mac & cheese, colored goldfish, and frozen juice bars. I will set up the small rubber swimming pool with grandmotherly sprightliness. I will take my vitamins. If I were the religious type, I would pray, but perhaps some of you can do that for me.

OH, this should be so much fun...right? Photos to follow...

The New Blogger

While leaping into the new blogger and using the easier editing features which add the ability to change fonts, background colors, and to some extent, drag and drop various page elements, I also found that adding links to a list such as the blog roll was much easier. To create the blog roll you just have to add the URL into a window menu and it will automatically add the blog name as well as organize it by title or by most recent blog entry! Saves me a lot of time not writing the html code for a bulleted list as I did in the old days. The template that I chose was not as flexible, but maybe I will fiddle with another template in the future and just make it part II while linking back to the old blog...!

Cha..Cha...Changes

Richard in Atwater has mentioned that I could 'stretch' my photo uploads for better viewing. I usually post in low-res for those who do not have great band-width, but thought 'stretching' the photos on the template might be nice.

Unfortunately, you must completely re-load your template and I mis-read thinking it was going to back up the old blog template...which it did not. Then to make my morning more challenging, it does not appear that the template I had chosen allows me to use the blog 'stretch' feature, because I cannot find that option anywhere.

And just to keep me on my toes, I have lost my blogroll in the process. I do have the blogs bookmarked so I will have to reconstruct that all again in the future. I must say, that I usually am the type to look before I leap, but when it comes to computers, I just plunge in!

Anyway, here is one of the looks I settled on after getting sick of changing fonts, colors, etc. I do not know if I can live with...will. see.

Tabor Dancing

The weather has been so hot and muggy that hubby and I decided we just had to head to the nearby mountains---nearby being a relative term as it was about a 5 hour drive, carbon footprints be damned. We had visited and even camped in this national park many times, and thus, it was like visiting another home. Some of my blog readers will be able to identify it, I am sure.

We stayed at one of the lodges but I am proud to say that the second day we put in a 10 mile hike. I have not done that type of hiking in years and am glad that I found I still had the stamina.

The initial trails are usually clear and well worn even though you can see the summer has been wet.

The initial signs are usually quite clear for the trails as well even though the Park Service is on tighter and tighter budgets.

As we got farther into the more isolated trails, we found the signs not only less clear but even more telling!

Coming across this on the path gave us pause and also helped us understand the previous sign.

Even though we were above 4,000 feet the mid-day temperatures were pretty warm and we frequently sought shelter under the shade of trees in the high meadows. We were careful when we left the trail, because as you can see from the photo above, the trail can soon disappear. I photo-shopped it with ladybugs to show how camouflaged it could get just a few yards off the beaten path.

This lovely spruce forest floor makes for very quiet walking and that is why I stepped on a 2.5 foot snake without he/she or I being aware in time to avoid each other politely. I had paused to catch my breath when hubby came up behind me and looking at my feet said calmly but sternly, "Keep moving. Keep moving." As I lifted my right foot I glanced down to see the coils and instantly danced to the other side of some rocks skinning my shins nicely. While my legs have some lovely scabs, the poor snake got the worst of it as he seemed to be somewhat lumpy as he scooted away. We had been returning from the day's long hike, and I was being rather heavy footed with fatigue. We, of course, tried to remember what mountain rattlesnakes and copperheads really looked like as we hustled more carefully on down the trail counting our blessings only to see a smooth green snake scoot in the grass ahead and also what we identified as a common water snake just ten minutes further down the trail. We were blessed, I guess. Upon reaching a visitors center we pulled one of the guidebooks and determined that I had stepped on a juvenile rat snake.

In spite of the adrenalin rush the rewards of the hike were many including fresh blueberries for munching and...

...a blanket of wild bee balm.

We stopped at the top of the ridge for a late lunch and had some of the best views above the woods. I don't know of any fancy restaurants that can provide this kind of atmosphere.

That's the Limit

While I was sleeping someone caught his limit and more! So hot and humid here that I think it is time for a two-day trip to the mountains tomorrow. I will let you know if we did it.

This Sunday Morning

Although I have been retired for some time, I do not seem to be falling into much of a regular pattern of daytime/nightime activity. Yesterday I slept until 7:30 (after being lightly wakened by hubby at 4:00 who was heading off for a fishing trip with buddies) and this morning I woke up abruptly, looked at the clock and saw that it was only 4:30. I tried to drift back to sleep, but after 40 minutes I admitted defeat and got up.

Sitting here on the stairwell balcony, where I blog, I can smell the coffee that is ready in the kitchen, hear the faint chirp of birds just waking and hear the deep and regular breathing of my husband in the bedroom below. Today, like most days, is a totally free day for me. I can do whatever I want. Yes, I have a project list, compulsive creature that I am, but I also know that 90% of the things on this list do not have emergency status.

I am not yet too full of free time, not yet satiated and ready for something scheduled that forces me to get up and get going. Perhaps this winter I will look for something to do that fulfills that need, but now I am still in wonder at this endless free time given to me each day. I sometimes think of my mother and father and the early years of their retirement. I wonder what thoughts they had about this time in their life with their children grown and involved with their own lives. My parents were busy and hardworking people and idle time did not come easily to their generation. I know that in their last years watching baseball on TV in the afternoons was my father's respite after clearing weeds and working in the garden. My mother would do her flower gardening and some canning in the summer and then look forward to an afternoon nap. Was this enough to fill their day and the all the rest of the days of their lives?

I do know that the nagging concern I had about having too much time with my husband and not enough alone time, which I so desperately need, has not been a reality. He is a self-starter most days and we spend about 50% of our time doing things together and 50% on our own separate projects. He does not need me to be his oxygen and that is a relief. He also continues to let me be the bossy one in structuring many activities and I am trying to be more compromising in that area. Now that I have so much unstructured time I do not feel the need to be so regimented.

Another good thing I have noticed is I am becoming less anxious about this thing called retirement. Eventually, I may more easily accept it as my new way of life!

It is starting

We are now one for one as hubby has retrieved a tomato from the garden and today I get to harvest my patio tomato.


These photos should go on my other blog about the wonderful planet earth...but I am so excited that I have this little bit to share. Everyone from Earth Home Garden to East and West at Every Turn has been posting delicious photos of their bloomers far outshowing my humble efforts. My beginning perennial garden has been a struggle this year. I read somewhere that it takes between 30 and 50 years to get a decent perennial garden established and I do not have that much time! So I will enjoy what I can while I can! The photo above is a healthy achillea (maybe vista?) that adds nice warm color to the end of a flower bed. (The orange flag shows where a soaker hose lies.)

Yes, I am cheating, by including some annual container plants below.

Here is a small chaste bush/tree that seems to be deer resistant. When left in a clear space in full sun they become big and lovely like the butterfly bush and the bees love them.

These lantana are in a container on my deck where I had a lovely crowded cover of yellow pansies. These are now suffering from summer heat and therefore lantana will replace that.

This lovely fellow bloomed last week and the rabbit ate the stem and left it on the ground with about three other potential blooms! The plant now sits behind a wire cage and is allowed to bloom once again.

Moss Rose are always perfect on the south facing heat of the back deck as are the lovely purple petunias and sage below.

The guara, below, I planted last year and although it is now in the wrong place blocking the path,(covered with bumble bees which is not good for the insect phobic relatives) it will be moved and do very well in a few other places I have planned.

My tempermental hybrid tea rose gave me a lovely first bloom in the early spring. Later I battled with thousands of Japanese beetles in early summer and lost a half dozen other blooms (but now seem to have won the war this year with a beetle trap on the back of the house) and now it is giving a lovely full bloom.

Well, it isn't much but it does warm the cockles of my heart these days.

The Tobacco Barn

On the side of the entrance to the county park just before the posted map of the trails, we saw this old tobacco barn. The last public tobacco auction for the county was held a few years ago and this part of American agriculture is now history. The countryside is dotted with these aging gray barns that are no longer used due to a buyout for tobacco farmers that was successful, and even though there is some small effort at preservation, these historic structures are not being preserved in most cases. If this barn had been used for drying tobacco I would have readily been able to see the rust colored leaves hanging down inside. Unfortunately, the structure and shape of these barns doesn't easily lend itself to reuse. There were varied shapes to the barns in parts of the South but this traditional barn shape is the most common for our area.

There was a sign on the outside of the structure saying KEEP OUT which of course motivated me immediately to walk through to the cooler inviting shade. It was being used for keeping straw bales dry. I aged this photo as homage to those farmers who built this country with honest sweat and determination. The tobacco industry may have been an unhealthy crop, but at the time the money it brought in to farmers was significant as it was a 'mainstay' crop for the area.

I could not smell the tobacco as some say you can inside these old buildings, but the daylight peaking through the slats was quite romantic. This, along with hinged openings, insured the tobacco would cure correctly. If you click on the photo above you will be able to see the saw marks left from the circular saw that was used to cut the wood at the saw mill. This circular saw was probably powered by a late 18th Century water powered saw. Do you remember Little House on the Prairie when Laura's dad worked at the water powered sawmill in town? The time when people did the work that had to be done to feed their families...not just for that big screen TV.

Stuck in the Craw

Breath in and breath out and then go for a long walk:

• While watching Wimbledon over the weekend someone looked at me and said, "Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Billie Jean King?"
• Someone cannot make it down for the holiday weekend event until the last day and then spends the better part of the day either sleeping or watching sports on television--fortunately this is NOT a blood relative.
• When asking a guest to make salad she takes out all the avocado and puts it in a separate bowl because she doesn't like avocado.
• After doing all the planning and shopping for the meal, marinating the hamburgers, slicing the hot dog buns, setting out all the condiments, slicing the vegetables, making homemade potato salad, making cucumber fennel salad, making dessert and then taking out everything to the deck all by myself, someone compliments hubby on the great BBQ since he did the grilling!
• While backing the car out between two nearby cars on the way to the fireworks the driver nearly has an accident trying to dodge a tiny moth inside the car and then yells at the spouse because driving and having a phobic reaction to tiny insects is not a big deal.

Oh well, there is always next year!

Happy Independence Day for America

It seems that my husband and I have spent our 4th of July by ourselves these past few years. So, I have asked Daughter and her family and her in-laws down for the weekend this year for a little celebration. This will be the first time Xman gets to stay up to see the fireworks.

Thus far I have made a pasta sauce, a fruit bowl, banana muffins, choco-chunk cookies, potato salad and lemonade. The rest has been food shopping, and more food shopping for the BBQ.

I also rewashed the front windows and got ride of several wasps nests around the house (after one nasty sting), finished putting in the underground drip system and mulch for the two flowers beds, and completely cleaned the house.

We have washed off the deck and scrubbed the outside grill. We also scrubbed down the fiberglass and chrome on the boat...which took about two days alone!

I now remember why I usually don't have company for the holidays. Hopefully I will feel like doing some real writing after the long weekend.

HAPPY 4th to those of you smart enough to sit back with a cool drink and watch the fireworks!

If the Shoe Fits

The luxury of both wild and domestic raspberries!

I have been retired almost two months now---58 days. But I still feel that the shoes don't really fit. It is like I bought a lovely pair of Manolo Blahniks on sale and have worn them for 58 days straight and am still conscious that they are on my feet and that they fit a little stiffly. They also are so luxurious and attention getting that I keep thinking I don't deserve them and they don't quite go with my personality or my pace.

Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets about quitting work. I do not feel lost when I get up in the morning and do not have to rush off to work. In contrast, I luxuriate in the opposite, pacing my morning with a slow cup of coffee and reading while the sun comes up.

I do not feel badly about being on a tighter budget and once again in my life looking at price per unit and looking at coupons when I shop. I am so lucky in having everything I want that a little frugality is a nice seasoning to my life. (Of course, if this administration continues to ignore the downward spiral of this economy, I may be wearing tennis shoes soon.)

But I have so much time to ponder my future. The work that I am doing now (gardening, cooking, decorating) does not require focused thought and so I have time to let my mind wander in other directions. To overwork garment analogies I guess I am waiting for the other shoe to drop!

Are There Blogs in Heaven?

Maya's Granny

Blogroll #4

I have been meaning to do this for some time, but since it requires a little research and more time at the PC and more time coding in Blogger I have put it off until now. But today is the day and some folks are going to get rolled since they visited my blog before I got to theirs. I got this idea from Hoss over a year ago when he profiled those bloggers that he read or that commented on his blog. If you want to read about other bloggers that I read or that visit my blogs (or used to, as bloggers come and go like good friends), go to my right sidebar and select the blogroll links near the bottom the green section! Now for some new bloggers.

BearNaked has a fetish with teddy bears and the photos alone that accompany each of her posts are charming and will bring a smile on your gloomiest days. She blogs from Canada and therefore knows more than most of us about bears. She found me rather than me finding her and that is most flattering.

Another blogger who has stopped by my place is Beverly who is a neonatal nurse of longstanding. Doesn't that sound like one of the most important jobs in the world? Such a profession lets you know she is a woman of great courage. She writes from Tennessee and leads a very traditional southern grandmotherly life...except for a few surprises---like she once kissed Elvis!

Ernestine is on a Journey to Mindfulness. She has had to say goodbye to a farm where she could garden prolifically and say hello to the city life where she at least is close to her children. She shares my love of plants and has learned about the love of dogs. She also is going through the same thoughtful pauses that I have in having more time on my hands. When you see how young she looks you would be surprised at the age of her grandchildren!

Grannie Annie visited me a while back (only grannies visit me these days!) and I noticed that she had started blogging back in 2005. Talk about cutting edge blog boomers. She is prolific in her writing and there is no way I can keep up with her posts, but I do stop by when I have time. I, like her, have re-instituted my exercise program. I don't run a chicken farm like she does, but if our covenants allowed my husband would have a dozen hens right now.

Mary Lou is retired from the Navy. Lordy, she started her blog entries in 2003! I didn't even know blogger was up and around then. "I'm not sure what type of blog I want here, just brain dumps, or a real log. Do I want to get into emotions and feelings for the world to see? Do I want to write this just for me, or with the thought that others will be reading it also.." Sounds familiar to some of us, doesn't it.

Richard who live in Atwater is also retired Navy and maybe came by way of Mary Lou above? While I worked for an organization that was full of former Navy folks, I really don't know anyone currently in the Navy. Anyway Richard loves birdwatching as I do and seems to be single-handedly feeding every bird in his state. He has some good construction skills, which we could certainly use around here, as he has actually built a shed. We bought ours from the Amish.

I am extremely flattered that "Vishwa" from India also visits my blog. He is young and lives so far away! He doesn't have lots of entries each month, but each entry is well-thought out and well written. This entry about why we write blogs (http://vishymn.blogspot.com/2005/12/where-minds-meet-
and-wisdom-arises.html) got me thinking once again about why I write a blog. Stop buy and take a "Walk in the Drizzle."

Please stop by these blogs if they interest you and please tell them that Tabor sent you!! (Now I won't be blogging for a while as I have lots of blog reading to catch up on.)

The Powers of Observation

If you think that your knees are clicking when you head upstairs, a little detective work my help you realize you are not all that old!

Thursday Thoughts #11

1. This morning Hubby and I had a crab omelette which we made with two of the crabs we recently caught beneath the dock. This is a luxury meal that is much easier to prepare in retirement as picking crabs requires a leisure morning.

2. I have trepidatiously planted one hybrid tea rose in a bed near the front of the house knowing full well that they are like creme brulee for deer. I was weeding around it this morning and I looked up to marvel at the dozen or so pink buds getting ready to open. Then, even before I sighed with pleasure, the plant said, "I'm too hot. I'm thirsty. My feet are getting too wet. There is some strange fungus in that mulch. That salvia is too close to me..."on and on the temperamental beauty ranted.


3. I just noticed that I have not worn my engagement ring in almost a week, a longer time than I have ever had it off. I took it off to work in the garden and to clean and move basement boxes and it seems that I am doing all of this constantly these days and the ring sits in a ceramic box near the sink.

4. I got an email from work yesterday asking me if I remembered my Safeboot password for the laptop I had turned in. I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants.

5. Daughter is coming down this weekend since both of our husbands are otherwise occupied with fishing and/or golfing making us weekend widows. Since my husband is taking my son along for all of the following week, I may get to see his new girlfriend as she drives him down. I am trying to get her to stay the night...it might be a fun girly weekend after all---although there are toddlers involved so we will have to be wise on the wine.

6. I have not had to plan exercising time much this past month. Moving tons of dirt, digging holes, laying out bags of top soil and peat moss and working it all into the mounds of clay-based soil, laying out bags of mulch, lifting small shrubs and trees in containers all seem to be helping me get plenty of weight lifting and aerobic exercise. Just to increase all this fun, I and hubby have put down quite a bit of landscape brick after putting down the bed sand. Below is just one of the beds we have been working on.


7. I finished reading the Namesake but found the Kite Runner more moving and poetic.

8. I live out in "NO-NPR" land and there is a religious radio station that sits right next to NPR on my dial and overpowers the signal. I have spent time trying to get an antenna to capture NPR but have had no luck. I can only really enjoy NPR very early in the morning or while I ride in my car and now the tuner button has broken on that as well!

9. Kafir lime leaves are quite pungent and certainly two different meals (salmon patties and beef with asparagus) using this flavor are enough to satisfy us for quite some time. My tiny Kafir lime tree is also pleased that I have stopped denuding it for a while.

10. I actually did a crossword puzzle yesterday. That may be common fare for some people, but for me it always was something for those who have idle time which I never had. Although I love words and their meanings, I am not very good at crosswords and actually somewhat intimidated by them. I also rarely have the patience to sit and complete one puzzle. I didn't finish this entirely...but I got close!

It Never Changes

Yes, I did do my 'chores' today. Cleaned out the basement and we (me---hubby won't part with anything!) threw away a ton of stuff so that my newly finished basement is more inviting.

But I also passed the afternoon watching Out of Africa. I cried and cried and cried. I cannot watch that movie without bawling my eyes out. (Out of Africa even makes hubby tear up.) It will always be one of my favorites as the beauty of the photography alone keeps me coming back again and again, and I rarely find a movie that I will watch over again.

The movie says so much about how we fall in love and become part of that something (Africa) or someone (Robert Redford's character) that we love so deeply. This just doesn't work, because we bring our own ideas which bring changes and those changes attempt to change what we love, to make it better. And what we love is ever-changing anyway. And eventually we must say goodbye to it all.

Now it is your turn. What movie makes you cry?

Just Askin'

Chancy (For some reason Blogger won't let me link) recently left a comment that got me thinking about my overly aggressive activities that are filling my retirement days. She got me pondering about this space in time I now have. Am I hurtling through this free space so fast because I am waiting to hit another dimension…some great new insight…a black hole…a sudden stop at the brick wall? Am I keeping so busy trying to finish my extra long list because I need to? Is it because I really want to? It certainly isn't because I have to. Is it just habit that all the responsible things on the list are first and all the fun stuff is near the end? Will I ever outgrow this bad habit? Am I afraid that I will not have something to add to the list as I get near the end? Am I afraid to really look at the list and find nothing important is on the list?

Am I afraid that if I have nothing to do, it means I am close to death? That is certainly a morbid thought and I am pretty sure I can’t find this thought in the forefront of my mind anywhere. But then, at this time in my life I misplace almost everything at least once! I do know that I actually feel guilty sometimes that my dear kids have to work so hard and wish I could share my free days with them.

I remember a training course I took where one of the exercises was to write your own obituary. Maybe I need to do that over again.

Am I afraid that if I get some empty space, I mean days here not hours, I will realize my life has become more meaningless and less important? Now that is a heavy thought. If we are not saving the world or running people’s lives are we all that important anymore?

Well, after re-reading the above, I think the reason I am keeping busy is that I am a very depressing old fart.

No Hippie

I got my graduate degree from the University of Hawaii in the late 60's just as the Hippie culture was getting established. While the drug scene was delayed in spreading its mellow yellow across the Pacific Islands, it had arrived in full force by the time I was there. You may have read my Mary Jane story. If not go here and I will wait.

I have always used the excuse that I was too poor and too serious about my education degree to get caught up in even the milder illegal drug scene as a young adult. That reason is probably an artificial excuse. I never would have been a good hippie. The young man with the long flying blonde pageboy and flute in hand who asked me if I wanted to live in his cave up Manoa Valley when I was crossing campus one day got only a smile from me and not even a second thought. I guess I was born older than my age. I could see ten years down the road to the future after that cave of free smokin-free sex- good times. I was like an old adult already in my mind. I am sure that I was clearly no real fun at parties even though legal alcohol flowed freely.

I have revisited this part of my personality upon retirement. Today I washed 21 double hung, casement or french door windows. Yes, 21!! My hubby came back to the house for some business and yard work and I decided that this day had to be filled with some accomplishment on my part. I even vacuumed the layer of pollen from all the screens. I can see the green mansions clearly now.

I took a warm jacuzzi to ease the aches and pains from this labor and then put on my soft white robe and sprawled across my bed with a good book. I am such a Puritanical spirit that I cannot just enjoy such an activity without it being a reward for some work well done. I am the kind of free spirit hippie that Gandhi was. I understand his approach to life. I never felt in sync with Jack Kerouac or Jerry Garcia. The 60's were clearly wasted on me.

Braggin'

Thoughts of appreciation to those who have given their lives for freedoms too precious to define on this Memorial Day.

I am alone today as my husband has always had the unique ability to schedule business trips over three day weekends--this really means much less now that we are both 'retired.' My daughter is with friends and her family in New York. My son ... my son...what he is doing today is anyone's guess.

Yet all is well with my small soul as I got up early (5:00 a.m.) and started cooking at 6:00 a.m. I am spending next week with my daughter due to a number of social activities as well as getting hubby at the airport near her house. Therefore, at 8:01 I have completed a Tuna Noodle Nicoise Casserole, a Turkey Cheese Enchilada Casserole and 23 Devils Food cupcakes. I still have to make a fresh strawberry pie. I NEVER go empty handed to the house of a woman with small children. One MUST bring food. I can hear the envious sighs from across the blogosphere.

The Devils Food cupcakes are supposed to be one of those super healthy recipes...one small (13 oz) can of pumpkin filling and one devil's food cake mix. That is all that goes into this recipe! Mix and bake as directed on the box. I have never tried this recipe. The batter was sort of fudgy rather than battery, but seemed to taste OK. We will see how these low calorie snacks turn out. I did not think I would finish the casseroles so early, so now I have the rest of the day to get the potted plants ready for being ignored for the next 6 days.

I also made a banana cream pie...not my favorite but a great way to use the extra pie crust and leftover bananas.

Life Story #14--Someone Else's Life

I may do windows, but I don't do lawns. For some exotic reason I have avoided mowing lawns my entire married life. We have had both sit-down and push mowers in our house-owning life, and yet, while I do not mow the lawn, I will do with enjoyment the edging with the weed-eater. The grooming of the vast lawns we have owned in our married life has been left to hubby. I think it is because I do not like engines and all the idiosyncratic illnesses that they get. Hubby is now overseas for a while and the lawn has enjoyed the cool spring and weekly soaking rains and soon was lush and thick and needed a mowing.

I called the young man in the middle of the photo above about mowing the lawn, since he is one of the few people I know in this area. We met him while getting the house built. He and his two young friends in the background of the photo helped our builder put in the retaining wall. He is out of high school and I have no idea what his plans are for the future. He does not have the motivation, the learning or the money for college. He seems to be following in the footsteps of his mentor in the foreground of this photo to work in the building industry.

He is a quiet, shy and handsome young man that brings out the mother in me in an instant. When he had finshed our huge lawn with the push mower, I paid him probably double what a lawn mower gets in this area, certainly out of guilt for his circumstances. I gave him a large box of warm strawberries I had just picked, and with a surprised pleasure, he sat on the bench under the front porch eating them and drinking the water I gave him while waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up. He enjoyed the strawberries more than any young person I had ever seen. My children like strawberries, but don't really enjoy them with the enthusiasm this fellow had. I hadn't washed them and told him that even though they were organic, they probably had some dirt on them. This did not defeat his pleasure in any way.

Now for the rest of the story. Shortly after that picture above was taken, this young man along with the two boys in the photo and another boy not shown, were involved in a tragic car accident. There had been alcohol and teenage carelessness in the mix. Fortunately, no other car was involved. Among the four young men in this accident one died, one is now a paraplegic and one is in jail for drunken driving. This young man who mows my lawn escaped with his life 'intact' but forever changed and is now slowly piecing his spirit together.

MORE

My husband left just before this harvest...now my back hurts and my feet are wet from picking these out in the rain this morning. I have to pull some cookbooks I guess! I need a large family. I feel guilt at this abundance after watching the tragic news these past few days.

Breakfast---using the leftovers

We have been blessed this year with quarts and quarts of strawberries. I dread facing the garden after the rain today to pick even more! I have not picked since Saturday morning due to weather and being very busy. Anyway, after eating all the strawberry shortcakes and the strawberries and vanilla ice cream, we made strawberry syrup the other day. Too much of a good thing.

Hello or Goodbye ?

Just said goodbye to some distant relatives after a three-day visit. I had not seen them in years. I am listening to my newly quiet house with the dishes all done and the beds all re-made and pondering which I like better...their coming or going? It is not a trick question, I really don't know!

Post Script

I certainly started an interesting discussion on the blog entry below and I guess in the back of my mind thought I might do that and almost did not make this entry. Had this child been older and recognizable, I would not have posted this photo. But she will look very different in a few months. I think this Western society can no longer see sexuality as basic biology that is important to our survival as a species.

We all have masculine and feminine attributes from birth that are important and make us who we are. I do not feel these in and of themselves are bad or should be ignored. They make us the unique adults that we become. Some of us will have real struggles with these traits in a society that so objectifies everyone. I do agree that focusing on these attributes and ignoring a child's intelligence, personality, and health while raising the child is not a good thing. But I do think this is a LARGE leap to say we are 'objectifying' a child while recognizing their femininity or masculinity.

Seeing into the Future

As I photographed this baby-beauty a few weeks ago, I captured this moment in time. Tell me if you cannot see the sultry and sexual beauty she will become someday. She will break a few hearts and I can only hope her heart will not be broken too often.

Every Day IS Saturday

One of the jokes and truths about retirement is that you lose track of the days of the week and the months of the year. If one does not have a mandated schedule, everyday becomes a Saturday with chores and errands, but nothing really essential to complete. Since my retirement I have started another list. It is a learning list --- things I have learned from recent observations since my retirement.

1. Every day IS Saturday. There is just no pressure to get everything done before dinner, because tomorrow is, after all, Saturday!

2. Some of the working friends and family are jealous, so you have to be very low key about your new life. The more mature former working mates are more than happy to smile at your pleasure. And, of course, the really young are so happy that they are not old like you even though you do not have to work and they do. They would not trade places with you for a second.

3. Some days it does feel like you are free-falling. Free-falling is both exciting and scary...so you don't think to much about the end of the fall.

4. Yes, you do realize that the ultimate change ahead is death. And yes, you do think about it. But not often or with too much trepidation. After all, today is just Saturday.

5. On day 5 of my retirement I actually felt a teeny, tiny bit of trepidation about not having anything important to do...while gazing at the creeping phlox beneath my oak tree that feeling soon passed.

6. I spend more time observing since I don't have to be thinking about managing my time. Remember all those old people you see sitting at the mall or park who steadily watch the busy people hurrying by? I am now one of those old people.

7. Sitting at an Austin Grill eating a pre-midnight dessert on Friday evening I was watching dozen of couples of all ages 'dating.' Lots of eye contact and lots of joking and some flirting even among the 50-somethings. The place was full and busy and I found it hard to realize we are in a recession. Clearly this recession has not hit the restaurant trade in this area. I have several months yet to see how my retirement budget is going to work.

8. Sitting in the Pannera on Saturday morning savoring my coffee latte I watched a group of attractive women in their late twenties gathering at a table for some meeting. Some knew each other and some didn't, and watching the body language and the banter was interesting and reminiscent of another time in my life. Most of my observations now bring back such memories.

9. My daughter's retirement gift to me is several hours with a fashion consultant. Close your mouth and stiffle that laugh. Yes, I love her to death and I have learned in my many years of gift recieving, that gifts you get from others that seem odd are actually gifts the giver would like for themselves. This woman will visit my closet and tell me what works (perhaps that black tank dress) and what doesn't (certainly that navy blue flower bordered mini I bought in Hawaii ten years ago) and then we will go shopping together so that I can buy clothes...silk pajamas, perhaps, because I think she will frown on those elastic band sweat pants I have had my eye on.

10. I have finished two books already. House Lust, which is certainly a thoughtful look at our real estate addiction in light of this mortgage crisis and Eat, Pray, Love which is was a quick and fun read about a tremendously insecure woman who seems to find her place in this world. I am now reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Into a Desert Place by Graham Machintosh. With my eclectic tastes in reading material, I will have thousands of books to read in my retirement.11. Industrious things besides reading include washing the four rattan chairs and table that were stored in the garage, laundering their cushions, mopping the tile floor of the newly finished basement, and dusting everything in the basement including the elliptical glider which I have not returned to using as I promised...using energy to clean the damn thing, but not exercising on it, that says a lot about me doesn't it?

12. I have always loved the end of the day after work, anticipating the slow exhale as the sun heads toward the horizon. Now the late afternoon arrives with so much more peaceful acceptance on my part. Yes, the melancholy of goodbye to another day is still there, but the anxiousness about stuff undone for tomorrow is no longer eating at the edges of my mind.

And Thus Retirement Begins

I certainly thought that I would have more time and more motivation to blog after retirement. But that is certainly not the case. Blogging becomes one of the "I'll-get-to-it-later' activities.

Spring is planting time and I have spent a good part of my days starting the container plants on my deck. Since I am being lazy this year, they are all from purchased plants. In the future, I anticipate being more frugal and starting from seeds. I am an addict when entering the garden/landscape stores. It is as if I have been given a shot of some drug that suspends time and makes me need to see every planting table, pot and greenhouse section of the store at least three times. I wander and dream among all the treasures for sale . The trees are particularly enticing. Finances and deer that eat everything I plant are putting a healthy break on the purchases. Hubby and I have to figure out a fence system or see if the deer are being more tentative now that we are here full time.

Frugal YET!..we buy a water fountain that is so heavy it took four men to lift it into my husband's tiny trailer. There it sits until we figure out where in the back yard under the deck we want to put it. There it sits until we figure out how in the hell we are going to move it ourselves! It was 50% off since it was last year's fountain design. My mind boggles at the thought that even fountains have styles that come and go. The intricate pattern which may be over the top for some folks, reminded me of my days in Indonesia and the temples overgrown with jungle vines that we visited.

I also bought a number of herbs --- rosemary, sage, various basils...one patio tomato to compete with those hubby has in his garden

We also bought a calmondin orange tree. We had one of these many years ago in our other house. It produced wonderful flowers in February which filled the house with fragrance like the breath of an early spring. Then I harvested hundreds of tiny lemon-like oranges for drinks, baking, etc. The tree got to be about 6 feet tall and I had to give it away when we moved. Now I have a new one foot tall tree with blossoms on my deck waiting to re-establish the pattern.

I also bought a Kafir lime tree. I spend too much of my time hitting oriental markets looking for Kafir limes for my cooking. They are a rare and delicious treasure. And now I have a three foot tree filled with blossoms on my deck that has just been re-potted. Both trees will have to be moved inside next to the south facing window and pruned judiciously each year and re-potted every few years. AND moved back out onto the deck every spring. But, the rewards will be well worth the work involved. Thus the addiction begins once again.

(I will post pics on my other blog.)

Being Dishonest with Yourself

Onward and Upward

For a number of months, if not a number of years, I have imagined my first day of retirement. I kept thinking that the very first thing I would do would be pretty much nothing for a long time. Remember the movie (and book) The Da Vinci Code? The first victim uses the symbol of Vitruvian Man as his clue upon his death. I have always been intrigued by that image created by "the Roman architect Vitruvius. Vitruvius, a proponent of the Sacred Geometry of Pythagoras, designed temples based on the proportions of the human body, believing them to be perfect." It seems to represent Mankind's way of trying to merge with the 'imperfect' biology of the planet. In some way, that has been my nemesis...always trying to get to that level of perfection that brings peace. This is why I need to work on meditation, exercise, gardening...so that I find the inner perfection that is the only real perfection.

For some reason that symbol has floated in my mind for years --- this was one of the images NASA sent into outer space to identify mankind to the aliens. It is a mathematical representation of mankind, but to me it represents the essence of the human being with that full frontal, open armed 'take me as I am' stance.

I kept thinking I would like to take a bare space on the floor of my house the very first morning and actually lay down stark naked in exactly that position with a sort of yoga attitude and "reach" for my potential once I had acquired my 'retirement freedom.' I imagined this numerous times...but, I didn't do it. Maybe because I had done it in my mind so many times. I don't know.

I do know, that once you have free direction and lots of free time, you are who you are and will end up doing what your true self tells you to do. I am a busy bee. I can only be happy when surrounded by organization. The first day I was on my feet all day getting my closet in order. I had brought down the winter clothes last month and they remained hung or piled in arbitrary fashion. I separated clothes to be pressed from those to be mended. I found that shoes were everywhere and I threw many out. My plastic bags of shampoos, creams, etc. that I had stored at my daughters house added to the large collection of stuff I had already put in various containers here at the house. Living in two places means you forget what you have and end up with too much stuff everywhere. I cleaned out the medicine drawers and threw away hundreds of dollars of expired concoctions and remedies.

At the end of this long day of lifting and sorting, I 'rewarded' myself by cleaning all of my jewelry. I have a small collection of silver necklaces and earrings that have not been polished in ages. I washed the pearls and other natural stones. I sorted out the amber. I do not own any valuable jewelry---diamonds, rubies, gold, etc...but have a number of pieces acquired over the years of natural stones as reminders of trips, etc. I took a trip down memory lane with each of the pieces.

Then I started the first of the laundry loads. As the end of a beautiful spring day eased in, I poured a glass of wine and headed out to my lovely deck to look at the water through the 'green mansions.' Hubby and I were amazed at how lucky we are at this time in our life and pray that this luck holds.